@wandeljw,
Assange said previously that he never would reveal a source and he hasn't
done so in Manning's case either, even though Manning came forward with
his admittance. I am sure there will be lots of wanna-be hackers who look for
their 15 min of fame. Unless it's proven, we have to take it with a grain of salt.
Reactions to these events can be split into two basic categories. There is that of the "Gee whizz" conditioned mind of tabloid journalism where everything is important and can be used as a vehicle for social interaction without risk by forever remaining superficial whilst presenting a veneer of importance and responsibility as befits anyone with an over-valued sense of themselves. It allows itself to be impressed by everything in order to have an opinion on it all. If there was no Wikileaks something else would satisfactorily substitute. It thinks things are as they seem to be. It is an integral part of the mess. It thinks things can be improved by the application of expert solutions, more resources and improved training.
And there is that of the "oh yeah !!! " conditioned mind of world literature and acute observation of human nature unfazed by its own position in the general scheme of things as a complete, insignificant non-entity. This thinks that things are seldom as they seem. If ever. It is even wary of the results of sporting events. It thinks that the application of expert solutions, more resources and improved training will actually make things worse. It has a slight chance of understanding what is happening: it ignores the trees in order to see the woods. It thinks that all reforms, however well-intentioned and liberal, in the best sense, will lead to more advanced shite. It thinks that some form of retribution, either divine or implicit in evolution theory, will come as the pay back for the insatiable desire for material goods, for the rape of Nature and the riduculous faith that there are acceptable scientific solutions to human behaviour.
It also thinks that whilst there is truth in Hutber's Law any attacks on the Gee-whizz brigade are doomed to be absorbed and utilised by it (the brigade) and to enhance its strength. There's only laughing left. Or crying. And crying is bad for the biology. One should not mope. Mrs Clinton had a real moper's face on when I saw her recently.
What I am looking forward to are some leaks from communications not intended for publication concerning what our leaders and senior officer class generally think of the specimens they have the sad duty of trying the manage in an orderly fashion or, at least, in a manner that can be presented as being in that ideal state. (see "cheer-up" item on CBS News at the end of its half-hour of unmitigated tripe.) (And Fox News is utterly ridiculous along with the "No Spin" zone.)
"If only the Roman citizens had but one neck", Caligula is supposed to have said.
If there is any of that sort of thing, which I imagine is likely, I do sincerely hope Wikileaks doesn't hold them back out of deference to Grauniad readers.
wande's quote above offers a rather big leak. The one about the "perfect storm" I mean. The guy was probably not encouraged to include pornography in his list.
@wandeljw,
Quote:Lamo said he believed American lives were being put at risk by Manning's alleged activities.
"I am certain that more information would have come out had I not acted. Bradley would have continued compromising computer files," he said.
According to Lamo, Manning enjoyed the status of being one of Assange's key sources. "He made Bradley feel involved," said Lamo.
The same could be asked about Lamo, not to mention John Ungoed-Thomas.
Is the latter really a journalist. For verification he seeks the opinions of the fella who turned Manning in.
Note to Mr Ungoed-Thomas. Bradley Manning was involved. Julian Assange, like any other person involved in this would, of necessity, want to and need to, make the leaker involved because he was central to getting the deed done. That's what is known as involved.
But is this really of any importance? The kid is a hero for whatever his personal reasons are/were. He is potentially exposing war criminals/government crimes/misdeeds whereas, the US and these other war criminal countries constantly laud and give pensions to war criminals.
@spendius,
TSA is probably ever so grateful Assange and Wikileaks knocked all their hoopla off the front pages.
@JTT,
Quote:The kid is a hero for whatever his personal reasons are/were.
Sure he is but what will be the consequences JT? Do you see it not leading to threats to civil liberties, extensions of state power and various mechanisms of coercion. If it can't be allowed to happen again then there will be a retreat to even more secure compounds.
And what have we learned so far that is of any real interest? What insights have you derived from what has been publicised, as opposed to what hasn't, that have changed you ways of thinking?
@spendius,
yes spendi, I remember Nixon saying the same thing about Watergate and the Washington Post.
@dyslexia,
Maybe you did dys. What are you saying about the consequences. What does what Mr Nixon said have to do with your view on those. What do you see as the upshot? Have we gained anything except a bit of glee at the expense of the fat cats. It's nosey parkering isn't it? Aren't we supposed to "go shopping"? Do you want to bring down the system?
Have you any ideas how to improve our leaders and their agents? Surely they are the best we can find?
Some of this article may be a repeat of what I've read on this forum, but some new words spoken also. Fascinating stuff but what can anybody do but keep on reading and gossiping. It's hit the fan, certainly, but WHAT IS IT?
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press John Heilprin, Associated Press – 10 mins ago
GENEVA – WikiLeaks' elusive founder, his options dwindling, has turned to Switzerland's credit, postal and Internet infrastructure to keep his online trove of U.S. State Department cables afloat.
Supporters say Julian Assange is seeking asylum in Switzerland. He told a Spanish newspaper that he faced "hundreds of death threats," including some targeting his lawyers and children, aside from the pressure he is getting from prosecutors in the U.S. and other countries.
After a number of website hosts dropped WikiLeaks, the site hinged on the wikileaks.ch Web address Sunday. The address is controlled by the Swiss Pirate Party, a group that formed two years ago to campaign for freedom of information. The site's main server in France went offline but it remained reachable through a Swedish server.
The site showed Assange had begun seeking donations to an account under his name through the Swiss postal system in Bern, the Swiss capital, while also using a Swiss-Icelandic credit card processing center and other accounts in Iceland and Germany. He lost a major source of revenue when the online payment service provider PayPal cut off the WikiLeaks account over the weekend.
Assange has been widely praised and criticized. Supporters view him as a savior of the media and free speech; critics vilify him for brazenly unleashing diplomatic secrets, as well as for earlier leaks involving the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called Assange "a high-tech terrorist." He told NBC's "Meet the Press" he hopes Assange will be prosecuted for the "enormous damage" the disclosures have done to the country and to its relationship with its allies.
But even as governments put pressure on Assange, WikiLeaks lives on. The Swiss Pirate Party said supporters are creating "mirrors" of the WikiLeaks site on their own servers, meaning that the diplomatic cables will remain available even if WikiLeaks loses its own site.
"Even if you take down the server in Sweden, it's too late," Swiss Pirate Party Vice President Pascal Gloor told The Associated Press on Sunday.
"There are hundreds of mirrors of WikiLeaks now," he said. "It's a test for Internet censorship. Can governments take something off the Net? I think not. There are copies of the website everywhere."
PayPal, a subsidiary of U.S.-based online marketplace operator eBay Inc., said it cut off the WikiLeaks website because it was engaged in illegal activity.
Assange is now in Britain, according to his British lawyer. Marc Andrey, a spokesman for the financial services arm of Swiss Post, told the Swiss weekly NZZ am Sonntag that Assange stated when opening an account with the postal system that he had a residence in Geneva.
Andrey said the Swiss Post was reviewing its "relationship" with Assange. He would have to prove he obtained Swiss residency, lives near the Swiss border, or owns property or does business in Switzerland to keep the Postfinance bank account that he opened last month.
The U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, Donald Beyer, told NZZ am Sonntag that Switzerland "should very carefully consider whether to provide shelter to someone who is on the run from the law." The SonntagsZeitung quoted Beyer as saying he told the Swiss government that WikiLeaks would likely post more than 250 cables from the American Embassy in Bern.
The Swiss Web address wikileaks.ch became the site's main access point on Friday after EveryDNS, a company based in Manchester, New Hampshire, stopped accepting traffic to the site's principal address — wikileaks.org — saying cyber attacks threatened the rest of its network.
Amazon previously stopped hosting WikiLeaks' Web site and governments and hackers were continuing to go after the organization.
French web hosting company OVH, which owns a server wikileaks.ch had been using, didn't immediately respond to calls Sunday. France's Industry Minister Eric Besson had warned Friday that it was unacceptable to host a site that "violates the secret of diplomatic relations."
The Swiss Pirate Party convened an impromptu news conference late Friday in a high-tech media building in Biel, Switzerland. Its leaders said they had no special knowledge of Assange's whereabouts or ability to contact him, but had spoken with him weeks ago to help seek asylum in Switzerland. That was during Assange's visit to Geneva last month when he spoke to reporters at the United Nations.
In an online chat with El Pais in Spain, Assange said the hunt for him was tough. He remains free while his website spews daily embarrassment and potential diplomatic damage to the U.S.
"We have hundreds of specific death threats from U.S. military militants. That is not unusual, and we have become practiced from past experiences at ignoring such threats from Islamic extremists, African kleptocrats and so on," he said.
"Recently the situation has changed with these threats now extending out to our lawyers and my children," he added. "However, it is the specific calls from the elites of U.S. society for our assassination, kidnapping and execution that is more concerning."
Assange is wanted in Sweden to face allegations of sexual offenses against two women, charges he denies, but the United States has not lodged any charges against him. Nor has Britain.
In the Swedish case, Assange is the target of a European extradition process which normally takes months to produce an arrest.
___
Frank Jordans contributed from Geneva
@dlowan,
Quote:be interesting to see what'd happen if ALL countries had a wiki-leaker
It would indeed - there probably have been smaller leaks from a lot of other countries - wikileaks has been going for four years, but since the chopper video and the afghan stuff it's become centre stage.
@Pemerson,
I can't help but note parallels in the responses of some in the western world to this recent batch of wikileaks, to the responses of some in the Muslim world to the Danish Mohammad cartoons. Lots of foaming mouths on the cameras from those who fear a loss of power but the majority quite unconcerned.
@JTT,
Quote:But is this really of any importance? The kid is a hero for whatever his personal reasons are/were. He is potentially exposing war criminals/government crimes/misdeeds whereas, the US and these other war criminal countries constantly laud and give pensions to war criminals.
If he had the noble goal of exposing war criminals and government crimes, why didn't he take care not to endanger lives. He indiscriminately collected and dumped any information he could get his hands on.
@hingehead,
In what I've read online, lots of commenters associate the escalation of anti-wikileaks to the questions regarding if the next subject is the Bank of America, or similar.. an effort that could turn out to be popular, in my assessment.
Naturally, I don't know if they are right - myself, I see the responses, wildly for or against or in between WL, as being mixed.
The Wayback machine had been censor it would seem as there is only five versions of the wikileaks site in 2007 showing as of now.
Have anyone look at this in the past and would know one way or another if versions had been removed from Wayback or not for sure?
@wandeljw,
But Assange has seemed to be working hard to check that, see myriad articles about the redactions, first probably the guy at the guardian. (some name like simon perkins)
@wandeljw,
wandeljw wrote:
Quote:But is this really of any importance? The kid is a hero for whatever his personal reasons are/were. He is potentially exposing war criminals/government crimes/misdeeds whereas, the US and these other war criminal countries constantly laud and give pensions to war criminals.
If he had the noble goal of exposing war criminals and government crimes, why didn't he take care not to endanger lives. He indiscriminately collected and dumped any information he could get his hands on.
Indeed.
Keep in mind though that since the concept of "collateral damage" is a cynical but convenient construct of the War Criminals, heroic Truth Warriors like Assange or Bradley Manning should have the right to deploy it.
@ossobuco,
Assange made the point in a Guardian online interview that censorship only tightens when vested economic powers feel threatened - I think your Bank of America postulation may be very right.
@hingehead,
Not my postulation, although I did have a twinge reading at the time I first read about it, oh, the Gianinnis of yore, that's B of A in my memory, but many others posted so on the sites I've read. I read ordinary sites, but I lose track, failure to memorize or annotate.
