[Noisebridge-discuss] Jacob Applebaum detained upon arriving in U.S.

[Quinn Norton]

On Aug 2, 2010, at 4:45 PM, Curly Wurly wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Quinn Norton <quinn at quinnnorton.com> wrote:
> 
>> yes, journalists wrestle with this sort of thing, but sometimes even in more straightforward journalism you decide that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
> 
> In other words, the end justifies the means. 

no, that's not what that means. precision in language is very important to me. thanks for playing. 

what i meant was you're faced with a choice, and things will be fucked up either way. sometimes you have to decide who you're going to hurt, not whether you're going to hurt someone. make no mistake-- there's no such thing as a neutral decision. with some stories you're going to have a political effect no matter what you choose. pretending that, for instance, holding the news that the president has illegally wiretapped all of the nation after an election depoliticizes the story is lying to yourself and the electorate. you took a side, and that side was against the public's right to know in an election year. 

> Why do journalists think
> they have that right?

ha! oh yeah, we're all the high wizards of morality with all the fucking answers, sure. that's why, when i've run something i know might upset or hurt a friend i've sat around shaking and feeling like throwing up in my own lap. how about some hacker comes and tell you something, on the record, and you know it's going to upset someone you care about. what do you do? you run it, because you're a fucking journalist, and the only one in the whole stupid fucking social contract with an explicit duty to the public's right to know. and yes, you have to decide. you don't get to not decide. it's not like keeping it to yourself is not deciding. so you try like hell to work out what the right thing to do is, and you go with it. and no matter what you do somebody's going to think you're a high and mighty asshole.

did you know, by profession, journalism has one of the highest rates of alcoholism around? 

> Instead of looking at the larger issue of the wars in total, the
> reductionist in me boils it down to these assumptions:
> 
> 1.) Assume there's a great injustice in the world.
> 2.) Assume I have a document, which when published could end that injustice.
> 3.) Assume that publishing the document will result in the execution
> of John and Jane Doe.

i don't actually have the option of pretending my work happens in a vacuum. if i had something like the apache vid, i would have to balance revealing the rules of engagement against those rules of engagement causing ridiculously casual death of innocents. some people would say: 'i value american lives more' and would conceal the vid, and have the blood of civilians on their hands. others would say 'i value the lives of civilians, regardless of nationality, more' and would reveal the vid, possibly having the blood of soldiers on their hands. i am in the latter category. i respect the former, i don't agree with them, but i respect them. what i don't agree with is someone who thinks they get out of it completely by ignoring either group. it's bloody business.

> I wouldn't publish it.

so you'd rather have the blood of civilians on your hands. that's fine, just own it. 

> If you take a holistic view and pull in justifications such as how
> unjust point 1 is, I think the debate gets cloudy.  Sticking with this
> reductionist exposition, would anyone choose to publish it?

because we live in the real world?

> 
>> there was also a danger of discovery which each and every person who worked with the occupiers, and it's the job of the US MIL to have alternative plans to get all of those people and their families out of danger.
> 
> I agree.

yeah, but i also know they won't take care of them. it would be my, or in this case, wikileaks' responsibility to factor that in, as far as possible. i think they're trying to do that, but they're new to this. they would do well to be a bit more fucking transparent about it, though. at the very least they should be publishing an ongoing guide to making your own wikileaks. 

q