WikiLeaks' International Man of Mystery

AcidAUS writes "The founder of WikiLeaks lives a secret life in the shadow of those who blow the whistle. Here's a detailed profile of the Australian founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, by Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald."

Comments

Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[BadAnalogyGuy]

You gotta hand it to the CIA. When they attack something like Wikileaks, they really take the long view.

First, show how Wikileaks is somehow providing incorrect/incomplete/biased information. Now, set the founder up for more publicity, implicitly encouraging violence upon him.

It's a chilling effect on anyone who might be initially inclined to provide information to Wikileaks under their cover of anonymity.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Animaether]

First, show how Wikileaks is somehow providing incorrect/incomplete/biased information http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2010/04/truth-but-not-the-whole-truth.html. Now, set the founder up for more publicity, implicitly encouraging violence upon him.

If that article was intended to show that Wikileaks is "providing incorrect/incomplete/biased information", then that article failed on numerous accounts. I won't list them here - it looks like the people commenting on that article (although going off the deep end in another way) have already taken that bother. I highly doubt that was its intent anyway as it goes more into the general topic of what you see in a video and what the actual circumstances were. It still fails even at that, but it's not really directed at Wikileaks.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

So the CIA controls both the New Yorker and the Sydney Morning Herald?

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't?

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. The article was simply an excuse for Packer to rant about why - if they were so innocent - didn't those Brown People jump out of the way of those speeding bullets. Nothing more.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

So the CIA controls both the New Yorker and the Sydney Morning Herald?

Yeah, on top of that, they control Slashdot. Oh, and anyone who even nods at all positively toward the war in Iraq then you can be sure that the CIA is behind it and controlling them. Oh and you, Anonymous Coward, you are the most CIA controlled actor around. Did you see how you just questioned a conspiracy theory? That reeks of CIA.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

The chip in my brain says they don't.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

Or doesn't it not say they don't not? Hm? Food for thought.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you just gave away the secret wikireek site from Asia!

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Jayzuz. PR firms feed the journalists with pre-researched, pre-angled cases. The journalist checks a few of the facts, rewrites the prose a bit/writes the prose. And the desk approves. Everybody does this: Government, big tobacco, Toyota, UNICEF. Everybody. There's no need to control the media when the productivity expectations of the journalists ensures they are toothless and more than happy to regurgitate your propaganda.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[chrb]

Now, set the founder up for more publicity, implicitly encouraging violence upon him.

Assange brings publicity on himself. He is the media friendly face of Wikileaks. He won the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award and he has been a guest speaker at various international conferences. He chose to be interviewed on Al Jazeera, which is watched by 50-100 million households. I'm not suggesting that he actively seeks publicity for himself, but he does choose to seek it on behalf of Wikileaks, in order to further the Wikileaks mission.

It's a chilling effect on anyone who might be initially inclined to provide information to Wikileaks under their cover of anonymity.

Assange chose not to be anonymous so the analogy does not apply. Read his Wikipedia biography for more information. There is no evidence that this will have any effect on anonymous leakers. The people opposed to Wikileaks have various options at this point:

• Undermine and discredit Wikileaks by publically unmask some of the anonymous leakers
• Ignore Wikileaks, and accept that leaking happens.
• Use Wikileaks by leaking "friendly" info, info that makes opponents look bad, etc.
• Discredit Wikileaks by leaking info that is subsequently shown to be false.
• Push for the legislation and political will to punish Wikileaks as a criminal organisation that undermines national security.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Angua]

You gotta hand it to the CIA. When they attack something like Wikileaks, they really take the long view.

Well, I don't see anything in the article as being particularly discrediting to Julian Assange. It appears that he has a secret past involving nomadic life and computer hacking. I don't know about the rest of you, but considering his current career pretty much consists of being constantly on the move and publish classified documents online I find that amazingly non-shocking.

Not that the CIA might not be involved in this, they might, what do I know? But if they are, they are either taking the long, long, infinity-can-be-seen-on-a-good-day-long view or are just really inept.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[LWATCDR]

But they did and do present the data in a biased way.
Look at the prologue they added to the video. Just what does a picture of the dead reporters son holding his fathers picture have to do with truth?
That is a classic case of "what about the kids" that gets so often bashed on Slashdot when it is convenient.
For the most part what I have seen of Wikileaks they are the Nation Enquirer of the internet. They present the data in the most inflammatory way possible and it is often incorrect, incomplete, and biased.
They do not just present the data but comment on and embellish.

I am not for taking them down but my goodness they need to clean up their act. Between releasing all sorts of personal data they got from the 9/11 pager traffic to the prologue and added commentary they added the the Apache video just released they show that they don't care anymore about being unbiased or responsible than Fox news does.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[digitalchinky]

I think the article was just trying to milk the whole wikileaks publicity train for an extra 15 minutes of fame :-)

Espionage in real life is more likely to land your backside in jail (naturally a few exceptions here and there): Back when I was working for 'them' (secret 3 letter agency) there was a guy who tried to sell a certain ELINT publication to a foreign country - as far as classified documents go, this one was (and still is) pretty damned important, with a short shelf life. Ultimately not of much interest to anyone other than the people that make use of it. What struck me as both amusing and interesting was that representatives of this particular country returned the document and helped out with the investigations. Naturally the guy is sitting in a cell. A good many classified documents and publications can sometimes (read: very rarely) be interesting, but it's often not the publication itself that is important, it's how it came to exist. Politicians are a terribly leaky bunch, but they are also usually a little smarter than they look, you rarely, virtually never, hear them talk about collection systems.

My point: throughout all of the agencies I worked for over the years, WikiLeaks was pretty low on the Radar. So low that most people, until now, had no idea it actually existed. It might be a very small PR problem every once in a while, but this little pony show you saw on CNN is about publicity just at the moment. Nothing more, nothing less. War sucks for sure, but cherry picking pieces of a story to highlight ones own agenda, that's not cool, though it probably does bring in the money, fame, hookers and whatever.

Disclaimer: I'm just one guy though, so what matters to me might not be viewed the same way by another. If you feel differently this is okay. I'm good with it. Slashdot actually gets far higher publicity than WikiLeaks anyway. Some of these 3 letter agencies may or may not have even approached Mr Taco (and others) for permission to graft certain articles along with their comments such that they are visible 'on the other side of the air gap' so to speak.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[daveime]

Oh, and anyone who even nods at all positively toward the war in Iraq then you can be sure that the CIA is behind it and controlling them

Guys, didn't anyone tell you, the war in I-raq is over already.

Don't worry, you've still got the war on drugs, the (generic) war on terror, and the war in Afghanistan to win (i.e. beat the enemy senseless in 12 days, then stay there for 10 years too long until the locals get pissed and ask you to leave).

And coming soon to a munitions manufacturer near you, advance orders for the war on I-ran.

There was a time when winning a war meant going in, killing the bad guys, grabbing all the boots you could carry, and coming home again, not forgetting to burn the place to the ground on the way out. I'm not sure if the message got lost in translation across the Atlantic or what ?

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[anss123]

The chip in my brain says they don't.

You silly americans. Wasting time on sophisticated chip in brain when bullet in brain works almost as good and pass through tinfoil.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[TheRaven64]

In general I'd agree, but the SMH is (usually, at least) a cut above the typical newspaper. They've got quite a good reputation internationally (I read them relatively often, and I'm British, living in the UK).

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[vlm]

Some of these 3 letter agencies may or may not have even approached Mr Taco (and others) for permission to graft certain articles along with their comments such that they are visible 'on the other side of the air gap' so to speak.

As it says at the bottom, "Comments are owned by the Poster."

So I checked my Slashdot Achievements list and right in between "Got a score 5 comment" and "Days metamoderated in a row" I see "NSA hall of fame" they need to ask me for permission not Cmdr Taco. Note to Cmdr Taco -> A good achievement for 4/1/2011

No idea what the NSA wants with articles like "Help Me Get My Math Back?" or "Hollywood's Growing Obsession With Philip K. Dick" (which would have been much funnier without the first and middle names)

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[gambino21]

Just to be clear they presented the data in both an edited and unedited version . I would agree with you if wikileaks had released only the edited version, but the fact that they released the full video right next to the edited one, puts them several levels above something like National Enquirer IMO. It also puts them at a higher standard than most of the current US mainstream media which is usually very light on references and heavy on granting anonymity even when it's not needed.

Did the edited video go overboard with the picture of the son in the edited video? Yes, probably. But in general I think wikileaks does a good job of providing unbiased information and filling a big gap left by most of the media.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[chrb]

For the most part what I have seen of Wikileaks they are the Nation Enquirer of the internet. They present the data in the most inflammatory way possible and it is often incorrect, incomplete, and biased. They do not just present the data but comment on and embellish.

Look at wikileaks.org. The most recently leaked documents are reproduced in their entirety, with (usually) only one single paragraph to describe the document. The descriptions are descriptive and accurate (if you don't believe me - read them for yourself - stuff like "Quote for a US$85 million line of credit from FirstCaribbean to the government of the Turks & Caicos Islands."). How is a release of original source material along with one single descriptive paragraph "incorrect, incomplete, and biased.. commenting on and embellishing"?

they don't care anymore about being unbiased or responsible than Fox news does.

This is a ridiculous comparison. Fox News pushes opinion pieces as real news. It reproduces none - zero, nada, zilch - of its original sources. Wikileaks reproduces its sources in their entirety. They even released the original, unedited Apache video. If they did not care about being biased, then why would they released the original, unedited video? Has Fox News ever released the original source material of any contentious report? Ever? Probably not. And yet Wikileaks does this every single time as standard policy. There is a huge difference.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[MobyDisk]

I won't agree or disagree with your sentiment, but I do think the analogy is misdirected.

Wikileaks they are the Nation Enquirer of the internet. They present the data in the most inflammatory way possible and it is often incorrect, incomplete, and biased.

As far as I know, The National Enquirer does not present incorrect, incomplete, or biased information in an inflammatory way. They just make shit up. That's a pretty big difference. I could learn a lot from Wikileaks, but I can learn nothing from the Enquirer.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[digitalchinky]

This is going back a few years, but permit me to explain the logic used:

Because the stories were being 'transplanted' from the real slashdot to some server or other 'as is', completely unmodified, everyone involved was okay with it.

Possibly I've made it sound a bit more frequent that it actually was, though the stories were usually pretty high profile in so far as they related directly to the agencies themselves along with public knowledge and perception thereof.

I would definitely give you an irony mod if such a thing existed, some people here do indeed have fame they don't realize they have.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[LWATCDR]

No they don't they have one marked as the short version and one as the full version. The short version has the prologue on it and is put on the top of the order.
There should be only one and that is the unedited on with out the commentary. There is no reason for their to be two versions at all except to allow for manipulation disguised as making it clearer.
Wikileaks can not make any claim as to being unbiased. They are clearly in this case taking on the job of judge, jury, and prosecutor.
Please even the URL you posted is inflammatory. collateralmurder.com! Gee no slanting there at all.
So just how is this in your own words "doing a good job at providing unbiased information"?

This is as bad as any hatchet job by 60 minutes or Fox News. I think you need to review what unbiased really means. There is no way anything posted under the url of collateralmurder can be considered unbiased when the url and title on the page are clearly biased as to what the actions shown constitute. I can not believe that you posted a link to the url and still defend any claim of being unbiased!

Nope it is classic yellow journalism.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

They did it, because all too easily people forget that behind each dead body is a life story, a grieving mother who lost a son she had cared for all his life, a grieving child who lost a loving father and so on. Media portrayal of wars has become so sanitized that people don't realize these facts and believe war is some kind of computer game or action movie. Another chilling effect is that it dehumanizes the victims of war, it tells us that they are different from us (faceless), so it's OK to indiscriminately kill them like stray dogs (although in the western world people seem to have more sympathy towards stray dogs than Arabs).

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[LWATCDR]

And this video doesn't push opinion? Gee so you think that the URL collateralmurder isn't biased?
Showing times when they are no biased doesn't remove times when they clearly are. Even the times when they behave as you show in their examples shows bias. They have decided that that leak isn't worth pushing while this video is.
The fact that they made a special project page for this video and of course put it at the top of the page right next to their fund raising request is not bias at all. Or the fact that they only put the edit version with inflammatory prologue on the front page isn't an example of bias on their part.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[LWATCDR]

Yes of course because you are so enlightened that you understand these things while the unwashed masses must be guided to understanding.
It must be made clear to them because they are not as smart as you or as not as caring.

You see most people can not just be shown facts because they will not understand...
Do you really want to go down that road.
Manipulation must always be wrong if it is ever wrong.
I am sure that if they showed a bunch of solders holding their children on their laps saying how there children would never have known their daddy if the gunship crews hadn't had protected them you would be all right with it?
Manipulation and bias is manipulation and bias. You are okay with it or you are not. If you are ok with it when is supports your view then you have been enlisted as a manipulator.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[joe_garage]

AYBABTU

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

You're welcome to demonstrate. Just have someone throw it up on youtube. I'm sure it would be mighty inspiring.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this discrediting... also from wikileaks twitter for a very similar article, actually a better one...
"Profile on WikiLeaks editor (mostly, not entirely, correct) | Sunday Times http://bit.ly/bmdnAo"

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

when I was working for 'them' (secret 3 letter agency)

Yep. The IRS is huge into tracking the online economy.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

"So the CIA controls both the New Yorker and the Sydney Morning Herald?"

The CIA does not need "control over" media outlets to get certain stories out.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[aaaaaaargh!]

Look at the prologue they added to the video. Just what does a picture of the dead reporters son holding his fathers picture have to do with truth?

Look: If you publish a video to millions of people that shows how a reporter, a man with kids and wife, is being shot from the air, tries to escape deadly wounded by crawling away, then dies while the people who try to help him (and their children) are also getting shot, and subsequently is being overrun by a tank while his killers make jokes about it, then it is only fair to give some of his surviving family members a chance to show a picture of how he looked like when he was still happy and alive. If you think that's biased, then I can't help getting the feeling that you also might be biased a bit more than average or have lost all sense of humanity.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure what page you were visiting. There was a 17 minute, condensed version. There was a "full" ~40 minute version with commentary. Then there was a huge 650MB, completely unedited tape.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[slick7]

Here is some discrediting of the CIA

People Who Live in Glass Houses Shouldn't Walk Around Naked

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[LWATCDR]

Again with an emotional plea. Of course it is tragic that this gentleman died and that his child is an orphan. But him having a child or even being a reporter has nothing to do with was the Apache crew justified in shooting or if it was a war crime.
You are using one emotional manipulation to justify another.
Suppose instead we showed vets with their kids saying how they wouldn't have gotten home without that Apache crew protecting them? You would claim that was just emotional manipulation as was the prologue added to this video.
Justice is supposed to be blind and only look at the facts. This video contains a prologue that is designed to push the viewer into agreeing with the conclusion of the people that edited the video. Even the URL that it was listed under is inflammatory. If you don't think that is biased then you don't understand the meaning of the word.
To be unbiased they should just present the video without commentary and let each of us decide for ourself. Any commentary changes it from unbiased information to editorial content that reflects the views of those making the commentary.
Even your comment that me seeing the bias shows that I am biased is just silly. Claiming I have lost all sense of humanity is just insulting.
However to be an unbiased source of news (and they are very rare) you really should let the viewer decide without adding emotional manipulation.
Let the evidence speak for it's self or admit that you are a biased source.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell is the unedited video unbiased? Less biased or differently biased, maybe, but it's still a first person perspective with a lot of information missing. "Unedited" doesn't mean "contains all facts and presents them in a purely objective way." WikiLeaks may not have added bias, but that's irrelevant when considering the overall bias of the videos. Bias is bias regardless of where it originated.

Everyone is biased, yourself included. If you think you've somehow managed to escape this, start reading. Some degree of bias always exists, though it need not be as obvious as the emotional appeal in the edited version. That said, I'm inclined to agree that the emotional appeal was intellectually dishonest. From what I understand attacking the rescue van was the soldiers' only questionable action, so that should have been the target of any emotional appeal.

On the other hand, there are perspectives from which the existing emotional appeal is entirely appropriate. For example, consider how the video would change if it were billed as showing the horrors of war and not the crimes of the Apache crew. This may have even been a valid interpretation if it weren't for the collateral murder domain name, which I have far more of a problem with than the emotional appeal.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[LWATCDR]

The unedited video would be less biased. You are correct that even presenting the unedited video would still be lacking some information.
Things like had the Apache's taken any fire in the area.
Or had the ground forces taken any fire in the area.
Sure some degree of bias does exist but the prologue of this video as well as the url are really over the top.
If you look back to my original post I clearly stated. Wikileaks needs to clean up it act.

The attack on the van is an interesting question. If the van had been marked it would have been a clear war crime. With the van unmarked is was it fair to classify it as a combatant?
In this type of combat there are a lot of fuzzy areas and this is one of them. On a battle field an unmarked vehicle rendering aid is a valid target.
You say that since that was the questionable act it should have been the target of the emotional appeal. Even then I do not think so. Let the evidence stand on it's own merit with out added commentary or the inflammatory URL.
But to not call into question the tactics of Wikileaks when they are clearly showing bias is wrong. You have a problem with the inflammatory URL, I have problems with the URL, prologue, and cometary. The fact is their are problems with how Wikipedia choose to present news. The boost the profile of what they think is interesting with inflammatory language and not just this time.
If they want to act just like every other news service then that is fine. I just want to dispel the belief that they are any less biased than NPR, FOX, or CNN. Actually I feel that the in this case they are showing more bias than NPR or CNN would and are at the FOX level.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Dhalka226]

Of course it was biased, and blatantly so. What happened? An Apache crew fired on and killed a reporter and seriously wounded some others. Those are the facts.

That the reporter happened to have a child is completely and utterly immaterial to what happened. It's nothing but cheap emotional manipulation, and the fact that you agree with the position they're obviously putting forward does not change that. When you try to paint somebody as a monster ("OMG LOOK, A SAD FATHERLESS CHILD!") you're manipulating people, and you're being biased. And it doesn't matter whether he deserves it or not.

If one wants to be biased, okay. There's nothing inherently wrong with it, and in fact the vast majority of situations in the world are affected by bias. What one DOESN'T get to do is be biased and claim otherwise, at least not while maintaining a shred of intellectual honesty. Without that, I have no idea why anybody would care what that person is saying.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

With regards to your fourth point. Wikileaks have a 'dedicated team of researchers' (read: hackers) that make every attempt to verify the authenticity of the documents they receive. So far, I've been impressed with the job they're doing.

Unfortunately, today even hacking/cracking without being traced is an expensive task, requiring much planning and 'out-of-band' channels to be effective. Having to deal with large scale dedicated MITM devices on the cables connecting countries doesn't help.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[socceroos]

LWATCDR works for the CIA! Get 'im boys!!!

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

"On a battle field an unmarked vehicle rendering aid is a valid target"

You have made an enourmous number of posts defending these soldiers but you are completely missing the point. It was NOT a battle field, it was a suburban street and the troops were supposed to be keeping the peace. Everyone in the chain of command clearly disregarded their rules of engagement by firing on the van, ie: disobeyed standing orders.

"Let the evidence stand on it's own merit"

By posting the full video that is exactly what wikileaks did, OTOH the military went to great lengths to cover it up. Showing a picture of the grieving son is not the "over the top" bias that you claim. It's what any western court would call a victims statement. You simply don't like the victims statement because it raises emotions in you that go against your obvious bias toward the soldiers.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[dave420]

They've actually had brief periods where they've performed actual journalism. From Wikipedia:

For a time the Enquirer sought recognition for journalistic research and news scoops. In 2001, the Enquirer uncovered that the Rev. Jesse Jackson had an illegitimate child. Salacious details of the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair were first made public by the Enquirer. The Enquirer was regarded by some as having the best media coverage of the O. J. Simpson murder trial. For example, when a distinctive footprint from a Bruno Magli shoe was found at the crime scene, Simpson vehemently denied owning such a shoe. The Enquirer, however, published a photo by a freelance photographer showing Simpson in the shoes, then dug up another one again showing him in such a pair.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[dave420]

It's strange that these folks most likely wouldn't think twice about news outlets reporting the deaths of soldiers by showing pictures of them being alive and happy, instead of showing gruesome pictures of them all blown up and bleeding to death. Double standards suck.

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I have spent a maths summer school with this guy in Canberra for 2 months (it was in 2004) at ANU.

He was a wanker! (Ok, at least I can say back then he was) Seriously, people would avoid him at all costs.

On the other hand, I think wikileaks is really cool but this guy has the kind of personality that does something just to be noticed (such as being vegan...which he is, or at least pretended to be at ANU).

Mod me down for the anon post but this is one of those rare cases I actually want to be anon (irony? ;))

Re:Looks like the discrediting is well begun

[RockDoctor]

He chose to be interviewed on Al Jazeera, which is watched by 50-100 million households.
He chose to be interviewed on Al Jazeera, which is watched by 50-100 million terr'ist, filthy, Muslim, households.

FTFY
Obviously, choosing to be interviewed by a news organisation which has in the past taken an unAmerican point of view is in and of itself proof of being a terr'ist. Call the "wet work" department, they've got a customer.

there's another australian creator of edgy content

[circletimessquare]

Joseph Evers, of encyclopedia dramatica, whose experience might be instructive for the creator of wikileaks:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/1028037/encyclopedia-dramatica-owner-could-face-charges

Encyclopedia Dramatica is believed to be one of the websites that will be banned in Australia under upcoming internet filtering legislation.

The online community Anonymous, which is responsible for several hacking attacks against government websites in protest of the proposed filter, is strongly associated with Encyclopedia Dramatica.

The email from the Human Rights Commission to Evers cites a 2002 court case in which an Australian businessman was able to sue a US company for defamation over an article published online.

Dow Jones & Co Inc ended up paying the defendant, mining entrepreneur Joseph Gutnick, $580,000 in fees and damages.

Evers wrote that he had been advised never to return to Australia.

"My counsel has advised me that I can never under any circumstances visit my family in Sydney again, nor otherwise make any appearances on Australian soil," he wrote.

"Here's to the hidden cost of freedom."

so basically, you're ok with edgy internet content in the free world... unless you piss off australians. and if you do, and you happen to be australian as well, then say goodbye forever to your homeland and your family and friends

seriously, australians: what the fuck is wrong with your fucking government? i feel like i'm reading about iran or north korea sometimes when i read stuff like this

australians: fix your broken fucking government. yesterday. thank you

australia is a fucking disgrace

Re:there's another australian creator of edgy cont

[elrous0]

It used to be leaps and bounds ahead, but in the last few years, I'm not so sure. The GP is right, it seems like almost every kooky story about oppressive laws, internet filtering, censorship, etc. is coming out of Australia lately. Even China is starting to look more open than Australia, and that's just sad. I'm glad that Australians are trying to do something about this, but it certainly took them long enough to finally realize that their country's international reputation is starting to really suffer.

why all the publicity?

[je ne sais quoi]

This is the second time I've seen Julian Assange come up in reference to the video. I wonder why he's giving all this publicity? Surely this will hamper his efforts and get him on watch lists that make it difficult for him to travel. Maybe he's succumbing to the temptation to become infamous. Or maybe he just feels this is the best way to make sure the media hangs onto this story to make sure something changes. The interesting thing is that if he is a hacker, it makes it all that more interesting about how wikileaks is getting their stuff. Is it really even being leaked?

Re:why all the publicity?

[jduhls]

He could be a decoy, right?

Re:why all the publicity?

[Anonymous Coward]

The interesting thing is that if he is a hacker, it makes it all that more interesting about how wikileaks is getting their stuff. Is it really even being leaked?

I see what you attempted to do there! That's obviously the question this "story" was designed to raise.

Re:why all the publicity?

[confused one]

One way to dissuade the release of anonymous information is to very publically "out" either the source(s), collaborator(s) or the facilitator(s).

Shadow Broker

[tecnico.hitos]

He only supports Wikileaks as charity work.

Re:there's another australian creator of edgy cont

[tsm_sf]

No, the political system in Australia is a disgrace, but is leaps and bounds ahead of that in the US

And this coming from the folks who gave us Rupert Murdoch? I'm going to have to politely disagree.

Re:there's another australian creator of edgy cont

[Anonymous Coward]

Schadenfreude. Its nice to know that there is a supposedly free western government out there more fascist than my own.

Re:there's another australian creator of edgy cont

[poena.dare]

No, the Aussies "gave" us Rupert Murdoch, all right. Thus turning him loose to do more damage worldwide than in their own country. I'd say that was a smart move.

I'm surprised the Japanese haven't used the same tactic with Godzilla.

Re:there's another australian creator of edgy cont

[Cimexus]

Although I can see why Slashdot might give you that impression, do remember that the reporting on here is usually quite sensationalist.

Australia doesn't yet have an internet filter (hell, the Bill hasn't even been introduced into the House yet, and even if it passed there would face near-certain death in the Senate), and it's been aggressively fought every step of the way. Contrast this with China, which obviously has a well-known filter (and one far, far more intrusive than the simple URL blacklist proposed in AU). Contrast this further with other countries have introduced an AU-like filter quietly and without much debate (most recently, New Zealand).

If anything, it shows that the democratic process is working well in Australia, the fact that you are hearing and seeing so many stories (read: so much opposition) to such proposals.

The other kooky story you are likely to have heard out of Australia in the last 12 months is the lack of an R rating for computer games. There's been quite a breakthrough on that front, with the one man primarily responsible for blocking the introduction of the R rating retiring as South Australian Attorney-General. His replacement has publicly stated they are in support of an R rating for games. So it appears we'll get our R rating within the not too distant future, bringing us into line with the classification systems in the US and EU.

Australia has problems like any country. But I don't think they are anywhere on the scale of China, or even on the scale of other Western countries like the UK (far more surveillance there than in AU). The US overall has a good record on such matters, but it too is not perfect (witness the whole warrantless logging/tapping of public phone conversations debacle etc.). The problems might be ~different~ in other countries but they are no less serious.

More info on the guy...

[Anonymous Coward]

More information on Assanage the reporter doesn't know about...

Back in the early 90's, APANA, The Australian Public Access
Network Association, kicked 'proff' out because he was using
their network to crack into overseas systems. APANA was
threatened with disconnection because of his attempts were traced
easily. proff was already a known kook, who was attempting to
make his system 'suburbia' (later suburbia.net) a global
CyBeRpUnK HQ, his quest being to become the ULTIMATE CYBERPUNK
who could overthrow governments (sound familiar..?) When we
kicked him out, he spammed and attempted to DDoS apana.org.au. :/

Re:More info on the guy...

[Anonymous Coward]

More information on Assanage the reporter doesn't know about...

Back in the early 90's, APANA, The Australian Public Access
Network Association, kicked 'proff' out because he was using
their network to crack into overseas systems. APANA was
threatened with disconnection because of his attempts were traced
easily. proff was already a known kook, who was attempting to
make his system 'suburbia' (later suburbia.net) a global
CyBeRpUnK HQ, his quest being to become the ULTIMATE CYBERPUNK
who could overthrow governments (sound familiar..?) When we
kicked him out, he spammed and attempted to DDoS apana.org.au. :/

Sounds plausible. Do you actually have evidence to back up this claim or are you just referencing the illustrious "my friend told me" angle?

Re:More info on the guy...

[dbIII]

What state was he in? Was it Queensland?
The Queensland government was so blatantly corrupt in the late 1980s that a lot of people there were thinking about leaking something to bring down the government and eventually somebody did in 1988 by leaking to a national TV show. The government fell, and a lot of corrupt bastards spent time in prison (amusingly including the Minister in charge of Prisons).
Two or three years later and that would still be fresh in a lot of minds. It doesn't sound so kooky now does it?
The actions like the cracking and DDoS sound pointless, childish and annoying but I don't think you can call the attitude entirely insane.

Re:More info on the guy...

[jbezorg]

If he does, he should upload it to Wikileaks...

I say that in jest but thinking about it more, it would be a very good litmus test for the statement "He is not politically motivated. He is more concerned with truth and the quest for it."

Re:there's another australian creator of edgy cont

[Cimexus]

Er ... although I certainly am opposed to any form of censorship on the Internet, I do feel obliged to point out that Mr. Evers is not Australian. His lawyer has simply informed him that because he has broken an Australian law (whether or not you agree with the appropriateness of that law, which in this case pertains to racially discriminatory language/hate speech ... conveniently omitted from what you've quoted), setting foot in Australia in the future ~may~ result in his being detained.

The same would apply to an Australian who breaks a US law (and believe me, you have your fair share of wacky laws too, including some that are very similar to the law Mr. Evans is alleged to have breached) - if they attempt to visit the US in the future they are likely to be arrested at the border. Mr. Evans may have family in Australia (as referred to in what you have quoted above), but he himself is not Australian. So the whole "he cannot return to his homeland" thing doesn't really apply.

Having said that I agree with the main anti-censorship sentiment of your post :)

Re:there's another australian creator of edgy cont

[dkleinsc]

Haven't you heard? In Australia, the penalty for serious crimes is exile to the United States.

Just watched the wikileaks video

[JustNiz]

if you haven't already watched the "collateral murder" video on wikileaks, you must. It will open your eyes.

Its scary how the American gunner is just begging for excuses to execute people. He invents an excuse that the guy who is obviously just holding a camera has an RPG. They quickly escalate one implausible gun sighting (which was clearly a shoulder bag) into the fact all the people are carrying AK-47s when they are clearly empty-handed. They even followup by shooting an obviously unarmed ambulance team that includes kids, which turned up after just to help the injured.

This is what Americans are actually doing abroad. This is how the world sees America.

Its scary that the army can put such crassly stupid and vicious people in charge of such powerful killing machines. Its scary that the army are defending these killers and the army are clearly beyond the reach of the law.

This is our country doing this. We are the bad guys. To all those that think America is honorable, and right to be in Afghanistan, watch this video then think again.

Re:Just watched the wikileaks video

[Zironic]

Well, that's sorta what the army is designed to do, kill people. They're a piss poor at peacekeeping.

Re:Just watched the wikileaks video

[Anonymous Coward]

Even Julian Assange admitted that from what he can tell from their copy of the video the people most likely had AK-47s and at least one RPG (in addition to at least one man with a camera), he just disagrees that that means they were a threat to the Apache and the troops that were just a few blocks away. The unedited version of the video also contains repeated mention of small arms fire coming from that location prior to the gunship engaging the men on the ground. Most of that was in the 20 minutes edited out of the short version of the video which most people have watched.

The after incident photos of the scene also clearly show AK-47s and supposedly at least one RPG. I say supposedly only because the RPG has been boxed out in the photo because it's directly beside one of the bodies and all the publicly available photos redact the bodies. It's believed Wikileaks also has the non-redacted photos but have chosen not to publish them.

Re:Just watched the wikileaks video

[dave420]

That might be true for the US army, but not all armies. Most are very well-trained to keep the peace.

Rubberhose

[Anonymous Coward]

No one seems to mention that he was one of the authors of rubberhose -- a cryptographic block-level device. It seems like a better idea than truecrypt, if you ask me.

It's a warzone.

[TheLink]

Actually such things are inevitable in a warzone. That's why you should never start wars lightly[1]. Lots of bad stuff will happen.

It's obvious to many in hindsight that it's a camera. But if you look it from the POV from a paranoid nervous young military helicopter pilot, it does look like the tube of a RPG - esp when the camera sticks out from behind the wall...

What follows after that is just what soldiers do - they kill people, and they are _conditioned_ to think it's OK to kill people. So they make up all sorts of excuses so that they can pull the trigger.

If the helicopter pilot isn't paranoid enough, he or his friends will get killed. Because there ARE people out there who are out to kill him and his friends, and yes sometimes there are children around when it happens. And yes, both sides can be relaxed and merrily joking about stuff minutes before they blow away the other side.

War is how you get otherwise reasonable people to kill strangers they have never met and would otherwise be happy to sit down and have a meal with together. You set things up so that if they don't kill the other side, the other side would kill them and/or their friends. If that doesn't happen, you kill/punish them for disobeying orders.

To me the appalling bit is not that civilians were killed because the pilot made a mistake, it's that the war was either started due to lies or incompetence.

I have to say though that the US military seem to have a reputation of being more trigger happy, and even since the WWII days - the joke goes that when a German plane flies over, the British take cover; when a British plane flies over, the Germans take cover; when a US plane flies over, everyone takes cover... ;)

[1] http://slashdot.org/journal/208853/How-to-reduce-unwanted-wars

Re:It's a warzone.

[TheLink]

OK I don't mean that the civilians being killed wasn't appalling. But Bush does share significant responsibility for that incident (and many others).

If you release a lion into field full of sheep and it kills sheep, yes the lion is responsible. But it's your fault too. Killing stuff is just what lions do.

I'm sure there are already people clamoring for the heads of the lions involved in that attack.

But to me it's the real Heads that should roll. The ones who unleashed the lions.

Re:It's a warzone.

[Wyatt Earp]

No, Bush doesn't share responsibility for that incident.

"Befehl ist Befehl" is not a legal defense, this was established by the Allies at the end of World War Two at Nuremberg.

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

Everyone in the US military volunteered, furthermore the guys sitting in those helicopters volunteered for the Army and flight school and then tried their darnedest to get into an AH-64 because they wanted to shoot at things with that beast.

Don't blame Bush, Gore was, if anything, more hawkish in the 2000 election than Bush was and Congress voted over and over and over again from 2002-now for the war in Iraq.

Supported force in Mideast, Balkans, Haiti, not Somalia. (Oct 2000)
Gore supports vigorous intervention abroad; Bush less so. (Oct 2000)
Nation-building: preferable to WWIII, and a stunning success. (Oct 2000)

http://www.ontheissues.org/al_gore.htm

Re:It's a warzone.

[ladoga]

And yes, both sides can be relaxed and merrily joking about stuff minutes before they blow away the civilians

FTFU ;)

Re:It's a warzone.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sharing responsibility is not relieving responsibility.

As for the rest and Congress, I can pretty much blame them all, including the voters who supported them (not just voted for them).

Re:It's a warzone.

[JustNiz]

>> if you look it from the POV from a paranoid nervous young military helicopter pilot,

Agreed. It raises the question about the minimum requirements of people for doing the job though.

>> I have to say though that the US military seem to have a reputation of being more trigger happy, and even since the WWII days

Agreed again. Only RAF fighter loses in the Iraq war were to 'friendly' fire from US.
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/scotsman-edinburgh-scotland-the/mi_7951/is_2003_March_24/inquiry-missile-downs-raf-jet/ai_n33431453/

Re:It's a warzone.

[dbIII]

In this universe Gore was never President, so it really doesn't matter what he might or might not have done if he had.
Bush gave the order and had all that evidence fabricated to make the USA a laughing stock in front of the entire world. It was a war with no clear reasons and no clear goals and is looking scarily like it was to try to turn him into a popular wartime President when Afganistan was going too slowly.
You can't blame anyone else for that.
Nobody is blaming him for pulling a trigger anywhere though.
The AWOL President that ran away during his military career and after 9/11 is gone now so whether Obama likes it or not it's one of his wars now.

Re:It's a warzone.

[dbIII]

With respect, you are simply rationalising why you think it's OK to be purely reactive blood crazed Viking instead of being a professional soldier following orders.

Re:It's a warzone.

[TheLink]

I'm not sure how you managed to read that from what I posted.

Or you're just "trigger happy"? ;)

Re:It's a warzone.

[dbIII]

Paragraphs 3 and 4.

Re:It's a warzone.

[Wyatt Earp]

When Clinton ran in 1992 the left pointed to his outright dodging of the draft as a heroic effort to skip out on that terrible war. Clinton escalated the war in Somalia, invaded Haiti, bombed the Sudan which lead to tens of thousands of deaths, Afghanistan and declared war on Serbia.

When Bush went into the Texas Air Guard and learned to fly T-33s and F-102s (the hardest and most dangerous interceptor of the era) and then skipped out at the end, he is some dodging jerk.

The late 60s and early 70s were chaotic for alot of people, unless you are going to go after Clinton for all he did, not fair to go after Bush.

As for Iraq, oh there was a clear reason to invade them, they were sponsoring terrorism in the Middle East by offering huge bonuses to bombers who attacked Israel, they threatened Kuwait over and over in the 1990s, tried to kill a former American President and were offering evidence of a WMD program to keep Iran and the US to attack them. Oh and Saddam was orchestrating the deaths of tens of thousands a year, plus had carried out three of the biggest ecological disasters of the last 20 years.

Re:It's a warzone.

[dbIII]

Meanwhile North Korea got nukes.
Iraq was the "easy" war for popularity, profiteering and a spot for a permanent base (only sane reason).
Why bring up Clinton? Why not bring up Ford, LBJ, Garfield, Jefferson or whoever for whatever they've done wrong? Wrong actions count even if others do things wrong as well. Let's go for one at a time instead of going for a someone that couldn't keep his pants on years ago - he's irrelevant now.
I mentioned the AWOL thing because it sums up the playboy prince we got when we should have had a President instead quite well. He rode an untouchable wave of privelege all the way to the White House when someone from a different family would have been locked up for his antics and definitely be knocked out of the running on character grounds. That's not Republicanism, that's not Democracy - it's fucking Feudalism.

Re:It's a warzone.

[Wyatt Earp]

No, Bush wouldn't have been locked up for what he did at the end of his term in the Texas Air Guard, it would have been a black mark but in the time of military transition then it would have been ignored, like tens of thousands of other cases were.

I brought up Clinton because he had a similar skipping Vietnam history as W and was lauded for it by the same people who drug Bush over the coals for ten years and counting.

Why not bring up Ford? Because he was a combat officer in World War Two and commanded fire teams that helped save a carrier, and Ford like the others weren't involved in the chaos that was the draft and various ways of draft dodging and combat dodging in the Vietnam era, Bush, Clinton and Gore were.

In short, Clinton got away with as much warmongering and attacking sovereigns as Bush, but without all the publicity, mainly because Clinton's attacking was done with aviation assets and then occupying someone and less ground combat.

As for North Korea getting nukes, yea they did, both the Clinton and Bush administrations are responsible for that, but what were the choices? Invade the DPRK to remove their WMD capability? Yea thats not a viable option if you want Seoul to survive and don't want Japan collecting some missile and commando attacks.

Re:It's a warzone.

[dbIII]

OK, you're back at the bone I threw away again, so let's put it to rest.
Clinton accepted a highly valued and rare chance to study at Oxford UK only offered to a total of two US students per year and quite legally took that up instead of the draft. Morally he probably should have gone into the army but legally it was NOTHING. Bush walked and went AWOL when he was already in the military and only family connections saved him from a criminal record. Very different things - but flawed comparisons really don't matter here since I was really just writing about Bush walking away from things when he was President
I brought up Ford and all the others because they were President some time ago and as fucking irrelavent to the discussion as Clinton.
Give up on the Clinton shit anyway, just because I measure Bush by his actions doesn't have to mean I actually like Clinton - he handled the Iraq situation badly himself.

Re:It's a warzone.

[TheLink]

Never said it was OK.

emerald

[strack]

heh. i lived in emerald, Queensland, in the early 90s too. and yes. its a really boring place to live.

Re:emerald

[TenDollarMan]

I worked in the coal mine near there when cyclone Joy wrecked the place. That livened things up for a while.

KILL AUTHO WAS GIVEN BEFORE RPG

[Nicolas MONNET]

As @wikileaks keeps repeating on twitter, the authotisation to kill was given before any mention of an RPG. IIRC they only mentioned that they are "armed", which they admittedly are, since the amongst the victims were the bodyguards of the journalists. Unsurprisingly, bodyguards bear weapons in Iraq, and this was known since 2007

Re:KILL AUTHO WAS GIVEN BEFORE RPG

[Anonymous Coward]

> the authotisation to kill was given before any mention of an RPG

The US should fix that culture and policy if it's hindering them more than helping them.

The apache video is polarising

[dbIII]

The apache video brings out a bias on one side or another to people who have only heard about it let alone watched it. It would be hard to present it without bias so the best thing is to be upfront about why you are showing it to the world.
In my view it divides those that are happy for the troops involved to be unprofessional, disobedient, undisciplined thugs because they are on our team and those that are not happy about it - but I'm biased.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[LWATCDR]

Yes you are.
Also judgmental and polarizing. What is worse is probably also unteachable.

The fact that you can not even imagine a middle ground where people feel the crews made a tragic error because of limited info is in it's self tragic.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[dbIII]

Ah yes, by the "limited info" comment it appears you think the rules of engagement and orders are "shoot first and ask questions later".
A real war with professional soldiers is run somewhat differently to an action movie.
Please correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not "unteachable". Thanks for the petty little bullying personal attack to prey on the weak willed above BTW, it's a really nasty symptom of the decline of US education but with your low UID you should be old enough to know better by now.
Now get off my lawn :)

Re:The apache video is polarising

[LWATCDR]

Frankly No.
I also saw the video. From the resolution of the images I can honestly say that the they did look like they where armed and when the camera man was ducking around the the corner with his camera he did look like a shooter setting up an ambush.

Other looked like they where caring weapons and the video cometary did say that they where caring AK-47s.

In that situation with that data I can see how the crew could open fire.
The van was not an Ambulance and was not marked with the Red Crescent or Cross.

If you can not see how they could decide to shoot then yes you are not being reasonable.

Yes I can understand how this error was made.
I happened to be visiting family in Northern Ireland in the 80s during the troubles.
I was with some other teens when a bomb went off a few blocks down. I didn't run fast enough and was knocked down by a British solder because I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was shortly let go but I understand how errors can happen even when I was the target of that error. I was lucky that I wasn't hurt too bad but yes I could have been dead for no other reason than I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That is what happens in insurgent fights like Northern Ireland back then or Iraq now.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[slick7]

The video is NOT polarizing. The fact that the video was shot in 2007, and possibly viewed by the Pentgram and the chain of command, all the way up to the commander in chief, of 2007 is more disturbing.

Soldiers in a war zone develop a "gallows humor" as a coping mechanism.

THEY ARE IN A WAR ZONE. People die. Hopefully theirs and not ours. Soldiers follow orders, not determine the morality of an act.

The politicians are supposed to be the moral compass of the military. But we all know they are the "bought dogs" of avarice.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[Fluffeh]

I happened to be visiting family in Northern Ireland in the 80s during the troubles.
I was with some other teens when a bomb went off a few blocks down. I didn't run fast enough and was knocked down by a British solder because I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Right, so the British soldier didn't just shoot you?

I was shortly let go but I understand how errors can happen even when I was the target of that error. I was lucky that I wasn't hurt too bad but yes I could have been dead for no other reason than I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I will assume that your "wrong place" is inferring the reactions of the soldiers, not the initial bomb blast itself. You aren't dead however because of the soldier's choice not to shoot you and all the others fleeing from the scene. I am quite sure that there were more than a few people that may have been "suspicious" in terms of running away from the scene. Those guys probably also weren't shot on sight.

That's the difference here which you seem to be missing.

Do accidents happen? Of course. Once you see an accident should you be mournful and apologize for making that mistake? Certainly. Personally I don't think too much attention was paid here to make sure it wasn't one by the soldiers involved. For the argument however, lets they did in fact think that this was an actual combatant somehow attacking them.

What excuse do you have for the soldiers when they shot the van that came into view to help. This is a civilian area, there are few markings on any vehicle. Given the soldiers themselves said it looked like they were helping the wounded man, how can you possible excuse their actions there?

Lastly, and most importantly, how can you excuse the intelligence agencies who said that this footage didn't exist, who refused and lied after FOI requests for this footage by an international news agency who had reporters killed in this incident?

Mistakes happen. Cover-up's DON'T just happen.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[Anonymous Coward]

"The van was not an Ambulance and was not marked with the Red Crescent or Cross. If you can not see how they could decide to shoot then yes you are not being reasonable."

The van was clearly acting as a "good samaritan". Is it reasonable to attack a good samaritan with a helicopter gunship when there is clearly no existential threat?

Would it be 'unreasonable' to have sent the bradley on the ground into investigate the group while still maintaing cover by flying in a circle?

Is it reasonable to attack a group of people on a suburban street with cannons when the defined mission is keeping the peace? (note it is legal for security gaurds to carry AK-47's)

Is it reasonable for the military to actively cover up their actions simply to avoid negative PR in their home country?

Is it reasonable to compare being attacked by a helicopter gunship to being pushed to the ground? The fact you are not dead has nothing to do with luck, it's because the British peace keeper acted on his suspicions with reasonable force instead of simply opening fire. The same soldier that knocked you down was most likey on patrol without a helmet because he had been ordered to do so as a sign he was there to keep the peace rather than start a firefight.

Yes they made a mistake but the mistake they all made was to completely disregard the rules of engagement and look for an excuse to open fire. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect everyone in that chain of command to explain themselves via a court marshall.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[Ernesto Alvarez]

While the van might have not been an ambulance, it was clearly unarmed and picking up a wounded man, not "weapons and bodies" as the chopper pilot said. I find it rather difficult to excuse that behaviour.

While the first attack might be reasonably attributed to an error in judgement, the other incidents seen in the video (the pilot wanting the reporter to pick a gun so he can finish him, the attack on the van and the missile attack on the building) are pretty much the action of trigger happy men.

As a minor detail, he really made a mistake when he identified the camera as a RPG, since an RPG-7 has a distinctive shape, unlike the one in the video. That shape might be confused with a M-72, an AT-4 or even a bazooka (a big tube), but hardly with an RPG-7 (a small tube with a big cone in one end). He might have been thinking in other types of RPG, but that is unlikely.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to think there is one hard rules that fits every situation. I hope that if I'm ever in a war again, you are on the opposite side as it will make my job so much easier.

I'm not the person you responded to but your comment is so off that I'm going to reply to you. The situation in Ireland rarely resulted in Soldiers directly fighting with the IRA. It is usually bombings with law enforcement followup so capturing people without killing them was the appropriate ROE. However, in Iraq, the people these reporters were suspected of being can and will take down an Apache Helicopter. The can and have taken them down with the same small arms that were thought to have existed before attacking them. Furthermore, Iraq wasn't a police action where they needed to investigate after the fact, it was a full blown war where the enemy was actively engaging the allied forces. The two situation couldn't be further apart.

The van could have been the backup vehicle for the enemy. They pulled over and attempted to remove the injured which is a tactic that the insurgents and terrorist in Iraq did quite often. This is done to stop information from being gained from these injured enemies. Firing on the van given the understanding that the reporters were the enemies would have been routine as they would have normally been more enemies attempting to sanitize the area. The van had no markings on it signifying that they were there to give aid and you cannot see the kids in the windows unless you blow the image up almost to the point it's too grainy to tell they are kids. It's simply a terrible mistake but given the understood beliefs at the time, it's not a faulted mistake. Your objective in a war is to remain alive, not give the enemy the benefit of doubt.

Lastly, and most importantly, how can you excuse the intelligence agencies who said that this footage didn't exist, who refused and lied after FOI requests for this footage by an international news agency who had reporters killed in this incident?

Mistakes happen. Cover-up's DON'T just happen.

Nonsense, pure and simple. The cover-up wasn't to stop people from seeing the footage, it was to stop the footage from being used against our troops. It was a mistake, civilians were killed, and showing it to everyone would do nothing but strengthen the position of the enemy. This is the reason why Obama stopped the release of Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse photos in 2009 after claiming he wouldn't stand in the way of their release.

It seems that you have some strong misconceptions and even stronger preconceptions. It's possible that you will never understand or see the points from reality but I hope this helps a little. I can see how the shootings, even the van was a mistake and how the cover up was designed for legitimate purposes. If you can't, then prey that you never end up in a war.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[dave420]

Not this shit again. Iraqi citizens are allowed to have AK-47s. Carrying one is not an excuse to be gunned down. If the gunner was able to 'see' an RPG and AK-47, they would have also seen the children in the van. So either he saw both, in which case he is a cunt, or he saw neither, in which case he's a cunt. Also, a camera with a telescopic lens doesn't look anything like an RPG. The gunner's video was a lot clearer than the YouTube-encoded version, and is displayed in a reticle over the eye, providing a much larger image. He knew what he was doing - that much is obvious.

The commentary by the gunner indicated he was simply exaggerating any perceived threat. He saw the camera tripod, and instantly reported multiple people with AK-47s. That's bullshit.

"Shit happens" is not a valid legal defence.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[Anonymous Coward]

But was the cameraman a threat to the helicopter? There was no one someone could hit a helicopter with an RPG at that distance. I only saw one AK-47 and (possibly) one RPG-7, and neither was being carried by the photographer or the driver.

You think it's okay to shoot on unarmed civilians who show up to help a wounded civilian? You don't have to be in a marked ambulance when it's clear you don't intend to participate in the fighting.

In another post, you attack WikiLeaks for their bias. While the site "Collateral Murder" is a biased name, they did release the full video, and the full video is *worse*. Nothing justified the comments the pilot or gunner made, and shooting three Hellfire missiles at a building, while unarmed civilians are walking by, is unjustifiable.

Re:The apache video is polarising

[LWATCDR]

Actually I did stop when he told me to because I didn't want to get shot. The rifle butt between the shoulder blades was not nessasry at the time since I was unarmed and frankly had nothing to do with anything just a kid from the US hanging with my cousins. They just happen to have been in Belfast.
The private that hit me was only 19 and had just seen his several of his mates die. Looking back my wounds where probably a lot less than his and healed faster.

I am not justifying the actions of the Military in not releasing the footage. I am condemning the bias and editorial manipulation of the video by Wikileaks. I was trying to understand how the solders in the Apache could have made the errors.
The cover up and not releasing the video is bad and inexcusable.
The bias that Wikileaks showed in this case is also inexcusable. Their was no reason for except for manipulation. Are the acts equal? Nope. Do two wrongs make a right? No.
If Wikileaks had simply released the unedited video and hand not dramatized it then that would have been fine.
But do not excuse the press being manipulative just because you happen to believe that their point of view is correct.
How many historical examples do we need to get past the idea that the end justifies the means?

Re:there's another australian creator of edgy cont

[circletimessquare]

i thought aunty's penalty for serious crimes was exile into the desert outside bartertown

2nd kill autho was given on unarmed ppl

[Anonymous Coward]

07:59 "We have a black SUV-uh Bongo truck (van) picking up the bodies. Request permission to engage."

08:02 "Fuck"

08:06 "This is Bushmaster Seven, roger. This is Bushmaster Seven, roger. Engage."

http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/2010/04/05/a-press-conference-mankind-decides-his-future-one-eye-open/

Forget Julian Assange

[not_hylas( )]

Forget Julian Assange, he will never touch any of the inner workings of WikiLeaks simply because he's such a target.

As for Collateral Murder, the caveat is the attempted rescue [van] and the permission to engage, period.

Since when do we, the United States of America, fire upon anyone tending to the wounded?
[Don't give me that shit about "marked" ambulances - this was a war zone, yes, but also their neighborhood - think about].
Never, is the answer, and this is why it should be reviewed and changed, forbid as it once was.

It's Malfoy!

[Anonymous Coward]

He looks like Malfoy from Harry Potter. I can't take the guy seriously strictly due to that.

Read more, type less.

[carp3_noct3m]

Seriously LWATCDR you just need to try listening more and typing less. Its really my fault for browsing at +2, but I've seen your damn name and about 5 comments in the last 30 seconds, all with 1 paragraph quickies and attacking people. non of which were particularly thoughtful or helpful. And for the record, I'm a Iraq combat vet, and I could tell within the first 4 minutes of the vid that these guys were not the insurgents attacking the foot patrol. And, even if we grant that they mistook them for the same insurgents, it still violated every ROE I've ever heard of when they shot the van. I really hate it when our military guys get shown in such a bad light like this, but the world needs to see stuff like this so they stop forgetting what they have sent us to do. Too many people are love with the idea of war, but let me tell you it is nothing like you expect. The fact that we should not even be in Iraq in the first place is what makes tragedies like this even worse. Politicians send men to die for reasons they don't understand with consequences they can't foresee. For example, I bet many people to this day don't realize that by taking Saddam out of power, we have single-handedly given Iran the position of dominance in the Gulf. Newsflash, we already lost Iraq to Iran. The question is how far we, Isreal, and the Arabs let Iran go. Far too many people don't even understand the cultures they are talking about in regards to the middle east, but I can tell you one thing, none of them can be summed up easily. Complexity is the name of the game. I even admit I don't know shit compared to some people, but on my own quest to find out the truth's behind the past 9 years of American history have lead me to believe that before people like you open your mouths about subjects like this, you at least need to be semi-read up on the subject. I'm not saying you aren't, but you showed no substance in your previous posts, so next time, try reading more and typing less.

Re:Read more, type less.

[LWATCDR]

Actually you should read more.
My grip is with the edited version that Wikileaks has published. I feel it is biased as was the URL the posted it under. They are using emotional manipulation to push viewpoint. That is not how a news service works.

My defending the Apache crews really comes down to. I don't have all the data and I am not in the position too judge them. All I have to go on is the video. I am not going to damn anybody without having all the data. Your have a lot more experience than so your opinion of their actions should without a doubt hold more weight than mine.

What way to many people don't get or care is that I think that it is good that Wikileaks got and released this. I think it is terrible that they edited and added cometary that introduced bias to it. I am sick of news services and other groups feeling the need to "guide" public opinion through manipulation.
Wikileaks should have just released the unedited video under their standard URL with the title like video of the "Apache attack that resulted in the death of two journalists".
We the people need data and not manipulation and if you think wikileaks isn't trying to manipulate people then your mistaken.

My attacks reactions to people claiming that I have lost my humanity or don't care because I will not jump to judgment over the video and because I dare to point out how wikileaks is being manipulative. Funny thing is I just said they need to clean up their act.

Re:Read more, type less.

[carp3_noct3m]

I would have to agree with you that they definitely have a bias here, and really showed it with the short video, and they should have released just a completely unedited version. That being said, I think they do a good job, but as most people know they are having a hard time financially. It seems to me they wanted to use this as a stepping stone for media attention so they could get more of the funding they need. Not saying its right, but that seems to be their logic, the bias is not so much to affect public view (though it does) but to help gain them donations. I also commend you for suspending judgment, something done far too rarely these days, as neither do I judge them, but I can with an educated guess say that there needs to be a third party investigation into the matter. Previously wikileaks has release material with almost no explanation, this is the exception rather than the rule, so please don't dismiss them too quickly, as I find they provide an important service in a modern society.

Re:Read more, type less.

[LWATCDR]

As I said Wikileaks needs to clean up it's act. I didn't say ban them or arrest them but in more than one case I felt they where practicing yellow journalism. I will not rush to say why I think they are doing it but if your theory is right isn't it reprehensible to take something as seriously as this and inflate and manipulate it for fund raising? To post the video at the URL collateralmurder.com is prejudging this video!
If I didn't think they where at least a little worth while I would say that people should just not go there. My suggestion to them is to clean up their act, remove the bias and commentary, and still release the data. Let us decide for ourselves. Is that too much to ask or suggest?
I criticize manipulation when I see it. The problem is most people can not see it when the agree with it. Even I probably miss subtle bias when it follows my own world view but this was anything but subtle.

Re:there's another australian creator of edgy cont

[TapeCutter]

I lived in Oz for half a century, modern Australian society is more open and transparent than it has ever been. The "kooky stories about oppressive laws, internet filtering, censorship, etc", are mostly industrial strength bullshit surrounding a half truth. The only reason many of these stories exist is because Murdoch does not approve of our current government.

Shadow?

[YourExperiment]

The founder of WikiLeaks lives a secret life in the shadow of those who blow the whistle

If he was living in the shadow of the whistle-blowers, wouldn't they be up-front and well-known while Mr. Assange is shrouded in secrecy? Wouldn't this rather defeat the object of the site? Aren't things actually the other way around? Isn't the summary just talking crap?