WikiLeaks Sues the Guardian Over Leak 289
An anonymous reader writes "WikiLeaks complaining of a leak is hard to get one's head around. That it's suing The Guardian — its great ally — is even harder. That The Guardian did such a ridiculous thing to warrant litigation in the first place almost defies belief."
Update: 09/01 04:59 GMT by S : Changed the first link to point to the statement on WikiLeaks' website. The Guardian has denied the allegations, saying, "Our book about WikiLeaks was published last February. It contained a password, but no details of the location of the files, and we were told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours."
Password (Score:3, Informative)
The supposed password, as it appears on page 148 of the pdf [googlecode.com] version of the book, is ACollectionOfDiplomaticHistorySince_1966_ToThe_PresentDay#
Supposedly applies to "cables.csv" but not to the insurance.aes torrent released last year by Wikileaks.
Leaking can be entirely political ... (Score:4, Informative)
The point of leaking is to expose malfeasance.
Not necessarily. Leaking is also a tool of embarrassment, harassment, political manipulation, etc. When leaking selectively, one side and not the other, the point may be entirely political.
Re:Wikileaks change of position? (Score:5, Informative)
Your post basically answers itself. They did change their position on the issue because they got a lot of heat for not redacting the cables. That is why for the past year (with the Cablegate cables) they have been working with news organisations to carefully redact them before releasing, and releasing them in small batches a few at a time. That has consistently been WL's position for the past year. Complaining that The Guardian released the cables that were supposedly sent to them for the sole purpose of redacting them is not inconsistent with their recent position.
(I have often said that one is not a hypocrite for changing one's beliefs, only for simultaneously saying one thing and doing another.)
Re:Why the black and white morals? (Score:3, Informative)
You are attempting to claim Wikileaks is 100% pure here.
No, I'm claiming that "Wikileaks [ ... ] realizes there's a need for secrecy/privacy in the world", and providing evidence to support that claim.
And yes, the job's too big for one person... that's why they were farming it out to reasonably respectable news organizations which are (well, should have been) capable of handling this level of journalistic ethics.
Have a look at the actual leaks. The redactions aren't like the black pages you get back on an FOIA request. They're omitting names and other specifics, but leaving the intention of the documents perfectly well intact. Sure, that can still be used to hide an agenda on WL's part, but that just calls for critical thinking skills.
I'm not giving them a free pass, but it does appear that they're trying to do the right thing. How could they even cheat at this? Tell their press partners "hey, we need to redact these documents but, uh, could you do it with this other agenda in mind?"
For better or worse, we'll find out: since the raw information is now available, we can see what was redacted and if it was done with an agenda.
Re:Wikileaks should be happy... (Score:5, Informative)
Assange is on record stating that he doesnt think there should be ANY secrets at all
Let me see if I can dumb it down for you:
1. Chicken is yummy
2. Chicken hatch other baby chicken
3. You eat all yummy chicken -> No baby chicken -> You die of starvation X-(
4. You save some chicken -> Yummy chicken year around
The goal of complete openness is not achievable while fighting against large conspiracies, just like the goal of complete non-violence is infeasible when fighting for peace against a violent aggressor. Recognizing this, Wikileaks maintains the least secrecy necessary in order to maximize the total quantity of leaked information. Leaking more than this level is detrimental to their long term goal. In their quest for openness Wikileaks is willing to settle for a practical goal, and if it turns out they can't protect sources that practical goal is compromised. And what practical results those were ! They played a major role, maybe a decisive one in starting the Arab Spring.
The position of The Guardian who leaked the password for the widely disseminated Cablegate file under the pretence that "a password isn't harmful by itself" is laughable. Here Wikileaks recognized it's inability to correctly disseminate the large volume of data, and brought in traditional media, only to be betrayed and embarrassed by their sheer negligence or malevolence.
ACollectionOfDiplomaticHistorySince_1966_ToThe_PresentDay#
Re:Wikileaks should be happy... (Score:5, Informative)
That's just false.
Assange advocates for public knowledge and control about the things that governments and enterprises are doing. He also advocates for personal privacy.
Please, read what Assange says before writing nonsense about his believes.
Re:Wikileaks should be happy... (Score:4, Informative)
Have you bothered looking at wikileaks from before, say, 2010? Assange has no qualms about releasing private personal information, such as hacked emails, from people he doesn't like.