The radio stations of which you speak were a propaganda tool
Well, to those who listened to them, they were mostly a very valuable alternative source of information, and a strong message that it can be free;)
It is the loss of this message that makes me sad, because it is a worthy ideal to have.
meant to weaken the communism regimes and recruit internal supporters.
Haha. I like this phrasing, it is straight out of the newspapers on the other side. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now. The "recruit internal supporters" part is not even interesting to comment.
As for "weaken the regime", well, any regime that does things, which it wants to hide, deserves all the exposure and "weakening" it can handle.
US government was smart enough to realize that exposing "bad" information is a powerful weapon.
They ought to be smart enough to realize that trying to stomp bad news out will work as well for them, as it worked for the evil communists.
You should know that it is illegal to retransmit the contents of Radio Free in the united states because it is explicitly state-funded propaganda and that is illegal within the US. I've beenlooking for my source on that but I can't find it, unfortunately.
He has an absolute obligation as a human being not to put other human beings in danger when there are other avenues to address the problem.
That is why wikileaks retained 15 000 pages: So as not to put people in danger. Remaining silent and allowing people to believe in the lies of the Clean War and Smart Bombs would be extremely reckless.
You were told that they did nothing to to prevent people getting killed. This was a lie to get you to distrust wikileaks. A very effective lie.
This is what the source of the information should have done. Instead of burning a CD and sneaking it out, he should have gone to the Inspector General at the level above the unit that had the illegally classified information and reported its existence.
Here is an example say platoon x was involved in a fight that had high civilian casulities, it happens the wrong people get killed. So now this unit goes to a new area that knows about it. What happens, the civilians will be extra scared of this platoon
Wikileaks or no wikileaks, the children of Aghanistan will hear for generations that if they don't behave and go to bed when they're told, the Americans will come and get them. And the children will be scared.
Because the poor, uneducated afghans scratching barely enough to survive don't surf the web, and they can't tell one platoon from another, but they all lost at least a cousin to a bomb that had "made in the U.S.A. stamped all over its shrapnel. They all heard tales of people killed just for looking at American troops the wrong way, or walking too close to their base, or just for driving by. The people of America don't hear about these things, though, they think their country is "the good guys", and wikileaks can help them understand why they shouldn't approve of war by showing the the truth of it. That is the crime for which the pentagon hates them: If people knew the truth they wouldn't let them invade countries willy-nilly anymore.
I've never heard a good explanation of WHAT, exactly, is contained in these documents that's going to get people killed.
Wikileaks held back 15000 pages because they contained details, such as names of collaborators, that could be misused to harm innocent people. The pentagon has been cynically accusing them of not doing that, and their propaganda machine is well-oiled.
AIUI, those documents contain the names of people in Afghanistan who are giving information to the US. Publishing the documents without redacting the names tells the Taliban exactly who to kill. Does that answer your question?
Publishing the names without redacting them WOULD HAVE told the Taliban who to kill. But they DID REDACT AS MANY NAMES AS THEY COULD.
They held back 15 thousand pages to protect people's names while they tried to sort through them. Google it. They asked the pentagon to tell them which name to remove, the pentagon told them to go to hell.
See this kind of statement doesn't make sense to me. Why is it reasonable to steal documents from the Pentagon and then go back to them and say "Hey, we stole so much that we care to look through ourselves so go redact this for us"?
That does indeed make no sense. What actually happened makes sense, though: They were given documents, they reviewed them, identified thousands and thousands of pages that they were uneasy about releasing because they contained information that could be used to harm innocent people, and they asked the one source that knows who's who in these papers to tell them who to protect.
The pentagon decided that instead of helping protect innocent people, they would lie and say that wikileaks didn't even try to protect innocent people, and that wikileaks is putting people in danger. Because the pentagon is very good at propaganda, and doesn't mind one bit if innocent people get killed, so long as they get away with killing them scott free.
Calling me "not an adult" is not the action of an adult. You now say you dislike "their actions" but those actions are fictions. Grow up and learn to admit your mistake; when you believed and repeated a lie you were told, once you've learned that it was a lie, stop defending it. And stop being the kind of petty little shit that moves the goalposts to "what my bile was directed at", you know damn well that's irrelevant, what's important is "was wikileaks reckless or diligent". The truth is they redacted documents for review in order to avoid causing harm to innocents, the lie is that they didn't. You believed and repeated and are now defending the lie, you should be ashamed of yourself.
There is a third way: don't say you have them until you review them.
I don't think you understand the concept of "exposing" things. You see, the point is to take something that was secret, and to remove the secrecy. Not to keep the secrecy going.
Yes, after they were caught editing the video. You may think that's fine. I don't.
Why do you think it is not fine to edit video? What did they edit out of the video that was wrong to take out?
And what link do you have that proves that they provided the unedited video only after being 'caught' doing what every other news video have had done in the whole entire history of news video? Because I call bullshit on that too.
I believe he is doing things for the wrong reason. He isn't releasing all this classified information because it is for the public good, he is doing it because it is an ego trip and makes him important, and because it hurts the US and he doesn't like the US.
Why, specifically, do you believe that?
I just don't think HIS reasons are the good ones he claims.
I don't think you know why you think that.
They really need a more moral spokesman
One that hasn't been accused of rape, only to have the accusation taken away in less than 24 hours bu not before it made the news?
and they need to get some rules that they follow for what they do and don't release. If the rule is "Any and everything," ok fine but make that up front and known. Say "We release anything, without regard for what harm that it may cause or if the information is of value to the public." However if that's not what you want to do, if you want to decide if things are important enough to release and to try to not cause any harm, then that's fine too, but you need to have a policy to that effect and stick to it. In the case of the classified cables that would mean only releasing those that showed something of public interest, and redacting names and so on. Ya that's a lot of work but that is what it takes to be responsible about it.
That is exactly what Wikileaks has been doing. The pentagon claims they haven't, but that's just a lie. You believed that lie, unfortunately.
As it stands Assange seems to want to play at being the good guy, but he's just a jackass that likes to pump his ego and get egg on teh face of those he doesn't like.
What do you base that on?
he's way too egotistical to realize that it would be much better off if he stepped down.
I do think the world needs things like Wikileaks, however it needs them run by people who actually care about the public good.
Yeah, look at some of the non-public-good, egotistical things he's done: Starting around 1997 he co-invented "Rubberhose deniable encryption," a cryptographic concept made into a software package for Linux designed to provide plausible deniability against rubber-hose cryptanalysis,[13] which he originally intended "as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field."[14] Other free software that he has authored or co-authored includes the Usenet caching software NNTPCache
Open source software to protect human rights worker? What a narcissistic jerk!
I can get behind Wikileaks, but not Assange. He is egotistical tool.
Character assassination: Done and done! Now instead of focusing on the issue, you will parrot out the "the spokesperson is bad, we must not listen" line every time wikileaks is mentioned. You don't even say why you believe what you say, you probably don't even know yourself that you only believe it because of a campaign of repetition in the media made you absorb this baseless meme.
Assisting, would really be acknowledging that wikileaks had a right to the information
According to their claims, assisting would have protected the lives of thousands of Afghan civilians and US troops. Not assisting lets them say that the guys who asked for help in protecting lives are recklessly endangering lives.
Timothy Matusheski, a lawyer from Hattiesburg, Miss., who says he represents whistle-blowers and has been in touch with both WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and at least one government official involved in investigations of WikiLeaks, said the site had set up a “secure channel” through which authorized users could access the unpublished material. He said credentials for using this channel had been forwarded to representatives of the U.S. government whom he did not identify. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
No, by editing video before releasing it. If wikileaks is about leaking information so the truth can be heard, it behooves them to release the *whole* truth, not just the parts they think are the most titillating.
They did release the whole video, they also released an edited version that cuts out the long boring bit where nothing happen. Now, since you say editing is bad, tell me of one news item you've seen where you were showed video that was not edited, go ahead, name the news item where they showed the whole video, not just the interesting bit. I'd like to know of that mythical time that happened that it seems you have witnessed. Or a newspaper you know that doesn't have an editor, maybe?
You see, editing video is not only normal, it's required. What you need to look for is misleading editing. BIG difference.
Imagine you're an undercover cop infiltrating organized crime and wikileaks 'released' a confidential doc that included your picture, your name, your wife and children's name and your address. Now how would you feel?
Imagine Assange raped the cop, while you're at it.
I have read editorials by Assange. I've seen interviews. I can form my own opinions without the help of CNN.
Piss off.
You say "Assange. He is egotistical tool", you say you believe that opinion to be your own. Can you say why you believe what you believe, aside from claiming that you can?
You made two claims, prove t me you know what you believe:
1- What has Julian Assange done that proves he is egotistical? How is he demonstrably selfish and self-centered?
2- To whom is he a tool? Who holds that tool and to what purpose?
My feeling exactly. Wikileaks has conflated the public "right to know" with an imaginary "need to know," and decided that this right is more important than the lives of the people named in the documents. IMAO, they've consistently shown a complete lack of common sense and a reckless disregard for the danger they're exposing people to.
You obviously don't know that they held back fifteen thousand pages because they contained names that ma or may not be innocent people. You hate them for something they're not guilty of. You've been successfully manipulated by well crafted propaganda, but don't feel bad, it happens to millions of people every day.
Yes, we all know of times when things have been classified because that's the easiest way to cover up mistakes, and things like that deserve leaking, but leaking the names and locations of people who are helping the US to fight terrorists is Simply Wrong.
And that is why wikileaks did not do that, but the pentagon says they did. So you'll hate them and refuse to listen. And it works sooooo well.
They continue to shoot the messenger. It wouldn't surprise me if the intelligence community turned that phrase literal.
I would be surprised: The US has long become more sophisticated than that. They understand that if you create a martyr, you could still be hearing about it two thousand years later. It's better to discredit them, make people think they're a narcissist, that they're reckless, that they're a rapist. Cut their funding, turn their friends against them, that's the kind of things I expect from the US; Straight up assassination I expect from Russians, their idea of subtlety is "exotic poisons".
The US military whistle blowers would have been MUCH better off going to the Project on Government Oversight, an organization which has a history of helping whistle blowers get out their stories and keep them out of jail.
Do they have solid tips like: don't use your first name + 'ass' + your date of birth as your email name when leaking sensitive documents?
Slashdot Mirror
The radio stations of which you speak were a propaganda tool
Well, to those who listened to them, they were mostly a very valuable alternative source of information, and a strong message that it can be free ;)
It is the loss of this message that makes me sad, because it is a worthy ideal to have.
meant to weaken the communism regimes and recruit internal supporters.
Haha. I like this phrasing, it is straight out of the newspapers on the other side. It wasn't true then, and it isn't true now. The "recruit internal supporters" part is not even interesting to comment.
As for "weaken the regime", well, any regime that does things, which it wants to hide, deserves all the exposure and "weakening" it can handle.
US government was smart enough to realize that exposing "bad" information is a powerful weapon.
They ought to be smart enough to realize that trying to stomp bad news out will work as well for them, as it worked for the evil communists.
You should know that it is illegal to retransmit the contents of Radio Free in the united states because it is explicitly state-funded propaganda and that is illegal within the US. I've beenlooking for my source on that but I can't find it, unfortunately.
He has an absolute obligation as a human being not to put other human beings in danger when there are other avenues to address the problem.
That is why wikileaks retained 15 000 pages: So as not to put people in danger. Remaining silent and allowing people to believe in the lies of the Clean War and Smart Bombs would be extremely reckless.
You were told that they did nothing to to prevent people getting killed. This was a lie to get you to distrust wikileaks. A very effective lie.
This is what the source of the information should have done. Instead of burning a CD and sneaking it out, he should have gone to the Inspector General at the level above the unit that had the illegally classified information and reported its existence.
You are so, so very naive: After word leaked that one soldier (presumably Winfield) had spoken to military police, several platoon members retaliated. They confronted the informant and beat him severely - punching, kicking and choking him, then dragging him across the ground. As a last warning, Gibbs menacingly waved finger bones he had collected from Afghan corpses.
Here is an example say platoon x was involved in a fight that had high civilian casulities, it happens the wrong people get killed. So now this unit goes to a new area that knows about it. What happens, the civilians will be extra scared of this platoon
Wikileaks or no wikileaks, the children of Aghanistan will hear for generations that if they don't behave and go to bed when they're told, the Americans will come and get them. And the children will be scared.
Because the poor, uneducated afghans scratching barely enough to survive don't surf the web, and they can't tell one platoon from another, but they all lost at least a cousin to a bomb that had "made in the U.S.A. stamped all over its shrapnel. They all heard tales of people killed just for looking at American troops the wrong way, or walking too close to their base, or just for driving by. The people of America don't hear about these things, though, they think their country is "the good guys", and wikileaks can help them understand why they shouldn't approve of war by showing the the truth of it. That is the crime for which the pentagon hates them: If people knew the truth they wouldn't let them invade countries willy-nilly anymore.
I've never heard a good explanation of WHAT, exactly, is contained in these documents that's going to get people killed.
Wikileaks held back 15000 pages because they contained details, such as names of collaborators, that could be misused to harm innocent people. The pentagon has been cynically accusing them of not doing that, and their propaganda machine is well-oiled.
AIUI, those documents contain the names of people in Afghanistan who are giving information to the US. Publishing the documents without redacting the names tells the Taliban exactly who to kill. Does that answer your question?
Publishing the names without redacting them WOULD HAVE told the Taliban who to kill. But they DID REDACT AS MANY NAMES AS THEY COULD.
For Christ's sake all the US Govt did was put him on a watch list
No, the LATEST thing the US did was put them on watchlists, causing them to lose access to their money. It's not the only thing they've done.
you've bought into the lie that the US is the "good guys"
I really haven't.
They held back 15 thousand pages to protect people's names while they tried to sort through them. Google it.
They asked the pentagon to tell them which name to remove, the pentagon told them to go to hell.
See this kind of statement doesn't make sense to me. Why is it reasonable to steal documents from the Pentagon and then go back to them and say "Hey, we stole so much that we care to look through ourselves so go redact this for us"?
That does indeed make no sense. What actually happened makes sense, though: They were given documents, they reviewed them, identified thousands and thousands of pages that they were uneasy about releasing because they contained information that could be used to harm innocent people, and they asked the one source that knows who's who in these papers to tell them who to protect.
The pentagon decided that instead of helping protect innocent people, they would lie and say that wikileaks didn't even try to protect innocent people, and that wikileaks is putting people in danger. Because the pentagon is very good at propaganda, and doesn't mind one bit if innocent people get killed, so long as they get away with killing them scott free.
unlike you, I'm adult enough
Calling me "not an adult" is not the action of an adult. You now say you dislike "their actions" but those actions are fictions. Grow up and learn to admit your mistake; when you believed and repeated a lie you were told, once you've learned that it was a lie, stop defending it.
And stop being the kind of petty little shit that moves the goalposts to "what my bile was directed at", you know damn well that's irrelevant, what's important is "was wikileaks reckless or diligent". The truth is they redacted documents for review in order to avoid causing harm to innocents, the lie is that they didn't. You believed and repeated and are now defending the lie, you should be ashamed of yourself.
There is a third way: don't say you have them until you review them.
I don't think you understand the concept of "exposing" things. You see, the point is to take something that was secret, and to remove the secrecy. Not to keep the secrecy going.
They did release the whole video
Yes, after they were caught editing the video. You may think that's fine. I don't.
Why do you think it is not fine to edit video? What did they edit out of the video that was wrong to take out?
And what link do you have that proves that they provided the unedited video only after being 'caught' doing what every other news video have had done in the whole entire history of news video? Because I call bullshit on that too.
I don't like him at all.
Shoot the messenger! SHOOT THE MESSENGER!
I believe he is doing things for the wrong reason. He isn't releasing all this classified information because it is for the public good, he is doing it because it is an ego trip and makes him important, and because it hurts the US and he doesn't like the US.
Why, specifically, do you believe that?
I just don't think HIS reasons are the good ones he claims.
I don't think you know why you think that.
They really need a more moral spokesman
One that hasn't been accused of rape, only to have the accusation taken away in less than 24 hours bu not before it made the news?
and they need to get some rules that they follow for what they do and don't release. If the rule is "Any and everything," ok fine but make that up front and known. Say "We release anything, without regard for what harm that it may cause or if the information is of value to the public." However if that's not what you want to do, if you want to decide if things are important enough to release and to try to not cause any harm, then that's fine too, but you need to have a policy to that effect and stick to it. In the case of the classified cables that would mean only releasing those that showed something of public interest, and redacting names and so on. Ya that's a lot of work but that is what it takes to be responsible about it.
That is exactly what Wikileaks has been doing. The pentagon claims they haven't, but that's just a lie. You believed that lie, unfortunately.
As it stands Assange seems to want to play at being the good guy, but he's just a jackass that likes to pump his ego and get egg on teh face of those he doesn't like.
What do you base that on?
he's way too egotistical to realize that it would be much better off if he stepped down.
I do think the world needs things like Wikileaks, however it needs them run by people who actually care about the public good.
Yeah, look at some of the non-public-good, egotistical things he's done: Starting around 1997 he co-invented "Rubberhose deniable encryption," a cryptographic concept made into a software package for Linux designed to provide plausible deniability against rubber-hose cryptanalysis,[13] which he originally intended "as a tool for human rights workers who needed to protect sensitive data in the field."[14] Other free software that he has authored or co-authored includes the Usenet caching software NNTPCache
Open source software to protect human rights worker? What a narcissistic jerk!
I can get behind Wikileaks, but not Assange. He is egotistical tool.
Character assassination: Done and done!
Now instead of focusing on the issue, you will parrot out the "the spokesperson is bad, we must not listen" line every time wikileaks is mentioned. You don't even say why you believe what you say, you probably don't even know yourself that you only believe it because of a campaign of repetition in the media made you absorb this baseless meme.
Its not really treason since the owner isn't from the US. He's Australian.
It's against Australian law to reveal the secrets of Australia's allies.
Still not treason.
Assisting, would really be acknowledging that wikileaks had a right to the information
According to their claims, assisting would have protected the lives of thousands of Afghan civilians and US troops.
Not assisting lets them say that the guys who asked for help in protecting lives are recklessly endangering lives.
there was such a rush to publicize them without proper redaction and editing. PROVE to me that
You're spreading FUD. Read this instead:
A lawyer representing the whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks says
U.S. government officials have been given codes and passwords granting them online access to official U.S. government documents that WikiLeaks so far has not published.
Timothy Matusheski, a lawyer from Hattiesburg, Miss., who says he represents whistle-blowers and has been in touch with both WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and at least one government official involved in investigations of WikiLeaks, said the site had set up a “secure channel” through which authorized users could access the unpublished material. He said credentials for using this channel had been forwarded to representatives of the U.S. government whom he did not identify. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
No, by editing video before releasing it. If wikileaks is about leaking information so the truth can be heard, it behooves them to release the *whole* truth, not just the parts they think are the most titillating.
They did release the whole video, they also released an edited version that cuts out the long boring bit where nothing happen.
Now, since you say editing is bad, tell me of one news item you've seen where you were showed video that was not edited, go ahead, name the news item where they showed the whole video, not just the interesting bit. I'd like to know of that mythical time that happened that it seems you have witnessed. Or a newspaper you know that doesn't have an editor, maybe?
You see, editing video is not only normal, it's required. What you need to look for is misleading editing. BIG difference.
Imagine you're an undercover cop infiltrating organized crime and wikileaks 'released' a confidential doc that included your picture, your name, your wife and children's name and your address. Now how would you feel?
Imagine Assange raped the cop, while you're at it.
I have read editorials by Assange. I've seen interviews. I can form my own opinions without the help of CNN.
Piss off.
You say "Assange. He is egotistical tool", you say you believe that opinion to be your own. Can you say why you believe what you believe, aside from claiming that you can?
You made two claims, prove t me you know what you believe:
1- What has Julian Assange done that proves he is egotistical? How is he demonstrably selfish and self-centered?
2- To whom is he a tool? Who holds that tool and to what purpose?
Arguably though, the best way to avoid putting Afghan civilians and US troops out of harm is to have US troops go back to the US.
Unfortunately: You break it, you bought it.
My feeling exactly. Wikileaks has conflated the public "right to know" with an imaginary "need to know," and decided that this right is more important than the lives of the people named in the documents. IMAO, they've consistently shown a complete lack of common sense and a reckless disregard for the danger they're exposing people to.
You obviously don't know that they held back fifteen thousand pages because they contained names that ma or may not be innocent people. You hate them for something they're not guilty of. You've been successfully manipulated by well crafted propaganda, but don't feel bad, it happens to millions of people every day.
Yes, we all know of times when things have been classified because that's the easiest way to cover up mistakes, and things like that deserve leaking, but leaking the names and locations of people who are helping the US to fight terrorists is Simply Wrong.
And that is why wikileaks did not do that, but the pentagon says they did. So you'll hate them and refuse to listen. And it works sooooo well.
They continue to shoot the messenger. It wouldn't surprise me if the intelligence community turned that phrase literal.
I would be surprised: The US has long become more sophisticated than that. They understand that if you create a martyr, you could still be hearing about it two thousand years later. It's better to discredit them, make people think they're a narcissist, that they're reckless, that they're a rapist. Cut their funding, turn their friends against them, that's the kind of things I expect from the US; Straight up assassination I expect from Russians, their idea of subtlety is "exotic poisons".
result in the deaths of Afghan civilians and US/coalition soldiers
Wikileaks has killed no one, the people accusing them of doing so have killed tens of thousands: Use your head, figure out the FUD.
The US military whistle blowers would have been MUCH better off going to the Project on Government Oversight, an organization which has a history of helping whistle blowers get out their stories and keep them out of jail.
Do they have solid tips like: don't use your first name + 'ass' + your date of birth as your email name when leaking sensitive documents?
Because bradass87 could have used such wisdom.