My money is on this being an errant backhoe or similar, and Assange is just turning it into a big deal because he can.

And, while Ecuador hasn't had to deal with meaningful diplomatic repercussions from sheltering Assange, the high-profile role WL is taking in the 2016 elections, and specifically the partisan and selective nature of their leaks, means that Ecuador is dealing with a very different qualitative situation than when WL was acting as an impartial if indiscriminate journalistic source.

In other words, Quito may very well be looking at the situation and deciding that being implicated in attempts to manipulate the US election is way more trouble than it's worth.

I'd have a grudge too.

I had a quick search around to see what I could find, and I did find a recent tweet from Wikileaks showing a clip from some pundit on Fox News called Bob Beckel calling for exactly that: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/763380671796678656/vide...

But a little further checking showed that despite this being tweeted in August this year with a headline and hashtag suggesting a link to the leaked emails, this video is actually from 2010, moreover from my exhaustive five minute search (it wasn't exhaustive really) I couldn't find any evidence of a link to Clinton's campaign, in fact according to Wikipedia the last campaign this strange chap worked on was Walter Mondale's in 1984.

http://truepundit.com/under-intense-pressure-to-silence-wiki...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQW0US2sJw

(not particularly partisan, many calls for his death-- honestly mostly from the right but not exclusively.)

IMO, it was likely a joke.

Speaking for myself I know I would never say that, so the response would be "No, I never said that."

I would also add that to the American people and to our friends and partners, I want you to know that we are taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information.

https://www.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/11/1...

Nerddom and the left (and I'm somewhere in the overlapping circles on that Venn diagram) have a powerful rooting interest in Julian Assange and Wikileaks, who many of us see as a vanguard of an effort to disrupt politics and the media, both of whom we as a demographic have little respect for. The simple fact is that Assange is campaigning for Donald Trump. But that's very hard for us to admit, regardless of the amount of evidence we're confronted with.

This is classic US politics. This A vs B mentality is what leads to such a fierce two party system.

If you don't support choice A, then you are assumed to support choice B. Any attack on Hillary is viewed as support for Trump and vice versa.

I don't think that's a fair interpretation.

Assange is many things, but "stupid" isn't one of them. Running Wikileaks as a year-long oppo research firm for Trump has the obvious impact of helping Trump, which is why the Trump campaign claims to coordinate with him.

And it's not because I think security experts are stupid and don't realize the obvious commercial impact that a security vulnerability has.

Your choices are Clinton + Kaine (Dem), Trump + Pence (Rep), Johnson + Weld (Lib), and maybe Stein + Baraka (Grn). No one else could win without deadlocking the electoral college.

To oppose Clinton is little more than calling a turd sandwich a turd sandwich. One does not also need to point out that her douche opponent is a douche.

While the US elections systems virtually guarantee a two-party system, it does not mean the two on top always have to be the same parties. If the Republicans fall apart after this, Libertarian, Green, and Constitution will certainly devour the corpse, and one of them will eventually grow fat enough to take its place and push the others back down and away from the table.

I do wish a pox on both houses--along with a hemorrhagic fever, parasitic worm infection, and some kind of blotchy skin rash. I am not staying out of the election. I think Clinton would competently lead the country in the wrong direction, and I think Trump would be a national embarrassment on multiple fronts. Strategically, the best strategy I could follow would be to bash the presumptive front-runner, whomever it may be, to keep the two major candidates as close as possible, and hope that the minor candidates can somehow win enough states to deadlock the electoral college.

Note that it is unlikely that is the primary motivation for Wikileaks. But it does show that this game is not a zero-sum either-or.

I think it's far more likely that if the Republicans fall apart, a large component will pivot and eat up one or more of those other parties to retain a Republican designation with slightly different values. It's a mistake to think of either of the two major parties as static.

This is in strong contrast to Westminster parliaments, where political parties are for the most part a monolith, only occasionally allowed a "conscience vote" (that's not to say there isn't infighting). To vote against the party is a very good way to get booted from the party, which as far as I'm aware is practically impossible in Congress, the closest you have is being expelled from a caucus.

But they do not have those votes--largely because many people who share your general opinion keep hammering home the message that if you do not vote for one of the top two candidates, then at best your vote does not matter, and at worst it destroys America.

My concerns are that Trump is a misogynistic sleaze who will undermine US diplomatic prestige, be generally ineffective as a government executive trying to act like a business executive, and will damage international trade; and that Clinton is a corrupt politician who will undermine US liberty, continue indefinitely the harmful policies of Bush II and Obama, and will damage the rule of law. The fact that those third-party candidates have a statistically zero chance of winning actually makes me more comfortable in voting for one of them.

On the off chance that the Republican party could finally destroy itself by choosing an even more unsuitable candidate next time around, I want the Libertarian Party to be strong enough to take its place. And on the even more remote chance that the Democrats self-destruct, I want the Greens to be big enough to step into their shoes. Having lived in Chicago, I have had enough of oily, corrupt Democrats in power. And having lived in the South, I have also had enough of smarmy, bigoted, hypocritical Republicans in power.

They are never going to die out if people keep voting for them and sending them money!

> On the off chance that the Republican party could finally destroy itself by choosing an even more unsuitable candidate next time around, I want the Libertarian Party to be strong enough to take its place.

Don't kid yourself about some other party ever taking the place of the Democrats or Republicans. The best you can hope for is that the libertarians gain more influence than they currently have through the larger Republican party consuming them. Whether you view this as a needed shift in the right direction for the Republicans or not enough of a shift and at the cost of any power the libertarians had likely depends on how far you lean libertarian. Same with the Democrats and Green Party.

Our two party system hasn't survived for as long as it has because each party innately catered to it's constituents needs from the beginning. Each party has shifted greatly over time to track what their constituents cared about.

> Having lived in Chicago, I have had enough of oily, corrupt Democrats in power. And having lived in the South, I have also had enough of smarmy, bigoted, hypocritical Republicans in power. ... They are never going to die out if people keep voting for them and sending them money!

They are never going to die, period. But that's okay. They don't need to die, they just need to change, and there's plenty of precedent for that.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jnf9GILjFM

In presidential elections, because of the US political system, you really do have just two choices. You may lament this - I have! But it's the world we live in. Saying you'll vote for a third party candidate to "register your complaint" is a null gesture.

If you really care about politics, you'd have to work to push the party of your choice in the direction you want. This is long, hard work, and happens outside the presidential cycle. You have to march with signs, attend boring meetings, and persuade people you just met.

Complaining about the broken system every four years is neither mature nor effective.

I am moved to write this because, for multiple election cycles, I was that guy, until I realized my folly.

If I was to favor the majority opinion, to oppose both Trump and Clinton is to campaign for democracy. If I had to guess what motivities Assange, if Clinton win people won't trust the government and if trump win people will fear the government. It is possible that the later will slightly produce more Snowden's.

It is still a lizard that get voted into office at the end of the day.

Some would point to the political events that the dc leaks talked about.

In favorability or approval (whatever that means in the context of a nominee) ratings? They mean different things, and aren't always directly related[1]. I could definitely see how Sanders would be liked more, but people would believe he's less likely to do a good job.

1: http://www.gallup.com/poll/14797/presidential-approval-vs-fa...

Say I rated taco, pizza and Italian salad as 10, 8, and 2, and you rated them as 2, 8, and 10, we can easily see that pizza wins even if neither of us has it as our primary pick. pizza in this case has highest opinion rating while the other two choices are quite far behind.

So, what I wonder is what questions are actually asked regarding candidates? There isn't any data on them doing the job itself yet (unless they are an incumbent, which none are this cycle), so are they asking about how much they like the person, like the policies, or how confident they are the candidate can perform well? The answer to that question may lead to different likely reasons for the question at hand. Sanders is a likable guy. I like him. I'm also not convinced his policies, as expressed on the campaign trail, are feasible. Conversely, Hillary Clinton isn't very likable. I don't really like her. I do agree with many (but not all) of her policies, but most importantly I think her policies are feasible and have a chance of being implemented if she's elected. I am, in fact, the exact sort of person that might have expressed a favorable opinion for Sanders but voted for Hillary.

Says right in the article, it was Russian hackers aiming to undermine the US democratic system. They saw this beautifully pristine, perfect and fair democratic system and said to themselves "let's undermine the fuck out of this thing".

Surely if it was already undermined to the point of being utterly broken they wouldn't have to bother, right?

well, when the system is this broken, the only throw away vote is a vote for either Clinton or Trump, because it validates the system.

you are right that my idealistic attitude might end up getting Trump elected. but that's the kind of attitude that makes clinton the alternative.

Imagine a lake of piss, next to it, a mountain of shit.

Now I dump a whole bunch of garbage onto one of them.

Which am I supporting?

Or maybe you can explain this bit from the article that really mystified me: "[Russian hackers did something] with the aim of undermining the US democratic process". We've all seen what this democratic process looks like on TV, so what does it actually still mean, to undermine this democratic process?

Most Americans, do not really want to support Clinton over Trump or vice versa, they're angry and disappointed that from a nation of several hundred million people, apparently these two are the choices given to them by "the democratic process".

And apparently this is the way it is, because the election system makes it that way. It's probably the same causes that make just about every US election for as long as I remember end up just about this close to 50/50. Which, if you know anything about voting systems theory, is the number one failure mode of majority voting. But nobody finds this cultural either/or winner/loser fixation alarming at all, apparently. So again, what's left to undermine, really?

It's just like accusing someone of trying to undermine freedom of speech in China.

Citation please. I haven't heard anything about that.

> Running Wikileaks as a year-long oppo research firm for Trump

Wikileaks can only leak what they've been given. Maybe people are feeding them more info about Hillary, but I would respect Wikileaks far less if they withheld information during an election year to protect a candidate.

The voters deserve to know everything there is to know about their candidates. It's an assault against the voters to withhold negative information about a candidate because you don't want their opponent to win.

If anything, Assange would want the third party libertarian to win since he is the only guy advocating to stop the wars and reduce American involvement overseas, which is what Assange wants. He sees America as a menace and wants to stop the brutality of American "peace" in countries they have no business being in.

As an anarchist, Assange probably wouldn't care about the libertarians more than any other candidate, since any candidate would only futher the existence and legitimacy of a state which he would rather see destroyed. If he did support Trump, it would be because he believes a Trump Presidency would only hasten America's demise.

One possible explanation for this is that Assange will support the candidate that he believes will hurt US interests most.

Assange is savvy enough to know their position inevitably supports Trump, but there isn't any reason to think if they viewed Trump as more corrupt they would be against him. So it is possible they take a principled position while wrongly accused of having a preference in who wins the election.

But very few observers of US politics believe Trump is the anti-corruption candidate. A more widely held belief is that he's the most corrupt major party nominee in the history of US politics.

Disclosure: I support neither candidate and will probably vote the Party for Socialism and Liberation this cycle.

Clinton's happens in secret and is masked by insincerity, lies, etc.

I think there's a brain glitch at play here -- corruption in the style of Clinton feels more corrupt because it's secretive, even if the out-in-the-open corruption is just as bad or worse.

Only this time, it seems the Clintons were trumped...

Um, are you just blanking 2004 out of your head? This is just the same stuff all over again. All of the screaming and shouting about birth certificates and generally shady connections? His ultimate Muslim agenda to bring down the Great Satan that is America?

Absolutely nothing of worth is coming from the leaked documents, despite all hell being raised about a smoking gun (that no one can point to) in them. It literally is a witch hunt. If these past 4 elections aren't going to kill the GOP in general, I don't know if anything will. It should be disgusting the out right lies and propaganda that they employ, with a complete lack of integrity and standards. But people still buy into the juicy conspiracy theories and the generally "known and accepted" unknowns.

If HRC is the dirtiest candidate in the history of politics, then then last 4 decades of investigations and general obstructionism were undertaken by the most incompetent politicians in the history of politics. Not just one, a whole collection of individuals (senators, house members, governors) from one party who despite their best efforts continually fails at proving claims they have no problem repeating until people start to believe them.

I'm sorry, none of these seem like witch hunts to you?

- He wasn't born in the United States

- He's a Muslim

- Connection to William Ayers

- Connection to Jeremiah Wright

- Connection to ACORN

- IRS targets enemies

- Benghazi

- Fast and Furious

- Solyndra

- Death Panels

- Not saluting soldiers

- Not putting his hand on his heart during anthem

And let me highlight that Colin Powell referred to Benghazi as a "stupid witch hunt".

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/14/politics/colin-powell-benghazi...

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/politics/hillary-clinton-donor...

There really are people who believe that.

In fact, depending on where you get your news, you might also believe that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are actual literal demons, who smell of sulfur.

I definitely don't think you should disregard others opinions just because,

"There are also people who believe Obama created Hurricane Matthew to suppress turnout without, using his network of wind farms."

That has no weight, and is just a deflection.

But, again! This is an unproductive political argument. If you support Trump, your support for Wikileaks is entirely coherent. I'm not here to argue that people shouldn't support Trump (I hope those arguments are self-evident). I'm here to point out that people who oppose Trump should recognize the role Wikileaks is playing.

Again, what you said has no bearing on what I said... I wasn't even discussing wikileaks - I was responding to the parent, mentioning how nothing sticks.

As for political ideology, again I made no comment. It's fair to call Hilary corrupt because she is, there's no political leaning involved in my comment. She clearly did a bunch of stuff on the edge of what was moral/legal. She clearly makes deals to gain favors - that's basically what politics is. I made zero comments on trump.

Finally, I am not a supporter of either candidate - they both suck and both aren't representative of my views. Nor are either going to improve my quality of life or increase my personal (or family) security.

Pointing to fringes to discredit the mainstream of said fringe is just a cheap tactic, not something worth doing out of concern for the truth.

In contrast, a wide range of right-wing people have spent three decades and many millions of dollars going after both Clintons, with considerable personal demonization over that time. When Obama was elected, the GOP's goal was to limit him to one term. That means a bunch of people had angles to exploit anything remotely plausible: it kept the base riled up and voting accordingly, it helped attack the sitting president by association, and maybe damage his most likely successor. The entire email story was only discovered as part of the endless attempts to trump up a scandal from the Benghazi attack, by which time the pattern of relentlessly litigating everything was just the assumed default.

There just isn't an equivalent on the Democratic side. Yes, there are people who don't like Bush (or now Trump) but there aren't rich people pushing to scrutinize his private life and the members of Congress don't seem to think that's a good use of their time.

It is not only possible but actually somewhat likely that her mails were safer on her own server.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/magazine/anatomy-of-a-medi...

Obviously, he doesn't have to say anything positive about Trump at all to support him, and in fact the kind of support he's offering (a drip-drip feed of the products of Russian hacking calculated to create an "October Surprise") is far more valuable than any verbal support he could give Trump directly.

I mean here to be dismissive without being too disrespectful. But I'll be candid: people who say Assange isn't supporting Trump sound pretty silly. Like, the claim says more about them than it does about the election.

Believing that sort of dichotomy is "pretty silly" and says plenty about you.

Through I must say, it does making viewing news more interesting. Someone say a negative about a product, I wonder which competitor paid them? Someone released a security vulnerability, I wonder what competing product they are trying to sell.

It basically makes all negative statements into a conspiracy, which honestly is silly, but fun thought experiment.

Neither case really paints a good picture of Wikileaks as an impartial journalistic organization.

And the proof is...

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/29176...

Of course, that's not what's going to happen, because Wikileaks is in effect if not design a propaganda organ of the Russian Federation.

If the answer is "no", you're not part of the left and you're likely more of a liberal then.

Aristotle said there are 6 kinds of government, 3 good ones and 3 bad ones. The bad ones are where the ruler rules in their own interest. The good ones are where the ruler rules in the public interest. How many people rule: In Tyranny - 1 person rules in their own interest Monarchy - 1 person rules in the public interest (a good tyrant is a monarch) Aristocracy - a few people rule in the public interest Oligarchy - a few people rule in their own interest Democracy - all people rule in the public interest Bad Democracy - all people rule in the interest of the majority and oppress the minority

Let's take a few highly profitable corporations as examples. How do workers seize the means of production of Apple or Google?

Particularly, how do they do it without destroying the said means?

>http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2016/08/26/assange-trumps-ever...

Hillary has made it quite clear that would never happen however Trump has been far more supportive of Assange especially since Wikileaks has been his biggest asset.

Secondly, and with a little more convoluted reasoning: it seems to be a truism that Republican/Conservative presidencies are harder economically for people living in poverty. Republicans are less socialist, in other words. I think it's pretty clear that Assange would like to see a revolution in the US, and revolutions tend to happen when the people don't have enough to eat. Hoping for Trump to win could be seen as hoping for a revolution in that light.

1. http://truepundit.com/under-intense-pressure-to-silence-wiki...

If I could, I would encourage Julian Assange to stop fearing for his life, and start living it, whatever precious little (or lot) of it he might have left. Unfortunately, if he can't access the internet, he can't read this comment.

It's true that the whole world is watching this, and a lot of us in the US care not only for the fate of Assange, but also for the fate of our nation, how these two have become intertwined, and what it will mean if Assange does indeed come to harm as a result of his journalistic actions.

If I were Julian, I would use right now as the perfect opportunity to walk out, and face the charges in Sweden. At least then I could serve actual time (if necessary), and have an end to my imprisonment within sight.

Above all, this is certainly an excellent opportunity for Hillary to show that she can resolve a crisis diplomatically. If she could just tone things down a bit, she could assure Julian (and the world) that she does not actually mean him any harm. Of anyone, I would think that Hillary could be quite good at projecting soft power globally.

Besides, can you imagine what it would be like if they killed him now? The Hollywood trailer of his biopic would have to start with, "First, they cut your internet access ..." ;)

This is hard to swallow.

There is nothing in Wiki/Assange past behaviour that would indicate they would like to support Trump.

Unless: They like 'whoever is against Hillary'

OR

Wiki is getting a lot of support from Russia, and they may be indirectly leaning towards conspiring with them for political favour etc..

Putin just might have enough pull to eventually get Assange out of his prison.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/14/wiileaks-from-...

>Sarah Harrison, a British journalist and a longtime WikiLeaks editor, says that the organization would publish documents damaging to Trump if it had them.

The bloomberg article also quoted someone from reddit as evidence that the right wing was 'shivering in anticipation' of leaks damaging to clinton. It's not great journalism and seems biased but it doesn't seem there is any evidence that assange is pro trump.

But if there is no agenda, it does make one wonder why the Wikileaks of late have focused on Clinton in the run up to the election

Seems to me like anyone with credible evidence against Trump can sell it to the highest bidding mainstream media org and be sure it will get national attention. Why would a Trump leaker need wikileaks?

HRC likely just has a larger attack surface.

This kind of language is common for propaganda and astroturfing.

And despite his 'vendetta' I have no doubt that he would release anti-Trump bits if he had them.

Wikipedia - whatever it's credibility - is headed by a dude with somewhat demagogic and self-glorifying tendencies himself.

[1] http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/world/europe/wikileaks-...

[2] http://www.salon.com/2016/10/11/russian-propaganda-on-wikile...

Increasingly I think every citizen of the world has a stake in this election, given how global the reach of the US is.

For a high profile "wanted" man like Assange, I can imagine it's much more than us regular people.

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/785571152836042752

He's in sanctuary, in part, because of fear of extradition to the US. So yeah, he does have a stake.

If Clinton wins she has no motivation to stop an extradition, since she figures in WL and other leaks.

If Trump wins, and Assange/WL is seen to have implicitly supported him, there is a hope for Assange that President Trump could prohibit his DoJ from extraditing, and his DoD from rendering. Not from gratitude, but because Trump is vindictive and that would be a way to stick it to ... to ... The Global Media/Banking/Government/NotWhite Conspiracy.

I'm kind of amazed that WL or someone else hasn't hacked and released Trump data. Do they just not use computers?

Who knows what they have?

Assange: "Unplug it and plug it back in" Ambassador: "I did" Assange: "Are the lights blinking?" Ambassador: "Some of them..." Assange: "Which ones..." Ambassador: "Why am I doing this?" Assange: "Which lights?" Ambassador: "All of them..."

I haven't seen any word on their explanation, though.

Maybe not specifically to Assange, but they might be able to get close to that. An embassy probably wants to have separate, isolated networks to keep various classes of users apart. The top diplomats and officials who deal with the most important, most secret stuff on one. Another for lower level officials who deal with secret, but more routine stuff. A third that provides wifi for people visiting the embassy to use its services. Maybe a fourth for foreign diplomats attending meetings.

I could see them going beyond just building one physical network and then using firewalls to segment it into separate isolated logical networks and actually having separate physical connections for some of the networks, such as the one for visitors seeking services, and the one for foreign diplomats.

If they do have multiple physical networks, I'd expect they have Assange on one of the ones that is not important to the normal functioning of the embassy, such as one mostly used by people visiting to apply for visas and things like that. A large fraction of such visitors will have cellular internet on their phones and won't even notice that the embassy public wifi is broken.

With all the propaganda and accusations going around, please substantiate this.

Which seems like a rather large issue with your theory.

I was surprised by your claim that wikileaks posted something antisemitic, so I googled for it.

Is http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/07/25/what_wikil... what you're talking about? I don't agree that's antisemetic in any honest sense of that word (ie "hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Jews"). Like, the article's explanation of why it's anti-semitic starts off with "this might be a little hard to follow" -- not something you'd expect in an article throwing around serious accusations.

Hanlon's razor is the obvious objection, and goes unaddressed. --reputation[Slate];

> and wild conspiracy theories

Interesting, any you'd care to link?

> You're also assuming that whoever posts to the Wikileaks twitter account doesn't want people to believe the most sympathetic, conspiratorial possibility.

I'm merely assuming they aren't going to be obviously incompetent? Like, maybe the phrasing will be self-serving... but look at GP... he's seriously suggesting that they may have mistaken a gardening accident for a state actor...

It's using the clearly anti-Semitic (((echo))) format, and linking those people to a mysterious cabal working against them. That is an incredibly standard anti-Semitic view. In what way is that not prejudiced against Jews?

>Hanlon's razor is the obvious objection, and goes unaddressed.

What is Hanlon's razor for including an anti-Semitic key in their tweet? I'm honestly asking what the simpler explanation is for them including that, and then going on to link (((those people))) to an international conspiracy, something people have accused Jews of for centuries.

>Interesting, any you'd care to link?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/08/09/wikileaks_...

>I'm merely assuming they aren't going to be obviously incompetent? Like, maybe the phrasing will be self-serving... but look at GP... he's seriously suggesting that they may have mistaken a gardening accident for a state actor...

Intentionally misleading/lying isn't being incompetent. They could know or think that it was an accident, but intentionally spin it as foul play to reinforce the narrative they've been spinning.

That they'd never heard of the key? (I hadn't, as the slate reporter seemed to anticipate with their "might be a little hard to follow" comment)

> http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/08/09/wikileaks_...

Offering a reward is not the same as "[posting] wild conspiracy theories," which is what you claimed they did. Posting a wild conspiracy theory in this case would be openly accusing a specific person or group of people of murder with no evidence.

I would call this "wanting to fact check a conspiracy theory," which I view as a good thing generally, and especially good in the case of wikileaks.

> Intentionally misleading/lying isn't being incompetent. They could know or think that it was an accident, but intentionally spin it as foul play to reinforce the narrative they've been spinning.

They could, but this would require them to assume no one would figure out the actual cause -- aka a lot of cost with no benefit. Seems surprisingly stupid/pointless/shortsighted.

Then why use it? You're saying it's more likely they hadn't heard of it, but used it anyway? You've never heard of it, have you ever surrounded a reference to people you don't like and are accusing of nefarious deeds with triple parentheses? What about the additional part about a shadowy cabal that you ignored?

>Offering a reward is not the same as "[posting] wild conspiracy theories," which is what you claimed they did.

If I offer a reward for proof that aliens abducted Elvis, you don't consider that lending credence to a conspiracy theory?

>I would call this "wanting to fact check a conspiracy theory," which I view as a good thing generally, and especially good in the case of wikileaks.

Why is Wikileaks in the business of "fact checking a conspiracy theory"? I thought they were about, you know, leaks.

>They could, but this would require them to assume no one would figure out the actual cause

No it doesn't. It just requires that if someone else figures out the actual cause they deny it. Zero cost.

Yes, right. They used it as a way of naming the thing they were seeing, not using it like someone familiar with it.

> What about the additional part about a shadowy cabal that you ignored?

I just rechecked the article. What shadowy cabal part?

> If I offer a reward for proof that aliens abducted Elvis, you don't consider that lending credence to a conspiracy theory?

I think a reward initially signals interest in the area, and then longer term acts as a disproof of the theory. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_... for a famous example of this effect.

> Why is Wikileaks in the business of "fact checking a conspiracy theory"? I thought they were about, you know, leaks.

Leaks of significance are of course worth more. Soliciting leaks is absolutely something they do (and should do).

> No it doesn't. It just requires that if someone else figures out the actual cause they deny it. Zero cost.

Well, except that denying hard evidence doesn't usually work (#include those who have been leak subjects). Also people all over the web are having conversations like this one, so the situation degenerating into a head-said/she-said situation would have a cost. Which as I pointed out before was an obvious outcome of their tweet.

Happy travels :)

You do know that the people they were talking about in their tweet didn't literally have (((echoes))) around their names, right?

I see no reason to trust their judgment here. As the kids might say these days, evidence or GTFO.

I guess that if you are living in a state of fear, expecting storm troopers through the door at any moment, then you could reasonably presume that the CIA are to blame for one's lack of wifi.

To be honest, I wish it was newsworthy when I spent a day or two offline. But it isn't.

Surely Assange or someone has a smartphone. If that's cut too, you can be sure it's something big.

I mean, what would be the goal? They go to all this trouble, and risk an international incident, for what? It's not like they'd actually be able to prevent Assange from communicating. At best they'd inconvenience him slightly until he figures out an alternate means of communication.

Random, unverified claim, but all we have.

I don't know about wireless standards to say whether or not it's possible to selectively disable regions or devices.

Also, I bet some industrious hackers could hack together a microcontroller, photodiodes, and cheap lasers for a line of sight connection as a bridge.

But based on where the embassy is, it's probably easier to stand near a window and get on the WiFi from Pret a Manger next door.

On the one hand we have a guy with the big cache of emails he really wants people to pay more attention to before November 9th, and a police interview originally scheduled for today that he might want to find a reason to postpone for more than a month next time. On the other hand, I'm really struggling to see what forcing Assange to wait a few hours or change computers achieves, or what the motivation for shutting him off today rather than November 8th is?

There is a caveat to the legality of classified materials, usually you must have been "entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of". Which alludes to the fact that you would first have to have been read in, or taken the material that you knew was classified.

There is also a "requirement" to "knowingly" cause harm. I put these in quotes because the wording and the enforcement of that requirement has been in flux and selective. Also relevant is that gross negligence would also meet the requirement.

I guess a creative prosecutor could challenge that visiting wikileaks would be knowingly removing the material from the server, but it would probably be beyond difficult to meet all of the guidelines for prosecution.

That being said. If you do currently hold a clearance, visiting Wikileaks is a violation of your NDA/ReadIn, Employment Agreement, and the UCMJ for service members.

Interesting. Could you explain that more?

So even possessing the appropriate clearance level doesn't give you the right to just start reading anything that interests you on a classified network. You're supposed to have a "need to know" in case you're questioned about it.

We always get stuff here (contractor on AFB) about "don't read this or that" or else you could be in trouble. But I've never heard of anyone actually getting in trouble.

Jokes aside, I found myself on the site for the first time ever last week... Didn't want to fuck with that shit during my service or while holding a clearance. But question... While I no longer have a clearance, I am still eligible for a clearance if I need it within the next few years... Should I be concerned?

Congress cannot prohibit speech or press. If it has been written down or spoken, then the US Constitution provides absolute legal justification for viewing it, copying it, and discussing it, without any restriction.

I am not a lawyer but I'd say this is a legal gray area.

The leaker probably broke a law. E.g., hacking Podesta's private emails would have been illegal under computer fraud and abuse. It's alternately possible that the leaker had legal access but breached contract to release the data publicly.

Now that the information has been leaked, it's hard to say that it's clearly illegal for John Q. Public to access what Wikileaks has made publicly available. The anchor is unable to point to a specific statute in his tweet above and also mentions that it hasn't been tested in court to his knowledge.

A central theme of the leaks so far is that large segments of the media have been overly cooperative with the Clinton campaign in spite of feigned objectivity. This HN comment has curated some links to primary evidence https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722664 . Take a quick perusal and you'll be about as informed as anyone on the answer to your question.

This is a nice bit of propaganda you've put forth here.

Here's a Harvard study into the majority of the 2016 election coverage including primaries which shows a demonstrably strong bias in the media pro-Trump and anti-Clinton and demonstrates that Clinton has received a FAR more harsh relationship with the major press.

http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-...

http://shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/figu...

It demonstrates that coverage of Clinton was on average negative about her for the entirety of 2015.

It demonstrates that Trump enjoyed a very positive and cushy relationship with newsmedia who combined to give him hundreds of millions USD of free exposure.

I would argue that Clinton has had mostly negative coverage up until the end of September 2016.

Hrm: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/785615427913199616

I hope you are rational enough to see the hilarious doublespeak being engaged in here:

* Positive coverage of hillary is due to Hillary's cozy relationship with media

* Positive coverage of her opponent, is due to Hillary's cozy relationship with media

Come on man. I hope readers of this particular site are rational enough to apply occam's razor and think critically.

I also find it extremely telling that Donald Trump, Mr Reality TV and the "hyper-successful" media and real estate man isn't responsible for his own success, but rather it's his opponent which is apparently so powerful that every single event occurring is by her design...?

How feckless Trump appears in your "everything good or bad happening to both candidates was preordained in a conspiracy" viewpoint!

Not everything is a conspiracy, I hope you're capable of rational thought.

I, for one, am also comfortable blaming the Republican electorate for allowing the three pied pipers, including Trump, to have been elevated.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-press-buries-hillary-clinton...

"tell the press to [take] them seriously"

I guess he never explicitly said it was legal for CNN -- maybe he was claiming that CNN is generously taking on all that legal risk so the rest of us don't have to?

> But the Clinton #wiki cache doesn't include any classified info as far as I know. So fine to read/download.

> Only classified or state secrets. Regular emails can be downloaded without consequence by media or others. I was wrong to group both types.

More interesting that CNN thinks they can read them but the public can not. Media organizations have no security clearances and thus are subject to the same access as anyone else.

Oh CNN.

Proving that those who say the media thinks they're above the rest of us are right.

There is also the famous Pentagon Papers case, which to my knowledge rests on the "freedom of the press" language in the First Amendment.

That said, this was a stupid thing for the CNN anchor to say. Regardless of the law, no federal prosecutor is going to waste their time trying to find and prosecute every U.S. citizen who visits the Wikileaks website.

It was about the printing press and the ability to print what you wanted and, just as importantly, not be forced to print the things you didn't.

He might work around it but it's an option. I don't know about whether it's legal under UK law but their surveillance organizations seem to get away with a lot.

If GCHQ are involved with any such interference, their actions are fairly unconstrained by law. Paraphrasing Intelligence Services Act 1994, s.(3)[1]:

> [GCHQ shall] monitor or interfere with electromagnetic, acoustic and other emissions and any equipment producing such emissions [...] in the interests of national security, [or] in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom in relation to the actions or intentions of persons outside the British Islands [or] in support of the prevention or detection of serious crime.

As far as I know, there is nothing in statute that constrains how they go about that (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 adds a couple of hurdles in regards to interception). Any oversight comes from various Parliamentary committees.

[1] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/13/crossheading/gch...

"We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange's internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton's Goldman Sachs speechs."

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/788099178832420865

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/19/wikileaks-ecua...

When a system is failing it enters a death spiral where the pool from which it can hire people gets shallower and shallower (less people are interested in working for the government) until the only persons left are either morons or sociopaths (who want power)