[GW150914]

If I were Snowden I’d be really pissed to be in the same breath as Assange. Snowden gave up a good life to tell people about pervasive monitoring, while Asange was always a relentless self-promoter and scumbag who tried to have his cake and eat it too.

[slg]

I agree, it really is a disservice for people to lump them all together. Whisleblowing is an important act and it needs to be protected. But there is more to whisleblowing then just revealing secrets. Snowden handled things better than Manning by being more focused in what was revealed and filtering things through journalists. Both of them are worlds better than Assange. Lumping them together will only help turn people with legitimate gripes against Assange against people like Snowden and Manning.

[resters]

I'd argue that Snowden's leaks would have been better sent to Wikileaks. We've seen perhaps 5% of the information, and much of the illegal behavior is likely still going on.

The only hope that US intel agencies have to redeem themselves as working toward the interests of the people and not against them is to be totally transparent about all illegal behavior and to undergo a full audit to stop all of it.

[slg]

Which is exactly my point. Whistleblowing shouldn't be done with a shotgun approach that reveals all secrets. Every piece of information should be reviewed and judged in a vacuum as to whether there is a benefit to the public for it to be revealed. Wikileaks just releases everything and doesn't care about the public value or any negative results from that release. That isn't whistleblowing. You are free to agree politically with Wikileaks, but don't pretend it is something it is not. That only ends up hurting the real whistleblowers.

[resters]

I will continue to ponder your point, but I am inclined to disagree. Suppose we consider a two page document of classified information. Leaking one or two sentences from the document can be done in a highly misleading way.

In fact, our officials routinely leak information in this way, fed to reporters to spin a narrative that supports a political goal.

But seeing a trove of documents can make the broader malfeasance much more clear.

[slg]

That isn't what Wikileaks is doing. They aren't releasing "a trove of documents [that] can make the broader malfeasance much more clear". They are releasing absolutely everything they receive. The simplest example is their refusal to redact the names of Afghani civilians who worked with the US government and therefore put their lives in jeopardy. That type of action by Wikileaks says that they believe their political opinions are more important than the lives of innocent civilians. That isn't whistleblowing.

[resters]

The example you give is frequently used as an example of Wikileaks being the cause of atrocities rather than the one revealing the atrocities.

Wikileaks has been under attack by various governments for a long time, eventually resulting in Assange losing his freedom.

But more importantly, the big news orgs (NYTimes, WaPo, etc.) who had initially partnered with WL on the war logs were pressured into ending their journalistic cooperation with Wikileaks. Both papers went on to assassinate Assange's character at every turn after that, conveniently omitting the unique definition of rape in Swedish law, etc.

In case my point is not clear, the idea is that the NYT should have been proofreading the release to be sure that all of the appropriate redaction occurred, but it couldn't do this because it had already taken sides with the US Government and other corrupt governments against Wikileaks.

Worse yet, the papers follow the lead of US officials in focusing their reporting on Assange's personality while ignoring most of the actual information that was leaked. Regardless of what you think about Assange or WL, it's pretty hard to argue that the so-called journalists from our once-great newspapers did anything but a horrible and irresponsible job of covering the leaked information.

So strong is the intimidation created by the government that even the Snowden leaks could not be accurately published in The Guardian.

How is it possible that people don't see the obvious... things that WL publishes embarrass governments and officials because they reveal very serious crimes. But I suspect nobody will address this last point because like the papers, most opponents of Assange really want the story to be about Assange and not about the deeply concerning information that he heroically made available to us.

[acct1771]

It may not sound nice to say, but working with state actors (U.S. Mil) removes you from the "innocent civilian" column.

Regardless of whether you believe what the state actor was doing The Right Thing™ or not.

[viraptor]

If that was the process, we'd hear about everything lumped together and quickly forgotten about in confusion. The way it was published instead, people have time to process specific revelations and let the whole thing stay alive for multiple media cycles.

[resters]

After being put under duress by many state sponsored attacks, Assange had to resort to a PR stunt strategy. Yes, it is unfortunate, but anyone who was under such attacks and was determined to make such a vital institution as WL survive would have done the same thing.

They attacked WL's journalistic partners, fundraising channels, even forced Assange to hole up in an embassy, as well as (likely) many other attacks.

[mc32]

Snowden isn’t without culpability. Yes it was patritic to illuminate the spying on Americans citizens etc., but he also revealed some things which i think he should not have.

Most people were in agreement with Wikipedia leaks until they thought he hrlped a political candidate they disagreed with. If Snowden tomorrow released some information which hurts Dems, I’m convinced hidden pitchforks woul come out from hiding too. Same for Repubs