Yes...but my point is that Amnesty does not share that viewpoint. Or rather, they have broad sympathy with it (obviously) but disagree about the tradeoff that WL has made. As I pointed out in a response to another poster, just because AI takes in large amounts of money in donations, does not mean it has slush funds sitting around for this sort of thing - in fact that would be a somewhat irresponsible use of their donors' money. So devoting resources to vetting documents (especially with WL's super-tight release schedule) would likely take away funds from other projects. Perhaps AI simply believe that while they broadly support WL's aims, the benefit in this instance is not enough for them to directly support it. (Aside: last I heard, they hadn't categorically ruled out committing some resources - they just didn't do it quite quickly enough for WL).

Two goals which overlap somewhat, but are not the same. Given that Amnesty has limited resources I think it's perfectly reasonable to say, "your actions have placed people at risk, and if you continue you will place more people at risk". You could argue that they ought to divert some resources to WL ("put their money where their mouth is") but that is a matter of funding priorities, it's not a black and white question. What you can't argue is that by flagging up the issue they have somehow shouldered some of the responsibility for the consequences of the documents being released anyway - but that's what Assange is arguing.

Bad analogy time: I have no idea if you contribute to WL or not, but it is not true to say that by not contributing you share some of the responsibility for the deaths of Afghan informers. Nor is it the case that the more you contribute the less culpable you are. You might be criticised for not putting your money where your mouth is, but that argument only applies to your (presumed) sympathy with WL's aims and methods, not to accepting blame in any measure for the consequences of their actions.

But it's not quite that simple. The problem (as Assange sees it) is a pathological lack of transparency leading to large-scale and long-term human rights abuses. The problem (as Amnesty sees it) is a short-term risk of widespread retribution as a side-effect of the release of the unredacted documents. This is a problem entirely of Assange's making and therefore attacking Amnesty for not stumping up the cash to mitigate it is misguided at best.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with him questioning Amnesty's commitment to freedom of speech and transparency. You could perhaps accuse AI of not doing enough to support the release of the documents, but that's not what he did.

Interesting point. I have no idea whether they did or not, but I agree the evidence suggests it's more likely they did not. But, if I were high up in an organisation campaigning for human rights (and one, remember, whose modus operandi is one of naming and shaming), I'd be concerned at the recent trend for disclosure-at-all-costs. Sure, Assange and the WL team might have agonised long and hard and decided the benefits of release outweighed the potential downsides. But these days it only takes one person to post a torrent of a sensitive document for it to be everywhere on the internet I think AI's statement was intended as a plea to solitary whistleblowers just as much as an admonition against Wikileaks

Or, to make a somewhat facetious point: the whole ethos of WL is to combat the culture of behind-closed-doors decision-making. Had they approached Asasnge directly and negotiated a compromise which was then presented as a fait accompli no-one else would be able to learn from it.

True, and I respect him for that, though I disagree. But he is going to have to defend that position repeatedly and stridently against concerted criticism much of it from people who broadly share his goals but disagree with his means, as in this case and responding to it in such a petulant way doesn't help his cause.

Thanks for your civil response (always a nice surprise on Slashdot...)

No, I didn't realise this. Fair point.

Exactly. Or to put it another way, is calling the US government out on their lies more important than safeguarding the lives of informers and their families (and, let's not forget, the majority of soldiers who are decent human beings and were not involved in any atrocities)? That's a very difficult question to answer, and it's not necessarily something you can answer once and for all time. WikiLeaks's entire philosophy is that yes, putting the information in the public domain is always the most important thing (though they will try to mitigate the damage with their limited resources).

Now, that's a legitimate position but (I think) a minority one and they will have to fight very hard to defend it. Maybe future historians will judge them much more kindly than I do. Maybe not.

But here is where I think we really disagree. That's WikiLeaks's philosophy. It's not Amnesty's. They may decide in this particular case that it's worth dedicating the substantial resources that would be required to vet the unreleased documents. As I pointed out previously, the fact they have a massive turnover does not mean they have vast amounts of money just sitting in the bank; most of that income goes straight out the door again, so they have to weigh this against the other things that they'd be taking money away from.

Here's the key point. If they decide not to commit resources to vetting the documents, that does not make them responsible for any consequences of publishing them. Sure, if their refusal resulted in Assange deciding not to publish, you could perhaps criticise them for not supporting greater transparency. That's not what he's doing though; he is trying to pin the blame for the damage his actions are causing on Amnesty, because they are not helping him mitigate them (in fact, AFAIK they haven't refused yet, they just haven't said yes fast enough).

That's why I think he's behaving in a childish manner. If he wants to defend his philosophy, there are better ways of doing it than to lash out at Amnesty simply because they dared to ask him to consider the consequences.

OK could probably have been less sarky in my original post. However:

Is it really that surprising that the Pentagon didn't want to get involved with redacting information? If they had their way they would redact the whole thing! By redacting some of it prior to release they would be implicitly approving the release of the rest of it, something which is not absolutely not in their interest.

So why didn't they step in after WikiLeaks had released the information, once it was clear that they were not bluffing, and at least try and mitigate the damage? Probably because they figured the long-term cost of (effectively) being publically blackmailed into declassifying operational information was so great, and they figured they could weather the hit this time and tighten up on information security to reduce the likelihood of the next time. Maybe they were right, maybe not; in any case not relevant to this specific discussion

I'm sorry, but this is just bizarre. Had Assange approached AI before publication asking for help and been rebuffed, you might have almost had a point. There is no suggestion from either side that this occurred. But in any case, why should AI be on the hook (morally or economically) for WikiLeaks's decisions? Because they have more money and are somewhat ideologically sympathetic? The fact that they have a lot of funds does not mean that they keep hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting around in emergency bank accounts to firefight this sort of thing; in fact that would be a pretty irresponsible use of their donors' money. So allocating resources to this would involve taking away from something else. (Quick back-of-the-envelope: 50000 documents at 10 mins each = 6 man-years assuming a 40-hour work week. That is a significant investment of resources for any organisation)

Perhaps that's a worthwhile thing to do; or maybe they think that the benefit that would accrue from it is insufficient to justify cutting the budget to their other projects. The latter doesn't mean that they are the ones acting irresponsibly or immorally. I suspect, in fact, that they recognise it is probably too late to do anything about this disclosure (the bad guys already have the names); perhaps they just want to get Assange to think a little bit carefully next time something like this comes up.

Which is a suggestion he is free to ignore (as are you). His guiding principle seems to be that the long-term benefits of transparency and disclosure are so great that pretty much any short term price is worth paying. I happen to disagree very strongly with this, but it's a legitimate opinion. According to this theory, given he did not have the resources available to adequately redact the documents, releasing them unredacted was the correct decision, and he should have answered thus to AI's expression of concern.

If you believe the benefits of release fall short of the potential damage, Assange made a grave error in releasing the documents regardless. He did, not Amnesty. Blaming Amnesty for not coming around and picking up the litter he threw all over the street is childish and unproductive

Freedom of speech is not an absolute. Actually I think this is an even better example than the classic "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" exactly because it's a lot more subtle. How much do you need to redact to indict those who are guilty and still protect those who are innocent? Well, you can't even begin to answer that without starting to make some moral judgements (who is "guilty" or "innocent" here?). WikiLeaks's theory is that they can avoid such subjectivity by simply publishing everything and letting the community figure out how reliable the information is. But it's wrong to think that strategy his devoid of subjective bias - it rests on the axiom that the truth is more important than any number of human lives. Perhaps you agree with that. I don't, and nor do I think the majority of people

Warning against a future atrocity is not the same as sanctioning a past one.

You only need one.

I don't think it's reasonable to place the moral responsibility for this on Amnesty. It was not their decision to publish these documents, their only involvement is flagging up the potentially dire consequences for informants and their families. Sure, they may decide that the benefits of having the leaked documents in the public domain is sufficient to commit (presumably) a significant amount of their (finite) manpower and funds to making them safe, but for Assange to publically blackmail them into doing seems absolutely wrong, and sets a very dangerous precedent.

If he wants to publish and be damned, he's welcome to do so - but he should then shoulder the responsibility for the consequences, not try to pin it on an uninvolved party.

OK so....

1. WikiLeaks: We intend to publish this information
2. Amnesty: FYI, that will put a lot of people's lives in danger
3. WikiLeaks: Not our problem, freedom of information trumps everything. BTW, you seem to have plenty of money and probably have nothing better to spend it on, so I'm going to attempt to pin the moral responsibility for not mitigating the damage that our unilateral decision will cause right back on you
4. Amnesty...

Yes I see Assange's point now, AI are indeed only about covering their own arses

Well, 38 Degrees claimed that he 'probably' got an average of 2 e-mails a day since the election - but says nothing about the distribution. That could be nearly 200 in one day, which does actually seem like a pretty unreasonable load (especially if it could be repeated an any point, whenever 38 Degrees gets a new bee in their bonnet

And bear in mind he hasn't prevented people contacting him on-line: a few seconds Googling will turn up his blog with an e-mail contact form. That's not a very high bar to reaching him if you actually care about an issue (especially for the sort of demographic which frequents sites such as 38 Degrees

According to your article (the Google translation anyway, sorry don't read Dutch) the city officials claimed that his letters crossed the line from civil complaints about the issue to actual threats against individuals. It doesn't seem at all unreasonable for personal threats to land you with a one-way ticket to jail...

According to a fairly respected source 19.1% of US government spending is on healthcare, as against 16.5% in the UK and 17.9% in Canada, for a similar standard of healthcare (notwithstanding Giuliani's witterings last year). And yes, I know that to an extent this is comparing apples to oranges, but I find this assumption that 'socialized' healthcare is necessarily more expensive to the taxpayer than your current half-cocked system more than a little ill-founded.

OK. Again, I won't comment on the Canadian case because I don't know enough about their healthcare system. But I'd urge you to reread the Guardian article that you linked:

In other words, if you want drugs which are not approved on the NHS, you can go to one of the many private hospitals around the country - but you can no longer pay out-of-pocket for then from an NHS ward. So if you want to go it alone, you can no longer get your treatment subsidized by the NHS. But if you don't, or can't, you still get world-class healthcare

And if you look further down in the article, you see that the government is also trying to reform the way that Nice (the drugs approval board for the NHS, which has nothing to do with drugs available privately) works so that fewer patients are forced to make that choice in the first place

Look, I know as well as anyone that the NHS has it's problems. And I know that simply transplanting the NHS over to the US would never work. And if you want to argue against government-funded healthcare over there, fine - but please don't spread misinformation about ours to make a point!

Citation please? Don't know about Canada but in the UK there is a thriving private healthcare industry, particularly for elective procedures, for people who don't want to wait to get to the top of an NHS waiting list. Nobody is stopping you paying out of pocket, or indeed for private insurance, if you can afford it.

The difference is, if you can't afford it, you'll still get all the treatment you need. You won't be discharged as soon as you've been stabilized in A&E. And you won't subsequently be bankrupted by medical bills.