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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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]
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.
Profit trumps ideology any day.
Profit IS ideology.
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
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.
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
If you feel the media are Democrat shills when the Republicans are in power, everything's fine.
If you feel the media are Republican shills when the Democrats are in power, everything's fine.
The media lie and the government lies. As long as they tell different lies, democracy is working.
You should watch out, though, if they start telling the same lies.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Do you want your life ruined over Wikileaks?
Let's say you're right. The government conspiracies are going to ruin the people who help Wikileaks. Then why are you trying to convince people not to help them? Better that they fight the good fight and some of them get taken down by The Man than that we all continue to live as serfs, no? You've pretty much established that you're more afraid of the CIA than you are brave enough to stand up for what's right; the least you could do is not try to convince other people to be cowards.
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...
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
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?
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.
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