Cryptome founder:"Wikileaks is a fraud"

[JackRiddler]

[nathan28]

Cross-posted from elfsmiles's post in another WL thread.

The Brazilian delegate stressed, however, that this should not be seen as a call for an "takeover" of the internet.

India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia appeared to favour a new possible over-arching inter-government body.

However, Australia, US, UK, Belgium and Canada and attending business and community representatives argued there were risks in forming yet another working group that might isolate itself from the industry, community users and the general public.

China wants to restrict political speech.
Saudi Arabia wants to restrict speech conflicting with its pseudo-theocracy.
The US wants to target IP violations but enable speech in China, at least.
Brazil and China want looser IP enforcement.

It is obviously too early to tell, but I can't imagine these parties coming to a coherent agreement.

[lupercal]

Lame. My dog has more class than that.

[lupercal]

whose a fraud? the hair is real enuff isnt it?!

what do the wolf and the barracuda want - to say i told u so when the dust has settled?

WHAT IF IT NEVER SETTLES?

If I'm the wolf you get the Latin prize guruilla, and as for what I want it's pretty simple: get the spooks permanently off our backs so we can get moving on a sustainable economy, and that means a new Nuremburg tribunal that doesn't just whitewash a Paperclip but finishes the job like we were too craven to do in 1946. Here's another way of putting it:

the wolf doesnt know itz not tyed to the poll, and that the ties that bind are in itz mind

I don't get that but otherwise pretty funny post.

[Plutonia]

Towards the countering of the "wikileaks is promoting war with Iran" nonsense.

EDIT: and by nonsense I don't mean healthy skepticism, I mean the rush to judgement.

Cables Belie Gulf States' Backing for Strikes on Iran
By Gareth Porter and Jim Lobe*

*snip*

As it happens, I came across an interview of Gareth Porter today that was really great:

Gareth Porter talks about what the Wikileaks documents revealed about the US campaign against Iran and the New York Times complicity in editing the documents it received to bolster this US effort. Sherwood Ross speaks on the hypocrisy of the biggest war criminals in the history of the world persecuting Julian Assange for "hurting the world". Ross declares Assange a heroic figure who should be honored for revealing truth and caring about the world. PZ Myers talks about: his war on Christmas (to take it back!), the need for atheists to be more assertive in advocating for atheism, the science and morality of abortion and "Was that really a new life form discovered in Mono Lake, California?"

Other audios to check out- I'm looking for a decent dedicated radio/podcast analyst. Would be great to process the cables that way.

[lupercal]

^ The problem is that wikileaks gives the press full control of their "leaks" and makes no effort to correct any misperceptions they promote. The "leaked" weather station emails didn't prove global warming is a hoax, either, but it didn't matter because that's the spin they were given, at least initially, and the use they're still being put to (see Limbaugh). And it wasn't just the NYT claiming these latest cables demonstrate a bomb-Iran consensus, it was also the Guardian, which put out the first stories a couple of weeks ago. Here's another point that keeps getting overlooked:

In a curtain-raiser to this week's talks in Geneva between Iran and the world's most powerful nations, for example, the Washington Post Monday asserted that the Wikileaks disclosure "show[ed] that Persian Gulf leaders have pressed for a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities…"

In other words these latest leaks, as mediated by the press, are timed to achieve certain NSA-friendly political purposes, just like the weather-station leaks were timed to undermine the Copenhagen climate talks last year.

[AlicetheKurious]

Here's another point that keeps getting overlooked:

In a curtain-raiser to this week's talks in Geneva between Iran and the world's most powerful nations, for example, the Washington Post Monday asserted that the Wikileaks disclosure "show[ed] that Persian Gulf leaders have pressed for a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities…"

In other words these latest leaks, as mediated by the press, are timed to achieve certain NSA-friendly political purposes, just like the weather-station leaks were timed to undermine the Copenhagen climate talks last year.

Yes, the timing is highly suggestive, isn't it?

[seemslikeadream]

The Witch Hunt Against Assange Is Turning into an Extremely Dangerous Assault on Journalism Itself
The Obama admin's reported plan to indict Julian Assange strikes at the heart of investigative journalism on national security scandals.
December 17, 2010

Whatever the unusual aspects of the case, the Obama administration’s reported plan to indict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for conspiring with Army Pvt. Bradley Manning to obtain U.S. secrets strikes at the heart of investigative journalism on national security scandals.

That’s because the process for reporters obtaining classified information about crimes of state most often involves a journalist persuading some government official to break the law either by turning over classified documents or at least by talking about the secret information. There is almost always some level of “conspiracy” between reporter and source.

Contrary to what some outsiders might believe, it’s actually quite uncommon for sensitive material to simply arrive “over the transom” unsolicited. Indeed, during three decades of reporting on these kinds of stories, I can only recall a few secret documents arriving that way to me.

In most cases, I played some role – either large or small – in locating the classified information or convincing some government official to divulge some secrets. More often than not, I was the instigator of these “conspiracies.”

My “co-conspirators” typically were well-meaning government officials who were aware of some wrongdoing committed under the cloak of national security, but they were never eager to put their careers at risk by talking about these offenses. I usually had to persuade them, whether by appealing to their consciences or by constructing some reasonable justification for them to help.

Other times, I was sneaky in liberating some newsworthy classified information from government control. Indeed, in 1995, Consortiumnews.com was started as a way to publish secret and top-secret information that I had discovered in the files of a closed congressional inquiry during the chaotic period between the Republicans winning the 1994 elections and their actual takeover of Congress in early 1995.

In December 1994, I asked for and was granted access to supposedly unclassified records left behind by a task force that had looked into allegations that Ronald Reagan’s campaign had sabotaged President Jimmy Carter’s hostage negotiations with Iran in 1980.

To my surprise, I discovered that the investigators, apparently in their haste to wrap up their work, had failed to purge the files of all classified material. So, while my “minder” wasn’t paying attention to me, I ran some of the classified material through a copier and left with it in a folder. I later wrote articles about these documents and posted some on the Internet.

Such behavior – whether cajoling a nervous government official to expose a secret or exploiting some unauthorized access to classified material – is part of what an investigative journalist does in covering national security abuses. The traditional rule of thumb has been that it’s the government’s job to hide the secrets and a reporter’s job to uncover them.

In the aftermath of significant leaks, the government often tries to convince news executives to spike or water down the stories “for the good of the country.” But it is the news organization’s ultimate decision whether to comply or to publish.

Historically, most of these leaks have caused the government some short-term embarrassment (although usually accompanied by exaggerated howls of protests). In the long run, however, the public has been served by knowing about some government abuse. Reforms often follow as they did during the Iran-Contra scandal that I was involved in exposing in the 1980s.

A Nixon Precedent

Yet, in the WikiLeaks case – instead of simply complaining and moving on – the Obama administration appears to be heading in a direction not seen since the Nixon administration sought to block the publication of the Pentagon Papers secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971.

In doing so, the Obama administration, which came to power vowing a new era of openness, is contemplating a novel strategy for criminalizing traditional journalistic practices, while trying to assure major U.S. news outlets that they won’t be swept up in the Assange-Manning dragnet.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that federal prosecutors were reviewing the possibility of indicting Assange on conspiracy charges for allegedly encouraging or assisting Manning in extracting “classified military and State Department files from a government computer system.”

The Times article by Charlie Savage notes that if prosecutors determine that Assange provided some help in the process, “they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them.

“Among materials prosecutors are studying is an online chat log in which Private Manning is said to claim that he had been directly communicating with Mr. Assange using an encrypted Internet conferencing service as the soldier was downloading government files. Private Manning is also said to have claimed that Mr. Assange gave him access to a dedicated server for uploading some of them to WikiLeaks.

“Adrian Lamo, an ex-hacker in whom Private Manning confided and who eventually turned him in, said Private Manning detailed those interactions in instant-message conversations with him. He said the special server’s purpose was to allow Private Manning’s submissions to ‘be bumped to the top of the queue for review.’ By Mr. Lamo’s account, Private Manning bragged about this ‘as evidence of his status as the high-profile source for WikiLeaks.’”

Though some elements of this suspected Assange-Manning collaboration may be technically unique because of the Internet’s role – and that may be a relief to more traditional news organizations like the Times which has published some of the WikiLeaks documents – the underlying reality is that what WikiLeaks has done is essentially “the same wine” of investigative journalism in “a new bottle” of the Internet.

By shunning WikiLeaks as some deviant journalistic hybrid, mainstream U.S. news outlets may breathe easier now but may find themselves caught up in a new legal precedent that could be applied to them later.

As for the Obama administration, its sudden aggressiveness in divining new “crimes” in the publication of truthful information is especially stunning when contrasted with its “see no evil” approach toward openly acknowledged crimes committed by President George W. Bush and his subordinates, including major offenses such as torture, kidnapping and aggressive war.

Holder’s Move

The possibility of an indictment of Assange no longer seems to me like rampant paranoia. Initially, I didn’t believe that the Obama administration was serious in stretching the law to find ways to prosecute Assange and to shut down WikiLeaks.

But then there was the pressure on WikiLeaks’ vendors such as Amazon.com and PayPal along with threats from prominent U.S. political figures, spouting rhetoric about Assange as a “terrorist” comparable to Osama bin Laden and a worthy target of assassination.

Normally, when people engage in such talk of violence, they are the ones who attract the attention of police and prosecutors. In this case, however, the Obama administration appears to be bowing to those who talk loosely about murdering a truth-teller.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that he has taken “significant” steps in the investigation, a possible reference to what an Assange lawyer said he had learned from Swedish authorities about a secret grand jury meeting in Northern Virginia.

The Times reported, “Justice Department officials have declined to discuss any grand jury activity. But in interviews, people familiar with the case said the department appeared to be attracted to the possibility of prosecuting Mr. Assange as a co-conspirator to the leaking because it is under intense pressure to make an example of him as a deterrent to further mass leaking of electronic documents over the Internet.

“By bringing a case against Mr. Assange as a conspirator to Private Manning’s leak, the government would not have to confront awkward questions about why it is not also prosecuting traditional news organizations or investigative journalists who also disclose information the government says should be kept secret — including The New York Times, which also published some documents originally obtained by WikiLeaks.”

In other words, the Obama administration appears to be singling out Assange as an outlier in the journalistic community who is already regarded as something of a pariah. In that way, mainstream media personalities can be invited to join in his persecution without thinking that they might be next.

Though American journalists may understandably want to find some protective cover by pretending that Julian Assange is not like us, the reality is – whether we like it or not – we are all Julian Assange.

[AlicetheKurious]

Slad, that is an excellent essay but it doesn't fit under the topic of this thread.

[seemslikeadream]

Slad, that is an excellent essay but it doesn't fit under the topic of this thread.

"Wikileaks is a fraud is not a witch hunt?

[lupercal]

Slad, that is an excellent essay but it doesn't fit under the topic of this thread.

"Wikileaks is a fraud is not a witch hunt?

No it's not a witch hunt, neither this thread nor the treatment of Assange. Leaving aside the point that hunted witches are not invited to frolick on 600-acre estates with a full array of electronic communications at their disposal (and it's a pretty obvious point, but never mind), here's the key phrase in the Parry piece:

The Times reported, “Justice Department officials have declined to discuss any grand jury activity. But in interviews, people familiar with the case said the department appeared to be attracted to the possibility of prosecuting Mr. Assange as a co-conspirator to the leaking because it is under intense pressure to make an example of him as a deterrent to further mass leaking of electronic documents over the Internet.

"Intense pressure" from whom? The security apparatus, natch. So once again the Obama admin is in the unlucky position of having to respond to a politically damaging threat from spookville:

The Pentagon assessed the danger WikiLeaks.org posed to the Army in a report marked “unauthorized disclosure subject to criminal sanctions.” It concluded that “WikiLeaks.org represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC and INFOSEC threat to the U.S. Army” — or, in plain English, a threat to Army operations and information.

--"Pentagon Sees a Threat From Online Muckrakers," NYT, March 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/us/18wiki.html?_r=1

So what's the point of pretending this is some kind of personal vendetta against the noble leaker? It's a set-up to achieve "national security" objectives that uses the Obama administration just as badly as it uses Assange, or considering that Assange will most likely walk away in a few weeks and Obama is likely to get creamed in 2012, worse.

[lupercal]

Reuters version of the Ban Ki-moon statement which is a little less garbled than the one I just posted:

U.N.'s Ban: Leaking of secret papers "unfortunate"
UNITED NATIONS | Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:53pm EST

(Reuters) - The leaking of confidential documents to WikiLeaks is unfortunate and will complicate international diplomacy, the U.N. chief said on Friday.

"It's unfortunate that these confidential documents have been leaked," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in New York.

"But whatever the motivations of this leakage might be on the part of leakers, this will make it very difficult for the normal and reasonable conduct of business, particularly in the diplomatic world," he said.

For weeks WikiLeaks' founder, Australian computer hacker Julian Assange, and his colleagues have been releasing secret U.S. diplomatic cables on their website and teaming up with newspapers around the globe to amplify the impact of the disclosures, some of which have been highly embarrassing to the United States and other countries.

Ban himself was highlighted in one of the most damning cables published by WikiLeaks.

According to that cable, the State Department asked U.S. envoys at U.N. headquarters and elsewhere to procure credit card and frequent flyer numbers, mobile phone numbers, e-mail addresses, passwords and other confidential data from U.N. officials and foreign diplomats.

It mentioned Ban as a target for information-gathering activities by U.S. diplomats.

The U.N. chief declined to comment on Assange's court case in Britain, where he is fighting a Swedish extradition request.

However, he said that the right to information should be tempered by the need for confidentiality.

Many countries, Ban noted, keep classified documents secret for periods of 30 years or more.

"There needs to be balance, fair balance between the right to know, the freedom of expression ... (in order) to preserve the necessary and confidential conduct of diplomacy which requires confidentiality," he said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6BG4EJ20101217
..................................

Incidentally this is how I knew the whole thing was a spook operation to begin with, but I guess people like to be fooled.

[lupercal]

One note on Ban-Ki Moon's statement: the spying-on-the-UN cable that sandbagged Hillary, and she may well be history, was drawn up by the CIA, as reported by the UK Guardian here:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=30436

[AlicetheKurious]

Imagine: when he learns that he has been personally targeted by criminal espionage activities, Ban Ki Moon's only worry is for the "confidentiality" of the criminals who have been trying to get his DNA and credit card information, etc. Not a word of condemnation about his own violated confidentiality, or his own rights, or how stealing samples of diplomats' DNA and passwords:

will make it very difficult for the normal and reasonable conduct of business, particularly in the diplomatic world.

Law, what law? There's a law?

Wow.

I'd love to check his DNA, just to make sure he's human, not some cyborg developed in the bowels of DARPA.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Been reading this thread since the inception but never saw fit to post up until now.

I find myself increasingly settling towards the position that Assange himself, and WikiLeaks as an organization, do not have to be active agents or even compromised in order for things to have played out like they did. Considering how fundamentally unknowable this main contention is, of Assange's true inner motivations, I find it of limited value. I honor the gut feelings of Alice and Lupercal and I value all their contributions, but I would like to address constructively why I disagree with you guys here.

You are 100% correct that the interpretation and media/gov spin on the cablegate revelations has been repeatedly and distinctively in support of existing foreign policy objectives. However, the machine that makes that possible functions on it's own. It is huge, it is over a century old, and it will digest anything -- any dissent, any legal actions, any artistic statement -- into sanitized psyops. (Observe how it treats Iran, or Chavez, or Castro.) It has never needed the complicity and cooperation of anyone to accomplish those ends. Now, I recognize that history is clear on this: the media Machine absolutely has had the complicity and cooperation of people who played the role of agent provocateur, often on a grand, decades-long scale, too!

We can't prove that about Assange, though. Yet. Honestly, it's not even a very strong case for implication, from where I'm sitting.

The history of these agents and "Assets" is also clear about something more troubling: that these people almost always have their own conflicting agendas, and an often hostile relationship with their "handlers" @ Master Control. Timothy Leary: undoubtedly a man who was involved with the CIA, but also living proof that working for the Company doesn't necessarily make you a Company Man.

I think there is a valid line to be drawn between the contents of the cables and the stories that have dominated the media discussion -- those are two very different things. This indicates the size, scope and power of the media machine we've been talking about, but it's also an indication that Assange is playing a more complex game than just, say....being in a Harley-Davidson shirt at the right place at the right time with the right lines about why the buildings collapsed. There is a great deal of genuinely damning material being released and given almost no media coverage. That might just be to muddy the waters, but it also complicates your case.

More fundamentally, though, the content of the cables that have been released have profound and undeniable real world EFFECTS. That is the most important element here, not Assange. I think this remains an amazingly huge and important ongoing story worth paying close attention to. In the context of the Grand Chessboard, I think the question of Assange's possible agent status are actually secondary to the ongoing, real world effects. Like, very secondary.

Just my $0.02 and I have no illusions about changing minds. Carry on.