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0 pointspdonis5y ago0 comments

> asking him to redact names without telling him which ones is even more stupid

He should have had the good judgment to redact all names even without being asked to. (Or at least all names that he didn't know belonged to people whose lives would not be put at risk by their publication.) He didn't.

> Newspapers were NOT in the same position.

It is true that newspapers (and other "mainstream" media organizations) have a special relationship with governments (and note that I'm not saying it's right that they do, only that as a matter of fact they do), so they aren't in exactly the same position as Wikileaks. That still does not excuse Wikileaks putting people's lives at risk by publishing their names.

> people exposing war criminals get more blame that actual war criminals

I haven't said anything at all about blame regarding anyone other than Assange, so you have no basis for even making any such comparison.

Also, I'm not blaming Assange for publishing the material itself. I'm blaming him for publishing people's names and putting their lives at risk. As I've already said, he could have published the material without publishing the names. He chose not to.

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AsyncAwait5y ago

> He should have had the good judgment to redact all names

So how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on?

> I haven't said anything at all about blame regarding anyone other than Assange

Right. That is exactly my problem. When we're talking about war criminals I'd hope the person who exposed it would be the last to get some blame in the matter.

joshuamorton5y ago

Leave the names of officials. Redact names your don't know, as was already suggested. Newspapers seem to have managed to do this just fine for ages.

If there issue is that high ranking officials aren't being held accountable, there's no reason to publish the names of some random agent.

AsyncAwait5y ago

> Leave the names of officials. Redact names your don't know

That's not as easy as it sounds. Many of the names you'd want to leave up would be of smaller generals whom you may not be familiar with. The actual shooters should perhaps also not be redacted. At least not fully.

> Newspapers seem to have managed to do this just fine for ages.

They do this by being cozy with the Pentagon and asking them exactly for what WikiLeaks has asked them for. The difference is the Pentagon's not going to ignore an email from the NYT. It did ignore WikiLeaks.

joshuamorton5y ago

> Many of the names you'd want to leave up would be of smaller generals whom you may not be familiar with

Investigative journalism is a difficult profession. Yet people manage. Throwing your hands up is a disservice to the profession. Calling someone who does so a journalist is a disservice to actual investigative journalists.

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TedDoesntTalk5y ago

Assange did not allow the Pentagon to redact names. Specifically:

“...Assange wrote that WikiLeaks would consider recommendations made by the International Security Assistance Force "on the identification of innocents for this material if it is willing to provide reviewers."

That’s from your salon.com article.

So Assange would “consider” redacting (not promising anything) and only if a group from the United Nations identified “innocent” names. There’s no mention that the Pentagon has any input at all. And there’s no reason to think anyone at the ISA should know the names of undercover intelligence agents in those documents, especially the documents completely unrelated to Afghanistan... since the ISA was involved only with issues in Afghanistan.

pdonisOP5y ago

> When we're talking about war criminals

We're not. We're talking about Assange. He can still be at fault and worthy of blame for some things he did, even if the US government is also worthy of blame for some things it did.

AsyncAwait5y ago

> We're not.

And that's exactly the problem. No wonder they're still free today while Julian's not.

pdonisOP5y ago

> how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on?

Manning could have told Assange which names were the names of US government officials. (In fact, I'd be surprised if Manning didn't actually do just that; on your own theory of who should be held accountable it would be irresponsible not to.)

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AsyncAwait5y ago

> He should have had the good judgment to redact all names

So how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on?

> I haven't said anything at all about blame regarding anyone other than Assange

Right. That is exactly my problem. When we're talking about war criminals I'd hope the person who exposed it would be the last to get some blame in the matter.

joshuamorton5y ago

Leave the names of officials. Redact names your don't know, as was already suggested. Newspapers seem to have managed to do this just fine for ages.

If there issue is that high ranking officials aren't being held accountable, there's no reason to publish the names of some random agent.

AsyncAwait5y ago

> Leave the names of officials. Redact names your don't know

> Newspapers seem to have managed to do this just fine for ages.

joshuamorton5y ago

> Many of the names you'd want to leave up would be of smaller generals whom you may not be familiar with

1 more reply

TedDoesntTalk5y ago

Assange did not allow the Pentagon to redact names. Specifically:

That’s from your salon.com article.

pdonisOP5y ago

> When we're talking about war criminals

We're not. We're talking about Assange. He can still be at fault and worthy of blame for some things he did, even if the US government is also worthy of blame for some things it did.

AsyncAwait5y ago

> We're not.

And that's exactly the problem. No wonder they're still free today while Julian's not.

pdonisOP5y ago

> how exactly are you supposed to hold officials accountable if you don't have any names to go on?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse