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

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL3E6N80BW20101208?sp=true

"The Directory Server service has been failed over to a secondary site"

lol how's that workin out

xpost Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd otm

lol
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/08/astrology-websites-f.html

you know, i'd been looking for a new screen name..

Ellsberg weighs in: http://www.ellsberg.net/archive/public-accuracy-press-release

Wikileaks has quietly bolstered its electronic defenses as its operations have come under increasing financial and political pressure.

In the last few days, the portion of Wikileaks's infrastructure that relied on a company in Reno, Nevada has been shifted outside the US to a provider in Toronto. Instead of employing only one company to direct traffic to Wikileaks.ch — currently the organization's primary website — 14 providers are now being used to ensure redundancy in case of legal or extralegal attack.

As part of its technological counter-measures undertaken since Friday, Wikileaks has turned to servers operated by the Swedish Pirate Party, which previously signaled support for the document-sharing effort in August. The number of mirror sites continues to grow at the pace of one every few minutes, topping 1,000 on Tuesday.

lol/arrr @ swedish pirate party

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101208006660/en/MasterCard-Statement

meanwhile mastercard.com still refuses to load

trotsky on wikileaks

via george lazenby's twitter

War Room: Why is the left trying to smear a rape accuser?

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/07/julian_assange_rape_accuser_smeared

http://twitter.com/Anon_Operation

Well, they posted a link to hundreds and hundreds of credit-card numbers (w/ expiration dates), so that account's gone.

The willingness of Assange's supporters to wave away the rape allegations is sickening. Judging from comments on this Laurie Penny piece, the main reason for smearing the accusers as liars or CIA plants seems to be that it feels "a bit fishy". Obviously when it comes to making the US govt look bad, feminism gets thrown under a bus.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2010/12/julian-assange-rape-women

Someone's trying to sell the first 5,000 leaked diplomatic cables for Amazon.com's Kindle. Pay with Visa or PayPal for added irony:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004EEOLIU

xpost: The willingness of that feminist author to accept the rape allegations is just as sickening.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/09/deborah-orr-julian-assange-wikileaks

idk, doubting the accusations is p mnstrm, not just something weirdo NS commenters do

so im not sickened, just, well, unsurprised

i see the NS is doing the 'religion is actually left-wing' thing in its cover lol

xpost

stanm she doesn't 'accept' the allegations but, really? is it 'sickening' to believe rape accusations now?

Ridiculous comment, StanM - it's not about accepting them, it's about not dismissing or downplaying them out of hand just because you like the politics of the accused.

HM, I didn't say it was weird - I've seen it in mainstream columnists too - I just don't like it.

It's not rape.

And you know this how? Because you were there?

kate, i assume he's referring to the fact that the crime he's wanted in connection with is called something that doesn't translate at "rape" in swedish law, and maybe would not be rape in, e.g. british law.

obviously, like stan says, failing to recognize that a man wanted in connection with sexual assault is probably the victim of a cia plot is sickening though, and what makes it worst is that the author is a feminist.

i feel like there is probably an israel thread somewhere missing its stanm

Probably?

Possibly, I'd give you...

it's telling that something similar happened to ralph nader after he published his criticism of general motors:

"In early March 1966, several media outlets, including The New Republic and the New York Times, reported that GM had tried to discredit Nader, hiring private detectives to tap his phones and investigate his past and hiring prostitutes to trap him in compromising situations.[14][15] Nader sued the company for invasion of privacy and settled the case for $284,000. Nader's lawsuit against GM was ultimately decided by the New York Court of Appeals, whose opinion in the case expanded tort law to cover "overzealous surveillance."[16]" -- wikipedia

how is that similar?!

If the woman withdraws consent and he ignores that then it's rape. This piece is good on why:

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/12/06/some-thoughts-on-sex-by-surprise/

how the fuck is that "telling"?

xxp

If nothing else, this case has proved how deeply conspiracy theorist thinking is sunk into the mainstream. I don't know whether or not this will turn out to be a stitch-up but the widespread assumption that it is just because it's "fishy" or "convenient" is not a sign of grown-up political debate.

Maybe at the very least the US will get some withdrawal of consent laws out of this, but I doubt it.

I mean, if ever Glenn Beck's blind partisanship and sensationalism could actually do some good, now's the time.

If nothing else, this case has proved how deeply conspiracy theorist thinking is sunk into the mainstream

haaang on though. wikileaks' defenders see a conspiracy in everything even without the rape thing. that's because of iraq-9/11-'the endless war' etc, but it's not like you didn't have the same thing over jfk/the zinoviev letter/the protocols of the elders of zion/___________

i suppose the internet has changed the number of global-scale, implausibly ambitious conspiracies that are kicking around

i feel like there is probably an israel thread somewhere missing its stanm

he's a man of many talents

I mean that because of the hugeness of WikiLeaks and the sense that the government is hiding shit from us, even if that shit is either too banal or too predictable or too clumsy to qualify as an actual conspiracy theory, it breeds a climate of suspicion and credulity so that any conspiracy theory will have (even) more traction, this being only the current example. And I don't meant that WikiLeaks shouldn't have done it - I just think that's the psychopolitical fallout.

to qualify as an actual conspiracy theory

yikes guys

rape allegations are not something to be made light of, and these women deserve their day in court obviously. agreed the comments-section smears of these women are pretty gross. he hasn't been convicted of anything at this point, though, so he's presumed to be innocent until proven otherwise. i don't think it's telling of some kind of normalization of conspiracy theorizing to note the circumstances of his arrest were a little...weird. it's also not anti-feminist.

the whole "it's not rape rape" thing is

disgusting, absolutely

It depends who you're reading, k3vin k. A lot of them are kooky and/or misogynist, but obviously not all.

A lot of them are probably kooky and/or misogynist ....

@caek
i mean that it's telling in the sense that it's a proven strategy of powerful people to accuse whistle-blowers of crimes, e.g. nader. whether assange is guilty or innocent, i don't claim to know.

I've seen some rather more convincing take-downs of the "OMG, the accusers are connected to the CIA!" conspiracy theories if you read towards the end of these blog posts here:

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/07/julian_assange_rape_accuser_smeared/index.html

http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/blog/sandracuffe/5363

A lot of this victim-smearing stuff makes me very, very angry for obvious personal reasons. But it seems to get quite lost that it is possible to simultaneously believe that yes, Wikileaks does fulfill an important purpose and yet also, Assange may be a person who is capable of sexual assault.

I'm trying to find the blog link, but I have forgotten which one it was, so I'm going to paraphrase: Yes, the CIA has a history of taking out people who are perceived as an embarrassment or a threat to the US. But there is also a history of powerful men, some of whom may even be heroes to the Left, who have been capable or even guilty of sexual violence towards women. The former does not automatically preclude the latter.

I find it completely gross, that the automatic response to "wow, most men accused of rape don't get international extradition orders out on them" is "this automatically means he must be the innocent victim of a plot" rather than "why aren't more rape cases treated this seriously and thoroughly?" It's weird to me that people who agree that Wikileaks is a force for good, for righting power imbalances, for breaking the code of secrecy, for turning the internet panopticon back on the government - can turn around and reassert power imbalances and the secrecy and victim blaming that is inherent in arguments like "rape is just not a real or important crime worthy of extradition" or "smear/blame the victims" or "women are liars who press rape charges for fun" (because, trust me, I know, just how *not fun* the process of making rape charges can be) or "I know what rape is/what a rapist looks like, and this can't possibly be it!" and the good old "it's not rape rape!"

Everyone is entitled to be viewed as innocent until proven guilty. That includes the women in this case, too.

Great post. And the Salon piece is the best I've read.

There are a whole bunch of people that are unconcerned if he is guilty or not, just as long as he's convicted....

Also, the whole "FIFA is corrupt, sure, but hey the BBC is to blame for broadcasting the documentary before the announcement" is similar (but different)

i mean that it's telling in the sense that it's a proven strategy of powerful people to accuse whistle-blowers of crimes, e.g. nader. whether assange is guilty or innocent, i don't claim to know.

― jeevves, Thursday, December 9, 2010 1:15 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

your link says the authorities tried to frame nader. this isn't like that, unless you think JA's accusers are CIA.

i think there is pretty ample evidence that the CIA hasn't had any assets in the broad vicinity of wikileaks or julian, but im no expert on espionage.

There are a whole bunch of people that are unconcerned if he is guilty or not, just as long as he's convicted....

There are also a whole bunch of people that are unconcerned if he is guilty or not, just as long as he's not convicted...

i don't understand - if julian assange is being framed, which is a very real possibility, how does this credit or discredit victims of a horrendous crime such as rape? or comment on that crime at all?

"if julian assange is being framed, which is a very real possibility"

you think the CIA had people close to assange who arranged a broken condom incident, and then (somehow) got him to have sex with them while asleep

ingenious