[syn0byte]

The irony in your argument is absolutely breath taking. The footage of the US Military murdering a dozen people, of which 2 worked for the press, was part of leaks for which he now faces charges.

"How dare he show the US murdering journalists! That could lead to more journalist getting murdered."

[cyphar]

Not to mention the evidence of the US government lying about the numbers of civilian casualties (read: murders), or the many examples of money laundering, and tit-for-tat deals. The idea that nothing was gained from the Afghan/Iraqi war logs alone is beyond ridiculous. Let alone the mountains of other leaks they published before and since.

[foldr]

No, the comment refers to Wikileaks releasing the names of American informants in Iraq, potentially endangering their lives.

[cyphar]

Future WikiLeak publications took more care redacting documents (even asking the US State Department for advice). So I disagree with what WikiLeaks did in that instance, and it's clear they adjusted their ways.

But it should also be made very clear that there is zero evidence that anyone was harmed as a result of the leak. Yes, this may have been luck or lots of effort by the US State Department, but it still something to consider.

[foldr]

That's an extraordinarily mild way to respond to a massive and thoughtless leak of extremely sensitive information. I wonder if you are so charitable towards the US government! They no doubt would also have claim to have mended their ways since the release of the "collateral murder" video.

>even asking the US State Department for advice

A disingenuous request.

>and it's clear they adjusted their ways.

This is actually far from clear.

[cyphar]

> That's an extraordinarily mild way to respond to a massive and thoughtless leak of extremely sensitive information.

I said that I disagree with what that aspect of what they did, and had I been in that situation I would've redacted many more things. But I agree with their publishing of the documents. I'm not sure what response you'd like me to have -- call for him to be in prison for the rest of his life?

> I wonder if you are so charitable towards the US government!

They are the most powerful government in the world, and are blatantly violating the Nuremberg convention and their own constitution. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are not.

> They no doubt would also have claim to have mended their ways since the release of the "collateral murder" video.

They haven't claimed that (Obama claimed that they "tortured folks" and have stopped, but Guantanamo Bay is still "open for business"). But even if they did claim it, we have plenty of evidence they haven't. But we do have evidence that WikiLeaks did start redacting more documents -- because many of their subsequent leaks had more heavily redacted documents.

> A disingenuous request.

So what would've made you happy? That they don't publish anything? Newspapers ask the government to help redact leaked documents all the time (the Guardian even did line-by-line redactions of the Snowden documents with GCHQ). I really don't understand what your bar for "responsible journalism" is, if doing what other journalists do is not enough.

[foldr]

> I'm not sure what response you'd like me to have -- call for him to be in prison for the rest of his life?

I think endangering the lives of multiple people ought to merit some kind of punishment, yes.

> That they don't publish anything?

That they make a serious attempt to redact sensitive info that it's not in the public interest to reveal. Their official reason for not doing so with the Afghan cables was, essentially, that they couldn't be bothered. Assange plainly and openly didn't give a crap if anyone was hurt as a result. Has there ever been an apology from Wikileaks?

Come on, you don't need cooperation from the US authorities to blank out the name of someone who's mentioned as being, say, a CIA informant.

[cyphar]

> I think endangering the lives of multiple people ought to merit some kind of punishment, yes.

That is definitely a valid point-of-view (and it's not one that I necessarily disagree with), but that's simply not what he is being charged with.

> Assange plainly and openly didn't give a crap if anyone was hurt as a result.

If you're referring to the claim that he said "informants deserve what they get", this quote could not be corroborated with anyone else who was involved in the conversation where he apparently said that. Given what lies David Leigh went on to say about Julian Assange afterwards it seems likely this claim was also a lie.

> Come on, you don't need cooperation from the US authorities to blank out the name of someone who's mentioned as being, say, a CIA informant.

One of the main concerns was that due to the technical manner in which diplomatic cables are written, you actually do need to have an expert figure out whether there is any implied references to a particular informant that doesn't mention their name. The Guardian and other newspapers did spend lots of time doing this for a very small number of documents.

But again, that doesn't change that they should've done more to redact them. And in future leaks, they did.

[pluma]

I'm not sure if that's your point but the US clearly have not mended their ways and continually violate international human rights by killing, torturing and illegally detaining people.

[ryanmercer]

You can release that information and still redact the names of private individuals that are informants/spies so that you aren't signing their gruesome death sentence at the hands of the 'enemy'...