WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

if he really had courage, leave his job, and speak out about this record of deceit, war crimes/mass murder/... , instead of trying to confuse the issues and provide cover for , well, you know

Also, I have never denied that this country has made mistakes, but I dont dwell on it like you do.
I acknowledge the mistakes, and I also acknowledge all of the good this country has done.

You on the other hand, dont think this country has ever done anything good.

leave his job

speak out about this record of deceit, war crimes/mass murder/... , instead of trying to confuse the issues and provide cover for , well, you know.

Look at all the dirty tricks that the USA/Canada/Australia have already put into practice.

Think of the innumerable dirty tricks that just the CIA pulls off everyday

volumes of information that show that your government has committed war crimes/mass murder

Six million people, maybe closer to 8 or 9 million people don't die because the USA "has made mistakes", MM!

The evidence is in Assange's own statements Re: poison pill. It is evident in the ratio of information had verses what has actually been released.

Of course you can ask. You can be answered as well.

You replied to my post about WL infallibility, but in your own reply you failed to identify what would qualify poor handling.

I am not going to respond to your request to demonstrate examples of “poor handling” of the Wikileaks material when I don’t believe it was poorly handled. Surely it’s up to you to do that?

Of course Wikileaks is fallible.
Every single organization which supplies information is fallible.
No one here has argued that that Wikileaks is any more perfect in this respect.
What has been said here is that Wikileaks & the newspapers to which were supplied the information made every effort to protect innocent people by removing names & not publishing some of the material.
The Wikileaks we have had access to are only tiny proportion of the material available.
I totally reject your perspective that "unless you believe there is no way for this information to be mishandled, you do have an answer."
Wikileaks supplies the information. It does not proscribe how that information is used or editorialize about the material. That is up to people who receive the information to do for themselves. And what is wrong with that?
The point is, if the there was not so much government secrecy, that would be much less need for the information provided by an organization like Wikileaks.
To say that the possibility of the information being "misused" is to deny the people the right to information that they should have had access to anyway. The real issue is why is there so much secrecy by our governments.

Adding insult to injury? Amazon selling excerpts of WikiLeaks cables in e-book
December 10, 2010 9:31AM

Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. The online store is selling excerpts of the WikiLeaks cables in an e-book. Source: AP

PORTIONS of the diplomatic cables contained in WikiLeaks are available for sale on Amazon's UK website, an odd twist after the company ousted the whistleblower group from its web servers.

Excerpts from some of the 250,000 sensitive documents were contained in a Kindle e-book self-published by an author listed as Heinz Duthel.

The book isn't available in the US. People in the UK can buy it for £7.37 pounds ($11.60). ....

Why did I back Julian Assange? It's about justice and fairness
Jemima Khan
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 12 December 2010 00.01 GMT

Even my mother asked why I would stand surety for an alleged rapist. I was there because I believe this is about censorship


Jemima Khan leaves Horseferry Road magistrates court Jemima Khan leaves Horseferry Road magistrates court after Julian Assange was remanded in custody. The WikiLeaks founder was refused bail at an extradition hearing in central London over sex crime allegations Photograph: Felix Clay

Why did I offer to provide surety for an alleged rapist, a man I have never met? That's the question even my mother asked me after I appeared in court for Julian Assange.

That morning I had sent a spur-of-the-moment message of support by email to Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, when I read of his arrest. He immediately responded and asked if I would be prepared to come to court in the next hour to act as a surety for Assange. I was nervous about the inevitable media circus, but felt that it was the right thing to do after being convinced by Stephens that it could help.

Assange has not even been charged, let alone convicted. Swedish prosecutors do not have to produce any evidence that he committed the alleged sexual offences to justify the warrant. On the basis of the allegations that I heard read out in court, the evidence seems feeble, but I concede that I don't know the full facts. Neither does Assange. Stockholm's chief prosecutor, Eva Finne, who heard the evidence against Assange in August, threw the case out of court, saying: "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape."

That is not the reason I was there. I was there because I believe that this is about censorship and intimidation. The timing of these rehashed allegations is highly suspicious, coinciding with the recent WikiLeaks revelations and reinvigorated by a rightwing Swedish politician. There are credible rumours that this is a holding charge while an indictment is being sought in secret for his arrest and extradition to the US. An accusation of rape is the ultimate gag. Until proved otherwise, Assange has done nothing illegal, yet he is behind bars.

There is a fundamental injustice here. There are calls for the punishment (execution even) of the man who has reported war crimes, but not for those that perpetrated or sanctioned them.

On the one hand, the US is proud of its First Amendment and its long-standing commitment to the freedom of speech. It was announced last week that the US is to host next year's Unesco World Press Freedom Day event, which champions in particular "the free flow of information in this digital age".

On the other hand, it is examining ways to take legal action against Assange, who is in effect editor of the world's first stateless (non-profit) media organisation. It has blocked access to the WikiLeaks website and denied its citizens the ability to register protest through donations, all without a warrant. It has also successfully pressured Amazon, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to withdraw their services from WikiLeaks, as well as the Swiss bank PostFinance, to close Assange's account.

WikiLeaks offers a new type of investigative journalism. I have my doubts about whether some cables should have been leaked – for example, the list of infrastructure sites vital to national security – and I share the concern that diplomacy could suffer as a result of others. But I feel passionately that democracy needs a strong and free media. It is the only way to ensure governments are honest and remain accountable.

WikiLeaks has revealed that we have been told a great many lies about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that there has been little accountability. How are the recent revelations regarding America's secret war in Yemen not in the public interest? Don't American citizens have the right to know that, contrary to official denials, they have paid for cruise missile attacks on Yemen, which have accidentally killed 200 civilians?

I have a personal interest in the revelations about Pakistan, which highlight what many of us have long feared: that contrary to assurances from Pakistan's leaders, the US is fully ensconced, with bases and special forces, that there have been unreported civilian deaths and that the unwinnable war in Afghanistan is spilling over the border into its weak, corrupt and nuclear neighbour. The best justification governments can find to shut down information is that lives are at risk. In fact, lives have been at risk as a result of the silences and lies revealed in these leaks.

Exposés have always been initiated by leaks. As Assange himself has said: "If journalism is good, it's controversial." Without illicit information President Nixon would not have been forced to resign, we would never have known about the abuse of detainees by US personnel at Abu Ghraib, nor that US intelligence was phone-tapping and looking at emails without warrants. Daniel Ellsberg has said that when he released the Pentagon papers during the Vietnam war he suffered similar attacks. He was put on trial for theft and conspiracy and stolen medical files were used to discredit him. Now he's viewed as a journalistic hero.

If WikiLeaks is a terrorist organisation, as New York congressman Pete King stated, and if its founder, Julian Assange, is prosecuted for espionage, the future of investigative journalism everywhere is in jeopardy, as is our right as citizens to be told the truth.

The Library Of Congress has blocked access to Wikileaks - I would have thought someone in Congress would have found it useful to do some research before speaking out or making legal recommendations on Wikileaks - probably naive of me.

I've go to say I'm really quite surprised at the source of the article, but this is a pretty good summation of the "pro" Julian Assange/Wikileaks case.

I wonder how long before a google search for wikileaks doesn't show wikileaks. Even now it's only the third in the ranked list (the wikipedia entry is first) but that's probably just because of the wikileaks.org dns entry is now directing to a mirror - very weird.

WikiLeaks is not infallible

When asked how WL could mishandle information, you reply that you believe they haven't.

I won't bother trying to convince you that the information has been handled recklessly.