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WikiLeaks Insiders Resign
Americano writes "Wired reports that at least six WikiLeaks insiders, including Daniel Domscheit-Berg, WikiLeaks' spokesman in Germany, have resigned in the past few weeks. Those who have spoken with Wired cite differences and disputes with Julian Assange, and his autocratic leadership style, as the motivation for their departure. From the article: 'Key members of WikiLeaks were angered to learn last month that Assange had secretly provided media outlets with embargoed access to the vast database, under an arrangement similar to the one WikiLeaks made with three newspapers that released documents from the Afghanistan war in July. WikiLeaks is set to release the Iraq trove on Oct. 18, according to ex-staffers — far too early, in the view of some of them, to properly redact the names of US collaborators and informants in Iraq.'"
Yes, the CIA has infiltrated WikiLeaks. Their agent is destroying the organization from the inside by posing as an attention-hungry egomaniac with an autocratic leadership style.
As someone with a business background and studying for my MBA (let the jokes begin), I find this type of thing fascinating.
This type of situation happens a lot in small business. Most successful smal businesses face failure when they make the hurdle to medium-sized businesses. They either end up folding,or going back to a smaller company.
To get a company up and running requires a certain personality -- very confident, very controlling. To successfully grow you need a staff around you that shares in the power and is trusted to make decisions. The original personality type fails in this regard. Either the person in charge must change his leadership style or the person in charge must change (i.e. get rid of him).
So from the 50.000 foot view, it seems like we have this situation at wikileaks. This is a shame as I think this type of organization can truly be a benefit to freedom and democracy.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
FTA: "When he quizzed Assange in an online chat, Assange responded by accusing Domscheit-Berg of leaking information about discontent within WikiLeaks to a columnist for Newsweek".
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
So you're saying they're lying and that the quotes from people who've resigned are false.
Well, fortunately, this is the web, I'm sure they and others will come out to counter these claims.
Right?
I mean, it couldn't be that the beloved wikileaks really is rotting from the inside out thanks to a paranoid, egomaniacal who believes he can run the project with an iron fist...
Actually, this is probably wikileaks decentralizing. These guys aren't idiots, there's quite a few PhDs and other savants on the team.
It rose from pretty much nothing, just a domain name. It can rise again as governmentleaks.com, etc. That's the internet. The site is too high profile now to be below the radar of politics. Instead they will release via bittorrent.
It's sad that the media still isn't doing their job and instead acting as shills to tarnish wikileaks. They are being used by the spin doctors. The media response is predictable. They could either go "why didn't we do that" or they can go "we would never do that, we're too professional". Which is the problem--this idea that educated journalism just rehashes what everyone else and the government is saying.
But when you look back in history you see the truely groundbreaking stories that really changed things (like tobacco, watergate, etc) were almost snuffed out by national security and governmental interference, put the reporters at risk of jail, and possibly even assassination attempts.
Yet they prevailed because the printing press enables them to copy their report and send to everyone and there's no way people can call it back. Now, obviously this great power requires responsibility, but in a case where the information is really telling about a war that they are asking us to vote for each year--telling in that it shows the government has lied to us to keep us voting for the war--I think that should come out. If soldiers should die because of the information release, remember who sent them over there to begin with. If they were safely at home it wouldn't be a problem now would it? Furthermore, if the information release leads to the war ending sooner, what about all the lives that will be saved?
Thus it's a bullshit ad-homium argument. "What about the troops?!" I can't believe we're so ignorant in this country that we believe we can have a war where no one dies except the enemy. And I have lots of friends in the military in various capacities, and none of them want to die, and most of them don't want to be there but they also know that it's their job. But the majority of them would give their life to end the war right now and bring all the rest home. I guarantee that.
So, wikileaks needs to decide if this is information that will help end the war, and cause political support for it to buckle in the US or not.
Now my little rant against: I, for one, want to know if I've been lied to. They are spending OUR MONEY (and our kids) on the war and they are asking for me to vote on it again. I want my vote to be based on the most true facts possible.
Cool! Amazing Toys.