[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.

[BrandoElFollito]

In what is Swedish law regarding rape unique?

[resters]

In Sweden, two people can have consensual sex, during which time both parties consider it to be consensual, and then later, one of the parties can reconsider that view and accuse the other of rape.

That is what happened in the case of Assange. Who knows where Assange ranks when it comes to his level of compassion as a lover, but neither of the accusers claimed that he engaged in non-consensual sex with them. It happens that this after-the-fact rethink is called "rape" in Sweden. Most US publications published this detail in the fine print but proceeded with a character assassination campaign against Assange calling him an "accused rapist" without shedding light on the small detail that most people in the US consider rape to entail non-consensual sex.

[BrandoElFollito]

Do you have a source for this (indeed peculiar) definition?

In France the information was that he had consensual sex first, then during the night he had sex without a condom unknowingly to her and/or when his partner was asleep (I cannot remember exactly) and it was this second case which he was accused of (which fits the description of rape)

[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.