WIKILEAKS history insurance.

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  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    And Eric Holder is pursuing criminal charges.....the soldier who originally stole the U.S. info may be the fall guy there.

  • white_teawhite_tea 3,262 Posts
    As far as the corporate documents go -- I, like most people, would love to see more information about its inner workings but Wikileaks announcement that the corporate world is next is nothing more than damage control. They know opinion is pretty mixed on the diplomatic doc dump (but the shit was just too juicy) and don't want to turn everyone against them.

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    white_tea said:
    bassie said:
    Not to mention there are others that can easily take his place.
    Nothing to say the man doesn't have a back-up plan.

    Right, this is the thing. Pandora's Box has been cracked into pieces. The only positive I can see is the secrets released are RELATIVELY benign and that the diplomatic community will put in safeguards to HELP prevent another such dump. Certainly the game has been changed and not for the better.

    Id say that the game has evolved.

    A thousand times faster than those who play and control the game would have liked, but the great game like all others, has to adapt to the 21st century playing field.

    The short term effects for sure will not be for the better, but i think this shake up was needed. In the longterm, this will be looked back on as a valuable lesson that was learned with minimal damage.

    I recently finished Peter Wright's Spycatcher, a book i can heartily recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in spying and diplomatic shenanagins.

    Crazy times we live in, this is history right here.

  • Rockadelic said:
    And Eric Holder is pursuing criminal charges.....the soldier who originally stole the U.S. info may be the fall guy there.

    Seeing as it's Holder I'm sure the guy will be tried in Traffic Court and have points deducted from his license.


  • SPlDEYSPlDEY Vegas 3,375 Posts
    From purely a hacking perspective. This is probably the most exciting thing to happen in the news in a long time.



    On a more human level, the repercussions of this could be devastating.

    Either way, It's all very interesting.



    - spidey

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,896 Posts
    bassie said:

    Agreed. Many municipalities are moving to much more open & transparent access and I wish our governments would follow.

    I think there is a thirst by many for news agencies to start doing the news again. Many have decreased actually doing this and instead rely on news agency services and not doing major investigations. Owned by corporation who are far more concerned with stock prices that they have become more entertainment shops passing off stories on a lot of shit which doesn't come anywhere close to being news. Or writing articles which in reality are nothing more than advertising for product brands.

    BTW, What ever happened with the Pentagon paper leaks from the 70's?

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    DOR said:
    bassie said:

    Agreed. Many municipalities are moving to much more open & transparent access and I wish our governments would follow.

    I think there is a thirst by many for news agencies to start doing the news again. Many have decreased actually doing this and instead rely on news agency services and not doing major investigations. Owned by corporation who are far more concerned with stock prices that they have become more entertainment shops passing off stories on a lot of shit which doesn't come anywhere close to being news. Or writing articles which in reality are nothing more than advertising for product brands.

    BTW, What ever happened with the Pentagon paper leaks from the 70's?

    I don't recall the whole history.
    Daniel Ellsburg was the leaker. He was a weapons analyst I believe.
    The papers were eventually published and the book was a best seller.
    Ellsburg's career was destroyed.

    Which brings up the point that this is just an other change in how we get our news.

    In the 40s and earlier politicians, athletes and celebrities, were shield by the press.
    Divorces, drinking, sexual exploits and personal lives in general were off limits to the press.
    Roosevelt was never photographed in his wheelchair.

    Things started to loosen up, in the early 60s or so muckraking took off with journalists like Jack Anderson.
    When the Pentagon papers were released it was a huge deal. The government was lying on the one hand, someone had published military secrets on the other. Both were big news.

    Things continued to loosen up leading to the death of Princess Di, and now wikileaks.
    Not that they are the same, but they kind of are.
    Both come from our belief that we should know everything.

    Somethings lost, somethings gained. It's a good thing.

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    An additional problem no one here, at my count, has brought up: who polices the police? Assange has no higher court. His information could ostensibly topple governments, yet their lifespan and the fate of potentially millions of jobs and lives is realistically in his hands. Who's to say that his capriciousness will continue to fall into the Benevolent or merely Mildly Malicious categories? And what he has spawned - independent people hosting information dumps - could be potentially disastrous. You don't think that hundreds of other cum-Assanges with evil smiles aren't relishing the opportunity to take his mantle? He's the Shawn Fanning of Leak sites.

    Additionally, why is he focusing solely on taking apart the US piece by piece? Because it massages his ego. Unmasking Iran or North Korea would be an undoubtedly better use of his time - those regimes do not operate even under the pretense of fair electoral process. First thing first, right? Assange used to take down foreign countries with accountability issues, but now he's just masturbating. As I said above, I'm all for whistleblowers. But much of this smells like petulant demagoguery for the global lulz. Once a kid hacker, always a kid hacker.

  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    Everyone already knows full well that North Korea and Iran are mad faulty. Dude is obviously addressing those who still, despite tons of evidence that hardly needs to come from a sneaky leak, buy into the facade of a superior United States.

    Someone above recommended not outing US banks for their trickery as it may topple the US economy. Sorry, but that ship has long since sailed away with all of our wealth and industry.

    Information shouldn't be so threatening...that is, if it's actually the truth.

    Seriously, quit protecting absolute criminals with your mere hope that such clean cut guys would never actually rip you and the rest of the world off.

    The system needs to be toppled in order to start anew.

  • bassiebassie 11,710 Posts
    luck said:

    Additionally, why is he focusing solely on taking apart the US piece by piece? Because it massages his ego. Unmasking Iran or North Korea would be an undoubtedly better use of his time - those regimes do not operate even under the pretense of fair electoral process. First thing first, right? Assange used to take down foreign countries with accountability issues, but now he's just masturbating. As I said above, I'm all for whistleblowers. But much of this smells like petulant demagoguery for the global lulz. Once a kid hacker, always a kid hacker.

    As far as Iran is concerned - what is there to unmask? Is there one government left that trusts Iran?
    Vats of blood don't hold the Iranian leaders accountable, how will some leaked documents?
    It's not like Iran is pretending to be about something it's not. (yea, yea, I know - "no gays in Iran", it's a dead horse flogged to its second death)

    It might massage Assange's ego, but he's attempting to keep the American one in check.

    I haven't read too much on Assange, I find the leaks more interesting than the man behind them.
    I don't know his (stated) motives, but my impression is that he doesn't care about jobs lost, lives in danger, etc. - and please correct me if I'm wrong - but that anyone is who is in the 'system' and benefitting from the system, deserves to be taken down.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    luck said:
    An additional problem no one here, at my count, has brought up: who polices the police? Assange has no higher court. His information could ostensibly topple governments, yet their lifespan and the fate of potentially millions of jobs and lives is realistically in his hands. Who's to say that his capriciousness will continue to fall into the Benevolent or merely Mildly Malicious categories? And what he has spawned - independent people hosting information dumps - could be potentially disastrous. You don't think that hundreds of other cum-Assanges with evil smiles aren't relishing the opportunity to take his mantle? He's the Shawn Fanning of Leak sites.

    Additionally, why is he focusing solely on taking apart the US piece by piece? Because it massages his ego. Unmasking Iran or North Korea would be an undoubtedly better use of his time - those regimes do not operate even under the pretense of fair electoral process. First thing first, right? Assange used to take down foreign countries with accountability issues, but now he's just masturbating. As I said above, I'm all for whistleblowers. But much of this smells like petulant demagoguery for the global lulz. Once a kid hacker, always a kid hacker.

    I was kinda addressing this above. We were both typing at the same time I think.

    Wikileaks is the reality we are living with. At it's best it keeps governments and business honest.
    Mostly it publishes a lot of gossip.
    Potentially, as you point out, it could do great damage, just like the paparazzi who chased Di to her death.

    The alternative is less access.

  • nzshadownzshadow 5,518 Posts
    LaserWolf said:

    Potentially, as you point out, it could do great damage, just like the paparazzi who chased Di to her death.


    Prince Phillip is hardly paparazzi



























    I keed, i keed.

  • thropethrope 750 Posts
    rootlesscosmo said:
    S.C.A.M.

    :comedy_gold:

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    HarveyCanal said:
    Everyone already knows full well that North Korea and Iran are mad faulty. Dude is obviously addressing those who still, despite tons of evidence that hardly needs to come from a sneaky leak, buy into the facade of a superior United States.

    I think that there still remain potentially shocking verities that a literally religious following within Iran (and, really, North Korea, in a manner of speaking) would be quite interested to learn. Stuff that might take down literal dictatorships and not simply aggrandized, red-tape be-crippled representative republics. Assange already attacked Mugabe and singed that imbecile's standing. Why not actually deal with rogue nations or actual black-site US atrocities (I believe in these as well as you do) instead of letting the world know what certain first-world consignatories really think of each other, which only stands to hamper the process of - here it comes - necessary Statecraft?

    HarveyCanal said:
    Information shouldn't be so threatening...that is, if it's actually the truth.

    Seriously, quit protecting absolute criminals with your mere hope that such clean cut guys would never actually rip you and the rest of the world off.

    That's Cop Logic, dude. "As long as you aren't doing anything wrong, why not consent to an Bill-Of-Rights-flouting traffic stop/beatdown or TSA nude-o-scope/public groping?" See that? Either way, two wrongs don't make a right, and I'm surprised to hear you think that way. As I wrote above, publishing international diplomatic process - and through a cable-limited scope, mind you - is not "liberating truth," or however you or Zack De La Rocha might phrase it. I'm all for the disclosure of wrongdoing, which I have established. Yet helping the world, I'm sorry to say, is not simply achieved by putting all the potentially criminal whitecollars in jail. At that point, you've dealt with one set of problems at best, yet human nature dictates that another set will crop up to helpfully take their place as the power vacuum inevitably begs for satiation. Frankly, what makes you think that vague, wide-spectrum decentralization will do anything but make things worse?

    HarveyCanal said:
    The system needs to be toppled in order to start anew.

    How recklessly indistinct a proposal. Toppled by whom, by which means, at whose expense, and in whose favor? I don't trust Assange's motives for my life any more than I do our Governement's. But i didn't elect Assange to be the Judge Dredd of the United States, and neither did you.

    Dude even metaphorically dyed his white hair muddy brown. Follow the salon money. [/facetious]

  • Options
    Horseleech said:
    Rockadelic said:
    And Eric Holder is pursuing criminal charges.....the soldier who originally stole the U.S. info may be the fall guy there.

    Seeing as it's Holder I'm sure the guy will be tried in Traffic Court and have points deducted from his license.

    That sounds about right to me. Though even that might be too severe.

    I've been observing all the hoohah over the Wikileaks dumps and I find myself being unable to give a shit about any of it. I haven't seen a single "revelation" in any of it that surprised me or seemed all that damaging.

    And the government's practice of making almost everything "classified" is a joke that deserves to be harpooned. I don't care who's in charge of the government when this sort of well-deserved lancing takes place, either.

    I look forward to seeing Bank of America get fucked up the ass by the next dump, if the rumors are true.

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    BobDesperado said:
    I look forward to seeing Bank of America get fucked up the ass by the next dump, if the rumors are true.

    Zeus knows they deserve it. I only hope that it's actually orchestrated judicially and with respect for the rule of law - two decided weak-points of Assange's personality. I still don't like one man or outfit with that much power - especially a group that has not detailed their means or endgame.

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,896 Posts
    Luck, do citizens of other countries have the right or not to know what the US (Or any country for that matter) is potential up to in their countries? Yes or no?

  • Options
    luck said:
    BobDesperado said:
    I look forward to seeing Bank of America get fucked up the ass by the next dump, if the rumors are true.

    Zeus knows they deserve it. I only hope that it's actually orchestrated judicially and with respect for the rule of law - two decided weak-points of Assange's personality. I still don't like one man or outfit with that much power - especially a group that has not detailed their means or endgame.

    I'm not sure he has all that much power. I think it's the information that has the power, and there is something admirable about the risks he's taking in disseminating this stuff.

    Bank of America has power of a certain kind, and it bothers me more than anything Assange is doing. But then again I think the world of "Rollerball" where multinational corporations run everything is a genuine possibility. The wild card Assange offers might be one way to avoid that.

  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    luck said:
    An additional problem no one here, at my count, has brought up: who polices the police? Assange has no higher court. His information could ostensibly topple governments, yet their lifespan and the fate of potentially millions of jobs and lives is realistically in his hands. Who's to say that his capriciousness will continue to fall into the Benevolent or merely Mildly Malicious categories? And what he has spawned - independent people hosting information dumps - could be potentially disastrous. You don't think that hundreds of other cum-Assanges with evil smiles aren't relishing the opportunity to take his mantle? He's the Shawn Fanning of Leak sites.
    Sorry but this is rather a straw man argument.

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    DOR said:
    Luck, do citizens of other countries have the right or not to know what the US (Or any country for that matter) is potential up to in their countries? Yes or no?

    Your question is far too general to answer with a simple "yes" or "no." In which sense(s) are you speaking? Militarily? Diplomatically? When the NBA is in town? Towards efforts of humanitarian dispensation? Ethics in general? To the end of subverting or breaking international law? Whether Ambassador Smith made sweet love to Ambassador Bendriouch in a Casablancan statehouse restroom while on an "international relations" visit?

    On the penultimate issue, at very least, yes. I've only been speaking for the defense of diplomatic secrets within this thread, and your question seems to attempt to take the discussion to a different (although, I suppose, ultimately logical) level. Look, it's a lot more complicated than you are making it, both for the way the world is and the way the world could be. Ultimately, I'm honestly not smart enough to answer your question (I mean this at face value), because I cannot telegraph its reach and thus weigh all its consequences.

    And let's drop the "potentially." Should folks have the right to know "potentially" about anything? You should, right? But not your neighbors or cops or Government? I believe in actuality and that the violation of basic privacy laws in the effort of finding "potential" misdeeds is a really fucking sticky wicket. I'm okay with whistleblowers and the press following legal channels - they are heroes when they thwart crimes - but I don't trust Julien Assange and his biases with that ultimate say, and I fail to see how it's a "straw man" argument if I call that spade out.

  • OkemOkem 4,617 Posts
    Winning the hearts and minds of SoulStrut one rap at a time.


  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,896 Posts
    luck said:
    I'm okay with whistleblowers and the press following legal channels - they are heroes when they thwart crimes

    I'm not sure I know what you mean by legal channels? Is there any such thing when dealing with the government and the possible criminal acts they do? I can't seem to remember very many whistleblowers who were ever fully supported by the government when truths became known.

    Prefect example recently up here was Richard Colvin. The government went so far as to try prorogation of Parliament to stop things.

    http://fairwhistleblower.ca/cases/richard_colvin

    I mean, don't get me wrong. I wish protection for whistleblowers was lock solid. But in truth it's not. Legal channels are a smoke screen. Very few in the corporate world or government ever get the support they are promised or told they will receive.

  • luck said:
    which only stands to hamper the process of - here it comes - necessary Statecraft?
    LOL - ahh yes. The fine, gentlemanly art of statecraft.

    The 'art' the US was so elegantly using to influence Spanish prosecutors and government officials to head off court investigations into Guant??namo Bay torture allegations, secret CIA "extraordinary rendition" flights and the killing of a Spanish journalist by US troops in Iraq, according to secret US diplomatic cables."

    Now this wikileaky-thing has exposed this, how are we supposed to keep on twisting arms and making threats behind closed doors to get our way?

    white_tea said:
    As far as the corporate documents go -- I, like most people, would love to see more information about its inner workings but Wikileaks announcement that the corporate world is next is nothing more than damage control. They know opinion is pretty mixed on the diplomatic doc dump (but the shit was just too juicy) and don't want to turn everyone against them.
    Who's opinion? A lot of really important information has been exposed if you read beyond the juicier headlines. And maybe a bit less of the US's bs will continue to be cosigned by other world leaders after this 'embarrassment'.

    Okay, that's too much to hope for. But I do love reading about this stuff. Every day something new and fun! It's like an advent calendar.

    And I hope the forthcoming bank documents don't disappoint!

  • GaryGary 3,982 Posts
    Didn't he get this shit off of siprnet?

  • assange likely to be Time's person of the year 2010. !!!!!

    interview transcript with Time yesterday. makes the case quite well i think.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20101202/wl_time/08599203404000

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,778 Posts
    Two people I'd like to see avoid any possible extradition from the UK as a result of these leaks.

    Julian Assange (assuming he's still here), and McKinnon (aka Rainman).


    Sweden played a good move. If they can extratadite him, they've got the most valueble bargaining chip in the world right now.

    I don't believe there's anything in the rape claims. When did the rape happen? Why the claims now?

    I don't believe that Assange will live for more than a year as a free man, if at all, and for that reason I applaud his bravery as I'm sure he has come to the same conclusion, but does not hide... ego maniac or not, he's stepped-up to the plate - accountablility is so hot right now.
    People who want to eat up the 'endangering international security and relations' bullshit are more than welcome.

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,778 Posts
    Ulysses31nicholas said:
    assange likely to be Time's person of the year 2010. !!!!!

    I read that some US politician "best known for his ferocious hatered of homosexuality" has called for Assange to be killed on grounds of treason.
    Anybody that can piss-off a piece of shit like that gets my vote.

  • yeah couple of fuckwits said that, including sarah "i don't know which is south and which is north korea" palin.

    just makes them look even more like douchebags and strengthens wikileaks position that they are morally bankrupt basically.

  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,778 Posts
    http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/01/wikileaks/index.html

    The ringleaders of this hate ritual are advocates of - and in some cases directly responsible for - the world's deadliest and most lawless actions of the last decade. And they're demanding Assange's imprisonment, or his blood, in service of a Government that has perpetrated all of these abuses and, more so, to preserve a Wall of Secrecy which has enabled them. To accomplish that, they're actually advocating - somehow with a straight face - the theory that if a single innocent person is harmed by these disclosures, then it proves that Assange and WikiLeaks are evil monsters who deserve the worst fates one can conjure, all while they devote themselves to protecting and defending a secrecy regime that spawns at least as much human suffering and disaster as any single other force in the world. That is what the secrecy regime of the permanent National Security State has spawned.

    b/w

    agreeing with Harvey's earlier poasts, Luck, not so.
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