Wikileaks Donations Account Shut Down 725
Scrameustache writes "The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks claims that it has had its funding blocked and that it is the victim of financial warfare by the US government. Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist. The apparent blacklisting came a few days after the Pentagon publicly expressed its anger at WikiLeaks and its founder, Australian citizen Julian Assange, for obtaining thousands of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan."
Uh (Score:4, Insightful)
At this point, is US government hatred of freedom and democracy even news?
Messengers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How should people help wikileaks? (Score:4, Insightful)
The best way is to set up a nonpartisan, unbiased website that releases such documents without the ridiculous commentary and shifty editing.
Assange has done a severe disservice to WL with his emphasis on injecting over the top editorial into the stories on the site.
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Who? Has anyone documented a case where this happened? from what I read WL were pretty careful in vetting the material.
Without names and places this is FUD.
Re:Good riddance to wikilinks! (Score:5, Insightful)
I hear that said, but I hear politicians say these kinds of things all the time - PROVE to me that someone(s) got hurt/killed due to this release and I may feel otherwise, but for now, I believe they are being targeted for "pissing off" the powers that be.
They need a better spokesperson (Score:3, Insightful)
I can get behind Wikileaks, but not Assange. He is egotistical tool.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Making enemies faster than they can kill them...
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh (Score:4, Insightful)
Too much secrecy kills a government (Score:4, Insightful)
The US government is keeping so many facts and events classified, it simply can not function as a democratic government anymore.
When people don't have access to important information, they can't vote correctly. And when they can't vote correctly, the government can't make the right decisions. I understand sometimes secrecy is necessary for safety, but too much simply kills a democracy. Wikileaks is the expression of that idea, as they fight the excessive secrecy of governments and try to provide citizens with information that citizens should have.
Re:Wikileaks puts lives at risk (Score:5, Insightful)
Arguably though, the best way to avoid putting Afghan civilians and US troops out of harm is to have US troops go back to the US.
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:1, Insightful)
Im not totally on Wikileaks side because they didn't take enough care to protect peoples names in the content they released. Its one thing to release content for the world to see but its another thing to get people killed by releasing it with out at least removing names. That totally turned me off from Wikileaks.
How about the government taking care to protect innocent people by getting the fuck out of Afghanistan?
It is one thing to go after the 9/11 perps, but it another thing to try and win a ground war without any plan for victory and idiotic rules of engagement like 'patrol only where you aren't likely to encounter the enemy' and 'don't shoot back at someone if they're firing from a mosque.'
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wikileaks puts lives at risk (Score:5, Insightful)
If you put it that way, leaking ANY information about ANYONE should be illegal? Why should he be in prison? As far as I know, no law was broken.
The US soldier who leaked the information in the firstplace - yes, you could call that treason. And yes that's illegal.
Re:Wikileaks puts lives at risk (Score:2, Insightful)
The real criminals are the ones classifying evidence of war crimes to bury the information from ever seeing the light of day.
You are just shooting the messenger.
Re:Wikileaks puts lives at risk (Score:1, Insightful)
Dude, where the hell have you been? Rich mutha fuckers and corporations, which is more rich mother fuckers and Zionists have stolen our democracy from us I'm not sure what you could possibly mean with "protecting democracy." Unless you count voting for a guy from one of two-corporation sponsored parties democracy. Many of our leaders should be in prison instead. GWB for crimes against humanity for one. Where's YOUR outrage?
Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
[Citation Needed]
Information is also classified when you want to perform atrocities or "its not good for morale", or its dissemination will cause the main plan not to work.
The My Lai Massacre was 'classified' for a year or so before it became public knowledge.
The names in the leaked documents aren't half as important as the actions they committed.
Re:Uh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wikileaks puts lives at risk (Score:4, Insightful)
That's only if you believe the troops NEED to be in Afghanistan to begin with.
As far as I'm concerned - the amount of danger Wikileaks put on soldiers pales in comparison to the amount of danger Bush has put on them. They'd be far safer on US Soil protecting the actual US Borders instead of it's foreign interests;
It's like me breaking into your house and complaining that your dog pointed me out.
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe the Iraqi people can release over 100,000 names of people killed by US troops. Oh, that's not the issue here is it.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing you haven't been to the airport since late 2001 or so.
Re:Uh (Score:2, Insightful)
Well in some ways those civilians could be though of as collaborators with the invading army.
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps some people suffered as a result of that leak, but I find that no more tragic than the dozens of people who die to IED's and suicide bombings every other day in those same countries.
Re:Wikileaks puts lives at risk (Score:5, Insightful)
They released documents that put Afghan civilians and US troops at risk.
No, they released documents that showed that US policy routinely massacres Afghan civilians and puts US troops at risk.
The pentagon said "releasing these documents puts the lives of the people we bomb at risk", it's transparent bullshit, but the sheeple say "baaaa". Do you remember that lil' Vietnamese girl that got napalmed and then spectacularly photographed, and the pentagon spent over a decade saying she got burned in a kitchen mishap? Did you believe their kitchen mishap cover story as much as you believe their "the truth is the enemy" cover story?
Remember how they told you Pat Tillman was shot by Taliban, and it turns out there were no Taliban there that day? Did you believe them when they told you a soldier in Afghanistan was shot by Taliban? Was it a believable lie?
How about the cute little blonde soldier that got knocked out in an attack on her convoy and the pentagon said she had fought valiantly to the last bullet of her sidearm, they attacked a hospital that had been trying to hand her over to "rescue" her, made up stories about the Iraqis treating her badly... did you believe that too?
Don't you think you should be less gullible and more informed?
This isn't protecting democracy, it's treason.
Yeah! Those Swedes are committing treason in the united states by letting that Aussie publish those documents! TREASON! And you don't sound like an idiot at all when you say that. Not at all.
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:2, Insightful)
get people killed by releasing it with out at least removing names
Who? Has anyone documented a case where this happened? from what I read WL were pretty careful in vetting the material.
Without names and places this is FUD.
And more important, STUPID FUD. The same military asskissers that are worried about informants couldn't give two shits about the "collateral damage" that actually happens out there. Apparently it's bad to get a Taliban informant killed, but "accidentally" bombing a house full of children is OK as long as there were "reports" of "insurgent activity".
Re:They need a better spokesperson (Score:1, Insightful)
I can get behind Wikileaks, but not Assange. He is egotistical tool.
Character assassination: Done and done!
Now instead of focusing on the issue, you will parrot out the "the spokesperson is bad, we must not listen" line every time wikileaks is mentioned. You don't even say why you believe what you say, you probably don't even know yourself that you only believe it because of a campaign of repetition in the media made you absorb this baseless meme.
Ya (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't like him at all. I believe he is doing things for the wrong reason. He isn't releasing all this classified information because it is for the public good, he is doing it because it is an ego trip and makes him important, and because it hurts the US and he doesn't like the US. Now that doesn't mean that his actions are ultimately bad, you can very well feel that indeed this release DOES serve the public interest. I just don't think HIS reasons are the good ones he claims.
They really need a more moral spokesman, and they need to get some rules that they follow for what they do and don't release. If the rule is "Any and everything," ok fine but make that up front and known. Say "We release anything, without regard for what harm that it may cause or if the information is of value to the public." However if that's not what you want to do, if you want to decide if things are important enough to release and to try to not cause any harm, then that's fine too, but you need to have a policy to that effect and stick to it. In the case of the classified cables that would mean only releasing those that showed something of public interest, and redacting names and so on. Ya that's a lot of work but that is what it takes to be responsible about it.
As it stands Assange seems to want to play at being the good guy, but he's just a jackass that likes to pump his ego and get egg on teh face of those he doesn't like. That degrades Wikileaks as a whole.
Unfortunately it is his baby, so I don't really think anyone can kick him out and he's way too egotistical to realize that it would be much better off if he stepped down.
I do think the world needs things like Wikileaks, however it needs them run by people who actually care about the public good. Who release secrets only because they need to be released, not just because they happen to have gotten their hands on them.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
But I don't see the entirety of the US government sitting around thinking of how much they hate freedom and democracy and conspiring ways to end it.
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." -Henry Kissinger
CIA intervention for regime change:
1953 Iran
1954 Guatemala
1959 Cuba
1960 Democratic Republic of the Congo
1963 Iraq
1964 Brazil
1966 Republic of Ghana
1968 Iraq
1973 Afghanistan
1973 Iraq
1976 Argentina
1978 Afghanistan
1980 Iran
1980 El Salvador
1980 Cambodia
1980 Angola
1981 Nicaragua
1986 Phillippines
1992 Iraq
1993 Guatemala
That list will grow larger as more documents are declassified.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine that you were just imagining that this might happen. Would you act on your imagination?
Also imagine that your wife sleepwalked to the kitchen drawer, picked up an pair of scissors and stabbed you in the eye while you slept.
Imagine your dog attacking you and killing you in front of your children.
I suggest you first take care of the clear and imminent danger presented by your wife and dog and maybe then consider wikileaks.
Still not convinced?
SUDO imagine you have a wife and a dog...
Re:Uh (Score:1, Insightful)
Assange, and the people he convinces to give him the information, are the ones who don't see the danger in what they're doing.
All they see is a heroic fantasy.
They certainly don't see that there's a legal avenue to attain their goals and punish people who classify information illegally.
It won't be as glorious, but then, it won't get you jailed or hounded into a cave in Sweden, either.
Re:Good riddance to wikilinks! (Score:5, Insightful)
result in the deaths of Afghan civilians and US/coalition soldiers
Wikileaks has killed no one, the people accusing them of doing so have killed tens of thousands: Use your head, figure out the FUD.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be clear about this. America in all it's forms is an empire. They can dress it up and use the word 'democracy' all they want but in the end their plutocratic and hegemonic tendencies always shine through. America's ultimate goal is to control the world for the benefit of it's rich elite. Any evidence that shows this to the American people frightens the elite and all efforts - legal or illegal - will be used to stop it.
I realise this statement may be overused and has become abstract but; America is one step away from becoming a fascist state.
Re:How should people help wikileaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, by editing video before releasing it. If wikileaks is about leaking information so the truth can be heard, it behooves them to release the *whole* truth, not just the parts they think are the most titillating.
Re:Messengers (Score:5, Insightful)
They continue to shoot the messenger. It wouldn't surprise me if the intelligence community turned that phrase literal.
I would be surprised: The US has long become more sophisticated than that. They understand that if you create a martyr, you could still be hearing about it two thousand years later. It's better to discredit them, make people think they're a narcissist, that they're reckless, that they're a rapist. Cut their funding, turn their friends against them, that's the kind of things I expect from the US; Straight up assassination I expect from Russians, their idea of subtlety is "exotic poisons".
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, let's not reform the unconstitutional secret police who roam the earth assassinating people without trials, or torture people in secret prisons. Let's blame the people who talk about the secret police.
Assange is not ratting out FBI informants working in America. He's ratting out American atrocities in foreign lands. There is a huge difference.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
And massive douche marks don't deserve any rights, especially when they have the nerve to not be born into the American Regime.
Preach it!
Re:Citation Needed (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why you don't ask them. You ask someone else who has the power to put them in jail.
This is what the source of the information should have done. Instead of burning a CD and sneaking it out, he should have gone to the Inspector General at the level above the unit that had the illegally classified information and reported its existence. And kept walking up the chain until he was sending letters to the President, who is the direct source of the rules for classifying information.
He did none of that. Assange did nothing even remotely like that. Both of them conspired to do the stupidest possible thing, because neither of them could stand existing without the glory of doing the stupidest possible thing. Both of them decided instead to do exactly the thing the enemy wanted most: release a pile of legally classified information because mixed into it were small segments of illegally classified information.
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Assange is not an American citizen. He has absolutely no obligation to follow American laws or processes. Just because it's the law does not make it the "right thing".
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Citation Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
1. In this case it's the right thing.
2. It's against Australian law to reveal the secrets of Australia's allies.
3. He has an absolute obligation as a human being not to put other human beings in danger when there are other avenues to address the problem. This is especially pertinent, since his argument for releasing the information was that it shows his adversaries doing exactly that as well.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Who was the last person to be adequately punished for classifying something inappropriately?
Re:How should people help wikileaks? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, by editing video before releasing it. If wikileaks is about leaking information so the truth can be heard, it behooves them to release the *whole* truth, not just the parts they think are the most titillating.
They did release the whole video, they also released an edited version that cuts out the long boring bit where nothing happen.
Now, since you say editing is bad, tell me of one news item you've seen where you were showed video that was not edited, go ahead, name the news item where they showed the whole video, not just the interesting bit. I'd like to know of that mythical time that happened that it seems you have witnessed. Or a newspaper you know that doesn't have an editor, maybe?
You see, editing video is not only normal, it's required. What you need to look for is misleading editing. BIG difference.
Re:Uh (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's be clear about this. America in all it's forms is an empire. They can dress it up and use the word 'democracy' all they want but in the end their plutocratic and hegemonic tendencies always shine through. ... America is one step away from becoming a fascist state.
...except for the little-known fact that every single legislator and President (who chooses the Supreme Court) is elected by the citizens -- with no exceptions. If you grabbed every single person who doesn't vote and convinced them to get off their ass and vote for inherently good candidates there would be no problems. Unless you believe that then some secret evil force would rise up, kill everyone who was elected, declare martial law, and end voting, at which point the people would no longer be responsible for the government's problems.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good
of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live
under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may
at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good
will torment us without end for they do so with the approval
of their own conscience."
- C.S. Lewis
Re:Uh (Score:3, Insightful)
Couldn't tell you. Probably because when confronted they go "oops" and hand the information over to the people who have the authority to review the information for declassification, and it gets declassified.
All the more reason to believe that the people who stole and released the information didn't even try to do the right thing.
Re:Uh (Score:3, Insightful)
I actually agree with the first part (and include myself in it), although I strongly disagree with the second.
Re:How should people help wikileaks? (Score:3, Insightful)
They did release the whole video
Yes, after they were caught editing the video. You may think that's fine. I don't.
Now, since you say editing is bad, tell me of one news item you've seen where you were showed video that was not edited
Woah woah... so you're saying Wikileaks is under no obligation to rise above the likes of FOX News and MSNBC? Really??
And that's ignoring the fact that Wikileaks *isn't a news organization*. They've said so themselves *multiple* times. Furthermore, editing releases like that flies right in the face of their very mission, and is *deeply* hypocritical.
Frankly, I'm shocked you're even trying to justify this behaviour.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Well Duh, If you kill all your enemies you can't justify continuing the eternal war
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
A perfect example of an event so rare that it should never be used as a reason for a policy. Terrorist acts are just not that hard. Highway deaths are the equivalent of a 9/11 every few months. Random chance is better at killing people here than terrorists are. Anyone quaking in their boots over it still is a fucking moron.
That shouldn't have resulted in a single change of policy. Not the creation of the TSA or DHS. Not the PATRIOT act... nothing. It was a single event with no follow up by a pissant organization that never had any hope of doing us any real damage without us helping them along by spending billions of our own dollars.
-Steve
Re:Uh (Score:2, Insightful)
Agreed, but even the shit we know about - Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq AGAIN, Iran Contra, Panama, etc. is more than enough fuckups. The GP's is just a more comprehensive list.
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:3, Insightful)
What laws has Wikileaks failed to comply with?
Re:Wikileaks puts lives at risk (Score:4, Insightful)
Its not really treason since the owner isn't from the US. He's Australian.
It's against Australian law to reveal the secrets of Australia's allies.
Still not treason.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I see more danger in not having people like them. Some of the stuff that they have released, like "Collateral Murder" are things that never should have been kept from the public. Its one thing to keep data secret about troop movements to keep troops safe... its another when the idea is just to "protect our reputation". Its entirely right that people see the realities of war... so we can be reminded why we shouldn't EVER have one.
Personally, I feel bad that I never donated to them when I had the chance. I will gladly send them some cash when they get something set up again. I would rather them have my money than the people running these horrid wars that never should have been started. Its good to see them exposing what a crime war is.
-Steve
Re:Uh (Score:4, Insightful)
Or the people who review the information just rubber stamp the classification. The documents then sit in a filing cabinet somewhere, until they are 'lost', just before they were supposed to become public.
Re:The sweet irony (Score:5, Insightful)
The radio stations of which you speak were a propaganda tool
Well, to those who listened to them, they were mostly a very valuable alternative source of information, and a strong message that it can be free ;)
It is the loss of this message that makes me sad, because it is a worthy ideal to have.
meant to weaken the communism regimes and recruit internal supporters.
Haha. I like this phrasing, it is straight out of the newspapers on the other side. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now. The "recruit internal supporters" part is not even interesting to comment.
As for "weaken the regime", well, any regime that does things, which it wants to hide, deserves all the exposure and "weakening" it can handle.
US government was smart enough to realize that exposing "bad" information is a powerful weapon.
They ought to be smart enough to realize that trying to stomp bad news out will work as well for them, as it worked for the evil communists.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's think about this..
US government officals are angry that Wikileaks is revealing their secret abuses of power.
So, they respond by publicly abusing thier power, where everyone can see, Because "Darn it, We just CANT let people know what we are REALLY doing here!"
I am at a complete loss for words.
The absurdity of the whole thing is staggering.
Re:Ya (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like him at all.
Shoot the messenger! SHOOT THE MESSENGER!
I believe he is doing things for the wrong reason. He isn't releasing all this classified information because it is for the public good, he is doing it because it is an ego trip and makes him important, and because it hurts the US and he doesn't like the US.
Why, specifically, do you believe that?
I just don't think HIS reasons are the good ones he claims.
I don't think you know why you think that.
They really need a more moral spokesman
One that hasn't been accused of rape, only to have the accusation taken away in less than 24 hours bu not before it made the news?
and they need to get some rules that they follow for what they do and don't release. If the rule is "Any and everything," ok fine but make that up front and known. Say "We release anything, without regard for what harm that it may cause or if the information is of value to the public." However if that's not what you want to do, if you want to decide if things are important enough to release and to try to not cause any harm, then that's fine too, but you need to have a policy to that effect and stick to it. In the case of the classified cables that would mean only releasing those that showed something of public interest, and redacting names and so on. Ya that's a lot of work but that is what it takes to be responsible about it.
That is exactly what Wikileaks has been doing. The pentagon claims they haven't, but that's just a lie. You believed that lie, unfortunately.
As it stands Assange seems to want to play at being the good guy, but he's just a jackass that likes to pump his ego and get egg on teh face of those he doesn't like.
What do you base that on?
he's way too egotistical to realize that it would be much better off if he stepped down.
I do think the world needs things like Wikileaks, however it needs them run by people who actually care about the public good.
Yeah, look at some of the non-public-good, egotistical things he's done: Starting around 1997 he co-invented "Rubberhose deniable encryption," a cryptographic concept made into a software package for Linux designed to provide plausible deniability against rubber-hose cryptanalysis,[13] which he originally intended "as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field."[14] Other free software that he has authored or co-authored includes the Usenet caching software NNTPCache
Open source software to protect human rights worker? What a narcissistic jerk!
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Nevermind the actual purpose of terrorism;
Terrorism uses "Terror" to "Illicit changes".
The creation of the patriot act, and associated bundle of dung due to a terrorist act is exactly the kind of thing that terrorists want; to disrupt ordinary life after the fact.
The best way to combat terrorism, is to not react with terror.
Re:The sweet irony (Score:3, Insightful)
To me, that wasn't a surprise at all. Divide et impera was not invented by the British, but they certainly perfected it.
Hell, most of the current Middle East mess is, if not directly caused, then largely precipitated by the British policies in the region prior to them losing their status as a world power to the US after WWII.
Still, by Thatcher time, Britain didn't have the clout to influence international politics that much, and the Germans wouldn't have cared anyway.
Maybe the reception of Deutche Welle was better in Berlin than the BBC :D
Re:Uh (Score:1, Insightful)
At this point, is US government hatred of freedom and democracy even news?
not really, but when a foreigner becomes deluded enough into thinking that US laws protect his inalienable right to screw around with aforementioned government, he should hope it becomes really big news, in order let's say to prevent him from disappearing into a quantum black hole.?
Screwing around with the IRS and the FDA is sport, screwing with the state department is quite an undertaking. I wish this valiant well. Unfortunately there are inherent consequences to every decision. He may not have intended to make enemies while smugly choosing to denude confidentiality - He was under no obligation. But he did, and he has discovered a formidable foe.
Re:Uh (Score:3, Insightful)
Shouldn't the US Government put an organization that strives to disclose classified information on a watchlist? I mean, it makes sense to me. You might agree with making the leaks, but divulging someone's secrets isn't trying to make friends.
Sadly, everyone does it... (Score:1, Insightful)
I guess the US is just discrete about trying to overthrow (or prop-up) governments...
The French and British mostly just sent over the troops (see the history of the middle east conflicts like the suez canal in egypt, vietnam, cambodia, ivory coast, central africa, rwanda, chad, iran, iraq, mexico, etc, etc).
Even the french provided covert aid to the US colonies to overthrow the government and install a new government...
I guess the rule is don't write things down ;^)
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
The correct solution to that was to harden the cockpits. The incorrect solution was to spend a trillion dollars crushing the rights of US citizens, and another trillion dollars attacking two countries that had no nationals involved in the attack. Two trillion. So far. While our economy is in trouble.
Re:Uh (Score:1, Insightful)
you claim that there's an unconstitutional secret police. Please cite your sources - who are these mythical people, what section of the constitution are they violating, and what legal precedent supports your argument? Or is the standard /. strawman bullshit?
Re:Uh (Score:2, Insightful)
For Christ's sake all the US Govt did was put him on a watch list, which is entirely understandable, given the fact that he facilitated the theft of a large number of confidential military documents.
It was a private company that decided they no longer wanted to do business with his company, probably because they did not want to be involved if the US Govt ever did decide to go ape-shit on Wikileaks.
Sorry I forgot, Slashdot only likes individual rights when the individual is an underdog. Fuck the right to choose not to do business with someone you don't approve of, am I right Slashdot?
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:5, Insightful)
unlike you, I'm adult enough
Calling me "not an adult" is not the action of an adult. You now say you dislike "their actions" but those actions are fictions. Grow up and learn to admit your mistake; when you believed and repeated a lie you were told, once you've learned that it was a lie, stop defending it.
And stop being the kind of petty little shit that moves the goalposts to "what my bile was directed at", you know damn well that's irrelevant, what's important is "was wikileaks reckless or diligent". The truth is they redacted documents for review in order to avoid causing harm to innocents, the lie is that they didn't. You believed and repeated and are now defending the lie, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Re:Uh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:4, Insightful)
They held back 15 thousand pages to protect people's names while they tried to sort through them. Google it.
They asked the pentagon to tell them which name to remove, the pentagon told them to go to hell.
See this kind of statement doesn't make sense to me. Why is it reasonable to steal documents from the Pentagon and then go back to them and say "Hey, we stole so much that we care to look through ourselves so go redact this for us"?
That does indeed make no sense. What actually happened makes sense, though: They were given documents, they reviewed them, identified thousands and thousands of pages that they were uneasy about releasing because they contained information that could be used to harm innocent people, and they asked the one source that knows who's who in these papers to tell them who to protect.
The pentagon decided that instead of helping protect innocent people, they would lie and say that wikileaks didn't even try to protect innocent people, and that wikileaks is putting people in danger. Because the pentagon is very good at propaganda, and doesn't mind one bit if innocent people get killed, so long as they get away with killing them scott free.
Re:How should people help wikileaks? (Score:1, Insightful)
Misleading editing? You mean like how wikileaks edited out they guys carrying RPGS?
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you mean the right to choose not to do business with someone that a third party doesn't approve of. A third party which can have you and your whole family assassinated, not really even bother to hide it (although not actually admitting it publicly) and not only get away with it, but have millions of apologists like you, Bigjeff5, appear to be who will cheer and argue about what a good thing it was and about how any innocent family members, neighbors or bystanders killed in the process were victims of the assassinated rather than the assassins because the assassinated were using them as "human shields". Some of us think that the free exercise of "the right to do business with someone you don't approve of" requires that you actually get to choose who you don't approve of rather than having extremely powerful entities tell you who you shouldn't approve of by use of punitive measures. Also, please, if you can rationally deny that being put on a US government watch list is a punitive measure then I would, by all means, love to hear the logic behind the denial.
All else being equal (Score:5, Insightful)
The simplest explanation usually the correct one....
The problem with your assumptions is that you assume the US government is WAY more capable and competent than it actually is.
What is closer to the truth Assange is a reckless narcisstic jackass who got put on watchlists for leaking US intelligence, along the way
he probably pissed off some women with his narcisstic jackass ways which caused them to accuse him of various misdeeds. Moneybookers cut him off because Moneybookers is a company based in Bahrain about to do an IPO and does not need the drama that his pitifully small accounts brings with them. Moneybookers wants to do things that are far less likely to bring them trouble like online gambling, international money transfers,etc,etc
http://www.ecommerce-journal.com/node/30006 [ecommerce-journal.com]
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardening the cockpits is one part of the correct solution. Possibly also training pilots not to negotiate with terrorists, even ones with hostages, since they apparently got into the cockpit of one of the planes by threatening to slit a flight attendants throat. The most important part of the correct solution though was to stop driving into the publics collective heads that if there's a hijacking that they shouldn't "try to be a hero". That was the security mantra before: "don't be a hero". The correct thing to do in a hijacking was always to sit tight, comply with the hijackers demands and try not to make waves. Anyone who tried to resist was an idiot who would just get themselves and others killed. You had to just sit tight and wait for the trained professionals to take care of the problem. Just look at movies about the topic. _Passenger 57_ springs to mind. There was one guy in it who tried to be a hero and grab one of the hijackers guns and just got bashed in the face for his efforts. What a fool, he should have just waited for the professional counter-terrorist to come and save him. If the 9/11 hijacking had taken place today, rather than 9 years ago, then probably, at the worst, all four planes would have ended up like flight 93. Combine a hardened cockpit with todays passengers and the captain would just have to announce over the intercom that hijackers are trying to break into the cockpit and a human swarm would take them down.
Re:How should people help wikileaks? (Score:3, Insightful)
I watched the full version first and that was shortly after the story broke, if they released it later it was by a matter of hours or at most days.
stop bullshitting and outright lying.
"Woah woah... so you're saying Wikileaks is under no obligation to rise above the likes of FOX News and MSNBC? Really??"
you're obviously too dense to understand this but he was pointing out that editing is normal. normal because people don't watch an hour long video where 90% of it is nothing but the droning of an engine and shaky footage of nothing in particular.
they released both the full video and a shorter version with the most important bits.
deal with it.
Re:Uh (Score:2, Insightful)
In this case however, it's as if all the big ISPs and mail providers implement the RBLS.
And the RBLs don't have any firm listing policies that are agreed upon by everyone, that warrant blackholing.
The RBLs list entities suspected of a crime like semding span, the accepted use.
However, later on, after everyone's using it, they start listing some people that didn't send spam, but actually, it's in the interests of the RBL operator that they be listed. For example, perhaps they were found sending an opt-in newsletter that contained articles critical of the RBL, or revealed information leaked by an insider.
Big ISPs implement the blocks indicated by RBL. Big ISPs shrug their shoulders, don't admit any responsibility due to what RBL listed.
RBL when questioned shrugs their shoulders... "it's just a watch list" "we don't force anyone to block what we list"
Re:I dont feel sorry for Wikileaks (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly FUD. I love the argument though, very looney toons. It's ok to kill innocent people left and right when you were aiming at 'the bad guys' ... but if you hypothetically threaten their lives with information then that's crossing the line!
Maybe their just greedy, and don't want to share the civilian deaths with the enemy.
Re:Uh (Score:2, Insightful)
Knowingly receiving stolen property makes you accessory after the fact.
I don't care what you think about the US or Wikileaks on this one, both are douche bags. Wikileaks is doubly so for whining about what is happening to it when it should have expected it all.
Quit your bitchin' and find another source, I'm sure someone (Iran perhaps) would be willing to broker the payments for wikileaks, or even finance the whole thing.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
No. They put Moneybookers on the watch list. That's entirely understandable when you want to target their clientele for doing something that you don't like. Assange (I'm sure) has been on the watch list for a long time.
The problem with being on that watch list is that it severely limits who you can do business with. No US government entity, contractor, or anyone wanting a govt contract will do business with you.
That's why this is a severe douche maneuver by the US federal government. I understand trying to freeze the accounts of the people who are supporting terrorists and terror activities... But to use this as a tool to silence someone who is helping point out abuses and incompetence is abuse.
BTW... I'm an American... and I'm ashamed. I'll continue to do what I can in the ballot and among those that will listen... But it's a nasty uphill battle against people who just don't give a damn.
Re:Wikileaks held back fifteen thousand pages! (Score:3, Insightful)
The 'red scare' wasn't real (Score:3, Insightful)
As for 'Soviet style communism', Russia never was a communist country. It was a dictatorship using Marx's Rhetoric. For Americans communism == socialism == evil stuff we learned about in school. Thing is, all that 'socialism' is the only thing between the average American and the 'nasty, brutal and short' life of the 1800s. Maybe you're one of the 'haves'. Maybe you've got a trust fund and you're set for life. But if not, you're a freakin' idiot, and you're part of the problem. The socialists want to protect you (and themselves, they're realists, not altruists). The capitalists want to grind you into hamburger. Of course, you're probably too busy planning on being they guy cranking the grinder to notice they've got your arm in it.
Moron.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, thank god the US isn't quite at the level of Russia or China yet. Is this supposed to make me feel better? Exactly when will criticism of methods employed by the US government to stop dangerous activities be legitimate? Only when they involve assassinations through radioactive poisons or random incarcerations? Do you want the US to be the country it aspires to be, or merely something marginally better than the bottom of the autocratic barrel?
I would also argue that the activities described in the documents are acts against the the United States. They are counter-productive, create more enemies and tarnish the reputation of the United States by association. Why should they stay secret? They are already known to the local population, because they happened there. The only people who don't know about it are Americans. Again, why should the American people be kept in the dark about activities that create dangerous situtations for America?
Finally, how do you know that they actually did put Americans, Australians, British and others in danger? Because some politician told you so? Or because you read the documents yourself? If you didn't read them yourself, why do you trust the people who are indicted by the documents to tell you the truth about what is in the documents?
If the US is what it aspires to be, rather than just another country striving for survival by any means, there is no place for secrets that exist solely to prevent embarrassment.
Re:Wikileaks held back fifteen thousand pages! (Score:4, Insightful)
So who has actually been harmed by any of it? Just one name, please.
Re:How should people help wikileaks? (Score:5, Insightful)
He helped the enemy fight us (attacking the will to fight a war is just as useful as killing soldiers or sabotaging material)
Oh hell fucking no. You didn't just go there. I won't argue whether the action of the soldier was justified or not, because that's a story for a different thread. But to argue that merely providing information that tarnishes the image of the country as being the same as actively sabotaging installations and killing people is exactly what lead to the Kent State shootings, and enabled Hitler to rise to power in Germany.
That argument is bullshit of the highest degree, because it not only makes it impossible to have a rational discussion about a war, but it also is a pretext to qualify anybody who questions the war as being a legitimate target for killing. I have seen the effects of that kind of logic, and it directly leads to killing anybody who is deemed objectionable by the one in power.
Get the fuck out my country. You are the enemy.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason they didn't want to have that footage released. Apart from the fact that it hurts their reputation, it also suddenly paints war in a completely different way. If you remember around the first Gulf war, all the people got to see were these 'neat' camera shots made from the nose of a missile.
No dying people, no bodies lying strewn around.
All we saw was a cross-hair on a building that got bigger and bigger, followed by a breakup in communication, and a 'hilarious' comment about not wanting to be the guy in that bunker.
War was changed from a dirty business into something neat, without (at least to the perception of the CNN viewers) the hurt and suffering.
And that's exactly the same way they have been painting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. When was the last time you saw a firefight with someone getting shot on TV? They have created an image of war that they are desperate to keep.
Because if people start thinking about 'the enemy' as actual human beings, it suddenly becomes a lot more difficult to swear blind obedience to a government that goes overseas to kill people.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Case in point - Pentagon Papers about Vietnam, classified, leaked, published by major newspapers despite serious government objections. Back then, courts approved the journalist right to publish such documents. Has it been forgotten already?
We don't have laws to prevent distribution such secrets - instead, we have specific laws to protect the anonymous journalist sources, especially designed for cases such as this - because the society right to know information and freely talk about it stands above the government desire to 'protect' anything.
Copies of information is not stolen property in any way. No U.S. government documents are in possession of wikileaks, and as far as we know, none of this has been obtained by breaking&entering secure premises. If some individual leaks a secret (government classified data or cocacola secret recipe) that was available to him, then he may be liable for breaching whatever was binding him and requiring not to disclose it; but there is nothing prohibiting free citizens from distributing it further, it falls under first amendment, as per court cases regarding the same Pentagon Papers for example.
The problem with wikileaks is that they are having to do the job that "real" journalists in major news agencies would be supposed to do, but as they are failing the society, then amateurs such as Assange have to do it, and they sometimes do it in a half-assed way.
Why are the leak sources not going to the reporters to NY Times or BBC? It's just a symptom that they are failing in their eagerness to dig the truth, talk to possible informants, and take brave steps to guarantee that their sources would be protected. *That* would be journalism, instead of republishing bigcorp or government press releases.
Truth shall set you free. (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh, wait.
Re:"Official US Watchlist" (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't have to watch us all. We can all be intelligent and capable thinkers expressing ourselves well and not be saying one original thing between us.
They watch using theories of organization.
Re:Uh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The 'red scare' wasn't real (Score:5, Insightful)
Boom! Irrefutable logic. The USSR had so little fuel (or poor supply lines) that they couldn't drive their tanks home in 1945. Ergo, they were completely powerless between 1945 and 1992. I heard that Khrushchev did *not* in fact go to the United Nations and declare that "We will bury you". And since the Soviet Union didn't have enough fuel in 1945, it's obvious that they didn't launch Sputnik into space, didn't have nuclear weapons, and didn't have ICBMs. It's all fiction - how could a country lacking in fuel in 1945 possibly get all those other things? Hellllll, I bet the Soviet Union didn't even have enough fuel to get Khrushchev to the UN in the first place!
As for 'Soviet style communism', Russia never was a communist country.
Even if it was true, it's totally, utterly irrelevant. The Soviet Union wasn't a threat because it wasn't a "true" communist country?
Re:Uh (Score:2, Insightful)
Annoying, yes, but hardly the Russian tactic of poisoning you with radiation (Alexander Litvinenko) [...]
Of course they don't poison them! Instead they use unmaned drones for murdering hundreds of people every year.
[...] or throwing him and his wife (if he had one) into a forgotten political prison (Liu Xiaobo) (if he could be extradited).
Kidnapping people from all over the world, throwing them in secret prisons, and torturing them is an important part in the war on terror.
Re:Uh (Score:3, Insightful)
Get back to me (Score:3, Insightful)
when he starts picking on nations known to remove people who offend them. He picks on a target that cannot afford to take him down. While the US has its flaws it is far far from being the worst of the lot when it comes to the strong countries of this world. The difference is that most of the others would have no fear of dealing with him.
Re:How should people help wikileaks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Again, there's a difference in expected behavior for a civilian and a serving member of the military.
That argument didn't work during the Nuremberg trials, and for good reason. For one, it's because the only difference in the expected behavior of a civilian member and that of a serving member of the military is that they are supposed to contact different organizations in case of issues. Being part of a hierarchical organization doesn't absolve people from crimes they committed, helped commit, or helped bury.
Many good (and silly) complaints about how the military works have surfaced from retiring colonels and generals who have do this the right way.
Do you know why a lot military types wait until retirement before complaining, especially if they're higher ranked? You can't get your pension cut if you embarrass your superiors. Or beaten to a pulp. Or hung out to dry during a firefight. It's a basic economic calculation.