Don't agree with that at all.
It's not like Wikileaks simply gets info and then sells it on, they have to painstakingly make sure that each document is legit and then redacting personal info. Sure it may be a high valuation, but they're the ones taking risks against what are effectively nation states and their security services.
In it's simplest terms it's only slightly different from an investigative journalist protecting his hard work against unauthorised publication (plagiarism).
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mr.dogshit The world's premier anthropomorphic canine faeces, Wed 11 May 2011, 19:26,
Reply)
Well...
... Don't you find the idea of placing such an extensive (and unenforceable) gagging order on the employees of an organisation that is supposedly devoted to the dissemination of information just a little bit, um, ironic?
Don't you think that it stinks that Wikileaks presents itself as working pro bono publico at the same time as explicitly spelling out its commercialism (as in para. E(a) of the document)?
Don't you wonder how they can be so sure that all their information has a market value of £12m?
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 11 May 2011, 19:36,
Reply)
1st point - No, not at all. Doing what they do, and employing people to do it while ensuring their safety, isn't free.
2nd point - I would take a guess that part of their need to turn to commercialisation, other than their own living costs etc., would be "persuading" potential whistle blowers to blow their whistles (look at Bradley Manning) while also having enough financial clout to guarantee that they themselves have a formidable legal backup when necessary.
3rd point - I'm wearing a pair of jeans that I really like, I don't want to lose them... if YOU wanted to buy them off me I wouldn't take any less than £15 billion. Don't like my overinflated valuation for a pair of £90 Papfar jeans? Tough shit. Although to make my analogy fit more accurately; these jeans are one-of-a-kind, potentially contain evidence for the deaths of XX amount of people and the CIA, KGB and MI5 all would love to steal them themselves and burn them.
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mr.dogshit The world's premier anthropomorphic canine faeces, Wed 11 May 2011, 19:49,
Reply)
I accept it's not free
and they possibly do have to sell their information to stay afloat. However, that's somewhat at odds with their representation of themselves as disinterested defenders of the public good; it means that they're simply a kind of information broker - a middleman between the person who has the information, and the person who wants it. (Does Wikileaks give the people who leak them information a dividend based on its value? I'm not sure. If they do, then they are basically a brokerage - which is fine, but they should be upfront about it. If they don't, then it looks like they're horrible exploitative of the people who actually take the risks.)
Now, they might want to charge to provide legal cover and so on; but presumably, that'd be factored into the price that they charge the media outlets to which they sell information. It's not obvious why it'd justify a gag on employees. In rather the same way, a shopkeeper will want to insure against theft, and the price of this insurance will be part of the cost paid by the consumer. She wouldn't normally have to threaten employees with a strangely precise and undiscriminating bond of their own in addition.
And in respect of your DNA-laced jeans analogy: well, if I don't want to pay your price, I don't have to. I'm assuming you don't want to sell them, so you can set any notional price you want. Wikileaks, on the other hand, presumably does want to sell what it has. By appealing to the market value, though, that means that they lose any entitlement to dictate the price. They can try to, as would any other seller; but in the end, information (or any other good) is only worth what people are willing to sell. And you don't know what that'll be in advance.
Also, you pay too much for your trousers.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 11 May 2011, 20:05,
Reply)
They take no risks... all the US iraq/Afghan leaks saw one man in prison
and wikileaks stand there watching him being hung out to dry... betcha can't name him without a google.
(, Wed 11 May 2011, 22:41, Reply)