WikiLeaks

Journalists Are All Julian Assange  -  by Robert Parry

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/04/journalists-are-all-julian-assange/

"Though American journalists may understandably want to find some protective cover by pretending that Julian Assange is not like us, the reality is - whether we like it or not - we are all Julian Assange."

It doesn't matter that Assange may be an asshole. If he is prosecuted for publishing government secrets, that is a threat to all journalists.

I probably don't like Assange any more than you do, but I see no legal distinction between what he has done with Wikileaks, and the publication of the Pentagon Papers by the NYT. If the first is to be considered a crime, then so should the second be.

Reflections on WikiLeaks, Spycatcher and Freedom of the Press (and podcast)

https://web.archive.org/web/20120323181534/http://www.malcolmturnbull.co...

"It is unacceptable in our democratic society that there should be a restraint on the publication of information relating to government when the only vice of that information is that it enables the public to discuss, review and criticise government action."

Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia (2011)

Michael Moriarity wrote:

It doesn't matter that Assange may be an asshole. If he is prosecuted for publishing government secrets, that is a threat to all journalists.

Are they really secrets? Are they good secrets? Are they useful secrets? Or are they scare stories?

How does one actually use these so called secrets that wikileaks has provided?

I have yet to read anything of any real use that I may myself utilize. Now possibly Apple or Samsung or any other hi tech company may develop their tech so as to prevent it from being used as a spy weapon (vault 7). But really, the only way to prevent your iphone or emails from betraying you is to simply not use hi tech for something you may feel is sensitive if it went public or if the government found out.

What is WikiLeaks?

https://wikileaks.org/About.html

"We open Governments. To determine the truth of our statements, simply look at the evidence."

List of Materials Published by WikiLeaks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_material_published_by_WikiLeaks

Quote:

List of Materials Published by WikiLeaks

It would be much more interesting to see a list of materials that they could have published but didn't, and didn't acknowledge not publishing.

And speaking of Manning:

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/314783-assange-lawyer-conditions...

Another good piece about some of the results of Assange's work, and what is probably a more relevant question.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/protect-whistleblowers-or-y...

The Target is Not Only Julian Assange It's WikiLeaks and Free Journalism (and podcast)

http://archives.kpfa.org/data/20180803-Fri1700.mp3

Dennis Bernstein and Randy Credico interview the legendary John Pilger

PS No surprise to see the usual suspects cheerleading the oppressor here. They almost always do. The Canadian liberal left is known for it. 

Wikileaks Founder 'Essentially in Solitary Confinement for At Least Past Four Months' (and vid)

https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1026754785947467776

"The comments on this [thread]/video are disgusting. People are falling all over themselves to help cheer for the slow-motion lynching of a journalist whose arrest is being aggressively pursued by the Trump administration they claim to oppose."

VIPS Plead For Humanitarian Asylum For Julian Assange [*MUST READ*]

https://t.co/UXV7H0xUOV

"On July 12, 2018, the Organization of American States' Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHE) sent out a ruling that was virtually unnoticed by US news media. The IACHR found 'it is the duty of nations to allow for the passage of successful asylum seekers from embassies to the mainland territory of the state that has granted an individual asylum.' 'It is imperative', the ruling states, 'that Assange is allowed to make the safe passage to Ecuador demanded by the Court as his physical and mental state conditions have been described as deteriorating rapidly. If, nevertheless, UK authorities insist on arresting Assange, 'the British government will have wantonly failed to uphold Assange's rights as a legitimate receiver of asylum by Ecuador.'

The impacts of prosecuting Assange would ripple around the world as officials in other governments followed the most powerful nation's example. With no means of holding governments accountable despotism would proliferate..."

Freedom of Information Activist Emma Best just published her cache of 11,000 twitter messages between Wikileaks and others. Some of these tweets were reported on about six months ago, but now they are all available:

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kyv9n/activist-publishes-110...

https://emma.best/2018/07/29/11000-messages-from-private-wikileaks-chat-...

“The idea was that the attitudes and behavior of WL [Wikileaks] behind closed doors is relevant, especially their coordination of PR, propaganda and troll ops through assets that are public supporters but not publicly known to take cues from WL,” Emma Best, the freedom of information activist, told Motherboard in a Twitter direct message.

The DMs concern a particular group chat between the official Wikileaks account and several supporters. In the chat—dubbed “Wikileaks +10” due to number of participants—Wikileaks would coordinate smear campaigns against the group’s rivals, including journalists, according to the DMs. The official Wikileaks account, widely believed to be controlled by Assange, also pushed antisemitic and transphobic messages, according to the messages.

If Assange Leaves the Ecuadorian Embassy, What Next?

https://www.lawfareblog.com/if-assange-leaves-ecuadorian-embassy-what-next

"It's been 13 days since President Moreno arrived in the UK, without any reports that Assange had been turned over. Whether that means he's off the hook is unclear but here's what we know about the current state of play..."

Here's your laugh of the day. The U.S. Senate has asked Assange to testify at the Russia Inquiry.

Assange’s legal team is “considering the offer but testimony must conform to a high ethical standard,” WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter.

... because he's all about the ethics, of course.

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/400882-wikileaks-says-senate-pan...

I thought HRW were the bad guys.  At least according to beloved progressive media outlets...

https://tinyurl.com/yay7r868

Evidently that applies to the U.N. too, and apparently Wikileaks itself. WWWTT's Veterans Today article doesn't surprise me at all.

Really, it is about who is doing the criticizing, and why. And really, honest criticism is not the point. Getting people polarized, fighting each other, and distrusting everything is the goal.

Canada: Election 'Meddler'

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/832344632352608256

"UK, Australia, Canada & NZ tasked by CIA to use human spies (HUMINT) to penetrate last French presidential election. " (2012)

Former MI6 Spy v WikiLeaks Editor: Who Really Deserves First Amendment Protection?

https://on.rt.com/9d09

"He is an editor running a high tech publishing outfit that has caused embarrassment to governments and corporations around the world, not just America. If he can be prosecuted for publishing information very much in the public interest, then all the legacy media feeding off the Wikileaks hydrant of information are equally vulnerable."

Is the Mueller Investigation Preparing to Indict WikiLeaks Editor Julian Assange?

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/01/assa-s01.html

"...Those who have joined the denunciations of WikiLeaks for publishing the DNC and Podesta emails, generally do not spell out their political standpoint because it is utterly reactionary. The entire argument that Julian Assange assisted Donald Trump is predicated on the assumption that American workers and young people - should have been denied information about the character of Clinton and her campaign, and in a state of ignorance, elected her as president of the US.

Every political and media organization that either repeats the slander that WikiLeaks operated on behalf of Russia and Trump, or remains silent as Julian Assange is vilified and set up for criminal indictment, deserves the utter contempt and condemnation of all defenders of democratic rights and freedom of speech..."

NDPP wrote:

Is the Mueller Investigation Preparing to Indict WikiLeaks Editor Julian Assange?

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/09/01/assa-s01.html

"...Those who have joined the denunciations of WikiLeaks for publishing the DNC and Podesta emails, generally do not spell out their political standpoint because it is utterly reactionary. The entire argument that Julian Assange assisted Donald Trump is predicated on the assumption that American workers and young people - should have been denied information about the character of Clinton and her campaign, and in a state of ignorance, elected her as president of the US.

Every political and media organization that either repeats the slander that WikiLeaks operated on behalf of Russia and Trump, or remains silent as Julian Assange is vilified and set up for criminal indictment, deserves the utter contempt and condemnation of all defenders of democratic rights and freedom of speech..."

But this is fine

American workers and young people - should have been denied information about the character of Trump and his campaign, and in a state of ignorance, elected him as president of the US.

From the article posted at #469

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/protect-whistleblowers-or-y...

"Whistleblowers aren’t going to go away quietly. Neither, if we want corruption and government overreach exposed, should we desire them to. More fundamentally, it won’t be a level playing field of disclosure with open, pluralistic Western democracies facing more leaks than authoritarian states that are far more likely to use mass population surveillance or to commit war crimes. This will feed the myth of the whistleblower as a foreign agent. Yet unless we protect those who whistleblow in the public interest, groups that operate outside the normal boundaries of the law such as Wikileaks will flourish.

Julian Assange has simultaneously proven why whistleblowing is so important, but also why we need to encourage traditional media sources including newspapers (with professional journalists) to handle this information. Whistleblowing may be highly imperfect, but unless we safeguard it, we risk a future where the government knows a lot about its citizens but its citizens find their government cloaked in secrecy. "

There are two problems with this conclusion, to me.

1.   Nonwestern authoritarian governments are not "more likely" to mass surveil their populations and commit war crimes than western democracies.    The ability of western democracies to surveil their populations and commit war crimes is vastly superior, and the major technological developments in weaponry and mass surveillance have been developed, capitalized and mass produced by western democracies.    Western democracies don't face more leaks because we are more lenient of whistleblowers, we just have more to leak, because we are fed more lies.    

2.   The professional journalist has always been and is under increasing corporate pressure and control.    I don't think the publishing of the Pentagon Papers was an event of the same category as what wikileaks has done.    The Pentagon papers were released in bits over years, only fully published in June 2011.   How much of the content was in the public's interest, what conclusions to draw, were vetted, shaped and polished in the editorial offices of the New York Times.   This is the prefered route of the author.   Perhaps if the internet was around back then, a 70's wikileaks would have been dumped online in their entirety, and the public would have had the chance to draw their own, directly informed conclusions.   

I agree in principle with some of the concerns expressed by Smith and others around wikileaks revealing the indenties of activists or opposition groups within authoritarian repressive countries (although I am skeptical of some of the specifics).  But I don't see the other option, as the article linked above, of traditional media outlets redacting/vetting as practical or even plausible today, especially when the material being considered is urgent, or might be seen as benefiting a foreign enemy.

Ecuador is torturing him now??

#Unity4J: State of the Movement Address III 

https://youtu.be/RBvdQHTO3IY

Join Suzie for a live update and discussion about progress and plans...

Julian Assange sought Russian visa in 2010, leaked documents show.

Leaked documents.  Hehe.

Quote:

The source is document fabricator and paid FBI informant Sigurdur Thordarson who was sentenced to prison for fabricating docs impersonating Assange, multiple frauds and pedophilia.

This left out "... and former WikiLeaks helper bee".

Ironic that sex crimes should be the downfall of a WikiLeaks consigliere.  Is there something about keeping secrets that means you can't keep it in your pants?  And why didn't he flee to Ecuador and begin pretending he's being tortured even though he's free to leave any time?

I'm glad those corrupt organizations outed themselves before anyone could support them.