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

We have people writing "they asked for it" (as covert spies)

― Mordy, Thursday, December 9, 2010 2:11 PM (44 seconds ago) Bookmark

okay lol
(but then I felt bad about it afterwards)

bernard, kind of feel that trying to legislate what people talk about is a non-starter in general but particularly IRONIC in this case

first amendment, man, first amendment

― ______ ___ ___________! (history mayne), Thursday, December 9, 2010 2:12 PM (24 seconds ago) Bookmark

not trying to 'legislate' anything, just to criticize ppl who get sucked up into this whole game of chinese whispers and end up denouncing some guy with a blog who doesn't denounce forcefully enough the denouncers of the alleged rape-victims — at which point the entire discourse is poisoned because people are essentially climbing onto their soapboxes and shouting at themselves.

I was excited by the whole wikileaks thing as much because of the public enthusiasm it seemed to provoke as the actual contents of any of the cables; now it's degenerated into a conversation we've gone through a hundred times before and it's hard not to be a lil frustrated

i think it's odd how the rape charge went from 'too weak to prosecute' to making assange interpol's most wanted in a couple of months. i think the fact that the rape charge very well may be legitimate (and that assange might be guilty) doesn't exclude all other kinds of foul play from the governments involved

I'd be amazed if Wikileaks hadn't made contingency plans for Assange being imprisoned/assassinated/randomly hit by a bus

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/wikileaks-reels/

p.s. threat level is a tech blog, so it's week on the politics/ethics of this, but it's doing the best coverage of the tech issues and internal wikileaks stuff.

.. but its better on spelling, hem hem.

oh ho ho

but uh basically if I had to summarize my position in a nutshell:

- yeah there are some dudes engaged in victim-blaming, which is overdetermined by the combined effects of:
— 1. rape culture (duh), but also
— 2. kneejerk fear reaction to the idea that rape allegations against Assange will give ppl (primarily in the media) an excuse to discredit or ignore wikileaks [via a similar kneejerk reaction?];
— - lol of course the other irony is that spreading silly conspiracy theories around has the exact same effect of obscuring the real issues
- — - ... maybe some good will still come of all this tho???

i hope it's clear that my position is that, while not necessarily true of julian assange, people making claims similar to wikileaks's against large companies or governments have been discredited on a basis of sexual relationships.
that being said, i hope i did not come across as suggesting that assange's accusers should not be given full credibility as the case progresses and in a court of law.

that seems suspiciously reasonable.......... whose sock r u bro?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/09/bradley_manning_wikileaks_no_help/

okay that's actually pretty funny

seems like a heckuva lot of trouble to go to 'just' to make money tho

also i definitely did not suggest that somehow even if assange committed the crimes via entrapment that he wouldn't be one hundred percent accountable if the accusations were in any way true.

To change the subject back to WikiLeaks itself for a moment: a good summary.

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/search-engines/jeeves.jpg

god i hate this screen name, why why did i choose it.

i've had three 'this is why people don't ask jeeves' jokes since i started posting here

:-)

Hahaha I shouldn't but... this is such classic Greenwald:

Rubin's segment goes on for about 10 minutes, and while listening to it will give important context for what follows, it's not completely necessary.

I was finally brought in at the 32:15 mark and that's when things became quite contentious and illuminating.

Swedish prosecutors have cancelled an arrest warrant issued for Julian Assange, the founder of controversial whistleblower website Wikileaks.

The warrant was issued following a sexual assault complaint against him.

But on Saturday, as international media outlets were beginning to pick up the story, Eva Finne, Sweden's chief prosecutor, announced that Assange was no longer wanted.

"I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape," the chief prosecutor said, but declined to go into any more details.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/08/2010821153010551757.html

That's from August. Does anyone know what has changed since August in this case?

well you guys have had a busy morning

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/01/sweden-julian-assange-rape-investigation

adam, it looks like the investigation was reopened in september

by a more senior agent I MEAN PROSECUTOR, PROSECUTOR

Ny added that "it's not entirely uncommon" that such reversals take place in Sweden, in particular regarding allegations of sex crimes. She also decided that another complaint against Assange should be investigated on suspicion of "sexual coercion and sexual molestation". That overruled a previous decision to only investigate the case as "molestation," which is not a sex crime under Swedish law.

Ok.

I don't really care about this, I just wanna see those UFO leaks.

Obviously you can't tell a bunch of loudmouthed Blitzers what is really going on; they are too vain and too naturally locquacious to keep a goddamn secret; they will blab that shit all over town. (You can by the way ignore any protestations to the opposite; for example, about the propriety of the wikileaks leaks. That's just professional jealousy and backbiting. Geraldo revealed troop positions on Fox News. If some disgruntled state dept. employee leaked that shit to Margaret Carlson, she'd be on your teevee five minutes later to reveal the "dramatic revelations.")

http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2010/12/apologia-pro-mainstream-media.html

ah yes interesting argument there...

Meanwhile, another piece of dangerous information that these shameless criminal terrorist anarchists have released:
US and China collaborated to undermine the Copenhagen climate summit. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,733630,00.html

better article @ Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accord

headline is fairly misleading - basically US tried to get China to agree to SOMETHING rather than nothing, in light of the fact that no one (including the US) had any leverage to use against China to get them to comply with the European goals.

and to get that non-binding resolution the US didn't include Europe.

I think the non-binding resolution sucks, but the idea that China was ever going to sign onto anything stringent that would hinder their economic development is bonkers.

The latest WikiLeaks cables reveal former prime minister Kevin Rudd told US politicians the outlook in Afghanistan "scared the hell out of him".

Fairfax newspapers quoted part of one cable which describes how Mr Rudd told visiting members of the US Congress that the national security establishment in Australia was deeply pessimistic about the long-term prognosis for Afghanistan.

The cable says Mr Rudd believed the European nations involved in the Afghan war had no common strategy for winning the war.

He is quoted as saying the US, Canada, UK, Australia and the Dutch were doing the "hard stuff", while France and Germany were "organising folk-dancing festivals".

^ posting for the last three words

(off abc website)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0xLyoc9DxU

Dig the airplane Whitehouse flyby w Assange releasing leaks Joker-style.

LOL has anyone seen this? This is fucking hilarious! read the chatlog. They all sound like paranoid 4channers. Jesus.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/wikileaks-revolt/

What happened in 2007??

I did wonder what that's referring to yeah.

Also that Wired article is from 3 months ago which I didnt realise at first. Interesting.

so, predictably, and sadly (disgustingly, etc), the Anonymous ppl have found and made public the names/faces/contact info of the women accusing assange. i won't link to it for obv reasons, and i certainly didn't go looking for it: it's on the front page of a popular news aggregator.

Their names have been in the ether for weeks and weeks; the Times of India also published them this week.

smh at the last line of this letter to the Guardian…

We protest at the attacks on WikiLeaks and, in particular, on Julian Assange (Report, 9 December) The leaks have assisted democracy in revealing the real views of our governments over a range of issues which have been kept secret and are now irreversibly in the public domain. All we knew about the mass killing, torture and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan has been confirmed. The world's leaders can no longer hide the truth by simply lying to the public. The lies have been exposed. The actions of major corporations such as Amazon, the Swiss banks and the credit card companies in hindering WikiLeaks are shameful, bowing to US government pressure. The US government and its allies, and their friends in the media, have built up a campaign against Assange which now sees him in prison facing extradition on dubious charges, with the presumed eventual aim of ensuring his extradition to the US. We demand his immediate release, the dropping of all charges, and an end to the censorship of WikiLeaks.

John Pilger, Lindsey German Stop the War Coalition, Salma Yaqoob, Craig Murray, Alexei Sayle, Mark Thomas, Caryl Churchill, AL Kennedy, Celia Mitchell, Ben Griffin (former soldier), Terry Jones, Sami Ramadani, Roger Lloyd Pack, David Gentleman, Miriam Margolyes, Andy de la Tour, Katharine Hamnett, Iain Banks

what's a little sex by surprise among free speech advocates

http://static.businessinsider.com/image/4d00e452ccd1d5f878050000/hackers-movie-assange-editorial-sidebar.jpg

so glad this evil calumny has finally been exposed

so. i just got a robocall from the quebec civil court informing me that my ISP gave them my info re: having read wikileaks and i am being added to a pending case that could result in SIGNIFICANT fines.

25% is this for real? 25% oh, sigh, how predictable, 50% want to go watch 'Brazil'

http://twitter.com/alexostroff/status/13328797394800640

Just got a robo-call from the Quebec Court informing me that I was added to a civil case for reading classified #wikileaks docs. 2000$ fine. 44 minutes ago via web

xp - ouch

holy shit

Matthew Bennell: [dials his phone] I'll get the police.
Telephone Operator: [voice] Police.
Matthew Bennell: Officer, I'd like to report four bodies in my backyard.
Telephone Operator: Wait right there Mr. Bennell.
Matthew Bennell: How do you know my name?
Jack Bellicec: [Jack's eyes widen with fear] Hang up, Matthew.
Matthew Bennell: [into the phone] I didn't tell you my name.
Jack Bellicec: Hang up!
Matthew Bennell: [hangs up the phone] I didn't tell them my name!
Nancy Bellicec: That's because they're all part of it. They're all pods, all of them!

Wait, how is this possible? The only people who are endangered by reading the documents are US federal employees afaik.

wait wtf alex???

canada got no 1st amendment

how is the case civil and not criminal?

i have like a billion questions about this. so fucked.