Live with the WikiLeakable world or shut down the net. It's your choice

Live with the WikiLeakable world or shut down the net. It's your choice

www.guardian.co.uk

And as the backlash unfolds – first with deniable attacks on internet service providers hosting WikiLeaks, later with companies like Amazon and eBay and PayPal suddenly "discovering" that their terms and conditions preclude them from offering services to WikiLeaks, and then with the US government attempting to intimidate Columbia students posting updates about WikiLeaks on Facebook – the intolerance of the old order is emerging from the rosy mist in which it has hitherto been obscured. The response has been vicious, co-ordinated and potentially comprehensive, and it contains hard lessons

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is a superb article written by John Naughton, and published yesterday in The Guardian.

It's a longish article but neatly sums up the sheer hypocrisy of Western democracies at the way they've reacted to the whole Wikileaks thing.

It particularly points out the delicious irony in President Obama and Hilary Clinton chastising China for interfering with people's internet freedoms, then behaving just like them when the whole Wikileaks saga explodes.

These two paragraphs sum it up nicely

Consider, for instance, how the views of the US administration have changed in just a year. On 21 January, secretary of state Hillary Clinton made a landmark speech about internet freedom, in Washington DC, which many people welcomed and most interpreted as a rebuke to China for its alleged cyberattack on Google. "Information has never been so free," declared Clinton. "Even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable."

She went on to relate how, during his visit to China in November 2009, Barack Obama had "defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens to hold their governments accountable, generates new ideas, and encourages creativity." Given what we now know, that Clinton speech reads like a satirical masterpiece.

Anyway, well worth a read, in light of many of the comments on ATS about this being used as an excuse to curb internet freedoms

www.guardian.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

I should point out that I'm going to be away from my computer for most of the day (have to take my 91 yr old mother for a cataract operation) so won't be able to answer any replies till much later... but I urge you to read the article. It's well worth a few minutes of your time

I am surprised as to how the Guarding allowed such article to go through. Oh hold on, isn't the BBC on a budget cutting spree, or wait, the Guardian is going against the main stream.

Lets see how my old friend Rupert reacts.

Just after the Iraq invasion, the New York Times reported, "The war has illuminated anew the exceptional power in the hands of Murdoch, 72, the chairman of News Corp… In the last several months, the editorial policies of almost all his English-language news organizations have hewn very closely to Murdoch's own stridently hawkish political views, making his voice among the loudest in the Anglophone world in the international debate over the American-led war with Iraq." The Guardian reported before the war Murdoch gave "his full backing to war, praising George Bush as acting 'morally' and 'correctly' and describing Tony Blair as 'full of guts'" for his support of the war. Murdoch said just before the war, "We can't back down now – I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly."

www.americanprogress.org...

Originally posted by tristar
I am surprised as to how the Guarding allowed such article to go through. Oh hold on, isn't the BBC on a budget cutting spree, or wait, the Guardian is going against the main stream.

Lets see how my old friend Rupert reacts.

Just after the Iraq invasion, the New York Times reported, "The war has illuminated anew the exceptional power in the hands of Murdoch, 72, the chairman of News Corp… In the last several months, the editorial policies of almost all his English-language news organizations have hewn very closely to Murdoch's own stridently hawkish political views, making his voice among the loudest in the Anglophone world in the international debate over the American-led war with Iraq." The Guardian reported before the war Murdoch gave "his full backing to war, praising George Bush as acting 'morally' and 'correctly' and describing Tony Blair as 'full of guts'" for his support of the war. Murdoch said just before the war, "We can't back down now – I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly."

www.americanprogress.org...

Rupert Murdoch may have ALMOST completely sown up what gets said on MSM, but I think the web might make all his efforts a tad redundant ... unless of course, they shut the net

On a different note, I am truly amazed that this article has not garnered any more interest than one reply... It goes to the heart of that 'Infowar' that is developing right before our eyes.

Another little snippet from the article which goes to the heart of this whole saga

As Simon Jenkins put it recently in the Guardian, "Disclosure is messy and tests moral and legal boundaries. It is often irresponsible and usually embarrassing. But it is all that is left when regulation does nothing, politicians are cowed, lawyers fall silent and audit is polluted. Accountability can only default to disclosure." What we are hearing from the enraged officialdom of our democracies is mostly the petulant screaming of emperors whose clothes have been shredded by the net.

Essentially, when voting no longer works, when demonstrating becomes futile, when questioning the status quo labels you a terrorist, and when everything is shrouded in secrecy.... what else is left?

Originally posted by Dagar
what else is left?

I have taken a back seat to your multiple questions, but in response to what stands out is what i will reply to.

It is called intelligence and being aware that you are a product of your environment.