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The Guardian's Complicated Relationship With Julian Assange
Sonny Yatsen writes "Vanity Fair has published an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the unlikely and tumultuous working relationship between WikiLeaks' Julian Assange and The Guardian as the Iraq War Logs were being published. The piece highlights the differences and conflicts between the Guardian's journalistic standards and WikiLeaks' transparency. Particularly interesting is the revelation that Julian Assange threatened to sue The Guardian if they publish a portion of Iraq War Logs leaked to them by a disgruntled WikiLeaks volunteer, claiming 'he owned the information and had a financial interest in how and when it was released.'"
What was he thinking? Threatening to sue? Did he really say he "owned" the documents?
This is exactly the problem everyone has with Assange and why Openleaks will replace Wikileaks.
Wikileaks no longer acts as a leak facilitator, it is not a political organization which selects what to leak, when, how. It's no longer a technology that acts like a dumb pipe, it's no longer functioning under network neutrality, it's now controlled top down by God aka Julian Assange.
Wikileaks will be buried a year from now. Openleaks and many other organizations far superior will replace Wikieaks. Assange over estimated his importance.
And I'm not someone who likes leaking in general, but if they are going to facilitate leaks then it has to be a dumb pipe which has no ability of the facilitator to decide what does or does not get leaked, how, or any of that. It should pass through the facilitator technology directly to the news organization, and there should be no interaction between the facilitator organization or it's technology and the sources EVER.
is being spread through Cryptome. The rumor that he is an informant for the Austrlian Federal Police does seem to be backed up by the story about him receiving warnings from Austrlian intelligence about dirty tricks.
This is something worth looking into. Whether or not there is any truth to it or not, it's worth looking into for that reason but also to determine whether or not it is a smear campaign or global conspiracy to break Assange.
http://wlcentral.org/node/839
The Guardian do not have clean hands in this matter.
Hardly a disinterested party. Reads more like a novel. And damn near as long.. In the meantime, all the "confidential" gossip is a nice side story.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Well well well.
BIG difference if this was all a "for the public/good/mankind" effort.... making money from this stuff makes him look like a bloody spy/traitor/commercial scumbag.
This really changes the tenor, doesn't it?
It will be interesting to read the spin now. This act alone may be the unravelling.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
Assange had a financial inerest in how and when it was released.
No surprises here! I'd respect Assange if he lived up to his hype about "open access." Now we know why there are alternatives to WikiLeaks.
(and yes, I did read the WLCentral.org item before posting. Shamir himself is not without controversy: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/309818.html
I have a feeling the financial interests he was referring to could potentially be money given to him by other media outlets so they too can print the cables.
Wikileaks requires funding and with paypal etc cutting it he could well be using the media as a substitute to donations, which isn't necessarily bad.
If the Guardian was to publish documents before he was able to get them to other paying outlets that would cause them to get stroppy as they are no longer able to be first equal to print highly sought after information. This could then be viewed as favorite to one media outlet hurting not only relations with outlets but Wikileaks reputation.
The way he said it could be easily misconstrued but it really sounds more like sheer anger and bad wording rather then anything else.
TL;DR: Guardian printing out of turn would cause a Charlie Foxtrot situation in many ways and Julian was angry at the thought.
I'm sorry, did somebody use the phrase "journalistic standards" and "The Guardian" in the same sentence?
I mean, even if he thought so, what are the chances that he actually said.
Smells of bullshit to me.
And "The Guardian" is not plural. It is a newspaper. It DOES not have clean hands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_differences#Formal_and_notional_agreement
"The way he said it"
We don't know _how_ he said it. All we how is how the reporter paraphrased it. And it isn't even a paraphrased quote as such, it's merely a summary of something that was allegedly said.
Guardian makes money selling advertising. The longer they string out the release of documents, the more times people come to visit the web site. Sure they might have gotten some additional documents and the potential for a scoop, but then they came back to their senses and decided that they can make more money with Assenage than without him.
I dunno. Will people instead risk their job and freedom... just to make some dickweed richer?
I mean, as long as it was some rhetoric about government transparency and accountability and all, sure, I can see how it would resonate right with a lot of people. But if that information just ends up "owned" by Assange and used to make some money for _him_, then wth, those people leaking stuff are just some unpaid sharecroppers.
And really, the right idea is that the government and information about the government belongs to the _people_. And, wth, at what point does that become "owned by Assange" or "for sale to the highest bidder"?
Disclaimer: I'm not entirely unbiased there. I've had the brief misfortune of being a coder on a MUD whose admins and all were very heavy on the OSS, openness and whatnot rhetoric. Then it turns out they're only for openness when it isn't about "their" code, meaning actually the code contributed by idealistic peons like yours truly. In fact, it was a whole surrealistic paranoia where everyone is out to steal "their" files and you had to jump through hoops and be treated like a spy to even get the headers you need to contribute such code. Now the situation isn't entirely similar, and it doesn't make me a freedom fighter or anything. But just saying that I happen to know first hand how it feels to contribute something in the name of some idealistic noble goal, and see it turned into someone else's property and glory. And it's a very bitter pill.
And I can't help think how the guy who risked losing his job or going to jail to contribute those documents must feel when he reads that they're now Assange's private property, and that it's about making Assange money rather than any idealistic noble goal. I mean, wth, I didn't risk anything and still felt majorly shafted. How does it feel to think "I might go to jail if found out and/or be the guy nobody hires any more because of that, but damn, I made Assange some money"? Probably not fun.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Either that or he really is a douche bag.
I'm more interested in the message, but good or bad it doesn't stop the messenger from being an asshole.
This never should have been about him, but it seems he wanted his name and self out there. Smear campaign or not, he brought this shit on himself. Seems we can't have a Wikileaks story that doesn't mention or completely focus on the prick/saint. If Wikileaks were faceless, then the media would have to choose between focusing on the story or ignoring it. Assange has let them cop out and focus on the man.
Do you see what's going on here?
The Character assassination plot on Assange was a major success. He's been in jail not so long, and the story is slowly going cold. Nobody is discussing it so eagerly anymore. Also, Julian's public image went down. Regardless of whether what The Guardian is saying is true or not, 30 days ago virtually nobody on /. would have bought the Guardian's story. Or we would've at least questioned it, not taking it as fact.
Julian is in jail. Nobody believes in him anymore. Wikileaks is dead, and nobody even noticed. The CIA pulled yet another successful operation on its own people and the world, and the press took care of cleaning up after them. And nobody gives a fuck.
I see very few people here that understand this. As usual, we are a minority, but when even in /., when everybody here is a minority, you can only see a minority of the minority display any kind of reasoning skills, you can tell something's fucked up.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
First read this article:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian?currentPage=all
I think it will paint for you a picture of a very unusual person, clearly flawed but also clearly motivated by a quest for righteousness. I think he wants to stop wars more even than he wants to release information. He is certainly not doing this for money or comfort, though I hope he eventually finds both. He wants desperately to make an impact, and he was enraged at the Guardian for wanting to release the leaks on a different schedule because he wanted to optimize the timing for the sake of maximum impact. Yeah, it was stupid to threaten to sue and claim "ownership" - but even the article says that he later backed down from this, after a great deal of coffee and wine. Haven't we all said stupid things while overworked, stressed and sleep deprived? I don't think this episode should be taken to reveal too much about Assange. The article linked above is more informative, though also not exactly flattering.
According to Wired, back in 2008 Wikileaks had a plan to sell exclusivity to certain documents to the highest bidder. These documents were embargoed, which meant eventually they'd be fully released, but until then the lucky winner would be able to report on them without competition.
Which does make me wonder about the "financial interest" angle mentioned in the Vanity Fair piece... are any of these media outlets paying for access to the current set of leaked documents?
At this point everything about him should be taken with a giant fucking grain of salt
This is slashdot, though, we're supposed to worship Assange with no critical thought or doubt I thought.
They did not release all the cables. Only about 1-2% have been published so far, and not by Wikileaks but papers like the Guardian.Wikileaks is just their source. Wikileaks only provided the cables to a few papers, the New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and two others whose names I forget. If any cable has been published at all, it was by one of those papers. Wikileaks only gave the information to them, and only them. They are the filter.
And where do you get your information that Assange is the only person who knows the "key"? Assange has said himself that cables in the hands of hundreds of thousands of supporters, encrypted, and if something were to happen to him the cables would all be automatically released. I've no reason to doubt their ability to set up a system like the one they say they have. Do you have reason to believe it's infeasible, or that they are incapable of it?
I suggest you reconsider your other assumptions.
Assange is the weak point because he has exposed himself as the head of the organization. This makes him vulnerable to attacks like people publishing smears about him being a rapist and an egotistical maniac and only interested in personal profit, etc etc. I don't see any reason to believe he has endangered the operation at all, but only enhanced it by sticking his own neck out and not remaining hidden and anonymous - which would only have led to other demagogic charges, "Only hypocrites and cowards would ask people to take personal risks to provide them with leaks and expose such secrets but not reveal their own identities."
love it how Wikileaks is doing Big Media's Job and all they have time for is to try and stop him.
Every time I post on this, I get modded toll by somebody with an agenda, but I think it's important so I try again.
Assange is a narcissist. He isn't doing anything honorable by dumping all this classified stuff. Leaking information which reveals wrongdoing is noble, wholesale dumping of classified material is chaos. Some secrets are secret for good reasons. For example:
What good comes from leaking the cables of a diplomat clandestinely investigating human rights abuses? It simultaneously gave the oppressive regime a reason to be more oppressive and the names of people to go after, but Assange knows best - people have a right to know! See WikiLeaks just made the world more repressive
How about undermining a democratic reformer in Zimbabwe? Did that do any good? I have a good friend in Zimbabwe, he's in enough danger already just for supporting the MDC. Now a cleptocratic tyrant has the excuse he needs to hold on to power, prolonging the misery of an entire country, and my friend might end up in jail, or dead. But I suppose the death and deprivation of faceless Africans won't keep Julian up at night.
Oddly, one case where Mr. Assange saw fit to withhold information was the "Collateral Murder" video. Not because it could endanger somebody, but because it didn't fit with the narrative he constructed. Rather than objectively present the video with the relevant context, he purposefully left out any mention of the convoy that was approaching or the attacks that had recently occurred that same day, implying that the helicopter was just randomly firing at a group of people. He implies that the pilot's identification of weapons was incorrect, but fails to provide a copy or even a link to the report (which was released, though names are redacted), which details fun facts like the RPGs and AKs they found on and around the "civilians". He doesn't mention that the Reuters employees had not told anyone where they were going to be, and were not wearing ANY press identification. I could go on...
The point is that Assange has always had an agenda, and it certainly isn't exposing government wrongdoing, or even presenting the uncolored, unfiltered truth (if it doesn't suit him). I don't know why so many people here idolize him.
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
That is if this is the only scoop. Wikileaks is an organization and it will not go to prison like the actual leaker. There is a longer relationship to be cultivated as opposed to a one-time use leaker. Wikileaks as a business has invested in producing leaks and has the opportunity to produce other major leaks about governments and organizations around the world. I am sure there is no shortage of dirty laundry and Wikileaks has the cred to deliver information in a powerful manner.
It's not the truth unless it's the whole truth.
How about this. Some guy in the US has a decent home-security system with cameras etc. He sees guys in dark clothes prowling around his house, so he grabs his (legally registered) gun and calls 9-1-1. While he's trying to get help from 9-1-1, one of the guys bursts in through a window, and he swings around and shoots the guy in the head. Since the house is wired, the security camera gets it all on tape.
Now, it turns out that the "intruder" was actually a cop, and this was a sting/bust that got the wrong address (or even the right one, but maybe without a warrant, whatever). However, what is published is that Mr Smith shot a cop, with an accompanying video of him whipping around with a gun and blowing said cop's brains out. Maybe that video is even shown to the jury when the guy gets charged.
In that case, do you think that it might be a good idea to perhaps REFUSE to show the video. How about if they only showing the video without all the other information (bad drug bust, 9-1-1 call records, etc). Still a good idea?
Maybe the information should be released, but if it's only part of the story, is it really an honest disclosure?