WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

Speech from a resister.

https://vimeo.com/becausewemust/statement

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Here is a statement from one Anonymous hacker on why he can't support Wikileaks anymore (short version: it has become the one-man Julian Assange show):

http://pastebin.com/Juxb5M26

Quote:

Tweets are not a good way to explain why we are angry about the recent developments in Wikileaks, so here is a summary of the situation and an explanation why we are so appalled.

Since yesterday visitors of the Wikileaks site are presented a red overlay banner that asks them to donate money. This banner cannot be closed and unless a donation is made, the content like GIFiles and the Syria emails are not displayed.

We are aware that the donation advertisment can be circumvented by disabling Javascript. However, this is not the point. Neither that Wikileaks is asking for donations. However, we do see a serious problem in the way Wikileaks is implementing this for several reasons. First of all, the casual user (which is the majority) usually has Javascript enabled and thus will be blocked by the donation banner and denied the content. Additionally, the casual user does not know that he needs to disable javascript to get to the content without paying - sorry, donating. He may not even know what javascript is, let alone how to disable it. Lastly, regardless of any workarounds, the fact remains that a meretricious banner is placed for the majority of visitors that cannot be closed. The obvious intention is to increase donations.

We have been worried about the direction Wikileaks is going for a while. In the recent month the focus moved away from actual leaks and the fight for freedom of information further and further while it concentrated more and more on Julian Assange. It goes without saying that we oppose any plans of extraditing Julian to the USA. He is a content provider and publisher, not a criminal.

But Wikileaks is not - or should not be - about Julian Assange alone. The idea behind Wikileaks was to provide the public with information that would otherwise being kept secret by industries and governments. Information we strongly believe the public has a right to know. But this has been pushed more and more into the background, instead we only hear about Julian Assange, like he had dinner last night with Lady Gaga. That's great for him but not much of our interest. We are more interested in transparent governments and bringing out documents and information they want to hide from the public.

As far as money is concerned, we understand that Wikileaks lives from donations. And it is fine to ask for them as long as this is done in an unostentatious manner. This is clearly not the case anymore, even though the overall situation cannot be that bad: According to the Transparency Report of the Wau Holland Stiftung**[1], Julian received 72.000 Euros only for project coordination in 2011 - this does not include travel costs. And 265.000 Euros were spent on "campaigns". (Note that the 139.000 Euro in donations only accounts for the funds that went through the Wau Holland Stiftung, it does not include any donation to Wikileaks directly).

The conclusion for us is that we cannot support anymore what Wikileaks has become - the One Man Julian Assange show. But we also want to make clear that we still support the original idea behind Wikileaks: Freedom of information and transparent governments. Sadly we realize that Wikileaks does not stand for this idea anymore.

We also like to point out that of course we cannot speak in the name of Anonymous. This is merely one of many twitter accounts, albeit an established one over the recent years. But we know that we are certainly not alone within the Anonymous collective with this assessment of the situation. We have talked with many people on twitter, IRC and other communication platforms and the vast majority was appalled by this intrusive form of solicitation.

We will continue to fight for free information and support anyone who pursues the same ideal.

~~ Anonymous

[1] http://wauland.de/files/2011_Transparenzbericht-Projekt04_en.pdf

I'm sure the Aussie contingent here will just write it off as just more spiteful people, or an American conspiracy, the "media" or whatnot. But it's patently obvious that the man is a jackass and you can find a long trail of people who have worked with him to attest to it.

What you can't find, is a long trail of people close to him who say otherwise, they usually at best just defend his self-aggrandizing jackassery for the cause he dons the mantle for.

Thing is, he didn't do ****. The whistleblowers did, they are the heroes. And they could have done it to journalists or many of the other repositories for anonymous information on the internet (the one I just linked to above is popular among hackers).

All Assange did was install some open-source software and got some lucky breaks, he then trickled out the information to maximize attention and rode the wave of attention to fame and notoriety while the real responsible party, the whistleblower rots away in jail.

Bradley Manning is the hero, Julian Assange is a douchebag who uses the whistleblowing cause to further his own agenda (which right now revolves around not having to face the music on sex crimes he is accused of).

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A common apologist refrain Assange supporters use when defending his refusal to face up to his sex crime charges is that it is a conspiracy to extradite him to the US. This is bullshit. It would be harder to extradite him from Sweden to the US than from the UK to the US.

See: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-myths-about-assange-extradition

The notion that he's evading American persecution is bullshit, America has nothing to charge him with and no legal instrument in place to try to do so. This is all bullshit he started spewing as soon as the charges against him were made but there is not a shred of evidence for it and others working with him on Wikileaks parted company with him over this self-serving lie.

That he threw these girls under the bus, and tried to portray it all as some grand conspiracy is why I think he's an absolute cretin. They deserve justice, even against someone who is the (wholly undeserving) folk hero of many. His cause doesn't justify his actions, he needs to face up to the accusations and defend himself, not beg off with idiotic conspiracy theories that are just plainly nonsensical.

It is an absolute travesty that he is able to hijack his cause to deny them their shot at justice. That he refuses to face the music under the pretext of the grand American conspiracy that doesn't make any ******* sense.

Sweden is no kangaroo court, going there affords him more legal protection against extradition to the US not less. I believe he doesn't go because he is guilty of what he is accused of, because the notion that he won't go because of American persecution is idiotic.

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It's all about perception, Robert. Nowhere have I seen you agree that corporate-owned media has twisted the story to suit their own agenda, and that would be to shoot the messenger to void the message.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101210/12513512236/how-press-misleads-about-wikileaks.shtml

How The Press Misleads About Wikileaks
from the journalism-at-work dept

As Julian Assange's lawyers fully expect him to get charged in the US under the Espionage Act, it's interesting (and a bit distressing) to see how some in the press -- who should be his biggest supporters -- are acting. Glenn Greenwald highlighted how a Time Magazine report on the potential US legal case against Assange misstated a variety of facts -- including the idea that Wikileaks itself had published "thousands" of classified State Department cables and that it had done so "indiscriminately." As Greenwald points out Wikileaks itself has only published a little over 1,000 of the cables, and nearly all of them are the ones that the press has already posted/vetted/reported on.

This is a part of the story that isn't getting much coverage. While most of the news reports have said that Wikileaks published over 250,000 such cables, that's not exactly true. It has over 250,000 such cables and appears to have passed them on to its media partners, but it's slowly releasing specific cables -- with redactions -- and mostly after the press partners are releasing those same cables. In other words, it appears that Wikileaks is actually being judicious and discriminating in what it's releasing. Or, you could say (and probably should say) that Wikileaks is actually doing much of what a journalist would do in selecting which documents to pass along at this time.

But by trying to claim that Wikileaks is "just" a data dump, it's an effort to make Wikileaks look like it's not a journalistic or media entity -- thereby affording it fewer First Amendment rights. But, it appears that some in the press, such as Time, are being quite misleading in doing so. After Greenwald called them on it, Time issued a "correction," but it's a "correction that's not a correction" in that they basically say that Assange and some others disagree with some of Time's claims. But it makes no attempt to fix the factually incorrect statements.

Of course, this may come back to the view that many have: that certain elements in the press are upset about Wikileaks because it shows what a crappy job they've been doing on their own. If we had a functioning press that actually sought to hold the US government accountable, there would be much less of a need for Wikileaks. Instead, we have a press that focuses on keeping "access" to those in power, and that means not digging too deep at times.

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From Mary Kostakidis. Australian journalist and activist.

I’m a GetUp member. I am also a journalist who has engaged with international affairs for decades. That’s why, as a matter of principle, I am greatly disturbed by what’s happening to Julian Assange. It overturns centuries of historic and legal precedent protecting freedom of the press, and exposes journalists around the world to the vengeance and tyranny of governments anywhere.

This point was made in the Editorial Opinion pages of the New York Times :

“If Mr Assange is extradited to the United States, the consequences will reverberate for years around the world. Mr Assange is not an American citizen, and none of his actions have taken place on American soil. If the United States can prosecute a journalist in these circumstances, the governments of Russia or China could, by the same logic, demand that foreign reporters anywhere on earth be extradited for violating their laws. The setting of such a precedent should deeply concern everyone, admirers of WikiLeaks or not.” 1

It is time for the Australian government to take a stand against this. Foreign Minister Bob Carr and Prime Minister Julia Gillard can pick up the phone today and ask for an agreement that the United States will not seek to extradite Assange for his work with WikiLeaks. Please join me in asking them to do so:

www.getup.org.au/campaigns/wikileaks/assange/sign-the-petition

As an Australian citizen, and the head of an Australian-based online media organisation, Mr Assange is entitled to the same rights and protection under freedom of the press that any journalist or publisher requires in order to do their job; without fear that if they expose the truth, they risk being sentenced to the death penalty. They are providing an essential service - empowering us by exposing what governments get up to in our name. We in turn must defend them.

The information WikiLeaks has released revealed serious wrongdoing, from the killing of Reuters news reporters and Iraqi civilians, including children, to corruption that so outraged nations of people it helped spark the Arab Spring. Media outlets around the world also published this information, but their editors’ safety is not at risk; only that of an Australian whose organisation has delivered a secure way for whistleblowers to upload material anonymously.

We know our government can, and must, do better to stand up for freedom of the press. Join me in signing this statement to Foreign Minister Bob Carr today:

www.getup.org.au/campaigns/wikileaks/assange/sign-the-petition

Thanks for being part of this,
Mary Kostakidis, journalist and GetUp member.

1 Reply

@Builder,

Builder wrote:

It's all about perception, Robert. Nowhere have I seen you agree that corporate-owned media has twisted the story to suit their own agenda, and that would be to shoot the messenger to void the message.

That's probably because I find that notion risible. Sure, it's an American government, plus mainstream media, plus jealous hackers, and vengeful people who let him use their houses that all got together to paint him as a douchebag.

I think it's more plausible that he's just a douchebag, and that you have a hard time with that idea and would rather come up with any convoluted apology for him.

Quote:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101210/12513512236/how-press-misleads-about-wikileaks.shtml

Doesn't do a damn thing to discredit the extensive trail of people who worked with him, long-time supporters even, who are offput enough by his douchebaggery that they are compelled to tell everyone about it.

It wasn't just the "media", it was a huge amount of people he came into contact with. The groupies he sexual advantage of (or at least more than they wanted), the supporters who worked with him. Not just Daniel, I've read of many others who say the same. Who are drawn to the cause and then repulsed by him. This isn't the "media". It's grass roots activists on multiple continents.

Daniel is German, another guy was a 25-year old from Iceland, the Anonymous hackers now are people who were attacking his early critics, launching DOS attacks on the companies who wouldn't take donations for him.

These aren't at all the people you portray them to be. They are people who helped make Wikileaks but who can't abide Julian's self-aggrandizing.

You are just blindly dismissing it all as these baseless conspiracies. I didn't just point you at the "media" I pointed you at hackers dumping anonymous text. But then you say it's just 'jealous hackers' etc. Whatever doesn't fit your narrative of Assange the hero you just dismiss in some ad hominem against the messenger.

I can see the appeal, if not the intellectual honesty, of approaching things this way.

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@Builder,

Nobody is trying to extradite Assange to the United States. The only people talking about that are Assange and supporters as their excuse for why he won't face justice in Sweden but there is no legal basis for extradition to the US and if he goes to Sweden doing so would actually be more difficult than from the UK directly.

If the US was that intent on getting him they would be trying to do so now. The reality is that Assange did not really break any laws and they don't really have any case to make against him (unlike poor Bradley Manning, who is legally up **** creek).

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

Thing is, he didn't do ****. The whistleblowers did, they are the heroes. And they could have done it to journalists or many of the other repositories for anonymous information on the internet (the one I just linked to above is popular among hackers).

All Assange did was install some open-source software and got some lucky breaks, he then trickled out the information to maximize attention and rode the wave of attention to fame and notoriety while the real responsible party, the whistleblower rots away in jail.

Bradley Manning is the hero, Julian Assange is a douchebag who uses the whistleblowing cause to further his own agenda (which right now revolves around not having to face the music on sex crimes he is accused of).

So who else is setting themselves up, to do that oh-so-easy-**** now?

It's so easy, according to you. No worries about the consequences. Rolling Eyes

Without Wikileaks at the time, Robert, where else did the whistleblowers have to to go tovoice their grievances ? Tell me that. The NYT, the Guardian, perhaps ?
Fat chance! Neutral

You think that setting up Wikileaks & making it work was some easy thing to do? Just sit back & wait for whistle blowers to post, no worries to us folks on the receiving & publishing end?
You're wrong.
Look at the consequences for Julian Assange right now.
Is anyone else facing these consequences?

I have posted a number of responses & questions to your posts on this thread today.
None of which you have responded to.
I guess you could use some (long gone, as far as I'm concerned, ancient history excuse, that you refuse to answer my posts ... but I would really like to hear your responses to the questions I've posed to you.

As for whether Assange "did ****" or not.:

How many people who didn't "do ****" have ended up in the predicament he's found himself in?
You seriously, honestly, believe it is simply about some sexual charges in Sweden?

.

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

Nobody is trying to extradite Assange to the United States.

Have you read the leaked Stratfor cables, Robert?

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert, of the three former founding members, who've since parted company with Assange, one admitted that he was not up for the scope of "taking down a government", so he went back to doing his own thing, in his own way, and the other two took their ball and started kicking it around in their own field. They just don't want to play with Julian any more. They are still involved, but on their own terms, on their own site.

The target of wikileaks, the war machine of the US MIC and its proponents, are in control of the most effective propaganda machine on the planet. You say that they are not trying to extradite Julian, and yet they have declared him an enemy of the state, and short of putting a bounty on his head, have pretty much signed his death warrant.

Under current NDAA laws, signed in on new year's eve, and still under a cloud of suspicion by the SCOTUS, should Assange "fall into" the hands of the MIC, no charges need to be laid, and no habeas corpus applies to him.

He could remain a prisoner until such time as the War on Terror (TM) is declared over.

Now I can read five hundred posts about how Julian won't change his underwear but once a week; how he kicked someone's dog for peeing on his leg; how he hates ginger tomcats so bad that he put hydrochlor in the cat litter tray; how two "groupies" from Sweden say he's a molester, after living with him for more than a month; how his vision of tackling a corrupt administration for war crimes freaked out everyone in his fledgling organisation enough that they passed the buck to him and left, citing their reasons for cowardice to be "personal differences"; how his lack of respect for "due process" led to banksters closing out paypal from allowing donations to his cause, which later got overturned after "due process" in a court of real law.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, criminals are still pretending to be politicians, and presidents aren't even bothering with "due process" before invading sovereign nations, and allowing kangaroo courts to assassinate opponents for them. Drone attacks are occurring in the nations of allies, and hundreds of civilians, including children, are dying as a result.

But let's focus instead on Julian, and his not wearing of a condom, shall we?

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@msolga,

I have. Stratfor is just a private organization that peddles "intelligence". Some hackers released what they claim was Stratfor internal communication that includes very critical views on Assange and the claim that the US government has a secret indictment against him.

The veracity of even whether that was a leak or not hasn't been confirmed (and hackers have been releasing a lot of such hoaxes recently) but even assuming they are so it is just a private company making such claims. The law everyone says would be used (the Espionage Act) has never been used for a non-citizen and the claim just doesn't make sense.

There surely is investigations on who might have actually broken laws to get information to Assange but the evidence for this conspiracy to extradite Assange to the US is just rumor at this stage, and a stupid one at that. There is no legal case against Assange that will hold up.

As for who was doing this "****" before: you act like whistleblowing was some grand invention of this jackass. No it wasn't. It happens every day (just not as often on as ground-breaking of a scale) and will continue. He nabbed some big, epic, journalistic breaks but this is only due to a couple of really brave whistleblowers. He is just a different brand of journalist and there are plenty of other people ready and willing to publish a big scoop like that, the limiting factor are people willing to go to jail over giving it to them, not the people willing to take the credit and attention for it.

The whistleblowers can continue their good work just like they did in the past. The Pentagon Papers didn't need Wikileaks and whistle blowing and the cause will continue without Assange using it for his ego. There are thousands of other places to leak information online, just because you don't know about them doesn't mean they don't exist.

The idea lives on, just because there aren't a lot of other examples of epic whistleblowing doesn't mean this is all to Assange's credit, the bottom line is there aren't that many Bradley Mannings there are plenty of people willing to be the Assange and take credit for their acts. The Pentagon Papers were a similarly big deal, and those kinds of things just don't come along every day. Assange helped this happen but he was just a medium for Bradley Manning etc to do so. If he wasn't there Bradley would have worked with the other hackers he was talking to (one of them, Adrian Lamo, was a douchebag who turned him in, for example), he was a leak waiting to happen and Assange took it and ran with it.

And as for the sexual charges, yes I do think they are just sexual charges. I don't think it the conspiracy theories make a shred of sense. I find it a bit crass to speculate on this, and would really rather just see him give these girls their day in court, but if I had to guess this is what I believe is most likely:

He had consensual sex with two girls. Being the born asshole I claim he is, when one insisted on him using a condom took it off secretly, which is a creepy thing to do but fits well with the personality everyone describes. With the other, he had sex with her while she was sleeping or at some level of non-complete consent.

They both found out that he was sleeping around with young groupies and felt used, and when they related their stories to each other decided his borderline behavior was less borderline and brought charges.

Now I'm absolutely sure you disagree on various of the above and have an earful to give me and feel free to do so, but I'm not going to respond to it and instead I have a favor to ask of you: As you know, I am trying to avoid talking to you. I just don't find it edifying enough to put up with your inordinate sensitivity and the offense, hurt feelings and drama that nearly inevitably ensue. So I politely (as politely as this kind of thing can be, at least) request that you would stop trying to get me to respond, and hope that you enjoy more fruitful discussions with interlocutors of greater patience and personal compatibility.

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@Builder,

Builder wrote:

The target of wikileaks, the war machine of the US MIC and its proponents, are in control of the most effective propaganda machine on the planet. You say that they are not trying to extradite Julian, and yet they have declared him an enemy of the state, and short of putting a bounty on his head, have pretty much signed his death warrant.

Nonsense. Just absolute fantasy.

Anyway, I support the cause of whistle blowing, especially against the cause of drawing attention to moral failures of the US "war machine" you speak of. But this level of discourse really doesn't have any further to go and we'll just have to agree to disagree on this issue.

I will continue to think he's a dick, and you can continue to think that there's just a grand, global conspiracy to make people think he's a dick. We will just have to live with failing to have convinced each other of our viewpoints.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote;

Quote:

Nonsense. Just absolute fantasy.

Assange makes UN appearance

THE US military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States - the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency.

Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-calls-assange-enemy-of-state-20120927-26m7s.html#ixzz2937zj7BZ

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

...I support the cause of whistle blowing, especially against the cause of drawing attention to moral failures of the US "war machine"...

And which other organisation, given your antipathy toward Wiklieaks , would be the right one do that with any credibility (in your estimation) now?
Could you name one or two?

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@Builder,

The US only did that so that they can more easily criminalize any further leaks to WikiLeaks, and because Assange was willing to leak the information unredacted the notion that the US has a price on his head is just wild-minded nonsense.

Edit: I'll put my money where my mouth is. If the US ever kills Assange I will give $1,000 to the charity of your choice. You don't even have to bet or risk a thing. The claim is laughable and I am willing to risk $1,000 on it in exchange for nothing at all.

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

The US only did that so that they can more easily criminalize any further leaks to WikiLeaks, and because Assange was willing to leak the information unredacted the notion that the US has a price on his head is just wild-minded nonsense.

It's kinda old news now, Robert. The search for "Assange enemy of the state" only brings up 3,744,000 results.

As for your $1000 dollar pledge, he wouldn't be killed. He would be incarcerated indefinitely. Under the NDAA laws, no charges even need to be brought forth.

Late edit; with every news org in Australia, New Zealand and England (all US allies) running the story that both Assange AND his website are now enemies of the state, would you at least expect a few denials from the US admin, Robert?

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

...that the US has a price on his head is just wild-minded nonsense

Well I guess this is something along such lines?:

VIDEO/Democracy Now:

Quote:

The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has published an internal email from the private intelligence firm Stratfor that suggests the U.S. Justice Department has obtained a sealed indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The email is one of around five million obtained from Stratfor’s servers by the hacker group, Anonymous. "Somehow you have a private intelligence company, Stratfor, a 'shadow CIA,' as people have called it, having information about this sealed indictment—secret again—that Julian Assange doesn’t have, that WikiLeaks doesn’t have, that his lawyers don’t have," says Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is a legal adviser to both Assange and to WikiLeaks. "What you see here is secrecy, secrecy, secrecy." News of the indictment comes less than a week after Army Private Bradley Manning was arraigned for allegedly leaking classified U.S. military and State Department documents to WikiLeaks. [includes rush transcript]

Leaked Stratfor Email Suggests Secret U.S. Indictment of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange:
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/2/29/leaked_stratfor_email_suggests_secret_us/

1 Reply

@Builder,

Ok, then I will pay $1000 to the charity of your choice if Assange is imprisoned in the US for anything that he has done prior to today (hey, if he does something new that's illegal I am not gonna vouch for him).

The claim is inspid. Why doesn't he go to Sweden if that is what the big deal is? If he does so, to be extradited to the US would require the authorization of both the UK and Sweden.

If any of the two were a lap dog of America it would be the UK.

If the real deal is that he's worried about extradition to the US then facing the charges in Sweden would actually make that less likely, not more.

Thing is, he doesn't want to face the charges against him. And his apologists are willing to blindly accept the nonsensical argument and grant justice an exception.

This time, the girls who claimed rape just get to be judged by the court of public opinion I guess. I find that position reprehensible. He should face his charges and take responsibility for his actions, it has nothing at all to do with America and everything to do with where he stuck his Johnson.

The appropriate venue for this to be adjudicated is a court of law, it is absolutely absurd that people are willing to let him defend himself against these charges by donning the mantle of his cause and invoking a vague conspiracy theory that doesn't even make any legal sense (again, the legal instruments to do what they claim are not there, and the extradition process would only be more difficult, not easier).

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@msolga,

I have already answered you at length in an earlier post (Stratfor is just a private peddler of "intelligence" and half the value of intelligence is scarcity and that they sell it is indication that they are just basically a business consultant who dresses up in cloaks and daggers as their sales pitch, the notion that they are a shadow CIA is just uninformed stupidity, the very hackers who claimed to have leaked their data are the ones now turning on Assange by the way, hope you know you are relying on the very people who are disowning him to make your case for him), and politely requested that you stop bothering a person who has expressed disinterest in talking to you.

Please leave me alone. Why do you keep talking to me when I keep telling you I'd really rather not?

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@Robert Gentel,

I couldn't agree more and I will put up my $1,000 as well.

I would add that Ecuador's safeguarding of him based on human rights is cartoonish.

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WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

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