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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."
Publish them already. I simply cannot believe that in all of the Wikileaks organization, not a single copy or backup had been made. There's got to be something, especially with a bundle of files so damaging that they managed to turn one of your own against you. I just can't handle the idea of that level of competence in a modern internet organization tasked with anonymizing its sources. It's too scary.
WikiLeaks would need $3.5 mln over the next 12 months to maintain its current levels of operations, he said.
Either they've signed up for the world's most expensive hosting plan, or Assange and his friends are running up quite a nightclub tab.
With the U.S. government now controlling all the major credit card companies and banks, I guess they really are the world emperors and overlords. And I, for one, would like to welcome our new Yank overlords.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Given that the financial blockade was well in place before that release, the chronology of your account seems more than a trifle suspect...
It's weird that the financial companies can control the media in such a way.
I thought that credit card companies had some legal obligation to transfer money from A to B, unless the money was actually criminal money? But last time I checked, Assange was accused (not convicted) of rape. And the Wikileaks organization as a whole wasn't accused of anything in a legal court. Or am I missing something?
Public opinion swung hard against Wikileaks after the accidental release of the un-redacted cables. That leak put many people in harm's way, including a lot of people trying to help overthrow oppressive regimes or criminal enterprises. If we are able to ask "who watchers the watchers?" we have to ask "who watches the watchers of the watchers?" and the answer is that, in Wikileaks' case, big problems of credibility exist.
And, still, his point is valid. It's not public opinion that's starving Wikileaks at the moment, it's small number of big finance companies that have cut them off. What he is asserting is that financial blockade is akin to setting up barriers at polling places - what remains to be seen is if the world will agree with him.
I suspect the majority popular vote would support Assange's assertion (financial blockade should not be used to suppress free speech), but the final decision will be against him.
You threaten to publish the secret, evil, nefarious ways of financial institutions, claim to have a hard drive full of incriminating information, and now these same financial institutions now won't deal with you?
Why... I never. How demonic indeed!
Before people will be able to render an opinion, they need to also face an uncomfortable truth: That the people who control the world's money also have a non-impartial agenda which they will assert when it suits them to do so.
This isn't a "political" issue as much as it is a personal one. Note that the flow of money to Wikileaks was not inhibited until they decided to leak things about banks. That's when they started to choke Wikileaks' money flow.
After the people are made to recognize this fact, that's when they can make an opinion about whether this is good or bad.
The rulers of the world are exposing themselves through their actions. And the activities of late are showing who controls the government... hint: it's not the people.
Take bitcoins to transfer cash. Doesn't seem overly complicated. I can turn $50 into BTC without much time or effort, send it to them, and they can turn it into euros or whatever they need with little effort.
Don't they have a postal mail address where they can accept innumerable forms of psuedo-currency like gift cards, postal stamps, etc?
Handling $3.5 million might be a bit labor intensive, maybe they need a slightly smaller budget?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Considering it was a rogue newspaper bungling the encryption key and forcing their hand so that the bad guys weren't the only ones that had access, I very much doubt the egg on Wikileaks's face was truly their own.
Someone fucked up, wikileaks got blamed for making the best of a bad situation, and some secret operative somewhere in the guardian is probably giving the agency he works for a jolly laugh of "eeeeeeeeggcellent"
Intelligence networks have been trying like clockwork to get Wikileaks shut down ever since their parent governments started getting embarrassed by the leaks.
Infiltrating a news organization and spilling an already compromised key for the sole purpose of embarrassing and discrediting wikileaks would be very useful and if that's what really happened I would not be the least bit surprised.
Oh, and if I suddenly stop posting on slashdot...feel free to get even more suspicious.
When a powerful multinational corporation does something that's not legal, it will be made legal afterwards.
Example #1: Citibank bought Travelers, knowingly violating the Glass-Steagal act. Result, Glass-Steagal was repealed (Joe Biden voting against, oddly enough) with the current, totally predictable results.
Example #2: Telcos performed warrantless wiretaps for the Bush administration without proper authorization. They (hilariously) claimed to be doing so out of patriotism, but when the FBI missed a billing cycle the telcos suddenly stopped having this vaunted "patriotism" that somehow justified trampling US laws. Result, congress granted telcos immunity from prosecution (both McCain and Obama rushing back to DC from the campaign trail to cast votes in favor).
They do what they want, and then they buy enough government to make it legal. The only time there is any issue is when two zaibatsus have conflicting goals - the people don't matter any more, which is what OWS is about.
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
This author must dispute two statements of fact in the above post:
FYI: the un-redacted cable release came from a confluence of several events:
The corporate media and the fickle public will NEVER digest a huge leak -- it has to be slowly leaked out over time so if we hear anything we hear the SAME bit of leak information at the same time everywhere and not too much that it gets skipped over.
If you dump it all out on a friday, you'll only hear about some diplomat screwing some presidents wife for the next few weeks and maybe a couple things the station doesn't mind reporting. Then the whole thing dies down and they don't talk about the rest of it anymore. Something like that happens all the time; especially on friday media dumps. (most people don't read the paper; tv, radio are not watched friday night or much on the weekend either.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Except it did.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703428604575419580947722558.html?KEYWORDS=julian+assange+rights+groups
Amnesty International went after Assange in 2010, a year after that award when they learned how he put civilians in danger. And yet in every interview on the matter, Assange insists he did nothing wrong. In this article, he blasts others for being lazy, when he was the lazy one who didn't bother redacting names. And if you bother taking two seconds to Google such matters, you'll find several quotes where he says he won't redact civilian names unless people give him $200,000.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
The Man cut the money hose to stop us leaking, so we'll show him... why, by golly, we'll not leak anything until we get more money in our pockets.
Yes, well done, very convincing.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I haven't heard of one single death coming as a direct result of Wikileaks revelations. However, they have brought to light a whole heap of corruption and cover ups. They have done WAY more good than harm (if any harm at all). Personally, I think the people who like power and war just enjoy using that as an excuse to bash Wikileaks. Those in power and money also control the media and try to portray Wikileaks in the worst light possible. Things like Wikileaks just might be the only thing that will save democracy from collapsing on itself.
In the first pass, you can see the reporter with the camera in question. And he isn't at the front of the group. They pass around a building and you lose sight of the group for a moment. But before then, you can see it is someone else who reaches the corner of the building first. He is the one who points the object at the helicopter. And what he points is considerably larger than the camera that you see seconds before.
There was only one reporter on the scene. Everyone else in the group was carrying weapons. When the group is shot, the reporter is in the back (not in the front where this object in question was being pointed at the helicopter). No one else was carrying a camera.
When Assange himself was questioned on the matter, he said the object could have in fact been an RPG. Even he didn't dispute that point. His argument was more that the American troops didn't have the right to fire on the van. And while I would agree that is questionable, I don't know you can easily chalk that up to outright murder. The troops didn't open fire without permission. They didn't randomly fire on just anyone. There were armed troops that pointed a weapon at them. If you're seen as aiding the enemy, then you're placing yourselves in danger. It isn't unreasonable for troops to react that way. This is a questionable decision that I'm not sure I'm qualified to judge. But I certainly wouldn't call it murder.
I haven't served in combat. I don't claim to know what it is like. I was in the Marine Corps though. During boot camp they ran us through a fake drill where we were issued orders and told we were shipping off for war. An entire company of Marines (6 platoons of 60-70) sat in a room. Every single one was saying that they didn't want to go to combat. I didn't hear a single voice saying, "man, I just want to kill people!"
Is it possible that individuals sign up during wartime because they do want to shoot people? Certainly. But I don't assume all soldiers are evil, nor that they want to kill people. But I have been told several times over again that all US soldiers are blood-thirsty killers. And I give these guys a little leeway because I don't think most people are asking themselves what they'd really do in a combat situation. Most people here have never had to lay their life on the line for others and don't know what it is to make such decisions.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
People manage to distribute petabytes of illegal material daily on bittorrent. Assange can't find a way to distribute megabytes?
The real story is that Assange can't make a dime off seeding a few torrents, and so he's not interested.
Advice: on VPS providers
Note that the flow of money to Wikileaks was not inhibited until they decided to leak things about banks. That's when they started to choke Wikileaks' money flow.
Sorry, can you show me what Wikileaks decided to leak about the banks? I'm pretty sure Wikileaks has not released anything like you think. You are probably getting caught up in the five-month-long claims from Julian Assange that there was going to be a bombshell Wikileaks release about Bank of America, and then......... nothing. If I'm wrong, then mod me down... but otherwise, don't let that guy sit at Score:4, Insightful for a silly conspiracy post.