Wikileaks has been around for less than 3 years. So when I say "long time ago" you have to take it as a figure of speech. I did say I lost respect for them, but I didn't say I lost respect for them as a result of their release of any particular information. I lost respect since they started to claim that they have more than a million documents (2007) waiting to be released, but they can't release it because of lack of funds, specifically for infrastructure costs and had to close the site down. Which they later expanded into legal fees, their website (when they were shut down) showed that their legal fees is being paid by other non-profit organizations and most lawyers are working pro-bono (since they opened up the site I can't find the page or the piece of information). For the love of me I don't understand how they can have an operative cost of €600,000 per year. They never addressed the specifics of their costs.
More WTF, they listed some members in their advisory boards (including Noam Chomsky), who didn't even know that they were members of wikileaks advisory board. [1]
There are quite a few things about wiki-leaks that doesn't make sense or add up, and perhaps the nature of their work creates some discrepancies in information about their work, but that shouldn't take away anything from some of the valuable leaks that came from wikileaks.
Two rules I try to apply in my life.
1) Be skeptical of anyone and everyone. Everyone is biased and everyone has a motive. "Who watches the watchmen"?
2) Don't put anyone in unrealistic moral standard. Avoid "herofication" of individuals or an organization. Humans are fallible.
More WTF, they listed some members in their advisory boards (including Noam Chomsky), who didn't even know that they were members of wikileaks advisory board. [1]
There are quite a few things about wiki-leaks that doesn't make sense or add up, and perhaps the nature of their work creates some discrepancies in information about their work, but that shouldn't take away anything from some of the valuable leaks that came from wikileaks.
Two rules I try to apply in my life.
1) Be skeptical of anyone and everyone. Everyone is biased and everyone has a motive. "Who watches the watchmen"?
2) Don't put anyone in unrealistic moral standard. Avoid "herofication" of individuals or an organization. Humans are fallible.
[1] http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/04/wikileaks-julian-ass...