If you think solitary confinement is not torture you should watch BBC Horizon: Total Isolation Or read one of the many studies into the effects of solitary confinement.
I do think it's kind of sad how he is being forgotten in the media furror and hysteria. That man is a hero.
Re:youre on /., a geek or a nerd, and you dont car
on
Today's WikiLeaks News
·
· Score: 1
I assume you're trying to say that Wikileaks should stop looking at the US and get back to leaking about the rest of the world?
What exactly is it that makes people say Assange is an egomaniac as opposed to say, Palin, Lieberman, or any of the self congratulating US "news" crowd who have forgotten the meaning of the word journalism and apparently think it has something to do with quoting "government sources".
For me personally the bible would only be worth getting for the fly swatting functionality. Sadly most editions of the bible are shaped so as to seriously inhibit that functionality though...
Yes, guns are "dangerous" because people are stupid, the danger part is just a small design flaw that can be tragically triggered by ignorance. I mean nobody would dare argue that guns are dangerous by design or anything ludicrous like that...
Radical left wing? Are you joking? Radical left wing in the US? Seriously? I guess you've never informed yourself about what people in the rest of the world might mean by the words political left. By the standards of any democratic European country there is no political left in US politics. There never has been. Not even those presidents who have been accused of being communists qualify as left wing by that measure.
And now that I have said that, I'd like to apologize to the US government and it's people. I didn't mean to burts the buble that the US is the center of the universe and I didn't mean to imply there is anyone beyond the US borders who's existence or opinion should be taken into account. Please don't call for my assasination or label me a terrorist...
While I have some sympathy for the feelings that have inspired these attacks I think the whole idea (if there is actually such a thing), is flawed. Protecting freedom of expression, freedom of information and freedom of the press by making information and services inaccesible is contradictory at best. On the other hand I don't see how the more literal "denial of service" attacks by Amazon, Visa, Paypal, Mastercard against Wikileaks can be defended (if they can be I haven't seen such a defence from any of them anyway). There must however be more creative and legal ways to mount mass protest against these corporate entities that go beyond just terminating your private use of their services. Some possibilities come to mind: writing tons of emails complaining about their decisions to all company related email adresses you can dig up and mass posting reviews on Amazon criticizing their decision for instance. I'm sure I'm missing lots of interesting ones but you get the point.
This reminds me of a very nice saying I once heard. (Sorry I can't remember where): "The law is like a snake, it bites those who can't afford to buy shoes."
Everyone should drop as far as they deserve, including my own country of residence. This is about everyone's basic rights. I don't give a hoot who violates them, all that do should be held accountable indiscriminately.
Maybe you should ask yourself: less effective and less coordinated at what? Less effective at sacrifing your military servicemen in wars that lead to many, many civilian deaths to try to obtain unobtainable stated goals? Less coordinated in making the regions where these wars take place even more dangerous than they used to be for the civilians who live there? Less effective at torture and illegal renditions? Less coordinated in systematically undermining the international rule of law, killing civilians, breaking international treaties, luring your friends into wars under false pretences by providing them with fake intel? Yeah, sounds like a real danger to international security to me...
Continued torture by US forces after Abu Graib, systematically turning a blind eye to large scale torture by Iraqi security forces, shooting of enemy fighters in cold blood after they surrendered, escalation of force incidents (read mostly roadblocks where someone didn't stop fast enough) killing many, many civilians, civilian deaths in secret US attacks in Yemen, spying on UN diplomats in contravention of treaties, lying about the true extent of civilian casualties...do I have to continue?
Are you going to seriously tell me you don't think those are especially egregious? Maybe you are the kind of person who likes to pull the wings of flies, put cats on fire and torture your neighbours son in the basement and you think that's pretty everyday behaviour as well?
And to be clear, I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories and if anyone is delusional here it should be pretty clear who that person is.
Oh I understand the US government's refusal to redact perfectly. They probably asked themselves the next questions and came up with similar answers:
1. Are Wikileaks going to accept any redactions that keep the worst from coming out? Nope.
2. Will cooperating with Wikileaks affect our image as a super power around the world negatively? Definitely.
3. Will there possibly be victims from not cooperating in the redactions? Perhaps but if so only on a small scale and people that are expendable, like common soldiers and informants. If that happens we can blame Wikileaks as long as we have not been involved in the redactions. Something like that might even give us the upper hand in the media war against Wikileaks and help to limit the damage to what really counts: the public images and careers of America's politicians and top administrators and the image of the US as a super power at home and abroad that provides them the means of exercising their power.
What I can't get my head around is al those people that spend their time complaining that Wikileaks is not careful enough in redacting the documents and is putting lives at risk. I mean talking about a skewed world view... Not one death on the whole planet has been directly or indirectly attributed to any of the Wikileaks revelations. Not one! Not even by US state officials who would have every reason to do so if they could only find one!
Meanwhile, what digging in the wikileaks files has confirmed or revealed (so far) about the US: torture ongoing after Abu Graib, systematic lying to the electorate and the governments of friendly powers, the killing of thousands upon thousands of civilians including women, children, the elderly, even handicapped people by US armed forces, lying about civilian death tolls, the killing in cold blood of enemy forces after they surrendered, systematically turning a blind eye to the use of torture by allied forces, complicity in having allies break their own national laws in order to support the US war effort... do I have to continue?
Seriously people...do you really want to spend your time and energy arguing about the way Wikileaks redacts the leaks?
A better analogy: A cop goes into the evidence locker in the police precinct, finds thousands upon thousands of dead civilian bodies riddled with police issue ammo and a group of colleagues torturing people, calls Wikileaks and says "I work for the police but this is not what I signed up for! I want the public to know about it!"
"People in government are people too, with emotions and everything and they will sometimes make decisions based on those emotions."
Yes, decisions like lying systematically to the electorate, condoning torture, war crimes and illegal renditions, decisions like starting illegal wars, shooting people who have surrendered in cold blood, decisions luike intentionally misleading countries that trust you into assisting in your wars by providing them with false intelligence, pressuring countries into surpressing war crimes investigations, torturing prisoners, turning a blind eye to systematic and massive torture by your allies, supporting totalitarian regimes and power factions around the world, calling for people that have not been convicted of anything to be assasinated... should I continue?
The information that the leaks so far have confirmed or revealed give Wikileaks all the legitimacy it's ever needed, Anyone who has missed that point has an irreparably skewed world view.
Well there might be some sense in awarding a person in possesion of a death ray a peace prize. Actually the reasoning behind that would not be all that different from the reasoning that went into giving him the Peace Prize in the first place...
Provided courtesy of the State Dep. May I also suggest the State Department follow their standard procedure, label it top secret and hold it behind closed doors?
Well apparently the new definition of the press is "a lapdog that uncritically reports whatever the US would prefer people to believe". Good! Nothing to see here, move on please.
Looking "pretty good" in comparison to North Korea. Yeah, that's something to be proud of... America's standards appear to be dropping quicker than the barometer in the eye of a hurricane. (Or maybe I should say shit storm?).
I agree. I wish there was some legal and proportionate way to let the people responsible for these decisions at Paypal, Mastercard, Visa et al. know about my dissasisfaction with their decisicions to terminate service for wikileaks though. Something like the stunt Michael Moore once pulled by putting a dozen cars in the driveway of the director of a large car alarm manufacturer and letting all the car alarms go off at the same time.
Of course I have terminated my accounts with Paypal and Amazon already but the problem is that there is hardly any competition in the creditcard market. With both Visa and Mastercard already blocking donations the only serious alternative left is American Express which has it's own drawbacks.
Slashdot Mirror
If you think solitary confinement is not torture you should watch BBC Horizon: Total Isolation
Or read one of the many studies into the effects of solitary confinement.
I do think it's kind of sad how he is being forgotten in the media furror and hysteria. That man is a hero.
I assume you're trying to say that Wikileaks should stop looking at the US and get back to leaking about the rest of the world?
What exactly is it that makes people say Assange is an egomaniac as opposed to say, Palin, Lieberman, or any of the self congratulating US "news" crowd who have forgotten the meaning of the word journalism and apparently think it has something to do with quoting "government sources".
Another viable option would be not to click on links you're not interested in. I know...it sounds crazy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8202745/WikiLeaks-Swedish-government-hid-anti-terror-operations-with-America-from-Parliament.html
I think this sheds some interesting light on the Assange case in Sweden and its political connotations...
For me personally the bible would only be worth getting for the fly swatting functionality. Sadly most editions of the bible are shaped so as to seriously inhibit that functionality though...
Yes, guns are "dangerous" because people are stupid, the danger part is just a small design flaw that can be tragically triggered by ignorance. I mean nobody would dare argue that guns are dangerous by design or anything ludicrous like that...
Radical left wing? Are you joking? Radical left wing in the US? Seriously?
I guess you've never informed yourself about what people in the rest of the world might mean by the words political left. By the standards of any democratic European country there is no political left in US politics. There never has been. Not even those presidents who have been accused of being communists qualify as left wing by that measure.
And now that I have said that, I'd like to apologize to the US government and it's people. I didn't mean to burts the buble that the US is the center of the universe and I didn't mean to imply there is anyone beyond the US borders who's existence or opinion should be taken into account. Please don't call for my assasination or label me a terrorist...
While I have some sympathy for the feelings that have inspired these attacks I think the whole idea (if there is actually such a thing), is flawed. Protecting freedom of expression, freedom of information and freedom of the press by making information and services inaccesible is contradictory at best. On the other hand I don't see how the more literal "denial of service" attacks by Amazon, Visa, Paypal, Mastercard against Wikileaks can be defended (if they can be I haven't seen such a defence from any of them anyway).
There must however be more creative and legal ways to mount mass protest against these corporate entities that go beyond just terminating your private use of their services. Some possibilities come to mind: writing tons of emails complaining about their decisions to all company related email adresses you can dig up and mass posting reviews on Amazon criticizing their decision for instance. I'm sure I'm missing lots of interesting ones but you get the point.
This reminds me of a very nice saying I once heard. (Sorry I can't remember where): "The law is like a snake, it bites those who can't afford to buy shoes."
Everyone should drop as far as they deserve, including my own country of residence. This is about everyone's basic rights. I don't give a hoot who violates them, all that do should be held accountable indiscriminately.
Maybe you should ask yourself: less effective and less coordinated at what? Less effective at sacrifing your military servicemen in wars that lead to many, many civilian deaths to try to obtain unobtainable stated goals? Less coordinated in making the regions where these wars take place even more dangerous than they used to be for the civilians who live there? Less effective at torture and illegal renditions? Less coordinated in systematically undermining the international rule of law, killing civilians, breaking international treaties, luring your friends into wars under false pretences by providing them with fake intel? Yeah, sounds like a real danger to international security to me...
Continued torture by US forces after Abu Graib, systematically turning a blind eye to large scale torture by Iraqi security forces, shooting of enemy fighters in cold blood after they surrendered, escalation of force incidents (read mostly roadblocks where someone didn't stop fast enough) killing many, many civilians, civilian deaths in secret US attacks in Yemen, spying on UN diplomats in contravention of treaties, lying about the true extent of civilian casualties...do I have to continue?
Are you going to seriously tell me you don't think those are especially egregious? Maybe you are the kind of person who likes to pull the wings of flies, put cats on fire and torture your neighbours son in the basement and you think that's pretty everyday behaviour as well?
And to be clear, I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories and if anyone is delusional here it should be pretty clear who that person is.
Oh I understand the US government's refusal to redact perfectly. They probably asked themselves the next questions and came up with similar answers:
1. Are Wikileaks going to accept any redactions that keep the worst from coming out? Nope.
2. Will cooperating with Wikileaks affect our image as a super power around the world negatively? Definitely.
3. Will there possibly be victims from not cooperating in the redactions? Perhaps but if so only on a small scale and people that are expendable, like common soldiers and informants. If that happens we can blame Wikileaks as long as we have not been involved in the redactions. Something like that might even give us the upper hand in the media war against Wikileaks and help to limit the damage to what really counts: the public images and careers of America's politicians and top administrators and the image of the US as a super power at home and abroad that provides them the means of exercising their power.
What I can't get my head around is al those people that spend their time complaining that Wikileaks is not careful enough in redacting the documents and is putting lives at risk. I mean talking about a skewed world view... Not one death on the whole planet has been directly or indirectly attributed to any of the Wikileaks revelations. Not one! Not even by US state officials who would have every reason to do so if they could only find one!
Meanwhile, what digging in the wikileaks files has confirmed or revealed (so far) about the US: torture ongoing after Abu Graib, systematic lying to the electorate and the governments of friendly powers, the killing of thousands upon thousands of civilians including women, children, the elderly, even handicapped people by US armed forces, lying about civilian death tolls, the killing in cold blood of enemy forces after they surrendered, systematically turning a blind eye to the use of torture by allied forces, complicity in having allies break their own national laws in order to support the US war effort... do I have to continue?
Seriously people...do you really want to spend your time and energy arguing about the way Wikileaks redacts the leaks?
I think your example is inaccurate:
A better analogy: A cop goes into the evidence locker in the police precinct, finds thousands upon thousands of dead civilian bodies riddled with police issue ammo and a group of colleagues torturing people, calls Wikileaks and says "I work for the police but this is not what I signed up for! I want the public to know about it!"
"People in government are people too, with emotions and everything and they will sometimes make decisions based on those emotions."
Yes, decisions like lying systematically to the electorate, condoning torture, war crimes and illegal renditions, decisions like starting illegal wars, shooting people who have surrendered in cold blood, decisions luike intentionally misleading countries that trust you into assisting in your wars by providing them with false intelligence, pressuring countries into surpressing war crimes investigations, torturing prisoners, turning a blind eye to systematic and massive torture by your allies, supporting totalitarian regimes and power factions around the world, calling for people that have not been convicted of anything to be assasinated... should I continue?
The information that the leaks so far have confirmed or revealed give Wikileaks all the legitimacy it's ever needed, Anyone who has missed that point has an irreparably skewed world view.
Well there might be some sense in awarding a person in possesion of a death ray a peace prize. Actually the reasoning behind that would not be all that different from the reasoning that went into giving him the Peace Prize in the first place...
"Obama does nothing and gets a Nobel Peace Prize."
Now, now, that's not entirely fair. He did something: http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/12/08/1827206/President-Obama-On-Mythbusters-Tonight
"Press Freedom Index 2010 [rsf.org]: US at #20. With the Nordic countries, Netherlands and Switzerland at the top."
And remember, this was before the US response to the Wikileaks release. Guess they'll be dropping a few places...
Provided courtesy of the State Dep.
May I also suggest the State Department follow their standard procedure, label it top secret and hold it behind closed doors?
"You are not obligated to treat the truth as fact."
There, fixed it for you.
Well apparently the new definition of the press is "a lapdog that uncritically reports whatever the US would prefer people to believe". Good! Nothing to see here, move on please.
Looking "pretty good" in comparison to North Korea. Yeah, that's something to be proud of... America's standards appear to be dropping quicker than the barometer in the eye of a hurricane. (Or maybe I should say shit storm?).
I agree. I wish there was some legal and proportionate way to let the people responsible for these decisions at Paypal, Mastercard, Visa et al. know about my dissasisfaction with their decisicions to terminate service for wikileaks though. Something like the stunt Michael Moore once pulled by putting a dozen cars in the driveway of the director of a large car alarm manufacturer and letting all the car alarms go off at the same time.
Of course I have terminated my accounts with Paypal and Amazon already but the problem is that there is hardly any competition in the creditcard market. With both Visa and Mastercard already blocking donations the only serious alternative left is American Express which has it's own drawbacks.