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OpenLeaks — 'A New WikiLeaks'
Flixie writes "Swedish newspaper dagens Nyheter reports: '...[S]everal key figures behind the website that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational or religious documents have resigned in protest against the controversial leader Julian Assange only to launch a new service for the so-called whistleblowers. The goal: to leak sensitive information to the public."
Wikileaks has credibility; Assange does not. I mean, he told a reporter that he was too busy to talk to them because he "too busy ending two wars." That kind of narcissism is profoundly stupid.
He gets himself on the news and he stays there. What good is a leak site if after the first leak it disappears from the public eye and any remaining data will miraculously disappear along with all the people that work for it who have "accidents"?
I dream of a nation where a man is not judged by his skin color but by an number assigned by a credit rating agency.
Well, the strategy of multiplicity works pretty darn well. And laws are already bouncing off the Wikileaks people pretty hard—they're going to be far harder to apply to hundreds of similar leak sites than just one! It's standard guerilla warfare.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Credibility means fairly little to the organization organizing the leaks - what matters are the outlets.
I think Wikileaks got it exactly right this time, using some of the most respected newspapers in the world to filter and disseminate the cables, rather than attempting to dump them directly. Sure, they got stick from the usual suspects, but the reality is that nobody is questioning the credibility of the leaks themselves: if The Guardian posts a cable reporting that, to use a real example, defense contractor Dyncorp organizes child rape parties for Afghan warlords in order to close the sale, and the US government's complicity in covering it up, we pretty much accept it, in a way less likely to happen if it's some random voice on the Internet posting what they claim is a cable.
OpenLeaks is made up of people who know this. I don't think they'll have an issue.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Unlike WikiLeaks, Openleaks will not receive and publish information directly for the public eye. Instead, other organizations will access the Openleaks system and in turn, present their audience with the material. Documents will be processed and published by various collaborating organizations.
Who are these other organisations? Surely one of advantage of wikileaks is that leakers are separate from publication. Under Openleak's nebulous "other organisations" leakers might feel more, rather than less, vulnerable. Or am I wrong?
People fragmenting away from an organization that has shown it upholds moral law, especially at a time like this, are probably not people you want to be sharing your information with; they might just decide to leak you rather than it.
Great Intellect...
How is this more transparent then WikiLeaks when the public can't even see the information when it finally IS released?
There were indeed. So it's less a case of "Assange is arrested, and 10 more shall take his place," and more a case of "Assange is a douchebag, and 10 more shall take his place."
Hopefully we'll end up with 10 more *Leaks sites and not 10 more douchebags.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Why are journalists a special protected class in your opinion? Would they release information without filtering it? What if they were pressured to not release it by a government? Or what if it exposes the wrongdoing of the corporation that owns the journalists?
The ideal journalist will disseminate the information to everyone anyway, why add the extra step?
the *idea* behind wikileaks was good, but Assange is an Ass-hat with an overinflated ego, who needs to go.
Another site that does what wikileaks does, without Assange, sounds like a good thing.
I disagree, I think it is the perfect time for another institution like Wikileaks. The best defense is attack. Already the U.S. and other governments are starting to show their true face concerning free speech. This is starting to look like a real litmus test. Whatever is in the leaked documents is secondary at this point. Much more important is to see how far governments are willing to surpress anyone that they see as a potential danger to their power structures. And this war is fought pretty much in the open, for everyone to see. Maybe this is going to play out without much drama, maybe not. Interesting times nevertheless.
Unlike WikiLeaks, Openleaks will not receive and publish information directly for the public eye.
Ah. So, it's not really "open" at all then. Following the classic tactic of naming your product/service exactly what it's not (I'm looking at you, Great Quality).
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
so, they will leak the information to journalists. the people that any notable ones from among them would be in the employ of established media conglomerates, which are subject to pressure of politicians and corporations ?
i think the fact that there has been no major leak that is detrimental to a government or a company has occurred since watergate, escapes these people. werent there any scoops ? werent there any brave journalists to handle them ? surely. why didnt anything in the scale of watergate came up ?
information must be provided to EVERYONE. we are the people, we are the owners of these governments and countries. we have the right to see them first hand. not anyone else, regardless of their profession.
by the way, journalists are people too, from among us. if you release it to us, you release it to everyone.
Read radical news here
...politically-correct organizations who will decide what we need to see and what would "confuse" us.
Bugger that. Release all of the raw data to the public or you're no better than Fox News and Huffington Post.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
*sigh*
Who, please name ONE SINGLE person who got killed! One would do.
Repeating spin over and over is not making it any more correct.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes.
1. People who aren't egomaniacs don't want to be the face of a cause.
2. Causes aren't successful without faces attached to them.
Thus, causes that become popular will always have egomaniacs leading them. Even Gandhi was a bit of an egomaniac, though less reprehensibly than most.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
It's as if you know him personally. Do you have more first hand experience with controversial personalities?
In the past, before the web, leakers had to talk to journalists because there was no alternative to reach the masses, even though journalists have never been paragons of objectivity.
Wikileaks today is much better than talking to a professional journalist, because what it publishes is closer to the raw leaked information, and it doesn't care about market share or editorial slant like newspapers do.
But wikileaks is still a middleman. If there was simple free software that any would-be leaker (nongeek) could use to put raw information directly and untraceably on the web, then the ideal would be one step closer.
When was the last time that WikiLeaks had a Wiki to which the public could contribute context or analysis?
There are 1.1... kinds of people.
Are you sure he didn't actually believe the other people were going for weapons on the bodies?
War is a scary thing. I've never been in it, and as such I can't fully comprehend it, but I have worked with people who have.
I'm not saying you are wrong, but it's easy to second guess the choices of people who are in the middle of combat when you yourself are not and never have been anywhere near it.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
The main is sitting in custody with a crime he probably didn't commit as an excuse, I'd say that any paranoia he has is pretty darn well justified.
http://comixed.memebase.com/2010/12/08/4-koma-comic-strip-an-issue-of-debate/
When an I Can Has Cheezeburger site explains the entire Obama administration, government view of free speech vs. censorship, and current political climate in 3 panels something is wrong.
Yeah some details didn't need to be leaked. But most did. The military calls this "collateral damage" and minimizes it compared to the success of hitting a target. Civilians are apparently held to a different standard because we haven't been trained how to properly attack and cover up.
That's a bullshit explanation. If it were really true, there'd be no reason not to release the identity as the terrorist or whoever would already know who they are and the people around them. The fact that they haven't bothered to cite a single instance is a pretty good indication that they've got bupkiss and are just talking out of their asses.
Additionally, if the information were really that sensitive, why on Earth did the US government not tell Wikileaks what legitimately needed to be redacted? Seems if the information is that dangerous that they ought to be willing to play ball. Seeing as how they couldn't prevent it from getting to the public at that point.
The only difference between what you see from Wikileaks and the raw data is that the Wikileaks version has gone through "harm prevention".
Here's a hypothetical example. The U.S. federal government gets a tip about a crime ring from someone. The government tramples all over the rights of the crime ring - therein is the leak-worthy material. Do you include the name of the person who tipped off the feds? I think there is a point where leaking certain information is irresponsible, especially when it interferes with an individual's (but not a government's) privacy and/or safety.
WL is, IMO, doing their job in the most responsible way possible - they make efforts to protect the privacy and safety of individuals and prevent any collateral damage.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Misleading.
The current claim is that the leaks are killing informants or people mentioned in leaks. What Assange is talking about is people killed as a result of the government clamping down on protests based on information in the leaks. In other words, if people would have kept quiet about the information contained in the leaks, instead of protesting, no one would have died.
So the score is that no one has yet to die because information was leaked. Going for second order effects to blame Assange is kinda silly.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
If the information is available to the public, then there's a greater risk of someone crying foul about any 'tweaks' that are made to the story. Also, it also means that it isn't a he said/she said thing. 'Scientific journalism' is good because it allows different news outlets to draw their own conclusions based on the actual leak, rather then passing through a game of Chinese Whispers. For example, an Australian Labour Party power broker passed on information, tipping the US off about Julia Gillard taking over Kevin Rudd's role as PM a year before it actually happened. I've seen everything on it from condemning it as pandering to the US, to passing it off as business as usual - explaining that it's important to share information to keep diplomatic lines open.
The fact that the leak is out there for anyone to see means that spin can be kept to a minimum at least, they can't outright lie because people will check the facts against the evidence.
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
you'll find that there were weapons in the group
That's right, because the government should have the right to kill anyone who stands next to a person exercising their right to bear arms.
1300 people dead because they refused to put up with the shit any more, as opposed to several thousand dead from malaria and the country's resources being misused.
Was the leak a good or bad thing? Did it lead to 1300 deaths or save a few thousand more in the long term?
This isn't playschool, there isn't a clear good and bad, just shades of grey and complicated trade-offs.
That's the attitude that got George W. Bush elected. "This Gore guy really sounds like he knows what he's talking about, and this Bush guy looks confused, but Gore keeps sighing and being an asshole and berating poor Bush. I'm not voting for Gore, I'd never sit down and drink a beer with him!"
Why is it more important to be likable than credible?
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
It's not just the leakers who don't have the know-how, it's the consumers. In an ideal situation, people would 1) have the time to read volumes of leaked information, 2) connect the dots, and 3) understand what that means. Since almost no one except journalists meet those criteria, I think, yeah, journalists still have a place in this world.
There's more information now-- if anything, we need them more. Google has hardly killed librarians. Why should Wikileaks kill journalism?
There's a HUGE difference between information and understanding.
When the raw data is only accessible to certain professionals who summarize it for the public, then you can't pay a professional of your choice to sift through the data and summarize it for you, because they'll only have the summaries to work with.
Oh my, that evil Julian Assange. If he hadn't revealed that Kenyan politicians were horribly corrupt, the populace would've just voted for the right guy and the incumbent wouldn't have had to blatantly rig the elections to stay in power, causing mass rioting. It's all Assange's fault for not allowing the Kenyan populace to remain in blissful ignorance of just how corrupt and screwed up their political system is. The corrupt, vote-rigging politicians bear no responsibility for it whatsoever.
Seriously, though - did you really just blame Assange and Wikileaks for that?
Wikileaks only publishes raw information, right..... So the original title of the video while still on US Army servers was "Collateral Murder"?
If this site is staffed by ex-Wikileaks members then Wikileaks is better without them since they didn't understand the point that Wikileaks is not about "leaks" but about accountability. A democracy without accountability is no better than a tyranny and the key to a lack of accountability in a sick democracy is the control of the mass media.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
In one film, I don't remember which, the chief editor of the newspaper says to his staff "Our job isn't to break the story first. We're never going to beat the television. Our job is to give the story behind the story."
A good journalist will always have his place. He's prepared to do the legwork that the armchair pundit isn't, checking facts and talking to people to find their motivations. Here on Slashdot people are quite happy to paste from Wikipedia as 'evidence'. A good journalist will spot an anomaly, and if necessary jump in the car and trawl through paper archives to see if the digital one is actually correct or has been altered.
Of course there will be bad journalists, like Gizmondo who can't tell the difference between and EveryDNS and EasyDNS, but the good ones are worth their weight in gold. It's the reason people will happily subscribe to the FT and the Economist, yet The Times has died an online death.
Raw data has become more readily available to the public, but hopefully it will inspire more people to write quality articles as well as add to the armory of those already in the business.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Wikileaks did just as you asked, released the information to professional reporters.
Right now those professional reporters are spending 99% of their time on the subject discussing NOT what was in the leaks, but rather calling Assange a terrorist, irresponsible, appearing on TV "news" shows talking about how terrible he is, how he's a criminal, a traitor, calling for his arrest, for wikileaks to be stopped, and in some cases even calling for his death.
Yeah, those professional reporters - a trustworthy lot.
This space available.
Don't be silly, the only reason some people view Assange as a douchebag is because of his detractors making statements to that effect. A few insiders have made similar statements but that's to be expected in a volunteer organisation where mouthy people have nothing to lose by mouthing off- it's not like a real job where you can be sacked if you don't know when to keep quiet.
The fact is at the end of the day Assange has got the job done, and if some people didn't like how he got it done then fine, let them go and start their own leaks organisation up. Sure a few drama queens did fuck off in Wikileaks case, one of whom you should note is, in typical tabloid celebrity trash style, writing a book about the "real" wikileaks and his time there. Assange obviously can't be that much of a douche at the end of the day though, because he has enough people who are still working with him, who are standing by him, and who are continuing to push ahead with his leaks.
There people who do leave and start their own organisation though, they shouldn't be suprised, if and when they're equally succesful, if whoever they decide to have as a spokesperson (because they will need someone to speak to the media) that that person too gets called a douchebag by detractors.
More often than not, such cries often seem to stem back to jealousy more than anything- people who are pissed off that they didn't manage to achieve their goals like Assange and the likes did. Armchair activists who whinge on the web about how the world sucks, how governments are evil and infringing our rights, but then do fuck all about it. It's easy to criticise but what have you done lately to change things? that's the question these people need to ask- I'm glad to see the folks in TFA are at least willing to put their money where their mouth is, and it's now a case of seeing how effective they are at it, because if they fail, they may well find they were the problem, not Assange.
It's results that tell the real story, because in a volunteer organisation like Wikileaks where you need the support of hundreds of people around you, you wont achieve success if you really are that much of a douche.