It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
soficrow
Thank you. Love that letter. Think it's brilliant.
starheart
reply to post by WanDash
If not for "leaks" of the same genre as WikiLeaks & Anonymous (et al) have brought forth...a lot of dirty-rotten deals and the scoundrels who made them, would not be known... (consider Jekyll Island & the Federal Reserve, if you need an example) ...
reply to post by JBA2848
I guess unbiased releasing of news or leaks really makes people mad. Well what he did was right. Erase the names of people in the leaks and then publish them.
True, but so far, 3/4 of exposed dirty deals were US in origin. What about the dirty deals of much more dictactorial government, governments that are willing to let hundreds of thousands people starve to death while they're having a party? Who exposed them?
And there's a difference between leaking corruption, and promoting outright revolution.
starheart
reply to post by daaskapital
Yeah, i would be hostile too if a movei about me and my organisation was based off of two hostile books..
If Assange is a defender of human rights, then he should have been aware that the public have the right to know about BOTH sides of the coin. He should know that freedom of speech and thought are what defines us as a free country. Knowing that, he should have known that one day, the negative side of Wikileaks would be exposed. Instead of accepting this as freedom of speech, he instead insulted the lead actor who reached out to him, and then damaged for awhile his reputation. That is not the action of a man who respect human rights.
As for The Guardian breaking the contract, I don't think so, because up till now, it still defended Assange and attacked The Fifth Estate and its filmmakers and actors. It was the one who edited Cumberbatch's words so that it damaged for awhile the actor's credibility; it was the one that published a dreadful review on the movie, claiming it to be a bunch of lies; it was to The Guardian that Assange published his private letter. And in-between that, The Guardian was still continuing to praise Assange. Hardly a nemesis to Wikileaks.
The WikiLeaks-Guardian dispute arose when the Guardian broke of all three parts of WikiLeaks’ Cablegate contract (security, confidentiality/source protection, embargo time). A few senior staff of the Guardian, including Leigh and his brother-in-law, editor Alan Rusbridger (who signed the contract), possibly fearful for their own personal liability and reputations after the breach, embarked on a campaign against WikiLeaks before a damages case could be brought, despite ongoing objections from other Guardian staff.
That Julian Assange’s spectacular fall-out with the Guardian followed a tip-off from journalists that the Guardian and the New York Times were colluding to cut WikiLeaks out of the media partnership for the Cablegate release and to secretly start publishing while WikiLeaks still had people in the United States. Assange’s interview for the programme sets out the full details of this plot, which led to a heated 1 November 2010 legal confrontation at the Guardian’s offices about it
The threat of a suit came after a series of negotiations over the publication of the Iraq and Afghan war logs during the summer and fall, Ellison writes. Assange demanded a delay of the release of the Afghan war logs so that another media partner could also look at them. The Guardian's chief investigations editor, David Leigh, made a demand as part of his negotiations:
"Leigh said he could arrange for a six-week delay--but only if Assange gave him the third batch of documents, the so-called "package three," [the State Department cables], potentially the most tantalizing of them all. According to Leigh, Assange said, "You can have package three tonight, but you have to give me a letter signed by the Guardian editor saying you won't publish package three until I say so." Assange got his letter."
However, the Guardian caught what it felt was a big break: unbeknownst to Assange, a former WikiLeaks volunteer had leaked the State Department cables to British freedom of information activist and journalist Heather Brooke, who had been instrumental in exposing the scandal over politician's expense accounts that rocked Britain in 2009. Leigh convinced Brooke to work with the Guardian, and the paper considered itself released from its pledge not to publish until Assange's say-so.
When Assange discovered that the Guardian had obtained the documents, had passed them on to other media outlets, including the New York Times, and was poised to publish them, he raced into the paper's headquarters and made his threat of a suit.
WikiLeaks on Thursday announced that it's suing the Guardian newspaper in Britain for facilitating the leak of unredacted U.S. diplomatic cables.
"A Guardian journalist has negligently disclosed top secret WikiLeaks' decryption passwords to hundreds of thousands of unredacted unpublished U.S. diplomatic cables," according to a statement released by WikiLeaks.
"WikiLeaks has commenced pre-litigation action against the Guardian and an individual in Germany who was distributing the Guardian passwords for personal gain," it said. In particular, WikiLeaks alleged that the Guardian violated the confidentiality agreement that it signed with the whistleblowing group, which dictated that the cables be published by groups in exchange for their "local knowledge," which would be used to "remove the names of persons reporting unjust acts to U.S. embassies."
starheart
As for Daniel Domscheit-Berg, I could argue that he did the right thing. Would you have worked at the CIA and found dangerous files, you would have sabotage it and stole or destroyed the dangerous files. It takes alot to break a bond between two best friends; whatever forced Domscheit-Berg to end it and sabotage Wikileaks must have been really dangerous.
You do know that WikiLeaks actually withheld thousands of dangerous document from publication, right?
Was it, by any chance, before Domscheit-Berg left Wikileaks? Or slightly after?
WikiLeaks relies on information submitted by insiders. If no one from China of Africa has approached WikiLeaks in order to pass along information, than WikiLeaks will not have that information, this meaning that they cannot publish.
Oh, yes, that is a very logical way to expose corruption... Then Wikileaks expose no corruption in China, because no Chinese went to see them. Journalism doesn't work that way. A journalist will travel himself to countries, even if it might endanger him, without anyone having to submit pages of infos. Then he'll investigate and find what's wrong. That is journalism. Waiting for someone to give you something isn't exactly the most efficient way to expose corruption. Are you telling me that Wikileaks will never expose the corruption in Myanmar and in the four syrian camps I mentioned earlier, just because no one could get out of there and tell him so? These peoples are banned under threat of death to get out of their villages. How do you want them to travel all the way up to wherever Wikileaks is, and to tell him "Hey! There's corruption here!"?
How does that makes sense? You're really gonna tell me that the world's leading corruption exposing organisation works that way? Insiders giving info.
Pray tell me: have you ever thought that maybe some "insiders" had a really big grudge against, let's say for the sake of explaining, the Republican Party. That insider is somewhat intelligent, and he creates false proof and false evidences incriminating the Republican Party of something horryfying. He then give that to Wikileaks. And BAM, the Republican Party gets destroyed because Wikileaks published false evidences given by an "insider" who had a grudge.
Have you ever thought that may have happen, or may happen?
P.S.: I know that you answered to Swanne that it can't happen, Wikikeaks will discover it. Ever heard of Project INFEKTION? It was during the Cold War; the KJB released to journalists as stubborn as Assange false evidences that the CIA was responsible for hundreds of scandals. So well done were they, that these false evidences soon became absolute truth in the journalists and the population minds, until one day, in the last ten or twenty years, the KJB vault was discovered, and with it, all the papers proving that the "truth" people were taught was in fact fabrications by the KJB.
If the KJB was able to fool Americans journalists and citizens during the Cold War, do you really think that Assange can't be fooled?
it is obvious that Daniel Domscheit-Berg has something against Assange and/or WikiLeaks.
He seems to know a lot about Julian Assange, but i wouldn't trust his obviously biased opinions.
Everyone will be biased in their opinions about Wikileaks and Assange, Domscheit-Berg or sensationalists newspapers. The purpose of democratic's freedom of speech and thought is to allow ALL those opinions to be expressed and heard.
starheart
reply to post by WanDash
...True, but so far, 3/4 of exposed dirty deals were US in origin. What about the dirty deals of much more dictactorial government, governments that are willing to let hundreds of thousands people starve to death while they're having a party? Who exposed them?
And there's a difference between leaking corruption, and promoting outright revolution.
swanne
I see that as soon as a guy seemingly leaks sensationalist documents (even though the veracity of such documents cannot be verified), this guy will become a hero worth of blind worship.
No investigation, no questioning about Assange's motive.
Even Wikileaks' motto doesn't include the word "truth" in it. But no one will ever notice. They are too busy drooling over pro-revolution porn.
I see no use in trying to share my thoughts here in this thread. I'm logging out.
edit on 18-10-2013 by swanne because: (no reason given)
Our whole lives are based on propaganda and distractions, when logic reveals the truth yet is labelled as conspiracy what chance do we have?
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
If you want to get technical, then Julian Assange's letter to Benedict Cumberbatch also falls under free speech.
Yeah, keep saying how the Guardian didn't break any contract...
Personally, i would not do to my employer, what Daniel done to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Why? Because if one works for an intelligence agency, they are bound by oaths.
It was before the major publications of WikiLeaks documents. So i would assume that Julian's redactions were happening before Daniel left.
They do send investigative journalists out to areas in order to proved the veracity of documents. Saying this, they might also send investigative journalists out to find and expose information.
It was the journalists' faults, just as much as the KGB's. The publishing of the fake information can be pinned down to laziness of the journalists (as they didn't bother proving the information).
Who needs to expose the 'dictatorial governments' willing to let hundreds of thousands of people starve to death...?
And - by the way - in case you haven't been keeping up... ...
... ...Today's dictator - Tomorrow's toast.
Should we be hearing about Castro again and again and again?
What about Chavez or the Ayatollah of Iran?
What's the difference between "leaking corruption, and promoting outright revolution"?
Is there some "righteous" difference?
Some higher-philosophical perch from which to judge?
What has "peaceful" resistance EVER achieved?
daaskapital
WikiLeaks does not publish unverified documents. All documents published by WikiLeaks have undergone forensic examining.
many have questioned Assange's motives.
It is a shame that you don't want to hold a proper debate.
starheart
I absolutely agree. What I was disagreeing with Assange, is after Cumberbatch replied, Assange threatened him. Coincidentally, couple of weeks before the release of Fifth Estate, The Guardian subtlety damage for awhile the actor's reputation. That is all I complained. Not the letter itself, but how he reacted after.
I agree with you, the links you gave clearly show that Wikileaks and The Guardian broke up; but then, why is The Guardian still defending Assange, as I've described in my earlier posts? It has done everything to give a bad name to The Fifth Estate and the lead actor, was the first one to receive Assange's letter, and meanwhile, praising Assange. It doesn't make sense...
Even if what you discovered was very dangerous and could you save thousands of lives by breaking the oath?
And as I said, according to what I read (correct me if I'm wrong), Daniel and Julian were best friends, hence why Daniel ended-up being Assange's right-hand. Whatever forced Daniel to betray his best friend and employer must have been pretty big.
The reason why I asked, was because I again heard somewhere that Daniel was the most stubborn at what to leak or not. Assange was of the point of view that everything, even the most dangerous, had to be shown, while Daniel was the one who always had to persuade Assange that some files were too dangerous to leak.
Now that he's gone, who (and if there's even one person) counsel Assange on what to release or not?
Well, no offence, but they're aren't looking far or hard enough. How come simple Canadian journalists found shocking corruption in China, India, and Syria's own attitude versus their citizens, and that Wikileaks yet didn't release any of that.
It was because the laziness of the journalists?! It was during the Cold War! The newspapers back then knew perfectly that the slight misunderstanding will play in the hands of the USSR. Will you get handed compromising files by your enemy, you do check VERY thoroughly if its genuine. And they never found anything wrong. The CIA was damaged for decades by elaborate hoaxes. And, like Assange, they did sent investigators and used forensics science to disprove the KJB files. And that was in the 60s! Imagine how elaborate and fool-proof files can now be created.
swanne
Yes, examination by Wikileaks itself. Not by professional investigators, but by sensationalist and biased (in favor of wikileaks) party.
Did you?
But mate... what is there to debate? I can only offer opinion. I can only say that back in 2010 I was almost worshipping the guy, until I realized that he was another pawn in the Big Political Theatre - a pawn whose purpose is to encourage a revolution so that the true bad guys can take presidency. Assange is playing a double-bluff, if you know poker as I do. I know what I'm talking about - I made predictions regarding the Elite's next moves, back in january, and now it's been 3 predictions which came true. But again, I see no reason why I should continue explaining something that nobody is ready to hear.
In 2010 I used to think exactly the same way. But now... I see an even greater picture. But I understand your position. I really do, since I used to share it.
No hard feelings,
Swan