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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."
Religious people usually like to explain things using their "intuition", which basically can just be their imagination. Religious people tend to "create" reasons why the world is the way it is and then "believe" in those reasons they thought up; therefore, there is no real evidence for those beliefs. This is called rationalization. For example, I could say that I believe the world is two dimensional. There is no way to ever prove that. It just means I "created" an explanation.
Rationalize: the cognitive process of making something SEEM consistent with or based on reason. Key word is SEEM.
Here is a good example of this. Religious people will say that when a person has something good happen to them God has blessed them with a gift; although, nobody saw God bless the person or experience the act. This is how many religious people think. They "think" things up. They "create" explanations. They do not really understand what is REALLY happening. I mean, they do not see all of the circumstances that could have caused this person to have something good happen to them. It could just be a coincidence. Mary dropped a $100 bill and Joe picked it up. Joe is not blessed. Joe is lucky. Mary is unlucky. Or, if there is a God, Joe is blessed and Mary just got royally screwed.
I am not saying religious people are wrong, but apparently someone has to be wrong out of all the religions that exist. For all I know someone out there has a direct link to God and I am totally clueless. But I would think that if God wanted me to believe in him or her, he or she would let me in on the secret. After all, that is the best way to get someone to believe in you. Hiding yourself from someone is not very efficient.
Personally, I do not believe in God because of genetic mutations that cause children to be born crippled. Additionally, I do not believe in God because of viruses that kill other living things on a continual basis.
In my honest opinion, people should not attempt to rationalize reality. Science can help explain WHAT is happening, not always WHY. There are many people out there who RATIONALIZE reality using scientific fact. Trying to explain WHY something is happening can become rationalization. Religious people AND some atheists do this. For example, some atheists believe science explains WHY reality is the way it is, when the WHY is just a RATIONALIZATION. Basically, people in general are guilty of this, atheist or religious. Science should only be used to explain WHAT is happening so that it can be applied in the future. It should not attempt to explain WHY because then it falls into the same fallacy of religious mysticism.
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
At this point, is US government hatred of freedom and democracy even news?
Wikileaks is a great project, but its not too clear how people can help them.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
If they post classified information that is going to compromise sources and result in the deaths of Afghan civilians and US/coalition soldiers, then they shouldn't be surprised to find themselves on a watch list. Hell, they got off easy. They deserve criminal charges filed against them.
They continue to shoot the messenger. It wouldn't surprise me if the intelligence community turned that phrase literal.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Plenty of stories repeat this "official US watchlist" phrase, but without providing details. What watchlist? What's it called? How does it work?
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.
Why doesn't this guy just yell "Banzai", leak out the rest of the documents, and survive for 5 minutes while hundreds of copies are made on the internet?
At this point its just pointless bickering, if this guy releases the rest of what he's got, the US will have no real interest in him anymore I would think - because even if he 'mysteriously dies when his server mysteriously explodes', the copies of the document would have still been spread around like wildfire.
*message redacted*
You've got such beautiful hair! You look like such a daring revolutionary. I hope they don't muss it up when you are in prison.
For now you can send donations by snail mail to:
Julian Assange
c/o Julian Assange, Sr.
The Pearl
Secret Wikileaks Island
Post Box #3
Decoder Ring Engraving A
Australia
No wait, Norway
Er, maybe Iceland
The World
When you take on a government or collection of governments to expose secrets and threaten their national security they will get angry.
I don't agree or disagree with Wikileaks or America or Australia. Governments are just like any other organization: they will preserve themselves at the cost of others.
I'm sure Wikileaks will be fine, secure funding and find other ways to continue receiving donations.
What did they think would happen? They released documents that put Afghan civilians and US troops at risk. This isn't protecting democracy, it's treason. Wikileaks is giving aid to the enemy. The founder should be in prison, and slashdot is whining about the donation page getting shut down?
I can get behind Wikileaks, but not Assange. He is egotistical tool.
Gone!
Probably should\n't have been baiting them. If you are going to release documents, the release them. Don't wave them around going nyner nyner, looky what I got.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
It is funny (and, in a way sad) that the same country that sponsored all those radio stations I used to listen to as a young girl for (freedom-)free information during the Cold war years from behind the Iron curtain is now trying to stomp out a website that does exactly the same.
Ah, dreams of my youth, when did you wither away?
I have noticed that the US government is really taking the wrong approach to this, personally, whenever I hear about wikileaks in the news I always go and browse there for a while (and if I had the cash I'm donate), but otherwise I honestly don't even remember its there.
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.
said the company in a statement,
it has nothing to do with we could be abused as a gateway for quietly laundering illicit gains from various criminal activities (financial scams need a payment processor right?) from around the globe, keeping under the noses of the tax collectors and serious crime investigators audits all while skimming off parts of these transactions (almost like free money) under the banner of "its not us officer, it was one of our customers so we are in the clear right ?"
no it must be Wikileaks that got us on the blacklist ..
This would be the perfect opportunity to show the world what Bitcoin can do (or what it can't).
Western Union.
10 out of 10 Nigerian Scammers agree.
When your property rights and access to financial transactions exist at the whim of government you don't really have other rights.
Mais We, welcome to the Brave New World of 1984!
Creating a list of companies & people, and then grabbing their assets is called a "Bill of Attainder"
This is illegal under Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution.
I can not say more or I would be subject to such a bill.
that make the strong case for hundreds or thousands of sites like wikileaks. centralization (and their egotistical leader) may be their downfall.
I don't like him at all. 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. Now that doesn't mean that his actions are ultimately bad, you can very well feel that indeed this release DOES serve the public interest. I just don't think HIS reasons are the good ones he claims.
They really need a more moral spokesman, 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.
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. That degrades Wikileaks as a whole.
Unfortunately it is his baby, so I don't really think anyone can kick him out and 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. Who release secrets only because they need to be released, not just because they happen to have gotten their hands on them.
you want unless its *redacted* or *redacted* or *redacted,*but especially not *redacted.*
My brother, a combat medic, was with a group that was being attacked. He was in the room when a sergeant told a soldier to stick his head out the window to see what was up. The kid stuck his head out the window and got a bullet to the face, and the sergeant turned without a word and walked into the other room. My brother had to clean the mess up.
If you google the name of the deceased soldier the reports say he was killed by an IED. His family does not know the truth of how he died.
Talk to any soldier that has seen action and ask them if they saw anything get covered up, I'm willing to bet you won't find any soldier who has been deployed that can say "no".
....if not they should be.
I can get behind Wikileaks, but not Assange. He is egotistical tool.
Character assassination: Done and done!
Now instead of focusing on the issue, you will parrot out the "the spokesperson is bad, we must not listen" line every time wikileaks is mentioned. You don't even say why you believe what you say, you probably don't even know yourself that you only believe it because of a campaign of repetition in the media made you absorb this baseless meme.
You can't take the sky from me...
Remember guys that the government that was installed in Chile with a lot of US help was the same one that later set off a car bomb in Washington D.C. to get rid of an exiled political opponent.
No trial, no hearing, no law, just the same old anti American action taken by an arm of government.
This just proves more than ever that Wikileaks is right, it's in the right and the US government is wrong.
US government is wrong about the economics, it's wrong about policy, it's wrong about politics, it's pretty much wrong on everything at this point, I don't think it can be redeemed.
You can't handle the truth.
Do you actually use the word "Ya" in real life or is it just for the internet?
I guess the US is just discrete about trying to overthrow (or prop-up) governments...
The French and British mostly just sent over the troops (see the history of the middle east conflicts like the suez canal in egypt, vietnam, cambodia, ivory coast, central africa, rwanda, chad, iran, iraq, mexico, etc, etc).
Even the french provided covert aid to the US colonies to overthrow the government and install a new government...
I guess the rule is don't write things down ;^)
What are they using this service for? How much money was in there and if it was more than nothing, why were they letting it sit there? Does any money in there get returned, or just get forwarded to the MI6 Reptile Fund? Or do Moneybookers.com get to keep it for services rendered?
Also, aren't there 100s of similar companies offering escrow/online wallets/donation and payment collection services? And surely aren't some of those companies friendly ones, based in places that have warm climates and friendly tax laws, with friendly managers who look the other way? Who would quite happily file correspondence from the US Government in their shredder?
Given that there are people willing to donate money to Wikileaks, I can't believe that being shut out by one or two donation/payment services is that much of a show-stopper. Is the reach and competence of the US really so vast that it can prevent any international commerce that conflicts with its interests?
I don't know where you are getting all this from. There are several occasions when I would have been in the same room as Mr Assange yet never noticed him or even heard of him until wikileaks.
It's quite funny really hearing the bit about a more moral spokesman when half of the USA is listening in wonder to the deranged words of a former cocaine addict on Fox.
the hate america firsters are in a uproar. good. people that commit espionage are spies and should be treated as such. and NO the world does'nt need to know. if palistinian state secrets where published you people would be screaming to holy hell about privacy. and another thing,arrest the traitor and try him and all his cohorts. you cant have it both ways regards, mike
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
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-054.htm
Love the "UNCLASSIFIED" yet censored documents. Don't you?
AIUI, those documents contain the names of people in Afghanistan who are giving information to the US. Publishing the documents without redacting the names tells the Taliban exactly who to kill. Does that answer your question?
Publishing the names without redacting them WOULD HAVE told the Taliban who to kill. But they DID REDACT AS MANY NAMES AS THEY COULD.
You can't take the sky from me...
Julian has his own creepy fanboy stalker to worry about.
Julian's inbox is probably littered with mash notes from Scrameustache.
Julian really ought to get a protective order.
That if you live by the sword, expect to get cut.
Better to leak the info anonymously,
than to stand in a puddle of blood.
Rick B.
Oh, thank goodness.
I read that as erotic poisons . and was getting kind of worried about my upcoming trip to Chernobyl
Captcha: accuracy
To me, this is just an organization pirating information using the digital age. While I don't condone it, I also don't condemn it, or the defense against it. I welcome responses, of course.
The reality is that they are funded by the CIA so I doubt money is really an issue.
Ok well that's piqued my interest, never intended on donating before, now I do. How can I go about this?
Doh.
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.
Moneybookers is also popular with people who scam auction sites as a "alternative to paypal" So no story here.
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. We made them a threat because Truman was afraid without a strong enemy our economy would stagnant like it is now (e.g. all the wealth gathered into the hands of 1% of the populace). In his own sick little way he was helping the average joe by creating what we call the Military Industrial Complex.
As for 'Soviet style communism', Russia never was a communist country. It was a dictatorship using Marx's Rhetoric. For Americans communism == socialism == evil stuff we learned about in school. Thing is, all that 'socialism' is the only thing between the average American and the 'nasty, brutal and short' life of the 1800s. Maybe you're one of the 'haves'. Maybe you've got a trust fund and you're set for life. But if not, you're a freakin' idiot, and you're part of the problem. The socialists want to protect you (and themselves, they're realists, not altruists). The capitalists want to grind you into hamburger. Of course, you're probably too busy planning on being they guy cranking the grinder to notice they've got your arm in it.
Moron.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Oh, wait.
So what if a website decides to post the tech manuals of some counter-IED equipment that may allow an enemy to defeat it? _YOU_ are not going to be riding around Afganistan or Iraq in a vehicle that could have an EFP go tearing thru it, maybe take both your legs with it if you're lucky, or cut you clean in two if you aren't. Its someone else, or someone else's kid / husband / daugter / father / mother. YOU don't have anything to worry about. No sir, not a problem for you...
those documents contain the names of people in Afghanistan who are giving information to the US.
So what? these quislings accepted money from a foreign country intelligence organisation (and armed protection from an occupation army) to rat on their own countrymen. They knew how such behaviour is seen in their society: they are traitors to all afghani people.
If they want to complain now, they should take it up with the CIA folks who promised them anonymity.
Hopefully one day you will criticize China and get a bullet in the head for it.
Don't get in a pissing match with an entity that is full of it.
Keep Doing Good.
New security update for Java today: 6u22, critical so you now get Carbonite slamware instead of Bing!
For your convenience, here's a spam-free win32 Java installer: Deep link to jre-6u22-windows-i586.exe or start clicking here for other platforms (last page before the cookiewall).
Now that Java is officially owned by pure evil , and installs quickstarters all over your OS and browser, consider it deprecated.
The fact is Wikileaks serves a good purpose. Unlike what so many people want you to believe Wikileaks doesn't have an "US agenda".
They have systematically leaked information on all sort of cases such as corporate wrong doings, political corruption and so on from all over the world and all sorts of nations.
The irony is if the leaked documents and the registered wrong doings were from other not so democratic nations those criticizing Wikileaks would probably have a different position now.
Wikileaks may be controversial but still the information they post is the truth and provides a valuable service so that the people realize what is really going on backstage.
I fail to understand why so many fail to mention other valuable information Wikileaks leaked over the time and that had such a positive impact. Stuff like the documents of "Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Extra Judicial Killings and Disappearances".
In this day and age people are so used to consume information in quick bursts and never get deep into what everything is really all about.
If there is a cool guy on TV that has such a good argument against Wikileaks thousands simply accept his view and don't even care about getting the facts straight.
I urge people to at least read the Wikileaks page on Wikipedia to get a grasp of what this guys have made over the years and what they had to deal with.
And please, pay the site a visit at least while its available and make your own conclusions.
Many people may not feel comfortable with the US leaked documents, but so what? It is part of history.
What you should be more worried about is in protecting your freedom, and democracy. You should not take anything for granted. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance". Wikileaks may not be perfect, but it does help YOU in your vigilance.
Some examples.
2008 Peru Oil Scandal, Toxic dumping in Africa and so on and on and on
This is a grave day for democracy, but instead of bemoaning the known failure of the US to uphold democracy, and the known failure of WL being perfect in all that they do, what should be done on a financial level? The first obvious thing would be to spread out the finances - Send some of it to Norway, Finland, Switzerland, New Zealand, and others that have more trusted governments. An investor knows to spread the risk, and unfortunately it looks like Wikileaks will have to learn as well.
"Please stop quoting me. Not everything I say is some witty quotation." -- Mark Twain
Shoot the messenger! Seriously. The message makes us look bad. Shoot the messenger! American democracy ends at the water. Rule of law ends at the shoreline. Outside of the US, the American Government is free to break any law to get whatever it wants, since it does not respect or even consider any other countries laws, and strongly favors the "Might makes right" rule. Wikileaks gets the truth out. The US Government doesn't need anyone telling the truth. Even if no harm is done by Wikileaks, its the idea that someone is telling the truth.
I'd find it much easier to respect wikileaks if they spent more time "leak[ing] information on all sort of cases such as corporate wrong doings, political corruption and so on" and less time just poking governments they dislike. That 'collateral murder' video is what did it for me; there wasn't even a hint of impartiality there and I'm not sure who was supposed to gain from the release of that video with that commentary. Though, on the other hand, perhaps that got them the big burst of publicity and therefore funding that they needed to carry on. But would that just make them no better than those they're 'reporting' on?
MOD PARENT UP!
For Christ's sake all the US Govt did was put him on a watch list, which is entirely understandable, given the fact that he facilitated the theft of a large number of confidential military documents.
I call bs on that, he didn't facilitate anything! publishing the information is somewhat different from stealing it in the first place
Who said anything about the sequence of censoring and unclassifying, dumbass?
Personally, I find the juxtaposition of terms "unclassified" (as in no longer secret) and the action of censoring parts of the document to be hilarious.
See, it is no longer secret. Mostly.
There's a big difference between mostly secret and all secret. Mostly secret is slightly free (as in information).
With all secret, well, with all secret there's usually only one thing you can do.
Suck it up. Real hard.
when he starts picking on nations known to remove people who offend them. He picks on a target that cannot afford to take him down. While the US has its flaws it is far far from being the worst of the lot when it comes to the strong countries of this world. The difference is that most of the others would have no fear of dealing with him.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The weird thing is that there are the people like the parent poster who complains bitterly that they edited out stuff from the video and others complaining bitterly that Wikileaks didn't edit the documents enough.
Neither case holds water, since the full video is available and there was no editing out of anything that makes a difference to the message from the video and there's no evidence that anyone was harmed or outed even from the names in the documents.
WL's problem is that they've outed the USA.
MB's actions do not surprise me. The question is, did MB hang onto the funds currently in the Wikileaks account with them, like they did with me?
For me, it was just some hundreds of pounds, but I'm not rich. The excuse of MB: the person sending me money was fraudulently pretending to be an individual when they were in fact a charity!
This was utter nonsense as was explained in long and clear detail. The first name of the person concerned is Charity, so the payment was listed as coming from Charity XYZ. Similar transactions had been made several times before with no querying, so this reaction from MB was clearly fraudulent on their part.
Moneybookers just looks for excuses to freeze or close down accounts without notice, and then keep as much money as they can lay their hands on.
[AC because saying 'rude' things about MB.]
Your sig -- do you mean Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits, or the fictional Buddy Noone? And why would either of those guys write a nerd joke, anyway?
Free Martian Whores!
"The fact is Wikileaks serves a good purpose."
No, it doesn't, not when it publishes things like tech manuals for counter-IED jammers in use in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. It is the same as handing the enemy a bazooka to use on an approaching armored personnel carrier full of US troops. They'll use that info to tune their IED radio controlled triggers outside the frequency bands that they now know can be jammed by the jammer with its tech manual online, and possibly kill you, if you're a soldier in Iraq or Afganistan, or maybe your friend / husband / wife / father / mother / son / daughter.
Doing stuff like posting secret technical deetails of defensive weapons totally negates any other good they may be doing. It is the lowest of the low of things that they could be doing online.
Not to trivialize the loss of life on 9/11, but to the country as a whole, the destruction of the economy / creation of huge debt / restriction of freedoms is the most damaging result of the attack.
I heard that some people still believed the Vietnam war propaganda, I just never heard anyone say it before. I could write pages here about how wrong you are but I have the feeling it is going to have to be simple. So here is a very very very simple explanation of why Vietnam was a fuckup, in the form of a very very very simple timeline.
Ho Chi Minh wrote a letter to US president Truman asking for help in their colonial independance war.
Diplomacy and foreign policy
US drops 6.7 million tons of explosives on Vietnam and its neighbours (its neighbours for god sake? Why?)
US realises that bombs are no match for a civilian population that will never give up, and pulls out.
US Gov. 11th commandment:
Thou shall not know
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
He's an aussie, aussie guys fooling around with foreign girls when away from home is not a coincidence, its a proud tradition. However
its a tradition that perhaps Swedish women dont appreciate.
Well, they tried framing Assange for rape, and saw it didn't work.
Now, they try to harass the bank getting the donations, and once they see that doesn't work, well..
They might indeed move toward more classic methods as the poison-tipped shoe.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
So an organization leaks your governments classified documents, who do you think would possibly fund such an organization?
I'm not debating the 'right' or 'wrong', just pointing out that this move to put them on a watchlist just seems like a common sense response from any government.
Some governments would do alot worse, and not recieve nor care about any 'public outrage'.
Good. America should bomb wikileaks next.
Knowingly receiving stolen property makes you accessory after the fact.
True enough in most western cultures with regard to tangible goods. However what was "stolen" and then received by Wikileaks was information and the quote does not apply to it.
I suppose you could argue that it is "intellectual property", but then you have to face the question of who is the legal owner of the leaked material when there is an established history that writings developed by USA agencies funded by taxpayer money are part of the public domain. How the courts should apply that principle in this day and age is something that no government agency wants to test. Up and down the hierarchy, each manager, drone, and workerbee wants to be able to copyright the PowerPoint presentations they produce. The USA could claim that the leaked documents were intellectual property and governed by the copyright laws... that would be farcical.
Perhaps more to the point, this situation parallels the handling of hidden information by investigative reporters and their publishers. What Wikileaks has done is fully legal under USA laws and I believe under all European laws. Otherwise arrests would certainly have already been made.
Will
You can't punch someone in the face multiple times, then call yourself a victim when they punch you back. When Wikileaks changed from a neutral harbor to an anti-American spin machine I stopped caring about them. Wikileaks should go back to neutrality and leave the sensationalism and slant to the media.
or else!
The revolution was (and always is) toppling of government by a small group of armed "revolutionaries". US intervened and locals are grateful that it did [1], not to mention it was sponsored by Cuba in the first place.
[1] - I asked them personally.