Wikileaks...weigh in here.

[neon tetra]

The secrets have killed people, not the exposing of said secrets.

Like Moore mentioned, if only there was a Wikileaks in 1964 to expose the Gulf of Tonkin bullshit... think of all the lives that could have been saved. Same goes for all the other false flag attacks, cover ups, etc.

[dr.placebo]

I think that a balance has to be reached. When a leak occurs (and they will) then some redaction may be needed to minimize exposure of individuals and sources. On the other hand, I strongly favor increased transparency for government and for corporations. Coming down hard on Wikileaks and journalists may reduce the leak rate, but it will also increase secretive practices for the leak distributors, which could mean the end of intelligent redaction. Without such redaction I am concerned that we will increase the likelihood of truly damaging leaks, as opposed to the merely embarrassing ones, for both individuals and institutions.

The more I hear about Assange the less inclined I am to like him. And if the allegations about him hold water (rape, industrial espionage, ...) then he deserves to be jailed. I'm reserving judgement so far because destroying his reputation would be a typical government move, and is therefore suspect.

[neon tetra]

He's not accused of rape, but of continuing consensual sex after the condom broke. Sounds like some trumped up bullshit, personally.

Also important to remember that Daniel Ellsberg was demonized similarly. It's nothing new.

What is shocking, however, is all the folks calling for him to be killed. Even in this very thread.

[lucky420]

yeah that is weird

[dr.placebo]

The actual accusation against Assange is not clear, perhaps deliberately unclear. If he continued sex after consent was withdrawn then I call it rape, although not everyone would. But it is a separable issue from the ethics of distributing leaked information. And it is still an allegation, not a fact.

[DVD Burner]

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[DVD Burner]

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[DVD Burner]

NO ONE ON EPLAYA HAS SPOKEN OUT MORE THAN I ABOUT AND AGAINST BUSH, CHENEY AND THE SUCH!



FUCK EVERYONE THAT HAS ANYTHING NEGATIVE TO SAY ABOUT WIKILEAKS!



These 2 videos say it all for me about what this bullshit world is about when it comes to wikileaks.

Fuck this world!

[DVD Burner]

I have been constantly telling everyone here on eplaya for about 15 years now what and how the world works now and now the rosters have come home to roost!


ha ha ha ha ha ha!



yeah I know, yall wanna do a "civil debate" and make things "cordial" and calm and all, but fact of the matter is......................

AMERICANS ARE FUCKED IN THE HEAD!

There were never any WMD's and.....................


Blah blah blah blah blah blah!

fuck this "rape" shit.

Scott Ritter and everyone that have told the truth about anything has been charged with some SEX BULLSHIT!



It's why I STAY AWAY FROM FEMALES!


we have had the conversation many times about so call "unconsensual sex" on eplaya before.


NOT COOL MAN!

And Females need to stop FUCKING UP ON GOOD MEN!

[cowboyangel]

"World bankers, by pulling a few simple levers that control the flow of money, can make or break entire economies. By controlling press releases of economic strategies that shape national trends, the power elite are able to not only tighten their stranglehold on this nation's economic structure, but can extend that control world wide. Those possessing such power would logically want to remain in the background, invisible to the average citizen." (Aldous Huxley)



Wikleaks is upheld as a breakthrough in the battle against media disinformation and the lies of the US government.

Unquestionably, the released documents constitute an important and valuable data bank. The documents have been used by critical researchers since the outset of the Wikileaks project. Wikileaks earlier revelations have focussed on US war crimes in Afghanistan (July 2010) as well as issues pertaining to civil liberties and the "militarization of the Homeland" (see Tom Burghardt, Militarizing the "Homeland" in Response to the Economic and Political Crisis, Global Research, October 11, 2008)

In October 2010, WikiLeaks was reported to have released some 400,000 classified Iraq war documents, covering events from 2004 to 2009 (Tom Burghardt, The WikiLeaks Release: U.S. Complicity and Cover-Up of Iraq Torture Exposed, Global Research, October 24, 2010). These revelations contained in the Wikileaks Iraq War Logs provide "further evidence of the Pentagon's role in the systematic torture of Iraqi citizens by the U.S.-installed post-Saddam regime." (Ibid)

Progressive organizations have praised the Wikileaks endeavor. Our own website Global Research has provided extensive coverage of the Wikileaks project.

The leaks are heralded as an immeasurable victory against corporate media censorship.

But there is more than meets the eye.

Even prior to the launching of the project, the mainstream media had contacted Wikileaks.

There are also reports from published email exchanges (unconfirmed) that Wikileaks had, at the outset of the project in January 2007, contacted and sought the advice of Freedom House. This included an invitation to Freedom House (FH) to participate in the Wikileaks advisory board:

"We are looking for one or two initial advisory board member from FH who may advise on the following:

1. the needs of FH as consumer of leaks exposing business and political corruption
2. the needs for sources of leaks as experienced by FH
3. FH recommendations for other advisory board members
4. general advice on funding, coallition [sic] building and decentralised operations and political framing" (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007).

There is no evidence of FH followup support to the Wikileaks project. Freedom House is a Washington based "watchdog organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the world". It is chaired by William H. Taft IV who was legal adviser to the State Department under G. W. Bush and Deputy Secretary of Defense under the Reagan administration.

Wikileaks had also entered into negotiations with several corporate foundations with a view to securing funding. (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007):

The linchpin of WikiLeaks's financial network is Germany's Wau Holland Foundation. ... "We're registered as a library in Australia, we're registered as a foundation in France, we're registered as a newspaper in Sweden," Mr. Assange said. WikiLeaks has two tax-exempt charitable organizations in the U.S., known as 501C3s, that "act as a front" for the website, he said. He declined to give their names, saying they could "lose some of their grant money because of political sensitivities."

Mr. Assange said WikiLeaks gets about half its money from modest donations processed by its website, and the other half from "personal contacts," including "people with some millions who approach us...." (WikiLeaks Keeps Funding Secret, WSJ.com, August 23, 2010)

At the outset in early 2007, Wikileaks acknowledged that the project had been "founded by Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.... [Its advisory board] includes representatives from expat Russian and Tibetan refugee communities, reporters, a former US intelligence analyst and cryptographers." (Wikileaks Leak email exchanges, January 2007).

Wikileaks formulated its mandate on its website as follows: "[Wikileaks will be] an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations," CBC News - Website wants to take whistleblowing online, January 11, 2007, emphasis added).

This mandate was confirmed by Julian Assange in a June 2010 interview in The New Yorker:

"Our primary targets are those highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the West who wish to reveal illegal or immoral behavior in their own governments and corporations. (quoted in WikiLeaks and Julian Paul Assange : The New Yorker, June 7, 2010, emphasis added)

Assange also intimated that "exposing secrets" "could potentially bring down many administrations that rely on concealing reality—including the US administration." (Ibid)

From the outset, Wikileaks' geopolitical focus on "oppressive regimes" in Eurasia and the Middle East was "appealing" to America's elites, i.e. it seemingly matched stated US foreign policy objectives. Moreover, the composition of the Wikileaks team (which included Chinese dissidents), not to mention the methodology of "exposing secrets" of foreign governments, were in tune with the practices of US covert operations geared towards triggering "regime change" and fostering "color revolutions" in different parts of the World.

The Role of the Corporate Media: The Central Role of the New York Times

Wikileaks is not a typical alternative media initiative. The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel are directly involved in the editing and selection of leaked documents. The London Economist has also played an important role.

While the project and its editor Julian Assange reveal a commitment and concern for truth in media, the recent Wikileaks releases of embassy cables have been carefully "redacted" by the mainstream media in liaison with the US government. (See Interview with David E. Sanger, Fresh Air, PBS, December 8, 2010)

This collaboration between Wikileaks and selected mainstream media is not fortuitous; it was part of an agreement between several major US and European newspapers and Wikileaks' editor Julian Assange.

The important question is who controls and oversees the selection, distribution and editing of released documents to the broader public?

What US foreign policy objectives are being served through this redacting process?

Is Wikileaks part of an awakening of public opinion, of a battle against the lies and fabrications which appear daily in the print media and on network TV?

If so, how can this battle against media disinformation be waged with the participation and collaboration of the corporate architects of media disinformation?

Wikileaks has enlisted the architects of media disinformation to fight media disinformation: An incongruous and self-defeating procedure.

America's corporate media and more specifically The New York Times are an integral part of the economic establishment, with links to Wall Street, the Washington think tanks and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Moreover, the US corporate media has developed a longstanding relationship to the US intelligence apparatus, going back to "Operation Mocking Bird", an initiative of the CIA's Office of Special Projects (OSP), established in the early 1950s.

Even before the Wikileaks project got off the ground, the mainstream media was implicated. A role was defined and agreed upon for the corporate media not only in the release, but also in the selection and editing of the leaks. In a bitter irony, the "professional media", to use Julian Assange's words in an interview with The Economist, have been partners in the Wikileaks project from the outset.

Moreover, key journalists with links to the US foreign policy-national security intelligence establishment have worked closely with Wikileaks, in the distribution and dissemination of the leaked documents.

In a bitter irony, Wikileaks partner The New York Times, which has consistently promoted media disinformation is now being accused of conspiracy. For what? For revealing the truth? Or for manipulating the truth? In the words of Senator Joseph L. Lieberman:

“I certainly believe that WikiLleaks has violated the Espionage Act, but then what about the news organizations — including The Times — that accepted it and distributed it?â€

[Elderberry]

Damn that was a looooooooooonnnnnnnggggg post.

Though I skimmed over most of it, I'm pretty sure I agree with the author.

JK

[DVD Burner]

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[DVD Burner]

The funniest part of the video is him saying, people that vote republican are certified unconditional bonified suckers.

I've only been saying that FOREVER!

[Here and there]

I wrote this:

I found that I lost interest in Wikileaks quickly: Assange claims that the prosecution in Sweden was a politically motivated response to recent releases on Wikileaks, and yet the complaint has been in for months. Suggesting that effect preceded cause? Most unlikely.

and, amazingly, saw this in the followups

He's not accused of rape, but of continuing consensual sex after the condom broke. Sounds like some trumped up bullshit, personally.

Also important to remember that Daniel Ellsberg was demonized similarly. It's nothing new.

So, it's your position that somebody in Sweden trumped up a charge in order to get the man for something that he hadn't done yet, at the time? In other words, that the effect came before the cause, that people were responding vindictively to something before it happened?

In other words, you seriously believe that the Swedish authorities can see the future? Really?

people that vote republican are certified unconditional bona fide suckers

Agreed, and that's what makes their actions almost as funny as they are sad. Looking into the eyes of somebody who was cheering as others were screwed over, smiling smugly because he thought that was something that was only going to happen to other people, and seeing the look of shock as he becomes the next victim, is priceless, pure comedy and perfect justice getting wrapped up into one tidy little bundle.

But that has little to do with the rape case in question. Maybe he's innocent, maybe he's guilty, but he has been throwing a red herring, and that doesn't make him look very good. If he's innocent of anything that could sensibly be called rape, he needs to start getting a lot smarter, in a hurry.




PS. Typos / misspellings corrected in the quotes. At least, that's what I've tried to do in my last few posts, thinking that's a better choice than posting a spelling flame. I hope that the two people affected by this don't mind.

[neon tetra]

Assange & Wikileaks have been around long before this latest leak.

Therefore, I don't see the relevance of your rant.

[Trishntek]

I would have to agree that the U.S. Gubmint (sorry JK) takes itself way too seriously and needs a good purging of its own hubris. It seems nothing more than history to me that which wiki leaked.

The more important issue is the move by the FCC to regulate the internet. This should concern us all greatly. The Wikileaks issue is simply another (crisis) for the gubmint to step in and protect (who,,,, us?) from ourselves! I think it more than coincidental that Attorney General Eric Holder announced increased concerns for U.S. citizen terrorists attacking from within our borders.

Wake up! The gubmint is using every possible means to justify absolute control over every facet of our lives!

[Here and there]

Assange & Wikileaks have been around long before this latest leak.

Therefore, I don't see the relevance of your rant.

Because the accusation has been made that the rape charge was trumped up in retaliation for the latest leak. That's what we've been talking about, Neon. If you can't remember the point under discussion from one post to the next, then maybe you need to put down the bong, and maybe we need to end this exchange, because it obviously has nowhere productive to go.

[neon tetra]

Perhaps it's real, perhaps it's a BS charge in retaliation for Wikileaks in general.
I don't know b/c I wasn't there, but I'd bet a few bucks on the latter.
Seems to be how these things usually go down.

[RingO'Fire]

Here's an interesting debate on Democracy Now! between two feminists regarding whether or not Mr. Assange's alleged activities constitue sexual assault or not: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/20/ ... friedman_a

Naomi Wolf argues that Mr. Assange's prosecution for the alleged sexual assaults are clearly atypical of what usually happens in Sweden, which strongly suggests that the prosecution is politically motivated:

...I’m aware that in 23 years, you know, in Sweden, which has been criticized by Amnesty International for disregarding rape, for letting rapists go free, because you have a better chance in Sweden, if you’re a rape victim, of, you know, dying in an accident or getting breast cancer than having a serious rape allegation prosecuted or getting any kind of legal hearing, according to Amnesty International’s report "Case Closed"—it’s because of that that I know that these charges are utterly, utterly atypically handled. In 23 years, I’ve never seen any man in any situation this ambiguous, involving this much consent, have any kind of legal process whatsoever.

Edited to add: I just found Part II of this discussion. Here's the link:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/21/ ... ns_against

[can't sit still]

Here's some Swiss banking guy who threatens to hand over tons of dirt on tax evaders.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41102350/ns ... ws-europe/

[Elderberry]

Here's some Swiss banking guy who threatens to hand over tons of dirt on tax evaders.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41102350/ns ... ws-europe/

Read that this morning. Go Wikkileaks!

JK

[can't sit still]

There is endless speculation about the motivation and motivators behind Wikileaks. Here is some more;
http://tarpley.net/2011/01/20/wikileaks ... operation/