wikileaks

[zeban]

Bloody hell I've never agreed with Huguenot more! HELP!::o

[Keef]

What Huguenot said, exactly what he said! Just to add, that the people on here calling for absolute transparency, seem to think that the public overall are intelligent. If that were the case, Rupert Murdoch would be skint.

[mockney piers]

But plenty are intelligent. Why should they be lied so often to just because others are believe what their paper tells them to?!

[Huguenot]

I'm not arguing they're not intelligent, I'm arguing that they've got day jobs to do which means they're unlikely to be as well informed as your professional diplomat.

Start sharing the inside story with them, and they're going to expect to have influence on events. They'll be basing their decisions on half baked news stories, popular prejudice, greed, high falutin' principles etc. etc.

In fact the country is more likely to be run on the basis of extremist points of view - because they're the ones rioting when things don't go their way.

Take California as an example, by giving the people the right to vote on taxation issues, they ended up in a situation where the population kept voting for tax cuts whilst only approving spending rises. As a result the world's fourth largest economy is bankrupt.

That wasn't bright, it's popular politics.

[Keef]

Why should they be lied so often to just because others are believe what their paper tells them to?!

I'm not saying people should be openly lied to, as in told an untruth. I am, however, saying that people don't need to know everything. Which I guess you could call a lie by omission, if you were being pedantic.

[????]

I don't know. In principle Wikkileaks is great and needed. He's a very odd fellow when I've seen and read his interviews. I think he's extremley narcisstic and clearly some senior colleagues at Wikkileaks aslo were feeling uncomfortable about the direction the organisation was going. The rape thing I dunno, but reading that idiot Johan Hari or whatever his name is now trying to on one hand raise him as a hero but on the other hand make sure he wasn't worshipping a rapists was a hysterical excercise in PC gone mad, life is all black and white lefty madness

[Santerme]

Huguenot, I wish I had written that....well put!

[mockney piers]

I don't think transparency means everything being published. It's too expensive and too much information* can be as bad as too little.

But increased transparency makes for better government.

Huguenot's argument about California is non sequitur, as constitutional change does not follow increased transparency.

What I'm trying to get at is that government is far too often partisan, corrupt and quite simply incompetent without being brought to book because burying or classifying information is too easy to do.

If you've given a man an early release to secure trade deals, then I have absolutely no idea why that info shouldn't be in the public domain. If there has been ridiculous waste of taxpayers money due to shortsightedness or stupidity I see no reason why an FOI request can be esily pooh poohed to protect the politician or civil servant in question.

These things are in the public interest but don't make it into the public domain except by the work of organisations like wikileaks and private eye. As I said if we had a press capable of doing so I'd be a happier man.

This does not mean we have to be privy to the transcripts of every negotiation or antechamber chat over a glass of shampoo.

What we need is some sanity brought to freedom of information so there can be sanity brought back to government.

It doesn't help that we've just witnessed the most duplicitous government this country has known in the modern era, who have misled the public and even parliament (which I believe is a crime) more times than we care to mention.

If we could count on politicians to bring scruples back to public service I'd be happy with that, but we all know circles tend to be vicious.

Better, more transparent FOI can only help.

*and if we can leave out nuclear facility access codes and military operational stuff, that's not the business of government per se is it. As for the DDay reference it's rather laughable straw man stuff as the only fighting of Germans on beaches these days is for towel space.

[Brendan]

Bullshit a thousand times over. (except for Mockney)

Transparency isn?t about giving the public a direct say in diplomatic negotiations but about making those engaged public work accountable for their actions.

Work on transparency initiatives in all spheres of public funded life are quite well developed. The UK and the World Bank will soon be expecting adherence to a formal transparency agreements in the procurement (basically the negotiating) phases of infrastructure projects they are funding in other countries. The UK is actually politically quite up for imposing transparency processes onto smaller nations. Not too keen on doing them themselves, although that?s perhaps just another predictably disappointing reflection of your national character.

These sorts of things are administrative process which enforce a way of working and could not be applied without modification to ?diplomacy? or politics in general but the precedent is there and they are workable.

There is nothing unreasonable or unworkable about expecting public officials to behave within the law and be honest and open. Nobody is suggesting putting every decision they make up to an X-factor style public vote even if it would make good television.

If you think that you are a realist, a grownup who knows how the world really works and realises that certain things have to be done sometimes etc. you are unfortunately not cleverer or more insightful than the idealistic child you so scorn. The fact is you have just bought a bigger lie and gulped down every chunk.

I won?t even go into the general unpleasantness of the sentiment it expresses.

Anyway from my obviously naive and uniformed point of view the higher the stakes and the greater the public is at risk from dishonest or downright malevolent officials the greater the need for accountability. As the points I raised in my previous point demonstrate very clearly.

[louisiana]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm not arguing they're not intelligent, I'm

> arguing that they've got day jobs to do which

> means they're unlikely to be as well informed as

> your professional diplomat.

>

> Start sharing the inside story with them, and

> they're going to expect to have influence on

> events. They'll be basing their decisions on half

> baked news stories, popular prejudice, greed,

Ah, so nothing like Prince Andrew then?

[Dickensman]

mockney piers wrote:- It doesn't help that we've just witnessed the most duplicitous government this country has known in the modern era, who have misled the public and even parliament (which I believe is a crime) more times than we care to mention.

I hate defending any government, but in fact we do not know whether this or the previous government is the most duplicitous of recent years, it is only that they have been caught with their 'fingers in the till',

and not at the tiller.

Thanks to an American reporter, who has had little acclaim for her effect on the British political system,

but to my mind she has done us all (except for the sticky fingered politicians) a great service.

[louisiana]

Heather.

She's great.

:-)

[SeanMacGabhann]

summat about kettling tomorrow apparently.

or maybe just kettles

[Dickensman]

I feel most affronted at the various governments trying to strong arm wikileaks,

just as I would feel most indignant if someone tried to stop this forum from operating and providing

a service the way it does.

[mockney piers]

Indeed dickensman.

As regards your earlier point, it's a tricky one. A huge chunk of history involves not just trying to fill in the gaps or interpret what the gaps might mean, but also working out when gaps are gaps because theres nothing there.

Reading significance into all gaps, well down that road only conspiracy theorists and Donald Rumsfeld madness lies!! ;-)

I think we can all assume that governments are big on omission. We also know that they are big on White lies or misdirection.

I cant see that anyone else has done outright lies quite so much though.

'The Rise of Political Lying' is worth a read. I can only hope that Cameron has read it too and had some thoughts about what the deeper significance of 'heir to Blair' is.

[louisiana]

Dickensman Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I feel most affronted at the various governments

> trying to strong arm wikileaks,

>

> just as I would feel most indignant if someone

> tried to stop this forum from operating and

> providing

>

> a service the way it does.

The interweb being what is it is, sites taken down will often pop up again somewhere else, but often not without considerable hassle. There are many ISPs, there are many countries running their own domain registries...and there is always Bolivia :-S

I am concerned about the situation with payment companies. There are so few of them, and clearly they are easily swayed by a politician or two. To say that someone is doing something illegal, when the basis for that statement is a letter sent between two other parties, and the letter does not make that claim, seems dubious in the extreme.

In the early days of interweb, there was much talk of alternative payment systems, but it's mostly fallen to the usual suspects to run the show; and PayPal is now a giant in the pocket of the US. (I'll be interested to see how Datacell's case with Mastercard pans out.)

Perhaps the issue of payment systems needs to be addressed again. In fact, I maybe the 4chan/Anonymous/Operation Payback crew could do something useful, like build an independent payment system.

[Dickensman]

I would use a wikicard

if only to highlight my position of not being dictated to.

[RosieH]

Sorry, about wikileaks, I care not that much. I think it's good that some things are revealed, other things need to stay secret for diplomacy to work. We can call for transparency, but until the whole world's operating on that level, we're a bit fucked.

BUT BUT BUT, when it comes to the rape charges we're quoting THE DAILY MAIL as a source to say the rape claims are spurious? Bullshit bullshit bullshit. Here are some thoughts on "sex by surprise".

Assange is accused of holding a woman down against her will during a sexual encounter, and of failing to comply with her request that he use a condom during sex. He is accused of having sex with another woman without her consent while she slept ? again without using a condom.

I don't know whether he's guilty or innocent. And nor does anyone reading the Daily Mail (including Naomi Wolf), but it's pretty fucking distasteful to make light of and dismiss serious assault charges.

[zeban]

Absolutely Rosie.

[SeanMacGabhann]

I wasn't quoting the daily fekkin mail earlier

http://bit.ly/fMd6R6

[Dickensman]

I agree Rosie, I disagree with rape too,

but the woman who writes a blog on how to get revenge on boyfriends,

well that's hardly considered to be normal female behaviour.

If she feels like that about men, what is she doing getting into bed with one for any kind of sex?

Her history must make her a trifle suspect in terms of reliability of the statement,

she sounds to me like a man hater.

When it comes to fitting condoms the woman does that as part of the act, because I have never had sex with a woman and

she did not know whether I was wearing one or not, surely every woman has to handle the man to guide him to avoid any

possible clumsyness.

[HAL9000]

I feel a Top Tip coming on.

[Huguenot]

*If you want a woman to claim that you 'held her down' during sex, go on top*

RosieH, I don't think anyone knows what happened. All people know is what they were told.

Both women boasted about their sexual conquest after the event on email, text or twitter. Ardin actually went back and deleted her self-congratulating tweets hours before rocking up at the police station. She didn't know about caching.

Whatever she thinks, that makes her a liar and a manipulator.

I appreciate that she may have been so distressed by the situation that lying may have been part of her coping strategy, but you can't make law on the basis that when your chief witness says something, they actually mean something else.

There's no doubt that Ardin was the chief initiator in this prosecution, she phoned the first girl and 'persuaded' her to lodge a complaint.

The first girl contends that Assange deliberately broke the condom. It may be true, but there'll be no justice if she's found to have imagined the truth.

As with all normal people, I'm devastated that the conviction rate for rape is so low. However if resolving it means altering the burden of proof so that an accused man is found guilty unless proven innocent, I think that's an outrage.

Particularly if, as in this case, the chief prosectuion witness is a liar.

[Dickensman]

The missionary position is no good for a mans possible future defence in court.

Which is a shame.

[????]

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