Cryptome founder:"Wikileaks is a fraud"

[nathan28]

You might be wondering exactly why Assange would be invited by an Icelandic MP to an embassy function in the first place:

In 2009, WikiLeaks published documents showing suspicious loans carried out by the Kaupthing Bank just before the Icelandic financial crisis. Public uproar over the banking procedures that WikiLeaks exposed galvanized Iceland into enacting the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative. The proposal, unanimously passed by the Icelandic parliament, strengthened free speech protections, turned Iceland into an “international transparency haven,” and established the Icelandic Prize for Freedom of Expression.

He was a fucking hero in Iceland at that time. The US embassy could not have failed to know who he was, nor how inadvisable it would be to for them to appear to be blocking him from attending an event. And it's virtually certain that they would have wanted to get a look at him, or buttonhole him if they could for some conversation regarding recent events. That's what they do at embassies, as we've been discovering of late: gossip about what's in the newspapers. And spy.

Good job, 'cuda! Use the actual objective historical context to obscure the thin and circumstantial evidence, just like it tells us in the DHS Cyberstooge Manual! I'll be sure to pass on commendations at the next meeting of the TSA Marxist Feminist Sixth International Security and Disinformation Specialists' Conference in the "Hegel and Alex Jones: Is There A Way To Make This Joke Any Funnier?" section.

[Plutonia]

Plutonia, why do you find Jack Goldsmith's opinion here troubling? His article reflects most of his opinions for the last five years, and is hardly surprising.

Gack! I was in a hurry and skimmed over this part of the first article:

“I do not understand why so much ire is directed at Assange and so little at the New York Times,” continued Goldsmith, who resigned from the Justice Department after only nine months on the job because he disagreed with its legal rationalizations for waterboarding and other counter-terrorism tactics.

I don't know Jack Goldsmith so when I saw his connection to Bush, I wondered if he was sending a signal that Assange is one of theirs. Which would be a effectively make Wikileaks cancer for whistleblowers.

But I got it wrong so *nothing to see here*. Carry on.

[lupercal]

Use the actual objective historical context ...

Nathan aren't you in the least bit suspicious of a fairy tale like the above published in an online college newspaper connected to MIT? An editorial no less? Look at the preceding paragraph:

Nihilist and criminal labels aside, WikiLeaks has done a lot of good. In 2007, WikiLeaks published the Kroll Report, a secret report detailing extensive government corruption by the richest man in Kenya, Daniel arap Moi. The news came out shortly before the Kenyan national election and received intense airtime on Kenyan TV. According to a Kenyan intelligence report, the leak shifted the vote by 10 percent, changing the result of the election.

Yep, nothing but "good" regime change brought to you by wikileaks and you don't see any problems with this? Where's that "I want to believe" pic you're always posting in HMW's threads, anyway?

[barracuda]

fairy tale

Pretty funny.

[justdrew]

Yep, nothing but "good" regime change brought to you by wikileaks and you don't see any problems with this? Where's that "I want to believe" pic you're always posting in HMW's threads, anyway?

why would there be a problem? Daniel arap Moi had some folks or a single person with access to his info (cleaning staff perhaps) who didn't really like him, seems very plausible. Giving it to wikileaks seems like no-brainer. Very plausible.

but here, let me ask you this...
What conceivable scenario is there where wikileaks somehow becomes an enemy of civil society and/or peace and justice?

[lupercal]

Yep, nothing but "good" regime change brought to you by wikileaks and you don't see any problems with this? Where's that "I want to believe" pic you're always posting in HMW's threads, anyway?

why would there be a problem? Daniel arap Moi had some folks or a single person with access to his info (cleaning staff perhaps) who didn't really like him, seems very plausible. Giving it to wikileaks seems like no-brainer. Very plausible.

but here, let me ask you this...
What conceivable scenario is there where wikileaks somehow becomes an enemy of civil society and/or peace and justice?

It's nothing personal, and maybe there's a drop of truth in this particular bucket of hogwash, but I doubt it. The Guantanemo handbook "leak" for example turns out to be a load of crap, just another conveniently timed limited hangout detailing the barbering and menu choices available to inmates to soften the blow before Abu Ghraib hit. Whatever this outfit is it's not what it's being sold as.

[justdrew]

Yep, nothing but "good" regime change brought to you by wikileaks and you don't see any problems with this? Where's that "I want to believe" pic you're always posting in HMW's threads, anyway?

why would there be a problem? Daniel arap Moi had some folks or a single person with access to his info (cleaning staff perhaps) who didn't really like him, seems very plausible. Giving it to wikileaks seems like no-brainer. Very plausible.

but here, let me ask you this...
What conceivable scenario is there where wikileaks somehow becomes an enemy of civil society and/or peace and justice?

It's nothing personal, and maybe there's a drop of truth in this particular bucket of hogwash, but I doubt it. The Guantanemo handbook "leak" for example turns out to be a load of crap, just another conveniently timed limited hangout detailing the barbering and menu choices available to inmates to soften the blow before Abu Ghraib hit. Whatever this outfit is it's not what it's being sold as.

Of course it's nothing personal.

They can only release what's sent to them. So they could be used by "the bad guys," sometimes, but not every time. They're just acting as a clearing house, what gets done with the info is up to everyone else. Even the meaning of the info is up to everyone else to decide. Wikileks can only be a small part of things.

What MUST evolve, and we can just give up all hope unless it does, is a credible open source information and meaning determination system. The ad-hoc mainstream "news" business isn't capable. Wikipedia isn't enough alone. Wikileaks and openleaks won't be enough. Establishing independent information ecosystems is essential. The time it takes to "know" things is still too long. We MUST also develop real power, running to "the papers with this" isn't always going to cut it. There needs to be ways for people to actually make their will felt. But that would be a disaster if it were implemented now, while the majority of persons are still dependent on the predators bought and paid for media systems.

[justdrew]

the original leek spin

_ photosensitive epilepsy warning _
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faQSs6UBDok

[barracuda]

That video should come with a trigger warning, at least for epileptics, if not the rest of us.

[Plutonia]

Best headline yet:

WikiLeaks and Sodomy II - the debate continues


Awesome

[The Consul]

Perhaps the most important coment Young made in the video above is that the biggest problem with Wikileaks is there is only one and that there should be many Wikileaks. And who knows...maybe Young is a CIA shill for all anybody knows.

Not sure why all the attacks here on Assange. I don't get it. It's like some people take him personally like he is a puppy skinner.
He may or may not be a jerk, he may or may not be a self-obsessed "sexual prevert" out to steal, as Sterling Hayden said in Strangelove "our precious bodily fluids." But the fact is, for better or worse, he has greatly promoted the concept, content, flow and explosion of hacktivism more than any other individual. In short, if all the other players were in a band, even though they might have greater talent....he would be to wikleaks what the Mick Jagger would be to die stones, or Professor Erwin Cory to Phenomenology, or Alvin to the Chipmonks or Jesus to bad pancakes....maybe he is just part of the shit that happens that myriad forces try to co-opt or condemn.

As far as his legal problems go sounds like the wrong wiki leaked, that his primary accuser has fled to middle east (Israel/Palestinian territory....who would bother you there?). And that the whole thing was consensual mad girl talk over a condem kept too long in an over travelled wallet out of fear for std that became a footnote going bold in the ANALs of interntational espionage..

[justdrew]

That video should come with a trigger warning, at least for epileptics, if not the rest of us.

I guess it could be so. I first found that in an endless loop version, it played in a background window for abut 15 minutes before I finally realized it wouldn't end.

[AlicetheKurious]

Re: the embassy thing. The fact remains that Assange was at the US embassy, and presumably met with someone from US intelligence. The cover story, that they had no idea who he was, is not credible.

The US embassy could not have failed to know who he was, nor how inadvisable it would be to for them to appear to be blocking him from attending an event. And it's virtually certain that they would have wanted to get a look at him, or buttonhole him if they could for some conversation regarding recent events. That's what they do at embassies, as we've been discovering of late: gossip about what's in the newspapers. And spy.

Maybe. Or maybe this cock-and-bull story was rapidly hatched to neutralize any possible witness recollection that Assange was in fact seen with US intelligence officials.

By itself, it's not conclusive, but it's not by itself. There's the fact that Assange chose newspapers with a track record of lying to promote imperialist wars and gave them a free hand to redact and filter what he handed to them. The fact that these newspapers revealed the cables to officials of the US State Dept. and solicited their advice on what they should or should not publish, before they revealed them to the public, and that Assange has no problem with that. The fact that what the newspapers did, in fact, publish, are sensational headlines that promote a right-wing, warmongering agenda but that some of the more 'explosive' cables themselves have not yet been seen or verified, including the ones in which Arab monarchs allegedly urge the US to attack Iran. There is the fact that Assange chose the serial liar and war criminal Netanyahu and the serial liar and warmonger Rupert Murdoch as positive examples to illustrate his commitment to "truth". And plenty more.

If indeed Wikileaks and Assange are part of a clever psyop, the evidence for this will be in precisely such individually inconclusive but cumulatively revealing clues. The intelligence agency that prepared such a psyop could hardly be expected to supply us with a big smoking gun on a silver platter, and yet that is what some people here appear to be demanding, and ridiculing anything that falls short of this impossible standard.

What we know so far is absolute proof of only one thing: the possibility exists that Wikileaks and Assange are part of a COINTELPRO psyop. This is not a court of law, where reasonable doubt is enough for acquittal. This is war, where possible threats must be accounted for and their potential damage minimized or neutralized, no less than proven ones. Just something to keep in mind as the story unfolds and it becomes clearer where this is heading.

[AhabsOtherLeg]

There is the fact that Assange chose the serial liar and war criminal Netanyahu and the serial liar and warmonger Rupert Murdoch as positive examples to illustrate his commitment to "truth".

Both those things are troubling, and almost incomprehensible. How could an Australian activist for press freedom and government transparency possibly admire Murdoch? Was he joking?

If indeed Wikileaks and Assange are part of a clever psyop, the evidence for this will be in precisely such individually inconclusive but cumulatively revealing clues. The intelligence agency that prepared such a psyop could hardly be expected to supply us with a big smoking gun on a silver platter, and yet that is what some people here appear to be demanding, and ridiculing anything that falls short of this impossible standard.

Here's a question, though. If Assange and Wikileaks ARE part of such a sophisticated and elaborate psyop, something that would require the utmost secrecy and perception management at every stage of the operation, why would these clues exist at all, in our heavily manipulated media? And why would he be attending a US Embassy function, where dozens of other guests might see him, and even have his name on the official guest list as the companion of a publically invited official (or MP, anyway)? If he had to meet with intelligence people it could all be done much less noticeably, in a way that would never become known about.

Why would he publically praise Netanyahu, and quote Murdoch approvingly, if he's an undercover agent working for their side? That'd be like an MI5 infiltrator singing God Save The Queen at an IRA funeral.

I mean, if he was an operative working for them, but designed to appeal to us, wouldn't he be a bit more perfect, and wouldn't these discrepancies have been ironed out long ago?

It could be a psyop designed to split the left and the activist communities into (even smaller) factions, I suppose - lots of leftists are already falling out with each other over whether they should automatically support the accusers in the molestation cases, as they normally would, or give Assange the benefit of the doubt, as if he was a special case. The accusations play very expertly on that division, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's deliberate, or that it's Wikileaks' or Assange's doing. Still undecided.

[wintler2]

There is the fact that Assange chose ... warmonger Rupert Murdoch as positive examples to illustrate his commitment to "truth".

Not a fact, your spin on Assange quoting RM in an editorialin RMs newspaper, australia's only national newspaper, rightwing readership.

IN 1958 a young Rupert Murdoch, then owner and editor of Adelaide's The News, wrote: "In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win."

His observation perhaps reflected his father Keith Murdoch's expose that Australian troops were being needlessly sacrificed by incompetent British commanders on the shores of Gallipoli. The British tried to shut him up but Keith Murdoch would not be silenced and his efforts led to the termination of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign.

RM is a warmonger, but that doesn't mean everything he has ever said is untrue. Or that it might not be useful to quote the boss when speaking to his fan club.

What was your evidence re Netanyahu again?