[noibl]

Thanks.

> being an anonymous organization

It isn't. It has a very public and (quite deliberately) accountable director who has made several detailed statements about the purpose and goals of the organisation. Several of its staff are also well known but that's not the important point. Also, the statements themselves have a distinctly altruistic character and they stand, like a declaration from any group of people, independently from the personalities involved.

> but that's something we have to take on faith

As one would with an individual. What ulterior motive? I'm willing to accept that the organisation's actions have at times been questionable in terms of effect. But to say that its aims are not altruistic is a different kind of claim altogether.

> As for being benign ... Wikileaks' most famous alleged collaborator is in a military prison

I see; you're working with a definition of 'benign' as 'harmless' rather than 'doing good' or 'doing more good than harm'. So the test is whether anyone was harmed as an outcome of the work done. If you can't see the harm in Swartz's case I don't know what to say, especially when you mention Manning as a victim of leaking.

If we go by the second definition, 'doing more good than harm', which I think most would accept as being more reasonable, then I think the US government's statements about the harmlessness of Manning's leak[1] coupled with outcomes such as the Arab Spring shows (and this is a fairly low bar) that there is no stark contrast to be drawn.

> But they had necessarily different paths.

Whether Swartz was involved in Wikileaks work isn't really in question here. The question is whether there's a moral distinction between the different entities' goals and actions ('altruistic' and 'benign' being unavoidably value-laden terms).

I find it impossible to agree with you about that but I appreciate you taking the time to make the case.

[1] http://www.theweek.co.uk/us/wikileaks/43110/white-house-said...

[danso]

Yes, I am using "benign" in the sense of it being harmless. Bt that's just my opinion. When I listened to the memorial, Aaron's friends said he wanted to change the world, but that his actions on JSTOR were essentially harmless, especially since the entity who is most liable for maintaining rights to the archive declined to press charges.

So my perception here is that the emotional weight of Aaron's case is based on how the prosecutors played hardball for what amounted to a petty crime. This is why I'm having a hard time understanding Wikileaks' motive here: do they not think the "official" story is compelling enough? It seems that claiming that Aaron had an unspecified relationship with Wikileaks only muddies up the water...people seem plenty pissed that he got the book thrown at him for "hacking", and the spotlight on the DoJ does not seem to be lessening.

[noibl]

1. It's a fact that there are many competing theories about why the DoJ were so passionate about this case.

2. There are also many competing opinions on which reforms would be appropriate or sufficient in the wake of what was done to Aaron Swartz.

3. It's not surprising, nor is it inappropriate, that Wikileaks would be advocating for more sweeping reforms and adjustments in how we look at the application of judicial force in these situations.

Remember that it is a core contention of Wikileaks that the channeling of power within and across organisations and the loci of that power and decision-making are at the moment dangerously obscure to the public. Of course they would be looking for signs of that in this case.

To the extent that there is evidence for ulterior agendas, it's important. Lack of evidence makes it, as you say, murky -- people see what they want to see. But it's also true that you can't find what you're not looking for.

To put it another way: There are conspiracy theories but there are also conspiracies, and systemic mal-alignments of purpose. Formulating conspiracy theories without evidence is the opposite of helpful. But identifying unforeseen patterns of collaboration can help us reason defensively about situations we, as a public, will never have adequate information of.