Wikileaks Embassy Cables

While America may have trouble getting Asange through legal recourse:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/world/02legal.html?_r=1

A radio host has taken matters into his own hands:

http://www.rbr.com/radio/radio-programming/todd-schnitt-offers-50-000-for-julian-assange.html

which brings up a very interesting question... when can Asange actually charge the people calling for his death? sure, he probably believes in freedom of speech, but there is nothing to insinuate that a many of the people calling for his execution are joking. Wouldn't, at some point, this amount to inciteful speech?

oh, and wikileaks could have prevented 9/11:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rowley-wikileaks-20101015,0,5616717.story

There were a lot of us in the run-up to Sept. 11 who had seen warning signs that something devastating might be in the planning stages. But we worked for ossified bureaucracies incapable of acting quickly and decisively. Lately, the two of us have been wondering how things might have been different if there had been a quick, confidential way to get information out.

One of us, Coleen Rowley, was a special agent/legal counsel at the FBI's Minneapolis division and worked closely with those who arrested would-be terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui on an immigration violation less than a month before the World Trade Center was destroyed.

Following up on a tip from flight school instructors who had become suspicious of the French Moroccan who claimed to want to fly a jet as an "ego boost," Special Agent Harry Samit and an INS colleague had detained Moussaoui. A foreign intelligence service promptly reported that he had connections with a foreign terrorist group, but FBI officials in Washington inexplicably turned down Samit's request for authority to search Moussaoui's laptop computer and personal effects.

Those same officials stonewalled Samit's supervisor, who pleaded with them in late August 2001 that he was "trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center." (Yes, he was that explicit.) Later, testifying at Moussaoui's trial, Samit testified that he believed the behavior of his FBI superiors in Washington constituted "criminal negligence."

The 9/11 Commission ultimately concluded that Moussaoui was most likely being primed as a Sept. 11 replacement pilot and that the hijackers probably would have postponed their strike if information about his arrest had been announced.

WikiLeaks might have provided a pressure valve for those agents who were terribly worried about what might happen and frustrated by their superiors' seeming indifference. They were indeed stuck in a perplexing, no-win ethical dilemma as time ticked away. Their bosses issued continual warnings against "talking to the media" and frowned on whistle-blowing, yet the agents felt a strong need to protect the public.

The other one of us writing this piece, Federal Air Marshal Bogdan Dzakovic, once co-led the Federal Aviation Administration's Red Team to probe for vulnerabilities in airport security. He also has a story of how warnings were ignored in the run-up to Sept. 11. In repeated tests of security, his team found weaknesses nine out of 10 times that would make it possible for hijackers to smuggle weapons aboard and seize control of airplanes. But the team's reports were ignored and suppressed, and the team was shut down entirely after 9/11.

In testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Dzakovic summed up his experience this way: "The Red Team was extraordinarily successful in killing large numbers of innocent people in the simulated attacks …[and yet] we were ordered not to write up our reports and not to retest airports where we found particularly egregious vulnerabilities.... Finally, the FAA started providing advance notification of when we would be conducting our 'undercover' tests and what we would be checking."

The commission included none of Dzakovic's testimony in its report.

Joe Lieberman has taken some credit for forcing Amazon.com to drop the Wikileaks site.

Wikileaks had little problems finding a new host, and Amazon is now facing some criticism over the whole ordeal.

However, another free image hosting site has now bowed to the pressure from Lieberman, raising concerns that other social media sources, re: facebook and twitter, might follow suit.

who's lieberman?

an american senator, iirc, he was John Kerry's running mate in 2004

Originally posted by inimalist
an american senator, iirc, he was John Kerry's running mate in 2004

ah, my bad!

Originally posted by inimalist
oh, and wikileaks could have prevented 9/11:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rowley-wikileaks-20101015,0,5616717.story

I'm not constantly following the thread, last I've heard is that interpol searches the wikileaks guy for raping a woman (Yeah I laughed too).

Originally posted by Parmaniac
This was already mentioned in Michael Moores Fahrenheit 9/11, like him or not the "document of warning" was there.

the opinion isn't that there was evidence, but that there was no anonymous way for people to leak that evidence. The article is about how wikileaks could provide that mechanism, not about the mistakes made in the run up to 9/11. I don't think Micheal Moore could have come up with something like Wikileaks on his best day, which farenheight was not one of.

Originally posted by Parmaniac
I'm not constantly following the thread, last I've heard is that interpol searches the wikileaks guy for raping a woman (Yeah I laughed too).

-interpol are looking for Asange in order to question him with regards to possibly molesting (rape charges have been dropped) 2 women.

-in terms of the women's behaviour, with the possible exception of some coincidence in the timing of their reports, there is nothing to suggest they are anything but earnest.

-Actions by the Swedish prosecutor's office seem much more suspiscious

-Asange seems willing to cooperate, at least in terms of what he says, but suspisciously has yet to face his accusors.

-Asange clearly has an ego, former associates have implied that he might be a complete megalomaniac, especially in terms of Wikileaks, and he was catapaulted into the limelight as an international icon during the time these events were supposed to take place.

-guilty or not, both Asange and his detractors are using these charges for political gain. Asange to paint himself at the center of an international conspiracy, his opponents to paint Asange as a bad person

Originally posted by inimalist
[B]I don't think Micheal Moore could have come up with something like Wikileaks on his best day, which farenheight was not one of.

I liked Roger and Me

How do you guys liked "Capitalism a lovestory"?

And MM in general?

Originally posted by Parmaniac
How do you guys liked "Capitalism a lovestory"?

didn't see that one

Originally posted by Parmaniac
And MM in general?

not bad. I'd suggest watching Micheal Moore hates America, not becuase its like an expose, but it talks about how moore and documentaries in general are apt to be persuasive rather than accurate.

his stuff is entertaining

I've heard about this docu haven't DLed it this far.

it is entertaining. everything has its bias, MMHA wears it on its sleave

Originally posted by Parmaniac
How do you guys liked "Capitalism a lovestory"?

And MM in general?

check it out, the economist reads our thread:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/12/after_secrets?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/missingpointofwikileaks

(not really, but its an interesting look at why the culture of "leaking" has made the phenomenon bigger than Asange, and jailing or killing him will do little to stop it. A lot of it sounds like the stuff we've already been discussing)

and sorry skek, spaced on this:

Originally posted by skekUng
It's okay not to approach me as though I'm asking a "gotcha' question. I was just curious.

I didn't think it was a gotcha, its just, I don't see what difference it makes, ultimately, if we consider Asange or Wikileaks as part of the media proper. We could have the same debate about blogs or forums, it is really a matter of opinion. I do think what he does is different from "journalism" though, so I don't think it would be fair to lump him in with reporters.

Originally posted by skekUng
I don't agree that NKorea was caught off guard. I think it's a lot of why they act like the petulant children the Chinese call them in the memos. They don't get their big brother to fight their battles for them, so they pitch a fit. They've been doing that for years.

it will be interesting to see how often the North opens fire on SK targets in the future, now that China has publically confirmed the cables about their willingness to turn on Kim.

You could totally be right, but considering they live on Russia's doorstep with American guns pointed down on them, the tacit assumption that the Chinese would militarily support the North Koreans likely explains why the NK feel they could brazenly kill Korean citizens.

Originally posted by skekUng
I don't know that I think the media needs experts to put the information into perspective. I think an educated population wouldn't need their information contextualized for them if the media was doing their job in the first place. (I'm not talking about the asinine notion that the media is liberal...or conservative. It's a pay per usage institution, just like most modern economy. People who babble out of their ass about a liberal media are naive.)

What I mean is something more like, I guess I don't know you personally, but I am going to assume you have never been to Abkhazia, or Nagorno-Karabakh, you weren't alive during the armenian genocide, and haven't studied much on the Caucasus. (don't worry, I'm not trying to be insulting, these obviously don't apply to me either. Thats the point, as educated people, there are things we probably don't know, like the social context of break away regions boardering on Turkey with large Armenian minorities. Or, that is the only thing we know).

So, when a cabel comes out talking about why a politician in Azerbijan wont discuss Nagorno-Karabakh, because the turkish aren't willing to discuss the ethnic... blah blah blah, basically relying on stuff you would have to be an expert on the region to understand, it is good to have a journalist there to give you that context.

How many papers have Azerbijan specialists? Few anymore, if ever:

YouTube video

(I will have David Simon's babies)

Assange's stated motivations for leaking:

"The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."

Originally posted by 753
Assange's stated motivations for leaking:

"The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."

Sounds reasonable to me.

He is acting rather suspicious though by at least not talking with INTERPOL, though, I can understand at least some of his reasoning behind it. Though, I'm not entirely sure with the publicity that's been going on with this that Assange will have "an accident".

The only question I have with the whole rape case is just the time that it's being raised at, why wasn't this mentioned earlier?

Originally posted by 753
Assange's stated motivations for leaking:

"The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."

So, uh, basically the same logic behind the PATRIOT act. Wonderful.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
So, uh, basically the same logic behind the PATRIOT act. Wonderful.

Precisely why it sounds reasonable that it's coming from Assange. I think it's been stated in this topic that he sort of revels in the image he's created for himself and is actually a bit dictatorial with his staff.