The day irony died

[Nepenthe]

I do in fact find the irony hysterical. "Everybodys info is fair game...but mine!"

 

Funny how the story changes depending on which side of the "leak" you are standing on.

I don't think that the point has ever been about "everybody's info" being fair game, but more to show people what the "elite" (whether it's Kaupthing, some other multinational corp, the U.S. Govt) tries to conceal, not because it's a "matter of national security", but because it's a) embarrassing and/or b) criminal.

 

Or, you could just be strawmanning.

[Gfted1]

I see. So the release of informant names and the name and location of interests the US considers vital are embarrassing and/or illegal? No, of course not, its to rub national security issues in the US's face.

 

Or, you could just be strawmanning.

[Volourn]

"I'd instead be worried of how your country is perceived by foreigners.

"

 

Who cares what bigoted foreigners think. I surely don't. They're bigoted.

[Calax]

I see. So the release of informant names and the name and location of interests the US considers vital are embarrassing and/or illegal? No, of course not, its to rub national security issues in the US's face.

 

Or, you could just be strawmanning.

You mean those informants that wikileaks specifically says it removed the names of?

 

Of course, doesn't stop news outlets from making it sound like they released everything but a letter of the name

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38441360/ns/wo...d_central_asia/

[Thorton_AP]

I suppose if you find putting people in danger funny, laugh. But the thing is that at least the guys in the combat zone who you swear are being put in danger when I've yet to see anyone say "LOOK WIKILEAKS MADE THIS ATTACK POSSIBLE!" are being paid to... wait for it... be put in danger. He isn't.

Except that's not strictly true.

The information leaked named good deal of civilians as well.

And yet it has been said that there have been no civilian repercussions if the names WERE in fact released.

 

Then there shouldn't be any issue releasing Assange's address then, right?

[pmp10]

You mean those informants that wikileaks specifically says it removed the names of?

Perhaps he means the information of other people it failed to remove the names of?

You can still find plenty of names in that data (here for example or here).

Besides there is little point in naming informants, people most interested in insurgent action will be able to deduce names on the basis of reports and their recollections.

Edited December 16, 2010 by pmp10

[Zoraptor]

Assange not wanting his whereabouts published is ironic. The danger to him apparently being sufficient to be a factor in refusing bail but not enough to warrant suppressing his address is ironic. People who were up in arms about poor baby informants being put in danger being smug about Assange being put in danger is also ironic- if you really believed your positions you would condemn both as being dangerous and not change positions based on personal animus towards an individual.

 

I don't have any great problem with either as I don't think Assange is in greater danger by it being published- there is basically zero chance of it not becoming public knowledge whether suppressed or not. I do have a problem with the judge being inconsistent as it suggests bias, and poor and inconsistent judgement (ohoho). I do have a problem with the prosecution because if even half the stuff written is true then there should be no chance of conviction, as the original prosecutor basically admitted by dropping the original charges.

 

As for the rest- you cannot run around saying wikileaks is both a horrible breach of security that will bring about the downfall of western civilisation/ kill countless innocent informants and say that none of the stuff is new/ significant and that nobody has died. They're mutually exclusive positions. Alternating the positions and expecting people to believe both simultaneously is also ironic.

 

Probably the person to come best out of the whole thing is Gates who has been almost completely consistent that while some stuff has not been helpful it really isn't as big a deal as Lieberman and the rest of the World Is Ending brigade are making out. Oh dear, embarrassed on the internet. How ever does one survive?

[Thorton_AP]

if you really believed your positions you would condemn both as being dangerous and not change positions based on personal animus towards an individual.

 

Not necessarily. People are vindictive and full of retribution. It's not uncommon for people to enjoy the irony of others (especially those that perform actions contrary to one's beliefs) having to fall victim to the same practice by which the others preach.

 

To take the most extreme example, one can believe that killing is wrong, but still appreciate the eye for an eye of the death penalty for a murderer. Is it hypocritical? Probably. But it doesn't stop one from really believing that killing is wrong. They just enjoy the irony of a killer being killed for his actions.

[~Di]

It's true, we cannot point to a single individual physically harmed by Wikileaks. However, our military does know that villages that had been cooperating with NATO were named last summer, and since then individuals from these villages, including elders, have been murdered. Since there were no notes attached to the bodies saying, "This is because we read Wikileaks, signed The Taliban", nobody can say they were physically harmed by the leaks. And of course the fact that our military has also confirmed that Afghanis are now terrified to talk to NATO soldiers, the vital information highway from the locals has dried up, while dozens of civilians who have provided information have flooded into NATO bases, begging for protection. But all in all, no harm done.

 

Then there are the diplomats whose careers have been disrupted, possibly ended, because their ability to conduct confidential diplomacy has been irreparably compromised. But all in all, no harm done.

 

Terrorists probably won't go after poorly-guarded pharmaceutical plants, communications systems and manufacturers of critical weapons components just because the USA finds them vital to its interests. Probably. But all in all, no harm done.

Edited December 17, 2010 by ~Di

[Zoraptor]

Informants get killed, it's an occupational hazard. It's happened before WL, it'll happen long long after. If there were any compelling evidence that WL was causing them then the PR people would be all over it. As I pointed out the previous time this came up the NATO losses have actually dropped significantly by monthly year to year comparison, despite the supposed treasure trove of the WL releases, so they cannot be that bad.

 

Afghanistan is a country in the throes of a significant insurgency, has a government and armed forces/ law enforcement riddled with both corruption and active Taleban collaborators/ agents and the Taleban has an enormous number of connections into communities. Evidence suggests strongly that the majority of Taleban fighters are effectively mercenaries rather than ideologues- if you're going to accept a few dollars to get shot up by NATO you're... very likely going to accept a few dollars to say that you saw Ahmad talking to the Americans just before they raided that safe house in Kandahar, let alone the various Afghan military and police people or translators who will be in the know.

 

That's primarily how they get their information, by leveraging their local knowledge and contacts. Not by taking their netbook to the local wifi hotspot in Kabul to trawl through x0,000 internet documents that are almost entirely irrelevant.

[Monte Carlo]

Mr. Assange (or Mister 'It's All About Me') seems to have been strangely quiet about poor old PFC Bradley Manning, who after all is his 22 carat Deep Throat.

 

Poor old Bradley. Thirty years in a super-max prison. Julian's too busy trying to be a 21st Century Dreyfus to hat-tip the guy who provided all the information in the first place. Maybe eventually they will get adjacent cells.

[Nepenthe]

Mr. Assange (or Mister 'It's All About Me') seems to have been strangely quiet about poor old PFC Bradley Manning, who after all is his 22 carat Deep Throat.

 

Poor old Bradley. Thirty years in a super-max prison. Julian's too busy trying to be a 21st Century Dreyfus to hat-tip the guy who provided all the information in the first place. Maybe eventually they will get adjacent cells.

Yeah, Wikileaks has never confirmed that Bradley was the source, and you could also see them not getting involved as just adhering to proper journalistic standards. Or, as my world is not black and white, somewhere between the two.

[Monte Carlo]

Trust me, my world is a billion shades of grey.

 

My position on Wikileaks is pretty straightforward:

 

1. The US Government left their information in the cyber version of an unlocked car in an inner-city neighbourhood and they got burnt. Tough.

 

2. That doesn't make Assange some sort of hero like his fawning left-wing fan club seems to think - he's a grand-standing contrarian with an agenda.

 

3. He's also got serious double-standards.

 

4. The leaks aren't really a big deal and don't tell us anything that real journalists aren't already telling us.

 

5. OTOH elected representatives need confidentiality, it gives them the space they need to do their jobs. Shades of grey.

 

6. I want the internal message logs of everything Wikileaks does posted on their site. Just saying.

[Calax]

It's true, we cannot point to a single individual physically harmed by Wikileaks. However, our military does know that villages that had been cooperating with NATO were named last summer, and since then individuals from these villages, including elders, have been murdered. Since there were no notes attached to the bodies saying, "This is because we read Wikileaks, signed The Taliban", nobody can say they were physically harmed by the leaks. And of course the fact that our military has also confirmed that Afghanis are now terrified to talk to NATO soldiers, the vital information highway from the locals has dried up, while dozens of civilians who have provided information have flooded into NATO bases, begging for protection. But all in all, no harm done.

 

Then there are the diplomats whose careers have been disrupted, possibly ended, because their ability to conduct confidential diplomacy has been irreparably compromised. But all in all, no harm done.

 

Terrorists probably won't go after poorly-guarded pharmaceutical plants, communications systems and manufacturers of critical weapons components just because the USA finds them vital to its interests. Probably. But all in all, no harm done.

And they OBVIOUSLY got all that information from a single solitary source on the internet and rely soley on that information, rather than simply using their pets inside the Afgani and Iraqui organizations to find out any of this stuff. Seriously, you think that the Taliban or Al Queda has and army of english speaking data geeks data mining wikileaks like crazy, then cross referencing this with information already known, then transmitting that data to the field assuming they actually figured this stuff out...

 

Rather than just have a corrupt army officer or diplomatic bum call em up and say "Hey, dude, there's like this village over there, they're narcin on ya!"

 

Honestly, this isn't the end of the world. This isn't even a major blow for either side, even the defense department admits that while embarassing it's not that harmful. Why didn't people get this riled when the reporter from the rolling stone out reported every single major news outlet and got a story on how the leaders of the American Expeditionary Force in Iraq basically hated their higher ups etc, and described things similar to the whole diplomat garbage?

[lord of flies]

OBVIOUSLY, since Assange does not agree with every single word that has left the United States government's lips, he is "contrarian." "Contrarian," it seems, is the great modern day political dismissal, even though it is completely meaningless and never given the slightest shred of evidence.

 

Perhaps, just perhaps, Julian Assange has a complex set of opinions he holds (regarding the ethics of war, the privacy of the state, etc), that lead him to behave the way he does. Perhaps just because Person B falls outside of your view of political acceptability and they disagree with Person A, does not make them a contrarian. No doubt if you were living in Germany in 1933, you'd be calling Ernst Th

[Monte Carlo]

Another army of strawmen, wrapped in uniforms made of hyperbole, marches into the breach as yet again LoF besmirches others as Nazis.

 

Edit: he's on the ignore list now. Troll.

Edited December 17, 2010 by Monte Carlo

[Orogun01]

Ok, since most of us agree that Albino Blondie doesn't deserve any privacy

 

Here you go:

http://gawker.com/5714043/the-creepy-loves...ne=true&s=i

[Zoraptor]

2. That doesn't make Assange some sort of hero like his fawning left-wing fan club seems to think - he's a grand-standing contrarian with an agenda.

Being a grand standing contrarian with an agenda (a description I largely agree with) and being a hero are not mutually exclusive- that's a fair description of Churchill in 1938, for example.

 

Most of Assange's really strong supporters are liberals (non-US meaning) which is in theory neither left nor right wing and includes, at least theoretically, Anarchists (left wing) and Libertarians (right wing). Ron Paul* can hardly be described as left wing yet he is one of the few US politicians to offer support (or, at least, 'support') to WL.

 

*I like Ron Paul, he's one of the very few politicians anywhere who gives a good simulation of having actual principles instead of a shifting set of sound bites designed to get votes.

[Malcador]

Ok, since most of us agree that Albino Blondie doesn't deserve any privacy

 

Here you go:

http://gawker.com/5714043/the-creepy-loves...ne=true&s=i

 

 

God damn COINTELPRO

[Calax]

Just gonna point out that screwing with WL probably isn't a good idea... given that when Visa and Mastercard tried to do it their sites and paypal were shut down by ddos attacks.

[Meshugger]

So, are there going to be celebrations when Assange finally is killed, wikileaks shut down and order restored? Will we be a closer step to winning the war on terror?

[Calax]

So, are there going to be celebrations when Assange finally is killed, wikileaks shut down and order restored? Will we be a closer step to winning the war on terror?

Depends on your politics

[Orogun01]

Just gonna point out that screwing with WL probably isn't a good idea... given that when Visa and Mastercard tried to do it their sites and paypal were shut down by ddos attacks.

Asange is not Wikileaks and he is certainly fair game by his own philosophy.

[Meshugger]

So, are there going to be celebrations when Assange finally is killed, wikileaks shut down and order restored? Will we be a closer step to winning the war on terror?

Depends on your politics

 

Yup, i would be actually interested in how the media would report it, and how leaders of different countries would comment it.

 

//EDIT For the record i see the irony of the champion of free information and transparancy doesn't like having his personal whereabouts made public. But i do think that there's a major difference between a guy's geographical position and the transparancy of governments and corporations. Just saying.

Edited December 18, 2010 by Meshugger

[Orogun01]

So, are there going to be celebrations when Assange finally is killed, wikileaks shut down and order restored? Will we be a closer step to winning the war on terror?

Depends on your politics

 

Yup, i would be actually interested in how the media would report it, and how leaders of different countries would comment it.

 

//EDIT For the record i see the irony of the champion of free information and transparancy doesn't like having his personal whereabouts made public. But i do think that there's a major difference between a guy's geographical position and the transparancy of governments and corporations. Just saying.

Yeah but that stopped when he opened WikiLeaks, which kind of counts as an organization. So he should be transparent....er