A Norwegian parliamentarian has nominated Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, saying his publication of thousands of secret government documents has helped to promote human rights, democracy and freedom of speech.[0]
There are numerous signs that Wikileaks had an important influence in the events in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrein and Syria.
> Didn't Americans democratically elect a government which estimated that keeping diplomatic cables secret was the right thing to do?
Assange isn't an American citizen, therefore he can't be a traitor to the USA.
> Didn't Assange publicly release those cables?
Yes, and ironically they significantly enhanced the opinion that the rest of the world has now on USA diplomacy and policy. So it actually both profited the USA and the rest of the world.
> That being said, he certainly promoted freedom of speech.
Exactly. Some people (like me) states that social forms of freedom are more valuable than anything else. Some others value authority, or morals, or other things higher.
You could take the "political compass" test to know better where you're situated. I myself is in the bottom left, a rabid leftist-anarchist; I'm quite sure that Assange fares quite similarly.
It might not seem so at first, but I'm a hardcore libertarian which believes that the way towards greater freedom and transparency is through peaceful persuasion and respect for the law.
Though this is true in general, sometimes the particular circumstances command that you break the rule, i. e. do wrong. I recently mentioned Kant's analysis of the problem :
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2529104
Nixon's democratically elected government estimated that keeping Watergate secret was the right thing to do. I would suggest that Woodward and Bernstein promoted democracy by releasing the information publicly.
Making things difficult for the government by holding them to the light is not anti-democratic, even if the government is democratically elected.
The greater principle (perhaps not made clear by my example) is this: Don't trust governments. If they choose to keep things secret, it may not be in your interest, but theirs.
In relation to your questions about the law, I recommend that if Assange has broken laws or been violent, then he should be apprehended and charged. I agree with the rule of law.
I'm actually not aware that he or his organization have broken any laws in relation to publishing these cables. It's been six months now, and no charges have been laid. I'm aware that whoever leaked them to Wikileaks probably did break the law though, but that is not related to the suggested prize nomination.
Genuinely curious: how did he improve the world? At least I heard more news about his Swedish affair than about anything significant disclosed by wikileaks (nicknames of the politicians aside).
There are obviously people whose views range from "he's a terrorist" to "he's the best man alive", and everything in between.
A quote from this article as one example of a possible justification:
"Assange himself claimed publication of the cables helped shape uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East and said WikiLeaks was on the side of justice."
If you are of the belief that nothing has so far made much of a difference, there is still an argument that by pushing for more openness from Governments he is helping move towards a better, and potentially more peaceful, future.
You can equally validly argue that this will lead to a worse, less peaceful future, because some secrecy is essential for governments to function.
For example, in order to make the right decisions when dealing with foreign affairs, a government needs accurate information from its diplomats and other agents. Already one diplomat (the US ambassador to Mexico) lost his job because he provided an honest assessment of Mexico's organized crime problem and the ineffectiveness of Mexico's attempts to deal with it in his reports back to Washington. Wikileaks leaked those reports, and that embarrassed Mexican officials. Ambassadors can't function if the host country is pissed off at them, so the Ambassador was withdrawn.
The major effect of these leaks is going to be for the government to become less open. Assuming Manning is indeed the source of most of these leaks, the reason he had access to all that information was because the government was trying to be more open internally. One of the findings of the 9/11 investigations was that collectively we had enough information to anticipate an stop the attack, but because the information was spread among several agencies, no one was able to put it all together and see the connections.
In response to that finding, the government purposefully started making information more widely available across agencies, and to more people in those agencies.
Surely that will be cut way back now, with much less sharing between agencies, and information only going to those who definitely need it.
Government would be broken with no secrets. However, right now most governments are more broken and in a more harmful way from the amount of secrecy they have, and from their resulting lack of accountability.
I can see how people think that Assange represents a non-optimal extreme, but it's miles above the status quo. None of the costs you cite are worth a damn if governments lack motivation to act for the interests of their citizens.
I don't think I agree with either one of your points.
1. About Mexican officials -- my understanding is that the ambassador did everything right -- unfortunately it cost him his job. Mexican officials were embarrassed, and they rightly should be. Hiding the truth of their situation and brushing it under the rug won't make anything better. The fact that it's in the open now hopefully will motivate.
2. About the government becoming less open -- they are incredibly closed off as it is (to the outside), how would they be any less open? If being more closed internally due to fear of leakage is worth the cost of potential poor communication across agencies and thus raising the risk of poor execution in times of crisis -- then that's a decision they have to make. Truthfully the risk has always been there, Wikileaks' actions don't change anything other than bring awareness to that risk. Personally I don't believe that fear is worth it.
Now that Wikileaks has given them a good basis for their judgement, it is up to the Mexican people to do their job and get rid of the corrupt Mexican officials.
Isn't this what was part of the discussion about Tunisia about?
Then they can re-instate the effective ambassador.
Hiding the truth of their situation and brushing it under the rug won't make anything better. The fact that it's in the open now hopefully will motivate.
Who elected Brad Manning or Julian Assange (et al.) to make that decision?
As I don't have an answer here, let me just present an argument here for the sake of discussion: It's given that governments are fallible just as anything else on this planet, and can become corrupt to a point where internal correction becomes increasingly improbable. (I would say looking back to any stage in history proves the truth of this.) And so, as citizens (of a country, world) we all have a responsibility to keep government(s) in check, just as they have responsibilities towards the citizens.
Obviously Assange (et al.) didn't ask anyone if they could leak sensitive data -- and perhaps they should have (but how exactly would that have gone do you expect?) -- but I believe Assange is acting on this above principle. So does this responsibility exist outside of certain laws and expectations? Should it? Is it necessary that it does for it to be effective?
Obviously Assange (et al.) didn't ask anyone if they could leak sensitive data -- and perhaps they should have (but how exactly would that have gone do you expect?) -- but I believe Assange is acting on this above principle.
In summary, he treats government as a conspiracy (liberally defined to be a social network) whose total conspiratorial power (the sum of the weights of the edges of the social graph, where the nodes represent people and the edges the potential to share information) can be kept in check by increasing the cost of exchanging information -- which is exactly the effect of leaking classified material.
> Genuinely curious: how did he improve the world? At least I heard more news about his Swedish affair than about anything significant disclosed by wikileaks (nicknames of the politicians aside).
Read the newspaper much? WikiLeaks and Assange have been responsible for breaking more MAJOR stories than all of the media outlets combined. First we had the Collateral Murder video which showed a Baghdad airstrike where Iraqi civilians including 2 Reuters journalists killed. Then the Afghan War Diary followed by the Iraqi War Logs. Huge amounts of documents. Then the "US diplomatic cables leaks" which contained more than a few important stories, maybe you heard about them? These we followed by the The Guantánamo Files which revealed that hundreds of innocent Afghan farmers were held for years there without being charged. (If you don't know what any of these things are, I'm sure you know how to find out more about them).
If none of the above is significant to you, I don't know what to say. Anyway, sorry to be snarky, but your comment is either uninformed or the mainstream media and the state have done an good job planting seeds of doubt in your mind about the importance of people like Assange in a free society or both.
It is expecting that if large power structures (governments, corporations, institutions) are afraid their dirty laundry will be exposed they will try to act more responsibly. Well, perhaps in reality they will just try harder to hide the dirty laundry, but that's for another discussion. Going with the original idea, if coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan feel that what they do day to day could end up on Wikileaks.org, perhaps they'll think twice about tolerating or engaging in abuse. Anyway, I think that's the logic.
Now you can of course ask "What did Obama do to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?". My answer would be "nothing" but many here will probably disagree with that. So to me it all just seems rather random who gets peace prizes and why: Is it a statement of encouragement, like a "preemptive" peace prize, in hopes more peace to come in the future? Or is it for specific past accomplishments, and then how does one measure that? What were Obama's accomplishments when he got his?
God, I tell you what. That sodding Swedish affair caused more trouble on Wikipedia than the whole of Wikileaks so far (i.e. people desperate to gleefully discredit the guy at any cost). Painful to the extreme. Now, I am not his greatest fan, but it is a strange society where people seem more concerned with the reporting of serious allegations compared to the publishing of classified information.
Over the next few years we will see if all these Middle Eastern countries become democratic and not under a heavy handed stifling regime/dictatorship. If most go democratic that is a win for all countries and ironically best for the U.S.
Is there any doubt he did it? I've heard of him complaining about how he has been treated, but as far as I can remember he hasn't (publicly) claimed not to have done it. While I also haven't heard him to confess, that could be to make legal proceedings easier to win, whereas if he actually didn't do it, surely that claim would have been made?
It's interesting that you would ask it that way. The only evidence I've heard of existing against him is just an unauthenticated plain text file provided by a convicted felon.
Possibly there's a solid case there, I'm just saying I haven't heard of it.
Sure, and if there was a denial then I'd be inclined to believe that, but as far as I know there hasn't been one. Even his many supporters are crying out for him to be treated well in prison, I don't think there have been any of his supporters claiming his innocence?
if there was a denial then I'd be inclined to believe that, but as far as I know there hasn't been one
In the US system, the defendant is given the presumption of innocence and isn't obligated to issue public denials and such. So regardless of whether or not he did it, he's probably better off just not saying anything at all.
The fact that he's active-duty military changes a lot of things about the process too, but apparently not in the direction of making it into a public media trial.
after several months of such treatment he will easily confess to being an elephant and a little mouse at the same time.
Sleep deprivation does wonder to human brain. Water boarding doesn't leave any traces (and thus we can believe official statements not mentioning application of water boarding to Manning :) and does even more wonders to a human (anybody who don't believe that it is a torture - your comments are welcome after you spend 5 full minutes without breathing. Please ask a friend for help if you can't hold your breath for that long on your own.)
What evidence is there of him being tortured? It seems he's basically in solitary confinement: 3 meals a day, sleep when he wants it, and an hour of exercise. It's not joyous, and months without human contact is not exactly good for people, but he is not being treated terribly from what I understand.
What's terrible is how long he's been held without trial, however.
Prolonged isolation causes measurable damage to the brain. His "exercise" consists of walking slowly in a circle for one hour; no other exercise is allowed. He has to answer the guards' question, "Are you okay?" every five minutes. Imagine how disruptive that would be to your thoughts, having to answer that question every five minutes for over half a year. He can not sleep whenever he wants: Sleep is only allowed between 8pm and 5am. If he goes to sleep at any other time, they wake him up. If he happens to turn away from the camera or is completely covered by his blanket during sleep, they wake him up. He has been made to strip publicly for no reason. He has been made to sleep naked for no reason. He has been denied sheets and a pillow for no reason. They have denied the Red Cross' request to make an official visit. He is being treated terribly.
Edit: Sorry, it was the UN Special Rapporteur for Torture, not the Red Cross.
Long-term solitary confinement is tantamount to torture[1], although it would currently fail to meet some definitions of torture.
Furthermore, according to Lt. Col. David Coombs, Manning's counsel:
“[Manning] is held in solitary confinement. For 23 hours per day, he sits in his cell. The guards check on him every five minutes by asking him if he is okay. He is required to respond in some affirmative manner. At night, if the guards can not see him clearly, because he has a blanket over his head or he is curled up towards the wall, they will wake him in order to ensure that he is okay. He receives each of his meals in his cell. He is not allowed to have a pillow or sheets. He is not allowed to have any personal items in his cell. He is only allowed to have one book or one magazine at any given time to read. The book or magazine is taken away from him at the end of the day before he goes to sleep. He is prevented from exercising in his cell. If he attempts to do push-ups, sit-ups, or any other form of exercise he will be forced to stop. He receives one hour of exercise outside of his cell daily. The guards take him to a room and allow him to walk. He usually walks in figure eights around the room. When he goes to sleep, he is required to strip down to his underwear and surrender his clothing to the guards.”[2]
According to an official at the Marine brig at Quantico, Va., the nudity is in fact happening[3][4].
Now, I'm not saying that all the aforementioned accusations are true, but it now seems clear that the solitary confinement and forced nudity at least are happening - over several months of illegal incarceration without due trial of any kind.
"PFC Manning was transferred to the Joint Regional Corrections Facility (JRCF) at Fort Leavenworth on April 20, 2011. I was able to tour the facility and meet with PFC Manning last week. PFC Manning is now being held in Medium Custody. He is no longer under Prevention of Injury watch and is no longer subjected to harsh pretrial confinement conditions.
Unlike at Quantico, PFC Manning cell has a large window that provides adequate natural light. His cell also has a desk, a bed, and a toilet. The cell is approximately 80 square feet. He is provided with a normal mattress, sheets and a pillow. None of his clothing is taken away from him at night. PFC Manning is able to have all of his personal items in his cell, which include his clothing, his legal materials, books and letters from family and friends. He is also able to have a pen and paper at all times in his cell, and is able to write whenever he chooses.
PFC Manning is housed in a special area of the confinement facility, along with other pre-trial detainees. Each pre-trial area (including PFC Manning’s) has four cells, and each pre-trial detainee is assigned to his own cell. The cells are connected to a shared common area, with a table, a treadmill, a television and a shower area. Click here in order to see photos of the JRCF area..."
>What's terrible is how long he's been held without trial, however.
he'll get his trial as soon as :
- the treatment of him sends enough of deterrence message to any would be leaker (if Guantanamo is any indication, Manning has at least a couple more years to go)
- he is ready and happy to plead guilty. For example, in 1936-38 in Soviet Union people in mass were pleading guilty to any charges they were asked to just to end it and be shot quickly. Manning is kept on suicide watch for a reason - even this ultimate escape from whatever happens to him is unavailable to him.
As others have already stated, what you've describe is torture. Also, at this point I think the US government does not deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to torture.
I don't think this deserved the downvotes. What can be proved in a court of law is one thing; what we as onlookers believe probably happened can be something quite different. I have contributed to Manning's defense, but there's no doubt in my mind that he leaked the cables. I'm just hoping his defense team can get him acquitted anyway. And indeed, it appears that the hard evidence is remarkably weak, if indeed there is any at all.
Why am I hoping he is acquitted? Because his intentions really were those of a whistleblower, and I think he has done us citizens a service. Really, Manning should have been named in this prize along with Assange.
You've heard representatives of him complaining. You've actually heard nothing from him.
His supporters obviously don't know that he's innocent, so they're sensibly not saying he is. People can't know he did it, they too should sensibly not say he's guilty.
There are huge legal doubts. The first thing to consider is whether a person kept in the conditions that Manning was is able to properly defend themselves.
If I was a member of the jury I could not in good conscience return a guilty verdict to any organization the holds it's prisoners in the conditions that the US Military holds their prisoners.
The 5th amendment is very important and Manning's decision to use it is not an indicator of his guilt. Guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and it must be for laws that are just. A plaintext log from a convicted felon does not push the bar over that threshold in my opinion.
When the commanding officer of ever jury member has instructed them that he is guilty it would raise doubts in my mind as to whether the laws that allow a trial to take place after such instruction are just. Also, the fact that you need to give up many of your rights in order to be eligible for treatment under the UCMJ raises many issues. The economic pressures and well as indoctrinal issues due to mandatory schooling and the content of that schooling raise questions as to whether Manning was of sound mind and free from duress when signing the UCMJ.
It's important to note that in the mandatory school system a class on critical thinking is not required, unlike some non-mandatory systems like IB where critical thinking is a required component.
> If I was a member of the jury I could not in good conscience return a guilty verdict to any organization the holds it's prisoners in the conditions that the US Military holds their prisoners.
What I am interested is how people like you get on the jury without being filtered out. You are certainly not someone the prosecution would want on. Are juries selected for authoritarianism and blind conformity, could you fake it through the selection process?
Media coverage is not necessarily indicative of the effect on the world produced by a given individual or group. Especially for an individual who is hated by many people in high places, be it for good reason or otherwise. To comment that there was more in the mainstream media about Assange's Swedish affair than about the information disclosed in the leaks does not mean that the leaks did nothing.
rimantas: That is not wikileaks fault, but the traditional medias. Did you know that Obama was waging war in Yemen? Wikileaks contains proof of this. Where is the media? Surely knowing about a secret war that we didn't know about before gives the world the capacity to act towards a more peaceful world.
He produced the appearance of having given the U.S.A. a black eye. Cold War geopolitics seems to be the chief criteria that "peace" and "human rights" groups go by these days, which is really weird since the Cold War was supposed to have ended twenty years ago. The award is also a way of getting Assange's treatment by the States back into the press so people don't forget about it.
Gloriously under-reported in Australian mainstream media. So far the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corp.) is the only one carrying it on its front page.
That's great, but how does that help the guy get out of the mess he's in?... I think he needs official help, not some prize which promotes as much the prize giver than the receiver.
What mess is he in? Last I checked, he was appealing the extradition to Sweden for questioning about the "rape" allegations. Let's say he loses the appeal; he shows up in Sweden, answers some questions, and is done. The Swedish government has an amazingly weak case against him; so weak it's already been dropped once.
If he doesn't lose the appeal, then he'll stay in England a free man.
The US doesn't like him, but he didn't do anything illegal in the US, so that's not really a problem for him. I doubt he'll be dropping by, though.
That can only happen if the British authorities approve, though. So if the US wanted him there is, legally, no practical difference trying to extradite him from the UK or Sweden.
So it seems unlikely.
I think the rumour started as part of the general theory that the Sweden allegations were a conspiracy by the US to discredit him.
Socrates said in a dialogue with Crito: "You must either persuade [your country] or obey its orders, and endure in silence whatever it instructs you to endure... leads you into was to be wounded or killed, you must obey."
Socrates probably would have referred to Assange as a villain, not as a hero, for bringing transparency through illegal means rather than persuasion. "Illegal means" might be a bit exaggerated here since he didn't commit the crimes himself but he certainly encouraged them.
But Assange hasn't disobeyed his government, the Australian government.
Furthermore it would help to put some context here; Socrates never actually left Athens, his home city. he valued the individual acquisition of truth, but would he realistically apply the same rules to our open world than he did to his closed, incredibly small "country" where he nearly could personally know every single citizen (a few thousands)?
That's true, even more clear in the Gorgias than the Crito dialogue, that Socrates despised public persuasion by manipulation of the crowd's emotions. However, I don't recall mentioned even once that some truth aren't good to divulge; in fact, though this idea appears precisely in "the Laws", it's quite saliently the only Plato's dialogue where Socrates is absent...
> But Assange hasn't disobeyed his government, the Australian government.
I'm fairly sure there is an Australian law that (indirectly) says you are not allowed to steal from the U.S. government.
> That's true, even more clear in the Gorgias than the Crito dialogue, that Socrates despised public persuasion by manipulation of the crowd's emotions.
That's true, I wouldn't advocate this persuasion tactic either.
> However, I don't recall mentioned even once that some truth aren't good to divulge; in fact, though this idea appears precisely in "the Laws", it's quite saliently the only Plato's dialogue where Socrates is absent...
Are you suggesting no secrets are good to keep? I'm fairly sure Socrates would have kept his credit card number in 2011. I'm fairly sure Assange wouldn't divulge the name of his leakers.
All I'm saying is that in a free society, there are better ways to improve the world than breaking laws, one of them being persuasion. Otherwise, we fall in a dangerous trap where everybody is free to judge for themselves which laws they regard as moral or not. The leaks were probably a good thing but there is a greater principle at stake here.
Note that I'm saying this as a libertarian so I'm certainly not biased towards big government secrecy.
> All I'm saying is that in a free society, there are better ways to improve the world than breaking laws, one of them being persuasion.
At times when there is lots of pressure for generalised control and surveillance because it's simply made possible, it's in the contrary of tremendous importance for some courageous people to go against mainstream, to prevent what remains of our decadent democracies to fall into fascism. Free society is not a state of the matter, it's a process.
I suggest Socrates is not an authority you want to invoke on this topic. If nothing else, because he was unjustly executed partly for contempt of court.
Also, while it's usually good to comply with the law, I wouldn't recommend completely delegating your ethics to the US Congress.
