Donal's picture

    Whistleblowing vs Privacy?

    By Donal on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 2:36pm | Social Justice

    As a lad, I read a scifi story about a device that would let you look at past events as if you were watching television. In The Dead Past, by Isaac Asimov, a meek historian wanted use the device to prove a theory about Carthage. He persuaded a physicist to join in investigating the device, but they eventually found themselves locked up by the government. An agent explained that they would circumvent any law to keep the device from becoming generally available. They weren't worried about people looking into the past, they were worried because the past is only moments away from the present, so the device would actually let people spy on each other.

    The Outer Limits had an episode where a government agency used Outer Band Individuated Teletracer (O.B.I.T.) devices to spy on employees. It turned out that evil aliens were trying to undermine us from within.

    Lomax: People with nothing to hide have nothing to fear from O.B.I.T.
    Orville: (scoffs) Are you that perfect, Mr. Lomax?

    Lomax: The machines are everywhere! Oh you'll find them all, you're a zealous people. And you'll make a great show of smashing a few of them. But for every one you destroy, hundreds of others will be built. And they will demoralize you, break your spirits, create such rifts and tensions in your society that no one will be able to repair them! Oh, you're a savage, despairing planet, and when we come here to live, you friendless, demoralized flotsam will fall without even a single shot being fired. Senator, enjoy the few years left you. There is no answer. You're all of the same dark persuasion! You demand – insist – on knowing every private thought and hunger of everyone: Your families, your neighbors, everyone — but yourselves.


    These old scifi writers were more worried about the effects of a loss of privacy for citizens than the boons of what we might find out with the technology. As it turns out, we are being watched and spied upon a lot more than we care to think about.

    Wikileaks is not an analog to the OBIT device, of course, or even to security cameras or wiretaps. They are far less pervasive, and only act when outrage, what Assange calls Courage, trumps self-interest to become the determining filter for revealing secret information. Wikileaks is like a gossip rag that relies on volunteer paparazzi, but these are paparazzi with potentially a lot to lose. So far they have leaked about governments and businesses, the traditional targets of the fourth estate, but individuals seem to have been affected as a result. Like the fictional Lomax, Assange takes the view that if governments and corporations have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear. Unlike Lomax, Assange expects his information dumps to ultimately improve our society rather than destroy it.

    Andy Greenberg of The Firewall at Forbes interviewed Julian Assange some three weeks ago. Assange promised revelations about a large US bank, and spoke at length about his justification for leaking information.

    What do you think WikiLeaks mean for business? How do businesses need to adjust to a world where WikiLeaks exists?

    WikiLeaks means it’s easier to run a good business and harder to run a bad business, and all CEOs should be encouraged by this. I think about the case in China where milk powder companies started cutting the protein in milk powder with plastics. That happened at a number of separate manufacturers.

    Let’s say you want to run a good company. It’s nice to have an ethical workplace. Your employees are much less likely to screw you over if they’re not screwing other people over.

    Then one company starts cutting their milk powder with melamine, and becomes more profitable. You can follow suit, or slowly go bankrupt and the one that’s cutting its milk powder will take you over. That’s the worst of all possible outcomes.

    The other possibility is that the first one to cut its milk powder is exposed. Then you don’t have to cut your milk powder. There’s a threat of regulation that produces self-regulation.

    It just means that it’s easier for honest CEOs to run an honest business, if the dishonest businesses are more effected negatively by leaks than honest businesses. That’s the whole idea. In the struggle between open and honest companies and dishonest and closed companies, we’re creating a tremendous reputational tax on the unethical companies.

    No one wants to have their own things leaked. It pains us when we have internal leaks. But across any given industry, it is both good for the whole industry to have those leaks and it’s especially good for the good players.

    How can you argue against whistleblowing to protect babies from melamine? In the same vein, though, how can you argue against torturing someone to gain crucial information? Does the end always justify the means, or is it a case-by-case decision? 

    You’ve developed a reputation as anti-establishment and anti-institution.

    Not at all. Creating a well-run establishment is a difficult thing to do, and I’ve been in countries where institutions are in a state of collapse, so I understand the difficulty of running a company. Institutions don’t come from nowhere.

    It’s not correct to put me in any one philosophical or economic camp, because I’ve learned from many. But one is American libertarianism, market libertarianism. So as far as markets are concerned I’m a libertarian, but I have enough expertise in politics and history to understand that a free market ends up as monopoly unless you force them to be free.

    WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical.

     

    You might consider Wikileaks to be essentially the same as 60 Minutes. You figure if Mike Wallace shows up, they must have done something to deserve it, right? But what if investigative journalists had started following everyone around like paparazzi, and broadcasting anything that looked suspicious 24 hours a day? At what point does whistleblower journalism transcend normal expectations of privacy?

    We don't want our government and businesses to operate completely in private, and at present they certainly have the upper hand against traditional journalists, but can we live with the fallout of occasionally complete transparency?

    Topics: 
    Social Justice

    Comments

    On Gawker a few weeks ago somebody posted a cell phone video of a fight between a store patron and a store owner.  I have no idea who was right or wrong but the one clear message is that nothing in public is private anymore, at all.  If the police aren't watching, the person over there with the phone is or there's a TV crew.  This isn't entirely new, of course.  Sometimes, as with Rodney King, personal recording devices and the like are used to check those with power.  The police.  The government.  Big corporations.  So far it seems like Wikileaks is targeting the right institutions.

    One rule I was taught as a journalist is to avoid raising a story subject up just to knock him down.  If you have to puff up the importance of the target of an investigative piece then you have to at least stop and ask yourself what you're doing and why.  A real investigation gets its power from the importance of the topic at hand.  The Pentagon and the State Department -- obviously big and important enough.  An indepth look at your neighbor's sophomore college English papers to determine if he really read Sense and Sensibility or just skimmed it?  Not so much. That said, I think it kind of sucks that we're making and distributing visual records of people letting off steam or getting drunk in public.  I wish we had more of a sense of proportion as a society.

    But Assange's sense of proportion seems pretty good so far.  It's not "you have nothing to worry about if you have nothing to hide" that's a valid argument.  It's that if you're an institution or individual that uses secrecy to escape being held accountable for harmful acts, then we need organizations like Wikileaks keeping tabs on you.  His milk and plastic example is a good one.  The police, who can control evidence in criminal cases and who often control the narratives of their investigations and arrests are another good target.  Obviously government agencies doing classified work and big businesses count too.

    Do individuals count?  If they affect the public interest, yes.  If they use secrecy to the detriment of others, yes.  I think we should take a narrow view of both but Assange is really just saying "Yeah, if you make your money cheating people and covering it up, we're here to make life bad for you."  As it should be, right?  Because whenever a company does cover something up until its too late and we get an Enron, a Worldcom, a Bear Stearns or a Lehman all I ever hear is "where were the regulators/journalists/analysts/ratings agencies who should have known better?"


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 3:18pm

    I think you make a lot of good points, but I definitely agree with what I think donal's sentiment to be: someone needs to guard the guards. Although it's entirely possible that many stories have been ginned up by the powers-that-be, it does appear that Assange is no angel.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 3:26pm

    Ultimately, Assange isn't free from the rules he trumpets though, right?  Obviously he's under the eye of law enforcement and the intelligence apparatuses of several countries so those serve as a check on his power right there.  Then there's the press which will prove over time as eager to investigate him as much as they want to see what he releases.  Gawker has an open call for people who will leak things about... Wikileaks.  He's also got a fair amount of hackers on his butt and just a lot of citizens throughout the world who don't take the kind view of him that I do.  So he's under pretty intense scrutiny, isn't he?


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 3:35pm

    Fair enough. I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that Assange is getting a free ride with respect to scrutiny.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 3:40pm

    He is, but he claims to relish being the lightning rod for the rest of the organization about which I have read and heard zilch so far.  And to your previous point, no WikiLeaks hasn't, to my knowledge, attacked the wrong people so far. But while I am sympathetic to whistleblowers as the last line of defense against institutional wrongdoing, I'm not yet sure what to make of institutional whistleblowing.


    by Donal on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 3:43pm

    I agree.  It raises all the questions of surveilance generally and heaps the questions of vigilantiism on top.  Your skepticism and probably warranted.  And you're right that we know very little about Assange's organization or that there even is an organization.  Then there's a hole rabbit hole you can go down about what his real motives are, who's funding him and before you know it, he killed JFK.


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 3:54pm

    I think that it is incorrect and even dangerous to confuse the workings of the diplomatic community with that of the banks or the pharma industry, which is what Assange seems to be doing in the interview that you quote.

    Diplomacy is not, repeat not a a business and the relations between sovereign "armed and dangerous" states are not the same as the relations between a bank and their customers. Lehman Brothers crashing or a bank screwing its customers is not the same as bombing Iran.

    The only thing standing between the guns of the opposing militaries of dozens of countries are the world's diplomats

    Imagine a community of people, who spend most of their working careers outside their home countries, who see each other in an endless series of cocktail parties and dinners, who when they move to a new post, find themselves in the company of diplomats from other countries where they were posted before and renew old friendships... this goes on for years and years. They exchange gossip, some of it pretty gamey about the leaders and governments they deal with and about their own leaders too.

    This understanding and relationship comes in handy when there is an international crisis and to freeze that could be really, really dangerous at a time like now, when there is a real danger of a war breaking out.

    This is what Assange has done. I agree with Hillary Clinton that this is "an attack on the international community".


    by David Seaton on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 4:16pm

    All I know about diplomacy is what I learned from Star Trek:

    AMBASSADOR FOX: Diplomacy, gentlemen, should be a job left to diplomats. You will, of course, immediately resume a peaceful status.

    SCOTT: I'll not lower the screens, not until the Captain tells me to.

    McCOY: Mister Fox, they faked a message from the Captain, they've launched an attack against our ship. Now you want us to trust them openly?

    SPOCK: By now, Mister Ambassador, I'm sure you realise that normal diplomatic procedures are ineffective here.

    On a more serious note, I think business and national diplomacy overlap a great deal.


    by Donal on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 4:32pm

    On a more serious note, I think business and national diplomacy overlap a great deal.

    Yes, of course they do... but of course, for me the only complaint I have about Assange's whistleblowing is that it affects not only America's national security, but international diplomacy itself, when several shooting wars are in progress and others could break out at any moment.

    If he blows the whistle on the banks and on pharma I have no complaint and I was in favor of showing the video of the killing of the Reuters reporter. But I think that those things are only a cover for what he is doing now.


    by David Seaton on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 4:42pm

    There's always going to be several shooting wars to deal with.  Are you arguining that this entire international diplomatic community, made up of some very wealthy, connected and corrupt people, should be exempt from public scrutiny?


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 4:47pm

    If we read the cables, for instance, between King Abdullah and the State Dept. on September 11 and 12 concerning getting all the Saudis the hell out of here (as in: the only flights that day), or between State and Prince Bandar over the investigations of the Saudis involved in the plot, wouldn't it change things for the better forever?


    by we are stardust on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 4:58pm

    Given what has been going on in the world, perhaps those cocktail parties need a bit more drama.


    by Donal on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 5:09pm

    You're a tosser, David. Your recent blogs have provided nothing  but innuendo, prejudice and slurs against people like Assange (and his untrustworthy eyes), against Jews and against whoever else you can freely rant against and get "hits" - a strategy you feel is so clever, you actually brag about it on your blog.

    But then, you attack Murdoch for saying what he wants, with no regard for the truth, and doing so just because... he can. And you're too dim to recognize the similarities anymore.

    And now you're upset because a whole world of gossip-mongers, who get to travel under the high-falutin' name of "diplomats," are being put at risk. (It always helps to label them a "community," I always like that.) But please go on - DO tell us about some diplomats you've slept with, will you?

    How about this? Diplomats often lie, often have prejudices, are often corrupt, often mislead politicians - and nations - into bad situations, often break the law, often spy, and have had almost NO oversight from their populations because there is almost no transparency. In fact, diplomats are often the sorts that maintain complete injustices and oppression, who allow slaughters, who pass on mindless hatreds, you name it. 

    But I can't imagine they would ever have used this lack of transparency to lie to us or pervert democratic purposes, eh? 

    See, the thing is, you're INTRO gossip-mongering. It's what you DO. You've already made clear that you consider yourself to be a person who should be PERMITTED to attack people however you want, and with no need for things like evidence. You don't trust someone's eyes? Then DAMN HIM! You think the Jews might benefit from an event? Then clearly, IT'S MOSSAD BEHIND IT! But you like gossip... because it gets hits.... so it's allllllll gooooood, right David?

    Anyhoo. How's Spain doing, anyway? Not seeing as many columns from you about the particularities of the Americans from you these days. Funny that, being in a nation who now looks to have been as irresponsible as any - though we never would have learned any of that from you. Same as we never would have seen a mention of them being world-beating anti-Semites these days. 


    by quinn esq on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 5:04pm

    Quinnbo, You must have had a rough couple of days, I hope you are feeling better now. Innocent


    by David Seaton on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 2:46am

    No time to sugarcoat it, Donal. This is really poorly thought-through. Shorter still: it's crap.

    1. You're worried about privacy and security and such, and - not sure you've noticed - while the US has built an incredible world of surveillance, illegal rendition, torture, drone hits, etc.... when someone LEAKS the guts of that world, so we can actually COMPARE their external words versus their internal ones, you make the LEAKERS the privacy concern! For God's sake man, the Government hammered down ANYONE who would raise questions, the old methods of challenging their assertions were ignored, the mass media are absolute lapdogs.... and when Wiki leaks some stuff that let's us check their words, you ATTACK THEM!

    I mean, the US Government has started two wars, and killed hundreds of thousands of people, with lies from beginning to end, and then they're caught in their lies. The Afghans democratic leaders, who we ask kids to go die for, are drug-trafficking thieves, liars and thugs. And we know it. Officially confirmed now. 

    But you don't worry about that, because now, with the leak, INDIVIDUALS WILL BE AFFECTED. WTF Donal? Seriously. DID YOU THINK INDIVIDUALS WERE NOT AFFECTED BY THE STATUS QUO? BY THE WAY THINGS HAVE BEEN DONE? BY THE WAR??

    So Wikileaks - which opens up the guts of the surveillance state - is therefore LIKE the surveillance state?

    2. And the leakers, who stand to be sent to prison for life, or killed, are LIKE PAPARAZZI. Did you write this without giving it much more than 10 seconds thought? Seriously. Think about this. There's NO comparison between people taking pictures of the world's most famous people, and being rewarded with MONEY for that, and leakers of the world's most secret stuff, who have to run and hide for life. Really, there isn't. 

    3. And then your big fear, Wikileaks is just like Mike Wallace, only following regular old Joes around. Jesus man, get a grip. They're leaking stuff from AS FAR INSIDE THE SECRET WORLD OF SPIES AND DIPLOMATS AS YOU CAN POSSIBLY GET, THE STUFF ALMOST NO ONE IN THE WORLD SEES, SO NATURALLY, THIS WOULD MAKE YOU THINK IT'S JUST LIKE TRAILING AFTER YOUR GRAMMY.

    I'm beginning to lose heart here, you know? If people can't think this shit through any better than this, then fuckit. That has to be the worst series of analogies and comparisons since... well.... since the last Seaton post.

    Yeah, sure, Assange is the story, his untrustworthy eyes, and we all should worry that he's gonna leak us to the world, and ummmm, yeah, we should stick a drone on his ass, cause he's such a danger, and WHY WORRY ABOUT THE GUVMINT?

    Fuckit.


    by quinn esq on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 5:25pm

    Yeah, I really came down hard on Assange, didn't I?


    by Donal on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 5:28pm

    Quinn, thanks for that last paragraph. I have been reading the comments and am as impressed as ever with the intellectual prowess in evidence on this site. But I hope this is a close to a wrap on the "cause" of the leaks and the journalistic choice to publish them. Sue me for being immoral and uncurious but perhaps we could move on. A hurricane swept through my farm, ruined my crops, blew down the barn and killed Grandpa. It also carved an oxbow on my land and gave me access to the Mississippi river. What am I going to make out of this turn of events? Does this unprecedented storm create an opportunity to achieve our broader objectives?


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 6:57pm

    Quinn's last paragraph is "Fuckit."


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 7:53pm

    Perhaps my best comment yet.

    Dagblog should get some of the credit for stimulating me to raise my game. Dammit.


    by quinn esq on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 8:40pm

    LOL!  Quinn's last fuckit graph notwithstanding, I am not grokking your 'perhaps we could move on' theme.

    Seems to me that we can do any of three things with diaries/blogs (or some combination of them):  read it, comment on it, or ignore it.  Am I missing something?

    Oh--Quinn already gave himself 'his best comment ever' prize, so I won't up the prize.  Cool

    But I will say that we can choose to be slaves to the government or not; it's an individual choice.  And I'm going for NOT lately.

    signed,

    Fed Up to the Gills with Governmental Bullshit


    by we are stardust on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 8:51pm

    You are confused.

    Our entire economy is based upon a trickle down philosophy.

    The rich and powerful just piss all over us, and we are rewarded with the liquid refreshment as well as fertilizer. ha!!!

     

    the end


    by Richard Day on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 8:49pm

    I don't get the passionate criticism you're drawing here, Donal. Every Assange thread seems to turn into the same government vs wikileaks debate, where everyone is supposed to pick a team, and if you don't pick a team, one will be assigned to you.

    I find this piece to be well-written, insightful, and original--without taking a position on the moral-goodness/evil-dangerousness of wikileaks' revelations. In hindsight it seems foolish, but it never occurred to me to juxtapose transparency with privacy.


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 8:02pm

    What a load of hooey. For instance, I'm not arguing Government vs Wikileaks. I'm arguing that Donal's piece completely muddles some fairly major distinctions: surveillance vs leaking that surveillance, just for starters. The comparisons he makes are gibberish - e.g. papparazzi. It staggers me that with all the blather people make, using clever dick phrases like "who watches the watchmen," when somebody actually comes along and WATCHES THE WATCHMEN, then we turn the debate away from what we're learning, and over to "what if he should watch me?"

    The fact that more and more people on this site are now coming in with these "concerns" about Wikileaks strikes me as one hell of a bad sign. 


    by quinn esq on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 8:49pm

    What a load of hooey, backatcha. Wikileaks totally reminds me of paparazzi--everyone drooling to see which government gets caught in a compromising position. Watchmen, my ass. Wikileaks is porn for policy geeks--or rather voyeurism for policy geeks. That perspective on the matter is what's interesting about this post. You apparently only see "crap."


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 10:11pm

    1. You're critiquing the substance and import of Wikileaks on the basis of... the audience's expectations, which you describe as "everyone drooling," "porn," "voyeurism." To begin, this is fairly blatant projection on your part, (errrrrm, NO, I'm not so into porning or drooling while policying, thanks. Shorter: Wonk doesn't equal Wank.) And if you really think this, just let me say, you should hang around with policy people who watch a bit less Reality TV and Entertainment Tonight. (And also, who get laid.)

    2. Pentagon Papers. Daniel Ellsberg. A mental case. Interesting angle the authorities took on it at the time. Let's hope the Obama Admin remembers some history.

    3. Apparently, you find it to be insightful to juxtapose concerns about privacy with debate about transparency here. I'd say, when you come down to it, it's just a leak... of some things that some big organizations wanted kept secret. A big leak, yes. And with many people reading about it, yes. But the Pentagon Papers were big for their time. So.... what's the worry here? That it could get personal? And it's Wikileaks that makes you all fear that? When all they're doing is publicizing e-mails from people who send them to them? In a country where it is widely discussed, and SUPPORTED, that the government can tap your phone and other communications? And arrest you? Do really bad things to you? And where Hilary Bleeding Clinton just got outed as telling her diplomats to spy the hell out of the entire UN? BUT SOMEHOW WIKILEAKS IS THE ISSUE WHICH HAS MADE US ALL CONCERNED ABOUT OUR PERSONAL INFORMATION BEING PUBLISHED? AND THAT WE MIGHT COME HOME TO MIKE WALLACE ON OUR LAWNS? 

    That's the farce side of the street.


    by quinn esq on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 10:59pm

    Quinn, you've lost me. If your interest in reading about the leaks does not resemble what Donal described, good for you. If the disclosure of private diplomatic correspondences doesn't make you at all queasy, that's cool. The article struck a chord with me and not because I expect Mike Wallace to show up on my lawn (especially since I don't have a lawn), but if it didn't strike you, fuckit.

    But your SEEMINGLY ENRAGED response to the ABSOLUTE STUPIDITY of the point that Donal made seems COMPLETELY INSANE to me. Just saying.

    PS The Pentagon papers might have made me queasy too, but I wasn't into such things at the time, so I won't speculate.


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 11:10pm

    I've been finding that people's responses to the whole Assange/Wikileaks thing have been off-balance, off-the-mark. As though, rather than deal with what's being presented, (which is quite mammoth), they would rather do a "Seaton" and talk about Assange's supposed personal sins/foibles/crimes, or who's hiding in the shadows, or - in this case - raise some hyped up 'concerns' that hold no logical water at all.

    Because the issue of what kind of person the Wikileaks leader is matters not one iota, whether Assange is an Ellsberg or a Gilligan or an Aristotle, or whether he's been treated for mental illness or was a rapist or has a big ego or untrustworthy eyes.

    Neither does it matter one single iota to the substance whether you think his readers are all drooling porno-wonks. 

    And sorry, but Donal's fevered imaginings and childhood scifi readings that make him fear that Julian and his droogs are coming to read his mail are the kind of random feelings which could have been triggered by absolutely any revelation that any government, corporation or NGO had published a secret about anyone.

    What you might want to note - because it IS of some larger sociological interest - is how hard people are working to veer away from the substance of the story. Why, for instance, in your own case, such enormously loaded terms as porno and such came racing to the fore, when you wanted to describe your anger at those MOST INTERESTED in hearing what the Wikileaks held. 

    P.S. As one "revelation," it is completely clear now that Hilary Clinton's instructions re: the UN are pretty monstrous, and certainly - if done by Cheney - would be regarded as worthy of censure if not removal from office if not trial. And yet, what we hear here is..... ummmm..... Julian Assange, boogey-man, might come after us across our lawns. Maybe with Mossad. Or Murdoch. Or something. 

    I think people should grapple with this one a little harder.


    by quinn esq on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 1:14am

    From one who's only been drifting in and out of the comments and not making any (other than some silly jokes at the bottom of the post), and not really reading all of the details other than to get a very brief understanding of the latest links and leaks....I can't help but wonder where your sense of outrage was, Quinn, prior to 2008?  My limited understanding is that a lot of the wikileaks harken back to days prior to 2008 and I have not read about Hillary's terrible crimes yet, but....I dunno, maybe I should just shut up, being ignorant and all.  But golly, Quinn, you used to be a hell of a lot more fun back in the days when we hardly knew ye.  So, facts aside, maybe it's your approach lately?  Some of us were born to be school marms, wagging our fingers at everyone else, and some of us were meant to be class clowns.  Doing both willy nilly as you do, you're losing focus, maybe. 

    Try being school marmish only, for a week.  And then go back to being funny, clever you for a week.  I'll take notes, and give you my reasoned response after your test drives.  K?

    Meantime, tell me how this latest corrupt government admin is so bad compared to the last corrupt government admin. and the one before that one, and the one before that one, and the....

     


    by LisB on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 1:34am

    It's sometimes considered bad form to butt into other peoples' frays, but you've done it here, and this is just too irresistable, LOL! 

    Here you are admitting that you haven't read the leaks, many of the comments, 'drifting', making 'silly jokes' (slightly scatalogical at that), but you somehow sense that you have the perfect fix for Quinn: first, take turns being alternately a school-marm and a then 'aclown', then you will offer your opinions about what works best (for YOU, I'd imagine the 'reasoned response' would be).  And then he should answer your last straw-man paragraph's question (what?  an essay question?).

    I'd submit you didn't really get Quinn back in the day if you didn't get that he had passion, rage, biting humor, satire, vision, personal stories relating to the politics of the day, prose, all of it rolling and fusing and separating again on different days, with different moods, and different provocations.

    My decidedly opposite take is that he and a number of others have been extremely constrained in their comments here at Dagblog, possibly owning to the nature of the site, and I miss some of their acerbic and visionary critiques.  I'd submit that right now, this time, may be seen one day as a turning point for our country.  The stakes for the American people are enormous in just about every direction possible: the economy, jobs, social safety net, foreign policy (or lack of it), internet neutrality, millions sinking into poverty, losing their homes...

    So I can't imagine a better time for focus and passion and some outrage while we all determine which masters we're going to serve.  And not so much about your comfort level.


    by we are stardust on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 10:34am

    LisB, I luvs ya bunches, and hope you're doing great, but... did you - a lifelong Republican - just ask me where my sense of outrage was prior to 2008? (I was protesting, lobbying, writing, speaking, organizing, and doing whatever I could 24/7, since the early 80's.) 

    And at that point I just gotta say... you're kindof out of credibility. Because YOU were the Bush-supporting Republican, and yet, you're accusing ME of being late to game? Hello? 

    As for your comments after that... you haven't READ the leaks? Well, that's just awesome. Good on ya. Another proud American. I think some of you guys are losing it, you know? Really. Illogical and wrong-headed blogs like this, nonsense comments below, and now advice and commentary from someone who admits they haven't read it?

    Priceless.


    by quinn esq on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 3:14pm

    I didn't support Bush.  I voted for him reluctantly in 2000 and then slowly became a Democrat by 2006.  Just wanted to correct that for the record.  Thanks.


    by LisB on Thu, 12/02/2010 - 7:30pm

    And Quinn, I apologize for going off on you the other night, in the comment above.  I hope you and yours are doing well too.


    by LisB on Thu, 12/02/2010 - 7:55pm

    Yup, all good. As long as the world's full of properly-functioning bowels, I'm happy. ;-)

    Hope yer doin' great.


    by quinn esq on Thu, 12/02/2010 - 8:05pm

    LOL, doing great now, thanks.  I'm not understanding the bowel and scatalogical refs, but that's me.  In the dark as usual, hee.  Anyway, glad we got to clear the air.  Thanks for being understanding.


    by LisB on Thu, 12/02/2010 - 8:15pm

    1. You're taking the sci-fi story way too literally. It's an introductory anecdote designed to pique the reader's interest and frame the piece, which I thought it did quite effectively.

    2. Your concern with the article's relevance is different from your original assessment, in which you pithily labeled it "crap."

    3. Assange's personal and ethical flaws have been discussed to death. The relationship between whistleblowing and privacy is much more original, and that alone makes it interesting to me. That is not to say that the substance of the leaks, which I've been following enthusiastically, is not also interesting to me.

    4. I don't see the point of whinging in the comments about how no one is talking about the most important aspect of the leaks. If you want to change the topic to Hillary Clinton and the U.N., write your own damn post. In all seriousness, I would welcome it.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 8:48am

    I especially like your last paragraph.


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 9:04am

    Ha. Fuckit.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 11:03am

    Thanks, G, and I promise these 5,000 copies of BS will find good homes. I generally have a good opinion of the usefulness of WikiLeaks based on Amy Goodman's recommendation (from her recent talk) although I had noticed some dissent here and there. I hadn't really thought of the privacy angle until I read the Forbes interview. Some of the language he used just reminded me of the argument in that old scifi story, and that reminded me of the OBIT episode. I suppose the juxtaposition took some people out of their comfort zone, but that may be a good thing - in the long run.


    by Donal on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 9:19pm

    Hey, I was jolted out of my comfort zone by our occupation of Iraq and the outing of Valerie Plame.  Nothing wrong with getting taken out of our comfort zones now and then.  (Oh, and speaking of Valerie, when does that new film come out?  The one with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn?) 


    by LisB on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 9:30pm

    FYI, it was released almost a month ago.


    by DF on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 6:42pm

    Genghis, can't disagree with either of your paragraphs or Donal's blog. What q.e.'s last fucking paragraph prompted in me was a sense of misdirection (can't put my finger on it) in our reactions to these cable leaks so far.  So "let's keep dancing", maybe this isn't all there is.  


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 11:05pm

    Look it all depends upon whose whistle you are blowing.

    the end


    by Richard Day on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 8:02pm

    And who whets your whistle.


    by Donal on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 9:21pm

    Can someone explain the difference between these new WikiLeaks doc's about US Embassy correspondence and the Nixon Watergate tapes? I can't see much difference. It's nothing more than politicians getting caught playing with their pee-pees in public.


    by Beetlejuice on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 8:51pm

    Apparently it's the size of the pee-pees.


    by LisB on Tue, 11/30/2010 - 9:03pm

    A lot of the people here seem to be suffering from a political version of "primal scene", you know the trauma children experience when they discover what mommy and daddy do after they tuck the toddlers in bed. I'm beginning to think that Bismark was right, politics are like sausages, you enjoy them more when you don't know how they are made.


    by David Seaton on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 2:51am

    Watch this


    by David Seaton on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 3:00am

    Whistleblowing = Porn? Meh. Whistleblowing = invasion of Privacy? GENIUS! Orwell would be proud. Keep it up and you guys can drive RedState out of business...

    by Obey on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 6:47am

    Dear God in heaven, thank you for that comment. 

    I thought I was going nuts there.


    by quinn esq on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 10:31am

    Nice blog Donal, and I particularly like the introduction... I actually loved that episode of Outer Limits and they do replay it often.  But I am not here just to heap praise upon your blog.

    I am addressing the rest of this comment to Quinn, the master of the personal attack:

    Quinn: criticism is one thing, and disagreeing with something that someone writes is fine, however, your penchant for the personal attack is not only trollish it is boorish:

    You wrote this:

    No time to sugar coat is Donal. This is poorly thought-through. Shorter still it is crap.

    This is an attack, not a criticism you disagree with the blog, but instead of criticizing in a manner that is well thought out yourself, you opt for the trollish/boorish "I hate it, and you suck as a writer because I disagree with what you wrote!" Because that is the crap that every troll writes, when they want to start a flame war.

    Frankly, don't you think that is beneath you?  I mean you are pretty smart guy, yet you opt  to be a troll. Sad. 


    by tmccarthy0 on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 10:32am

    Donal's piece was tripe, comparing Wikileaks to papparazzi, to having Mike Wallace show up on your lawn, etc. 

    That said, you haven't a clue how to distinguish between a personal attack, and a substantive one. I LIKE Donal. I comment often on his blogs. He often does good ones. THIS one is tripe, however. It is really badly thought-through. Shorter still - it IS crap. So, I showed HOW it was nonsense. It wasn't hard, or hard to read. If you can't remember how that bit went, try rereading. I find that works wonders.

    What's happening here is that you, and others, don't LIKE my attack on the "substance" of this blog. Too bad. I happen to think a bunch of you here are going soft in the brainpan. If you really can't understand the difference between being the super-secret-surveillance state, and then someone REVEALING the inner workings of that, then I feel sorry for you.

    Now, try to follow this part, willya? To say the BLOG is crap is to say that... the BLOG is crap. NOT the person. And then, to follow that up with a series of points, as I did, repeatedly, about WHY the blog's "logic" fails, makes it an argument. NOT a personal attack.

    And I'M a troll? OMG. Get a cloth tmc, soak up those brains and try to stuff them back in your ear willya? They're the only ones you're gonna get. Ta.


    by quinn esq on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 3:11pm

    Tmc, I appreciate your intention, but let's please not start another discussion about appropriate behavior. If you have a serious problem with any particular member, please contact the administrators privately. Thanks.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 11:01am

    I appreciate your thoughts, too. Thanks.


    by Donal on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 12:02pm

    To take this thread back in another direction, the story you're looking for (or one much like it) is T. L. Sherred's "E for Effort." It's widely anthologized.

    The time-viewer in that case is used to reconstruct history, and especially the history of war, starting with Alexander the Great and moving up to World War I and World War II (the story is from 1947). The people using the machine initially disguise their results as fictional movies. (Wow! What a believable take in Alexander the Great, even if they got so many details wrong!) When they get arrested for the World War movies, they reveal that these have actually been documentaries all along. And the national security state clamps down on them.

    I would say, for the record, that the documents released last week were NOT heavily classified (not even rated "secret") and seem not to have done much harm. And most of what got said to American diplomats was consciously spoken to foreign diplomats. The speakers were always aware that they enjoyed a very limited and imperfect confidentiality.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 5:34pm

    Well that name wasn't on the tip of my tongue.


    by Donal on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 5:49pm

    Since Sherred published little else, and this is his one well-known piece, no.

    But it has been on my mind the last few days, so I didn't dredge it from the depths immediately. I remembered the title, and googled for Sherred's name.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Wed, 12/01/2010 - 5:54pm

    It wasn't the Sherred story I was remembering, though they share a similar theme. It was The Dead Past by Asimov.


    by Donal on Thu, 12/02/2010 - 8:37am

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