Um, I Think It's Time for a Thread on WikiLeaks

sex sells, right?

also

1. it's a lot easier & more fun for lazy journalists to focus on a rape scandal than to sift through thousands of war documents
2. it makes them feel like they're actually doing a job -- "asking the tough questions" -- rather than having to defer to someone who is doing it for them

are the large news outlets trying to smear him?

of course.

it's not really the story, but he is an extremely strange guy. it's not like they are making this stuff up.

are the large news outlets trying to smear him?

of course.

― sleeve, Monday, October 25, 2010 9:50 AM

wikileaks makes the major news outlets look ineffectual. also what j0rdan said

Heh.

apparently what he does it very popular with veteran lefty journalists in the uk at least, who associate his politics with things they like, but the younger ones are a bit more creeped out because they have more direct experience of/dislike for libertarianism through the internet (which is still basically the only place you see it in the uk)

that interview is so very retarded. focusing on the eclipsing personality of assange and the rape rumours is obviously the perfect way for media to acknowledge the leaks as news without actually talking about them at all

an information dump of half a million documents which are about literally thousands of events is perhaps not the best way to get material covered (this is a point a lot of people who share wikileaks' presumed sympathies have made)

Yeah, it's always easier to criticize. What would have been a better way then? 5 x 100,000 documents? (the second release would make those same people go "boring!")

i haven't read the half million documents yet, so i don't know, but it seems like cooperating with journalists so that synthesised/digested stories are extracted and published in advance of the releases is a good idea PR-wise. if you don't do that then the release itself is the story. the newspapers wl cooperated with on the afghanistan release seem to either not have cooperated this time or not been given the opportunity and at the same time wl is being criticized by amnesty et al. they're not doing it right, and they're leaving gaps for stories about assange being a crank (which like i say, is not a lie).

this guy is not terribly effective at drawing attention to the issues at hand - he's unable to redirect the debate from being about HIM and his methods to the contents of the documents he releases

there's a suspicion among the people i know who've met him that he likes it that way (cyberpunk outfits, think he's morpheus, etc.). it's clear he's got a lot of the personality issues shared by libertarian hacker types (as alluded to in that nyt piece).

it's disingenuous of him to suggest the goal is just freeing information/generating debate. or if that's true, it's pretty unambitious/careless. it seems like he has real political preferences. and given that, it's not ad hominem to find faul with/write features about the figurehead when his M.O. works against generating supporting for those preferences.

But when the story's about him instead of the revelations it's most distracting.

that's the joke

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/23/obama-investigate-war-logs-torture

Nowak said it would be up to the Obama administration to launch an "independent and objective" investigation with a view not only to "bring the perpetrators to justice but also to provide the victims with adequate remedy and reparation".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/24/iraq-war-logs-us-iraqi-torture

you know, I'm actually kind of psyched about this

I'm sure there will be a full investigation, along with the indictment of top Bush Administration officials. And there will be fudge and ice cream.

Morbs this is one of those brief windows where we can all be psyched about the same thing imo

wait hold up what are we psyched about, other than the leak

Clegg said: "We can bemoan how these leaks occurred, but I think the nature of the allegations made are extraordinarily serious. They are distressing to read about and they are very serious. I am assuming the US administration will want to provide its own answer. It's not for us to tell them how to do that."

this is a positive development, people saying "the point isn't 'leak,' it's the information & our responsibility in light of it"

I know it's not the revolution in its full splendor but it'll have to do

The sooner we dismantle the stupid national daydream that war can be some neat and by-the-numbers campaign of justice and fairness, and accept that when we go to war this is what we mean, the better.

oh yeah that was a righteous thing to say props to clegg - i have some doubts that the US will heed this call but i'd love to be proven wrong

xp otm i think

"But you ARE going to prosecute, right?" Diane Sawyer wanted to know, practically falling on the lap of the DOD apparatchik whom she interviewed on Friday.

this guy is not terribly effective at drawing attention to the issues at hand - he's unable to redirect the debate from being about HIM and his methods to the contents of the documents he releases

On purpose or not (from either his or the media's perspective) this is how old media does things and has always done things. This is why we know more about the sex lives of politicians than what they vote for/against.

Thing is, he should be aware of this. And probably is.

hate to get all morbs, but "i have some doubts that the US will heed this call" is kind of an understatement. this is nick clegg we're talking about.

It's always amazing when the major media outlets latch onto one idea to discredit an anti-war message, without stating its corollary; for example, a newspaper suggesting that "WikiLeaks puts people in danger by releasing names of informants," without also asserting that WikiLeaks is operating precisely because another organization puts people in danger by tacitly condoning torture. So that the message is: the US Gov't behaving outside citizens' best interest does not demand intervention, but WikiLeaks behaving outside -some- citizens' best interest demands intervention. It's amazing the extent to which power is a one-way street.

i think most major media outlets criticize torture. they do in the uk. and it isn't amazing that power is a 'one-way street', is it? that's why they call it power. if it were um a two-way street, then it wouldn't be power.

http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00meKTqzQdZrkg/UK-Standard-Power-Cord-Mains-Plug-Power-Lead.jpg

Yes it would.

It's always amazing when the major media outlets latch onto one idea to discredit an anti-war message, without stating its corollary

yeah, what's with all these major media outlets not giving equal time to the pro/anti debate?

Right, but it's what is revealed in the corollary that is so strange. It's like someone saying, "You were accused of, through self-defense, punching a man who mugged you, shot you, and left you for dead in the street, by the man who mugged you, shot you, and left you for dead--don't you know that assault is wrong?"

i think most major US media outlets criticize non-US torture.

Fixed that for you. When it comes to, say, what John McCain underwent in POW camp, it's unquestionably torture. When it comes to what Saddam and his regime did to dissidents, or what Iran does to dissidents, it's unquestionably torture. When it's waterboarding al-Zarqawi, it's "Well, is it torture, or just extraordinarily harsh interrogation techniques? And don't the ends justify the means?" And they let Dick Cheney on the air to describe how awesome it is.

And demonstrate with the aid of Barney the Dinosaur.

The NYT has had no problem calling torture as they see'em when it involves other countries not America.

The sooner we dismantle the stupid national daydream that war can be some neat and by-the-numbers campaign of justice and fairness, and accept that when we go to war this is what we mean, the better.

On the one hand, only idiots believe that stupid national daydream.

On the other hand, we are a nation of idiots.

WikiLeaks should be declared 'enemy combatants', says Fox News contributor

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/26/wikileaks-fox-iraq-war-logs

It was only a matter of time imho.

oh good, a guardian dot co dot uk article about comments made by a fox news contributor

"WikiLeaks and its leader, a certain Julian Assange"

Sounds like one of those Damon Wayan malapropisms from In Living Color: "I like this place, it's got a certain julian assange about it."

On the one hand, only idiots believe that stupid national daydream.

Politicians, military leaders, anti-war demonstrators, patriots, journalists, advocates... many of them either believe the myth, claim to believe it, or pay lip service too it. There is a gulf of reality between the rules we claim to fight by and what it takes to win. The honorable warrior/baby killer dichotomy is stupid and naive and yet it pops up all the time.

i think i rescind my earlier otm'ing

Jonah Goldberg is miffed that Gawker misunderstood his Swiftian irony when he asked "a serious question": why hasn't the CIA murdered Assagne?

*Assange

lassagne

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/nov/18/wikileaks-founder-faces-swedish-detention-rape

lol url

U.S. briefs allies on new documents leak: WikiLeaks

The United States has briefed Britain, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Israel ahead of the expected new release of classified U.S. documents, WikiLeaks said on Thursday, citing local press reports.

The whistle-blowing website said by Twitter that American diplomats briefed government officials of its six allies in advance of the release expected in the next few days.

The next release is expected to include thousands of diplomatic cables reporting corruption allegations against politicians in Russia, Afghanistan and other Central Asian nations, sources familiar with the State Department cables held by WikiLeaks told Reuters on Wednesday.

The allegations are major enough to causee serious embarrassment for foreign governments, the sources said.

The Diplomatic files are going to be released any minute now: http://wlcentral.org/node/358