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

If dude is really guilty, he should pay the price. Also Im not on Wikileaks's d**k. It just seems dumb to wholeheartedly take the gov'ts side when there are members of congress saying that we should execute an Australian for "treason" against the US.

all this flap is not about the enemies of America having the information, it's about members of the public knowing what their governments are getting up to.

THANK YOU. EXACTLY.

"as long as powerful people have information, then i personally don't need to know that information"

lol sarah palin really just does not understand anything ever

http://www.interpol.int/public/data/wanted/notices/data/2010/86/2010_52486.asp

who gives a good goddamn about sarah palin. seriously.

o come on u know u luv her

u betcha

http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/11726665294020608

RT @sarahpalinusa "I can see Julian Assange from my house" #wikileaks
about 6 hours ago via web

AB---yr analogy doesn't quite work. Lamo wasn't "a stranger who happens to be an undercover cop." He was a guy that Manning allegedly sought out, specifically, because he figured he might be sympathetic/impressed/helpful/whatever. At least that's the story, right? So, for me, it comes down to which is more plausible---govt spends two years setting up an elaborate hoax in which it deliberately feeds stuff to Manning, knowing that he's likely to blow the whistle, and then arranges things so that he's in a position to brag to Lamo. OR: Manning had nothing to do with it, and a gov't operative bragged to Lamo. Or...I dunno.

Seems way more plausible to me that a 22yo guy who had done something kinda major might eventually crack under the pressure of keeping it secret. I mean, criminals do this all the time. Cops routinely get leads because someone got drunk and started braggin in a bar or w/e, it's not at all uncommon.

Also, Vicar's point is a good one: the issue here really does seem to be tipping more towards gov't keeping things from the electorate, not from foreign powers (who, duh, have intelligence agencies of their very own).

glad she stopped people from blowing the whistle on her book ;)

wikileaks twitter on fire

xps, obv

and AB if you think i'm "whole-heartedly taking the government's side" then you evidently haven't read a single word i've written on this thread. tho, apologies if i've mischaracterized yr position w/r/t WL's dick.

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/7bg5kc

this is sorta crazy

this dude is napster so hes going down, yet

Accepted, gbx. And yeah, I apologize for saying that about you as well. This whole thing seems to get polarized, lot of attacks on ppl in this thread (and all over the interwebs) for being in love w Wikileaks/Assange. We should be able to discuss official/media response wo instantly being labeled a Wikileaks/Ron Paul nut.

He was a guy that Manning allegedly sought out, specifically, because he figured he might be sympathetic/impressed/helpful/whatever. At least that's the story, right?

The story is that he contacted Lamo after he leaked the information to Wikileaks, and that he basically contacted him to boast about it. Also, according to Lamo, Manning found him by searching for the word "Wikileaks" on Twitter, which led him to a tweet Lamo had written that included the word "WikiLeaks." I don't have any theories about 'what really happened' or whatever, just saying the whole story sounded weird from the get go.

yes, exactly, that IS where he slipped up. dude i know you're all up on WL's dick or w/e, but the fact that manning was a g-d intelligence analyst in the fucking army means that it is actually against the rules that he knew about to leak classified documents. you can think he's a hero, you can think that the sentence he's facing is unjust or immoral, but you can't pretend that it's anything other than exactly what you'd expect to happen. that greenwald piece (tl;dr) suggests, very briefly, that he's a fall guy who likely couldn't have had access to that sort of intel (200k documents is a lot, tbh) and that this whooooooole thing is some elaborate way of dissuading future informants by making an example. maybe. but it seems like greenwald settles on manning being a hero, though, and the rest of that column is about lamo being a dick. fine. agreed. whatever.

the fact remains: if a private in the US army disseminates classified intel, he can be held accountable for his actions. those are the rules. so he got sold out by someone he thought was a journalist. monstrous, sure, but he's still accountable. how is this so hard to understand.

― kanellos (gbx), Monday, December 6, 2010 1:05 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

heh i thought AB was being serious, because... that IS a thing that you shouldn't do if you leak a million secret documents, right?

agreed it might be weird, but its also hella incomplete, according to greenwald. i just think that the simpler explanation ("22yo cracks under pressure") is more plausible than the alternative ("US govt orchestrates a plan wherein, by intentionally 'leaking' secret documents and causing a furor, it can justify neutralizing WL as threat and dissuade future informants from going to the press"). the morbsian in me thinks that the conspiracy theory isn't actually ~that~ implausible, but the potential for it to backfire seems big enough that i highly doubt that what we're watching unfold is anything that was planned out in advance.

if there's any general lesson to be learned from these cables it's that united states intelligence agencies are totally incapable of engineering anything as clever as that

unless that's what they WANT you to believe

tamtam, ha, yeah, exactly, you shouldn't do that. but you also shouldn't brag about crimes in general and criminals get caught that way all the dang time. that this dude would do it over IRC with a guy he presumably knew to be a hacker/supporter of WL makes it even more likely

yes DJP actually it is brilliant. do your work with bumbling ineptitude in case anyone is listening in - this will fool them that you are actually inept

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11929034

wau, the entire world hates this dude

what is the point of this

the leaker kid just seems not that swift

coming soon: ufo cables!?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40491489/ns/us_news-wikileaks_in_security/

what is the point of this

― goat, camel, horse, and water buffalo (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, December 6, 2010 11:02 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

piss ppl off i dunno. while i'm sure some of it will be news to potential terrorists, i'm guessing most of it is like 'yeah duh'

feel like in the post wikileaks future you could see leak dumps just posted to bittorrent or whatever and the government will be pining for the days of redactions and a public figure to blame

^^^yeah. Assange's cult of personality routine is their biggest weakness

and liability, etc.

this media storm is basically acting as a proof of concept to potential future leakers

internet payment giant PayPal

The national security sites thing is just a dumb move, it's not even that interesting/surprising by and large, and will only be interpreted as "checklist of terrorist bomb targets". Public opinion is still kinda confused when it comes to Wikileaks but this is the sort of thing that turns it against you. It looks like posturing, basically.

piss ppl off

I think he already had this covered lol. at this point it's hard not to assume that Assange is a glutton for punishment/pining for martyrdom

put secret shit on the internet and people will take notice

feel like in the post wikileaks future you could see leak dumps just posted to bittorrent or whatever and the government will be pining for the days of redactions and a public figure to blame

― ice cr?m, Monday, December 6, 2010 11:07 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

yup. which is sorta already the case, now that there's tons of mirrors up. plus, his 'nuclear option'

morbsian prediction: site on list gets bombed in US false-flag operation, assange gets brought up on some kind of terrorist-y charges, thrown down the memory hole

agreed it might be weird, but its also hella incomplete, according to greenwald. i just think that the simpler explanation ("22yo cracks under pressure") is more plausible than the alternative ("US govt orchestrates a plan wherein, by intentionally 'leaking' secret documents and causing a furor, it can justify neutralizing WL as threat and dissuade future informants from going to the press"). the morbsian in me thinks that the conspiracy theory isn't actually ~that~ implausible, but the potential for it to backfire seems big enough that i highly doubt that what we're watching unfold is anything that was planned out in advance.

― kanellos (gbx), Monday, December 6, 2010 11:29 AM (35 minutes ago)

fwiw i have not read a single person who has suggested the govt was involved in the leaking at all.

coverup!

morbsian prediction: site on list gets bombed in US false-flag operation, assange gets brought up on some kind of terrorist-y charges, thrown down the memory hole

― kanellos (gbx), Monday, December 6, 2010 12:11 PM

i think the u.s. can easily spin that leak as terrorist-y without a bombing

Couldn't any idiot with a library card find out where ports, dams, mining operations, and a communications hub are? The first three are on maps, and the fouth, well, any "hub" of ANYTHING needs employees -- a location of national importance probably employs the population of a small Southwestern city.

OH NOES THE PANAMA CANAL IS OF STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE, DON'T PASS IT ON!

sarah should feed him to grizzlies on her tv show

fwiw i have not read a single person who has suggested the govt was involved in the leaking at all.

― k3vin k., Monday, December 6, 2010 11:11 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

did you read the greenwald article that AB linked? he at least suggests it as a possibility

Couldn't any idiot with a library card find out where ports, dams, mining operations, and a communications hub are?

I would say no, otherwise the State Dept would have just gone to the library

morbsian prediction: site on list gets bombed in US false-flag operation, assange gets brought up on some kind of terrorist-y charges, thrown down the memory hole

― kanellos (gbx), Monday, December 6, 2010 12:11 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

Cue Internet Patriot Act.

as others have mentioned these leaks basically contain boring common knowledge - heres umberto eco in a typically for people famous for other things half assed half insightful piece pointing out that this intel is entirely comprised of press clippings http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/414871-not-such-wicked-leaks

Im only interested in these UFO leaks now!

The thing that still worries me most about all this is what kind of legislation is now going to get rammed through to close the "gaps" Eric Holder talked about (i.e. to make illegal what have until now been probably-legal activities). Because that's going to apply to a hell of a lot more than WikiLeaks.

the list is really a non-issue

The list is part of a lengthy cable the State Department sent in February 2009 to its posts around the world. The cable asked American diplomats to identify key resources, facilities and installations outside the United States "whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security, and/or national and homeland security of the United States."

this is basically just a way of asking diplomats: "hey, what's in yr area that the state dept ought to be interested in? anything new that we dont already know about?" i sincerely doubt the request was made with an eye to terrorism, and the "prevention" thereof. it's not like they were setting out to make a list of Places Terrorists Might Want To Blow-Up.

worth noting, too, that WL didn't highlight this specific document, CNN did!