The Complete Wikileaks Thread(All threads merged here!)
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
Um, tomorrow, the U.S. administration stops being the biggest douchebag of the world? Followed by China, UK, Australia, Canada, etc..
Oh wait, these states would rather enforce their counterproductive hegemony by completing an all out assault on one person who is just a figurehead of wikileaks, and a minute fraction of the power of that organization. An organization that has already spilled the beans and just needs to release the code to de-encrypt the other 240 something thousand files already leaked via torrent.
The guy has made a laughing stock of this administration's delusional conservatism for the last 40 years. The hilarity being that the more stringent and aggressive that administration gets, the more ludicrous they look, and the more they reinforce the obvious point of contention that diplomacy does not actually exist and a huge reform is absolutely necessary.
So, yea, lock him up! Hang him!
That's what he wants to further strengthen any backlash against U.S. foreign policy.
You're playing right into his hands.
So you know the charges are false?
TenPenny is absolutely right. He is accused of rape and should be presumed innocent until proven otherwise.
The fact that he (Assange) is a pukey little snake should not play into whether or not he is found guilty.
I will not condemn him as a rapist. As for the people who think he is the savior I doubt that they can restrain themselves from declaring him innocent.
The courts can decide.
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Here's his latest write-up - did he do this from jail? lol.. anyway, you guys make up your mind..
Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths
IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."
His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.
I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.
These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.
WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?
Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.
People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it.
If you have read any of the Afghan or Iraq war logs, any of the US embassy cables or any of the stories about the things WikiLeaks has reported, consider how important it is for all media to be able to report these things freely.
WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the US embassy cables. Other media outlets, including Britain's The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.
Yet it is WikiLeaks, as the co-ordinator of these other groups, that has copped the most vicious attacks and accusations from the US government and its acolytes. I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a US, citizen. There have been dozens of serious calls in the US for me to be "taken out" by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I should be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden", a Republican bill sits before the US Senate seeking to have me declared a "transnational threat" and disposed of accordingly. An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister's office has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.
And Australians should observe with no pride the disgraceful pandering to these sentiments by Julia Gillard and her government. The powers of the Australian government appear to be fully at the disposal of the US as to whether to cancel my Australian passport, or to spy on or harass WikiLeaks supporters. The Australian Attorney-General is doing everything he can to help a US investigation clearly directed at framing Australian citizens and shipping them to the US.
Prime Minister Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organisations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small.
We are the underdogs. The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings.
Has there been any response from the Australian government to the numerous public threats of violence against me and other WikiLeaks personnel? One might have thought an Australian prime minister would be defending her citizens against such things, but there have only been wholly unsubstantiated claims of illegality. The Prime Minister and especially the Attorney-General are meant to carry out their duties with dignity and above the fray. Rest assured, these two mean to save their own skins. They will not.
Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses committed by US agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the State Department: "You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?
It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. But the US, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.
US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the US congress that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it couldn't find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defence said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.
But our publications have been far from unimportant. The US diplomatic cables reveal some startling facts:
► The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too.
► King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran.
► Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available.
► Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests".
► Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament.
► The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.
In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.
Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths | The Australian
Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths
IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."
His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.
Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.
I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.
These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.
WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?
Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.
People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it.
If you have read any of the Afghan or Iraq war logs, any of the US embassy cables or any of the stories about the things WikiLeaks has reported, consider how important it is for all media to be able to report these things freely.
WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the US embassy cables. Other media outlets, including Britain's The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.
Yet it is WikiLeaks, as the co-ordinator of these other groups, that has copped the most vicious attacks and accusations from the US government and its acolytes. I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a US, citizen. There have been dozens of serious calls in the US for me to be "taken out" by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I should be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden", a Republican bill sits before the US Senate seeking to have me declared a "transnational threat" and disposed of accordingly. An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister's office has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.
And Australians should observe with no pride the disgraceful pandering to these sentiments by Julia Gillard and her government. The powers of the Australian government appear to be fully at the disposal of the US as to whether to cancel my Australian passport, or to spy on or harass WikiLeaks supporters. The Australian Attorney-General is doing everything he can to help a US investigation clearly directed at framing Australian citizens and shipping them to the US.
Prime Minister Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organisations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small.
We are the underdogs. The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings.
Has there been any response from the Australian government to the numerous public threats of violence against me and other WikiLeaks personnel? One might have thought an Australian prime minister would be defending her citizens against such things, but there have only been wholly unsubstantiated claims of illegality. The Prime Minister and especially the Attorney-General are meant to carry out their duties with dignity and above the fray. Rest assured, these two mean to save their own skins. They will not.
Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses committed by US agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the State Department: "You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?
It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. But the US, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.
US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the US congress that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it couldn't find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defence said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.
But our publications have been far from unimportant. The US diplomatic cables reveal some startling facts:
► The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too.
► King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran.
► Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available.
► Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests".
► Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament.
► The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.
In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.
Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths | The Australian
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No sweat. I am not against whistle blowing, but I am a firm believer that there are some things which should be deemed secret. Wiki-Leaks no holds barred approach is definitely not the answer.
The crux of your argument is based on a 'threat to national security'. From what I can gather, Wiki-leaks actually makes a concerted attempt to ensure what they release does not cause a serious threat. They go through some sort of screening process beforehand, so it's not a no holds barred approach either. And he makes a pretty strong case for the lack of serious harm being caused by these releases.
It's definitely a welcome eye-opener for U.S. - U.N relations though. The U.S. has been breaking international law for decades. The fact that they are using spies to further state control while throwing down the espionage book on Assange is epically hypocritical (and hilarious).
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No it is not just National Security, it is diplomatic relations.
This mercenary approach can have dire circumstances and while some might revel in the potential for embarrassment or perceived gotcha it is very dangerous. Our diplomats often work miracles behind the scenes to avert war, terrorist acts and other issues we might never know of.
During the Cuban missile crisis both the US and the USSR made concessions that averted a nuclear war. What Wiki Leaks does by leaking these cables is nullify future diplomatic endeavors. I again go back to my belief that this sort of website operates like the National Enquirer. They are not in it for the little guy or representing themselves as a new age watchdog exposing scandal.
They are like the paparazzi that cares not the consequences of their action, just making money on the latest expose.
That is not the type of organization you want representing your interests.
.
Name a war that was fought over protecting the people of a nation versus it's industry, financial status and resources.
You just contradicted yourself. The short term harm in diplomatic relations from these releases must be one that has an effect on national security in order for it to have any negative repercussions. None of these releases will have any lasting effect that will cause a crisis or nuclear war. That's just looney talk.
What is really happening here is that corrupt diplomats are getting their share of humiliation. This will force them to be more responsible about international relations in the long term. I will that agree that I was a bit jarred by the significance of the Der Spiegel report on leaders personalities, but that was just a drop of entertainment in the deluge of information - most of which has actually had some beneficial consequences for public discourse.
That people know about the U.S. hijacking of the U.N. climate committee and Copenhagen accord, for instance, speaks volumes about the corruption of U.S. policy in this realm. This information will hopefully empower its citizens to recognize what the rest of the world already knows about anthropogenic global warming. Namely that it exists, and more importantly, that it is not a U.N. ploy for control, but the other way around.
You aren't looking for an answer you're stating a belief.
Looney talk. If it continues you might rethink that. If there is a world crisis, a all out war, you might rethink that. If a dirty bomb explodes in Vancouver or Toronto you might rethink that.
Presented with a plausible argument and this is your best retort?
You're talking about just these cables. Who said wiki-leaks would stop here?
You are again reveling in the bloody nose, but failing to see the big picture.
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I would be more convinced if your argument wasn't just rhetoric. Why don't you do some research on the content of the leaks and create a hypothetical - but tangible - set of consequences that will lead to something substantial. Then get back to me.
Meanwhile, I could have just as successfully fabricated a rebuttal to your nonsense by coming up with my own fantastical creations.
What if all our leaders work for free?
What if this creates world peace?
What if we all experience the greatest nirvana lsd trip of all time?
Come on now.
Meanwhile, I could have just as successfully fabricated a rebuttal to your nonsense by coming up with my own fantastical creations.
What if all our leaders work for free?
What if this creates world peace?
What if we all experience the greatest nirvana lsd trip of all time?
Come on now.
Okay, but that doesn't answer the question. Having no way to keep the government honest is worse I think.
It should be pointed out that in the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was governments that wanted to put nukes in Cuba, to protect the government there from the government of the US. The Russian people, the Cuban people and the American people were just trying to make a buck and enjoy their lives.
Now if you and I have big 4x4 trucks and we drove those trucks all over Queens Park should we celebrate and give ourselves medals because we some how managed to avoid toppling the buildings and just ruined the lawns?
If diplomats acted honourably, leaks would men very little and no one would have to go to war over them.