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

Not bigger than the Pentagon Papers, surely? I heard on NPR the stuff isn't even Top Secret. [Val Kilmer gif]

Still, kudos to the heroes who leaked them.

i think it's just on sheer size. pentagon papers = 7000 pages. wikileaks = 90,000 documents. assange was saying at the press conference that wikileaks/guardian/nyt/der spiegel have only gone through a couple of thousand of them so far, so there might be something else to come.

1. Ask yourself: Why didn’t Wikileaks just publish the Afghanistan war logs and let journalists ‘round the world have at them? Why hand them over to The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel first? Because as Julien Assange, founder of Wikileaks, explained last October, if a big story is available to everyone equally, journalists will pass on it.

“It’s counterintuitive,” he said then. “You’d think the bigger and more important the document is, the more likely it will be reported on but that’s absolutely not true. It’s about supply and demand. Zero supply equals high demand, it has value. As soon as we release the material, the supply goes to infinity, so the perceived value goes to zero.”

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2010/07/26/wikileaks_afghan.html

i like how he looks like a 'die hard' villain ^_^

http://news.antiwar.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/assange.jpg

i can't remember this so well but the long version was also edited. we did a whole thread about it iirc.

― pieter brogel the elder (history mayne), Monday, July 26, 2010 6:16 AM

2010 in Iraq

I'm not reading 900 pages much less 90,000 but so far the summaries seem kidna underwhelming/unsurprising

gets rly good on page 65,340 btw

Interesting:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Analysts-Find-Little-New-in-WikiLeaks-Afghan-Docs-4457

That 'endangering lives' section is the important bit imo. When stuff is secret it's most likely to protect who the source is, not the actual content.

Interesting:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/opinions/view/opinion/Analysts-Find-Little-New-in-WikiLeaks-Afghan-Docs-4457

― gato busca pleitos (Eazy), Monday, July 26, 2010 5:12 PM (6 hours ago)

the too-cool crypto-conservative "we already suspected most of this stuff already, jeez wikileaks thanks for WASTING MY TIME" coming from a lot of people is...well, not surprising, but sad

how dare they! gg said that it was important

ilx's leading conservative weighs in

kevin is right -- just because we "know" that civilian killings etc happen afghanistan doesn't mean that details of actual events of such things going on aren't important

Man, fucking Mother Jones, so fucking Conservative.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/07/wikileaks-afghan-documents-and-me-source

i don't think it's crypto-conservative... just needlessly cynical

hey k3v, got any other patronizing dictionary definitions to throw my way?

i mean that mother jones post boils down to "some murders are more boring than others"

also i think that what wikileaks does is important, regardless if every single one of their releases doesn't shake the country to its core

MJ:

I'll keep running through to see if there's anything else of importance. But most of this information is tactical nuts and bolts, devoid of context, and largely useless for a war narrative; what would be far more valuable than this stuff is the strategic/political data: military info that's TOP SECRET or above, which I haven't seen yet; or stuff from the State Department or provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs).

often the significance of the act may trump what's actually being leaked

"this is not important, because tons of military personnel have seen it already"

I didn't say wikileaks doesn't do important things, just don't think there's much value in calling people cynical crypto-conservatives for disagreeing with you over the value of a particular leak, esp when as far as i can tell k3v doesn't have any particular personal experience in gauging the value of military leaks and deciding whether they are important or not. presumably he read a dude who told him they were important and now i'm ILX's biggest conservative because i'm more skeptical than he is.

like i said, i don't agree that it's conservatism -- it might be conservative in the literal, non-political sense of the term, but i don't think ppl for the atlantic or mother jones are, you know, placating the GOP or something

tbh goofball i haven't even read any analysis of this, just read the NYT articles about an hour ago xp

of course the IMPACT will be minimal, America is still debating Inception

so are you

xp k3v, suggestion for future: when you don't know shit about something don't call people conservatives because they disagree with your one hour old opinion, k?

esp when as far as i can tell k3v doesn't have any particular personal experience in gauging the value of military leaks and deciding whether they are important or not.

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:03 AM (4 minutes ago)

you're using a different metric for "importance" than i am, you realize.

or 'value', rather

right, i'm using the gauge of whether they bring to light new information we didn't already have, spark discourse that wouldn't exist without them, or have a more undefinable impact -- since we have no idea about the second two yet, we can only evaluate the first, and since i'm not an expert (nor have the time to read all of the leaks myself), i have to rely on heuristics. generally reading analysis from a few different places. you apparently go with whether believing their valuable makes you feel good or not.

they're*

If a poll is taken within the next week and shows a huge spike in war unpopularity, or something else quantifiable that can possibly be traced back to this leak, I might be willing to say that the leak was important, even without any huge new revelations. My hesitance would be how shitty most polling is and how little they generally can tell us, but that's pretty much the only way you could say that these leaks were somehow "important." Trying to saying so without having that is just making shit up.

xp k3v, suggestion for future: when you don't know shit about something don't call people conservatives because they disagree with your one hour old opinion, k?

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:09 AM (1 minute ago)

yes, the fact that i haven't served in the military or have had my thoughts on intelligence leaks previously published disqualifies my opinion that disclosing this information is a good thing, regardless of its impact. and i hardly need your view on this to think you're a conservative

xp yeah there's the thing - you wouldn't know it but there's this crazy thing called principle, mine says uncovering secret shit that governments and militaries do is awesome, whether the info is interesting or mundane, whether it 'has an impact' or not

Ah yes, the uncovering secret shit is good principle. I believe Kant wrote about that in his Critique of Practical Reason.

If a poll is taken within the next week and shows a huge spike in war unpopularity, or something else quantifiable that can possibly be traced back to this leak, I might be willing to say that the leak was important, even without any huge new revelations. My hesitance would be how shitty most polling is and how little they generally can tell us, but that's pretty much the only way you could say that these leaks were somehow "important." Trying to saying so without having that is just making shit up.

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:16 AM (7 minutes ago)

i mean this paragraph just makes me want to vomit. that shit is laaaaaaaame wikileaks, you shouldn't have even published this, fuckin attention whores. way to distract me from more important issues such as what crazy comment rush limbaugh made and what color john mccain's poop was today

Quotation marks of random shit you wrote, how fun!

Free availability of information & transparency of government seem bedrock values of any democracy worth the name & that hardly seems like a controversial thing to assert in my opinion - what immediate measurable good is done by these values seems rather beside the point

otm

Ah yes, the uncovering secret shit is good principle. I believe Kant wrote about that in his Critique of Practical Reason.

― Mordy, Tuesday, July 27, 2010 12:24 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is kind of an important value in a liberal democracy isnt it? im on the fence about the intrinsic 'worth' of the information contained in the memos but its hard to argue that their publication is anything but a net good

^yes (to aero & max)

First of all, free availability of information & transparency of government are wonderful things to aspire to, but no government has ever practiced it fully, and no political philosopher has ever argued that a State can practice it fully and remain a State. But even putting that aside, k3v has now conflated my argument ("Let's wait and see if these leaks are truly valuable") which this other argument ("Wikileaks is wasting my time"). I already wrote that Wikileaks is a fine thing, even if this isn't the most useful leak. But in k3v's world everybody's political positions have to be the most thoughtlessly knee-jerk opinion on any given issue. There is no space for nuance or consideration, just blindly supporting anything that sounds good to you. It's insane and a total poisoning of any kind of intellectual life. Let's not think about issues on their own, just accept some vague, half-formulated "position," trumpet our own moral superiority, and condemn anyone who might disagree on any point as a crypto-conservative, or just simply a conservative.

someone register me a better nemesis than this cargo shorts goof

Like, if we want to talk about the value of a totally free information society, by all means let's have it. But k3v isn't actually interested in any kind of discussion of substance. He just comes up with a talking point and defends it to the death. Maybe we shouldn't be celebrating that.

k3v, I think you'll get a new nemesis when you start writing coherently. I certainly won't have any issue with you at that point.

He also doesn't argue at all. At the end of every conversation is boils down to some personal reference. He calls me out by my full name, asks me about my personal habits, mentions my WDYLL photo. This is seriously what ILX is gonna defend?

kevin is the assange of ilx

leaking the classified contents of wdyll photos

He's really just a thoughtless dick tbh.

It's insane and a total poisoning of any kind of intellectual life.

for a guy attempting to present a reasoned argument, this sort of hyperbole seems, to put it mildly, counterproductive

well at least its a more interesting beef than whiney v. deej

That and smearing your shit on their walls.

at least smeared shit washes off. some pissed up bad guest of mine once poured honey into my television.

Tonight over 70 parliamentarians stand with victims of sexual violence, and are calling on both the Home Secretary and the shadow Home Sec to urge them both to be champions of action to ensure Julian Assange faces Swedish authorities and is extradited there if they so request: pic.twitter.com/uaJMM984Cc

— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) April 12, 2019

signed by john woodcock, somewhat undermining its message

yes.. even CHUK didn't want to taint their brand with that slimeball.

abbott’s response

British government should grant extradition of Julian Assange if authorities reopen rape allegations, Diane Abbott says in letter to colleagues. pic.twitter.com/2qY1Yctrt7

— Ashley Cowburn (@ashcowburn) April 13, 2019

Wikileaks started out with a noble purpose of complete openness, but in the last few years Julian Assange sold out to Russian interests and betrayed the trust of innocent whistleblowers such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden (though Snowden still seems to be operating under the delusion that Assange actually gives a damn about him). Manning needs to be released as soon as possible, now that Assange is in custody. Also, I used to defend Wikileaks but when I was expressing my support for Manning I found a whole host of transphobic tankies who didn't give a shit about her. Fuck Julian Assange and fuck Wikileaks; transfer whatever useful is left of the project to a secondary source and destroy the whole site.

I have a young boss who has turned out to be an Assange cultist and is convinced there's been a "dead drop" of "explosive information" that's been released post-arrest, including "proof that white genocide is real." Might be time to go job hunting.

huge if true

Not sure what I thought about wikileaks at the time but have ended up thinking it's a bit too good to be true: the hacking and leaking of State A's secrets is just too good a technique for States B and C not to buy in/take over, surely? So it would just end up being used as a tool by one state against another rather than being some objective watchdog/truth-teller.

Wikileaks massive file release. A quick scan shows newsworthy files on Microsoft, Steve Jobs, Guantanamo, US torture briefings, Vatican bank, and much more. https://t.co/x6D79rh6hE

— Dr Naomi Wolf (@naomirwolf) April 14, 2019

lol BIlderberg meeting reports 1956-1980

surely this is....everything?

Note: https://t.co/q9lDUo7sSn is not a release, insurance dump, or response to Assange’s arrest. It is the page where published documents are available for bulk download so that people can create mirrors, access publications offline, or use the raw data. It has existed for years.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 13, 2019

sad trombone

i am reading the scientology docs anyway

Mueller Report: Julian Assange Smeared Seth Rich to Cover for Russians

Julian Assange not only knew that a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer wasn’t his source for thousands of hacked party emails, he was in active contact with his real sources in Russia’s GRU months after Seth Rich’s death. At the same time he was publicly working to shift blame onto the slain staffer “to obscure the source of the materials he was releasing,” Special Counsel Robert Mueller asserts in his final report on Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election.

“After the U.S. intelligence community publicly announced its assessment that Russia was behind the hacking operation, Assange continued to deny that the Clinton materials released by WikiLeaks had come from Russian hacking,” the report reads. “According to media reports, Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an ‘inside job,’ and purported to have ‘physical proof’ that Russians did not give materials to Assange.”

...

With Assange behind it, the Seth Rich hoax moved into the almost-mainstream, spawning a quickly-retracted report on Fox News, and a series of “investigations” by Assange ally Sean Hannity. It also wreaked havoc in the lives of Rich’s surviving family, particularly his anguished parents who later begged perpetrators of the charade “to give us peace, and to give law enforcement the time and space to do the investigation they need to solve our son's murder.”

Even as he was ruthlessly framing Rich to protect himself, the GRU, or both, Assange was privately communicating with his real sources to arrange the transfer of the second election leak, material the GRU stole from John Podesta’s Gmail account.

Fuck. This. Guy.

Came here to post exactly that

yup

whistleblowers are still very necessary and they shouldn't be punished, but this guy: fuck him.

50 weeks in chokey

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48118908

Sy Hersh: “Today Assange. Tomorrow, perhaps, The New York Times and other media that published so much of the important news and information Assange provided.”

— Jeffrey St. Clair (@JSCCounterPunch) May 24, 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jun/13/julian-assange-sajid-javid-signs-us-extradition-order

myeah. he may be a cnut but free press and whistleblowing should still be possible too

I already said that. anyway.

Sorely tempted to say ah fuck it in this case.

Nah, it's important he goes to Sweden. Rape needs to be punished.

Lol he'll get punished alright

According to several sources Mike Pompeo told Ecuador's El Universo newspaper that Assange will definitely be extradited to the US: for instance,
https://www.liberation.fr/planete/2019/07/21/mike-pompeo-affirme-que-julian-assange-sera-extrade-vers-les-etats-unis_1741282

However, when looking for what he said (not that I speak Spanish or anything, but go to the El Universo site, type "Pompeo Assange" and then click Buscar = search, right?
finds this article: https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2019/07/20/nota/7434186/mike-pompeo-secretario-estado-eeuu-llego-guayaquil-reunirse-lenin
that only has one paragraph mentioning Assange and it's only something like "he will have to defend his actions before a court"

?

There doesn't appear to be a dedicated Chelsea Manning thread? She's recovering following a suicide attempt.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/11/chelsea-manning-suicide-attempt-hospital

just saw this, amazing news if it's true:

BREAKING: Chelsea Manning ordered released from jail, where she has been held for over a year for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury. Her testimony "is no longer needed, in light of which her detention no longer serves any coercive purpose." https://t.co/Q1vC1VsrBn

— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) March 12, 2020

If I understand correctly, she still owes the court 250k in punitive fees, but I'm sure a fundraiser or two will take care of that if so.

Speaking of which:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-chelsea-pay-her-court-fines

BREAKING

Julian Assange NOT extradited because of suicide risk.

— Latika M Bourke (@latikambourke) January 4, 2021

key witness admits he may have lied a bit

https://stundin.is/grein/13627/

Not Wikileaks, but new major leak:

BREAKING: massive, global leak of the targets of NSO Group's Pegasus spyware. *huge deal.*

Forensic investigation by @AmnestyTech
in collaboration with @FbdnStories reporters.

We @citizenlab conducted peer review.

Here's an explainer THREAD.https://t.co/TasFCy5EGW pic.twitter.com/rGGKAkfSry

— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) July 18, 2021

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cia-pitched-trump-officials-plans-130727657.html