Wikileaks motivation and the politics of its founders are somewhat of a red herring so long as they simply make documents available verbatim, leaving commentary to others. I would prefer it if there were 5 or 10 wikileaks to to balance the effect of this power being concentrated, but one step at a time.
Meanwhile the immediate effects of breaking down secrecy are potentially volatile. For example, Iraeli papers are currently running stories about Israel coordinating with the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. Anyone following ME politics knows that (a) this is almost certainly true. (b) proof of its truth will play to the hands of the anti-compromise, theocratic elements in that region.
Similarly, Arab States (eg Saudi Arabia) supported US invasion of Iran. Similarly unsurprising. Similarly bolstering of anti-compromise, theocratic elements.
My reading is that both of these are bad.
The long term effects are more difficult to gauge. But I think they will be positive. Basically, governments will have to align their private policies more closely to their public ones.
"Wikileaks motivation and the politics of its founders are somewhat of a red herring so long as they simply make documents available verbatim, leaving commentary to others."
The choice of which documents to leak, when, and in what context is in itself a form of commentary. Drudge is a master of this: his website consists of nothing but headlines and a few pictures, and yet he is constantly accused of various biases.
I don't think the politics are immaterial. They may influence in exactly that way. Reporters, news shows and everything else has biases. When it's an opinion article, that bias is the central component. When it's fact based reporting the bias is a smaller component.
The context here is "WikiLeaks’s continued and reckless pursuit of classified document disclosures seems to have much more to do with the proclivities of the organization’s founder, and very little to do with building knowledge or improving democratic discourse." and "by continuing to analyze new disclosures I am tacitly supporting this."
I think that the above is somewhat of a red herring considering that we are talking about source documents released verbatim. How could wikileaks' bias come in to play? Withholding documents where people sound good? Withholding documents where the "other side" sounds bad?
"How could wikileaks' bias come in to play? Withholding documents where people sound good? Withholding documents where the "other side" sounds bad?"
Those are two really good examples. Is he doing this? I really can't tell. For every "bad" or "good" docment he releases, there could easily be others that are event "better" or "worse."
More importantly, he choses whose documents to leak. Lots of classified U.S. documents in there. Where are the classified documents from other nations?
As I mentioned, there are other factors besides which documents are released: the timing and context of the releases also matters greatly. The mere fact that highly sensitive diplomatic wires were leaked will have a negative impact on all of our current diplomatic efforts, regardless of the actual contents. Diplomats who don't feel confident of confidentiality will be much less likely to speak frankly. Is it that hard to imagine that this release was timed to derail a particular diplomatic effort?
In relation to your quote from OP, I think that the single biggest indicator to support OP's position is Assange himself: he has a history of making provocative remarks which demonstrate a clear hostility towards the United States, or at least the U.S. government. It's hard for me to believe that this animosity isn't having a profound effect on his priorities. If nothing else, I get the definite vibe that this latest batch was released primarily for the reason of jabbing his thumb in Washington's eye.
I wasn't claiming that it invalidated anything. I was claiming that it was an expression of his biases.
I will say this, though: it is entirely conceivable that "document X" provides context that completely changes the significance of "document Y." Deliberately withholding that context is therefore a form of dishonesty.
Meanwhile the immediate effects of breaking down secrecy are potentially volatile. For example, Iraeli papers are currently running stories about Israel coordinating with the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. Anyone following ME politics knows that (a) this is almost certainly true. (b) proof of its truth will play to the hands of the anti-compromise, theocratic elements in that region.
Similarly, Arab States (eg Saudi Arabia) supported US invasion of Iran. Similarly unsurprising. Similarly bolstering of anti-compromise, theocratic elements.
My reading is that both of these are bad.
The long term effects are more difficult to gauge. But I think they will be positive. Basically, governments will have to align their private policies more closely to their public ones.