Openleaks Goes Live

Underholdning writes "Ars technica leaks the story of OpenLeaks launching. OpenLeaks is an alternative to WikiLeaks, with a few differences. 'OpenLeaks will not accept or publish documents on its own platform, but rather create many "digital dropboxes" for its community members, each adapted to the specific needs of our members so that they can provide a safe and trusted leaking option for whistleblowers.' Time will show if this will live next to WikiLeaks, or they will compete. For more information, check out the OpenLeaks website."

Comments

FL

[Anonymous Coward]

First leak : Obama is really an American.

Re:FL

[bogidu]

*gasp* you mean Hawaii really is part of the United States??

Re:FL

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? FOIA does not apply to people's birth certificates. But Obama voluntarily placed a copy of his official birth certificate on his campaign web site during the entire 2008 campaign just to try to appease the "birthers". Did you ever see any mention of that on the news? No, because the media likes the controversy; it gets them ratings.

Naturally, the Obama campaign web site was taken down after the election, but you can still see copies of his birth certificate at wikipedia, snopes, and numerous other web sites. There are even copies of Hawaiian newspaper archives with his birth announcement on the web. Good luck finding them with Google though. Google search results are so heavily spammed with "birther" nonsense that you have to dig forever trying to find them.

The "birthers" are so rabid that even if you did handed them Obama's original birth certificate they would just say it's fake. It's best to just ignore those crackpots.

Re:FL

[2.7182]

It is now. But it wasn't a state until 1959 or something. And was John McCain born in Panama or something?

Re:FL

[jeffrey.endres]

This second step makes him not "natural born."

Yeah but he is white.

Re:FL

[PopeRatzo]

But Obama voluntarily placed a copy of his official birth certificate on his campaign web site during the entire 2008 campaign

Just hold on there, buster. I saw that so-called "birth certificate" with my own two eyes and I don't know about you but I could not feel that official seal no matter how hard I rubbed my screen (which ended up killing a whole bunch of them little pixies, something like 768 or so, that make up one-a them flat screens and even though the 14" LCD monitor that I bought at the Wal-Mart has a whole passel of them pixies, a bunch of dead ones right square in the middle of the screen kinda messes up the picture. Now it looks like that Bree Olsen (who is 100% white, by the way) has an extra nipple what with all them dead pixies, and an extra nipple does tend to spoil the mood, if you get my meaning). So not only did that Hussein Adolph Obama take my country, but now he's soiled Bree Olsen on top of it. Sumbitch.

But getting back to the so-called "birth certificate" of our phony-baloney president (man, I don't know a soul who voted for that muslin boy) you can tell it's phony because not one single true patriotic web site showed it. That's right. Not a one of them. Don't you think that if it was really his birth certificate then they'd want to clear this mess up with how it's got every right-thinking American ready to go to the mattresses and all?

No-sir. No citizen, No way. (by the way, I've copyrighted that phrase, so don't even think about putting it up on a bumper sticker without you send me a little taste first.

And by the way, I may be a dumb cracker, but I'm smart enough to know that the new Slashdot Zero looks like seven kinds of shit. I'm thinking of having a little talk with that Captain Tacobender or whatever that yankee pudknocker calls hisself and see if I can't persuade him to switch it back to something a little more loser-friendly.

Re:FL

[oztiks]

Looks like OpenLeaks is propped up by the Knight Foundation ... http://www.knightfoundation.org/ ... I demand talking cars! Damn It! Where are the talking cars!

Re:FL

[Exclamation mark!]

With all this leaking this has turned into a pissing contest!

Re:FL

[jace_d]

Hey man, if you're going to bother with punctuation, sort out your parentheses. mkay? It makes it easier to understand your train of thought.

When will they learn?

[Deathnerd]

When you bring down or threaten one site, six more pop up in its place. I would have thought that the lessons learned from fighting torrent sites would translate to government. I guess they'll never really learn.

Row row row FIGHT THE POWAH!

Re:When will they learn?

[mirix]

Pretty much. Anything with enough demand just ends up turning into a game of Whack-a-Mole, internet or otherwise.
See the war on drugs as an example.

Re:When will they learn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Several of these new sites are honeypots for various governments.

Re:When will they learn?

[Chakra5]

Not really in this case. This site is more in response to Asanges direction than the governments actions against him or Wikileaks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLeaks

According to Domscheit-Berg's initial statements, he expected OpenLeaks to bypass WikiLeaks problems by serving only as a safe conduit for whistleblowers to leak information, which would then be passed on to the press, instead of acting as a publisher itself. The organization also intends to be democratically governed, rather than being run by one person or a small group!

I know some want to make Asange and wikileaks a paragon and the govt a demon, but it's a troubled god they worship, valuable as parts of the function may indeed be.

Re:When will they learn?

[Baseclass]

Personally, I'd like to see a Tor .onion site setup for anonymous leaking. I suspect once something major is leaked, western governments will start blacklisting these sites.

Re:When will they learn?

[hedwards]

Sounds like you're a flavor aid fan. If you want to have something secure then it's going to be run by a small group. If you're just taking the information from anonymous sources without any way of knowing who it is that's leaking it you're going to fail miserably. The unfortunate reality is that if you don't have direct communication with the parties wishing to leak information you've got no way of knowing what they're leaking and why.

I predict that OpenLeaks goes down hard because the organizational structure they're suggesting just doesn't make any sense.

Re:When will they learn?

[mug funky]

the grey hair principle... kill one and ten will come to the funeral.

and just look at Assange's hair. there's no stopping that flood.

Re:When will they learn?

[Velex]

My personal favorite is the war on alcohol, because that one was lost.

Re:When will they learn?

[Chakra5]

Sounds like you're a flavor aid fan.

If by that you mean I'm in favor of a new entity that seems to be thinking about the whole deal more holistically then yes please, pass me some of that. http://www.shirky.com/weblog/transcript-of-openleaks-video/

If you want to have something secure then it's going to be run by a small group.

What about their model appears unsecure to you,..specifically? There are only 12 of em in the office at present. Or do I miss your point?

If you're just taking the information from anonymous sources without any way of knowing who it is that's leaking it you're going to fail miserably.

Agreed. But what leads you to be sure there won't be avenues to verify or that they are accepting sources that they aren't verifying? Perhaps you're right, in which case I agree, it's a fools errand. But everything I read leads me to believe these guys aren't as dumb as you seem to think they are, and that there will be checks both on their end and furthermore at the publishers end where they will still need to do their job and confirm before they run with a story. And if they fail, so what really? I guess time will tell if the model works or not of course.

But the only reason I can see to be rooting against these guys is guy fawkes worship frankly. Everything gets better if it works, and if it's crap, it fails and we're left with one less channel of free information that so many claim is the point. ...So tell me sir who seems to hope for their failure...is that flavoraid in my hand or perhaps yours?

Re:When will they learn?

[LordLimecat]

Wikileaks isnt down; Openleaks folks simply werent satisfied with how Assange was running things.

Lets not make this something it isnt.

Re:When will they learn?

[Belial6]

It's not over yet.

Re:When will they learn?

[TheRaven64]

My least favourite is the war on alcohol, because after vast amounts of wasted money and a dramatic increase in organised crime, politicians still refuse to learn any lessons from the outcome.

Re:When will they learn?

[marcosdumay]

Seeing how not even the RIAA learned this lesson from fighting torrent sites, I'd think it translating to anybody else should be quite unlikely.

But maybe it did. The Egypt governemnt has simply cut all of the internet inside the country, that way no other site can appear and replace Twitter. No way that could backfire...

Re:When will they learn?

[Velex]

Very true.

dont leak to the wrong people

[malignant_minded]

I wonder how long it is until a government or "evil" corporation creates one of these to get the leaks first hand.

Re:dont leak to the wrong people

[Anonymous Coward]

And see who they're coming from.

Re:dont leak to the wrong people

[Dr. Spork]

Yeah, my thought exactly. For all the limitations of Julien Assange, he's not a narc, he won't pass your name to the authorities, and he will try to get your leak out there and make sure that people actually notice. Alternatives to Wikileaks might also do the same, but I wouldn't want to be the first to test the waters. I definitely hope that these guys turn out to be legit though. Competition in leaks would be a very good thing for everybody. Still, let's not ignore that Assange and Wikileaks have a huge head start.

Re:dont leak to the wrong people

[hedwards]

Assange for all his weaknesses is in some respects a realist. Those complaints weren't particularly valid. He's got a limited number of people that he can trust to do the redactions and other work necessary to release the material. There's a lot of material in the world that can be leaked. I don't think it's a fair criticism of him or the organization that there's a huge backlog. Choosing to prioritize the materials that are the most interest to the general public is hardly unethical. Organizations have to make priorities or they get nothing done.

It's sort of like if Shakespeare or Mark Twain had chosen to write one act or chapter from each work before moving onto the second. Both men almost undoubtedly had a back log of ideas at various points and only a limited amount of resources with which to realize them.

Re:dont leak to the wrong people

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm prepared to accept that Assange wouldn't pass the identity of whistleblowers to the authorities, but how can you say "he will try to get your leak out there and make sure that people actually notice"? How many leaks have they published since taking down the Wiki? There may have been a couple more, but I can only recall Collateral Murder and the diplomatic cables. Whether you're a fan of the man or not, I don't think you can say his highest priority remains airing all that needs to be aired. I believe he claims to have closed the submission process because they're inundated with data. Maybe that's true, but there's absolutely no sign of any attempt to clear that backlog.

Re:dont leak to the wrong people

[selven]

The Wikileaks system is set up so that Wikileaks does not know where the leaks came from. Even if the fate of the world depended on it, Julian Assange would not be able to prove that Bradley Manning was the one who sent the leaks that he allegedly sent.

Where is the advertising ?

[unity100]

and who will do its advertising, so that the mass media will HAVE to carry the leaks into the headlines ?

if you think material will just get carried into headlines and prime time news because of the contents, dont fool yourself - entire american public is unaware of what ACTA is, even as of now, despite it has been internationally fought over by all major players in the world. so, its indeed possible to keep public ignorant.

wikileaks is using the publicity assange generates through media and publicity stunts. in case you noticed, assange is always making the opening for a new leak a few weeks before it is published, and continuing to generate publicity for the upcoming leak.

you just dont create a dropbox and expect leaks to be seen by people. corporate contolled media WONT use it. they have successfully kept any potential leak in the dark since watergate, until wikileaks.

openleaks must find a way to make advertising.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[Anonymous Coward]

you just dont create a dropbox and expect leaks to be seen by people. corporate contolled media WONT use it. they have successfully kept any potential leak in the dark since watergate, until wikileaks. Openleaks must find a way to make advertising.

From their FAQ: "OpenLeaks is not involved in the direct editing and release of documents. Our intention is to function, as much as possible, as a mere conduit (akin to the telephone exchange and the post) between the whistleblower and an organization of their choice. This means that OpenLeaks does not accept submissions or publish leaked material directly. "

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[Nefarious Wheel]

"...dont fool yourself - entire american public is unaware of what ACTA is, even as of now, despite it has been internationally fought over by all major players in the world. so, its indeed possible to keep public ignorant. "

You're probably right. But a good question is -- how the hell are the population of the US ever going to learn the truth if there isn't an unfiltered source of news they can read, thus forming their own opinions?

Curiosity, access, the whispered word -- people will find out if they're not wrapped in cotton wool, and there's this thing called the Internet they can use. Change will happen.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[hedwards]

Which officially makes it worthless. People looking to leak can't trust them because they have to have someway of keeping track of where leaks are coming from and if that's not the case the journalists can't trust them because they have no way of verifying the sources are legit.

Either case does not bode well for the organization.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[Darkness404]

Except for the fact that the vast majority of the internet is, like all other forms of media, prone to biases. The nice thing about the internet is that you can choose to pick your bias, but it will still have bias. Things like Openleaks which only serve to pass on leaks to other organizations doesn't help to solve this problem. Everything is filtered, everything has guidelines to what they will publish or deny. And really, most Americans don't want to think beyond their own world. They want to see a site where the democrats are looked at as incompetent morons and the republicans are brilliant defenders of freedom or they want to see where the republicans are looked at as moronic and the democrats as superior. Neither side wants to embrace the underlying sameness of the 2 parties and see that they can be both wrong and because they don't want to see it, they will cling to the media outlets they already use which will take things out of context to paint a picture for the democrats or republicans that pleases their audience.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[TapeCutter]

"they have to have someway of keeping track of where leaks are coming from and if that's not the case the journalists can't trust them because they have no way of verifying the sources are legit."

WL does not verify the authenticity of leaks by trusting the leaker, it normally verifies them simply by asking the original owner of the document if they are genuine*. Unless were talking about people who are trained to neither confirm or deny, the reaction of the owner is usually enough to confirm if the material is genuine or not.

(* - This is not the only method, WL also uses other simple verification "tricks" that are part of the toolbox of any competent investigative journalist).

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[Sarten-X]

Corporate-controlled media is controlled by corporations. They'll follow any action that will make them profit in the long term. If being the first to break a scandalous story to the world costs them two advertisers, but brings in enough viewers to make other advertisers more profitable, they'll do it. Their competitors will be forced to broadcast the story, just to keep up appearances. Sure, the government can ask for some story not to be reported, but any attempt to actually enforce such a request is just a bigger scandal, and the request itself makes the story that much more interesting to viewers.

It'll be tricky, but this could work out, thanks to greed itself.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[unity100]

your approach is incorrect. it assumes there exists no greater potential profit than exposing these leaks. it also forgets that, these leaks will not only harm the profits of the corporations which hold these news outlets through shareholderships or conglomerates, but directly hamper the individuals which own these on the top.

no megacorp will allow a syndicate under its reach to publish information that would damage billions of more profits in other sectors and guaranteed deals, dirty dealings, to gain a few hundred million more in advertising revenue. the advertising revenue, already comes in - there is nowhere else to advertise.

simply your approach assumes independent media. there is no such media.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[Sarten-X]

While there may not be any large independent media, each company does effectively operate independently. I doubt AOL Time Warner would particularly worry about publishing information damaging to News Corp, or vice versa. There also Gannett, Disney, and Comcast, and they all effectively hate each other. In fact, being such a large company is detrimental, because each division of each company must work with every other company, and nobody wants to make nice deals with the competition. Pay attention to any of the content-provider contract battles, and this is obvious.

Advertising revenue is usually not tied to the number of sponsorships. It's tied to the number of viewers. Irritating one sponsor, but increasing viewership by 20% is a profitable move for the network. A single network with an exclusive story can also extend favors a targeted company, offering to release rebuttals and host spokespersons.

Given that the world's largest entertainment conglomerate only brought in $38 billion last year, I find it hard to believe that a shady deal's profits would measure in the billions. A hundred million, perhaps, but then that's well within the range of a smart advertising move.

The conspiracy theory, like all such theories, also requires far more cooperation than is feasible. Anyone involved in a large secret deal would also be suitably above the day-to-day dealings of the news branch to not know about the leaked story before it's released. If the news branch were told not to release any stories about certain rivals, that lets a few hundred people know that a secret deal is taking place. People don't keep secrets that well.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[wvmarle]

Most of the general public is not touched by the ACTA directly. Especially the US public as it's primarily an attempt to spread existing US legislation to the rest of the world. It's the rest of the world that's actually really affected by this. For that alone it's no wonder the American public doesn't know/care about it.

And then the ACTA doesn't involve killing or violence against persons. That's also what keeps the general public less interested. Even with ACTA, bittorrent will continue to work and they will still be able to order their counterfeit handbags from Hong Kong based e-bay shops like they do now. It will take years for such a regulation to start to bite, and then it's too late. We're frogs in a pot of water.

Your US corporate-controlled media may be slow to follow; luckily there is still the BBC and many other independent European news agencies that do pick up those stories, that do their homework, and that will bring it out to the masses. And remember WikiLeaks exists for many years already, me as long-term /. reader (some 9-10 years by now - no my ID doesn't reflect that) knew about it from the beginning, but the general public and major news agencies only much more recently picked it up really. I've seen their name in the newspapers occasionally, but only with the Iraq war files they really got well known.

OpenLeaks is "advertising" where they should: primarily the media outlets that would want to use their material. That's likely the core of their marketing - it seems to me WikiLeaks has done the same. Make sure your organisation is known in the geek-scene, and to the outlets. Make sure also that your "drop-box" is secure, secure as in guaranteed anonymity for leakers. That may be the hardest part even, because you know affected parties will chase you for any traces left for where a leak comes from, and that potential wistleblowers want to be sure that they can leak safely and truly anonymously. Those things you don't advertise, those things you have to be, and over time prove so.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[marcuz]

>wikileaks is using the publicity assange generates through media and publicity stunts. exactly! - that's why he should not be trusted. media report about things which they like or they give it a spin they like. he seems to me like a created hero to save us all (and meanwhile following agenda of someone's) the less score I get for these kind of posts I make, the stronger my suspicioun that you just blindly trust someone cool. people are a very easy target to manipulate if you do it in a smart way (and this wikileaks thing is a very smart way). its ridiculous how most of the people can't think criticaly about this issue. i have no insider information but from what I can tell, this looks very suspicious. I very much welcome any less centralized leaking mechanism. I hope you're with me at least on this one.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[unity100]

While there may not be any large independent media, each company does effectively operate independently. I doubt AOL Time Warner would particularly worry about publishing information damaging to News Corp, or vice versa.

wow. excuse me, but you are WAY too naive. and your focus is off.

aol time warner wouldnt worry about publishing information damaging to news corp. but, both would not publish information that would damage bigger interests of their holders. just like how they acted in conjunction with acta et al.

Re:Where is the advertising ?

[Sarten-X]

As an exercise in naivety, I searched for reports on ACTA. The first results are from Ars Technica, which is run by Condé Nast Publications, and CNET, which is a part of CBS Corporation. It seems to me that both of those ought to be significant and reputable enough to become a trusted outlet for OpenLeaks.

Perhaps you'd like to provide a different example of this great conspiracy?

Re:Legit or Government sponsored?

[scotty.m]

Yeap, picked it like a scab
It's exactly what they're are doing! Lemmings!

Re:A long term trend?

[grantek]

Like the social networking trends of the past few years, I believe the most widely-used leak site will end up being one that limits you to 140-character leaks, called "leets"

Re:Legit or Government sponsored?

[Thud457]

I don't get it.

Why can't whistleblowers just post their dirt to facebook? With their commitment to protecting users' data, it'd be all over the place in no time.

Unless Zuckerberg grabs it up to auction to the highest bidder.

Politics

[Q-Hack!]

It's one thing to post documents on-line that Governments would rather keep secret. It's another to do like Wikileaks did and edit video to fit their personal views. If these sites would just post and not add their opinion; credibility would improve.

Re:Politics

[jez9999]

I think this argument is utter crap. Wikileaks offered an unedited version of Collateral Murder, and what they did edit they did to clarify things and in my opinion they didn't distort the content in any significant way.

Other documents they have edited have been to remove people's names and they'd have gotten more criticism if they hadn't done it.

Re:Politics

[dbIII]

With the greatest possible respect (watch "Yes Minister" if you don't know that this is a polite way of saying you may be very good at something but have no clue about this subject) they had both an edited version that can be considered "highlights" and the full version. That renders your complaint pointless nitpicking that could be applied to nearly any media source on the planet but can not be applied for this video.
Also Orwell was writing about the USSR in such a way as to get the message across that it could happen in your hometown if everything went wrong. He also sidestepped the ideologies that really are irrelevant if there is totalitarianism hiding behind them by setting it in a fictional place. It wasn't really prediction but extrapolation of the sort of thing that was already occurring and presenting it in such a way that people would take it seriously without bringing in their own ideological baggage.

Re:Politics

[h00manist]

I agree. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Every newsroom has an editor. So long as you don't state that opinion is fact, all is fair.

Re:Politics

[tobiah]

It's one thing to post documents on-line that Governments would rather keep secret. It's another to do like Wikileaks did and edit video to fit their personal views. If these sites would just post and not add their opinion; credibility would improve.

What news organization does do that? For that matter, what other news organization would also publish the raw footage (as wikileaks did)?

Re:Politics

[Anonymous Coward]

The "collateral murder" highlights reel was all that was needed. When the soldiers shot the van that was collecting the bodies, that was a war crime.

Re:Politics

[twebb72]

Parent watches way too much Fox News.

Re:Politics

[SimonTheSoundMan]

A reporter, newscaster or presenter will report on the facts, a commentator gives opinion.

Fox News is all commentary and skew and flip stories. BBC News is mostly news casting, and only report on the fact, with no biased slant, in most cases.

Only time you see reporting getting slightly skewed at the BBC is when they are dealing with very sensitive subjects, for example they have embedded journalists in Iraq where the story is that given to them by the American and British forces, and is not representative of what is really going on. 'Collateral Murder' went through the press as the story given by the USA army that was totally inaccurate to what happened. The embedded journalists have to obey the news given out by the forces, if not agencies such as the BBC wont get on the front-line of what is happening. Wikileaks served to undo the PR machine that the US government have.

Re:Politics

[interkin3tic]

It's another to do like Wikileaks did and edit video to fit their personal views.

I disagree with the notion that wikileaks did edit the video to fit their personal views. They gunned down innocent civilians. Nothing in the longer version I saw changed that.

Re:Politics

[Skidborg]

Unless the camera then zoomed out, the director yelled cut, and the van occupants piled out to congratulate each other on propaganda well done... Probably not the case here, but it wouldn't historically be the first time such a thing has happened.

Re:Politics

[TapeCutter]

Since WL published the full version along side it's commentary, I think your citicisim is what is lacking credibility. It never ceases to amaze me that such credulous and morally vacuous critiques are parroted ad-nauseum while the hard evidence of real crimes is all but ignored . Where are the authorties? They have utterly failed to follow up on the factual evidence and charge people for the real crimes documented in these leaks, instead they have gone on an expensive and fruitless "investigation" looking for some way to legally muzzle WL.They are openly seeking to curtail the freedom of the press and the majority of the "freedom loving" US public are enthusistically supporting their efforts.

Re:Politics

[martin-boundary]

Also Orwell was writing about the USSR in such a way as to get the message

With the greatest possible respect, Orwell was writing about the UK.

Re:Politics

[wvmarle]

Many facts have two faces, when seen from the opposite parties. Wars primarily so - even journalist reporting what they see will see and hear different things whether they are on the American side or on the Iraqi side. Even when reporting about the same facts. It is really really difficult to stick to pure observations without any interpretations, think the difference of "that child is shouting" and "that child is angry". The first is really an observation; the second could very well be an interpretation of the shouting behaviour. Very easy to misinterpret observations because of an expectation/opinion about a situation.

Yet of course all good journalists will do their best to separate fact and opinion. And proper news outlets will mark articles that are not plain reporting as opinion or analyses

Re:Politics

[LordLimecat]

Are you dancing around the idea that it is possible to live in a world (inhabited by humans) where no secrets are necessary?

Re:Politics

[LordLimecat]

Sorry for double post... But I just went and watched the "full" video here, and around 4:35-4:45, I very clearly see a cut. Is that how such videos generally work? Is there any reason to believe that too was not edited, or can we trust that THIS time, it was the full video?

And I thought the point of a site like wikileaks was to be a neutral, thrid party publishing site; sticking orwell quotes onto a video doesnt seem very neutral to me.

Re:Politics

[dbIII]

I suggest you read what I've written and respond to that instead of making up things and pretending that is what I have written.
It is quite obvious that I wrote nothing remotely related to what you have suggested LordLimecat.

Re:Politics

[dbIII]

Could you have at least taken the trouble to read the entire sentence that you quoted? The portion later in the sentence that says "could happen in your hometown" is there if you have the patience to read far enough to get to the middle of it.

Re:Politics

[Adayse]

Your argument is wrong. The wikileaks opinion was required to counter the unreliable official commentary. Were they not cowardly killings in that video?

Re:Politics

[Tranzistors]

Is there any reason to believe that too was not edited, or can we trust that THIS time, it was the full video?

You will be disappointed to find that you can't trust anyone. It is that simple. Even if Wikileaks is totally honest, the source could have distorted the documents. Or the original material was a honey pot.

And I thought the point of a site like wikileaks was to be a neutral, third party publishing site;

Where did you get that idea? Imagine, that wikileaks is a news organization, which publishes the original material. You can get one perspective from them directly, other perspective form other news organizations who republish their material, or you can see for yourself. If they just dumped the video, would anybody notice?

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Re:Politics

[martin-boundary]

But he wasn't using the USSR as a model for what could go wrong in the UK, rather he was extrapolating from the UK's own social trends in regard to the forthcoming cold war. Stalin was of course the model for Animal Farm, but the post war UK society, not Russia, was the model for 1984.

For example, the perpetual war with former allies who can change from one day to the next was directly modeled on the cold war which quickly followed WWII. The extreme rationing was directly modeled on the UK's rationing policy which continued for years after the war was over. And of course the society stratified into classes was modeled on UKian society, where class is important even today, whereas the Soviet Union has always been classless.

Re:Politics

[drinkypoo]

It's one thing to post documents on-line that Governments would rather keep secret. It's another to do like Wikileaks did and edit video to fit their personal views

Yes. The first is called a leak. The second is called journalism. Wikileaks has consistently done both at once; the unedited version of the Collateral Murder footage was released within seconds of the edited version, which as anyone who has compared them can attest does nothing more than remove dead time. Well, that and a rocket attack on a building which was occupied by families who lacked the option to leave at the time. Nice anti-wikileaks propaganda, though.

Re:Politics

[Bill_the_Engineer]

NPR

Re:Politics

[metacell]

It's one thing to post documents on-line that Governments would rather keep secret. It's another to do like Wikileaks did and edit video to fit their personal views. If these sites would just post and not add their opinion; credibility would improve.

It's not unlikely you're trolling, but I'll respond just to be on the safe side.

The US military didn't just classify the video where a US attack helicopter shoots down journalists in Iraq - they lied to the court and claimed it didn't exist.

Wikileaks exposed that lie by leaking the video. They published both an edited version with commentary, and the complete, unedited version, so everyone could see for themselves that they didn't distort anything. That Wikileaks bothered to publish the unedited version, proves that they were honest. It's more than what a regular news agency does.

Of course, when they release unedited material, they get criticised for that too. It's used to argue that they're not "a real news agency", since "real news agencies" provide reports, not raw data, and this in turn is used to support bizarre arguments that they shouldn't have the same right to free speech as other news providers.

So whatever Wikileaks does, they get criticised. I think it's amazing they haven't made more mistakes than they have, considering the sheer amount of material they've received and the controversies surrounding it.

Re:Politics

[metacell]

The US military has admitted the video is genuine by trying to defend the actions portrayed on it.

Re:Politics

[LordLimecat]

They should not insert commentary into the leaked material. It does immense damage to their credibility to claim "this is authentic war footage" and then have numerous cuts, tributes to the fallen, and drawn in lines etc inside the video.

Re:Politics

[Tranzistors]

The full version has no drawn in lines, only extra is the subtitles. If you have problems with those, you are nitpicking. Now, why couldn't you download the frikin' video and verify yourself? That is the whole point of WL – you can see for yourself. But what is the point for them to do it, if even you can't be bothered to check.

Re:Politics

[dbIII]

I suggest you look at what others, including Orwell himself, wrote about the subject before telling me I'm wrong because of your jumped to conclusions. The warning was about the UK but the examples were pure USSR. That is why I'm saying that Orwell was not an "optimist", he was writing about a sort of society that already existed. If it was pure USSR the message would have been ignored and filed under "it could never happen here because we're English/American/whatever," plus many of the people he associated with that didn't yet understand what had happened in the USSR would have never talked to him again.

Re:Politics

[martin-boundary]

The warning was about the UK but the examples were pure USSR.

Sorry to be blunt, but you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

Re:Politics

[dbIII]

You were very blunt at the start throwing my words back at me, jumped to a conclusion which does not appear to be supported by anything I've read about Orwell and is oversimplified to the back of beyond, took things far too literally (while getting it wrong, of course the UK is not literally like that either) and did not even bother to pay attention to something that answered your "question".
A lot has been written about why 1984 is a lot like what Orwell learned of totalitarian USSR and Orwell's arguments about it with others on the British left who still saw it as a workers paradise. That seems to be what Hitchens thought and put in his biography of Orwell (read it and prove I "clearly have no idea" if you wish). I found that interesting and brought it up and was not looking to be the target of somebody that wants a fight to relieve boredom.

Egypt just turned off all Internet access

[h00manist]

Egyptian authorities apparently pulled the backbone plugs. As a result of the Egyptians protesting, because the Tunisians protested, because of a Wikileaked document, from a US Embassy saying the truth - there was an old, fucked up dictatorship, that is no more. Egyptians have their work laid out for them.

Re:Egypt just turned off all Internet access

[Anonymous Coward]

So Julian Assange and WikiLeaks work brought about what Dubya said he wanted to do by attacking Iraq: spread democracy in the Middle East. For a lot less than the trillions of dollars and tens of hundreds of lives (including the much more valuable American lives).

Suck on that, Dubya..!

Re:Egypt just turned off all Internet access

[GameboyRMH]

If only the backbone's disconnected, what's to keep someone from setting up their own twitter-like system (I'm assuming it's too late to grab the identi.ca source, but one programmer can whip up a quick n' dirty twitter clone in a matter of hours) or just using an IRC channel served locally?

Re:Egypt just turned off all Internet access

[ocdscouter]

Since when are Tunisia and Egypt in the Middle East, instead of North Africa?

Since "Middle East" seems to be a placeholder for some as (Geographical "Middle East") + (Any other predominantly Arab/Muslim nations, particularly (exclusively?) in North Africa).

That's what I infer, at any rate. Your Mileage May Vary.

Re:Egypt just turned off all Internet access

[Anonymous Coward]

So Julian Assange and WikiLeaks work brought about what Dubya said he wanted to do by attacking Iraq: spread democracy in the Middle East. For a lot less than the trillions of dollars and tens of hundreds of lives (including the much more valuable American lives).

Suck on that, Dubya..!

George Walker Bush was actively supporting the government of Egypt. Since many US presidents before him, although he and his father is perhaps the ones that has most utilised their services, Egypt have been a place where people is sent to be tortured on behalf of CIA and other US acronyms, or where people have been sent when the US government want them to be behind lock and shackle with no questions asked. [ This has of course never happened to anyone born in USA, just dirty foreigners, according to US policies, people born in USA are the only human beings on this planet and the only ones that get a humane treatment. ] Many of the Egyptian government employed torturers have been trained by CIA or the US military in their profession.

I doubt Dubya ever had any interest in spreading democracy in Middle East. Most US presidents only want the oil of Middle East and that the countries there stay in a constant state of weakness and US dependency because of internal conflicts.

Re:Egypt just turned off all Internet access

[broknstrngz]

tens of hundreds of lives (including the much more valuable American lives)

I've actually tried thinking what to reply for a couple of minutes, but I'm speechless.

Re:Egypt just turned off all Internet access

[MaDeR]

I think he is sarcastic. He assign line "including the much more valuable American lives" to Bushists and similar mindset.

Re:Legit or Government sponsored?

[PopeRatzo]

Why can't whistleblowers just post their dirt to facebook?

Because whistleblowers need the protection of anonymity. That's why we have whistleblower laws.

Openleaks is not what we need...

[neiras]

So these guys plan to release only to 'need-to-know' news organizations, approved by themselves and some sort of vote process? Yeah, that'll work well. If the media won't touch a certain story shopped around by OpenLeaks, we'll never know about it. I don't trust OpenLeaks; I hope they fail hard.

Wikileaks had it right - public disclosure with a reasonable attempt to scrub names not directly responsible for the crimes being exposed.

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[poity]

So some people want to try their own hands at helping.

I hope they fail hard.

You want them to fail because they're not helping in the way you want them to.
Rush Limbaugh, is that you again?

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[Palpatine_li]

Wikileaks had it right? About what? Actively promoting its father's political view?

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[AHuxley]

Yes read http://cryptome.org/0003/nyt-robs-wl.htm
The part about "Even goes so far as to brag the Times publishes documents too, not just editorial gloss of them. Then carefully preens shamelessly about how the Times met repeatedly with US government representatives to vet Wikileaks documents before publication." ie from
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Wikileaks-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
"Dean Baquet, our Washington bureau chief, gave the White House an early warning on Nov. 19. The following Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, Baquet and two colleagues were invited to a windowless room at the State Department, where they encountered an unsmiling crowd. "
"Before each discussion, our Washington bureau sent over a batch of specific cables that we intended to use in the coming days. They were circulated to regional specialists, who funneled their reactions to a small group at State, who came to our daily conversations with a list of priorities and arguments to back them up."

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[Grishnakh]

No, he's right. They need to fail. Basically, they're setting themselves up as a "more responsible" place to leak your information. But if the media doesn't want to air that information (because it goes against their own agenda), then it just goes nowhere. Hopefully the leaker won't have been caught by that time, and can leak it to someone better (WikiLeaks), but if they get caught before then, then the public will never see that information.

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[hedwards]

Citation necessary. I've seen people make that assertion all over the place and I have yet to see a shred of evidence that it's the case. I find it hard to believe that given the importance of the war effort and the amount of both interest and material that they've been turning down other leaks in order to stick one to the US government on political grounds. It's much more likely that they selected that material because it's relevant to the right of the people to consent to the parties that govern them.

It strikes me as perfectly within the realm of possibility that they just don't have time to release all of the material they have at once without doing just dumping it online without any redaction or consideration for the consequences.

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[gknoy]

What's to stop someone from leaking to multiple places?

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[Grishnakh]

Simple: what's the point of leaking to OpenLeaks, if you're also going to leak to WikiLeaks? Presumably, you'd want to leak to OL because they're supposedly more "responsible" and will make sure the information is vetted or whatever and only released "responsibly" by mainstream news sources (yeah right), whereas WL will pretty much just throw it right up on the website, perhaps after redacting some names. Releasing to both would be pointless.

Now, you could also release to some other leaks site, but how many are out there that are actually trustworthy? Are you sure the other leak site isn't really a government honeypot? With WL, you KNOW they're legit, they've proven it multiple times; they're not going to turn you in to your government or whatever. Some other leaks site we've never heard of might not be like that.

So, what I'm envisioning is that someone will leak to OL, but after months of not seeing anything come of it (because the mainstream media isn't interested), will get frustrated and finally release it on WL. But that's a lot of time, and they might get caught.

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[definate]

I believe that while it's small initially, they're looking at scaling it up, such that there will be a LOT of different users (organizations), which are trusted.

This then allows them to "safely" disseminate the raw information to the various parties, as opposed to having to filter and censor it like WikiLeaks does.

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[Chuck Chunder]

I don't hope they fail, a plurality of organisations taking slightly different approaches is probably a healthy thing here. However to be successful their strategy doesn't just have to appeal to the general public, it has to appeal to people wishing to make leaks.

I suspect most leakers:
a) Favour wide dispersal of the leaks.
b) Will trust Wikileaks, who put their own asses on the line, over some largely anonymous information brokers with no direct capability to publish.

I also think the OpenLeaks strategy is far more risky legally, merely trafficking in classified or trade secret information seems far less likely to be protected than publishing it.

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[uofitorn]

No!. Wikileaks does not have it right either. Today's version of Wikileaks only releases information approved by themselves as well! Remember their original mission? Remember when they were supposed to be, you know, an actual wiki. When the leaked information prior to 2010 was actually readily available (note: it's not I just checked). And don't say because it's located somewhere deep in a huge torrent that it's still available. Part of Wikileaks is that it provides publicity to these leaks, however benign they are. But most importantly, what about their 'insurance file'? That sure sounds to me like they're withholding information. I don't trust this new 'leaks' sites either, but to claim Wikileaks is the paragon of "leak" journalism (whatever that means) is shortsighted.

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[Mana Mana]

Julian is that you?

Re:Openleaks is not what we need...

[aaaaaaargh!]

I concur. I tried to become a member and wasn't allowed to. OpenLeaks is not open but closed. Useless.

Re:Legit or Government sponsored?

[Nadaka]

Because the people making leaks would rather not be thrown in prison, sued for everything they could ever earn, have a mysterious accident, have their families brutally massacred or be disappeared through extraordinary rendition. The whole point of wikileaks was to protect the source from identification and therefore harm.

Re:Legit or Government sponsored?

[scotty.m]

Manning and Assange are both clearly protected by that whistleblower law. Wait a sec...

Re:A long term trend?

[hellkyng]

I am wondering how the widespread adoption of these sites might affect people in a position to leak documents. Will we see more legitimate leaks of benefit to all like the recent banking leaks etc, or will we start to see leaks that are more harmful then beneficial such as random joe leaking all ssn's in the customer DB because he thinks parent company is evil etc.

Re:A long term trend?

[YrWrstNtmr]

random joe leaking all ssn's in the customer DB because he thinks parent company is evil etc.

This will happen. And the rationale? "teach those people not to do business with a company that does evil"
(hmmm...I saw this exact sentiment here today, regarding the wikileaks DDOS)

Re:A long term trend?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Sort of like -- well, classical Journalism and it's past masters playing in the rarified air of honest, unbiased, confirmable reportage.

Ah, Edward R. Murrow, we do truly miss you.

And, P.J, we do truly revere you. It would be a sad, sad day if Groklaw ever left the tracks.

Re:On the other hand...

[Isaac Remuant]

On the other hand, if they just posted raw content people would claim they're not journalists and, therefore, should not have protections under the first amendment.

Wait, didn't they claim that anyway?

Who knew...

hmmm

[Charliemopps]

So, after watching the video... it looks like they've invented a wiki... for leaks... amazing concept really.

Re:Will it be fare.

[hedwards]

Citation sorely needed. I've seen this view popping up all over the place. Has it honestly not occurred to you that the information was leaked because that's what the people in general wanted to know about? And that they have a limited capacity to review and redact the information?

Just because you don't like what's been leaked does not mean that there's a political bias involved. It's much more likely that the decisions are being made based upon the levels of interest and an attempt at providing for the common good rather than a vendetta against the US.

Re:Legit or Government sponsored?

[gknoy]

Wikileaks did not expose Manning -- Manning did by being an idiot and talking about it. Assange did not blow the whistle, he merely published it, and is deliberately non-anonymous in order to be the Wikileaks Drama Lightning Rod, or something.

Where's the Open ?

[Haedrian]

There's nothing really open about openleaks. Its more a dropbox which is then piped to news agents.

Should have called it closed-except-to-journalistleaks , but I expect the domain was already taken.

Re:A long term trend?

[Darkness404]

Quite honestly, part of me hopes that stuff like that happens to show how stupid our culture is. First off, SSNs weren't designed for identification, older ones will even say "NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION" on the card. SSNs aren't secure and it is utter crap to think that it is a secure password. Seemingly everything uses it for no real reason, it used to be that large universities used it rather than your name or a different ID number, thankfully most of them have stopped using that. Rather than using SSNs, we should focus on making secure forms of identification so identity theft is unlikely.

Its only a matter of time

[gsgriffin]

before one of these sites is used by someone with a bad agenda to leak misinformation that does something horrible globally. You think things are bad with the status quo? I can imagine many people around the world that for their own personal profit or simple love of chaos will some day use a popular site to "leak" information that will do more harm than all the secrets that are being held. I hope not, but I think there is more potential for harm than good in all this.

Re:Its only a matter of time

[xero314]

Yes because there is no way that any news agency would possibly publish false news reports.

Skeptical

[McTickles]

I am rather skeptical...

I dont think they'll have the same edge as Wikileaks.

Re:Will it be fare.

[chdig]

Wiki-Leaks seemed to be a bit one sided. Leaking information that fits with their agenda, and keeping out other information.

I have no idea where you're coming from with this statement. Wikileaks is exposing the corruption of power, be it in politics, bureaucracy, the banking sector, wherever. The information they've released is relevant for all Americans to understand their power structure -- regardless of any political stripe (note they don't favour the Democrats over the Republicans), as well as those whose countries wheel and deal behind closed doors with the United States.

While I think it would be very helpful to have an organization dedicated to releasing information specific to very particular cases, Wikileaks does a great job of releasing general information important for all of us.
--

Information is the key to democracy

Freenet?

[quickgold192]

I imagine this has been suggested before, and I'm sure *all* of these things have been uploaded onto it, but instead of all these single-entity whistleblower avenues why don't whistleblowers just upload their secretz onto Freenet? Is it because you couldn't verify the authenticity of a document that was uploaded completely anonymously? Is it because the secret war plans will just get lost in the shuffle between child porn and random flogs? Or is it because of the low visibility it'll receive? I mean, isn't this what Freenet was created for?

Re:Freenet?

[marcosdumay]

"Is it because the secret war plans will just get lost in the shuffle between child porn and random flogs?"

I guess that's it. Maybe if Freenet had a moderating system...

Let the leak war begin!

[zill]

Openleak's first leak was Wikileak server's root password.

5 minutes later, Wikileaks retaliated by posting Openleak's SQL database password.

Re:The guy who runs openleaks

[blind monkey 3]

Does he have a beautiful mane of white hair? Cause that's what I want in a leaker....

I'd prefer he wear heavy duty incontinence pads if he were visiting me.

It won't be FARE but will be FAIR

[definate]

Can we stop this nonsense right here. We're an English centric community, which WikiLeaks is apart of. Is it surprising then, that most of the leaks, involve us? In these instances we've been behaving badly, and as such, they're mostly going to be negative.

Would you employ some sort of rating and quota system, such that we release 1 for every country, and go out of our way to balance it? What if we don't have access to material?

We're more interested in ourselves, and not our neighbours, because of this you're going to see more stuff about us. As it is, I'm always quite surprised how much WikiLeaks has actually leaked about non-English speaking countries.

Also, your signature is missing a closing bracket, unless it terminates due to reaching the end of the string. But that would still be sloppy pseudo coding.

Re:A long term trend?

[BronsCon]

You mean "tweeks"?

It is manipulation

[mexfogel]

The edited version of Collateral Murder has 10,840,454 views. The full version of Collateral Murder has 1,981,488 views. Which of the two got viewed more and ultimately influenced people's perception of this event? The edited version starts with a photograph as an introduction of the Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, the driver Saeed Chmagh and also a photo of his son crying. Later while the actual helicopter footage is playing they are highlighted again with an arrow and text "Namir w/camera" and "Saaed w/camera" respectively. At no point do we see an arrow pointing at the guys next to them saying "Bad Guy w/rocket launcher" or "Bad Guy w/AK47". Most people will miss this because like myself I was too distracted reading the text next to the good guys. Wikileaks should have release only the unedited 39min footage because that is the truth. They can add all context in the description of the video if they want. To actually edit the footage down to 15min, add 3min of human context and to highlight one sided aspects of any conflict is... manipulation of information.

It does not matter if you see it as manipulation

[dbIII]

You could say that about just about any news source with the major difference of not being able to look at the original information. That is all I am saying and it renders the above posters argument meaningless and yours better applied to just about any other bit of film anywhere. I'll take your word for it about major bias in the edited version you saw but that does not change that there is also the almost unique opportunity to see the unedited version for yourself.
Almost nobody else is doing that. I'm looking forward to when major news networks decide that bandwidth and storage are cheap enough for them to start doing the same thing. Until then this complaint is far better aimed at CNN or many others and IMHO it's not worth getting upset about there either.
Thus the argument is baseless and better applied to every single other news source on the planet. If you've got some political axe to grind I suggest finding something real to rub it up against - there is bound to be something. Note that I am not defending the edited video I've never seen, simply pointing out that the above poster was either being ignorant of something very widely reported or deliberately misleading by omission.
Journalists and those that aspire to be journalists tend to get somewhat pissed off when they think other journalists have been deliberately targeted by military forces just for doing their job (there is a relatively large yearly death toll of journalists that die that way in many countries). How can you expect there not to be a bias in the edited video? However as I'm trying very hard to point out and the above poster was ignoring, there is the almost unique situation of being able to see the unedited footage.

Re:It does not matter if you see it as manipulatio

[mexfogel]

Pointing out that other media outlets do the same and edit stories too does not defeat the argument that if WikiLeaks would simply release the information as found their credibility would improve. Yes they released the unedited version, so? only 1/5 of the people saw it, the rest saw the side WikiLeaks wanted them to see. Here is the analisis of the video done by a military guy who claims to have 4500 hours viewing aerial footage of Iraq: http://blog.ajmartinez.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-collateral-murder/

Hardly pointless...

[elkto]

The 'edited' version could had pointed out that the air/ground force strike was all due to someone mistakenly calling it in. The WHOLE problem was with the spotter. The rest of what happened is exactly what you can expect when you call armed forces to act. Soooo.... who was the spotter? Why not the call for why he called in the strike? Who was this moron...

War is brutal; no sane man is eager to bring it forth. Equally insane is the expectation of restraint from parties in the conflict, no matter how hard they may try.

Re:It does not matter if you see it as manipulatio

[dbIII]

if WikiLeaks would simply release the information as found

THAT IS WHAT THEY HAVE DONE
There is also the other stuff that pisses you off with probably a heavy handed bias that you do not agree with (I have not seen that version). That doesn't really matter much because they are preaching to the converted and the "information as found" is also there. They should have taught you fairly early on in school that different news sources have a bias and I'll bet that just about everyone that has followed a link to anywhere near wikileaks knows what they are in for.
It astonishes me that they get criticism for not redacting when they actually do so and then criticism for not releasing the unedited information when they actually released it. I have mixed feelings about wikileaks but here it looks like picking random complaints, trying to get them to fit and when they don't just repeating them as if they are true. I'm sure I'll get a good laugh out of it all when Geoffrey Robertson writes a book about this fiasco in a few years time, but until then just assume I know the weird shit put up as arguments and try to complain about something real instead OK? There is bound to be something.

Re:It does not matter if you see it as manipulatio

[mexfogel]

Preaching to the converted? How convenient of you to draw the line as to who has seen the video. This is the rationale that makes sense to someone who hasn't seen both versions nor has the inclination to do so.

Re:It does not matter if you see it as manipulatio

[dbIII]

Is your point that you think people have not heard of wikileaks by now but somehow stumble across this video on wikileaks but not the other one?
Give it up and go after something real and not something better directed at any other news source on the planet.

Re:It does not matter if you see it as manipulatio

[mexfogel]

You are making more assumptions again. Unlike you I have gone to WikiLeaks to know that both videos are available right next to each other. I also know that almost everyone clicks on the first one and not bother to see the second (full version). You keep bringing up the fact that because my argument can be applied to other news organization I have no validity in bringing this up? I don't get that train of thought. Not because a drunk can point at other drunks means one can't say something to him about his problem.

Re:It does not matter if you see it as manipulatio

[mexfogel]

I read your comments and I can clearly see that there is a person with an elaborate mind. Yet, besides the sparks of seldom wisdom I also feel like you haven't explore or investigated the issue to the detail as you could. Either you are a wise/experienced person who is talking about a topic he hasn't fully explored based on the reliance that you are making broad generic assumptions? or you are just simply limited/lazy and arrogant maintaining and repeating the same point of view just because you can? Yes they released the full unedited version... so what? how does that matter in the real world? 80% of the people saw the skewed version.

Re:It does not matter if you see it as manipulatio

[dbIII]

You keep bringing up the fact that because my argument can be applied to other news organization I have no validity in bringing this up?

The point that IMHO renders your argument worthless is that for the moment wikileaks is about the only place where you CAN see their original source information for the information they distribute. To use your analogy it is the equivalent of a sober guy pointing at the drunks.
My point, which you keep pretending to miss (or maybe it's late or something), is that the argument can be applied to other news organisations but NOT to wikileaks. You even linked to a site that adds their own fresh angle to that material which is not yet possible to the same degree with most news sources.
I'm hoping that other media organisations do similar things now that bandwidth and storage are cheap, but for now they don't.
Ignore the bais, everyone has bias and everyone knows where wikileaks stands by now. It is not relevant. What is important is the original is there so the bias can be sidestepped entirely.

Re:It does not matter if you see it as manipulatio

[mexfogel]

Yes and no. I actually finally get your point but further thinking has brought up some points worth mentioning to you. The site I linked previously does bring their own angle but it is entirely irrelevant on the versions put out there by WikiLeaks. The blog actually has the edited version posted and any observations are made based off of that. It is not the access to the unedited version which brings the blogger insight and understanding of the events, it is simply his experience and understanding of such situations what eventually comes out through his analysis. That is precisely my point. WikiLeaks managed to decrypt a military encrypted video because they have access to highly educated people. The same people that have the understanding to know that most normal people watching that video would simply see a massacre happening. Guess what?... there is a lot more going on with a lot more variables happening, just not to the plain eye. Instead of putting the highly educated resources they posses in action to properly explain the events in the video, WikiLeaks simply twists the story around and pushes for martyr/noble angle to get the most exposure possible. The same techniques used in movies, the same techniques that work. You are giving WikiLeaks credit for releasing the unedited version as if that was their goal. The reality is that the unedited version was nothing more but simply the means to their existence. There is more to WikiLeaks than what you read here, go to their website and download the 3.1Mb containing thousands of torrents links. You'll find photos of Steve Jobs medical records claiming he has HIV, images of Scarlett Keeling death autopsy, photos of the love parade stampede in Germany and so on. You haven't gone to Wikileaks website nor have you seen the videos, nor have seen the thousand of articles they put out there... I ask... do you really know what you are talking about? or are you simply making very good arguments based of your high capacity to make them?