Slashdot Mirror
WikiLeaks Took Advice From Media Outlets
formfeed writes "According to the AP (through Google News), WikiLeaks isn't just sitting on the recent material so they can release it bit by bit to the press, as many people implied. On the contrary, it's quite the other way around: 'only after considering advice from five news organizations with which it chose to share all of the material' are they releasing it themselves. These newspapers 'have been advising WikiLeaks on which documents to release publicly and what redactions to make to those documents.' AP questions whether WikiLeaks will follow these redactions, but nevertheless seems quite impressed by this 'extraordinary collaboration between some of the world's most respected media outlets and the WikiLeaks organization.'"
I wonder if some of the anti-WikiLeaks fervor evident among US lawmakers will also be brought to bear against the AP and other mainstream media sources. Update: 12/05 17:42 GMT by T : Yes, that's WikiLeaks, rather than (as originally rendered) WikiPedia. HT to reader Mike Hearn.
I miss your lustrous white hair. WHy did you cut it?
be used to wage war against information access, like 9-11 is used to wage war against liberty and freedom.
I wonder if some of the anti-Wikipedia fervor evident among US lawmakers will also be brought to bear against the AP and other mainstream media sources.
Please lets not conflate Wikipedia and Wikileaks. That is not good for anyone.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
The timothy editor added to the summary, "some of the anti-Wikipedia fervor evident among US lawmakers". I believe that should be "anti-WikiLeaks fervor".
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
I thought the media was nothing but a bunch of Democrat shills!
What exactly is Wikileaks doing that all these other media organizations aren't also doing?
No one gave Wikileaks a security clearance; they are incapable of leaking anything. They are merely publishing information that was leaked by someone else. So how are all these attacks on Wikileaks' right to publish justified vs. those of the NY Times or the Associated Press?
Interpol issued an arrest warrant for Le Monde, El Pais, The Guardian and Der Spiegel for sexual assault charges in an undecided yet country.
Go ahead and pressure Network Solutions to pull nytimes.com. See how well that works.
Hmmmm.... first internet war that we can actually observe and follow as it happens is not news for nerds, stuff that matters? Then what is? Where would nerds get their first-hand account? Whose embeded journalists would sit with the hackers at the NSA as they destroy the fibers of the internet to strain the wikileaks out of them?
The biases of Slashdot's editors and readers are numerous as well as obvious. Pro-Linux, anti-Apple, anti-Microsoft, anti-constraints on downloading free entertainment, etc. Why are you surprised that they show a bias about Wikileaks too?
FTFA:
A well-known recluse
Reclusion: you're doing it wrong.
I think Wikileaks has been discussed ad nauseam here on /. I am a former insider, but a civilian now. My position is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum on this debate. The U.S. needs to realize that even if they successfully drive Wikileaks from the internet, it is an idea whose time has come and there will be other whistle blower web sites from here on out. I am concerned that if the US makes it a crime to publish classified information obtained from sources, it will basically end investigative journalism and take the US one step closer to being like Russia or China. So instead of focusing on destroying Wikileaks, the US should focus on preventing leaks from occurring. Pvt Manning needs to be punished. His commanding officer, executive officer and security officer all need to be fired and sent into early retirement. Mr. Assange wouldn't have much of a web site if Pvt. Manning hadn't sent him those CDs.
Hold on, this story is news because WikiLeaks requested the U.S. government help them do exactly what they are now accused of retaining media outlets help them to do.
The U.S. government declined to assist. This is major news. Access to outside parties will continue to increase so long as the U.S. refuses to own this situation and assist in the preparation of these documents for dissemination.
If you don't like it, then don't read Politics stories.
$ make available
No, slashdot is pro-apple. You'll be virulently downmodded if you criticize the great one (Jobs).
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I wonder if some of the anti-Wikipedia fervor evident among US lawmakers will also be brought to bear against the AP and other mainstream media sources.
How fucking hard is it for an 'editor' to not confuse Wikipedia with WikiLeaks, if you're going to add in your useless redundant opinion as an editor at least make sure you're right about basic information.
The biases of Slashdot's editors and readers are numerous as well as obvious. Pro-Linux, anti-Apple, anti-Microsoft, anti-constraints on downloading free entertainment, etc.
Yet every time a story about any of those are submitted there are plenty of readers defending Apple, Microsoft and Copyright (As far as I have seen no-one actually defends RIAA, I guess everyone agrees that they are evil.)
Just because there anyone has a different opinion than you and dares to speak it out does not mean that they are in majority.
No, slashdot is pro-apple. You'll be virulently downmodded if you criticize the great one (Jobs).
From what I can tell...
Slashdot is Pro-Apple, Pro-Microsoft, Pro-Linux, Pro-PS3, Pro-Xbox, pro-Wii, pro-piracy, anti-piracy, anti-Wii, anti-xbox, anti-PS3, anti-Linux, anti-Microsoft, anti-Apple, anti-computers, pro-computers
should I continue?
Easily done ...
OOPS, WE BOMBED THE WRONG COUNTRY
http://mickterry.com/lyroopswebombedwrongcountry.html
For the want of a Q
Then doesn't that mean, by your own admission, that the majority want to see stories like this ?
Disagree != mod troll.
Of course the US government declined to assist. "Hi, we just got a whole bunch of classified documents you'd rather us not have, and we'd like to publish them. Want to help us redact them?" Any answer the government gives other than "publish nothing" is basically approving Wikileaks publishing leaked documents.
timothy the Slashdot "editor" is an idiot.
And yes, that's redundant.
One hypothesis: you are young president, trying to repair an ill country in a dysfunctional political landscape that is a minefield of secrets and lies. You think to yourself, "things aren't going to get better until we get rid of the secrets and lies. And gee, there is even a group that is outright eager to do the information dispersal and be the scape-goats. This could work." One additional secret and lie in order to banish a much larger bunch of them.
Alternate hypothesis: If I was the US government, I'd be advising on redactions through my connections with the news media. After all, I can't be seen to be in contact with wikileaks itself.
I wonder if some of the anti-Wikipedia fervor evident among US lawmakers will also be brought to bear against the AP and other mainstream media sources.
Why should they? AP is reporting that Wikileaks collaborated with five media outlets, but Associated Press is not one of those five outlets.
They are:
El Pais
Le monde
The Guardian
Der Spiegel
The New York Times
Press coverage today is more favorable to Wikileaks.
There's even talk that Assange might be Time's "Man of the Year".
Also, there are now 74 mirrors of Wikileaks.
The USG has nothing to fear from the NYT or any other news source. They are always interested in keeping access to government officials, so they never step over the line when reporting the news. They don't report on the reality of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Editors at the major media companies are good friends with everyone in Washington and Wall Street, so you can't get good coverage there either.
Even looking at coverage of WikiLeaks, how many are reporting that the US State Department new immediately that the coup in Honduras was illegal, and then publicly stated a month later that they hadn't decided what had happened? How many are reporting that Hillary Clinton knew Saudi Arabia was the main funding source for the worst extremist groups in the world, but did not publicly reveal this to US Citizens for fear of damaging trade relations with the oil barons?
You would think that would even be front page news on Fox, who'd bread is buttered by fear mongering about muslim terrorists, but it's always below the fold, or on some opinion column that never sees the front page. That's because one of their main investors is a Saudi Prince.
A truly independent press is too dangerous for the United States to tolerate. It's told too many lies to too many people for too long. They know WikiLeaks has zero self-interest in American interests, and that's why the organization is so feared.
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. -George Orwell
And the fact that the major media outlets will make WAY more money if they are able to cover the released information as a number of stories over a longer period rather than all at once has nothing to do with it.
If you want to know how the Feds are going to handle this situation just look at how they handled it in the 60s. The church committee report details what the feds could do in the 1960s. Joel Byran Harris is an ordinary individual who pissed off a high level bank executive in the 1990s and he has been subject to a constant harassment and psychological operation ever since.
Here are the links for anyone who thinks I'm full of it.
http://www.jbhfile.com/index.html [jbhfile.com] and http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm [icdc.com]
Wikileaks isn't just sitting on the recent material so they can release it bit by bit to the press, as many people implied. On the contrary, it's quite the other way around: 'only after considering advice from five news organizations
Right. Why would the major news organizations possibly be interested in having exclusive access to most of the content? Gee, I wonder.
Also, a slow trickle is much friendlier to their publishing process, and will keep the public's attention longer. I suppose in the end that's not a bad thing, but we're still going to be reading everything through a filter, which is hardly in line with Wikileak's goal.
Also, is anyone else tired of the "wiki" in wikileaks? There's absolutely nothing "wiki" about "Cablegate."
Please help metamoderate.
This is really interesting. From TFA: "The Times said it intends to publish only about 100 or so of the records. And the other news organizations that have the material said they likely will release only a fraction."
Well, this is mostly very boring stuff. Still, having only a handful of newspapers and some journalists try to find something interesting in this large pile of documents means that there will be gems that will not be found. These cables go back to 1966 and there must be very interesting details in there about things that just aren't on the radar for these journalists.
I'm really looking forward to Wikileaks publishing all of this.
When the barn door is swinging open and the pigs have fled don't turn your nose up at offers of getting bacon returned to you simply because accepting it would imply approving people eating your escaped pigs.
Take what you can get and accept that you should have locked the barn door because you're never catching those pigs no matter how much you scream and stamp your feet.
Most Wikileaks supporters are naive and don't understand the imaginably vast resources of the US Government. They also underestimate the ruthlessness of the US Government.
To understand an individual would have to know the history of COINTELPRO. An individual would have to also talk to people who are being gangstalked today or who have been targeted individuals in the recent past to know that the Government is fully capable of covert psychological torture and entrapment. The rape charge, everything Assange and his supporters are dealing with can be found here
If people would have just took these sorts of websites more seriously they'd understand that the Government does not have to kill you, they can just ruin your life in every way possible until you wish you were dead. You'll lose your finances, your friendships, your marriage, your family, and when they are done with you they'll have you looking like a psychopath pedophile, a rapist, a murderer, a snitch (they call it the snitch jacket). They don't follow the law, they don't care about your human rights, they'll destroy your life just as they did to hundreds of thousands in the 60s under COINTELPRO.
Julian Assange has gone too far. If you download his Insurance file or donate money to his site, expect to be put under intense surveilence COINTELPRO style.
That's the point. The answer 'publish nothing' is not recognized data-war tender. The U.S. is clearly hoping for meat space developments to solve this situation.
Otherwise they would have a strategy that involved dealing with the data on the table.
The Egyptians have apparently been saying this for years. The U.S. will enter into new theaters of combat with no concern for the opinion of established actors in the arena. Instead they listen with half an ear, then return to telling the established actors what the U.S. wants them to do.
The net result here is that WikiLeaks gets to start doling out National Security level assignments and drawing up the game plan. Currently Assange is only a few pieces short of being able support a cabinet, storm Sealand, and demand U.N. recognition of sovereignty. All because we are forcing his organization to grow up into a full fledged Intel agency and polarizing other sovereigns into his camp.
If anyone is worried about a stateless future ruled by paramilitary actors start taking notes. The U.S. government appears to be hellbent on making that future a reality.
There's little question the AP and other press sources wouldn't have published anything like the volume of information Wikileaks has. Right now they are acting as a restraint rather than an enabler and it's likely the government will see them as an ally trying to bring a troublesome organization under control. I don't think that's the role the press is supposed to have, but they have decided that for whatever reasons they must make decisions about what the public should see rather than maximizing transparency and reporting simple facts.
I read most of the stuff published so far, and I wouldn't call anything in there boring. Sure, there is a lot of stuff that is of no great consequence, but I found nearly every document very interesting for someone who cares for international politics. What really surprised me is how well written most of them are - I kinda expected dry and boring bureaucrat speak, but found lots of very polished essays that were straight to the point.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
It's the spy agencies with their black ops, clandestine operations, psych-ops. It's agencies like the FBI that will entrap you. It's agencies like the NSA that will provide the information to the FBI. These agencies have unlimited power, they aren't bound by the law because nobody really knows what the secrets are or what the operations are.
What we can see is an operation has begun. The financial resources are being choked off. After that then the people who donated to Wikileaks have to worry because their names are now in the possession of the agencies and sorts of people who hate Wikileaks and their supporters, and these people don't respect human rights.
The people who are close to Julian Assange are at risk of their lives being ruined. The people donating money to Julian Assange are at risk of their lives being ruined. By a government that will stop at nothing to stop Julian Assange.
This means informants. This means entrapment. This means torture. This means psychological operations. This means black ops, false flags, black bag, honey trap operations.
This means ruined marriages, ruined careers, mysterious illnesses, mysterious criminal charges like tax evasion to further drain financial resources, psychiatric diagnosis from professionals like paranoid schizophrenia, ruined friendships, destroyed reputation, being labeled a pedophile, rapist, snitch/informant, or being entrapped / locked in prison and then being labeled any of these things.
The Government will do everything short of kill you. They'll try to make you kill yourself with psychological operations. They'll try to manipulate other people into killing you with rumors, smears, and character assassination, and they'll keep you from being able to make any money by lawsuits, blacklists, etc.
Internet war is just war. It's not something that geeks do on the internet with DDOS. It's when lives are permanently destroyed in the real world by blackmail, extortion, manipulation, humiliation, etc.
Pro-Linux, anti-Apple, anti-Microsoft, anti-constraints on downloading free entertainment, etc.
You could probably combine those into a single "pro-freedom" or "pro-individual rights".
Support SETI@home
Exactly my point, I was just trying to be more subtle.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Still, having only a handful of newspapers and some journalists try to find something interesting in this large pile of documents means that there will be gems that will not be found.
The Guardian.co.uk has an interface for "browsing" the cables, but it doesn't tell you how many cables are currently in the set being browsed.
There's also the issue that recognizing a gem as a gem sometimes takes a long time. They don't necessarily come pre-tagged as such.
Wikileaks should publish everything without these advices. Newspapers have owners and editorial guidelines which are never free from partisan views. So if these newspapers are giving advices to wikileaks we can think that they are picking the cables to have other media outlets focus on some matters and some people instead of others. It's time to release that key and let everyone have access to the whole collection.
If they don't help the government they too can be charged with rape, pedophilia, or something heinous. Their career as a journalist can be ended with a phonecall, their marriage can be ended with a phonecall, do you understand the amount of power the spy agencies have? One phonecall and a life can be destroyed.
Assange might be willing to take a rape charge with a straight face and stiff upper lip but most Americans are cowardly and want to save their asses.
So it cannot be independent. It serves the US Government as all who don't have an Army must do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times
According to a 2007 survey by Rasmussen Reports of public perceptions of major media outlets, 40% believe The Times has a liberal slant and 11% believe it has a conservative slant.[79] In December 2004 a University of California, Los Angeles study gave The Times a score of 73.7 on a 100 point scale, with 0 being most conservative and 100 being most liberal.[80]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian
It is known for its left-of-centre political stance.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde_diplomatique
Le Monde diplomatique (nicknamed Le Diplo by its French readers) is a monthly newspaper offering left-oriented analysis and opinion on politics, culture, and current affairs.
I would arguably say that the Associated Press has a left-wing stance as well personally, although in any case neither the AP nor Der Spiegel could be said to have a right-wing stance.
My question is therefore: Why do leftists insist so strongly on calling themselves mainstream and center?
Wikileaks should publish everything without these advices. Newspapers have owners and editorial guidelines which are never free from partisan views. So if these newspapers are giving advices to wikileaks we can think that they are picking the cables to have other media outlets focus on some facts or people instead of others. It's time to release that key and let everyone have access to the whole collection.
Timely review of Tim Wu's book "The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires" . Especially the quote from the mid-century CBS news president Fred Friendly about the power of media empires, which was the inspiration for the books title: "At stake is not the First Amendment or the right of free speech, but exclusive custody of the master switch."
The point is that they are doing things slowly. This is nice for journalists who aren't also nerds (like most of us) and can't get through all this mess.
Twitter is already censoring. Try this:
Started two searches at the same time.
Realtime results for #biebsmeetlouna
94 more tweets since you started searching.
Realtime results for wikileaks
2,138 more tweets since you started searching.
And compare with:
Top Trending Topics
#biebsmeetlouna
#thingsimiss
#hismajesty
Sundays
Thanking God
Fórmula Truck
Louna
Worlds Acoustic
Roberval
Taça Brasil
Why have wiki in the name? I can't edit it and neither can you.
Gone!
I certainly agree that they're well-written, often better than you'd expect even from journalists.
But what's published so far already *is* selected. This is only a small part of what got leaked to WL.
Cause you have a lot to learn.
When the government stops using its authority to make things secret to largely cover up fraud, waste, abuse of power, and naked greed THEN we'll have a discussion about it. Until then tough shit for them. If it takes having Wikileaks and Julian Assange out there to clean it up then I say I want to see 100 or 1000 more just like them. Turn over every single rock under which any secret lurks. Secrecy is a tool of evil, pure and simple.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
The difference is that most slashdotters wouldn't blame the farmer much for shooting the pig thief.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
No, Joel, Assange has real enemies with a real agenda. You have an elaborate delusion that people are harassing and drugging you for years because you had the audacity to submit the same government application three times.
Have you personally met Assange? Have you personally met his so called enemies? How do you know that someone close to Assange isn't named Joel? You don't. How do you know someone close to Assange who might not even be the guy they are after, can still be treated as a target simply because hes close to the primary target?
Looks to me like you are trying to cover something for someone. Why do you want people to support Assange when you know it's just going to lead to tens of thousands of people being harassed?
Regardless of if you think Joel or Julian is mentally ill, the techniques and methods of harassment described in the links I posted are 100% accurate. Assange himself can confirm that.
Go to Gangstalking world and see for yourself. I didn't write any of this. I'm just a researcher.
And I don't think they do -- I think most /.'s support legal action against the guy who, in this analogy, purposefully opened the barn door. The debate's over what to do once the pigs are out -- they could have gone to anyone, including foreign governments, and they could have gone there secretly, and they could have gone to someone who would release them instantly without any redaction or offer to work with the government. The only improvement you could reasonably ask for is not to release stuff at all. Anything else would have been worse than the current situation. But the 'enabler' concept comes in because WikiLeaks didn't just happen across stray pigs (to come back to the analogy), they had publicly stated they would take them in and redistribute them, if anyone should provide them. But that's nothing new -- the rest of the media's been doing that all along. It's their business. In fact, you can be somewhat thankful that this went to a sort of neutral third party, not directly to one particular media outlet, who would have had control over the spin of stories coming out. Here, you've got several independent eyes looking at it. So now you're talking about possibly the best kind of enabler, considering who else is out there. This really seems like the lesser of all evils, considering the barn doors aren't locked tight enough.
From your other posts it is obvious you are opposed to Wikileaks, and so you are invoking violent threats by proxy to fight Wikileaks. You don't fear evil cells in government departments (actually terrorist cells in the government, but that word is so overused), rather you congratulate them and extend their reach by spreading fear of them. I wouldn't have considered donating to Wikileaks otherwise, but now I'm going to do so to show my support for freedom of the press. I'm sure I'm going to be fine, though if not then the world is in much worse condition than I thought and Wikileaks is the sort of thing that can help fight that.
I don't have to agree with what evil government cells do. I have no power to stop it. As long as they aren't doing it to me that is the best I can ever hope for.
And if you are seriously considering donating to WIkileaks you are making a huge mistake. Wikileaks is powerless against these cells. You have no idea what kind of power they have, they have toppled governments, they destroy political movements as a profession.
They are professional with their techniques because it's all they do, all they think about. They have 24/7 to think about how to destroy Julian Assange and his supporters. They have as much resources as they need, as money is literally printed out of thin air to support anything they ask for. They have satellites in space and drones too.
And it looks like they are treating this like the cyber 911. I don't want anything to do with this but you do what you want and live with the consequences.
No, slashdot is pro-apple.(1) You'll be virulently downmodded(2) if you criticize the great one (Jobs).(3)
(Score:3, Insightful)
That comment was redundant and off-topic, not insightful.
(1)Argument By Generalization:
drawing a broad conclusion from a small number of perhaps unrepresentative cases. (The cases may be unrepresentative because of Selective Observation.) For example, "They say 1 out of every 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible ? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese." So, by generalization, there aren't any Chinese anywhere. This is connected to the Fallacy Of The General Rule.
(2)Hypothesis Contrary To Fact:
arguing from something that might have happened, but didn't.
(3)Straw Man (Fallacy Of Extension):
attacking an exaggerated or caricatured version of your opponent's position.
You can't take the sky from me...
overtly using as blackmail
You're an idiot. An ironic idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.
P.S. Overt blackmail leads to soft violence, dark brightness, and then loud silence. It's a rough slippery slope.
You can't take the sky from me...
Look, it doesn't matter. Whether the 'editors' state that Bill Gates is the Archangel Micheal in drag or whether it's Steve Jobs, half the slashdotters will get up in arms no matter which side is pilloried.
It's not we stay remotely on topic or anything.
Oh, wait.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
were far more damaging to the US govt than the State Department leaks have been so far.
The problem I think is the bank leaks. I suspect they will be on the same par as the other leaks, but banks being banks, the attacks from the establishment will be far greater in force.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
No, slashdot is pro-apple. You'll be virulently downmodded if you criticize the great one (Jobs).
If you get downmodded for criticizing Apple on /. then you're doing it wrong. I've both seen and written numerous "+5" posts with just such critique.
If anything, I'd say that /. is strongly divided on that issue. No surprise there - Apple gets some points for 1) making shiny things that work, 2) OS X being a Unix, and 3) not being Microsoft. They do get a lot of flak due to their recent hostility towards power users, developers, modders etc with iOS lockdown. Depending on how strong people feel on that, they end up on one side or the other.
What more - imagine that! - quite a few can like some Apple products and policies (e.g. OS X / Unix), and dislike others (e.g. iOS / walled garden).
Wikileaks is suppose to have some hidden documents ready to use in case someone comes after them. The cables were nothing to brag about IMO so far "big deal".
So are they hiding something that is so dramatic that even the Pope would have reason to shiver? Or is it also "much ado about nothing"? Quite frankly I am not impressed.
I didn't used to see that much of a point to Wikileaks. It is the very effort to fight Wikileaks that has convinced me that it or something like it is necessary. If a press organization accepting leaked information is sought to be classified as a terrorist organization, then not only is Wikileaks necessary, it is too late and not enough. I wonder what powerful people who advocate such things do when not in public. I want Wikileaks to be a part of telling me about that. If you do too, consider donating.
I'm guessing HT is huge thanks. Although urban dictionary would have me believe it's huge testicles. Acronymfinder wasn't much help either.
Funnyhacks - Wierd, unusual, and fun hacks
Slashdot has a broad spectrum of differing opinions. I for example don't like Apple or Microsoft much but I don't see why people think they shouldn't pay for something that cost money to create just because it didn't cost money to duplicate.
Dude, I think moderation just proved you wrong by modding "insightful".
No. The difference is that the analogy, like all analogies, is not perfect. If you haven't figured out that it is impossible to steal what what you already own then you don't get this issue at all. The only thief is the US government, who wants to steal freedom from its citizens. So allow me to make the analogy more appropriate:
When you have stolen a bunch of pigs, and then a third party acquires them and plans on returning them to the people who own them, you can either take some of the bacon when it is offered, or refuse it because it implies that it is OK to return the pigs to their rightful owners even though you stole the pigs fair and square.
I hope that helps you better understand why the US government refusing free bacon is a phenomenally stupid move on the part of the US government.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
They seem to have all the same functions as the free press, albiet without any hollywood gossip or corporate owners.
Is there some legal definition which excludes WikiLeaks from being called a media organization?
Yes! Me too. Good writing and interesting topics, short and sweet. Things don't have to be a "bombshell" to be interesting.
Not the US government, but the intelligence-corporate combine.
The US Media is useless and most people I've heard are quite misinformed about Wikileaks. This is NOT news, WikiLeaks has been working with major news outlets (mostly not in USA) for a while now. Back when the politicians were claiming lives lost and the huge evil of the war log leaks the Media didn't report that WikiLeaks was also working with news partners and the NYTimes was working on it with the Gov to make the leaks "responsible." Sure, mistakes were still made - it was not the big deal like it was blown into. The US Media doesn't think or work for a living, they just repeat what the Gov or talking heads or AstroTurf group says and hardly even moderates between those.
I'm all for redundant news about how WikiLeaks isn't the only one involved.
Notice how WikiLeaks is being targeted so much stronger now when instead of WAR information? This had to be the last straw, can't let average to stupid people think badly of our 'diplomacy'! Forget the losing of two wars and the MILLION+ dead people you can't give away our diplomatic policies! I don't think most people would be surprised if they leaked that Iraq was ONLY for oil but WikiLeaks would get bombed and Bush still wouldn't be within eyesight of protesters let alone prosecuted.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Um, wikileaks = tech + political insanity = news for nerds + stuff that matters. It's not so much a bias as much as it is literally what Slashdot was made for.
You must be new here?
P.S. Personally, I'll be disappointed if a single day goes by for the next month *without* a Slashdot post about Wikileaks.
It worked for global warming. Got that hippy dude, some old vice president, Al Gore. (well, that name helped, i'm sure)
Look at what Al Gore did for the Global Warming (scam?). He put a face on it that stupid, i mean, dumb people bought into.
We get some politician with clout, and/or a Military Dude everyone respects (Olly North? I kid).
McCain. He's the man (I'd never vote for him, but he has both parts needed). How about wikileaks gets McCain to back them publicly?
Be seeing you...
Tho im way too late to join in the discussion :
its WikiLeaks, not WikiPedia.
Read radical news here
The above comment is over rated. Read a few of the linked pages and it is obvious he is afflicted by Paranoid Schizophrenia.
The slashdotters don't have a problem shooting the pig thief or the leak. Wikileaks isn't the leak. They are the butcher that got the pigs and is making them into bacon. You can be mad at them for receiving stolen goods, but they didn't steal the pigs. I have to wonder why some people are so emotionally vested that they can't understand such distinctions, yet feel the need to comment incorrectly.
Learn to love Alaska
I am more interested in the reports that WikiLeaks have information on major US banks exposing corruption that may well be linked to real causes of the Global Financial Crisis (or to events that made it worse)
Maybe they will reveal why the Bush Government and his Treasury secretary bailed out the banks without insisting they clean up their act as part of the deal (something that could have been done given that Paulson was basically dictating terms to these banks)
So, while the New York Times was one of the five papers to publish the leaks, it technically never had any contact with the hacker taliban.
They can honestly say that everything they published came from another Newspaper.
They know where the times are going again and are cautious enough to not put a noose around their neck. The New York Times survived Comstock and McCarthy, and they for sure are determined to ride out Palin and Lieberman.
it's obvious how biased the editors and readers are in favor of wikileaks
Wikileaks aims to undermine secretive and authoritarian power structures and favour transparency and openness in government. How on earth can you not be in favour of that?
But no matter what, we're always pro-generalizations and pro-stereotypes.
+1 Insightful
I have to wonder why some people are so emotionally vested that they can't understand such distinctions, yet feel the need to comment incorrectly.
Because all these analogies are silly. And it really doesn't matter who stole/butchered or whatever the facts. The important thing is to ensure that the activities of the US government be kept secret from US citizens. That means shutting up anyone with the facts, doesn't matter how they got them.
thank you
"The Times said it intends to publish only about 100 or so of the records. And the other news organizations that have the material said they likely will release only a fraction."
Makes sense. Having to publish all 250,000 documents in print would be an obscene amount of paper.
In this case, the analogy has other twists to it.
1) The farmer is supposed to be upholding a kosher (or at least kosher-like) dietary practice.
2) Is raising the pigs in secret.
3) Has forbidden ANYONE but specially selected farm hands to go near the barn.
4) swears that there is no porcine meat at all in the food he brings to the bar-mitsvah.
What wikileaks has done is shown that
1) The farmer is a hypocritical liar.
2) Is raising pigs in secret, (See look, here's a pig he raised!)
3) Has snuck into the barn, threw open the doors, and chased some pigs out into the countryside for everyone to see
4) Has shown that there is INDEED pork in those "kosher" sausages he makes for parties.
By asking the government to assist in redacting documents, as fitted to the above adjusted analogy, it is like the person who has caught him red-handed asking whom has eaten his pork products contrary to their religious dietary obligations, so that they can avoid being publicly ousted, and punished, in the interests of maintaining order in the village.
By refusing to help redact, in both circumstances, the guilty party that has been caught red handed is only showing how much of a total ass they are, and by further claiming that the disclosure would imperil these same people that the investigator wanted to protect enough to ask to help conceal their identities,as a means of attack against the investigator, is an act of pure and shameless hypocrisy.
To continue the analogy, claiming "most of the animals that the investigator chased out of the barn are not pigs, so they shouldn't have been chased out" (EG, "most of the diplomatic cables that were released are nothing interesting, or clandestine, and shouldn't have been leaked") totally ignores the fact that there were indeed pigs in the herd of animals that were chased out of the barn. It's a logical fallacy because it makes a false conclusion: Because some of the animals that were chased out were not pigs, the investigator should not have chased out the animals in the barn." It discounts that the only way for the investigator to prove that the barn had pigs in it, was to chase all the animals out into the open for the village to see. Mundane farm animals are what you would expect to find if all is well; Finding the pigs however, is not. The fact that there were pigs in the barn is what is most important; not weather or not the hypocrite farmer is going to have a hard time now that his milk cow and goats are out too.
That was precisely the point of my post.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Exactly the point of my post.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Assange/Wikileaks did not, technically, break any US laws.
We need a law making it illegal to say something that embarrasses, offends, annoys or inconveniences anyone in the government. I mean Wikileaks is just so anti-American!
LeBron James? Who the fuck is LeBron James? Some American sports person? You think that *he* had the greatest impact on the world this year after Julian Assange? Get some perspective son.
Amazon wants to be a publisher, well there was a time publishers stood for freedom and published books regardless of treats, some even risking jail to publish books the powers that be did not want published.
Amazon wants to publish everything but never ever take a stand. It is the ultimate result of the business society. You are free to say anything you want, just as long as it does not upset the sponsors. You can run any website, as long as you can pay for the bandwidth needed to fight of the DDOS attack.
Democracy and freedom needs more then words. It needs action. Amazon has shown were it stands. So have you. Whore, indeed. (see parents nick)
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Yeah, you stand up for your rights... I will be right behind you... around the block. But you go and stand in front of a tank.
A pistol can hold say six rounds. Want to bet I can make a dozen people do what I want with it? Are YOU going to be the one to take the bullet?
Thought not.
THAT is how the system works. The right has been working very hard at making it impossible (read inconvenient) for people to protest. No unions, so no strikes because if you do, you can't make the car payments and bye bye SUV.
The current Dutch government is in for no other reason then they want to keep mortages tax deducatable. Rents go up, so more people buy and voila are tied to rightwing policies because if the mortage deduction (largest subsidy) is removed, they are in financial trouble.
Bread and circusses is old hat. Living month to month with debt is FAR more effective to keep people in control. You owe your sole to the company store. Proof me wrong. STRIKE!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Jeezuz....now I know why the American economy is based on Pork Bellies!
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
Fox's second owner is a Saudi Oil Prince. This is plenty reason to quash any complaints about Saudi problems.
Your entire argument here rests on some fairly arbitrary parsing of the number things that are secrets and how we count them. Since this is going to be a basically arbitrary kind of enumeration it can be used to prove pretty much any point you or I care to try to prove.
A legitimate argument would IMHO be something like along the lines of a cost/benefit analysis. One of the interesting things about this leak is we are getting to see exactly how much this involuntary openness actually costs. Watch and see. I predict that there will be no appreciable cost at all. The benefit of openness is quite apparent when it saves the public money.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Wikileaks is basically buying legitimacy and moral authority for the cost of sharing the spotlight on headlines.
Considering the flack they have taken it is a very smart move. It also spreads the blame, in an attempt to diffuse the focus on them from the US.
Key is using big News from various countries closely allied with the US and most importantly the New York Times.
So the real reason the WaPo thinks WikiLeaks should be censored and prosecuted is because they aren't getting in on the dirt, not because they think it's inherently evil to leak government secrets.
Ben Bradlee must be spinning in his grave.
We are the 198 proof..
To be clear: Wikileaks didn't sneak into the barn. They stood outside, and said that if anyone else happened to find pigs in there, they'd help with the ousting. One of the "select few" (million?!) farm hands chose to do so.
MOD PARENT POST UP!
Its a barrage of imagery all too appropriate for a user named HungryHobo!
I sincerely hope you aren't a junior staffer somewhere trying to cope with this shit-storm. Something about your post gave me a weird empathic vibe.
I am surprised by the support for wiki leaks. You expect to take classified or top secrete information and expect what a pat on the back. I like Wiki leaks, but the committed an alleged crime. Let see if you do that in China or some other radical country and see if you don't get in front of a firing squad.
You don't take sensitive diplomatic documents and expect to be a hero.
You can run, yell free speech from the roof tops all you want. But if you steal the data, and put people in harms way, you will get caught. I understand if it was just unjust criticism. But honesty, take a good sober look at this