Censorship Struggle Underway In Iceland

jon jonson writes "Information from the collapsed Icelandic bank Kaupthing has been leaked to WikiLeaks, revealing billions in insider loans, and the bank has been working day and night to censor the information contained in the document. Last night at 6:55pm GMT, they served an injunction against the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, five minutes before the 7pm news was due to be aired. The TV station just displayed the WikiLeaks URL instead. They've also injuncted Iceland's national radio, banning all discussion about the contents of the document, and they are actively trying to censor the rest of the Icelandic media along with WikiLeaks."

Comments

fp!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Frist Post!!11one

Re:fp!!

[Anonymous Coward]

If only someone had got to you five minutes before...

Re:fp!!

[GeorgeStone22]

I love how the Icelandics had the audacity to blame the British for the collapse of their banks..

Re:fp!!

[jackharrer]

>>Frist Post!!11one

If only we could censor some parts of Internet... oh, never mind...

National security? Nah, that's not possible

[BadAnalogyGuy]

When the government starts censoring things, I find that it is usually because of national security issues more than anything else.

Look at your government and seriously think about how on the ball they are about anything.

You'll find that the only thing they are ever on the ball about is national security. That's it (unless you're an unfortunate American in which case that's not even something you can believe in). So when the government starts freaking out and censoring things left and right, you can bet that there's something important contained in the leaked files.

Now, it's up to you to keep what you know safe and secret from Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

The bank is a private company. He has nothing to do with out government.

I repeat, our government IS NOT censoring things.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Exception Duck]

The bank is owned by the goverment.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Frequency Domain]

When the government starts censoring things, I find that it is usually because of national security issues more than anything else.

I've seen quite the opposite. Censoring is much more likely to be about covering your ass than about national security.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that national security is a synonym for political embarrassment, don't you?

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[krilli]

The police that are mandating the censorship are also owned by the government.

And to complete the farce, the newsroom being censored is ALSO OWNED BY THE STUPID GOVERNMENT.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[hemp]

Don't forget about the children.

Won't someone think of the children?

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[mellon]

Right. Probably the leaked documents contain child porn or something.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

But wait, there's more! According to my favorite Icelandic blogger, the commissioner who issued the injunction has a son who is or was a spokesman for the bank, and another who was an executive and the recipient of one of the no-payments loans.

Iceland is a close-knit society. The anger there is fueled by a sense of betrayal that people from big heterogeneous countries can't fully appreciate.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Repossessed]

I think it actually is going to be more about national security. Few people want to leak actual national security secrets though, so whenever there's a leak its always about something horrible.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[amiga3D]

ooooh! Where's my mod points?

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[ScrewMaster]

So when the government starts freaking out and censoring things left and right, you can bet that there's something important contained in the leaked files.

Precisely. Keep in mind that we're talking a bank here, not a military research laboratory or something else of strategic importance. A bank, in fact, whose proper management (or otherwise) is of significant importance to the lives of millions of ordinary people.

This is all about money, and when the government "starts freaking out" in a situation such as this (and I mean any government, not just the one to which us unfortunate Americans are subject) it is invariably due to criminal behavior on the part of government officials. Corruption, in other words. In such cases "national security" means making that information public so that the bastards can be rooted out and put in prison where they belong. It's not in the best interests of the citizens of any country that national security be synonymous with coverup. That's what usually happens when government types go too far, and by burying any and all evidence against them under the seal of "national security" they not only escape prosecution for their crimes but get to keep their jobs.

So, coverup. Let me tell you, that is exactly what this affair smells like to this unfortunate American (we get a lot of those here.) If the Icelanders play this smart, they won't do what we've done here in with our recent government bailout of the private sector. That is, allow the people responsible for this disaster to remain in control and prosper after all the damage they've caused.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[sam_handelman]

Mod parent up! Although, I think the grandparent may have been sarcastic? It's not obvious if so.

  Censorship is almost always *officially* about national security, but 99.9% of the time they're actually trying to suppress information which is embarassing or damaging to some particular junta.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[mabhatter654]

"I'm in charge of the nation and it affects MY job security.... so 'national security' applies!"

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Paladeen]

The government *as such* is not censoring anything here. Kaupthing Bank is. While Kaupthing is now owned by the state, it is not controlled directly by politicians.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

"according to a blog" is never, ever a proper source.

never

ever

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[calmofthestorm]

I'm an American so this rule doesn't apply (national security is a euphemism for "because I said so, that's why; questioning the HSA is Counterfreedomary!")...but given the history of the sort of people who censor WikiLeaks I have to question whether or not I trust anyone who does.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[lgw]

You know, it's really refreshing to see a story about censorship and (presumed) government corruption that's *not* about America for once. Go Iceland! :)

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[lgw]

I don't know from Iceland, but presumably the bank does not actually employ a military or police force capable of censoring broadcasts? So the governement is the one doing the censorship, because the bank asked nicely? It would be kinda cool if I'm wrong here ...

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[MindlessAutomata]

to be fair, neither is a news article, or at least should be

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Lakitu]

That's all right, because the government is owned by the Russians, so nobody from Iceland is censoring anything.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[divisionbyzero]

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Most people in the US can barely contain their rage about the AIG bailout.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Man On Pink Corner]

From any practical standpoint, you're quite wrong. I just spent a couple of hours going through the massive FOIA disclosure of the Air Force's internal emails dealing with the aftermath of the Air Force One flyby of the Statue of Liberty back in April. Much of the 553-page document is concerned with detailed observations of bloggers' reactions, even to the point of discussing the rate of change in "tweets per minute" criticizing the White House and USAF.

The US government, at least, takes amateur online journalism very seriously. It's safe to say other governments do as well.

That makes them a "proper source."

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Paladeen]

In this context, it is important to distinguish between the "State" and the "Government." If you were arrested for drunk driving by an ordinary policeman, you would hardly say that the Government was arresting you.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[b4upoo]

The more secrecy, the more privacy, the more that crime and evil prosper. Censorship is a criminal's finest friend.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[he-sk]

Yeah, unless, of course, it's the blogs that break a story.

Like Monica Lewinsky, Dan Rather's Memogate, the doctored Reuters pictures of bombings in Lebanon, the firing of U.S. prosecutors, "Macaca", etc. etc.

Face it, the relationship between bloggers and the mainstream media is not parasitic anymore, it's symbiotic.

It's true, most blogs (including my twitter feed) contain only marginally useful information, if at all. But so do most newspaper articles or TV shows, that merely recite the stuff fed to them by corporations and governments.

Good investigative journalists are a rare kind. Some of them blog.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

it's never a proper source if you're a journalist writing an article.

It's a perfectly fine source for a discussion among friends.

It's a perfectly fine source for posting on slashdot. After all, this is a blog.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[MaskedSlacker]

The child molesters have that covered, so we're free to think about other things.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[MaskedSlacker]

In your other pants.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Narnie]

As learned from my security clearance indoctrination; sensitive information includes anything that can be seen as harmful or damaging to the government/country if released to the public/enemy.

Logically, that includes things like covert mission plans, cryptography keys, ingredient list for radar absorbent paints, technical readouts for this battle station, and gross misappropriations of federal funds.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[FrankDrebin]

Iceland is a close-knit society. The anger there is fueled by a sense of betrayal that people from big heterogeneous countries can't fully appreciate.

True: the population of Iceland about the same number as the student enrolment at the University of Buenos Aires.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

it's never a proper source if you're a journalist writing an article.

A blog or any article in print or a newscast is not a source because it is by its nature filtered. But blogs have the benefit of being able to include full source material more often than newspapers or tv. And any medium can lead you to the sources of information if the reporters include enough detail.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[infinitelink]

Americans are just conditioned to be politically angry: they're like trained monkeys, throw-in 'corporation' and they become a ravenous mob--probably too glib to realize that any non-individual entity recognized by the government is basically a corporation: corporations are not evil, they can be evil, or they can be otherwise: but nuspeak has conditioned so many to associate them with being so. AIG was living-up to legal obligations: they could have done that, or gotten sued and payed even more: and it was the very top ordering-down to put the dang 'loophole' (i.e. it wasn't a loophole) in there in the first place. But one can expect Americans to be outraged: it's like they know they have a part to play in a giant, pretensious, stage in a giant, fake, show. And they are fake. Signed, An American.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[infinitelink]

It's worth noting that the bailouts for banks became necessary due to the government (ahem, the current ruling party in fact, ahem) ordering them through legislation to give high risk loans for houses; those kinds of loans are meant for enterprise, i.e. starting businesses, not for buying personal houses; they decided to examine loan records and from it they 'felt' there was a disproportionately small representation of loans to certain demographics, particularly minorities (i.e. potential voters), and forced a percentage of loans to be so made, as well as set-up quasiprivate (federal) lending-control institutions that conveniently fed money back into their own campaign covers; the catastrophe arising from 'bank' mismanagement was congresses fault, particularly the firggin' dems who decided force loans to be made to those who's financial data demonstrated they couldn't afford the loans, and the institutions they set-up to route more money to that cause. The global 'crisis' was set-off by the fact that the mortgages that were in those (rather BRILLIANT) packages, each consisting of potentially thousands to millions of little slices of mortgages to probabilistically reduce risk, were of this sub-prime type; to top it off they all (both parties) decided to over-relax lending regulations to encourage this market even more, such that an entire industry just to carry out their wishes (and make a lot of dough) popped-up. The traditional banks aren't typically into this sort of thing, yet they had no choice about it: they had a gun to their heads. There was one bank, strangely, that's now rather notable because of this, that somehow did resist, did not get murdered by the fairness-police pretending to play government for it, and they're now in a perky and grand situation. I've forgotten the name, incidentally, and if anybody here recognizes it (or that of a similar institution similar), let me know.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Good investigative journalists are a rare kind. Some of them blog.

And some of them are just ordinary folks who notice something of importance while the "real" journalists are all gushing over a dog and pony show.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[NeutronCowboy]

Monica Lewinsky was broken by a blogger? Really? Which one? Kenneth Starr had a blog? Maybe Linda Tripp? Neither was the firing of the US prosecutors broken by bloggers - that was just an old-fashioned shit-storm.

Bloggers are sometimes useful, but really not in the majority of the cases.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that we're talking a bank here, [...], whose proper management (or otherwise) is of significant importance to the lives of millions of ordinary people.

Hundreds of thousands, not millions. This is Iceland we're talking about.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[kimvette]

Especially Iceland. Who is/are Iceland's enemy/-ies anyhow?

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Vastad]

"Counterfreedomary" is now officially my favourite neologism.

Thank you good sir!

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Hmm, making children.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[QuestionsNotAnswers]

Iceland is a close-knit society. The anger there is fueled by a sense of betrayal that people from big heterogeneous countries can't fully appreciate.

New Zealand is also a small country and the fact that we all know each helps keep everyone honest. Many of us are only one or two steps removed from anyone in power, so abuses of power seem to be kept under control. Rich politicians can't deny poverty, because usually there are multiple people in their extended family getting welfare support.

I think the fraudsters will be dealt with - because in Iceland people can actually personally do something to affect the fraudsters - unlike a larger country where action is usually impotent.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Exception Duck]

So close-knit in fact that I know some of the current ministers, and they all oppose this line of action by the current CEO of Kaupthing, and my prediction is that he has maybe 2-3 months left in office. They will let this slide, then find some other reason to let him go. He's totally done for. This man is exceptionally stupid to think that he can stop Wikileaks from making the information available. The only defence he can possibly have, is if he was legally bound to try to stop it. Which is probably not the case, but it's coming up in court in Iceland this week. They got the ban for one week, and have to make a pretty strong case if they are going to upheld it.

I don't think it will happen.
Some people predict a revelution in Iceland if that happens.
I won't go so far as to call it a revolution, but hit will fhit the san.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[NormalVisual]

And it's often about covering your ass while *claiming* national security, thus preventing any kind of meaningful examination of the facts of the case.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[remmelt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drudge_Report#Monica_Lewinsky_scandal

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Greenland. That would be kickass war ;)

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Der PC]

A non-militant country with no physical borders has no natural enemies.

And all of this story isn't about the gov.t. covering up shit, it's about the leaders of the bank wanting their own shit covered up.

The minister of education stepped forward in a newsbroadcase and said that although it was obviously a criminal matter, it's still an ethical question on because of the gravity of the matter, wether the nation hasn't the right to know - despite laws that say otherwise.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Hatta]

Exactly. Security by obscurity is an even worse idea when it comes to national security.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Hatta]

While Kaupthing is now owned by the state, it is not controlled directly by politicians.

That's even worse. It's owned by the state, so it is part of the government. But it's not controlled by politicians, so the democratic process cannot affect it. Sounds like an utterly totalitarian institution.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Hatta]

If you were arrested for drunk driving by an ordinary policeman, you would hardly say that the Government was arresting you.

Why not?

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[corbettw]

Only pedophiles think about the children as often as some politicians claim to. Food for thought.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Pollardito]

politicians care what people talk about around the water cooler too, but that doesn't mean that water cooler talk is now definitive

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

If a tree falls in the forest and no politicians hear about it, are they more or less likely to regulate logging?

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean AIU Holdings"? Or maybe Chartis?

The shell game goes on... and there are some pearls under the occasional shell. The point is to shuffle and shuffle until they have a skeleton company to scapegoat, the spinoffs keeping the pearls when it inevitably implodes.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Paladeen]

When one talks of the "Government", one usually has in minds the upper echelons of the executive, not the petty beaurocrats and officials that make the whole battery work. These are usually collectively referred to as "the State." For example, we change our government regularly, every time somebody new gets elected into power, but the State (i.e. the aggregation of individuals that keep things running) stay mostly the same.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[Paladeen]

In theory, the government could assert direct control by passing special laws to that effect.

However, it is usually considered a bad idea to have politicians directly running and controlling state-owned companies. Tends to foster corruption, although in this context all talk of worries about corruption is pretty ironic. The whole bloody system was corrupt, and pretty much everybody was in everybody's pocket.

Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible

[divisionbyzero]

Meh. That's a gross simplification. Many people in America are conditioned to believe exactly the opposite: the government screws everything up and corporations do everything right. I think most of the anger in the US comes from those who have had that little bubble burst.

Interesting

[Norsefire]

Kaupthing had fallen over and if they hadn't tried to stop people finding out, it wouldn't have been posted to Slashdot and I and many others would never have known. We need a name for when attempted censorship leads to wider distribution of the information. The Kaupthing effect, perhaps?

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be new here.
There is a name for this phenomenon already, it's called the Streisand Effect.

Re:Interesting

[Exception Duck]

Streisand effect perhaps ?

Re:Interesting

[migla]

You're being subtly humorous, aren't you?

(in case you aren't: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect )

Re:Interesting

[Livius]

There is also (usually) a correlation between their enthusiasm for suppressing the information and the need for it to be revealed in public interest.

Re:Interesting

[nih]

thanks for pointing out the obvious.

Re:Interesting

[Z00L00K]

Interesting that parent was rated "Funny" - it's also insightful that the attempt to stop information can actually make things worse - a lot worse.

It's like trying to put out a gasoline fire with water. You can make it spread even faster! The complete denial action may work better, but being vague and confusing may be the best action.

The genie is out of the lamp so just live with it and duck. Legal action is just putting fuel on the fire.

Re:Interesting

[Runaway1956]

What's that noise? WHOOSH? Yeah, that's it. WHOOSH!!!

Re:Interesting

[blackraven14250]

...to someone it may not be obvious to....

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for pointing out the obvious.

Thanks for wasting bandwidth. Oh, and air.

Re:Interesting

[lgw]

There is also (usually) a correlation between their enthusiasm for suppressing the information and the need for it to be revealed in public interest.

I'm acutally amazed that good PR companies aren't already exploiting this for purposes of advertising. The fact that this correlation still holds means that no one's gaming it yet. Get on the ball Google - I want to bid on "Streisand Effect Keywords"!

Re:Interesting

[countertrolling]

"Streisand Effect Keywords"

Banned
Censored
Secret
Unauthroized
Leak
Gay
Tits
Fart

Re:Interesting

[migla]

thanks for pointing out the obvious.

I wasn't absolutely certain if it was a joke or not. That is why I answered the way I did. Had I thought it was absolutely obvious I wouldn't have pointed it out. Good thing I did, though, seeing as you liked it.

I don't understand why you would want to thank me for pointing out the obvious. I don't think something obvious should need pointing out. But you are welcome. It makes me happy that I could help you.

Re:Interesting

[pudro]

Interesting that parent was rated "Funny" - it's also insightful that the attempt to stop information can actually make things worse - a lot worse.

Read the other posts. The Streisand effect mention would be insightful. The Kaupthing effect mention is humor through the (intentional) appearance of ignorance.

Re:Interesting

[LuNa7ic]

There is also (usually) an inverse correlation between their enthusiasm for suppressing the information and the need for it to be revealed in public interest.

I believe the distinction is rather important.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unauthorized Gay Leaks certainly oughtta be Banned, and Tit Farts Censored. Thats no Secret."

Re:Interesting

[treeves]

And wrong.
High enthusiasm for suppression means low need for public revelation? I don't think that's what you really meant.

Good thing WikiLeaks's still around

[swinferno]

Good thing WikiLeaks is still alive and kicking

Re:Good thing WikiLeaks's still around

[tobiah]

Ya, wikileaks rocks. I think this underscores the importance of enshrining freedom of the press too.

Re:Good thing WikiLeaks's still around

[lgw]

Ya, wikileaks rocks. I think this underscores the importance of enshrining freedom of the press too.
Reply to This

More to the point, this completely demonstrates the importance of applying "freedom of the press" to new media.

Who are the insiders?

[SuperBanana]

revealing billions in insider loans,

Like most wikileaks documents, I've found it nearly impossible to verify the high level claim (insider trading) off the information provided. They always seem to drop the ball on writing down their analysis...or letting others (otherwise, it's NOT a wiki!). I expect several pages of summary and analysis, but instead, just broad claims with little or no references or supporting facts.

For those of us who aren't experts in Icelandic corporations and banking, here's a sample, after some googling- one of the listed parties is a Robert Tchenguiz.

If the claims in that blog posting are true, 500BN of Iceland's citizens' money flew out the door in "loans" to tax haven countries.

Re:Who are the insiders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exista == Kaupthing
Landic == Gaumur == Baugur == Glitnir Bank
Stodir = FL Group = Baugur = Glitnir Bank

etc. etc. etc.

Re:Who are the insiders?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like most wikileaks documents, I've found it nearly impossible to verify the high level claim (insider trading) off the information provided.

Could you at least read the article summary?

Insider trading is completely different from insider loans (which is what was in the summary).

Insider trading is when people with secret information about a company trade in its stock without filing the required disclosure forms. It's to protect investors so that all investors (in theory) have access to the same information to make buy/sell decisions.

Insider loans is when you give a secret loan on very favorable terms to management, directors, favored clients, etc. For example, senior management at the bank might want to give a million dollar bonus to senior management, even if they don't deserve it. A bonus would look bad in the press or to the shareholders, so instead you make a loan for the same amount at very low interest rates (and the interest payments can be deferred for a long time). On paper, the loan is an asset.

Re:Who are the insiders?

[Hynee]

Wikileaks doesn't actually use the phrase "insider loans," they use the phrase "internal documents."

I think slashdot summariser may have made a mistake. [jon jonson]

Perhaps Soulskill would like to correct.

The WL page history shows no changes since 31-Jul.

Re:Who are the insiders?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think slashdot summariser may have made a mistake. [jon jonson]

Perhaps Soulskill would like to correct.

Man, you must be new here. That would involve editing, which is, you know, something that Slashdot editors historically have refrained from doing on general principles.

Re:Who are the insiders?

[7 digits]

The document is fascinating, and quite easy to read. I had to go to page 18 to find the first mention of an exposure that wasn't looking like an insider trade (ie: lending money to people that owned the bank).

Indeed, the easiest way to rob a bank it to own one...

Re:Who are the insiders?

[Yaa 101]

Don't you think that the level of trying to keep it down is sufficient prove?

It is not always possible to come with references at any moment, often sources need to be protected in those circumstances.

Re:Who are the insiders?

[Anonymous Coward]

revealing billions in insider loans,

Like most wikileaks documents, I've found it nearly impossible to verify the high level claim (insider trading) off the information provided. They always seem to drop the ball on writing down their analysis...or letting others (otherwise, it's NOT a wiki!). I expect several pages of summary and analysis, but instead, just broad claims with little or no references or supporting facts.

For those of us who aren't experts in Icelandic corporations and banking, here's a sample, after some googling- one of the listed parties is a Robert Tchenguiz.

If the claims in that blog posting are true, 500BN of Iceland's citizens' money flew out the door in "loans" to tax haven countries.

I wish public keys were in use in BIs already. Then they could use something like Ring signatures to provide some degree of authenticity for some (little) degree of anomization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_signature

Re:Who are the insiders?

[ThatsNotPudding]

Man, SAT questions sure have changed.

Streisand effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone is just begging for the Streisand Effect to set in, it seems.

Re:Streisand effect

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And since we are talking about Iceland, pretty strong chilling effect might kick in as well.

HelvÃtis fokkings fokk

[EinarTh]

'nuff said

Re:HelvÃtis fokkings fokk

[Zedrick]

Thanks. I'm visiting Iceland in 3 weeks, will be good to know some useful words!

Post the Forbidden

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone post the leak onto /.

Ireland?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Isn't that the country that just recently created anti-blasphemy laws?

Re:Ireland?

[krilli]

Yes, that was probably Ireland.

On another note, the news story you can see above is about ICELAND.

Re:Ireland?

[PeterBrett]

>>>"Iceland" == "Ireland"
False

Re:Ireland?

[Sponge Bath]

>>>"Iceland" == "Ireland" False

Iceland's sheep == shaggy
Ireland's sheep == shagged

Re:Ireland?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was Ireland, you inconsiderate clod!

Re:Ireland?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That was Ireland, sometimes called "the green island", which should not be confused with Greenland, though, as Greenland is more like Iceland than Ireland. I hope you're less confused now.

Re:Ireland?

[jonbryce]

Or rather, it is one letter and six months. They had exactly the same thing happen at Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society.

Re:Ireland?

[Cadallin]

I think you're confusing Ireland and Scotland.

Re:Ireland?

[dintech]

I think you're confusing Scotland and England.

Re:Ireland?

[countertrolling]

Shaggy shags shorn sheep on the soggy soil?

The hills are alive...

Re:Ireland?

[jesset77]

I think you're both confusing all the geographically challenged Americans quite terribly

Re:Ireland?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all a clever viking marketing ploy.

Greenland is just a marketing label, set to lure viking settlers to the place. If they called it "so cold you're gonna lose your sanity"-land, not many would've come.

Iceland, OTOH, was labelled such to keep people away from the relatively fertile lands.

The proof is in the reaction

[SmallFurryCreature]

If it was a bunch of lies, then the bank officials would have pointed that out. That they are scrambling to censor is proof this is absolutly 100% legit. kind of nice of them to remove any doubt eh?

Re:The proof is in the reaction

[Corbets]

If it was a bunch of lies, then the bank officials would have pointed that out. That they are scrambling to censor is proof this is absolutly 100% legit. kind of nice of them to remove any doubt eh?

Just like someone deleting his hard drive is proof that he's guilty of some kind of computer crime or copyright infringement, eh?

Innocent till proven guilty, people - while it certainly looks suspicious, it isn't any kind of proof of anything.

Re:The proof is in the reaction

[shutdown -p now]

"Innocent until proven guilty" is a rule in the judicial system to ensure safe trial, not a rule to live by in general.

Re:The proof is in the reaction

[lgw]

The downside of following "Innocent until proven guilty" as a rule to live by in general is far less than the downside of witch hunts! I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Re:The proof is in the reaction

[epine]

That they are scrambling to censor is proof this is absolutly 100% legit.

Played much at the $1000 no-limit Hold'em table? Drowned any witches lately? Three weeks overdue on your first assignment from the first week of Introduction to Counter-Intelligence 101? Completely missed the confirm/deny coin-flip that has become the sole entertainment value of MLB in the juiced-ball era?

Obama has publicly opposed waterboading, but the fervently uptight spooks would still like know what the baddies are thinking. Why don't you apply for the job, you seem to possess special powers of seeing right through any kind of mask a person wraps around his/her motives.

But hey, run a spell checker on your application form, you don't want to be excluded for the wrong reason.

Re:The proof is in the reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't doubt the account info revealed shines light on some dodgy pratice of the Kaupthing bank. However, it isn't sure we can directly blame them for know being aware of the Streisand effect. If their letter to Wikileaks truly is correct (with its references to Icelandic financial acts and of privacy rules) they might have been forced to act, to comply with laws as an (poor) attempt to "fix it" and reduce the potential damage claims if they are sued from their customers complaining about broken privacy. If they get sued (but they don't have any money left, do they?) they can at least say "hey, we tried to cover it". However, they are kind of screwed anyway as soon as the secret docs have been leaked by some whistleblower.

Re:The proof is in the reaction

[krilli]

Very very true, but there's a problem with "innocent until proven guilty". It is that most people tend to take it to mean that "nothing is suspicious until proven guilty".

Re:The proof is in the reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

Because living by emotion and gut feeling ensures you never will suffer from errors of judgement.

Re:The proof is in the reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, give individual people (at least those with clean records) the benefit of the doubt.

Corporations and state controlled banks, on the other hand...

Re:The proof is in the reaction

[corbettw]

That sounds like something a witch would say!

It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[R2.0]

Censorship is when a government stops a person or organization from disseminating information or expressing an opinion. When a private entity does it, it may be slimy and immoral but it isn't censorship.

And no it's not censorship just because they are using the courts.

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

* Main Entry: 2censor
        * Function: transitive verb
        * Inflected Form(s): censored; censoring \sen(t)-s-ri, sen(t)s-ri\
        * Date: 1882

: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[Opportunist]

If a company tries to flex its muscle to influence lawmakers, it is. Indirect, but still.

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[Sir_Lewk]

Censorship
Function: noun
1 a: the institution, system, or practice of censoring b: the actions or practices of censors ; especially : censorial control exercised repressively

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censoring

Censor
Function: transitive verb
to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorship

What part of those definitions require that governments be involved again?

And no, just because it doesn't fit your needlessly restricted definition of censorship doesn't mean that it isn't censorship.

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[Volante3192]

[Citation needed]

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[Runaway1956]

"Censorship is when a government stops a person or organization from disseminating information"

The Mafia, among other organizations, would thank you for this definition. Executing an entire family, or even an entire village, to prevent the dissemination of sensitive information wouldn't be considered "censorship", unless the government assisted in the executions. Thank you, sir.

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[R2.0]

No, it would be murder. Last time I checked, that crime was at least an order of magnitude worse than "censorship."

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[Runaway1956]

Actually, it would include a LOT of different crimes:

Genocide (wiping out a whole village of people)
Violating human rights
Conspiracy to commit murder
Conspiracy to violate human rights
Conspiracy tampering with witnesses
Conspiracy, obstruction of justice
Almost certainly multiple counts of unlawful imprisonment and/or kidnapping
Illegal use of weapons (probably firearms, possibly explosives)
not to mention, the rather minor censorship (in comparison) thing

The prosecutors may or may not ever get around to any question of censorship, but hey, remember, that was my whole reason for wiping out the village. To prevent my sensitive information being spread around.

If one prissy librarian with a puritan attitude takes books that she disapproves of, and burns them to prevent people reading them, THAT is censorship. The government doesn't have to approve of her actions for her actions to qualify as censorship.

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it would be murder. Last time I checked, that crime was at least an order of magnitude worse than "censorship."

Quite a few people in history have risked their lives because they believed otherwise. So you might want to check again.

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[Hatta]

What's the difference between the Mafia and the government? They both control territory, and enforce their will by the use of force.

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[MrNiceguy_KS]

The Mafia is more responsible with how it spends its money.

Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!!

[Pootie Tang]

You are confusing "censorship" and "first amendment violation". The first amendment only restricts government, not private parties, that's true. But it is still censorship when done by private parties.

injuncted?

[belmolis]

There's no such word as injuncted. "to issue an injunction" is to "enjoin", so the form needed here is enjoined.

Re:injuncted?

[Vectronic]

I really enjoined that little piece of info.

Re:injuncted?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/injuncted

Re:injuncted?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just used it twice, so it seems pretty freakin' obvious that there is such a word.

Re:injuncted?

[Dachannien]

No other dictionary source provides a definition for that form, at least according to Google (define:injuncted or define:injunct).

Re:injuncted?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this also a translation for the illiterate "couple things" that, well, some illiterates use?

Although it does;'t seem to work. "I'd just like to add an enjoin".

Re:injuncted?

[selven]

I see you authored your post quite well.

A total misuse of the legal system...

[iserlohn]

To protect private interests against the public's need to know.

This is the stuff that we should be angry about. Not putting some trailer-trash families in rehabilitation programs discussed about in the recent front page article (That's the one with the hyperbole about 24hr surveillance BTW).

Hey, at least they tried

[PPH]

We (in the USA) still have no idea where our TARP funds went. And no documentation likely to appear on Wikileaks either. When our gov't asked the banks what they did with the money we gave them, they just replied, "We'd rather not say".

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

No one cares, really... they are loans and will (mostly) get paid back. The banks unable to pay back end up being owned by the feds anyway, and then the books are wide open.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[BlueStrat]

The banks unable to pay back (...the TARP funds...) end up being owned by the feds anyway, and then the books are wide open.

Perhaps you're thinking about some other country? The US government is anything but transparent, notwithstanding any "Hope & Change" rhetoric to the contrary. It took an FOIA request and months to even be allowed to see the Air Force One Manhattan fly-over photos that everyone knew existed.

The chances of the books being opened would be particularly slim if the bank(s) end up being owned by the Federal Reserve. I know that politicians are currently making noise about publicly auditing the Fed, but that's all it will end up being...noise to placate the proles. Unless politicians suddenly start finding themselves losing elections en masse and/or finding themselves at the working end of pitchforks & shotguns.

Strat

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[PPH]

Not loans. Equity positions in the banks. As such, I'd expect that the largest shareholder in any company shouldn't have any problem going to the execs and asking for a full accounting of what they are up to. Or be shown the door very quickly.

The fact that we "don't care" is a testament to how thoroughly we have been turned into sheep by special interest groups. At least the people in Iceland are being made aware that something foul is afoot.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[Chris Mattern]

No one cares, really... they are loans and will (mostly) get paid back. The banks unable to pay back end up being owned by the feds anyway, and then the books are wide open.

Aw. They're so *cute* when they're that trusting, aren't they?

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

Who's trusting? Do we really care how they pay the loan back?

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

I have to disagree with you... if Bank of America or some other bank of such stature were to fail, people would be crawling all over it. The senators alone would try to make brownie points with it. I'm already blanking while imagining the sheer boredom of the hearings :)

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

Not loans. Equity positions in the banks

Well, yes... there is a mix of things the fed has invested in, including preferred stock. But in general it is all being treated as loans. I presume we are not talking about the "troubled assets" part of TARP, where all of the spending is at the Fed level.

I don't know what you are worried about exactly, but I'm not terribly worried myself so long as the government goes back to being a regulator instead of an owner.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[PPH]

I don't know what you are worried about exactly, but I'm not terribly worried myself so long as the government goes back to being a regulator instead of an owner.

I worry that if, as an owner, the government lets bank managers tell them to piss off, as a regulator they'll be as useless as a fish with a bicycle.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[BlueStrat]

I have to disagree with you... if Bank of America or some other bank of such stature were to fail, people would be crawling all over it. The senators alone would try to make brownie points with it. I'm already blanking while imagining the sheer boredom of the hearings :)

If BOA failed pre-TARP/stimulus and followed the old bankruptcy proceedings, I'd agree...especially with the sheer mind-numbing boredom of the proceedings of any hearings. :)

However, now that BOA has accepted TARP money with no strings attached regarding reporting where the money went, I doubt Congress would be eager to have the details of the results of their folly spread far & wide across the voter base. Congress would probably love for BOA to be absorbed by the Fed and would fully-back the Feds' refusal to make public any financial details...behind closed doors, of course...they'd probably make public noises of protest for appearances' sake.

There's simply too incestuous a relationship between the Fed and the very richest & most powerful in government (both ours and other nations to which the Fed has "loaned" money) and the private sector for them to allow any crack in the Feds' armor of secrecy, as too many skeletons would see daylight.

Strat

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[PPH]

WaMu (failed completely), Citigroup and Bank of America (effectively insolvent absent direct government investment). And still, nobodys talking.

We've injected capital into at least a dozen major banks through the TARP program. And, although these institutions have claimed that their capital margins were damaged by 'bad paper' and they were unable to make loans, they have refused to open their books to regulators (the Fed doesn't count as a regulator. It is owned by its member banks) to show them the magnitude and type of this bad paper.

The banks' portfolio of mortgage CDOs were (supposedly) insured by AIG's CDS's. When AIG appeared to be illiquid, one proposal was to have the gov't issue banks its own guarantees to replace the (useless) AIG policies. Possibly by swapping bundles of CDOs along with their covering CDSs for Treasury notes. But the banks refused to divulge what sort of CDS paper they had on their books. So, the government was forced to prop up AIG. Problem: About 80% of AIGs CDS policies were sold to speculators. That is; people who had no insurable interest in any mortgage paper, but were just buying said paper as a gamble*. So we were forced to bail out 4 speculators for every one bank we rescued.

*It wasn't that many years ago that such speculation (buying insurance policies against people or property for which one has no insurable interest) was racketeering and would earn said 'investors' a quick trip to a federal penitentiary. This was one racket that the mob engaged in. Until Congress made it legal.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[Anonymous Coward]

In the United States, a lot of seriously corruption that would get other country's media in a frenzy is simply ignored, because the media is on the take in this country.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's trusting? Do we really care how they pay the loan back?

If they do it the same way they did before the collapse, you'd better care.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

The regulation has already gotten much stricter. If you know anyone working on the street, you'll hear stories of how strict it is. Everyone down there is terrified of the fed. Of course, the government being the government, they generally target the wrong things... but such is the nature of government regulation.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

If BOA failed pre-TARP/stimulus and followed the old bankruptcy proceedings, I'd agree...especially with the sheer mind-numbing boredom of the proceedings of any hearings. :)

But that couldn't happen this time, because ALL of the major banks would have failed as well.

I doubt Congress would be eager to have the details of the results of their folly spread far & wide across the voter base.

They'll simply switch to "outraged victim" mode, where they claim to be misled and go on a witch hunt. See Nancy Pelosi and waterboarding for a perfect example. I suspect the books would be opened quite wide. The sound bytes on CNN would be more than worth any negative backlash they get from people who actually think for themselves.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

CDSs aren't insurance, even though AIG was pushing them. Insurance is heavily regulated. CDSs are really just derivatives, and so of course are speculated on.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[PPH]

CDSs aren't insurance

And you can thank our Congress for that loophole.

Unlike true derivatives (with which I do quite a bit of trading), the originator of these contracts (AIG,for example) does not hold the underlying security, or any interest therein. All they do (and its questionable that they actually did this) is to set aside some reserves from the premiums received to cover potential losses. For a true derivative, a stock option for example, the person writing the option contract for sale must have possession of the underlying security, either owning it outright, or borrowing it (in the case of writing naked options). This limits the number of options contracts it is possible to write to the actual number of underlying securities.

Even in the case of insurance, since policies are written to cover real property, or actual things with value (income flow, for example), the underwriter's risk is limited by the value of the insured object(s).

No such limit existed with the crap AIG wrote. If a mortgage broker sold a million dollar bond to a bank or investor, the purchaser could buy a 'policy' to cover the possibility of a loss. So far, so good. That investor get his million back. But now, AIG sells more policies to more investors covering this same bond, each paying a million in the event the bold goes into default. There is no upper limit to the losses possible. AIG resembles something more akin to a bookmaker than an investment banker or insurance company. The actual ration appears to be somewhere around 5 policies written for each piece of mortgage paper. Bialystock and Bloom couldn't have come up with a better scam.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

And you can thank our Congress for that loophole.

Same law that brought us Enron, IIRC.

The worst part about CDSs is that they grew so large in number, but there was no real system in place to handle them. This is all changing rapidly, of course. AIG deserved to fail... unfortunately, it became clear that this would have been catastrophic. So now the government owns a substantial chunk of them - for how long no one knows, but I certainly hope it's not too long.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[Chris Mattern]

You believe that:

a) the corporations will suffer immediate takeover (or, for that matter, any severe consequences) if they don't pay the loan back.

b) that if the corporations *are* taken over, their books will be immediately opened to show everyone how they spent the TARP funds.

Your naivete is touching.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

No. I believe (b) with the word "immediately" excluded. Regarding (a), I don't think that any corporation holding TARP funds will stay competitive in the long term, since they will have additional regulation to deal with. There is a strong incentive to pay off the TARP money. Also, after 5 years the typical TARP interest rate jumps to 9% - so yet another reason to pay it off.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[BoothbyTCD]

Man, they are really annoying when they are reflexively cynical, aren't they?

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[PPH]

The worst part about CDSs is that they grew so large in number, but there was no real system in place to handle them. This is all changing rapidly, of course.

Really?

Gov't: We'd like to take a look at the securities underlying all this derivative paper we're stuck with.
Banks: No.
Gov't: Oh. Sorry we botherd you. We promise never to do that again. Spend your bonuses in good health and we'll just sit quietly in the corner and try not to make any noise.

If I started writing phoney option contracts, I'd end up in prison. Perhaps I should change my last name to 'Bank'.

Re:Hey, at least they tried

[MightyYar]

If I started writing phoney option contracts, I'd end up in prison.

True, but CDSs are not "phoney". AIG almost went bust because they were on the hook to pay them off. It's only crooked if they sold them knowing that they weren't going to pay them off. All accounts that I've heard/read seem to indicate that they were poor risk managers, not crooks.

Silly elected officials

[binaryspiral]

Once this shit hits the internet - it's out there. There is no undo button or magical legal action you can take to cover it up anymore.

You'd be better off to admit you fucked up and spend your efforts cleaning up the mess instead of trying to cover up this crap.

Oh yeah - and piss off the media - that helps your case too.

Think about it yourself...

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole Iceland has got less citizens than an American shopping mall. 500BN is perhaps possible, given the assets were from investors from abroad. However 500BN of assets is not proportional to the size of the Icelandic real economy - it is not plausible that the citizens could have lost such amount.

Re:Think about it yourself...

[unfasten]

It was 500 billion in Icelandic currency (krona), not 500 billion euro or USD.

According to xe.com:

500,000,000,000.00 ISK = 3,904,722,881.3900 USD

However, the wikileaks summary says "45 million to 1250 million euros". I haven't read the post that the GP links, except to check the currency type, to find out where it gets the 500 billion number.

Re:Think about it yourself...

[Idarubicin]

However 500BN of assets is not proportional to the size of the Icelandic real economy - it is not plausible that the citizens could have lost such amount.

The blog posting contains numbers on the order of 300 billion, not 500 billion -- and those are Icelandic crowns (ISK), not euros or dollars. That puts the total at about 2.3 billion U.S. dollars.

Given that Iceland's population is only about 320 thousand people that's still a pretty massive hit to their economy (call it 7000 USD per capita), but not totally implausible (particularly for a heavily leveraged state-controlled bank).

Re:Think about it yourself...

[Paladeen]

Kaupthing wasn't state-controlled at the time these transfers were made. And the figures are genuine. In 2004, I remember reading Kaupthing owned assets worth 4300 billion ISK (about 60 billion USD at the exchange rate then).

Re:Think about it yourself...

[Anonymous Coward]

About 1.8 times that amount in USD, assuming the load was granted about 1 year before that -- because of exchange rates.

Re:Think about it yourself...

[Rakshasa Taisab]

That was the size of _individual_ loans, ranging from 45m to 1250m euros. The total would then be sme 500bil ISK.

Re:Think about it yourself...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isnt ISK what is traded in Eve?

I wonder if someone tapped the Eve economy into Iceland somehow (which would go a long way to explain the GEC and Icelands involvement)

Re:Think about it yourself...

[Jedi Alec]

Wow....that's a whole lot of Navy Megathrons.

Re:Think about it yourself...

[BoothbyTCD]

It's sad, that is the same exact thing I thought. Is 'ISK' really the abbreviation for krona? Makes sense I suppose, but I never put 2 and 2 together.

Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[aricusmaximus]

Per the cease and desist order, it appears that the lawyers on behalf of Kraupthing are doing their job.

The laws themselves appear to be there to protect the client's confidential information. Paraphrasing (IANAL, IANAL, IANAL!) they are:

58. Banks are not suppose to disclose their customer's financial information.
59. Exception #1 - if there is a risk to a parent company
60. Exception #2 - if the customer(s) say it is okay to disclose the information.

So basically the bank and the bank lawyers are doing the job they are legally obligated to do on behalf of their customers.

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see someone finally getting to the issue here - right to privacy. The bank may have been doing something illegal. That does not give the public the right to violate the privacy of every client of the bank. Sorry. How would you feel if you were a customer of a bank, that bank turned out to be doing something illegal, and your private banking information were revealed publicly as a side effect of that? The same people who are screaming "censorship" right now would be screaming "privacy violation" if details of their bank accounts were revealed. There is a double standard going on here. Classic hypocrisy.

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[cc_pirate]

If you are being loaned >$200M of taxpayer money, I don't give a rats a** about your privacy... and I doubt anyone in Iceland does either... and all of these loans were for more than this...

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[microbox]

Score 1 for systemic madness!

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[iserlohn]

And what if the clients' actions were illegal. How do you weight up the right to privacy against the public interest (a basic question in British constitutional law, or so I've heard)? You speak as if everything was in black and white. Just because there is a privacy angle to this does not mean you win the argument.

You accuse others of hypocrisy, but yet you fail to realize your own arrogance.

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Those laws only stop the banks from publishing (unless you've paraphrased wrong) they don't say anything about a third party such as wikileaks publishing the information.

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't the banks claim that they have not released any information, bur rather that individuals have released the information without the authorization of the bank? If so, are they then relieved of an obligation to act to suppress the leak?

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[krilli]

How would you feel if you were a customer of a bank, that bank turned out to be doing something illegal, and your private banking information were revealed publicly as a side effect of that?

Rightly, I would be angry at the evil bank that had caused exposure of my private information by being offensive enough for someone to break the code of conduct to defeat a greater evil. Morals and the sense of justice ought always to prevail - this is what the laws were for. Remember, spirit, not letter.

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[Bob9113]

So basically the bank and the bank lawyers are doing the job they are legally obligated to do on behalf of their customers.

I hate to quote John Mellencamp, but "Calling it your job, ol' hoss, sure don't make it right."

When a bank takes out a country, patriotic duty comes first. Sometimes failing to break the law is the greatest wrong a person can do.

For an extreme example, consider the blind person walking through an intersection against the light. The law requires that you stay on the curb. The right thing to do, however, is to jaywalk and pull the person to safety.

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[teh kurisu]

What taxpayer money? This report was written before the bank collapsed. And I believe - correct me if you know better - that the bank is being managed by an Icelandic government agency, but has received no public investment in the way that the UK banks have.

Wikileaks could have anonymised this data, but they chose not to. It's a privacy violation.

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[Pecisk]

Hmmm, no.

If legally they KNOW that what was done was illegal and tried to hid it (and somehow their actions speak very loud about such posibility), it is criminal offense. EVERYWHERE. Even in Swiss.

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

So basically the bank and the bank lawyers are doing the job they are legally obligated to do on behalf of their customers.

I've rarely seen a private institution fulfilling its legal obligations with such thoroughness and zeal.

Re:Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11

[hkmwbz]

Apparently, these loans were handed out all over the place just before the bank collapsed. So they all got free money. Someone knew the bank was going down the drain, so they decided to give free money to their buddies and insiders(!).

Invest!

[MynockGuano]

A dental health network:

Risks:
- The outlook for the UK dental market...is positive
- Current dental provision in the UK is low with only c. 50% of the population registered with dentists. There are also too few practices to meet the capacity needs.

Invest! Invest!

mod 0p

[Anonymous Coward]

Leaving the play And she ran simple solution it was fun. If I'm in ratio of 5 to charnel house. The FreeBSD used to '*BSD Sux0rs'. This

logical fallacy, for starters

[SuperBanana]

If it was a bunch of lies, then the bank officials would have pointed that out.

And when a guy stands in the driveway of a GM plant screaming that alien technology is being used to make Corvettes, does that mean it's true because GM refuses to answer questions from him or reporters and then kicks him off the property? Of course not.

First off, I didn't say the claims were lies. I said there was no explanation or analysis, and thus no way for me to verify them. There isn't even any explanation as to why they believe the documents are authentic. I was lamenting, in general, at the lack of explanations and analysis of documents posted to Wikileaks as a whole. Putting down a list of companies and calling it "analysis" isn't.

Second, it does not logically follow that if someone doesn't deny something, it is true- in part or whole. 5th Amendment, anyone? Same goes for trying to get something out of the public spotlight. Maybe the whole reason they want to suppress it is because it IS bullshit, and letting it spread would make it difficult or impossible to find impartial jurors in a criminal or civil trial- or harm existing companies that have done legitimate business with them.

Lastly, very often a public relations effort involves not even acknowledging claims, regardless of their merit. There are a variety of reasons why. For example: sometimes the claims are bullshit but you don't feel you can convince the public otherwise. Sometimes you want to keep a low profile and hope people will get bored and move on to shinier news items. Sometimes you cannot say anything because of pending legal action- either because it would be risky to comment, or you've been told not to.

But hey, feel free to play out the simple Hollywood conspiracy movie plot. The world is rarely that simple.

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[amiga3D]

I think anyone that looks at a corvette knows it's not alien technology.

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[Volante3192]

And when a guy stands in the driveway of a GM plant screaming that alien technology is being used to make Corvettes, does that mean it's true because GM refuses to answer questions from him or reporters and then kicks him off the property? Of course not.

But they also don't take him to court and file a gag order against him or issue takedowns. Furthermore, if the guy is on public property and not interfering, they can't really do anything. (Right to free assembly.)

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[pingveno]

In this case, one of the threatening letters explicitly said:

These are highly sensitive confidential information from Kaupthings bank hf. loan book regarding the banks clients subject to bank secrecy in Iceland.

I take this to mean that the documents are legit.

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[Paladeen]

Icelandic courts don't use the jury system.

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[dintech]

Well, apart from that one dude at college....

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[Anonymous Coward]

But that's the whole point. GM doesn't go try and silence the guy, they ignore him. If a security team ran out and tackled him, then got a gag order, you'd know there was something wrong. Your own analogy goes against you...

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[Chris Mattern]

I think anyone that looks at a corvette knows it's not alien technology.

Of course it isn't; you have to research it yourself. Ion Cannons,
Drones, Super Heavy Chassis and Gravity Generators, on the other
hand, you can all get from the Bentusi.

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[DriedClexler]

And when a guy stands in the driveway of a GM plant screaming that alien technology is being used to make Corvettes, does that mean it's true because GM refuses to answer questions from him or reporters and then kicks him off the property? Of course not.

A fair comparison would be some guy posting on a website -- *off* the property of GM -- all of his proof that GM bought technology from aliens: photos of their meetings, pictures of the related prototypes, and so on.

And then to complete the analogy, GM sues to censor it and throws a gold-plated hissy-fit about "That is *confidential* information", and "There is no *proof* we have been secretly accepting bribes in the form of technology to let alien creatures conduct their covert activities undisturbed in our southern Flint plant."

As for GM's guards? Most likely, if they were told to escort some guy off their property, their response would be, "*snort* Yeah, I'll start giving a shit about this site's security, just as soon as you restore my pension."

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[sjames]

And when a guy stands in the driveway of a GM plant screaming that alien technology is being used to make Corvettes, does that mean it's true because GM refuses to answer questions from him or reporters and then kicks him off the property? Of course not.

I'll bet GM wouldn't seek injunctions against every media outlet that wanted to do a report on the nutball. Odds are better that they'd have a marketing guy officially comment that their technology is indeed advanced and sophisticated but not alien. If they have no sense of humor whatsoever, they might decline the interview but I still doubt they'd get the injunctions.

This bank has shown itself to be truly desperate to keep the information out of the public's hands.

While that isn't and shouldn't be taken as proof of wrongdoing in court, it does tend to raise red flags. Certainly, police in many countries have performed stops, searches, and arrests based on less than that.

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[Pig Hogger]

Well, of course Corvettes can't be alien tech. They don't even have flux capacitors!!!

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[h00manist]

Find the logical fallacy--- It might be black and white. Or not. It could be true. Or not. You may believe it. Or not. There may be proof, now or in the future. Or not. You may believe your instincts. Or not. They may be right. Or not. Be fooled. Or not. Deal with it properly. Or not.

Re:logical fallacy, for starters

[LrdDimwit]

Often, denying the claim actually makes more people believe in it. It appears to be because if you recap the false claim as you're denying it, you are simply repeating the rumor - which makes it spread more. People will either ignore, or forget, that they heard you denying it, and will just remember you said it yourself.

So for certain kinds of rumors, the best way to deal with it is to simply attempt to silence anyone who vectors it. See the Proctor and Gamble rumors, which have been persistent for decades.

Note that this says nothing about whether such tactics are indicative of a true rumor or a false one; in P&G's case, the rumor is clearly bogus. In this case? I am not a financial auditor, so I couldn't say. They could be trying to bury it because it's scurrilous lies, and they don't want the company to collapse. Or they could be guilty as sin.

Mirror early, mirror often

[dattaway]

http://www.dattaway.net/images/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf

Information wants to be free in every country

[davidwr]

Especially if it describes how the country's currency became worthless.

Just because you are in ICEland doesn't mean you can freeze the free flow of information.

Mod parent up

[anwaya]

The AC parent of this post deserves better than a 0.

They should have known better

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfffst, haha, they should have known better than to trigger the Streisand effect. But then again... KAUPTHING BANK - Beyond thinking.

Thank God

[the_bean42]

Thank God for WikiLeaks.

Of course they are trying to censorship this

[tobad]

Of course they are trying to censorship this. They have been hard at work since the bank crash trying to hide all the stuff that can show the illigal stuff they where doing. And this was not the only bank of the 3 that went down that had very questionable (amounts over what was legal) loans to insiders.

you're exposed, astroturfer

[Anonymous Coward]

A UK social services bureaucrat, are you? hahahah....you're exposed.

Re:you're exposed, astroturfer

[iserlohn]

And you're a dimwit waving the "boo-hoo, the nanny-state is comming" banner.

This is the problem in modern politics; people like you who like to cheer for this team, or that ideology. If only it was that simple.

The struggle to keep individual rights begins with information and transparency in actions which affect all of us. Iceland's economy was largely kept afloat because of the tremendous (and maybe illegal) risks that their banks took.

Now that this has been exposed, shouldn't this be a problem that we should all be concerned about.

Compare this to the story that one of your ilk posted several hours before. What does civil liberties have to do with a (ill-conceived) social engineering program that has to do with rehabilitation of whole families? What is the cause of all that fake outrage, when stuff like this is occurring under our noses. The answer is from people like you, hiding behind the civil liberties cause when your real motives are partisan. The fact that you probably don't realize it saddens me tremendously on how much the level of political discourse has fallen generally.

driveways !public and neither are private docs

[SuperBanana]

But they also don't take him to court and file a gag order against him or issue takedowns.

Posting a document marked "private and confidential", which were protected by confidentiality agreements signed by the employees who leaked them (or were obtained by breaking into computer systems or bypassing security systems), believe it or not, is not legally defensible. It may be morally correct or even honorable in your eyes (and possibly in mine, I'm on the fence), but one man's morals do not make another man's actions legal.

Furthermore, if the guy is on public property and not interfering, they can't really do anything. (Right to free assembly.)

Way to focus on issues not germane. Aside from the fact that I said "driveway" and "property", you missed the point of the example- or you were hoping to be modded up for comment coattail-riding. The crux of the example was that there are many times when it is a perfectly acceptable course of action to ignore something.

Re:driveways !public and neither are private docs

[blackraven14250]

This is the exact reason why whistleblower laws exist: to prevent people from being sued for exposing ethics violations.

Re:driveways !public and neither are private docs

[Jafafa Hots]

There MUST be something in law that a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement cannot compel you to hide crimes or evidence of it... otherwise the mafia is in good shape.

Re:driveways !public and neither are private docs

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct. An elementary principle of contract law is that contracts which involve doing anything illegal are void. Conspiring to conceal crimes from law enforcement seems sufficiently illegal that the doctrine should apply.

If you did have an NDA agreement you probably still couldn't blab about protected business information except to police. Publishing protected information necessary to demonstrate the crime gets a bit fuzzy, legally. I'd personally fall down on the side of allowing it, but Iceland doesn't have a 1st amendment like the U.S. does with a case law prohibiting prior restraint of speech.

Re:driveways !public and neither are private docs

[Volante3192]

Posting a document marked "private and confidential", which were protected by confidentiality agreements signed by the employees who leaked them (or were obtained by breaking into computer systems or bypassing security systems), believe it or not, is not legally defensible.

If there's a document at GM that proves the Corvette was designed with alien technology, I'll give this one a pass.

I didn't realize we were supposed to take the alien technology bit as serious.

And yes, I completely missed the 'driveway' bit. Honestly, I was a smidge distracted by the alien tech bit.

Now...perhaps if you had gone with 'stolen BMW tech' and we've now got some corporate espionage going on, that might have changed my initial impression, but now we'll never know.

Re:driveways !public and neither are private docs

[shaitand]

If I am breaking the law, hurting people, swindling people, etc then I have no right to expect the secret be kept, despite contracts, and I certainly have no right to avoid the consequences just because the person who leaked it out pinky swore and then spit on it when he said he wouldn't tell.

I obviously mean to say "loans"

[SuperBanana]

Could you at least read the article summary?

Could you at least recognize that I obviously accidentally wrote "trading" when I meant to say "loans"? I can't believe you got modded up, even if you are an anon.

Money talks

[gmuslera]

... and mutes, too

Wow. in fucking iceland ?

[unity100]

in one of the scandinavian countries which are renowned for modern liberties and freedoms ?

Re:Wow. in fucking iceland ?

[Anonymous Coward]

iceland's been utterly fucked since their economic collapse...

Re:Wow. in fucking iceland ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a small remark: Iceland is one of the Nordic countries but it is not Scandinavian.

Re:Wow. in fucking iceland ?

[sznupi]

...though they were under sorta US occupation for some time ;)

Re:Wow. in fucking iceland ?

[Skapare]

Iceland was under "custody" shortly after the Nazis invaded Denmark during WW2, until the chose to become independent.

Re:Wow. in fucking iceland ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Iceland has been drifting away from that the last years. The other Nordic countries was not that happy to help Iceland out after their major .... up because of this.

Iceland became a country of national stupidity.

Their thinking have changed drastically since then. The citizens are moving to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and so on in large numbers as economical refuges.

Re:I obviously mean to say "loans"

[Hynee]

You're both wrong, the Slashdot summary says:

... WikiLeaks, revealing billions in insider loans, and ...

Wikileaks says:

Not long after producing this internal report, the ...

The slashdot summary is making unproven claims, with the only source cited the WikiLeaks article. I think we'll see a correction of this article summary at some time. The Iceland Weather Report article doesn't mention insider trading either.

What about your right to privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you had a loan from a bank and that bank failed? Would you be comfortable with your name and the amount of the loan being listed in a public document? Maybe even details of your bank accounts? No you wouldn't.

If any of these loans are illegal that's one thing. But some of them are likely legitimate loans. Maybe some of them turned out to be poor business decisions. OK. Does that mean we should violate the privacy of the loan recipient?

To all of you screaming "censorship": I hope someday your private financial information is made public as part of the "public's need to know" because you happened to bank with the wrong firm.

Re:What about your right to privacy?

[krilli]

The whole equation only works out if it is guaranteed that the public's need to know always wins, and it is known that it always wins.

Then, there is always going to be pressure on information like this to be released, and hence it is always and only the fault of the bank if it breaks enough moral rules for the information to be forced out in the open. Morally, the bank is always the guilty party.

Re:What about your right to privacy?

[kbg]

Here in Iceland your tax income is public record and details of loans for buying property are also public records. Also the Internal Revenue Directorate here in Iceland has access to details of all your bank accounts.

I personally have no problem with my loan information being public records, but then again I don't have anything to hide :)

No Different than anywhere else

[cc_pirate]

The super rich stole from all of us and then used their government connections to force us all to pay for their prolifigate spending.

covering your ass IS national security

[wytcld]

Your nation's not secure if everyone's laughing at your leaders, especially if those laughing are thinking "With buffoons like that coordinating their defense, let's invade!"

Consider yourself warned, Iceland.

When censorship doesn't work

[countertrolling]

There are viable alternatives, temporary as they may be...

A Banking Scam Involving ISK?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eve online? Is this games imitating life imitating games?

Whistle blowing...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the exact reason why whistleblower laws exist: to prevent people from being sued for exposing ethics violations.

You can say that again, whistleblower laws are there for a reason but there must also be due process. The allegation in this case is that the owners of Kaupthing bank effectively loaned them selves and connected parties, specifically the owners of a local company named Exista, ISK 500.000.000.000 which at the time would have been the equivalent of about c.a $6 billion. This money was loaned to shell companies in Holland and the tax haven of Tortola, allegedly in order to pump up the share prices of Kaupthing and Exista in a desperate and deluded bid to postpone the inevitable collapse of the bank. _IF_ these allegations turn out to be true (and personally I'll wait until the prosecutor has finished investigating this before I make up my mind) Kaupthing's management and it's owners and their business partners practically robbed their own bank and used the proceeds to commit massive market manipulation offences.

You have to remember that in Iceland there is still a lot of anger against the people who are perceived to have caused the banking collapse with US style "free-market fundamentalism" and the the news media does have a tendency to surf on waves of public anger. When the Icelandic banks collapsed and all the puss started flowing out of the wounds of the dying banks the Icelandic people ringed the parliament building and pelted it with yoghurt cans, eggs and vegetables. That may not seem like much to somebody in the US or UK but it is a remarkable event for a nation that hasn't seen a really major public protest since a grand punch-up between communists and police in 1949 over the parliament's decision to join NATO. This injunction is probably more of a knee jerk reaction born out of fear of even more public unrest than anything else. I was and still am surprised that neither the US nor UK citizenry turned out in force to egg their parliament buildings after the humongous bailouts in those countries. The UK citizenry in particular has proven to be remarkably docile considering that it is Gordon Brown who is to blame more than most others for the policies that led to the banking mess in that country. Given the amount of taxpayer money he has handed out to fat-cats in the banking system you'd think Britons would be lining up to tar and feather him.

Re:Whistle blowing...

[Ironsides]

I was and still am surprised that neither the US nor UK citizenry turned out in force to egg their parliament buildings after the humongous bailouts in those countries.

Well, that might be because it would be quite difficult for those of us in the US to 'egg our parliament building'. You see, we don't have a 'parliament building', much less a parliament.

Re:Whistle blowing...

[Savior_on_a_Stick]

I'm betting that if you tried that at the Capitol Building, you'd be dead before the egg hit the floor.

Re:Whistle blowing...

[Anonymous Coward]

The UK rescued its banks. No actual UK banks failed, and the non-UK banks were forced to pay out what they'd promised, despite attempts by their governments to welch on the deal.

The worst stories the tabloids were able to dig up went basically like this: UK Citizen living aboard puts money in Offshore bank on an island that people think of as British, but which is technically independent. This bank exists largely for tax avoidance purposes, but UK Citizen swears to the newspaper that that's not why their money was there. The bank fails. The island finds that since it has no army, and its police force consists of a couple of semi-retired guys in a cottage, it can't enforce its law to get restitution from the bank's owners who live half way around the world. It asks the UK to step up, and the UK says "Do you pay tax? No. Does this represent a military threat to the mainland? No. So fuck off".

Does that sound like a story worth rioting over? It's barely worth writing an angry letter to someone. The economy in the UK isn't doing great, but there hasn't been anything worth rioting over. In Iceland the banks collapsed, and the government lied about it. No wonder they were angry.

Re:Whistle blowing...

[corbettw]

You have to remember that in Iceland there is still a lot of anger against the people who are perceived to have caused the banking collapse with US style "free-market fundamentalism"

It's worth pointing out that fraud and theft are not "free market" activities, they're criminal ones.

Wait til it happens here in the U.S... FDIC Broke

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wait...it already IS but our media are too focused on important shit like Michael Jackson: http://market-ticker.org/archives/1283-Is-The-FDIC-Broke-And-Covering-It-Up.html

Warning, US link is a modified document

[Skapare]

Here are the MD5 checksums I calculated for various downloads:

• d5a75fb334d3830cfe463e983f570473 http://88.80.13.160.nyud.net/leak/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf
• 86c58c545c74b80f5c61c0ab6c4bfeae http://88.80.16.63/leak/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf
• 86c58c545c74b80f5c61c0ab6c4bfeae https://secure.wikileaks.org/leak/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf
• 86c58c545c74b80f5c61c0ab6c4bfeae http://wikileaks.eu/leak/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf
• 86c58c545c74b80f5c61c0ab6c4bfeae http://wikileaks.fi/leak/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf
• 86c58c545c74b80f5c61c0ab6c4bfeae http://wikileaks.nl/leak/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf
• 86c58c545c74b80f5c61c0ab6c4bfeae http://wikileaks.org/leak/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf
• 86c58c545c74b80f5c61c0ab6c4bfeae http://wikileaks.pl/leak/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf
• 86c58c545c74b80f5c61c0ab6c4bfeae http://wikileaks.to/leak/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf

The difference impacts the rendering of the document beginning on page 16. It appears to have HTTP headers inserted into the file. The same difference is seen across these download programs: firefox, lynx, wget. There may be a bad replication to that site. Maybe they used a bad HTTP client.

Re:Warning, US link is a modified document

[krilli]

There was a discussion of borked SHA sums on the Talk page at Wikileaks. It had something to do with a server crash and a repaired file.

Re:Warning, US link is a modified document

[Skapare]

That could be a cause. The site with the borked file needs to resynchronize. If they didn't use rsync, they might want to consider that.

Hahahaha! It looks goodon them!

[Anonymous Coward]

Having been exposed to Icelandic arrogance for the three years I've been using Eve Online I can only say that this scandal is not a surprise, nor are the attempts to suppress the information. I sincerely hope that all Icelanders end up with raw, bleeding new bungholes, bankruptcy and long-term personal shame, although I think they are too arrogant to ever feel shame.

Who would have thougt it....

[jotaeleemeese]

..... that such a basket case would arise in the fringes of the civilized Western European area of influence.

What you describe is typical of tin pot dictatorships ....

Tell me again

[Anonymous Coward]

How the elite don't control the media.

This means...

[Anonymous Coward]

The attempts to censor the information looks suspicious, and therefore there needs to a very deep and detailed investigation. They may be trying to cover up illegal activities, or trying to protect sensitive customer information. Either way, they should realize that their efforts to suppress the information are only making sure that it is spread much more widely than if they had not tried to suppress it.

Insider trading redux

[sgt_doom]

"..I've found it nearly impossible to verify the high level claim (insider trading) off the information provided."

Geez, try to find banksters involved in this situation where insider trading isn't involved.....

Journalism died a long time ago

[Steve Franklin]

There are no "real" journalists anymore. If there ever were. Ask yourself, who broke the news that the sinking of the Maine was an inside job? Was it some historian 100 years later? How about the Reichstag fire? Did the "journalists" report that for what it was at the time? Forget 9/11. It'll be a century before anyone in the mainstream has the guts to call that what it was. "Journalists" just report the official line, no matter how absurd it is.

Re:Hahahaha! It looks goodon them!

[Skapare]

I'm sure not every Icelander was involved in this. Too bad they are all going to be suffering the effects for the stupid decisions of a bunch of capitalists and socialists.

"Talk Radio" summed it up best.

[IBitOBear]

"Joe, get my picture out of there" ... "That's like trying to get pee out of a swimming pool."

There is freedom of speech. Nobody opposes it.

[h00manist]

As long as nobody listens, or nothing that matters is said. If something important is said, and people listen, suddenly there will be lots of opposition. To the speech, the speaker, the law, the speaker's physical safety, and whatever else allows the speech to continue.

Case in point

[aepervius]

If censorship was the sole province of government , nobody would be talking of "governmental censorship" that would be a repetition. Which is why I mostly laugh when I see people getting their tie in a knot when governement censor some stuff (be it bad word, nude nipple, or violence) but when a corporation do the same , they shrug it off and go on their merry life. Now think about this: who has the best position to censor stuff : the governement which nowadays in western democracy own next to now news generator (radio, tv, newspaper) or the news mega corporation which are ultimately in the hand of a few ? Governement censorship you CAN fight it. Ballot Box. Soap Box. Munition Box. But news corporation censorship, since they nearlyalways mostly have a local monopoly or protect the same interrest ? Noper. No box sir. You can simply NOT USE the service, or accept the possible censorship.

mirror of the document also

[shnull]

here : http://www.alleycat.be/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf just in case ...

WTF

[hesaigo999ca]

How does the Icelandic gov. allow something like this to happen without any charges?
How does a company like this get insider trading secrets, and walk away without so much as a scratch?
Is there no FBI investigation into this, to at least file charges and make back some of the money owed?
If too many of these types do the same thing at the same time, does it not collapse our economic system....
oh....wait...I guess it did!

The Irony!

[Thelasko]

If you know some of Iceland's background, this story is extremely ironic. See, Iceland has been consistently ranked highest on the Reporters Without Borders, Press Freedom Index. That's much higher than even The United States of America! Furthermore, Iceland has also been rated highly for it's economic freedoms.

Eve Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but is my isk in Eve online ok?

The injunction has been cancelled

[kbg]

Latest news from Iceland: After a major uproar from the Icelandic public, Kaupthing has finally decided not to go through with the injunction against the press.