Talk:WikiLeaks/Archive 1

Cypherpunk?
WP's cypherpunk page, large parts of which were copied from our article, has a section titled Noteworthy cypherpunks which mentions Assange. Looks like it might be accurate according to this post on John Young's cryptome site. I'll add it to our cypherpunk article soon. However, it might also need mention here, and I'm not likely to do that. Sandy Harris 07:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Bias?
I have serious problems with bias in this article. It is couched in a solely US perspective, has failed to mention the most outrageous revelations of the US government that have emerged from the leaks, and fails to mention the DoS attacks, removal of the domain name and other clearly politically inspired attacks against Wikileaks. The discussion of the alleged rape charges against Assange is also biased, and needs to be properly balanced with accurate information on timing and the strange behaviour of the swedish prosecutor (and possibly the Swedish courts,but this is less clear). Overall, this article does not conform with CZ neutrality policy, and has to be corrected or otherwise dealt with. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 17:33, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * First, the article is about Wikileaks, not the content of the documents. "Outrageous revelations of the US government" is every bit as biased as what you claim.
 * It is, however, CZ tradition that you contribute content about your position, not simply to complain. Go ahead and balance, but do not simply delete.
 * Perhaps you should be more familiar with Cryptome, the Pentagon Papers, the Progressive Case, and the Federation of American Scientists before generalizing about leaking in general.
 * The reason there is more US emphasis is that Wikileaks has principally disclosed US governments. If Wikileaks had disclosed large numbers of Russian documents, I assure you that would have been covered, but it is not a violation of neutrality to describe the actual interactions between USG and Wikileaks. It seems as if your goal is to defend Assange and attack the US.
 * In a different article, I would be willing to deal with some of the bad military and political actions revealed by the documents. Many of them require a significant amount of experience to interpret; the news media have not done a great job. Suffice it to cite, for example, that seeing the code "Bone Winchester" in a message means that someone erred very badly. Howard C. Berkowitz 17:47, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Howard,You will conform to CZ neutrality policy or I will blank this article until I rewrite it.Martin Baldwin-Edwards 17:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * First, Martin, you have no authority to give me orders. Second, you have no authority to be the sole arbiter of neutrality policy, especially in an article where I went to some effort to provide balance. Third, I inform you that under the current Constabulary Blocking Policy, unilateral blanking is a bannable act of vandalism. Fourth, we are both Politics Editors, and should be able to discuss this matter professionally and as peers. It happens, incidentally, that security classification and declassification has been an professional interest of mine, certainly since 1972.
 * If you wanted to create articles about some of the disclosed documents, I might help -- but I observe that "outrageous" has no place in a neutral article, other than perhaps as a sourced quote. Howard C. Berkowitz 19:25, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not see it so much as biased, more incomplete. It certainly needs expansion, including more on the rape charge, at least a summary and links for the more important revelations, and more background. Cryptome & the Pentagon Papers need their own articles with links here. Probably both of you could contribute useful material.

As for blanking, I do not believe either that it is necessary or that Martin has the authority to do it if it were. Sandy Harris 22:00, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed, Sandy. Part of my annoyance is that it was blasted about bias while I was still writing -- and am continuing to do so. On the technical front, as you'll realize, of course, the domain name was not removed; the DNS service provider stopped its support.  As to the DOS, I have not yet found really good technical analysis, but I'm looking for it.


 * I have no particular insight into the rape charge, although I do have a bit more from Britain. I am quite familiar with the Pentagon Papers; with Cryptome, I have only user-level knowledge; I did start the Federation of American Scientists article and will probably expand there -- Steven Aftergood is pretty nice about answering email.  Note also that I expanded classified information, and will probably do more there about the needs to reform the system. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The article seems fairly neutral as most of the Wikileaks information disclosure was pointed towards harming the US. This article clearly states the facts. Of course information offering a broader worldwide perspective is always good, but as it stands now the Wikileaks organization has every intention to harm the US and its allies.Mary Ash 03:43, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Probably you express popular US opinion, Mary, but it is incorrect. There is no evidence at all to suggest this, and positions of that sort are contrary to CZ policy. You may express your own opinion, especially on talk pages, but personal (or national) opinions may not be stated as facts. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 10:09, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Constable Comment
I have not read this article and do not intend to. My focus will be on the behavior on this page and on the forums. The content of the article is under the purview of others. I suggest that, if there is an issue about neutrality, appropriate workgroup conferences begin and the Ombudsman may be able to help settle disputes while the ME may decide to make interim decisions. Large deletions would be considered unprofessional unless they are thoroughly discussed using appropriate workgroup and CZ resources. Surely there will be several expert disagreements about how to present this subject, but Editors should not allow discussions to elevate beyond professional levels before asking for assistance from fellow workgroup editors or the ME and Ombudsman. Authors should be careful to follow editorial advice. Constables can remove an article if it is clearly non-neutral. D. Matt Innis 19:38, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I am perfectly willing to work with the Ombudsman or Managing Editor. Do note that the attacks on non-neutrality, and the threats to blank, came while I was still actively adding to the article. I deny this article is non-neutral; I have been making an effort to include a variety of views, for example, in the U.S. government and political system. Is it non-neutral to describe this principally with respect to the U.S.? Well, the documents released are principally U.S., although there have been some third-country disclosures that I've started to discuss.


 * Allegations of neutrality violation seem a bit premature, if not perhaps a manifestation of personal dislike rather than substance.


 * Also note that both disputants are Politics Editors and considered peers; I am also a Military and Computers Editor, which is hardly irrelevant. As the author, for example, of the Approved Domain Name Service article, it seems reasonable enough that I comment on the DNS denials to Wikileaks.


 * I again emphasize that this is about the interactions of Wikileaks as an organization, not about the content of the released documents. Those documents are better discussed in the context of articles dealing with their subjects.

Document summaries
While I've temporarily put in some disclosures about U.S. relations with Lebanon, and will probably summarize about general Middle Eastern concerns about the Iranian nuclear program, my sense is that these don't belong in the Wikileaks article, but in articles about those subjects.

I may just start adding the diplomatic information to Iranian nuclear program, an article on which I really could use collaboration.

Again, though, my point here is this article should deal with the Wikileaks disclosure, its relations, etc., but not the substantive issues addressed by the disclosures. Wikileaks is simply not the only source on those matters. I'd also note that if one is inexperienced in reading between the lines of US military or diplomatic documents, it's easy to misinterpret. The military ones are worse, in this, than the diplomatic, since they have so many specialized codewords, etc. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:40, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The Onion
Julian Assange fired from IT job at the Pentagon Sandy Harris 23:01, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't make sense to me. The State Department admitted that they have no hold over him as he is neither a US citizen nor resident: so what the %^&( is the pentagon doing employing aliens who are not resident in the USA? Or is this a joke? Martin Baldwin-Edwards 23:06, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The Onion is a humor blog. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Very droll :-P Martin Baldwin-Edwards 00:31, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Improvement
It's far less biased than when I made the comment, so that is good. Incidentally, they have given up on US servers and have set up a new domain in Switzerland, in alliance with some minor political movement there, in the belief that that will provide some protection from the games of the US, French and other governments. All of these things are happening now, so I will not complain that they are not included. They need better sourcing than initial press reports, anyway.

It remains too US-focused, though. And the international news networks are all saying that Amazon dumped wikileaks after pressure from the US government. The clear message to me is that since there is no legal basis for action against anyone, the US has taken the road of extra-legal and probably illegal actions. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 23:03, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There may have been US pressure on the networks, but many networks will get rid of a customer that is the target of a DDOS attack -- it disables the network for all their other customers and, as a matter of business survival, the network may have to oust a customer.


 * When you speak of "extra-legal and illegal", I expect you to identify the laws that are being broken. Ron Paul, for example, makes the case that Wikileaks should be treated as news media, and it arguably would be grounds for injunctive relief under the First Amendment to block an attack on a news organization. There really isn't much case law for these circumstances.


 * If, hypothetically, the EU has some law against the attacks, that certainly does not apply in the United States. There are also multiple suspects for the DDOS, if you think it's a US cyberattack, I'd like to see the forensice. I certainly don't know who is doing it.


 * It is good that you consider it less biased, but it would be even better if you admit you leaped to attack an article that was under active development, and that you had no grounds to suggest blanking. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:27, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I have deleted the section Origins, as you did not amend it, as unacceptable negative bias. I don't have time to substitute text at the moment, but don't revert it please. This is not negotiable. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 09:08, 4 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Martin, please stop this blanking nonsense!
 * I cannot see what you consider bias in that text. Either contribute what you consider better text or restore Howard's text and explain what you consider biased here so someone can fix it. Sandy Harris 10:36, 4 December 2010 (UTC)