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UK Asks News Outlets Not To Publish WikiLeaks Bombshell, US Prepares For Fallout
Stoobalou writes "The UK government has issued Defense Advisory Notices to editors of UK news outlets in an attempt to hush up the latest bombshell from whistle-blowing web site WikiLeaks. DA Notices, the last of which was issued in April 2009 after sensitive defense documents were photographed using a telephoto lens in the hand of Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick as he arrived at No 10 Downing Street for a briefing, are requests not to publish, and therefore not legally enforceable."
This news comes alongside a raft of articles detailing the US government's preparations for the release. Officials are warning allies that the documents will be more damaging than previous releases, to the point of potentially damaging diplomatic relations with countries like Turkey. The Vancouver Sun wonders if this will lead to a change in the way diplomats communicate.
I'm of two minds on this one. Private communications from diplomats to their masters at home are often rather brutally honest, as they have to be. To leak, intentionally, such communications is a risky venture. Think Franco-Prussian War here for a good example of just that sort of thing.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Hello Censorship, my old friend,
You used to be suppressed by Free Media. But now I think you're needed again. People shouldn't know everything - especially if the truth will hurt them. In fact, people knowing things is stopping us from doing whatever we want - without any bad reprecussions.
Lots of Love
Me.
That's kind of backwards. He's part of an organisation which doesn't think certain stuff should be covered up. This latest release is a case it point. It's going to embarass governments by showing them lying, trying to outdo each other etc. People are trying to shut him up by engaging him in pointless lawsuits. It'll make no difference; wikileaks is bigger than him.
I can't see the Guardian agreeing to this.
If Wikileaks can get this stuff, imagine what foreign intelligence agencies can do. The U.S. government needs security proportional to the value of the data.
Awwww. We still love him because he's exposing whatever they are that you're defending so valiantly. Guess what? People are tired from deceitful governments, and if a government is so scared of having something exposed; chances are it needs to be exposed.
That's insane... What is there to hide people?
This made me think about how funny it is that they tell us only criminals have something to hide when they screw our privacy. Now when we screw their privacy, they turn it all the way around and we are the criminals again.
The US always acts in its own best interests. It never acts in the best interests of others.
So explain the invasion of Iraq.
This is exactly the point that needs to be made:
Assange? He could be a pedophile rapist who is completely self centered and arrogant and a total douchebag about it all - or he could be a living saint ---
Point is, it has no bearing on whats going on. He is simply doing his job as a journalist - and it has nothing to do with him. Could he be doing it for personal gains? Yes. Could he just be inflating his ego by doing all this? Absolutely.
None of it matters. What matters is that the story is getting out. If the government is going to ensure that YOU can't keep secrets, by harmful body scanners, deep packet inspection, warrant-less searches - why on Earth should we listen to a "Defense Advisory Notice" to keep THEIR secrets? If we have nothing to hide, they should have nothing to hide, simple as that.
I am perfectly fine with the government controlling the media, as long as they respect my privacy and stay the eff out of my life.
An agency such as yours must treat all the information it has with equal priority -- it is the only way to be neutral and unbiased. Otherwise you risk undermining the confidence of people everywhere -- the same people you rely on to effect the tangible changes that we all desire. Herein now lies the current problem with wikileaks.org. You have at some point taken your previous database entirely offline. Before you became well known you were a nexus of information on nations around the globe. Now, there is access only to Iraq Diaries and Afghan Logs. A google search on wikileaks for Asia, Africa, and Europe reveals thousands of documents previously linked to that are now inaccessible. These must be restored immediately.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Although this is possible, there are other bigger issues. For example, with regard to Turkey, there is fear that it will be revealed that both the U.S. and Turkey are secretly doing things that they publicly say they are not -- Turkey helping Al-Qaeda militants in Iraq, and the United States helping Iraq-based Kurdish rebels fighting Turkey. Which is exactly why these things need to be exposed.
The people in the US and UK are routinely subjected to various kinds of surveillance and scrutiny - like the US warrant-less wiretaps and TSA peep-shows - and told by our governments and pundits, "If you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to hide." I say that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. I suspect our governments have been very bad at times and indeed have things to hide - not only from others, but from their own people.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Such as the video they labeled "Collateral Murder"?
Do you know what the word "pretext" means?
I'll type it slowly: if you go to war ostensibly over a memo, then you were already going to war. The memo just came along at a convenient time.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If you are smart enough to quote Jefferson you should be smart enough to know how the US defines treason and why it wouldn't apply in this particular case....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The last release was marketed as definitive proof that the US military actively practiced murder.
No. The last release was definitive proof that the US military condoned torture. You're thinking of the Collateral Murder video, which was about four releases ago (you know... BEFORE the two largest military leaks in history).
Particularly they do not want it known to their own voting citizenry, or more likely, their despotic royal subjects...
I say kudos to Wikileaks, if just for getting all of these phony US "freedom" and "democracy" "defenders" to show their true, heavily fascist-tinged, imperial colors!
But then again outfits like the TSA are already doing a splendid job of rubbing off all of the thin veneer of pretend "liberties" from the true, viciously authoritarian nature of the majority of the modern US populace. Sometimes I think that all those veterans of WWII must be better off already dead because this belated victory of the Axis ideology that the US (and many of its "allies") succumbed to would have been too much for them to bear.
Wikileaks used to feature leaks from all over the world, big and small. Truth and transparency for their own sake motivated the organization. In this capacity, Wikileaks might have been a force for good.
But a few years ago, Julian Assange (who is as autocratic as the rumors indicate) and his ilk abandoned the original goals of the organization to wage a political war against the United States. Wikileaks launched a massive fundraising effort, then started to ignore documents from the general public. Most telling is that the operators let the submission system stay broken for months at a time: if your leak doesn't harm the United States, Wikileaks isn't interested.
Today's Wikileaks uses methods that the old Wikileaks would have found deplorable: these include a strict internal hierarchy, deceptive video editing, spin-heavy public statements, marketing-driven timing, purity tests, and blackmail. Whereas idealism drove the old Wikileaks, every action taken by its present incarnation is informed by malice aforethought. It's no longer about the truth. Now, it's a vendetta.
Speaking as someone who was formerly involved with the organization, I cannot support today's Wikileaks or its leadership. They've been captured by their vanity and pride[1] and as far as I'm concerned, they can hang, then burn.
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
[1] That some prominent members of the organization consider this wretched document the "obvious truth" illuminates their mindset.
Funny...
I find it MORE offensive when a person claims to do good, but is instead a total dick with a dashing smile-- than the person that is a total dick, but is openly public about such dickery.
Examples: A television evangelist, VS somebody like George Carlin (not necessarily him personally, but somebody like him personality wise). The former swears seven ways to sunday that they are good, wholesome, and beholden to a higher purpose/power, The latter openly admits to doing his shtick solely for the money, and openly says that they don't give a flying fuck about any such hogwash.
As such, the shenanigans of the first are more distasteful, disgusting, and reprehensible than those of the latter. At least the later isn't trying to lie to you.
Same thing with world governments. If the US wants to claim to be a defender of democracy, freedom, personal liberty, and all that "wholesome goodness", then they SHOULDNT engage in secret deals, military actions that destroy freedom, erect puppet dictatorships, etc-- like the television evangelist shouldn't swindle money out of little old women, then spend it on hookers and blow. Not if they want to be taken seriously, and not be seen as the dirty swindlers that they are.
That is to say, I personally am of the opinion that this is needed EXACTLY because they claim to be democratic governments. We as citizens are indeed ultimately responsible for the actions of our governments, BECAUSE they are democracies, and we NEED to know when our leaders are engaging in secret super-dickery like this.
Basically, it's no secret that these non-democratic countries you are railing against violate personal liberties. They make no claims to the contrary. Some even proudly proclaim their stances on such issues. It is the ones that claim otherwise that are in need of being exposed. Their's is the more reprehensible crime.
You do realize that what you are describing here is a government that acts in ways contrary to the wishes of it's population and then punishing the population in increasingly severe ways when the population tries to put a stop to it.
That's basically a tyranny.
The day our governments become tyrannies, then I hope we'll fight them by force at any cost rather than stay quiet and let ourselves be dominated by a government we do not want and which acts contrary to our wishes.
Oh, and don't think that NOT having Wikileaks will stop governments from becoming tyrannies. Wikileaks tells us what is going on behind our backs. Without Wikileaks, we simply don't know what is going on, but it does not mean it's not happening. At least if we know we can do something about it.
So yes, Wikileaks is what I want. It's what we should all want until something better comes up. Better Wikileaks than nothing. And if a government does anything to stop Wikileaks, it will just make me even more angry and thus more likely to try and stop my own government.
Doubtful with the amount of corruption present in Russia that they wouldn't have dirt on them. I think they're just on a high horse against the US, UK, and other countries because they'll avoid Po-210 poisoning better that way. Doesn't make Assange sound like the white knight he attempts to portray
This is a straw man and an ill conceived ad hominem attack (i.e - "Assange is a coward because he's afraid of assassination!"). You could just as well say "Amnesty International does nothing to stop famine" or "Oxfam does nothing to stop the genocide in Sudan" and blame them for trying to portray themselves as charitable organizations. You do not criticize a person or an organization for the good work they didn't do. There will always be the next worthwhile cause.
I personally don't mind if he does focus his efforts on the US/UK. They do enough highly questionable things to keep a small organization such as WL busy for decades to come. It is not his job nor prerogative to publish information in a manner which would be equally embarrassing to all countries . He runs a site on the internet, not a UN/governmental organization. If he so wishes he can focus exclusively on uncovering 4chan users identities.
Also, given your own stated opinion on the way that Russia/China/EvilCountryX deal with leaks, it is entirely conceivable that there are far less potential sources who are willing to risk their lives in order to expose such information.
That's bullshit. It's not because of the "freedom we enjoy in America", it's because of an accident called "the Internet", a technology that got away from the powers that be before they had a chance to lock it down and now the genie is out of the bottle.
Believe me, if it happened any other way, if it had been in the hands of "private enterprise" there would never be the kind of free exchange of information on the Internet that has created Wikileaks. If it had been in the hands of private enterprise, the Internet would be cable television. And if there aren't strict net neutrality laws, the Internet will become cable television.
You are welcome on my lawn.