Wikileaks Suspends Publishing Of Cables Due To "Financial Blockade"

lee1 writes "Wikileaks has had to cease publishing classified files due to what the organization calls a 'blockade by US-based finance companies' that, according to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has 'destroyed 95% of our revenue.' Assange also opined that 'A handful of US finance companies cannot be allowed to decide how the whole world votes with its pocket.' According to Assange the group was taking 'pre-litigation action' against the financial blockade in Iceland, Denmark, the UK, Brussels, the United States, and Australia. They have also filed an anti-trust complaint with the European Commission."

Comments

Re:Wikileaks done in by its own leak

[EnergyScholar]

This author must dispute two statements of fact in the above post:

• Incorrect statement one: "That leak put many people in harm's way, including a lot of people trying to help overthrow oppressive regimes or criminal enterprises." On what basis do you make that claim, besdies the fact that Fox news repeated it a lot? The un-redacted cables had already been widely distributed between five different journalistic outlets. This means, of course, that various intelligence agencies had also got hold of them. Thus, anyone with Intelligence Community (IC) connections, which includes large criminal organizations, ALREADY able to get to the un-redacted cables. When the un-redacted cables were generally released this only allowed regular people with no IC connections to ALSO look at them. As an example, if you were an Afghani feeding intelligence about the Taliban to the US government, and you happened to be mentioned in a Cable, you had no way to determine whether or not your name was mentioned, because you could only see the redacted cables, even though the Pakistani Intelligence Agencies, which has been thoroughly infiltrated by the Taliban, DOES have access to the cables. The release of the un-redacted cables allows you to see that you are, or are not, mentioned in the cables, and take appropriate action. The un-redacted were ALREADY available to all the big players.
• What big problems of credibility exist? Has Wikileaks ever lied, or provided demonstrably false information? On what basis do you make that assertion, besides hearing it on Fox news? Sounds to me like you are parroting Fox News ...

FYI: the un-redacted cable release came from a confluence of several events:

1. Wikileaks posted an original, encrypted version of the cable on the wikileaks site and pointed a Guardian reporter at it
2. Wikileaks privately told the Guardian reporter the secret password to decrypt the file
3. Someone else grabbed a copy of the encrypted file and it floated around on the 'net
4. The Guardian published the secret password in a book
5. The combination of the encrypted un-redacted cables file, and the guardian-published key, allowed anyone to get the entire set of cables