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Wikileaks Donations Account Shut Down
Scrameustache writes "The whistleblowing group WikiLeaks claims that it has had its funding blocked and that it is the victim of financial warfare by the US government. Moneybookers, a British-registered internet payment company that collects WikiLeaks donations, emailed the organisation to say it had closed down its account because it had been put on an official US watchlist and on an Australian government blacklist. The apparent blacklisting came a few days after the Pentagon publicly expressed its anger at WikiLeaks and its founder, Australian citizen Julian Assange, for obtaining thousands of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan."
At this point, is US government hatred of freedom and democracy even news?
The best way is to set up a nonpartisan, unbiased website that releases such documents without the ridiculous commentary and shifty editing.
Assange has done a severe disservice to WL with his emphasis on injecting over the top editorial into the stories on the site.
get people killed by releasing it with out at least removing names
Who? Has anyone documented a case where this happened? from what I read WL were pretty careful in vetting the material.
Without names and places this is FUD.
Three Squirrels
I hear that said, but I hear politicians say these kinds of things all the time - PROVE to me that someone(s) got hurt/killed due to this release and I may feel otherwise, but for now, I believe they are being targeted for "pissing off" the powers that be.
The US government is keeping so many facts and events classified, it simply can not function as a democratic government anymore.
When people don't have access to important information, they can't vote correctly. And when they can't vote correctly, the government can't make the right decisions. I understand sometimes secrecy is necessary for safety, but too much simply kills a democracy. Wikileaks is the expression of that idea, as they fight the excessive secrecy of governments and try to provide citizens with information that citizens should have.
Arguably though, the best way to avoid putting Afghan civilians and US troops out of harm is to have US troops go back to the US.
My feeling exactly. Wikileaks has conflated the public "right to know" with an imaginary "need to know," and decided that this right is more important than the lives of the people named in the documents. IMAO, they've consistently shown a complete lack of common sense and a reckless disregard for the danger they're exposing people to. The fact that something is classified as Secret or Top Secret isn't enough of a reason to leak it; it should only be leaked (Again, IMAO.) if it's been classified for all the wrong reasons. Yes, we all know of times when things have been classified because that's the easiest way to cover up mistakes, and things like that deserve leaking, but leaking the names and locations of people who are helping the US to fight terrorists is Simply Wrong.
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Its not really treason since the owner isn't from the US. He's Australian.
If you put it that way, leaking ANY information about ANYONE should be illegal? Why should he be in prison? As far as I know, no law was broken.
The US soldier who leaked the information in the firstplace - yes, you could call that treason. And yes that's illegal.
99.9% of the time, information is classified in order to protect a source (human, etc)..
[Citation Needed]
Information is also classified when you want to perform atrocities or "its not good for morale", or its dissemination will cause the main plan not to work.
The My Lai Massacre was 'classified' for a year or so before it became public knowledge.
The names in the leaked documents aren't half as important as the actions they committed.
I'm totally on Wikileaks side. I know it's PC to damn Wikileaks for accidentally releasing some names in the 75,000 reports that were leaked recently, but I find it's always good to keep some perspective. The wars in the middle east have cost tens of thousands of lives, and part of the reason they're still going is the tight lipped attitude of the government with regards to any kind of transparency. If the administration weren't in the habit of releasing reports that are entirely blacked out, or flat out refusing FOIP requests altogether, then the task of providing a clear picture of how the war is progressing wouldn't befall a volunteer organization like Wikileaks. And when Wikileaks requested the help of the Pentagon in redacting the names, that request was of course ignored.
Perhaps some people suffered as a result of that leak, but I find that no more tragic than the dozens of people who die to IED's and suicide bombings every other day in those same countries.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
They released documents that put Afghan civilians and US troops at risk.
No, they released documents that showed that US policy routinely massacres Afghan civilians and puts US troops at risk.
The pentagon said "releasing these documents puts the lives of the people we bomb at risk", it's transparent bullshit, but the sheeple say "baaaa". Do you remember that lil' Vietnamese girl that got napalmed and then spectacularly photographed, and the pentagon spent over a decade saying she got burned in a kitchen mishap? Did you believe their kitchen mishap cover story as much as you believe their "the truth is the enemy" cover story?
Remember how they told you Pat Tillman was shot by Taliban, and it turns out there were no Taliban there that day? Did you believe them when they told you a soldier in Afghanistan was shot by Taliban? Was it a believable lie?
How about the cute little blonde soldier that got knocked out in an attack on her convoy and the pentagon said she had fought valiantly to the last bullet of her sidearm, they attacked a hospital that had been trying to hand her over to "rescue" her, made up stories about the Iraqis treating her badly... did you believe that too?
Don't you think you should be less gullible and more informed?
This isn't protecting democracy, it's treason.
Yeah! Those Swedes are committing treason in the united states by letting that Aussie publish those documents! TREASON! And you don't sound like an idiot at all when you say that. Not at all.
You can't take the sky from me...
result in the deaths of Afghan civilians and US/coalition soldiers
Wikileaks has killed no one, the people accusing them of doing so have killed tens of thousands: Use your head, figure out the FUD.
You can't take the sky from me...
No, by editing video before releasing it. If wikileaks is about leaking information so the truth can be heard, it behooves them to release the *whole* truth, not just the parts they think are the most titillating.
They continue to shoot the messenger. It wouldn't surprise me if the intelligence community turned that phrase literal.
I would be surprised: The US has long become more sophisticated than that. They understand that if you create a martyr, you could still be hearing about it two thousand years later. It's better to discredit them, make people think they're a narcissist, that they're reckless, that they're a rapist. Cut their funding, turn their friends against them, that's the kind of things I expect from the US; Straight up assassination I expect from Russians, their idea of subtlety is "exotic poisons".
You can't take the sky from me...
The radio stations of which you speak were a propaganda tool
Well, to those who listened to them, they were mostly a very valuable alternative source of information, and a strong message that it can be free ;)
It is the loss of this message that makes me sad, because it is a worthy ideal to have.
meant to weaken the communism regimes and recruit internal supporters.
Haha. I like this phrasing, it is straight out of the newspapers on the other side. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now. The "recruit internal supporters" part is not even interesting to comment.
As for "weaken the regime", well, any regime that does things, which it wants to hide, deserves all the exposure and "weakening" it can handle.
US government was smart enough to realize that exposing "bad" information is a powerful weapon.
They ought to be smart enough to realize that trying to stomp bad news out will work as well for them, as it worked for the evil communists.
I don't like him at all.
Shoot the messenger! SHOOT THE MESSENGER!
I believe he is doing things for the wrong reason. He isn't releasing all this classified information because it is for the public good, he is doing it because it is an ego trip and makes him important, and because it hurts the US and he doesn't like the US.
Why, specifically, do you believe that?
I just don't think HIS reasons are the good ones he claims.
I don't think you know why you think that.
They really need a more moral spokesman
One that hasn't been accused of rape, only to have the accusation taken away in less than 24 hours bu not before it made the news?
and they need to get some rules that they follow for what they do and don't release. If the rule is "Any and everything," ok fine but make that up front and known. Say "We release anything, without regard for what harm that it may cause or if the information is of value to the public." However if that's not what you want to do, if you want to decide if things are important enough to release and to try to not cause any harm, then that's fine too, but you need to have a policy to that effect and stick to it. In the case of the classified cables that would mean only releasing those that showed something of public interest, and redacting names and so on. Ya that's a lot of work but that is what it takes to be responsible about it.
That is exactly what Wikileaks has been doing. The pentagon claims they haven't, but that's just a lie. You believed that lie, unfortunately.
As it stands Assange seems to want to play at being the good guy, but he's just a jackass that likes to pump his ego and get egg on teh face of those he doesn't like.
What do you base that on?
he's way too egotistical to realize that it would be much better off if he stepped down.
I do think the world needs things like Wikileaks, however it needs them run by people who actually care about the public good.
Yeah, look at some of the non-public-good, egotistical things he's done: Starting around 1997 he co-invented "Rubberhose deniable encryption," a cryptographic concept made into a software package for Linux designed to provide plausible deniability against rubber-hose cryptanalysis,[13] which he originally intended "as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field."[14] Other free software that he has authored or co-authored includes the Usenet caching software NNTPCache
Open source software to protect human rights worker? What a narcissistic jerk!
You can't take the sky from me...
unlike you, I'm adult enough
Calling me "not an adult" is not the action of an adult. You now say you dislike "their actions" but those actions are fictions. Grow up and learn to admit your mistake; when you believed and repeated a lie you were told, once you've learned that it was a lie, stop defending it.
And stop being the kind of petty little shit that moves the goalposts to "what my bile was directed at", you know damn well that's irrelevant, what's important is "was wikileaks reckless or diligent". The truth is they redacted documents for review in order to avoid causing harm to innocents, the lie is that they didn't. You believed and repeated and are now defending the lie, you should be ashamed of yourself.
You can't take the sky from me...
The simplest explanation usually the correct one....
The problem with your assumptions is that you assume the US government is WAY more capable and competent than it actually is.
What is closer to the truth Assange is a reckless narcisstic jackass who got put on watchlists for leaking US intelligence, along the way
he probably pissed off some women with his narcisstic jackass ways which caused them to accuse him of various misdeeds. Moneybookers cut him off because Moneybookers is a company based in Bahrain about to do an IPO and does not need the drama that his pitifully small accounts brings with them. Moneybookers wants to do things that are far less likely to bring them trouble like online gambling, international money transfers,etc,etc
http://www.ecommerce-journal.com/node/30006
He helped the enemy fight us (attacking the will to fight a war is just as useful as killing soldiers or sabotaging material)
Oh hell fucking no. You didn't just go there. I won't argue whether the action of the soldier was justified or not, because that's a story for a different thread. But to argue that merely providing information that tarnishes the image of the country as being the same as actively sabotaging installations and killing people is exactly what lead to the Kent State shootings, and enabled Hitler to rise to power in Germany.
That argument is bullshit of the highest degree, because it not only makes it impossible to have a rational discussion about a war, but it also is a pretext to qualify anybody who questions the war as being a legitimate target for killing. I have seen the effects of that kind of logic, and it directly leads to killing anybody who is deemed objectionable by the one in power.
Get the fuck out my country. You are the enemy.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
After WWII Russia didn't even have enough fuel to drive their tanks home, they used Horses & Mules. Russia never was and never would be a threat to anyone.
Boom! Irrefutable logic. The USSR had so little fuel (or poor supply lines) that they couldn't drive their tanks home in 1945. Ergo, they were completely powerless between 1945 and 1992. I heard that Khrushchev did *not* in fact go to the United Nations and declare that "We will bury you". And since the Soviet Union didn't have enough fuel in 1945, it's obvious that they didn't launch Sputnik into space, didn't have nuclear weapons, and didn't have ICBMs. It's all fiction - how could a country lacking in fuel in 1945 possibly get all those other things? Hellllll, I bet the Soviet Union didn't even have enough fuel to get Khrushchev to the UN in the first place!
As for 'Soviet style communism', Russia never was a communist country.
Even if it was true, it's totally, utterly irrelevant. The Soviet Union wasn't a threat because it wasn't a "true" communist country?