WikiLULZ

AMURRRRIKA!

I love how the media is making out as though he is directly compromising current covert activities. The last lot of info leaked on the war had the same statements condemning the leaks only to have someone review it all and say it was mostly harmless info to operations and more embarrassing for politicians and commanders. When this lot got leaked he sent it all to various news people with good defence dept ties and got them to check it for validity and safety. Turns out most of it is just embarrassing, not actually predudicial.

Also, who else thinks the rape charges sound like a honey-trap?

tim290280 said:

I love how the media is making out as though he is directly compromising current covert activities. The last lot of info leaked on the war had the same statements condemning the leaks only to have someone review it all and say it was mostly harmless info to operations and more embarrassing for politicians and commanders. When this lot got leaked he sent it all to various news people with good defence dept ties and got them to check it for validity and safety. Turns out most of it is just embarrassing, not actually predudicial.

Also, who else thinks the rape charges sound like a honey-trap?

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Abosolutly right. And about rape charges, his lawyer (not that these guys never lie but still...) said that "it is the most ridiculous accusation ever admitted to court". Just an attempt to make the wikileaks guy look evil, IMO.

The funniest part is all these dumb**** America politicians who are calling him a terrorist for endangering our troops overseas. lulz.

Yeah it's Julian Assange that has sent the troops to die needlessly in the middle east for the last 10 years. He's the one who votes to spend trillions of dollars funding these illegal wars.

lolz. Stupid ****in AMURRICANS.

Ron Paul via Twitter

Tech said:

Ron Paul via Twitter

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QFT!!!!!!!!!..

Gotta love America

tim290280 said:

Also, who else thinks the rape charges sound like a honey-trap?

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I think they are just bullshi.t, of course. He's annoying to some powerful people, that's what is all about.

Sorry, don't get mad at me, but I laugh sometimes at that phrase, "the land of the Free"....

An update on this:

REMINDER: Here Are The "Sex Crimes" Interpol Wants Julian Assange Arrested For
Nov. 30, 2010, 9:06 PM

It was initially assumed, when the molestation and rape charges were filed in Sweden against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a couple months back, that they were a political hit job--an attempt to silence him for publishing stuff that powerful people don't want to see published.

Then the stories underlying the charges were published, and it seemed something else was at work. (Women scorned).

But now Wikileaks has published a whole new trove of documents, causing US politicians to howl that Julian Assange should be arrested for espionage.

And now Interpol has issued a warrant for Assange's arrest on the sex charges!

What are those sex charges, anyway?

Assuming they're the same Swedish sex charges, to hear the Sydney Herald's Asher Moses tell it, they're complaints from two women annoyed that they let Assange seduce them.

The two women who filed the original charges had sex with Assange on successive nights. Both seemed pissed that he charmed them into bed and then never called them again. Both were mortified to learn, after the fact, that he had had sex with them on back-to-back evenings. One was annoyed that, after seducing her in a movie theater, he spent the 45 minutes in the cab riding from a movie to her apartment "tweeting and texting and reading stories about himself." Both said he preferred not to wear a condom. One said he seemed to have an aversion to the word "no." And so on...

At least as the Sydney Herald's Asher Moses tells it, there's not much in the stories about forced sex or "molestation" or politically-driven hit jobs. Mostly it's about two Julian Assange fans annoyed that the rock star Wikileaks founder charmed their pants off and then bolted.

The rape charges have since been dropped. The "molestation" charge is outstanding.

And now Interpol has issued a warrant for Assange's arrest...

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Listening to his lawyer this morning, one of the complainants had slept with him, then held a party in his honor the next day and discussed how nice and important he was to friends. It was only once he slept with the second girl and the two girls texted one another that they sought to complain.

Read this - http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-dept ... 5967241332

Assange's message in the Australian.

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WIKILEAKS deserves protection, not threats and attacks.

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.

Nearly a century later, WikiLeaks is also fearlessly publishing facts that need to be made public.

I grew up in a Queensland country town where people spoke their minds bluntly. They distrusted big government as something that could be corrupted if not watched carefully. The dark days of corruption in the Queensland government before the Fitzgerald inquiry are testimony to what happens when the politicians gag the media from reporting the truth.

These things have stayed with me. WikiLeaks was created around these core values. The idea, conceived in Australia, was to use internet technologies in new ways to report the truth.

WikiLeaks coined a new type of journalism: scientific journalism. We work with other media outlets to bring people the news, but also to prove it is true. Scientific journalism allows you to read a news story, then to click online to see the original document it is based on. That way you can judge for yourself: Is the story true? Did the journalist report it accurately?

Democratic societies need a strong media and WikiLeaks is part of that media. The media helps keep government honest. WikiLeaks has revealed some hard truths about the Iraq and Afghan wars, and broken stories about corporate corruption.

People have said I am anti-war: for the record, I am not. Sometimes nations need to go to war, and there are just wars. But there is nothing more wrong than a government lying to its people about those wars, then asking these same citizens to put their lives and their taxes on the line for those lies. If a war is justified, then tell the truth and the people will decide whether to support it.

If you have read any of the Afghan or Iraq war logs, any of the US embassy cables or any of the stories about the things WikiLeaks has reported, consider how important it is for all media to be able to report these things freely.

WikiLeaks is not the only publisher of the US embassy cables. Other media outlets, including Britain's The Guardian, The New York Times, El Pais in Spain and Der Spiegel in Germany have published the same redacted cables.

Yet it is WikiLeaks, as the co-ordinator of these other groups, that has copped the most vicious attacks and accusations from the US government and its acolytes. I have been accused of treason, even though I am an Australian, not a US, citizen. There have been dozens of serious calls in the US for me to be "taken out" by US special forces. Sarah Palin says I should be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden", a Republican bill sits before the US Senate seeking to have me declared a "transnational threat" and disposed of accordingly. An adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister's office has called on national television for me to be assassinated. An American blogger has called for my 20-year-old son, here in Australia, to be kidnapped and harmed for no other reason than to get at me.

And Australians should observe with no pride the disgraceful pandering to these sentiments by Julia Gillard and her government. The powers of the Australian government appear to be fully at the disposal of the US as to whether to cancel my Australian passport, or to spy on or harass WikiLeaks supporters. The Australian Attorney-General is doing everything he can to help a US investigation clearly directed at framing Australian citizens and shipping them to the US.

Prime Minister Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organisations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small.

We are the underdogs. The Gillard government is trying to shoot the messenger because it doesn't want the truth revealed, including information about its own diplomatic and political dealings.

Has there been any response from the Australian government to the numerous public threats of violence against me and other WikiLeaks personnel? One might have thought an Australian prime minister would be defending her citizens against such things, but there have only been wholly unsubstantiated claims of illegality. The Prime Minister and especially the Attorney-General are meant to carry out their duties with dignity and above the fray. Rest assured, these two mean to save their own skins. They will not.

Every time WikiLeaks publishes the truth about abuses committed by US agencies, Australian politicians chant a provably false chorus with the State Department: "You'll risk lives! National security! You'll endanger troops!" Then they say there is nothing of importance in what WikiLeaks publishes. It can't be both. Which is it?

It is neither. WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history. During that time we have changed whole governments, but not a single person, as far as anyone is aware, has been harmed. But the US, with Australian government connivance, has killed thousands in the past few months alone.

US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted in a letter to the US congress that no sensitive intelligence sources or methods had been compromised by the Afghan war logs disclosure. The Pentagon stated there was no evidence the WikiLeaks reports had led to anyone being harmed in Afghanistan. NATO in Kabul told CNN it couldn't find a single person who needed protecting. The Australian Department of Defence said the same. No Australian troops or sources have been hurt by anything we have published.

But our publications have been far from unimportant. The US diplomatic cables reveal some startling facts:

► The US asked its diplomats to steal personal human material and information from UN officials and human rights groups, including DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, credit card numbers, internet passwords and ID photos, in violation of international treaties. Presumably Australian UN diplomats may be targeted, too.

► King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia asked the US to attack Iran.

► Officials in Jordan and Bahrain want Iran's nuclear program stopped by any means available.

► Britain's Iraq inquiry was fixed to protect "US interests".

► Sweden is a covert member of NATO and US intelligence sharing is kept from parliament.

► The US is playing hardball to get other countries to take freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. Barack Obama agreed to meet the Slovenian President only if Slovenia took a prisoner. Our Pacific neighbour Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to accept detainees.

In its landmark ruling in the Pentagon Papers case, the US Supreme Court said "only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government". The swirling storm around WikiLeaks today reinforces the need to defend the right of all media to reveal the truth.

--Julian Assange is the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks.

Ron Paul.

At the same time, it is not appropriate to leak information concerning war, especially focusing on the US only. Yeah, I'm sure disclosure of the location of strategically important objects won't endanger the national security of the US. I do not condemn Wikileaks, but I think they have gone too far with this as it could end up being counter-productive instead. There are things that do not concern every average Joe or things that should not be known to nations that can be hostile.

I suggest you to intoduce yourselves to Niccol? Machiavelli's The Prince to understand what I mean.

Anabolicus said:

At the same time, it is not appropriate to leak information concerning war, especially focusing on the US only. Yeah, I'm sure disclosure of the location of strategically important objects won't endanger the national security of the US. I do not condemn Wikileaks, but I think they have gone too far with this as it could end up being counter-productive instead. There are things that do not concern every average Joe or things that should not be known to nations that can be hostile.

I suggest you to intoduce yourselves to Niccol? Machiavelli's The Prince to understand what I mean.

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The American goverment is owned by the citizens. There should be no secrets.

If the government wasn't involved in so much shady ****, then organizations like Wikileaks would have nothing to leak.

Tech said:

The American goverment is owned by the citizens. There should be no secrets.

If the government wasn't involved in so much shady ****, then organizations like Wikileaks would have nothing to leak.

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The purpose of classification is ostensibly to protect information from being used to damage or endanger national security

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Not every citizen is a saint devoted to his/her country--that's the whole point of classification, isn't it?

Tech said:

The American goverment is owned by the citizens. There should be no secrets.

If the government wasn't involved in so much shady ****, then organizations like Wikileaks would have nothing to leak.

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Sorry Tech, but this statement isn't correct at all.

I agree that Wikileaks exists because there is a lack of disclosure to the public at large. But by the same token there are large amounts of information that need to be kept secret from the masses, as it would actually be misunderstood, misconstrued, or most alarmingly, be divulgent of information that could get people hurt. I've heard of a number of operations that have directly threatened lives due to someone leaking information or an overzealous reporter. These operations are necessary to make sure that those that don't share your magnanimous world view don't do something hostile. Wars have been started for the most petty of reasons, so threats to a country could take something very minor (disgruntled white guy for instance).

But then we have the other issue; once you have information that needs protecting, then you have those who think that everything needs protecting. The line gets drawn at some random shifting mark that means there will always be a requirement for whistle-blowers and leaks.

Now Wikileaks has actually been careful and done a good job, I'm a big fan of their efforts. But it still doesn't place context to the information. I'm sure just about anyone's emails/other could be taken the wrong way, because there is information not shared with a wider audience. The media are notoriously terrible for not adding context to information, or placing bias to information to stir up sentiment and hype. I remember the last storm in Australia about Wikileaks was earlier this year after they published the ACMA Blacklist (a list of internet sites that they were trying to filter from Australian servers). The media and Govt were carrying on about how the list was evil and people having access to it was dangerous (for our children, etc, etc). The media had a few throw-aways about how some sites were actually legal sites. What no-one mentioned was that most sites on the list were perfectly legal, but were classed under a system that meant that if you couldn't see the same sort of media on prime-time TV, or at an MA15+ movie, then it was denied. So pretty much anything that showed nudity that was complained about, on the black list, any site that might cover a controversial topic, blacklisted, etc, etc. If people hadn't been able to see the list, then there wouldn't currently be a major (and reasonably successful campaign) to overthrow the internet filtering bill before parliament.