Frontline Club/New Statesman - Debate on Whistleblowing and WikiLeaks

Frontline Club and New Statesman debating the motion "This house believes whistleblowers make the world a safer place."

Event was held at Kensington Town Hall, 9 April 2011.

Proposition:
Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks
Clayton Swisher, head of Al-Jazeera's Transparency Unit
Mehdi Hasan, senior political editor, New Statesman

Opposition:
Sir David Richmond, former director, defence and intelligence, British Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Bob Ayers, former director of the US Department of Defence Information Systems Security Programme
Douglas Murray, author and political commentator

Also participating: former MI5 whistleblower Annie Machon and HBOS whistleblower Paul Moore.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• WikiLeaks
• Julian
• Assange
• Frontline
• Club
• Whistleblowing
• New
• Statesman

[bahdahdoop]

@MissAPierce Agreed. Had Assange been left alone with Murray on that stage, he would have been completely exposed as the dimwit he is. Murray absolutely obliterated him.

[bahdahdoop]

@bahdahdoop *gay

[bahdahdoop]

I wish i were fay just so I could date Douglas Murray. He made everyone on that panel look like idiots.

[firewallbsd]

It's amazing how the opposing side sets up straw men.

[CheekyVimto08]

I find the conceptual analysis of leaking to be wholly misleading. Bob Ayers wants to go directly from, 'we have a group of words about leakers' to 'yes leaking is bad.' Obviously we use those words 'snitch' and 'traitor'. These themselves are the things in question. Just pointing to them as an argument winner seems downright dopey.

[MissAPierce]

I agree with MattSingh1; the number of panelists was heavily unbalanced, the moderator allowed Murray's speech to be constantly interrupted by Assange & co. and orchestrated last-word rebuttals from the pro-side. It's so obviously biased that one wonders why they even bothered with the pretense of a formal debate structure.

And it's lucky for Assange that most of his public communication is written, because his halting, underwhelming speech makes him come across as rather dim.

[MattSingh1]

This debate format was/is a mess. An entertaining mess, but a mess all the same. Doesn't help when the liberal side of the house just can't keep their emotions in check and just HAVE to indulge said emotions.