Julian Assange: To Know Where We Should Be Headed, We Need to Figure Out Where We Are

Julian Assange:

We can all write about our political issues, we can all push for particular things we believe in, we can all have particular brands of politics, but I say actually it's all bankrupt," Assange said. "And the reason it's all bankrupt, and all current political theories are bankrupt and particular lines of political thought, is because actually we don't know what the hell is going on. And until we know the basic structures of our institutions — how they operate in practice, these titanic organizations, how they behave inside, not just through stories but through vast amounts of internal documentations — until we know that, how can we possibly make a diagnosis? How can we set the direction to go until we know where we are? We don't even have a map of where we are. So our first task is to build up a sort of intellectual heritage that describes where we are. And once we know where we are, then we have a hope of setting course for a different direction. Until then, I think all political theories — to greater and lesser extents of course — are bankrupt.

Continue ReadingJulian Assange: To Know Where We Should Be Headed, We Need to Figure Out Where We Are

Electronic Frontier Foundation Priorities for 2017

I’ve followed and supported the work of Electronic Frontier Foundation, and will continue to do so with even more energy in coming months and years in light of recent political events. To be fair, my position would not be much different even had Hillary Clinton been elected. The attacks on digital freedoms seem to be a defect of both Democrats and Republicans, as reflected in this recent statement by EFF:

But as EFF has learned in the course of defending our fundamental rights over four American presidencies, our civil liberties need an independent defense force. Free speech and the rights to privacy, transparency, and innovation won’t survive on their own—we’re here to ensure that government is held accountable and in check. Technological progress does not wait for politicians to catch up, and new tools can quickly be misused by aggressive governments. The next four years will be characterized by rapid developments in the fields of artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, virtual and augmented reality, connected homes, and smart cities. We welcome innovation, but we also expect to see an explosion of surveillance technologies designed to take advantage of our connected world to spy on all of us and our devices, all the time. That data will be used not only to target individuals but to project and manipulate social behavior. What will our digital rights look like during these uncertain and evolving times? Will our current rights remain intact when the baton is passed on once again? What follows in this EFF article is an excellent articulation of priorities and strategies for preserving digital rights of all Americans.

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Julian Assange has been unfairly criticized for failing to curate his disclosures.

Julian Assange has been unfairly criticized for failing to curate his disclosures. Truthdig responds:

"Here’s a question few are asking: Would Assange, who set out to perform the honorable service of exposing government corruption, behave as he does today if he, a single individual with limited resources, had not been relentlessly pursued into the corner of a single room for 5½ years by people atop the most powerful state in civilized history? And can he, under burden of stress and loss of staff, associations and resources, be expected to fulfill the ethical obligations he once honored and still perform the service of making essential, willfully concealed information public?

Continue ReadingJulian Assange has been unfairly criticized for failing to curate his disclosures.

Glenn Greenwald on publishing hacks: The more powerful a person is, the less privacy they have.

Glenn Greenwald set forth 5 principles in this article on The Intercept. The article includes a video discussion with Chris Hayes. One of the principles is this:

Last night, I was on Chris Hayes’s show (video below) discussing the Podesta email leak and made this point, and some people reacted as though this were some bizarre, exotic claim — rather than what it is: the fundamental principle of journalism as well the basis of numerous laws. Of course it’s the case that the more power someone has, the less privacy they have, and every media outlet, literally every day, operates on that principle, as do multiple sectors of law. That there are different standards of privacy for different people based on their power and position is axiomatic. That’s why laws like FOIA requiring disclosure (including of emails) apply only to public officials but not to private citizens: It embraces the proposition that those who wield public power submit to greater transparency than private citizens do. This same principle is why people cheered when the NYT published Trump’s tax return even though they’d be horrified if the NYT published the tax return of ordinary citizens — because people like Trump who wield or seek great political power sacrifice some degree of privacy.
Here are the five principles Greenwald sets forth: 1. A source’s motives are irrelevant in deciding whether to publish 2. Journalists constantly publish material that is stolen or illegally obtained. 3. The more public power someone has, the less privacy they are entitled to claim 4. Whether something is “shocking” or “earth-shattering” is an irrelevant standard 5. All journalists are arbiters of privacy and gatekeepers of information

Continue ReadingGlenn Greenwald on publishing hacks: The more powerful a person is, the less privacy they have.