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

Gonna have to be some huge beyond insane stuff, otherwise ill be rmde. The public knows these banks are crooked, this shit has been all over the news, in the leaked emails (remember the whole "Shitty products" fiasco?), and none of that has mattered cos the gov't and the financial system are pretty much one and the same. I mean, if some really damaging stuff comes out about Bank of America all they need to do is whine and say the economy is about to collapse and before you know it we will give them trillions of dollars. It's really a rigged game.

Maybe some higher ups will be fired or something, who knows. But it doesnt matter as long as the rules stay the same and if the past 2 years have taught us anything its that these people write those rules.

great article by Bruce Sterling:

http://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/crypto-blast-shack-finally-goes-off/

It's a good article but a little dour. I think he mythologises Assange a bit much. Perhaps he knows better than we do. All I know is that I watched the Wikirebels documentary earlier and am feeling much more positive about the long-game than perhaps Sterling does. But then, like Manning, I'm a little naive...

That said, I think Sterling projects a great deal. Is it SO naive to think some of these people are simply trying to make the world, in the tritest possible way, a better place?

http://totallylookslike.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/387efa66-3bbb-4b65-9941-a02f679a9b43.jpg

kind of shooting fish in a barrel obv but greenwald owns these retards

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XInz4i6AV8M

^^^^ Saw it this morning. Great stuff.

Ok, this woman is really really stupid. k3v otm that shooting fish in a barrel and I'd really like to see Greenwald argue with someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

"do you think it's ironic that he's getting his book published by a major corporation?"
"yes, thank you for pointing out the important literary elements of this political story."

The problem: no one who opposes the release of the information or supports criminal prosecution of Assange knows what he's talking about.

That's half true. No one who supports criminal prosecution knows what they're talking about (presumably, tho I've seen some cases made for prosecution lately that are compelling) but there are people who oppose the release of information who make strong cases against their release.

Re the first thing, I'm not enough of a legal scholar to evaluate the merits of this - http://www.slate.com/id/2278922/ - but it seems well reasoned to me.

It's not reasonable at all, in my opinion. To believe in the efficacy of the Espionage Act as passed by the Wilson administration, you'd think subversives posed so much of a threat that they disrupted the preparation and prosecution of a (needless) war.

Besides, subsequent SCOTUS rulings on the First Amendment have gutted most of the Act.

Greenberg allows several cavils, but he basically accepts the Wilson administration's justifications, which history has repudiated.

wrt the book deal = profiting from espionage

seems like a stretch to me---would they have to prove that the main reason he released the docs was to someday bag a book deal? or do they merely have to prove that without the release of the docs there would be no book deal? the whole thing seems outlandish but I swear I read that this was an avenue of investigation for the doj

ha that was the worst part of the segment - if I was in greenwald's place I'd have just said "who cares"

the whole thing was hilar

Bush lady sounded like a crazy person.

to be fair she was george w bush's national security advisor

Her utterly meager 'thank you' at the end was hilarious

this Wired chat logs controversy thing is O_O conspiracy insanity

It seems to be settled now since the Wired folks have indicated that none of what Lamo has been saying to the press lately is actually in the logs they have.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2010/12/2010122971637433801.html

Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Religion and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam

that greenberg essay is specious, credulous rubbish, loaded with weasel words -- pretty much like everything else he's ever written for slate, as far as i can remember.

CBS News does an excellent public service, linking to everything revealed by WikiLeaks.

i'm sure that will be illegal soon too

WikiLeaks: US targets EU over GM crops
US embassy cable recommends drawing up list of countries for 'retaliation' over opposition to genetic modification

The US embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country which opposed genetically modified (GM) crops, newly released WikiLeaks cables show.

In response to moves by France to ban a Monsanto GM corn variety in late 2007, the ambassador, Craig Stapleton, a friend and business partner of former US president George Bush, asked Washington to penalise the EU and particularly countries which did not support the use of GM crops.

"Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits.

"The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory. Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voices," said Stapleton, who with Bush co-owned the St Louis-based Texas Rangers baseball team in the 1990s.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops

Some nonsense in here, but worth a read.

I think it's a damn shame Manning is in solitary.

I think the US govt is making a reactionary punchline out of itself.

I think we've wasted a lot of time and money in the last couple of months treating web pages in the same way the pope treats sacrament crackers (it's just information if you read it at home, if you read it at work - IT'S THE BODY OF SECRETS)

I think this will produce some myopic policy flim flam in the short term, but in the long term, it's kind of like what J Blount said ages ago about social conservatives. Gay people are going to get "married," people gonna smoke weed, folks gonna be weird colors and you can't stop any of it no matter what you do.

The classification process and marking rigor are based in a hard copy world, and hard copy world has met ragnorok. We - intelligence, law enforcement, et al. - need to learn a lot, very quickly, from the private sector, about how to protect sensitive data from adversaries and risky business. Ye Olde walled garden has been Ye Olde since Hanssen at least, and the movie they make about Manning isn't going to make this shit show look any better.

This post has been an excellent example of writing as a thought exercise. Thank you ILX! Also, everyone in the entire world should read this speech (has nothing to do with the thread but I like it):
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/

hi tombot

Hey Tom! Been waiting fr your take on this :)

(as someone who is ex-dealing with classified old school myself, I find this shit p interesting)

"I think this will produce some myopic policy flim flam in the short term"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40916433/ns/us_news-wikileaks_in_security/

"Office of Management and Budget suggests that agencies use psychiatrists and sociologists to measure the 'relative happiness' of workers or their 'despondence and grumpiness' as a way to assess their trustworthiness. The memo was sent this week to senior officials at all agencies that use classified material."

7000-word Vanity Fair piece on The Guardian's dealings with WikiLeaks

Not really the place for it, but a man appeared on the local news the other day called "Tom Bott".

Its interesting Control z's link starts with "the Obama administration" rather than "the US government".

I don't know if journalists really say "the Obama administration" more than they said "the Bush administration"!

Oh wasn't suggesting they were! Just find it an interesting angle.

presumably "the X administration" is heard/emphasized more in the u.s. not for politically motivated reasons but because it's not a westminster system, so you need to distinguish the executive from the legislature

Yep

the vf piece digested http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/06/assange_guardian_wikileaks_leak/

Assange is such a pompous arse.

Nevermind him or what an evil man we're supposed to think he is. What's in the leaks is all that matters.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/08/us-twitter-hand-icelandic-wikileaks-messages

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/07/twitter/subpoena.pdf

good overview & updates here too:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/07/twitter/index.html

Nevermind him or what an evil man we're supposed to think he is. What's in the leaks is all that matters.

― StanM

Correct - there will continue to be a deluge of ad hominem attacks on Assange and his supporters. Distraction from the content of the leaks is the sole intent.

feel like it would be harder to distract people from the content of the leaks if anyone made a strong case for what we should do with the leak information. instead there's always this unspoken action i feel like we're expected to take (esp wrt greenwald's posts on this -- 'they just want to distract you from the important issues') but i understand the problem. the question of how to effect change / or move to action are always a trickier question than getting angry. the natural consequence of information is always a call to action, and without that action the information just dies. would be interested in seeing greenwald be more of an activist but a) maybe he's not so interested in that (tho he is playing an important role in Manning's defense so maybe he is and b) he would probably have to move back to the US for an extended period of time.

serious question; I've read many of the leaks, many articles that illuminate particular leaks, etc, etc. I believe that the leaks are accurate and in some cases very interesting. now what? if there's nothing else to do after reading them, maybe we should talk about the ad hominems. it's about as productive as just ignoring the wikileaks entirely. at least it keeps the story alive (even in a bastardized even less useful form)

some typos. i'm tired.