FBI Paid Informant Inside WikiLeaks 458
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Wired: "On an August workday in 2011, a cherubic 18-year-old Icelandic man named Sigurdur 'Siggi' Thordarson walked through the stately doors of the U.S. embassy in Reykjavik, his jacket pocket concealing his calling card: a crumpled photocopy of an Australian passport. The passport photo showed a man with a unruly shock of platinum blonde hair and the name Julian Paul Assange. Thordarson was long time volunteer for WikiLeaks with direct access to Assange and a key position as an organizer in the group. With his cold war-style embassy walk-in, he became something else: the first known FBI informant inside WikiLeaks. For the next three months, Thordarson served two masters, working for the secret-spilling website and simultaneously spilling its secrets to the U.S. government in exchange, he says, for a total of about $5,000. The FBI flew him internationally four times for debriefings, including one trip to Washington D.C., and on the last meeting obtained from Thordarson eight hard drives packed with chat logs, video and other data from WikiLeaks."
Cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
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Cheap doesn't do it justice. Laughable is more like it. I was expecting at least 2 orders of magnitude above that.
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Yes, because the U.S. Government needs to prove that they don't have co-conspirators.
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Loss of reputation.
How is that even possible for somebody that nobody has ever even heard of in the first place? You can't lose a reputation until you have one.
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Loss of reputation.
How is that even possible for somebody that nobody has ever even heard of in the first place? You can't lose a reputation until you have one.
Mr. Thordarson, your resume is very impressive. All we have left to do is google your name and you're hired! Hmm.. seems you sold out your last employer to the US Government... Yeah, we'll let you know..
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I'm going to tell you a story.
I used to troll a blog. It was a political blog, but the faction doesn't matter, and it was run by a person I shall just call 'AHole.' AHole was a recurring opponent of someone running another blog, I think with a focus on native americal issues, who I shall just call 'Victim.' He ran this blog at, to make up a name as I forget the real one, nativemediablog.blogspot.com. It was certainly a blogspot - this was all some years ago.
AHole was very aggressive in politics - he was one of those people who believed he was a True Patriot, and all those who disagreed were treasonous scum, and it was his civic duty to fight these people wherever possible. Not that this is limited to politics - I've seen people get just as rabid about sports teams, or defending a celebrity they admire. But in this case, it was politics. And, this being the internet, his arguments with Victim tended to follow the usual internet lines - a lot of accusations going both ways, and usually ending with someone being compared to Hitler.
One day, AHole took it to a new level. Seeing nativemediablog.blogspot.com, he created nativemediablog.com - purchased the domain. He this proceded to set up a website, under the handle used by Victim, mimicking his style, on which he wrote many posts promoting the abolishion of age of concent laws and promoting sex with children as psychologically beneficial. When Victim objected, AHole argued that he paid money for that domain and that gave him the right to post whatever he wanted there. As far as AHole was concerned, Victim was a piece of sub-human liberal scum, a threat to the survival of the country, and must be destroyed by any means.
At this point I, along with everyone else who had been arguing on AHole's blog, fled - afraid of being the victim of his next smear campaign. Fortunately, Victim had never used his real name. But imagine he had - what would have stopped AHole from setting up fake social networking profiles or posting comments under that name? Victim would have become unemployable: Every time an employer googled him (And they all do, even if they don't admit it) they would have found him to be a proud and active proponent of pedophilia. The only way to stop it would be to hire a lawyer and spend a sizeable chunk of his live savings on legal fees to identify and sue AHole, a process that could take years. AHole could have taken it even further, perhaps by printing notices on false government stationary and sending them to all of Victim's neighbours to warn them he was a convicted sex offender.
The internet is full of some very vicious people. This is why you should never, ever reveal your real name. In the case of AHole it was politics that set him off, but you never know when you are going to upset an AHole somewhere, somehow. These people exist. So be afraid of them.
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And we're supposed to be afraid of the NSA.
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$5000 might be reasonable for a bit of work copying some data to some disks, but it is not nearly enough to cover being known as an evil traitor everyone in the world. His reputation is now destroyed and is essentially unemployable in any company or organization that cares about its own image.
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His reputation is now destroyed and is essentially unemployable in any company or organization that cares about its own image.
So that rules out maybe two, even three potential employers.
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$5000 ... is not nearly enough to cover being known as an evil traitor everyone in the world. His reputation is now destroyed and is essentially unemployable in any company or organization that cares about its own image.
I think you significantly overstate the support for Assange and his activities. Living in a bubble with do that to you [commentarymagazine.com].
Poll: Americans say WikiLeaks harmed public interest; most want Assange arrested [washingtonpost.com] - December 14, 2010
The American public is highly critical of the recent release of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables on the WikiLeaks Web site and would support the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by U.S. authorities, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds.
Most of those polled - 68 percent - say the WikiLeaks' exposure of government documents about the State Department and U.S. diplomacy harms the public interest. Nearly as many - 59 percent - say the U.S. government should arrest Assange and charge him with a crime for releasing the diplomatic cables.
World opinion is more favorable, but also split.
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I haven't the time to investigate the methodology of the poll, but WaPo is a rag, so I'd take it with a grain of salt...
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An excellent use of confirmation bias. My hat is off to you sir.
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> [...]
> Poll: Americans say WikiLeaks harmed public interest; most want Assange arrested
I think you significantly overstate the extent to which the rest of the world is part of the United States of America.
Assange is far from universally loved outside of the US, but I would say his side enjoys considerably greater support than the side of US' spying on everybody else's communications at their fancy. Something that they make absolutely no secret of, since it is indeed in no way against US laws.
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Methodology of poll (Score:5, Insightful)
The poll [washingtonpost.com] asks two questions:
On another subject, from what you've heard and read, do you think the release of classified documents about the State Department and U.S. diplomacy by WikiLeaks serves the public interest or harms the public interest?
Do you think the United States should try to arrest the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange (Ah-SANGH), and charge him with a crime for releasing these documents, or do you think this is not a criminal matter?
Not blatantly misleading, but there is the distinct odor of bias in these questions, especially when asked one after the other.
The first question didn't directly ask what people thought, it asked them to conclude based on what the media presents. This is very different from an opinion poll. (From what *I've* heard and read, he is a criminal, but when I add experience, logic, and ethics I conclude that he is a hero.)
Then they present the second question in a leading manner by highlighting criminality several ways. "Arrest-Charge-Crime-or-Not-Crime - what do you think?" (A recent poll asked people if "Ben Ghazi" should be deported for his crimes, and many people said "yes, definitely!". It's easy to lead people into the position you want by framing it in the right way.)
Biasing the 1st question the other way might be something like:
Do you believe releasing the documents will make our country stronger?
An unbiased way to do the 2nd question might be something like:
Do you believe Julian Assange is a hero or a criminal?
I agree with the 1st reply-poster above: WaPo is a rag, and these polls hold little merit.
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Fair enough, but you need to clarify. Are you referring to Manning, Snowden, or this guy?
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You cannot snitch on the government, you snitch to it.
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Reputation for what? Isn't wikileaks supposed to be about opening all secrets? What secrets is wikileaks hiding that he traitorously revealed?
Just FWIW: I'm against this whole NSA thing and support Snowden, so I'm neither pro-spying nor pro big-brother. But, wikileaks has built its reputation upon lying about stuff. It's first claim to fame was the collateral murder video where it tried to paint some US soldiers as murderers when indeed the people they killed were in fact armed combatants. I have zero toler
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Isn't wikileaks supposed to be about opening all secrets?
No, they are not. They believe in transparent government. But they also believe in personal privacy.
What secrets is wikileaks hiding that he traitorously revealed?
The identity of people exposing corruption. Some of these people have risked their lives to do so.
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They believe in transparent government. But they also believe in personal privacy.
Wikileaks has been a bit "uneven" in its respect for privacy.
Wikileaks Fails “Due Diligence” Review [fas.org]
...calling WikiLeaks a whistleblower site does not accurately reflect the character of the project. It also does not explain why others who are engaged in open government, anti-corruption and whistleblower protection activities are wary of WikiLeaks or disdainful of it. . . .
WikiLeaks says that it is dedicated to fighting censorship, so a casual observer might assume that it is more or less a conventional liberal enterprise committed to enlightened democratic policies. But on closer inspection that is not quite the case. In fact, WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals.
Last year, for example, WikiLeaks published the “secret ritual” of a college women’s sorority called Alpha Sigma Tau. Now Alpha Sigma Tau (like several other sororities “exposed” by WikiLeaks) is not known to have engaged in any form of misconduct, and WikiLeaks does not allege that it has. Rather, WikiLeaks chose to publish the group’s confidential ritual just because it could. This is not whistleblowing and it is not journalism. It is a kind of information vandalism.
In fact, WikiLeaks routinely tramples on the privacy of non-governmental, non-corporate groups for no valid public policy reason. It has published private rites of Masons, Mormons and other groups that cultivate confidential relations among their members. Most or all of these groups are defenseless against WikiLeaks’ intrusions. The only weapon they have is public contempt for WikiLeaks’ ruthless violation of their freedom of association, and even that has mostly been swept away in a wave of uncritical and even adulatory reporting about the brave “open government,” “whistleblower” site.
On occasion, WikiLeaks has engaged in overtly unethical behavior. ... more [fas.org]
Who outed him? (Score:3)
$5000 might be reasonable for a bit of work copying some data to some disks, but it is not nearly enough to cover being known as an evil traitor everyone in the world. His reputation is now destroyed and is essentially unemployable in any company or organization that cares about its own image.
The real question is how did he get outed? I thought the FBI didn't out their informants. You're right, it's dumb to be an informant for precisely the reason you mention. No one wants to be labeled the snitch, it's equal to being blacklisted.
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$5,000? Seems like quite a bit of work and risk for just $5,000.
I hadn't heard that Wikileaks operated in the style of the KGB.
Just Like Old Times: KGB Murders Continue [humanevents.com]
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They gave him a lifetime supply of Twinkies as well.
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Not an issue. The government has a vault of Twinkies, frozen in liquid nitrogen, which is itself frozen in liquid helium. They have a 5-year supply of Twinkies available for all their double-agents in other countries, which number in the thousands. So when Hostess went bankrupt, the feds simply thawed out a week's worth of payment at a time, and kept everyone happy. They knew someone would start production back up before their stockpile ran out.
Now, you may ask yourself, where in the world could the governm
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RTFA. He didn't get paid for his work and risk, just for the time he missed from his regular job.
"We'd still like to talk with you in person," one of his handlers replied. "I can think of a couple of easy ways for you to help."
"Can you guys help me with cash?" Thordarson shot back.
For the next few months, Thordarson begged the FBI for money, while the FBI alternately ignored him and courted him for more assistance. In the end, Thordarson says, the FBI agreed to compensate him for the work he missed while meeting with agents (he says he worked at a bodyguard-training school), totaling about $5,000.
As to why
He offered a second reason that he admits is more truthful: "The second reason was the adventure."
Re:Cheap (Score:5, Informative)
The second reason was adventure? So basically this guy was just like Bradley Manning who was self-avowedly in it for the thrill and the power trip.
The usual motives are MICE: Money, Ideology, Coercion and Ego: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_spying [wikipedia.org]
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Depending on your lifestyle, a "get out of jail free card" can be worth more than any amount of cash.
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Before he got recruited, he was a long time volunteer of Wikileaks which means he was probably in trouble with the law.
Not in Iceland where he lived - they lurv wikileaks there.
Since then he's got himself in trouble with the law in Iceland for stealing computer equipment from a retailer via fraud and for embezzlement by setting up a fraudulent webstore selling wikileaks branded t-shirts.
Re:Cheap (Score:4, Informative)
Read the article. It wasn't exactly an agreed-upon amount for his services or anything. As far as I can tell, he didn't even bother asking for anything until he got canned from wikileaks over setting up a website to sell wikileaks shirts for his own profit, and even then he just asked the FBI if they could help him out with some cash. Hardly a great position to be asking for compensation for services already rendered...
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That is probably a good thing. I am quite certain that Assange isn't Christ.
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Judas did what he did with the full knowledge of Jesus, then committed suicide. Siggi...well, it's not really the same.
Re:Cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
What risk? Are you confusing Julian Assange for Vladamir Putin, now?
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On another topic, can anyone who understands the US TLA agencies explain why the FBI was doing this, rather than the CIA? I would have though that using someone from Iceland to investigate an Australian working in Europe would have been considered an international, rather than domestic matter. I'm interested how spending money on an international situation like this falls under the FBI's charter?
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Legally speaking, that's a very, VERY good question. And one that I'm sure will never get answered.
Dealing with a foreign national, on foreign soil, is quite clearly a CIA matter and not what the FBI is supposed to be doing.
The are probably a couple dozen US citizens (myself being one) who understand this, and would REALLY like to know what happened to these promises of "oversight" that we've been given, the sad truth is that most are more worried about upgrading their 55" TV to a 65" model, and just plain
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You're way off base on numerous points. The FBI is law enforcement regardless of location; the CIA never is. You imagine a US/rest of the world split between the CIA and the FBI, but the reality is, the CIA is doing the intelligence gathering and the FBI is doing the law enforcement. Regardless of location. The specific location split that does exist is that the CIA is restricted in a lot of its activities inside the US; and the FBI is tasked with oversight of the CIA inside the US.
For somebody grousing about the government, and how different things are, you sure don't know much civics.
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Wow... Apparently they've made some successful power grabs. That document is sickening.
There's something very, very wrong when a proud, patriotic American is disgusted by his own president, and feels admiration for Vladmir Putin.
The "powers that be" need to stop being powerful, ASAP.
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Can anyone who understands the US TLA agencies explain why the FBI was doing this, rather than the CIA?
My guess is that the FBI was trying to catch American citizens in the act of whistleblowing, so that they can make an arrest. America is not kind to people that expose corruption. Although we have "whistleblower protection programs", they have so many exceptions that they are a sham. Whether they go to the press, the police, or directly to the FBI, many whistleblowers end up in serious legal trouble and often spend time in jail. Citation: List of whistleblowers [wikipedia.org].
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$5,000? Seems like quite a bit of work and risk for just $5,000.
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
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30 pieces of silver.
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It is about exchange rate and Icelanders scrambled sense of money.
Current exchange rate (1 USD = 123.29 ISK) (it is about the same now as it was back then when this took place) makes $5000 at 621900 ISK. In Iceland that is a decent amount of money, since most people only have 180.000 - 350000 ISK a month. For this guy this was maybe worth 1 to 3 month worth of his regular income in Iceland, if he was on unemployment benefits at the time, we are speaking about up to 4 months worth of his regular income.
I hig
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But in the end these are only your fantasies about Russia and China. Both countries are completely content in just claim whatever they want no matter what evidence exists against it. US is the only country in the world that goes postal when its "good" image is threatened, because, unlike in these two other countries, US government control over its citizens is based on propaganda alone.
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"Betray entire nations?" Really?
I guess if you define a nation as its government and not its people.
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You don't think it benefits our country for the people to know when our government commits crimes?
Indeed. The parent (and GP) seem to be under the illusion that Assange is American, whereas in fact, he is Australian. The whole issue arises from the US Government's toxic attitude to other sovereign nations and their citizens. Whatever one might think of his (or Wikileaks') sources, Assange is not a traitor to the US. All he has done is expose some of their dirty dealings to the light of day.
I can understand why the US Government might not care for that, but they could always try behaving less dishonourably.
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Yeah, if you're some Iraqi kid that the Americans shot from a helicopter for no particular reason? HA HA SCREW YOU BUDDY. If you're some German used car salesman who got sent to Syria to be tortured for 10 months by the Americans for no particular reason? OH WELL I'M NOT FEELING IT.
Except oh, wait. There were American journalists in that group of people who got shot, too. And oh, wait, when someone discloses the fact that the American government was lying through its teeth, not for "national security" but to hide its own wrongdoing? Then as far as I'm concerned that person has done us all a favor. The government should not be able to hide behind "national security" to protect itself from embarrassment or hide its own law breaking. And it matters when our government carelessly destroys someone's life, because that shit is going to come back to bite us one day. This is why people hate us; we stomp all over everything like an elephant, not even paying attention, and then say loudly, "WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE US?" This is why you callous jackass.
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Let us count some of the things the leaked diplomatic cables revealed:
- That the US and UK had both been intercepting communications involving Kofi Annan, in violation of international treaty. Bit of old-fashioned code-war style bugging going on at the UN offices.
- An instruction to US diplomats to attempt to obtain encryption keys belonging to Ban Ki-moon. Not even a CIA covert-op thing: Diplomats were engaged in spying on a supposed ally. Further orders instructed everything from keys to frequent-flyer identification numbers be collected from a large number of forign diplomatic personel. It sounds like the plot to a cheap spy novel - but it's real. Even US diplomats cannot be trusted.
- A communication from the US embassy in Strasbourg describing EU human rights laws as 'an irritant.'
- Proof that US diplomatic offices are instructed to promote sales for US defence contractors overseas.
- That DynCorp employees had been accused of running a child prostitution ring, and the US had assisted in a cover-up operation to avoid embarassing one of their significent contractors.
- When Pfizer was sued in Nigeria over claims that improper test protocols lead to the deaths of children, they hired a private investigator to find material that could be used to blackmail the country's attorney general.
- The US issued instructions to diplomats to lobby against EU regulations requiring the labeling of genetically modified food and to apply pressure for broadening the scope of patents on GMOs in order to allow Montanto to export their products to Europe.
- Libya threatened to nationalise the operations of Petro-Canada in their country if they did not recieve a public apology for a diplomatic gaffe made by the Canadian forign minister.
- Numerous messages, largely relating to Canada, containing instructions to US embassies that they are to push for stricter copyright law in their host countries.
And that's just a few select examples. I could spend all day looking these up. People have long suspected that the US was playing diplomatic games, using their political influence to benefit major US corporations, covering up embarassments to the country and so on - but these claims were dismissed as the ramblings of foil-hatted conspiracy theorists. The leaked cables reveal that many of those claims are true.
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He really benefits me. Did you ever read any leaks? Not just the famous government ones. Corporate ones. Know who is screwing you, cheating you, having a boost at your expense. Do you pay taxes? Buy goods? Actually read? Capable of processing what you read? I'm guessing not, it looks like you just get your information ,5th hand ,from the government extorted media. Too bad you can't just delete your post...
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"Ego trip" (Score:5, Insightful)
I want to point something out. I noticed it earlier tonight over at another tech-related site, and then at several other sites.
Whenever there is a story about Julian Assange or Edward Snowden, you can practically set your watch by a host of comments, usually from Anonymous Cowards, talking about Assange and Snowden's "big egos" and their arrogance and their many other personal failings. In many cases, these comments will come one after the other, uninterrupted, with the same message worded slightly differently, but always mentioning their "ego" and what jerks they are and in many cases wishing bodily harm, prison rape or death on one or both of the men.
None of the comments ever mentions the most important part of the story, that we have powerful countries, purportedly "free" countries, that have secret courts ordering secret surveillance by secret agencies (both government and private industry) because they supposedly are suspected of breaking secret laws, and who, if caught, will be held at secret prisons. Nor do they mention that the citizens of this country, though not accused or suspected of any crimes, are having each of their phone conversations registered by a secret program, looking for secret data, held in secret databases, under warrants that if they exist at all, are secret. The kind of fascistic public/private police state operations that would have made the East German secret police green with envy.
No mention in these many comments referencing these "egotistical jerks" about the totalitarian surveillance state they have uncovered. No mention of the crimes and beyond-sleazy behavior they have exposed for us to see, at the expense of their own ruined lives.
It's almost as if someone really, really wants this discussion to be about a couple of jerks instead of the massive transformation of our societies into police states, something that will effect and has effected each of our lives and behavior. The kind of transformation that once complete, is very very hard to roll back. It's almost as if someone doesn't want a discussion about how we all suddenly became suspects of our own governments and how that changes everything.
Fuck Julian Assange and fuck Edward Snowden, but their transgressions and personal defects are nothing compared to the ugly, hungry monster revealed by them.
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I think people underestimate the number of right wing nutjobs in America
I'd go so far as to say that people do underestimate the number of _____ wing nutjobs in America.
Most of us are quite moderate, but for some reason all the noise gets made by two distant sides that do nothing but spew about the same things over and over.
I see it as attempted sedation. You may not be as lucky.
Re:"Ego trip" (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to think that, but I think a steady diet of the polarizing political media has really put most people in one camp or the other. It's really not that hard to radicalize someone, especially when there is economic pressure.
I think it's pretty clear that the elites do not want anything like a political consensus among the working class, because they're afraid it will end up looking like the liberal New Deal that was so successful for the U.S.
Re:"Ego trip" (Score:4, Insightful)
Certain people use the term Libertarian to mean "I'm a Republican, but I smoke pot and it should be legalized". For others, it means "I'm really an anarchist but feel uncomfortable with word". Pretty much anyone I've ever met who has used the term to describe themselves does so in an evasive way. It's mostly just a wishy washy nudge nudge way of saying "Hey look, I'm different". The problem with such labels(and agnostic is other of this ilk) is that when a label can mean anything, it means nothing. Just white noise.
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Man, that's so true it hurts.
And look at the crazy combinations this has caused. You have "libertarians" who are in favor of taking away women's reproductive rights and "libertarians" who want stronger copyrights and stricter enforcement of intellectual property and "libertarians" who want to put a wall around the country. It's also some hippie haters who look at the people standing around them at the gun rallies and tea p
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Much confusion is caused by people considering either of the two parties "Left" or "Right". They're both "Right" in the sense that they are not representing organized labour and both represent sections of capitalism. Granted, the democrats usually represent the smarter sections (white collar, Silicon Valley, high tech) and the Republicans more the older entrenched sections (defense contractors, oil, heavy industry, agriculture). The whole idea one section of capital is somehow progressive and the other is n
Some more (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's some trends I've noticed. Every time some politically-charged issue springs up, certain predictable actions seem to bog down debate:
1) Pointing out typos in the article summary or parent poster
Especially when the respondent makes their own typos while picking apart the OP. The flurry of people jumping on board to correct this can be enormous, and push valuable discussion down below the screen, where it has little chance of being seen.
2) Revising someone's analogy
Someone makes an analogy, so someone *else* has to make a better one. If the revised analogy is flawed, again the flurry of people jumping on board to correct this can be enormous and push valuable discussion down the page.
(Maybe when someone makes a bad analogy we should just say "no, it's not like that" and let it go?)
2) Saying it's our fault
I really hate this one. Invariably, someone will come along and say "it's our own fault because we voted for these people". This completely exonerates the politicians involved and makes everyone feel a little bit guilty - and at the same time it defuses calls for action, suggestions for improvement, and the like. "The best way is to use the power of the vote", setting aside that a) much of the time it's an unelected bureaucrat, b) the vote has been hijacked by special interests, and c) even if it were true, we should also be discussion other possible options.
Re:"Ego trip" (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't fucking get it, do you? How can he tell you about a secret law? The ACLU and other organizations continue to ask the government that very same question, but the government refuses. [aclu.org]
Also, don't wonder why the world tells you to go fuck yourself when you ask for Snowden. If you weren't murdering teenagers with completely illegal and immoral drone strike programs after killing a few hundred thousand civilians in multiple wars of aggression, maybe everyone wouldn't burst out in laughter every time you uttered the phrase "rule of law."
Re:"Ego trip" (Score:4, Interesting)
If this was a "mediocre" opinion, I'd agree. But see, here's the thing: people don't talk the same.
The only thing in the world that I'm good at - truly gifted - the thing that I've been trained to do and have spent the past 20-plus years teaching, the thing that I've written about and published in 5 languages, is analyzing texts. A common voice stands out to me like a cluster of bad pixels.
I couldn't compile a kernel to save my soul, but motherfucker, I have an ear for voice in written language.
Ah, but this isn't "saying bad things" about something "posted on the internet". It is agreement and embellishment of the story. The media says, "Oh, that (Snowden/Assange) is a jerk" and suddenly there's a chorus of "Yeah, what a jerk!" from this crowd. It's like going to a hockey game and all of a sudden everybody starts singing different lyrics, spontaneously.
But thank you for using small words as you mansplained the facts of internet life to me. It's the thought that counts.
Re: Cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
sure it is. He revealed the secrets of the group whose purpose is... to reveal secrets.
What's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
3 months for $5000? (Score:2)
I mean, it ain't minimum wage but effectively committing treason on your people for the benefit of the corporations isn't really worth that little money.
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Depends on who "your people" are, doesn't it? This simple fact explains much of this situation.
Re: 3 months for $5000? (Score:2)
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I think its fairly likely that DaveV1.0 owes fealty to neither Wikileaks nor you, hence no treason.
Re: 3 months for $5000? (Score:4, Informative)
and the enemies of the U.S.
I want to make one thing perfectly, crystal clear.
They may be enemies of the US government, but they are not considered enemies by the American people. At least not the American people who paid attention in History class when we were in school.
Don't hate us all just because powerful people gamed the system. There are plenty of us over here that are FAR MORE pissed at the current state of affairs than any of you foreigners are.
The sad truth is that there is "just" enough of a voter base here, and enough liberal pussies, that those of us who are still strong, able, and have integrity are getting outvoted at every election. It's become a nanny state, and people only vote for the guy that they think will give them the most "free money". Once elected on bullshit promises, he is free to disregard them and then pursue his real agenda. And as long as the govt keeps handing out free money, they'll keep voting the traitors back in.
I, for one, am NOT happy about this situation. I desperately long to live in the "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave". I want to live or die, fail or succeed, on my own efforts and merits, not on a handout that I got by "successfully" managing to be lazy enough to not actually *earn* any money.
But it doesn't work that way anymore. I have a decent job. I make more than average. But truth be told, I could be in a better financial position if I quit my job, declared bakruptcy, and took the handouts. I'll never do it, but I'd have more cash in my pocket if I did.
I would fight to defend the country that my grandfather fought to defend. Would I sign up to defend the country it has become? Hell no, it disgusts me. And as much as I miss that man, I'm glad he passed before he had to see what it turned into.
Non-US readers: how they keep control (Score:5, Insightful)
The parent shows you the effects of a careful propaganda campaign to divide the voters.
The propaganda machine counts pensioners together with welfare recipients to "prove" that government is keeping everyone dependent. That's Romney's "47%": anyone who pays into the system and expects to get anything back out is a "taker".
Two mainstream Presidential candidates tried to make food stamps a racial issue and claimed that all the children, disabled people, and Wal-Mart workers who receive them are lazy deadbeats.
If you can keep half the victims resenting the other half, you are well prepared to implement Jay Gould's solution: 'I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half".
>I could be in a better financial position if I quit my job, declared bakruptcy, and took the handouts.
See the victory of the propaganda? They've got somebody believing this even though he has an Internet connection and could find out the truth within minutes.
Is there anyone (Score:2)
Re:Is there anyone (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Another way to look at this (Score:5, Funny)
The FBI had an internal data corruption, and paid this guy $5,000 to help them restore from "off-site back-up"
Re: (Score:2)
Profit? (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Spell Reykjavik with Unicode U+00ED (LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH ACUTE)
2. Send to Slashdot as UTF-8: C3 AD
3. ?
4. Slashdot receives ISO-8859-1: C3 AD
5. Slashdot prints U+00C3 (LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE) and discards AD
And this is surprising to who? (Score:2)
Gee, the FBI thinks it's valuable to have an informant inside an organization that actively solicits classified intelligence and data of all kinds and seeks to distribute it? I'd be shocked (and disappointed) if the FBI (or other agency) didn't have an informant, or try to obtain one.
This is kind of what we pay an intelligence apparatus to do.
I put this in the same category as the shocking revelations that we try and hack Chinese computer systems.
Sounds fair (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikileaks was only too happy to reveal internal documents of private organizations the world over, of no prohibitive value to the public, just damaging the companies involved. So they should be HAPPY about the same being done to them, and for the same reasons they did it. After all, if they weren't doing anything illegal, then there's no harm in the FBI having copies of their internal documents, right? Right?
I admit, going through the FBI is a rather roundabout way to get that info to the public, but it should work out in the long-term.
Re: (Score:3)
Sympathy? (Score:2)
An organization that specializes in betrayal of trust by insiders is complaining of the same. Not sure if serious.....
Getting real, I would imagine every intelligence service worth their weight has multiple moles planted in wikileaks. You would be incompetent as hell to run an intelligence service and not plant moles in wikileaks.
Hell, for that matter I'm sure more than a few corporations have their own agents planted. With the sheer commercial value of the material they get I would imagine organized crime
jurisiction issues? (Score:4, Interesting)
America (Score:4, Funny)
Fuck Yeah!!!!
Re: This kid's a hero of the Free World. (Score:4)
Re: This kid's a hero of the Free World. (Score:5, Interesting)
My 88 year old Dad, who is so conservative he considers Sean Hannity a liberal, thinks that Snowden is a hero. I was kind of surprised but really a lot of people don't like being spied on and that's from both ends of the political spectrum.
Re: This kid's a hero of the Free World. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Where are the brave calling home these days?
Re: (Score:2)
Atlanta.
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Re: (Score:3)
FBI spying? Get a book about J. Edgar Hoover. The current bunch are pussies by comparison.