Didn't the Guardian Run Wikileaks?

[Swedes2]

Wikileaks were obtained by hacking, which is illegal.

[DuelingFanjo]

did they? hang on, I'll look it up on wikipedia....

[DuelingFanjo]

appears not.

though they along with several other papers including the NY times have published things revealed by wiki-leaks. Is that where you are getting confused?

[SinicalSal]

TRue.

But the stuff of wikileaks is of public interest, public matters as discussed by public representatives (diplomatic cables from US embassy) Not the private business of private citizens, who in many cases had been violated enough.

[Swedes2]

Yes, the Guardian did run Wikileaks.

So are the Guardian saying hacking is sometimes permissible?

[David34]

The Guardian are a bunch of hypocrites, everyone knows that.

[bkgirl]

are you a journalist Sweded2?

[NerfHerder]

Maybe they thought the information was that released by whistleblowers rather than hackers?

[NerfHerder]

Bkgirl- swedes is not a journo, long time poster, rarely seen these days though

[chipstick10]

The Guardian brings me out in hives.

[bkgirl]

It is a fair point you can't really differentiate can you, however at least the Guardian has made attempts to reveal all this.....my oh just said "you know the way those websites like TMZ get stories...very quickly. How do you think they do that? Could this extend stateside?" Er I dunno...anyone?

[animula]

I think their defence was that it was already in the public domain (having been published on internet) and some (tenuous) public interest thing. Most papers are printing the hack-derived NoTW stories now - also defended by fact it's already out there.

It would be a step or two further on if Guardian had a. been first to publish wikileaks information, having purchased it direct, and knowingly, from the hacker b. had created a situation where hacker knew there was a market for the information in the Guardian, and therefore set out to hack with intent of then selling to Guardian c. had commissioned the act of hacking.

(I don't think those steps have been proved to have been the case at the NoTW as an insititution.)

[LucaBrasi]

Leaks, not hacking. Might be stolen yes, by people with a
conscience / "conscience" (if that is your interpretation). Prove that Wikileaks are based on hacking aka NOTW et all and yes, you have a case.

And wikileaks is not for profit.

[PirateDinosaur]

Do you mean "run Wikileaks" as in "reprint the information that Wikileaks had already placed in the public domain"?

[blueshoes]

Wikileaks gave the information to 5 newspapers to print or do with what they wished, of which the Guardian was one.

There were about 2,500 diplomatic cables all in all, so Guardian would not have been able to print all of them.

[beanlet]

If your back's to the corner, play the man not the ball. The pointy eared ones do appear to be poking their snouts above the parapet tonight.

[DuelingFanjo]

oh right, by 'run' you mean publish.

not 'own'

doh.

[BornSicky]

not hacking

[Swedes2]

Some of the wikileaks information was obtained by hacking (not necessarily by wikileaks themselves) and most wikileaks information is illegally obtained by whatever means.

beanlet - nice.

Hello to you lovely people who remember me but beanlet has just reminded me why I no longer post.

[LucaBrasi]

Why? Because you can't argue your case?

[animula]

I was a bit over the wikileaks re-prints, to be honest.

Sorry - not very fulsome response, am about to embark on mammoth washing-up session.

[BornSicky]

with lucabrasi

come on swedes2 let's have your big scoop!

[animula]

Oh - and hello Swedes2. Don't disappear. It's a fair point. The wikileaks thing in the Guradian had a faint whiff of Guardian-style prurience to it, surely? Not prurience a la tabloids (which would be re-printing a salacious story) but re-printing all this information.

[tralalala]

not but they did out the NOTW

[animula]

Actually, sod the washing-up for a minute. What I mean is something like this:

Newspapers like NoTW trade on giving readers a fantasy of intimacy with celebrities and glamour, information about that intimacy, with a touch of shadenfreude. Guardian, and others, trade on fantasy of giving intimacy with power, being "in the loop", and information about that. Wikileaks stuff was that distilled.

Though I guess you could say their journalists waded through the mountains of stuff so that the readers didn't have to.

[teej]

Swede2 - as sinical said earlier and from what well-informed commentators have said over the past days, hacking wrt dodgy dossiers or mp's expenses could be defended in a court of law because of public interest. And I would imagine a good proportion of Wikileaks could be deemed to fall into that space.
There is just no defending hacking Milly Dowler, relatives of war dead, relatives of 7/7 victims, 9/11 victims and so on. It's pure emotional vampirism imho.