USA vs. WikiLeaks
 

Ever since USA got their dirty secrets being revealed to the world they're determined to use any means, even if illegal, to destroy the WikiLeaks, despite that they didn't even really break any laws. I think it's outrageous what the politicians allow themselves.

Here're some more sources to read:

Law experts say WikiLeaks in the clear (ABC)
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/con...0/s3086781.htm

WikiLeaks are a bunch of terrorists, says leading U.S. congressman (Mail Online)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...eter-King.html

Cyber guerrillas can help US (Financial Times)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d3dd7c40-f...#axzz17QvQ4Ht5

Amazon drops WikiLeaks under political pressure (Yahoo)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101201...congressamazon

"WikiLeaks avenged by hacktivists" (PC World):
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscente...cktivists.html

US Gov shows true control over Internet with WikiLeaks containment (Tippett.org)
http://www.tippett.org/2010/12/us-go...s-containment/

US embassy cables culprit should be executed, says Mike Huckabee (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...-mike-huckabee

WikiLeaks ditched by MasterCard, Visa. Who's next? (The Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/...sa.-Who-s-next

Assange's Interpol Warrant Is for Having Sex Without a Condom (The Slatest)
http://slatest.slate.com/id/2276690/

The first real war on information is apparently on.

Somehow a really huge amount of people seems to think it is good and right to nonchalantly throw around the word terrorist and allow censorship of the internet in their country or even death penalty for sharing information.

I can't say I care much for the leaks themselves, but I find it scary that they are used to impose further on our freedom, and even more scary many people, once again, seem to find it ok.

This will definitely play a big part in shaping our future. I hope we have at least a tiny say in it.

.... First one .....? Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, not really, or better said: really not.

C'mon. Just because you can do something does not mean you should do something. The wikileak assholes have put innocent people's lives in danger everywhere and have given aid to terrorist groups worldwide.

Terrorist websites are already discussing amongst themselves how to leverage the information that wikileaks has provided.

The wikileaks leader was and is a notorious hacker and now people should feel outraged when people and groups use whatever means they can to discredit and put a stop to what he has done? He is a slime ball.

The Taliban have said they are trawling through the information looking for names. Julian Assange is an ass, its people like him that will hasten the fall of Western Civilization.

I found it rather interesting that Hilary Clinton said a while back that Chinese citizens would be able to get around restrictions on information in their country because of how liberating the internet is.

Now though, she dislikes such freedom of information because it is embarrassing to the USA.

Personally, I'm glad these cables have been released. It gives a real insight into how government works, and confirms many things we have long suspected.

We should not fear the terrorists, and we should not run our countries' governments in secret in fear of terrorism.

It is also important to remember that it was an American with proper access to such files (of which apparently 3 million people could access!) who leaked them, Wikileaks is just the method by which they were distributed.

What I really hate now is those anon 4chan "hacktivist" a-holes thinking they're though by doing DDoS attacks on websites that have distanced themselves from Wikileaks.

There is a difference between freedom of information and freedom of speech. That information was classified for a reason and the man that illegally distributed it (yes, the American) is going to spend the rest of his life in prison (or worse) for it.

Ask the families of the 2,975 people killed on 9/11 if we should fear terrorism. There was a big stink in the U.S. a few years back about the Patriot Act and the liberties it gave the government in collecting information about criminals and potential terrorists. Now, since the world has had a real taste of the dangers we face from radical terrorism, nobody really complains about what methods are being used. They just want to be safe.

Yes, some of the things being released in the cables are slimy. However, I have no problem with the need to keep intelligence and sensitive information that has to do with our safety a secret since there is no way of keeping it from falling into the wrong hands any other way.

watching fox news much?

also, note how the u.s. participants of the discussions are really influenced by government controlled media and despise wikileaks, while majority of the rest of the world supports it

kids, wikileaks has been in here for years. they have published any whistleblowing facts, exposed frauds and lies. now they got this massive leak from an insider in the u.s. and released it too. even some of the u.s. politicans cheerished the website before for leaks that have been "good" for them in the past. now that they managed to reveal something about the u.s. it is all of a sudden a terrorist organization. boo-hoo, Q-Q more

and that ridiculous claim about "EXPOSANG DANGERAS PLACES TO TERRARISTS!!!" is a single u.s. government argument that they are grinding over and over and persuading sheeple of america that that is all they do: release this document and destroy america!
jesus christ. what a really lame excuse. that document, by the way has been handled by journalists and edited before released, erasing any information about the names and places. plus, it is now really old, some of the underwater cables mentioned in the document have already been closed for 2 years now. in contrary, have you ever saw the actual interesting whistleblowing leaks in the past? no, fox news most probably doesn't cover that.

PS. mentioning 9/11 in any discussion should be the new godwin's law or something

I was going to keep out of this one, but I agree with R.u.s.s mentioning 11/9 should be the new Godwins law.

I can see how some of the leaks could hurt people, or at least lead to them being hurt...but hey you know that they know, so change what you are doing.

What I don't get is people have been doing dodgy things, they got caught, normally we would cheer for the person bringing it to light (Watergate much) instead we are calling the light bringing a terrorist and laying no blame on the people who did the dodgy in the first place.

Still after all of that, I doubt Wikileaks will change much in the world, it's todays big news once its blown over the world will move on to the next threat that it gets told about by the news channel they love.

Well I'm posting here mainly to reject the idea that WikiLeaks is supported everywhere in the world. As far as I've seen it's only highly supported by the usual freedom and liberty armada, mostly concentrated in Europe.

First there is the illusion that WikiLeaks will help normal people to keep their governments in line. Wrong. They will even try to restrict access to the info you currently have without problems. Plus what are you people doing regarding the secrets? Absolutely nothing, except trolling internet forums with it. The best you could do is hack credit card sites defending your precious site, which is called internet terrorism, by the way. I mean, most of the people who are pro-wikileaks (or anti-wikileaks, it goes both ways) didn't even read the documents they published there, and informed themselves from the news. Some say that the fact the leaks got the news headlines is enough to make their government think things over. Ok, maybe. But lets take the US cables as an example. Leaving aside that those documents are just opinions of embassy workers, what is US supposed to do about it? Stop spying countries? One of the first things my history teacher taught me in school was that embassies are the first espionage nests. That is their main role, NOT establishing longlasting diplomatic ties.

So it's clear that the country most affected by WikiLeaks is USA; diplomatically, the other countries gained an upper hand in their relations with USA. And that's why it would seem that Americans are the main people who do not support WikiLeaks. Because they realized that their country has become the main target. Frankly many times in history there were events when a large mass of people from countries supported a movement from another country, but when this movement affected their own lands, they grabbed their forks, swords or whatever they could and opposed it even with the price of their life. Most of you guys support WikiLeaks because it hasn't yet affected you, because you think you're safe, because you're in control, when a leak regarding your country will appear, yes you could say to your government what they should do and they will blindly follow you... be serious people. The English students are protesting the fourth time in 1-2 months against the augmentation of the university fees. Nothing has changed, probably the governement will do some lame concession, the students will be satisfied - it's still called manipulation. Or maybe the government will cancel the law, but the problem won't be solved. So either way everyone loses.

Secondly, I just heard russ and Darth considering bringing terrorism into discussion another Godwin's law. I'm suprised they haven't noticed an even more eyecatching example that was brought earlier into discussion - freedom and the right to information. This is the real Godwin's law that every wikileak supporter is constantly bringing up. Lately it is done purely automatic, and the countries that are renowned for freedom and transparence (Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden etc) have the most indifferent inhabitants of the entire Europe.

Probably I should stop now, cause this debate is pretty useless. Nobody will change their view on things and probably both sides are right in their own way, although neither has a grasp on the consequences that their attitude can have to later developments.

I tried reading some of the leaks, but gosh are they ever dry...nothing exciting at all, just letters between diplomats. Some guy preparing to visit Germany got a nice long boring memo about the state of the country and whom he should say what to.

There was another memo from some intelligence guy who had interviewed everyday people for their opinions on political happenings in Armenia or something.

Great...the U.S. does pays people to gather pointless information...I'm sure there are some neat things in there, but most of it is just boring prattle.

I gotta say though, instead of throwing the guy in jail the U.S. should be trying to get in his good graces...plus it's not his fault, I'd be going after whoever did the actual leaking.

As for actual freedom of speech, I'd say this isn't even a big deal, it's just the cup spilling over...people are seeing so much crap flying in the face of freedom and democracy.

My dad grew up in communist Hungary, and more and more often he says things are getting just as bad for freedom of speech in the capitalist world as they were in the communist.

People with opposing views to the majority or those in power often get in trouble. I've seen a lot of cases over the past 3 or 4 years...from priests being told they can no longer preach, to journalists looking for answers being forcibly removed by police, to angry protesters preventing speakers or presentations AND getting away with it, to things being horribly skewed by the media to favor a certain political leaning, to just simple humiliation by teachers or professors in front of your peers.

So as I see this going on and then the government starts arresting people saying things they don't want said, I start to get worried...there's a poem actually.... goes something like, "they came for the jews and I didn't speak up because I was not a jew, then they came for the...<goes on about different groups and how I did not speak up because I wasn't part of their group> and then they came for me...and there was no one left to speak up."

anyways, I sometimes worry that pretty soon it's going to be my freedoms that are going to be taken away.

If bringing up 9/11 offends anyone's senses, I guess I could just have easily used London or Madrid (or many more) as examples. You really think this is just about the USA? Are you kidding? Western Europe is in more imminent danger than is the US.

What angers me is that idealistic idiots like Assange try to hide behind their freedom of information platforms and release sensitive information (whether that information was obtained legally or not) without regard to the dangers it may create. They somehow think they are doing some greater justice by exposing government communications and classified information across the world so that we, the unsuspecting public, can raise our collective voices in a cry of outrage. Give me a break! Do you really think we the public are stupid enough to not realize that this kind of stuff is happening without the need to know the details. We have State Departments chosen by elected officials whom we entrust with handling these kinds of affairs, knowing all the while that there is a need to keep much of the gathered intelligence a secret so as to not endanger the safety of the public.

The world has become a dangerous place. There is a large and well funded worldwide radical movement to destroy the freedoms and lifestyles that western civilization has paid a heavy price to create and defend. If defending that means that we have to put up with some international mud slinging and covert international espionage, i am ok with it.

If people like Assange think they are performing some greater service to mankind they are kidding themselves. They are really simply trying to bring attention to themselves.

Some of you need to stop being so naive.

It's almost as if people can have different opinions on things :)

Never Lulu.

True. I have said my piece. :)

Back to the games at hand.

@Geezer: dude you seriously devided by zero with your posts here - there's not much I can or want to say to you just rethink and question FOX news from time to time... ah yes and :doh:

@Lulu_Jane: that's a problem when it's about the truth because there is just one

Nice try. I haven't watched FOX news in years.

It has always been. Only someone very naive would believe otherwise.
There were the Pharaohs, there was Genghis Khan and there are various parties today. What has changed in all the time? Only the methods about the pursuit of influence, which are covered today with more subtlety than earlier. Other than that we're still in the Stone Age of humanity, and the "freedom of speech" is only tolerated as long as it doesn't disturb too much. It's all about a conflict between two main sides while trying to maintain the appearance of "today's civilized world" - one side wants everyone to say only as much as it wants them to say, the other side wants to be able to say as much as it wants to. The question is just which side one does belong to.

Scatty, I don't necessarily agree but I respect your opinion. I should have said more dangerous because only in the last few decades has the potential for mass destruction been this great. Even during the cold war you had the feeling that the general sensibilities of those involved would keep any deliberate mass destruction from taking place. Can't say as I feel that way any longer. I am ashamed at the role that the U.S. has had in that. But, it is a global problem.

It is interesting the different perspectives of this problem that are taken by people from different parts of the world. Everyone has their own values and ideologies that are shaped largely by their experiences in life. The people from my part of the world (Midwest U.S.), in large part, agree with my take on things and it is not because we are some kind of red neck ultra-conservative right wingers. It has a lot to do with the fact that we have seen many of our privacies and freedoms being compromised by the need to monitor people walking the same streets that we do. We now have to be x rayed and patted down to get on an airplane. People grow more and more suspicious of their neighbors who might happen to have a different faith or nationality. We have to have thorough background checks to rent an apartment or get a job. Never used to be this way.

Most of us resent that this has had to happen but also know that it has been made an inevitability by the acts of terrorism and the need for safety. We are angry at our own government for being so careless as to let this happen (the leak of sensitive information). Aside from that, what has set us off about this whole Assange/wikileaks thing is that what we now have to tolerate is being compromised by a group that thinks they need to be the caretakers of some sensitive checks and balances of the private citizens against the evil and corrupt goings on in our government. We already have that balance taken care of here. It is called a democratic election. People like Assange just can't seem to accept that the views they have are not held by the majority of the people. If they were, national security would not exist. That is probably why they call themselves "reporters without borders". They can't seem to come to grips with the restrictions that any civilized society would place on them. They sound like anarchists to me. Needless to say that is not an ideal that I subscribe to.

Peace.

Hey I may not always agree with this guy, but he undeniably nailed all the points. Watch this video.

Also the government is never your friend. Do not trust them, they work against their people and for their self interest, wikileaks is great for exposing the misdeeds of government and information that is kept from the people that themselves chose the same government.

I find the idea that people have something against the exposition of deeds of this (or any really) government that was elected by the people (and should therefore be accounted by the people that elected them cause they are the same people who are affected by their decisions) disgusting and perverse.

Government should be transparent and accountable to people, I can only wish there are more of these leaks for every government in the world, perhaps then the word GOVERNMENT would take it's true meaning.

This quote says it all really.

You get FOX News in Slovakia? Do people there watch it?

APf

@APFelon: In the times of internet and (dis)information... do you think FOX news' reputation which is well known in the civilized world stops @ the U.S. borders?

Knock, knock... someone there? anyone? :lol:

I am always amazed that people have become so damned comfortable with insulting perfect strangers over the Internet.

Knock, knock indeed.

:bleh2:APFelon:bleh2:

nope, we fortunately don't have fox news. but everyone who knows something about it knows that it's a joke

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/1..._n_794700.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hh-877s01U
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairba...any_helped.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx3_ynHjL-M (this one is not from diplomatic cables, but still)
and more. now, not even 1% of the cables have been released, there will be more of interesting things

Take it easy guys, just try to not ruin the pacific exchange of different points of view please. :)

There's a thing I'm sure about, Assange became a symbol, and it's very difficult to destroy simbols, even death is useless.
That's why I think arresting him is just stupid, on the contrary, you all have seen what's happening.

Don't know if this is the right way to obtain transparency though, I'm sure that even Assange actions can be manipulized by media.
I bet that most of the people who heard about Assange & Co didn't even bother to visit the site and accepted news as TV proposed them.

Another side effect of globalization APFelon. But sorry if I've insulted you.

Truth hurts sometimes, I know...

Is there a reason that you must be continually insulting and fan flames?

Are you looking to provoke some sort of reaction?

All I asked is how you and R.U.S.S know about an American news organization and I get this from you.

Why?

:sucks:

APf

Dude you picked a quote out of _r.u.s.s.' post amid a discussion of a sensitive topic.
Don't act as you weren't aware of that.

You didn't ask about how we know about an american news organization in the first place but if ppl in Slovakia are able to watch FOX news. So you questioned parts of his statement and also his credibility.

This quoting cumulative with your question just left me over one interpretation. (you read it above)

So don't try to change your original intentions into something which makes me sound overreacting and even insulting. I'm certainly not. It's not charade here, it's a discussion.

edited: grammar

Sorry, I am not going to let you troll me. You'll have to have your tantrum all by yourself.

APf

This, this right here is a very important point. Dude has to stay in the media and flop himself about everywhere, staying public is a very good way of not meeting with a mysterious accident.

If such an incident were to occur I think only a small percentage would ask questions the rest would hate him or not give a damn.

I disagree.

Lots of people would ask questions. Few of them could do anything apart from that. But, well, it would be another good reason for a lot of people for despising those causing the "mysterious accident".

Thats kinda what i meant, most of the people who know who he is may wonder if the government had a hand in this... and then go on with their lives.

There would be much uproar, the media would use this fully for own profit, then after a while everyone will go on with the daily life. It happened before, people forget quickly.
Those who need the job done don't care if they're despised by the public, there would be no one certain to put the finger on as usually and that's all that matters. Such things are done quietly without leaving traces. Still, it helps when he stays in the light of attention.

Myself, I'm very happy about WikiLeaks' work. Even though my political ideas are probably far in many repects from most of its supporters and even Assange's. I think it's important that politicians be accountable. If they can do whatever they come up with without voter input, democracy and republicanism are over--not to mention if voters don't even know in the first place.

There are two separate parties here that tend to be identified: WikeLeaks itself and the whistle-blowers. The latter have most times committed some fault, if they were government officials they probably broke some oath or otherwise are at fault and liable to be prosecuted. They were likely aware of this and acted under their own responsibility, considering the personal consequences versus the goals they wanted to advance--most likely unselfish.

By the way, let us hope, that government officials are still liable to criticism as well, or even prosecution if and when they're at fault.

On the other hand there seems to be very little ground, legally first of all, to prosecute WikiLeaks itself. It's in a very similar position to traditional media that have disclosed classified leaks in the past. The only difference is the scale, the Internet is more powerful than earlier media against governments.

There's also the point that Assange himself needn't and mustn't be identified with WikiLeaks. There are a lot of reports about him in the press, and they all should probably be taken with a grain of salt, but it seems Assange has a good deal of virtues as well as flaws. And although his personality shouldn't be of our concern, we don't have any strong reason to believe that the charges brought against him in Sweden are fabricated. Be that as it may, I've also heard that he's faced a lot of criticism and dissent from within WikiLeaks. What I'm saying is that even if something happened to Assange (and I don't mean anything conspiranoid), that would not be the end of this. Actually some of the most prominent dissenters are already busy founding a competitor to WikiLeaks, http://openleaks.net/, but even WikiLeaks may survive (metaphorically) Assange.