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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."
Im not totally on Wikileaks side because they didn't take enough care to protect peoples names in the content they released. Its one thing to release content for the world to see but its another thing to get people killed by releasing it with out at least removing names. That totally turned me off from Wikileaks.
Well to be fair, Julian Assange is a massive douche mark.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Imagine you're an undercover cop infiltrating organized crime and wikileaks 'released' a confidential doc that included your picture, your name, your wife and children's name and your address. Now how would you feel? There's a reason some stuff is secret - It's because some asshat morons can't be trusted. Are some things secret that shouldn't be? Absolutely. Are some things secret for a reason? Also absolutely.
Its not really treason since the owner isn't from the US. He's Australian.
1. By that logic, then it's wouldn't really be against the law for America to have Assange killed.
2. It's against Australian law to reveal the secrets of Australia's allies.
100% of the time, information is classified to protects someone's ass.
I'm guessing you weren't on AA Flight 11 nine or so years ago.
I think Brazil turned out well...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Are you for real? That doesn't make any sense. Though I appreciate they probably did so with the best intentions, it does not make any sense for WikiLeaks to ask. It is gross stupidity, of the highest fucking order, on the grounds that the answer they would get is so very very obvious. They only reason I can see, apart from stupidity, is so that they can tell the world that the Pentagon refused to help them, bolstering support. What? You think WikiLeaks incapable of playing the PRopaganda game? Similarly, it would not make any sense for the Pentagon to help. In doing so they could potentially endangering more lives.
Consider what would happen if the Pentagon agreed to help them, and then claimed that 75% of it must be redacted to protect "innocent" lives? Either a) Wikileaks agree, and redact that 75%, or b) they publish the whole thing, or c) they decide for themselves what they're going to leave in or redact. (Oh, options b & c are the options they have now, by the way). Now, WikiLeaks knows which 75% of the documents that the US government cares about most, who they want to protect, and who they don't. That, in itself, is very valuable information.
What guarantees do the U.S. government have that the names/information that they ask to be redacted won't be leaked, on top of the original documents? None. What guarantees do they have that WikiLeaks hasn't already been compromised by some nefarious third-party? None.
You don't agree? Ok, assuming WikiLeaks are on the straight and level, what guarantees do the U.S. government have that the names they tell them to redact will never find their way into "The Wrong Hands". None. No matter how secure they claim to be. One compromised server, one leak from within WikiLeaks who thinks they're not going far enough, one person with a sick aunt who needs a cash injection from anywhere to pay for an operation and BAM! even more information has been exposed, i.e. the names/information the U.S. government wants to protect most out of those documents.
Anything else that they, the U.S. Government, do from now on is damage limitation. Letting the world know which portions of those documents that they care about the most would be stupidity. Not to mention incredibly irresponsible. So, pretty much, the only option they have is to try and stop these other documents being published.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Now, I respect the work that WikiLeaks does, or tries to do, but if they're incapable of self-editing to protect "the innocent", then they have no business leaking those documents. No matter the response from the Pentagon, WikiLeaks will always be bound to release precisely whatever they think is important or they end up being toothless minions of the Pentagon. Are they going to take on a liaison from the Pentagon as an editor/"fact"-checker?
Their unease is their own fault. Either they stick to releasing OT documents from the Cult of $cientology or they play with the big boys and run the risk of getting innocent people killed. If they are that fucking uneasy about publishing the documents they should delete them, shred them, burn them. If they think the documents are that bloody toxic, even having them around is endangering those lives, whether they wind up releasing them eventually or not.
Who the fuck is the American here? Assange is Australian, and is in Sweden. All the US Govt did was put him on a watch list.
Do you believe, for even a moment, that Australia took action independently of the US? Really? Are you genuinely unaware of the impact the US dollar has on the world economy? Really??
If you think he's such a great guy, then why has the Australian government banned a site created by one of their own? The US hasn't done anything close to that, they just put him on a watch list (it was a private company that chose not to do business with him - frankly, I wouldn't either).
And even if the guy was pedobear himself, what would that have to do with the content of his website? You can elect not to do business with him if you'd like, and this is perfectly fine, but to collude to restrict his ability to utilize banks is an entirely different manner.
Bigjeff5, you're really opposed to this guy all up and down this thread, but there's almost no substance here. You don't seem to be thinking through the things you're saying. Do you have a Swedish sister, by any chance? Does your paycheck come postmarked from Virginia? What's your interest in this, if not to participate in a discussion??