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

"Julian Assange is engaged in warfare," Mr. Gingrich said, echoing similar words spoken by Ms. Palin and others last week. "Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed, is terrorism. And Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism. He should be treated as an enemy combatant and WikiLeaks should be closed down permanently and decisively."

Not to be too flip, but for real:

http://www.gifanatics.com/files/Jackson_popcorn.gif

Impressive list of signatories here. Noam Chomsky! Nice.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/41914.html

Out of many, many things that are interesting about this, it's fascinating to watch conservative pundits get in over their heads pretty much instantly. There's no beach, no shelf, no sandbars. The second they start talking about this, they've tumbled over a cliff at Big Sur. There's land, and then OMG it's 1000 feet deep.

Newt Gingrich has invented a new thing called "information terrorism," of which of course Assange is guilty.

I do hope that people continue, every hour on the hour, to point out as loudly as possible that Assange is guilty of no crime at all, not under anyone's law. "Information by surprise" is even legal in Sweden.

Mitch minority leader being all "well if assange didn't commit a crime, we need to rewrite the law" is such infuriating bullshit. We call Russia and china on this very same crap all the time.

It's weird how no one is talking about Manning, the real culprit and the person who is going to do hard time.

I imagine most people just think Assange somehow hacked his way into the information.

So far, seems to me, everyone who is in a position to make public statements about this doesn't have a clue about the implications of the issue they're talking about. People who seem to understand the issue itself are not on television at all. Not even people I like. Nobody is getting this.

And to think that less than 900 of the 250,000 cables have actually been released at this point... Fascinating.

But it's not about the cables, or what's in them. It's about how much the government(s) will freak the fuck out and try to shut down the whole internet, and the degree to which they will succeed or, much more likely, fail.

Unless of course the government(s) can easily convince ISPs to roll over and play dead and filter information at the governments whim, at which point I may buy a gun myself, and I'm not much of a gun person. But that will be beyond beyond.

You see what I mean? What's at stake is not just some douchebag from Australia and his bad attitude.

Unless of course the government(s) can easily convince ISPs to roll over and play dead and filter information at the governments whim

Aaaaand welcome to what Australia has been fighting for the last 5 years to prevent happening, in a now-curiously-relevant aside.

Actually our govt planned on wikileaks being on the filter list were it to kick in, in any case (even before all this).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11937110

odd. thought he was going voluntarily.

Impressive list of signatories here. Noam Chomsky! Nice.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/41914.html

― manic pixie dream girl phenomenon (Trayce), Tuesday, December 7, 2010 5:47 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

ahaha, yerse. maybe do a search on other petitions chomsky has signed...

is it me or does it seem pretty clear that he turned himself in and the media just doesn't want to report that? hard to believe one could be "arrested" "by appointment"... wtf is that? the incompetence of the media is one of the main arguments in support of assange/wikileaks at this point...

Am pretty sure he's been staying at the Frontline Club this whole time.

the bbc website is not the best for facts, it's true

that arrest may just be the kind of arrested you get when you volunteer for questioning by turning up at the police station at the agreed time. it's basically done to give you rights and protect you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXbCwq4ewBU

love the fake american accents!

i didn't realise the frontline club had rooms! maybe he slept on the floor.

Man, I can't wait for the porn parody movie about this. Ass angel, leaks? :-/

I can't wait for the leaks that show how the US is puppetmaster for the Swedes on this

how will you react when they occur?

a little endzone dance

Oh no, arrested! Does this mean this insurance.aes256 file I downloaded months ago will explode now?

From the Daily Mail:

They argue that the whole squalid affair is a sexfalla, which translates loosely from the Swedish as a ‘honeytrap’.

um so now mastercard and visa have blocked payments to wikileaks? wtf!?

What's the precedent for this? Do credit card companies maintain a substantial blacklist? (I have no idea) I can see them blocking payments to child porn sites without hesitation, what about Canad1an V1agra Pharmacy or Pirate Bay?

I get that this ignores the whole "Wikileaks isn't doing anything illegal" argument, just trying to find out how common this kind of thing is.

Yeah, it's alwo the first time a Swiss bank has ever cared where money came from, imo.

they used a technicality in the paperwork

more
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11937110

comment from that Daily Mail article.

This is the most boring story I have ever read in my whole life.
- Dan Hutchin-Plsung, Burnley Lancs, 07/12/2010 09:18
Click to rate Rating 219

classic!

i can see how refusing bail makes sense though

the incompetence of the media is one of the main arguments in support of assange/wikileaks at this point...

― ╭∩╮⎝⏠⏝⏠⎠╭∩╮ (jeff), Tuesday, December 7, 2010 5:58 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

its more than incompetence, the media is genuinely pissed at this guy, somewhat cause hes another amateur trespassing on their territory (lol blogs etc), and a lot because hes exposing them for the credulous animals they are

Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard: "The foundation stone of it is an illegal act, information was taken and that was illegal."

the deliberate elision here is immense, and completely shameful

independent tomorrow no doubt to feature lengthy pilger article about how israel is to blame

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/12/06/natpkg.lister.wikileaks.cnn?hpt=T1

"What you need to know about WikiLeaks" carefully avoids telling you anything you ~really~ need to know about wikileaks

one of the args against wikileaks is kind of persuasive, and that is that their M.O. is doing these giant, undirected data dumps rather than doing, say, reporting around a particular issue in the data - an injustice of some kind - and then releasing that, along with the pertinent data. but they don't do that. so individual issues of injustice or what have you just get swallowed in the mountains of other stuff and none of it gets any traction. i can sympathize with trad news orgs who are like "dude, you're doing it wrong"

in that case said organizations should consider doing the reporting themselves

Well the Wiki part of it is that they're expecting/hoping people will sort through it all and find the good stuff. That's how the whole site's set up, so you can tag and share significant things.

TH---you're right about wikileaks "doing it wrong," maybe, but i don't get what you mean by "arguments against." against....what? their continued existence? their legal status as "journalists"? just because wikileaks did it wrong doesn't mean that they should be singled out for special treatment in the legal sphere.

trad news orgs are also "doing it wrong" so

one of the args against wikileaks is kind of persuasive, and that is that their M.O. is doing these giant, undirected data dumps rather than doing, say, reporting around a particular issue in the data - an injustice of some kind - and then releasing that, along with the pertinent data. but they don't do that. so individual issues of injustice or what have you just get swallowed in the mountains of other stuff and none of it gets any traction. i can sympathize with trad news orgs who are like "dude, you're doing it wrong"

this IS what he's doing, but that doesn't mean it isn't journalism. It's just really shitty journalism. Internet takes once august profession and makes it shitty SHOCKAH

wikileaks is not journalism! it is intended to be a permanent repository for leaked, sensitive information, no more, no less.

gbx i mean as an argument against the effectiveness of their methods, not whether what they're doing is legal (which it is, i'm pretty sure)

timing and context is a huge part of getting a story to "stick" and the only context for such reporting at this stage is "this was part of the wikileaks document dump". many trad news orgs ARE building up entire issue pieces based on these cables but not only are individual revelations buried in the mass of themselves, the assange drama overshadows them as well.

i think this was once referred to in the old, decrepit, discredited world of newsgathering as "don't become the story"

wikileaks is not journalism! it is intended to be a permanent repository for leaked, sensitive information, no more, no less

i mean, that's fine and i get that, but it's fair game to wonder whether this is an effective model for actually getting crucial information to the public