Karl Vick from 'Time Magazine' has written a piece, dated August 12, 2016, in which he claims that WikiLeaks, a private organization which supports whistleblowers, seems more dangerous than the government intelligence agency, the National Security Agency of the United States —
http://time.com/4450282/wikileaks-julian-assange-dnc-hack-criticism/
To anyone who is sympathetic with Karl Vick's point of view, I would point out that a private organization cannot send men with guns to arrest you and put you in prison — and kill you if you resist. Whereas, that is the whole point of any government's attempts to gather information about particular individuals without their knowledge.
Also, it would be impossible for a private organization to kidnap you, and then transport you to a foreign country for torture and questioning, as in the case of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's renditions —
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/globalizing-torture-20120205.pdf
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/...facts-about-cia-extraordinary-rendition-and-secret-detention
https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../2013/02/05/...54-countries-that-reportedly-participated-in-the-cias-rendition-program/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition
I wonder what Karl Vick thinks intelligence agencies like the NSA or CIA, for example, are trying to do — help create an episode of 'This Is Your Life' ?
Karl Vick seems annoyed that WikiLeaks may have timed their damaging release of Democratic National Committee e-mails with the 2016 Democratic Party National Convention, in order to harm Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the presidency. Vick refers positively to this piece by Charlie Savage from 'The New York Times', dated July 26, 2016 —
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/.../assange-timed-wikileaks-release-of-democratic-emails-to-harm-hillary-clinton.html
https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/
Charlie Savage from 'The New York Times' even had the audacity to include this Hillary Clinton quote from a statement she made back in November of 2010, after the cables leaked by Pvt. Chelsea Manning were published by WikiLeaks —
https://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/11/152078.htm
"The work of our diplomats doesn’t just benefit Americans, but also billions of others around the globe. In addition to endangering particular individuals, disclosures like these tear at the fabric of the proper function of responsible government."
You could not make that up. Are Charlie Savage and 'The New York Times' trying to defend Hillary Clinton, or attack her? Quoting a corrupt politician regarding 'disclosures that tear at the proper function of responsible government', is more than just a little ironic, when that politician was just involved in a scandal over not properly handling classified information.
And why shouldn't an organization like WikiLeaks try to maximize the attention to the information that was provided to them by whistleblowers, especially when those whistleblowers took risks to provide it?
After all, the content of the published e-mails is not interesting because it is virtuous. It is revealing of a corrupt politician, and the corrupt organization to which she belongs — i.e. any harm is richly deserved. For more on that corruption —
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2016/07/mediamatters-hillary-clintons-shill.html
http://maxautonomy.blogspot.com/2016/08/lying-about-hillary-clintons-lies.html
Who are Karl Vick and Charlie Savage trying to kid? Should WikiLeaks have sat on the damaging e-mails until after the Democratic National Convention, in a deliberate attempt to minimize the harm? Well then, why shouldn't WikiLeaks have waited until after the election, since in that case, it would have been too late to make any difference?
Oh brother, this is about as dumb as it gets. If you have evidence of corruption, your goal in revealing that corruption should be to maximize the harm to the guilty parties, not to minimize it — in an attempt to make it stop.
Regardless of your assessment of Julian Assange, and the tactics of WikiLeaks, it should be obvious that no good is served by sitting on disclosures that reveal political corruption, in order to supposedly minimize the harm to guilty parties — the only reasonable goal is to get the information into the hands of the public before any important political events, precisely so the public can use that information to its benefit and protect itself (as much as the public is even capable of doing that).
And notice that I made no comment about whether or not anything that the NSA or CIA have done is legitimate. I only pointed out that government power in this regard (as usual) is dangerous — it is very, very dangerous. Abuses are inevitable, and if you defend such government power, then you have no basis for complaint, if you happen to become its victim — that is, as they say, you are just collateral damage.
But I certainly have no illusions about the dangerous nature of the world, and that some men can only be dealt with effectively with violence — for many, if you do not kill them first, they will kill you. That is the world we live in, and if you do not honestly acknowledge that obvious point, then you either do not pay attention, or you are in denial (good luck) — I have no idea what world events it would take to make that simple observation any clearer. So, this raises the obvious question: 'To what lengths should governments go in attempting to identify and deal with people who are committed to violence as a way of life?' I have no doubt that with certain individuals, torture — properly carried out — could be useful (e.g. terrorist/time-bomb scenario). But at the same time, I do not see how government can properly carry it out — that is, without creating more risk to innocents, than they can possibly remove with its practice. As always, there are no easy solutions, only trade-offs, and different levels of risk.
But Karl Vick's comparison of government power, with, say, a private organization like WikiLeaks supposedly being 'careless', is about as absurd as you can get. These things are in no way proportional, and only an imbecile with a strong bias would attempt to make such an obviously nonsensical comparison. Again, making the charge of 'careless' here is especially ironic given Hillary Clinton's e-mail scandal, never mind the massive breach of personal security clearance information in the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
