I've noticed a contradiction

[BainsBane]

86. That post was in response to another member

and rather than reproducing the same thing I simply linked to it. Five years ago was when the Wikileaks dump occurred. That was the top of the search I turned up using the bar at the top of the page. Clearly the argument in those threads is that government secrets are by defintion illegitimate and auithoritarian. Assange's quoted argument is that making evidence open will bring about the unravelling of national security agencies and what he sees as authoritarian states, ours chief among them.

These vast proclamations that "no body said" are ridiculous. You nor everyone reads everything, so you can't claim omnicience. Also you see evidence that peple have indeed said it but dismiss it as "five years ago." Five years ago is part of ever. Those are quotes from several different people.

The Wikileaks dump was undifferentiated. Most people don't know or care what is in many of those documents, but they still support the leak, so much so that they insist Julian Assange not be held accountable for allegations of sexual assault. That entire position is based on the idea that the public has the right to see everyting. I don't see how it's possible to support his actions if one believes otherwise. It's not possible to convincingly claim that all of the documents he released were all about keeping things secret becaue they fear what government will do. Some were the very kind of daily correspondence among State Dept Officials and between State and foreign agencies that people think were unsecured by Secretary Clinton.

If one sees the issue as exclusively about Hillary Clinton personally, then no, they don't go together. Then the only point is to condemn or absolve her, and indeed that is what many care about. However, if the concern is secure government communications and transparency, then they are part of the same issue, especially since we are likely talking about some of the same type of documents.