[midniteslayr]

I don't think Freedom of the Press is dead. WikiLeaks isn't a news organization, especially when they released campaign emails during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government, even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network.

[boomboomsubban]

Yes, they are a news organization. Covering the election is what a news organization should do, and it's hard to argue the Clinton emails weren't newsworthy.

>They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government, even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network

This is untrue. There is nothing suggesting that Wikileaks has knowingly coordinated with Russia. And that TV show was indepently produced by Assange, with RT buying some ofthe distribution rights.

[midniteslayr]

If they are a news organization, they do a terrible job of reporting the news. They are a black box repository for leaked data. They were once a great resource for info hackers and leakers to push their data, like back in 2008/2009. But that was before news organizations started using their own secure drop servers for sources. Once WikiLeaks sources started to not go to them, they started to look for other benefactors and sources. They found it in the Russian Government.

[boomboomsubban]

Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians.

Wikileaks quality has surely dropped. They are still the press, and any prosecution by the US will be over things like the Manning links, a direct attack on the freedom of the press.

[foldr]

>Again, nothing suggesting they are knowingly working with the Russians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tomorrow

[boomboomsubban]

OK, there is evidence that Assange sold the broadcast rights of a show to a Russian controlled news organization. Do you think that Jesse Ventura should also be prosecuted?

[foldr]

I don't think Assange should be prosecuted for appearing on Russian state TV. (Does anyone?)

While it may be technically true to say that he "sold the rights" to Russia Today, that's arguably a little misleading, as the show first aired on RT, and RT had exclusive initial rights to it.

[monocasa]

Was Ellsberg a terrible reporter since he managed to get the entirety of the Pentagon Papers (~4k pages) publicly released?

[Heyokamerican]

He wasn't a reporter at all; he leaked the Pentagon Papers to the NY Times (among others) which then published articles and excerpts.

[throwaway2048]

News organizations are under no (legal) obligation to not be biased. Bias does not make wikileaks not a news organization.

[stale2002]

> They are a black box repository for leaked data

Or said another way, they act as a news organization.

Modern day news organizations unfortunately have zero integrity and are unwilling to take on the people with power.

[krapp]

Wikileaks didn't cover the election. Wikileaks released private emails with the intent of damaging one specific candidate.

>and it's hard to argue the Clinton emails weren't newsworthy.

That the emails were released was newsworthy, but I would argue that nothing in the emails themselves was particularly newsworthy.

[boomboomsubban]

The emails were newsworthy, disliking what you consider their ulterior motive doesn't change that.

[krapp]

What emails, specifically, were newsworthy?

[monocasa]

The ones that caused the DNC chair to step down, showing that the DNC had subverted it's own internal processes regarding impartiality during the primary process.

[throwawaythekey]

How about the ones that show the HC camp intended to actively support trump because they thought he would be the easiest candidate to beat?

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clin...

[nailer]

The ones where it was revealed the Clinton campaign was running the DNC and Sanders never stood a chance. Whether your support that or not I don't think anyone disputes that this was revealed by Wikileaks

[hackinthebochs]

Plenty of people dispute this narrative, myself included. The DNC never took any action against the Sanders campaign, despite some disgruntled emails by some DNC staffers venting about Sanders.

[munk-a]

I don't believe they are a news organization, but they are something very similar that should be protected with the same freedoms. Their contributions during 2016 were highly biased but they released information that wasn't false, while it isn't wrong to call them partisan they still provided a valuable service.

If they had received the emails, discovered they were forged and then released them anyways, then I think there'd be a different story. News outlets need to provide true information, they can be opinionated if they are open about it but blatantly lying (i.e. National Enquirer) is the only thing I think is objectionable.

[shostack]

> "This is untrue. There is nothing suggesting that Wikileaks has knowingly coordinated with Russia."

Really? Nothing at all? Big fat nothingburger?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-the-latest-mue...

[boomboomsubban]

An indictment is not proof for a start, this is a fundamental part of the US justice system.

That indictment does not actually mention Wikileaks at all, let alone suggest that Wikileaks knew the source was the Russian government.

[kjksf]

Can we agree that an indictment is much more than "nothing" and indicate a strong belief on the part of prosecution that they have a winnable case?

Your reading of the indictment (https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2018/07/Mueller...) is severely lacking.

It specifically mentions that 12 russians conspired "with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury" to "stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 US election".

You don't have to be a genius to infer that one of those "persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury" is Assange.

[boomboomsubban]

>Can we agree that an indictment is much more than "nothing" and indicate a strong belief on the part of prosecution that they have a winnable case?

Sure. Wikileaks still is not mentioned as the prosecution does not feel they have a winnable case against the organization, and these indictments do not show Wikileaks knowingly coordinated with Russia.

[elliekelly]

>That indictment does not actually mention Wikileaks at all

If you read the indictment it's pretty clear that "Organization 1" is Wikileaks.

[boomboomsubban]

If they are "Organization 1," which yeah they almost certainly are, they are called that as they are not even being accused of a crime. Everything in the indictments could be true and you still haven't shown that Wikileaks knowingly coordinated with the Russia.

[mejari]

You did not say "there is no absolute proof', you said "There is nothing suggesting". This very much suggests.

[boomboomsubban]

Where is the suggestion that Wikileaks knew what the source was and coordinated anyway? The indictments suggests that the source was Russian, nothing points to knowing coordination.

[tdcbfdct3]

I know that's Assange's line, but that's basically just how all TV is made. Nobody would claim Saturday Night Live isn't an NBC show because it's actually produced by Broadway Video.

RT's logo has a producer's credit in his show's credits. It's an RT show.

Wikileaks isn't a news organization. They don't do reporting. They are a publisher, which still has first amendment protections.

[jsutton]

Covering news is much different than exposing the private communications of a political party.

[boomboomsubban]

No, it is not. It may have been preffered if some of the less relevant emails were not shared, it's also unclear who should make the call of what is "relevant" and either way their release was news.

[yholio]

All governments use the media, that does not mean the media should not be free. Even journalists from Russia Today should not be imprisoned for what they write, for example.

By selectively prosecuting non-violent speech, a state denies freedom to all journalists, because it asserts itself as the ultimate censor of what is acceptable to publish and what not. You get a massive dilemma: are the other, non-imprisoned journalists, the "real" journalists or are they simply afraid to say the truth because truth lands you in prison?

[implying]

If a "credible" (read: state-approved) news organization had released those emails, would you have the same thoughts toward them?

[krapp]

Why would a "credible" news organization have released them?

They weren't released to show evidence of any particular wrongdoing, nor did they show any illegal activity. They were simply dumped in order to fuel the fire of the impression of wrongdoing, and in hopes that some smoking gun or salacious material could be found to use against her politically.

[yholio]

And yet, those are still legitimate actions for media. As a general rule, if Fox News can do it, so can Wikileaks - and it was precisely traditional media that made the dump politically damaging as opposed to Wikileaks itself, which is an obscure web repository the wast majority of the public will never access.

[nailer]

Would you support it if the DNC had run a similar campaign supporting Clinton against Obama in 08?

[krapp]

The purpose of the DNC, as with the RNC, is to choose a candidate they feel is most likely to win. I don't believe choosing Obama over Clinton would have been any less political than choosing Clinton over Obama, or Clinton over Bernie. I don't believe that political calculus or meddling or special privileges granted to high-ranking party officials is actually atypical for either party.

Of course, Wikileaks never released any data dumps from the Republicans, so we can't really know, I guess. Maybe the Republican Party is just a paragon of virtue and their opsec is perfect.

[jacobush]

I know it's unfashionable, but shouldn't the parties choose a candidate they feel is most likely to do good and communicate why?

I feel the constant triangulation is a big reason why the democratic world is so messed up right now.

[krapp]

Maybe they should, but... come on.

Did the Republicans choose Trump because they felt he was the most likely to do good and communicate why?

[nailer]

And before they choose, they're supposed to determine who is more likely to win. And they admitted they didn't do that fairly as they were being run by Clinton campaign.

[hadrien01]

News organizations wouldn't drop all the emails at once. Previous enormous leaks have been handled by ICIJ members with great care, going for years of investigations, careful verifications, and publishing only pertinent stories.

[pknopf]

But there was an election around the corner, they can't be bothered with any of that.

[thaumasiotes]

Why is that better than releasing all the emails at once?

Why do they get to decide what's "pertinent"?

[skedaddle]

DNC misconduct etc. would have been reported by traditional organizations. I think people wonder why it was good that Wikileaks released Podesta's iCloud password, his risotto recipe, doctors appointments of random staffers, and so forth.

[kbenson]

For the same reason that if you found yourself with access to someone's diary that you thought might be guilty of wrongdoing, you might convince yourself to look through it possibly with a lawyer friend and report on if anything illegal went on, but you might shy away from publishing the whole thing online "just in case".

One option at least pays lip service to legal and ethical considerations.

[1001101]

I wonder if how Julian releases the primary source material is in line with his scientific journalism [1] practices.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_journalism

[hackinthebochs]

A news organization has a responsibility to present information in an informed manner in order to prevent misunderstandings and misrepresentations. Wikileaks' purpose was to paint an impression of widespread wrongdoing despite any hard evidence. Dumping a bunch of irrelevant emails all at once aids misrepresentation.

[midniteslayr]

A credible news organization would have tons of fact checkers and editors to make sure the relevant facts made it in to any article they wrote. They wouldn't, blindly, release tons of unedited emails, including some that were doctored to make the DNC and the Clinton Campaign look bad.

Doesn't need to be state-sponsored (and most news organization aren't "state-sponsored" ... unlike RT, for example) to be credible.

[gbumakefan]

Since when does the constitution require journalists publish information in a manner agreeable to you? Hell, there was a court case years ago that decided news can knowingly publish falsehoods.

[CamperBob2]

Which emails were doctored? I hadn't heard about that. My understanding is that the "doctoring" done by Wikileaks consisted of selectively releasing information obtained from Democratic sources while concealing similar information related to the Republican side ( https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican... ).

If true, that's the point at which Assange and Wikileaks departed from the path of legitimate journalism.

[midniteslayr]

The Russians doctored the email, for example: https://www.businessinsider.com/guccifer-2-0-dnc-document-ru...

They did it to make it seem that the Clinton Campaign and the DNC had something nefarious going on

[monocasa]

That had nothing to do with Assange or WikiLeaks.

[kebman]

Pretty ironic when the first comment got deleted. WikiLeaks is of course a news organisation. There is no "especially" when it comes to freedom of the press. Besides, it's not medling to show the truth. Btw. state owned or not (hint: the BBC is also "state-backed") RT is also a news organisation.

[busterarm]

There are hardly any news organizations anymore, given the events and media financial climate of the last few years.

There are no true scotsmen either.

[StanislavPetrov]

>They have been to be a known tool for the Russian government

Known by whom? Its been over 2 years and there has still been absolutely no evidence released at all proving this. Claims made by the CIA, the US government or anyone else are proof of nothing, despite what you may think.

>even going as far as creating a show for Julian Assange on the state-backed RT TV Network.

Larry King has a show on RT too, is he an agent of the Russians also? The fact is that RT gives all sorts of people shows - especially people who make us look bad. What is really unfortunate is that so many of those shows are able to make us look bad without lying at all. They just have to give a platform to people (like Chris Hedges) willing to report on the many misdeeds we have, and continue, to commit.

The Russians are no angels and neither are we. The very heart of this case is about freedom of the press and free speech. If we let the government decide who is "legitimate" and who is allowed to publish then there is no "freedom of the press" at all.

[midniteslayr]

sigh ... The current Secretary of State (and former CIA Director) has directly called out and said that WikiLeaks has done work for the GRU or the Russian Intelligence. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2017...

This shit is easy to lookup ... and the fact of the matter is, trying to claim that "we" are as bad as the Russians is the same shit Putin does to dispel any criticism against his fucked up regime's actions. No matter how bad the US has been in Wars and sticking their fingers in democratic elections, the Russians are 10 times as worse and they know it.

[monocasa]

Just because you italicize "sigh" doesn't make you any more right. I've found it easier just to assume that the heads of national security are lying. They've been caught perjuring themselves too many times to count.

[StanislavPetrov]

> The current Secretary of State (and former CIA Director) has directly called out and said that WikiLeaks has done work for the GRU or the Russian Intelligence. https://www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2017....

Not sure what part of "claim" you don't understand. It doesn't matter who makes the claim. Claims by the Secretary of State or the CIA are no more credible than claims by you or I if they don't come with evidence we can independently scrutinize. Older people should have learned this lesson in 2003 with the WMD debacle. Those of us who are even older should have learned it at the Gulf of Tonkin.

>trying to claim that "we" are as bad as the Russians is the same shit Putin does to dispel any criticism against his fucked up regime's actions.

Demanding evidence I can scrutinize is not "dispelling criticism". If you trust the evidence- free claims of the government (or anyone else) - on any matter - you are incredibly naive. Unfortunately you aren't alone.

[gbumakefan]

What was illegal about releasing campaign emails that were given to them?

[midniteslayr]

When it was done with the intent of influencing the 2016 election, that tends to fall under conspiracy and espionage ... especially when it comes from a former adversarial government.

[vkou]

> When it was done with the intent of influencing the 2016 election

Reality check - partisan newspapers, news channels, and news organizations publish partisan nonsense with the intent of influencing elections. All the time.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, freedom of speech does not mean 'Freedom of unbiased speech.' If it did, then you could shut down the entire media establishment tomorrow.

[stale2002]

That's sounds like a political opinion that you just stated. Why are you trying to meddle in the political process, by engaging in political speech?

[kjksf]

Unlike you, the law does make a distinction between expressing political opinion and unlawful interference with election process and we have independent judicial system to apply those laws.

[stale2002]

Indeed it does have a distinction.

And the distinction is usually as follows: speech that threatens or criticises those in power is generally illegal, and the speech that supports it is legal.

[gbumakefan]

So then was it illegal when msnbc aired the infamous Trump video saying “grab them by the p...”? That was clearly meant to influence the election...

[midniteslayr]

First, that was the Washington Post that released the tape, and second, that is more for the fitness of the candidate (at the time). Third, and more importantly, it was obtained legally, without having to break in to a server to get it.

[stordoff]

> second, that is more for the fitness of the candidate (at the time)

How are we distinguishing influencing the election and fitness of the candidate? I'm not seeing a substantive difference between the two, other that the source (if anything, their campaign practices seem more relevant).

[gbumakefan]

Wikileaks didn’t break into the server. No one knows how the emails were obtained. Your reply demonstrates your hypocrisy nicely. Clearly you just don’t like what Wikileaks has to say.

[elliekelly]

Some of the emails were altered by Russia for the purpose of spreading misinformation. Russia used Wikileaks to lend credibility to the conspiracy theories they were sowing in the run-up to the election.

NY Time has a great 3-part video series about Russia's history of spreading fake news. Each video is about 15 minutes but it's well worth the watch.

[gbumakefan]

Even if that’s true — it’s not, no emails have been shown to be fake — it’s not illegal to publish false information.

[elliekelly]

I didn't say the emails were fake. I said they were altered. The metadata, specifically. According to the NY Times they were alter to make it look like they were downloaded directly from a computer in the U.S. and to change the date the documents were obtained.

And publishing false information is not illegal. Knowingly aiding a foreign government in their efforts to undermine an election is treason.

[random314]

> Knowingly aiding a foreign government in their efforts to undermine an election is treason.

Assange is not a US citizen.

[elliekelly]

I don't believe citizenship is a requirement to be convicted of treason. There are a lot of members of the U.S. military who are not citizens. Surely they would be guilty of treason if they divulged secrets or aided a foreign country. People with green cards as well. Not that either of those situations apply to Assange.

I've definitely read several news articles that say he stands accused of both treason and espionage, though. I do wonder how that works for a foreigner. Has he ever even been to the United States?

[monocasa]

No metadata had been altered for any WikiLeaks releases.

[elliekelly]

Do you have any source for that? I'm not saying it's a fact that the data had been altered but I'm saying reasonable minds can draw that conclusion based on the information we have available.[1] You're oddly defensive of Assange and don't seem to have come to this thread with any interest in discussion.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/gucci...

[Karunamon]

This is the first I’ve heard about the released emails not being completely authentic. Do you have any more reading on this matter?

[elliekelly]

Here's the link to the video I mentioned in my original comment. I think they discuss how the metadata was altered in the second video of three but no promises I'm remembering that correctly. To be clear, I'm not saying the emails were inauthentic. I'm saying they were altered to make the source of the materials appear to be an internal leak from within the DNC as opposed to a hack. The alterations were (allegedly) for the purposes of Russia covering their trail.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-d...

[bradford]

Intentions and prior knowledge matter in a situation like this. It would be wise to see what information the prosecutors have before declaring the death of free press.

[AnaniasAnanas]

True, they are not a news organisation in the common sense, they are a leaks organisation which comes pretty close however.

> especially when they released campaign emails during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

As a leaks organisation this is what their job is about: leaking information, emails this time.

Was Wikileaks biased on what they released? Probably, but to my knowledge they did not release anything false - this would be similar to prosecuting say the guardian people for publishing the Snowden leaks, after all some would consider them "left wing" and "biased". I believe that especially America that was founded on the principle of freedom should take the principle of free speech more seriously.

[pknopf]

And on top of that, WikiLeaks solicited the Trump campaign for a few pages of Trump's tax return with the explicit intent making WikieLeaks seem more non-partisan so as to make the emails inflict more harm.

[CryptoPunk]

Leaking documents with the intent to "do harm" shouldn't be illegal. You're treading into advocacy of making mal-intent toward The Party a Thought Crime.