Having said that, I once went to wikileaks and found a PDF of Steve Job's supposed STD test which claimed he was HIV positive. That was a surprise to me as my understanding was that he died of cancer. I looked into it and no one could corroborate the story and the general consensus seemed to be that it was faked.
Even if it was real, I struggle to see why it's important to leak the private medical records of someone with a deadly STD, although I'm sure there are multiple perspectives on this.
HIPAA (1994) enshrined legally what is one of the few moral absolutes in healthcare - your health issues are nobody else's business with few caveats. HIV is reported to the government. Knowingly infecting someone with HIV is a crime. The reasonable safeguards are there and dumping someone's records does nothing to make anyone safer.
> Due to the contradictory dates, possible evidence of forgery, strong motivations for fabrication, and few motivations for a legitimate revelation, the images should not be taken at face value.
And I found this reddit thread/comment from 11 years ago (when Wikileaks released it) that contains the same text, so it's not as though they released the document and then corrected themselves after the fact -- they published it alongside a warning that it's probably bogus. [2]
[1]: https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs_purported_HIV_medical_...
[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/7qo8n/steve_job...
Next thing you know, I'll hear that Wikileaks posted private emails of a government official talking about pizza. Emails which spawned ridiculous conspiracies about satanic child abuse cults headquartered in the basement of a pizza shop that doesn't have a basement.
That would never happen. Not at an august, hard-hitting journalistic outlet like Wikileaks. /s
For another conspiracy theory, what about the idea that if a conspiracy was uncovered, instead of denying it those with something to lose would double down on the most exaggerated parts of the conspiracy to down out the less insane and more likely parts. Get the public to focus on the pizza shop and not on the (since deceased) billionaire.
One is a conspiracy about a pedophile ring in a pizzaria basement when no such basement exists. The other is a conspiracy that has dozens if not hundreds of convictions and at least a tacit admission from the institution that it's a problem.
> For another conspiracy theory, what about the idea that if a conspiracy was uncovered, instead of denying it those with something to lose would double down on the most exaggerated parts of the conspiracy to down out the less insane and more likely parts. Get the public to focus on the pizza shop and not on the (since deceased) billionaire.
The mastermind (Ailes) behind the news network responsible for pushing the former conspiracy and distracting from the latter admitted to starting the network for the express purpose of running political interference. It's not really a conspiracy when the conspirators are blatantly open about it - at least not in the colloquial sense. Political interference they're running now against SDNY in order to obstruct the investigation.
The difference in circumstance should be apparent - it's the existence of actual evidence and reliable first hand accounts.
Leaking Podesta's email spawned a conspiracy theory that high-ranking Democrats were a part of a satanic child abuse and traffic ring. It was specifically partisan.
Meanwhile there are multiple layers to the Epstein case. Yes, Epstein was a nexus of child abuse. He was a terrible human being who got away with years of child abuse because of his money and powerful connections. Yes, he died under mysterious circumstances. And Epstein's close friends and confidants included both Democrats and Republicans.
Conflating Pizzagate with Epstein is just moving the goalposts to exonerate Wikileak's publishing of private emails. Are some of the people involved in the email dump known associates of Epstein? Yes. But that's not what Pizzagate is, nor was Epstein associated with the email dump.
Girlfriend's dad was a Big Deal with the Mossad. Like, awarded medals by the Israeli government Big Deal. Like, we can't talk about him in the UK unless we make it an official Parliament discussion -- that is, by law, on the record and can't be sued as libel or slander -- kind of Big Deal.
Now imagine some of that gets leaked in a partisan fashion. Maybe on purpose. Maybe by chance. A cover up could be attempted, but that might bring in more investigation. Maybe it would be better to forcefully corrupt it instead. Go from MK Ultra conspiracy theory to moon landings were faked and the earth is flat conspiracy theory. All you have to do is purposefully 'leak' even crazier stuff while making it hyper partisan so that our existing political divide feeds into it.
Not saying they are equal, but what if they are both views into a larger conspiracy, though one of those views was purposefully corrupted to try to make any similar conspiracy theory be viewed as utter nonsense. Make it so people think moon landings or flat earth instead of MK Ultra or Operation Northwoods.
You could speculate that about literally anything. It's meaningless conjecture.
It is like if you catch someone gas lighting you twice, and now this time they are telling you they really didn't do it and are definitely not gas lighting you again. At some point their demand to prove their gas lighting becomes part of the attack itself.
My favourite conspiracy theory is the Out Of Africa conspiracy theory.
The Petrolonas Cave findings of Thessaloniki debunked it and suggest the Europeans diverged from Africa probably upto a million years ago. Cambridge University verified the findings and they're the most woke campus in town so it must be true.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/32795
> Subject: You left something at the Field house > Susan & Herb > I just came from checking the Field house and I have a square cloth handkerchief (white w/ black) that was left on the kitchen island. > Happy to send it via the mail if you let me know where I should send it.
> I also meant to inquire yesterday about the pillows you purchased. I can send them as well, if you let me know where they are in the house.
> Safe travels to all > Kate
> Hi John,
> The realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related. Is it yorus? They can send it if you want. > I know you're busy, so feel free not to respond if it's not yours or you don't want it.
> Susaner
I mean, they're talking about a handkerchief with a pattern of a map, with various food items on it, like pizza. I have never seen such a handkerchief, but this is almost certainly some sort of a novelty handkerchief with a map of Italy, featuring various types of cuisine common to the region. Which kind of makes sense, since it's a napkin.
Why would you assume it is coded? The realtor emails and says, hey, you forgot your handkerchief. Podesta's friend, who was with him, emails him and says, hey, I think that's your handkerchief, the one with the map and pizza and stuff.
And this is supposed to be unusual? This is just how people talk.
> Given the amount of storm it caused
It really didn't. Except for the lunatic who walked into the restaurant with a gun, almost none of this stuff penetrated mainstream media. FOX watchers got their fill, but they weren't swayable votes, by definition. To the eyeballs the Clinton campaign cared about, Pizzagate was a non-issue.
Lefties like me only like to talk about it because it was so crazy insane. This isn't what cost the election.
that a government official is using *chan lingo is a stretch, and lends credence to Bannon's point about trying to appeal to the 4chan demographic aka disaffected male youth, who would get the "cp" connection.
I too was confused by the use of what appears to be coded language, but then thought to myself: wait, is what I am reading authentic?
I’m honestly upset that this sort of information was released
EDIT: It seems any effort to seek clarification is discouraged here. My apologies.
The context you are missing is that there are some sibling comments here claiming that wikileaks has never posted info with questionable veracity. I believe the Steve Jobs leak is one such case.
I also was pointing out that sometimes certain types of information don't need to be leaked at all. I personally believe medical info should be very private unless perhaps you are running for the office of the President. But, as I said, there are probably multiple perspectives on the issue (particularly perspectives of people who would want Apple's stock price to go down, or might think of Steve Jobs as evil for the Foxconn scandals, for instance).
Hope that helps.
Well, it depends on which public person we are talking about.
A random nobody? Yeah, privacy is important for them.
Someone running for president, or someone who is a CEO of one of the most valuable companies in the world? I don't really care much about their privacy, in either circumstance.
Who will get justice or recompense by knowing that?
What future benefits or change of course will this bring for you, or me, or society?
Don't get me wrong, I don't care about this guy's privacy either -- plus he's dead, so privacy is mostly moot -- but it's hard to see what anyone stands to gain from airing inconsequential medical history.
Agreed.
> As an officer of a public corporation, how much privacy can one expect?
So we should violate his rights without repercussion? Lost me.
If I invest something in your company, and you are sick, should I know it?
Either public figures deserve a measure of privacy or they don't.
The real answer is that it depends. If a public figure is abusing their position, then yes, it is in the public interest to know about this abuse of power.
Imagine for a second if every politician’s financial history for all of their financial accounts were on an immutable ledger. That is something that is desirable, though it violates those individuals’ privacy. In this case we would say the public interest supersedes their right to privacy.
If the standard boils down to there being a journalistic interest in publishing relevant information about a public figure in relation to their abuse of power then I'm not sure how possibly-faked medical records pass that test.
Don't put words in the other person's mouth.
Instead, what people are saying is that if someone has a huge amount of power, then we don't really care about their privacy.
Someone running a blog does not have a huge amount of power.
Someone running a trillion dollar company, or running or president, or whatever, does have a huge amount of power.
Thats the difference.
I agree that Steve Jobs is more powerful than even an influential blogger, but they are both public figures. Who exactly is allowed to do the calculus about how much private information is appropriate to publish about someone according to their level of power? To me it seems to be a binary: are they a public figure or not.
When it's a breach of journalistic ethics to publish information about a blogger that's provided on or linked to from said blog (I think it is a breach, he made a specific request not to) it's much more egregious to publish an apparently forged health record of a CEO.
At no point do I think that not caring about someone's privacy means it's acceptable to publish false information about them.
It doesn't have to be binary. Instead, we can say that the more power someone has, the more it is ok to reveal info about them.
You can pick public figure, but I wouldn't do that.
> Who exactly is allowed to do the calculus
Anyone at all times. That's how society works. Everyone has their own opinions.
I don't agree with your binary opinion though.
> Of a CEO
CEOs have lots of power. They don't need to be protected as much as everyone else in the world.
"(...) These specimens are significant not only because they are the oldest specimens of the virus known to cause AIDS, but because they show that the virus already had an extensive amount of genetic diversity in 1960.[10] This suggests the virus had either undergone recombination or been circulating for years or perhaps decades in the Kinshasa population. (...)"
Additionally,
Richard Edwin Graves Jr., a 28-year-old World War II veteran who had been stationed in the Solomon Islands, died on 26 July 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee with pneumocystis pneumonia, CMV and what some authors suggest are a sufficient number of opportunistic infections for a clinical course suggestive of an AIDS diagnosis.[8][9]
Sadayo Fujisawa, a sixty-year-old Japanese-Canadian woman, died in Montreal on 28 June 1945 of pneumocystis pneumonia with Human cytomegalovirus (CMV), diarrhea, and wasting, a group of symptoms which some authors conclude would have led to an automatic diagnosis of AIDS in the early 1980s.[6][7]
The virus was already circulating globally in the early 1900s.
The genetic diversity might be indicative of widerspread infection in sub-saharan Africa, and then two immuno-comprimised cases, are not specifically indicative of HIV.
...and then this statement has absolutely no basis in evidence: "The virus was already circulating globally in the early 1900s."
I am against hacking in general.
I see no good reason for him to have targeted a newspaper.
I do see good reason to target secretive government agencies.
I see good reason for those agencies to have a problem with this and go after anyone who does it.
I am against government agencies having bad enough security that they can be so targeted.
Assange isn’t in prison right now for any of this, he’s in prison because he skipped bail to avoid extradition for a completely different charge to a completely different country to face his accusers for a potential maximum penalty less than the time he spent in the embassy he got kicked out of for breaking their rules, and which he fled to because for some reason that never made sense to me he claimed that going from the UK to Sweden put him in danger of the thing which actually happened in the UK.
This was not really the reason.
> and which he fled to because for some reason that never made sense to me he claimed that going from the UK to Sweden put him in danger of the thing which actually happened in the UK.
He feared that either the UK or Sweden would send him to the US.
While I am not naïve enough to ignore the possibility of dishonesty, the official statement was:
“We cannot allow our house, the house that opened its doors, to become a center for spying, … This activity violates asylum conditions. Our decision is not arbitrary but is based on international law.”
and also accusations of blocking security cameras at the embassy.
> He feared that either the UK or Sweden would send him to the US.
And yet, he initially submitted to the UK authorities while trying to deny access to the Swedish ones. That never looked sensible to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I paid attention when the UN accused the UK of torturing him, and the fact that the UK told the US about arresting him at the embassy before it told Sweden even though the latter had an outstanding warrant stinks — but thinking poorly of how governments treat a (very unusual) investigator who showed the world a whole bunch of the skeletons in their closets does not mean I have to think the investigator was doing anything other than fleeing justice in 2011.
A lifetime ban seems completely inappropriate. Which specific technology did you have in mind?
And it should not be
> that results in the disclosure of information that the hacker does not own
Good thing I do not believe in intellectual property/owning numbers.
> This is theft of information
Copying is not theft.
> Anyone engaging is nefarious hacking should be
...given a monetary reward if they publish how they were able to gain unauthorized access.
Having a bigger hammer means nothing as long as it's always selective with criminal interests, protecting some and not others. Just means they have a bigger hammer to use against anyone threatening those interests, criminals or not.
https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/757599082928082944?lang=en
Also: why would I care that Hammond was prosecuted? Hammond was caught dead to rights.
Indiscriminate doxing to accomplish a radical agenda is not journalism. My view-- which I admit is broader than the point you made-- is that he is a criminal and should be tried and convicted. It makes me sick to my stomach that he cloaks his actions in the hard work and bravery of our free press.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37165230 "Human rights groups have asked Wikileaks many times to do more to censor information found in documents. They fear reprisals against aid workers, activists and civilians named in the leaked data."
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51616077 "Mr Lewis said the dissemination of specific classified documents unredacted put dissidents in Afghanistan and Iraq at 'risk of serious harm, torture or even death". The US identified hundreds of "at risk and potentially at risk people' around the world, he said, and made efforts to warn them."
Of course, we're working solely from the indictment, and Assange will make his own case rebutting those claims. But if the DOJ's informant holds up, I'm not sure what the persuasive argument is going to be. Maybe he'll hold out for nullification.
By far the most likely outcome is that he will receive a fair trial, be convicted, and then justice will be done.
What specifically are you invoking here as the "free press" ? There is very little free press in the United States. The overwhelming majority of what is called the press consists of mouthpieces for the ruling power structure, analogous to state media in the USSR.
I agree it would have been better for documents to be reviewed before publication rather than dumped. But I just don't see how that was possible given the limited resources of the non-corrupt press, and the tendency of the government to go after anyone in possession of leaks. Assange being considered a journalist has much to do with the rot of the institution itself.
It certainly seems like when the de facto government has an agenda (eg attacking Iraq), they all broadcast that message simultaneously. It certainly seems like they choose which presidential candidates are "electable" and then downplay the others (Sanders, Paul, Dean). It certainly seems like they suppress narratives that are unfavorable to the shared business interests of their owners. It certainly seems like they all cooperate with the government to get easy access (embedded reporters, etc) rather than doing the hard work of adversarial investigation.
There are differences of course, like how we get to hear two similar options and pick between them. And how this simple act of choosing makes the population absorb the propaganda better. But I'd call those internal differences in structure, with the overall result being similar.
If you're happy within the Overton window, then of course it looks like Wikileaks is some crazy actor that came out of nowhere. But if you see mainstream media repeatedly acting in concert, then Wikileaks is a predictable reaction.
So maybe we should all just tone down the colorful language a bit and use a bit less extreme rhetoric to make our points.
Obviously, you can dispute the indictment --- the veracity of the indictment isn't my point. But I contend: any argument you make about my summary of that portion of the indictment is going to illustrate exactly what I mean by the difference between a colorable argument and the mind 'mindslight made upthread.
The language used by the justice department uses less harsh rhetoric to describe its own indictment than your summery. The difference between providing a list of targets in a communication with a group leader, and literally dispatching a group against a list of targets, is two different statements. The later is more colorful and implies relationships which is not found. Asking and dispatching also have a very different implied tone, one being a request and the later being an order.
* Assange had direct contact with some Lulzsec members.
* Assange recruited "Teenager" to liaise with the computer underground.
* "Teenager" represented themselves as an agent of Wikileaks reporting directly to Assange.
* "Teenager" arranged for Lulzsec to take target lists from Wikileaks.
* The transactions in which those target lists were communicated were overseen by Julian Assange; in at least one case, there's video evidence of that occurring.
If your argument is that members of Lulzsec were free to disregard Wikileaks directives, that's a distinction without a difference, at least legally. The same fact pattern is true of most criminal conspiracies.
I used the term "winged monkeys" to describe Lulzsec, which might have been part of what set you off, because, like, Topiary was not literally a simian thrall to Assange. My point there was simply that the law, and the DOJ, and, probably, juries will look at Lulzsec as an purely criminal element of the case; there will be no regard to any larger political goals Lulzsec might have had.
I feel at this point like, unless I got the indictment completely, dramatically wrong, my point about "colorable argument" versus "bullshit rhetoric" has been made.
Sure, my original comment was too general. I've come to that pattern over many specific occurrences, and it keeps my headspace clear by tying mainstream media to a powerful other. But I understand that stating it head-on won't convince anyone.
Narrowing down that heuristic to what is pertinent here:
The mainstream reporting on Iraq from 2003-2007 by (NYT, WSJ, WaPO, FOX, CNN, etc) all overwhelmingly marketed the war to the population. Referring to an alternative of some noble vibrant "free press" is ridiculous when they all were pushing the same government-friendly narrative. Wikileaks was an inevitable response to the lack of investigative journalism opposing the unilateral war, and thus had to function independently with much fewer resources. If anybody from the traditional institution had been doing their purported job, they would have easily scooped Wikileaks and could have spent effort scrubbing the sources. In fact, we saw a lot less of Wikileaks when the mainstream media actually bothered to report on the Snowden revelations.
If the press needs to function like a series of warring contrarian subreddits to validate itself for you, we're operating from incompatible premises.
The press certainly can agree organically about things. We generally talk in terms of causality, but feedback cycles mean that things act mutually on each other - including the population being preached to (eg choosing to promote those fucking yellow ribbons). But exploring this way leads us deeper into handwaving territory, which is a lot easier to shoot down with a dismissive blunt response, as you did to my initial comment.
For the Iraq war specifically, I do agree that many journalists were likely in agreement to begin with. But the ones that were not were filtered out by management and ownership (cf Clear Channel's list of songs to censor), resulting in the unified presentation. I'm not claiming grand conspiracy, but rather emergent behavior with the net effect of squashing big-business-inconvenient narratives.
Also, I'd be thankful to anybody who leaked information that punched holes in the COVID-19 narrative. I don't think that will happen, because I think it is a very real crisis, but I would welcome being wrong. That's another huge difference between your points of comparison - COVID-19 analysis survives open discussion, while the pro-war camp relied on silencing dissent.
You'll try, of course, to recover the irretrievably bad position of your argument comparing the NYT to Pravda by trying to get me to defend the NYT, WSJ, and WaPo's 2003 Iraq coverage. But of course, I don't have to do that. My case is not that journalism is faultless; it's called the "first draft" of history for a reason. Rather, the burden is on you to support the extraordinary claim that the NYT, WSJ, and WaPo are effectively equivalent to state-run media, the claim you stated plainly upthread.
So no, I have not been arguing that the two are "effectively equivalent" or "just like", nor that the government (whatever that may be) has an iron grip on the press - just that the press successfully propagandizes the people with the desires of the ruling power structure. Stating it a different way, one cannot rely on mainstream news outlets and consider themselves informed.
FWIW there is a more direct mechanism of action put forth by Moldbug, but I figure you'll be even less receptive to something of the opposite political flavor.
(Although at this point in our present catastrophe I admit I'm missing the days of competent leadership, even if it was somewhat exploitative of the plebs)
No doubt Yarvin himself could contribute a pointless 5,000 words to this already pointless thread explaining how I've summarized his beliefs poorly. I'm happy to tie it off here, though.
FWIW reading Moldbug's analysis of left versus right is what made me return to self-identifying as liberal.
> Zeynep isn’t concerned with accuracy either
But your link says
> Zeynep Tufekci never lied, exaggerated or retracted her article (which was accurate).
So I don't see how one explains the other.
In any case it’s quite clear that Zeynep wasn’t correct when she claimed that WL dumped this data. WL only tweeted a link to the dump shared by Emma Best, who now operates a “competitor” to WL, DDoSecrets.
I’m not trying to suggest that WL has an amazing track record. I just think that if Zeynep wanted to do the right thing she’d have retracted her claim that WL dumped this data.
In fact following the huffpost link it appears as if wikileaks pointed to private (and not of public interest) information published by a third party:
> WikiLeaks has not taken down its social media links to the now dead link.
If that is all you got, then I have to believe gp that wikileaks doesn’t spread false information.
As you note, it’s irrelevant but also, if true, illustrates how selectively showing true info is deceptive.
[0]https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/9/9/12864328/wiki...
If you don't believe that Assange has done truthful hard-hitting journalism, or you believe that he isn't a journalist at all, then you can maintain the belief that we don't put journalists in prison while sitting idle as he rots in prison, because he is not a True Journalist. "We wouldn't do that to True Journalists. Assange is different."
Example, as a journalist you cannot just walk into a US Army base and start reporting.
I don't know if that meets your definition of public oversight.
> Jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is no longer being kept in solitary confinement and his health is improving, his spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson told reporters on Tuesday.
- Feb. 2020 [1]
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-assange/wikileaks...
Here is the UN (Nils Melzer) saying he is not, in May 2019 [0]
> "Although Assange is not held in solitary confinement..."
There were photo leaks early on showing Assange interacting with other prisoners, with the leaker saying he was popular.
I believe what Wikileaks refer to as "solitary confinement" is being put on the medical wing, and not in his normal cell. Obviously Wikileaks are interested in making his imprisonment seem as harsh as possible.
[0] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/9/9/12864328/wiki...
That is a very odd misdirection given the context. He's not accused of lying, he's accused of computer crimes.
I mean, your medical records and browsing history may be 100% true and verifiably copied from original sources, but if I steal and distribute them I'm still going to jail.
Are you trying to imply that assange is a journalist?
If this knowledge was disclosed sooner (Because, lets face it, they've loved to spurt out claims about bad things Assange has done,) I would expect a non-negligible number of Wikileaks supporters to stop.
It's one thing to have leaks fed to you, it's another to actively encourage people to do so and name targets.
So... Why are we only hearing about this -now-?
Of which Assange isn't
He was more than happy to support the current administration in the electoral process, with heavy editorializing and biases
So, I guess sorry they renegued on their promises? Oh but he should have guessed it.
This talking point is frankly irrelevant. Actually it itself illustrates how only cherry picking info to reveal is as deceptive as out right lies, but even more difficult to combat.
Want a clear example of how showing only true information is deceptive? Google Mormon bubbling. Yes the example is distasteful but it’s a very clear illustration of how easy it is to use selective information to deceive perception and make people appear to be doing something they are not, potentially hurting them.
Not really relevant. Assange was acting directly against the interests of the United States. He was indiscriminately dumping large quantities of classified (or otherwise secret) information on the internet for the world to see.
You need an edit for that incorrect statement as well, as many comments have already pointed out.
Are you trying to claim Assange is a journalist? How many credible journalists do you know that provide lists of targets with the intent to illegally hack?
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/885395248612085760
He has helped launder edited material from Russian state sponsored hackers in the past. That is one instance, should I find more?
I think it says something that this is the best you can come up with.
Assange censors whistleblowers against the Russian government who he openly collaborated with. Do you think this is ethical behavior?
Hi I can basically see you sneering with a "gotcha" face through that text. Sorry but Assange's history of leak revisionism, favoring Russia specifically, is deep.
When Assange was working with "Anon" who was really an FBI snitch, he accepted files hacked from Syria. When they were released they were missing information about Russia including bank transfers of billions of dollars. Assange's selective leaking based on his biases has been documented for years:
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikileaks-syria-files-syria-r...
>The court records, placed under seal by a Manhattan federal court and obtained by the Daily Dot through an anonymous source, show in detail how a group of hacktivists breached the Syrian government’s networks on the eve of the country’s civil war and extracted emails about major bank transactions the Syrian regime was hurriedly making amid a host of economic sanctions. In the spring of 2012, most of the emails found their way into a WikiLeaks database.
>But one set of emails in particular didn’t make it into the cache of documents published by WikiLeaks in July 2012 as “The Syria Files,” despite the fact that the hackers themselves were ecstatic at their discovery. The correspondence, which WikiLeaks has denied withholding, describes “more than” €2 billion ($2.4 billion, at current exchange rates) moving from the Central Bank of Syria to Russia’s VTB Bank.
We know this because the courts showed the data that Assange personally held back.
Selectively releasing documents is not the same as releasing something later proven to be false, which is what the GP asserted.
FWIW you could play devils advocate here and say that wikileaks could not independently verify the omitted things; but I'm not going to go there because it's conjecture. Just as your suggestion that it's collusion with Russia, however likely, is also conjecture.
To use an extreme example, if a reporting organization writes a story about one nation launching missile strikes against another, and leaves out that they were retaliatory strikes from a previous attack, that dramatically changes the perception of those events. If this sort of thing is continually done to benefit one entity, it is reasonable to question the honesty of the reporter.
Even if the released documents are all accurate, the previous lies of omission would cause a reasonable person to question whether or not the released documents provide adequate context.
Out of all news I read there is maybe one small set of investigative journalist that I trust to give me a balanced amount of context to from my own opinion, and as a mark of quality, they are disliked by the government, activists, the left and the right.
> Stand up for journalists. Real journalists.
I wouldn't think that "Real journalists" would selectively choose what to report based on who their friends are.
"who their friends are" is an uncharitable interpretation of the situation. You might not like that they didn't report on some information that was Russian, but to assume it's due to friendly relations and not fear of reprisal is spinning a narrative. Just as asserting the exact inverse is also spinning a narrative.
I don't claim to know everything and people seem really emotive about this so it's common to see people finding things that please their current mindset and presenting it as if its evidence of whatever they believe.
Please attempt removing your emotions and coldly look at the facts, try to consider an alternative theory for what happened or is happening, especially if you're American because Americans seem to be _especially_ heated when it comes to Assange.
Whatever your beliefs on the subject, a lot more has happened due to wikileaks stories; over something like NYT or bloomberg stories, which are highly regarded news outlets. So a charitable interpretation is that they're doing "real journalism" because they're digging in to things in the public interest.
I don't simultaneously fear reprisal _while_ reaching out to Russians for help and assistance.
I don't simultaneously fear reprisal _while_ reaching out to the Trump campaign to coordinate the release of leaks.
I don't simultaneously fear reprisal from a country _while_ seeking asylum in that country.
"fear of reprisal" would be the first time I've heard _that_ particular narrative being spun.
Then who is a "real" journalist anymore these days? That's is exactly why so many people are abandoning mainstream media (CNN, Foxnews, NBC, BBC, Guardian, Al Jazeera), because those established entities time and time again choose to selectively report on events when it fit their political bias and omit when it isn't possible to put a spin on the story.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...
>In the summer of 2016, as WikiLeaks was publishing documents from Democratic operatives allegedly obtained by Kremlin-directed hackers, Julian Assange turned down a large cache of documents related to the Russian government, according to chat messages and a source who provided the records.
>WikiLeaks declined to publish a wide-ranging trove of documents — at least 68 gigabytes of data — that came from inside the Russian Interior Ministry, according to partial chat logs reviewed by Foreign Policy.
>The logs, which were provided to FP, only included WikiLeaks’s side of the conversation.
>“As far as we recall these are already public,” WikiLeaks wrote at the time.
>“WikiLeaks rejects all submissions that it cannot verify. WikiLeaks rejects submissions that have already been published elsewhere or which are likely to be considered insignificant. WikiLeaks has never rejected a submission due to its country of origin,” the organization wrote in a Twitter direct message when contacted by FP about the Russian cache.
Assange would later go on to propagate and distribute manipulated leaks sent by Guccifer 2.0 and other known Russian fronts like the "CyberBerkut" promotion of his I linked at the thread top.
For matters about Assange you should definitely look for more independent sources than only FP. A lot has happened since 2016/17, and there's been cases which show that certain groups within the US establishment been wrong for alleging Assange of a Russia connection[2].
[0] https://search.wikileaks.org/?q=Russia
[1] https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/
[2] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/07/31/assa-j31.html
And he was given documents that could hurt her. He used them.
It seems pretty clear that neutrality has not been on the tables for Assange ever since he sought political asylum. As pointed out above, this does not mean he has fabricated documents, or knowingly distributed fabricated documents, but since 2012 he has been in an active conflict against the government of the USA and in particular the foreign affairs side of it and thus leaks should be seen in that context.
Thanks, I think this the lense that should be used when viewing all the facts. It's very hard to view Assange as impartial, but it's too soon to tell if he's anyones agent but his own.
I think there's no doubt that there was a personal grudge between the two.
Assange helping Guccifer 2.0 distribute manipulated Hillary leaks: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/764256561539735552
How the leaks were taken from other sources and manipulated: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qkjevd/guccifer-2-is-bull...
>Guccifer 2.0 — believed to be a misinformation campaign operated by Russian intelligence — posted an 860-megabyte file on Tuesday afternoon that he claimed was donor information he hacked from Clinton Foundation servers.
>A sampling of the posted documents include a spreadsheet of big bank donations, a list of primarily California donors, an outdated spreadsheet of some Republican House members — and a screenshot of files he claimed to have obtained, one of which was titled “Pay to Play.”
>But there are a number of red flags that suggest the documents are in fact from a previous hack on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), not a new hack on the Clinton Foundation.
>A spot check of some of the people on the donor list against FEC filings found that they all lined up with DCCC contributions.
These are Americans who state that this Australian is a traitor who should be prosecuted and executed for treason over the collateral murder video. It is the same exact moral and ethical rot that has corrupted our police forces.
Edit: These downvotes are enlightening.
Ask yourself this: why is it so important to leak information that is being held in secrecy by a state that is committing war crimes at an alarming rate?
The answer is: because the 5-eyes War Coalition is committing war crimes at an alarming rate. It literally started what it hoped to conflagration into World War 3, by invading Iraq illegally and on false pretences in 2003. And every day since that invasion, the world has been on fire.
The world has not forgotten the victims of these wars. Millions of innocent people have been massacred by the USA and its War Coalition in an utterly dire conflagration. The sheer SCALE of the war, of which the Western public are indeed extremely ignorant, is staggering.
If you had two criminals in the room, one of them was thieving the cutlery and the other was burning a pile of dead bodies in the corner, which would you want to deal with, first?
The USA and its War Coalition has a lot of criminal activity going on. Like, a lot. And every twenty minutes for twenty years, it has been dropping bombs - mostly on innocent people - for its own economic purposes.
That is a fire that the leaks will put out.
(The leaks will continue, because the crimes are huge.)
Obviously things were peacable around the world beforehand, and every conflict or human rights violation since then can be blamed on the Iraq invasion.
Never mind that civilian casualties by coalition forces are absolutely dwarfed by those by the opposition, or that US in general gets an extremely high degree of scrutiny and commits relatively few war crimes / civilian casualties.
This is a brilliant attempt at distraction from the incredible corruption and human rights violations from other countries such as Russia. Should the US get a free pass? Of course not, but it's rather tiresome to hear Chinese and Russian agitators say "but what about the 10k civilian casualties over 10 years" while asking the world to please ignore the Uighur genocide or the invasions of Ukraine.
The fact is that Wikileaks has a well established bias. They publish things that are true when it harms the US, and often leave out as much exonerating context as possible. Collateral murder for instance specifically tried to downplay the aspects where the gunner provided a rationale for engaging and sought approval, instead using voiceovers and editing to imply a lack of ROE.
>Millions of innocent people have been massacred by the USA and its War Coalition in an utterly dire conflagration.
I'd love to see a source on this. The most critical estimate I've seen (Iraq Body Count) has coalition innocents killed around 30k, Over 15 years. While opposition are over 300k. Please source your facts.
The bombing must stop. The drones must be denied.
>Body Count:
https://www.psr.org/blog/resource/body-count/
2 million people lost in one war 'arena' is one thing. Another war arena, is another thing. 12 of them, for 20 years, is shear lunacy.
Iraq lost 5% of its population to US war.
So, as is reasonable, you are just blaming them all on the US.
Alas, the American military is as terrified of the true statistics as anyone could be. Even General McMaster, an utter war criminal, has made an effort to ensure all his peers know how much danger they are all in, should the true scale of the wars be revealed to the American public.
"Good thing" there is a lot going on right now to distract people from the burning piles of rubble America has left all over the world.
I assure you, the victims and the families of those victims, and the friends of those victims HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN.
You need proof that war causes death? This seems like some sort of nadir of tabula rasa foolishness.
But in case there was confusion here, I would like a claim that X deaths were caused by Y war to be backed up by evidence rather than "obviously war causes death, so this war must have caused that death!"
The rise in mortality could be partly caused by war, and partly by changing political factors, and partly by changing responses to vaccinations (relevant in Pakistan re: polio), and partly by a hundred other factors.
A priori, of course, those who started the war also carry the main responsibility for all victims. Since the assault on Iraq unequivocally constituted an aggression in violation of international law, the U.S. and its allies are also responsible for all its consequences.
What could you possibly be thinking? "Of the million violent combat deaths in Iraq through 2012, we should only blame USA for 600k, not 850k!" Such an argument would be silly, if it weren't completely monstrous.
For every George Floyd there are a thousand unnamed Iraqi's. The outrage isn't there for those victims. Yet.
But there will be a time when Americans are confronted with their nations horrendous legacy for the last 20 years, and it will erase, entirely, any pretence of moral authority. One hopes that day comes sooner, and with fewer victims, but as we can see the stubborn "might makes right" attitude so many of us are exhibiting in the West, alas makes it more likely that this won't happen until even more innocent bodies are thrown on the pile ..
Indeed, if there has been any innovation in our racist slaughters, it has been to occasionally keep our fingerprints off the machetes. All the bombs falling in Yemen still say "Made in USA" on the side, though.
The USA political system is a machine that transforms the blood of non-white people into the profits of armaments manufacturers and (sometimes) resource extraction firms. This has been true since before the founding of USA. Even many minorities in USA would rather not acknowledge this awful legacy. Your appeals to the judgment of history will eventually be answered, but I expect that to happen only after this totalitarian polity is replaced by more humane ways to organize life here in North America.
This statement is now incorporated into my own mindset.
Thank you for your courage.
What is the point of raising this in the context of a criminal indictment? I haven’t even examined what you are raising for accuracy, I’m merely asking, what does this have to do with throwing someone in prison?
You know, even if you were right, you are not helping your case?
Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
From the article you linked:
Mr Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; is part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
>they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
A - This is a special process meant to assure that reports are truly independent and neutral. These conclusions are even more trustworthy.
B - UN Special Rapporteur can't be trusted, it's is a random nobody that can publish untrue allegations and slap UN logo on top.
It appears you are implying B is the correct interpretations. If so, why? Additionally, can you suggest a more trustworthy, unbiased party than the UN?
You attempted to spin the opinion of special rapporteur into that of the UN. In every special rapporteur article they have to put the disclaimer I posted because of people like you attempting to frame something in false or malicious ways.
To recap your claim:
>Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion.
UN's actual position as stated in the article you posted:
>The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council's independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures' experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
That line is meant for you:
>they are not UN staff
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
You have to be specific. "UN Special Rapporteur" does not equal the UN, which is why that specific language is put onto the footer of all their articles.
I don't know how you cans ay that, when the UN press briefings literally refer to them as a "UN expert".
Yes it's a financially independent position to remove as much bias as possible, but it is very much an official UN position.
His claim:
>Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion.
It's not the UN's position, its a position of a Special Rapporteur for the UN. Thats why I can say it. You are arguing a different subject, if he is a UN expert. Notice I'm not debating his affiliation with the UN. A position of the UN would be a decision made by council, not by someone who:
>are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.
According to UN, the body.
If you actually understand how the UN works, clarify for the rest of us, who would be the UN authority on the matter. I would humbly accept the enlightenment.
Alternatively, if you don't know, you should not be running around and accusing people of "false or malicious ways" and "spin". You seem to be misinterpreting the statement .
Not everything UN does needs to be a resolution passed passed by 194 countries in the general assembly.
The theory you're promoting is that Assange leaked a huge trove of emails on Syria, a Russian ally, including large numbers of emails detailing Syria's relationship to Russia. But then, because Assange is secretly a Russian agent, he removed one particular set of emails.
The obvious question is: why did he publish the emails in the first place?
>A few hours later, the assessment worsened: a friendly source from CNAIPIC was telling them that some of the documents had been forged. One document number, when checked against CNAIPIC’s system, reportedly corresponded to a wholly unrelated matter. The remaining real documents didn’t seem to have come from CNAIPIC either. Instead, police were apparently investigating “a small IT company that has worked for CNAIPIC in the past and that apparently some of the stolen data were on a machine they took to repair in Rome.” There was an immediate suspicion that it was “a giant op by the police to [discredit] anonymous and to tarnish our reputation and credibility.”
B) Why do we trust the CNAIPIC to tell the truth that they weren't their docs?
Are you going to change your stance or are you going to stand by your incorrect, if not slanderous, claim?
https://imgur.com/gallery/XubrM3g
Despite the Pentagon and Navy’s recent actions, Julian was right — all of this is a sophisticated operation that uses bad actors to perpetuate disinformation. It is probably illegal but concerns national security with China.
You can't document Assange's drifting from seemingly neutral leader of a leak network staffed by individuals across the world to a lone operator of a clearly biased outfit, without people throwing their accounts into the fire. Making personal attacks like a fella just did here minutes ago.
I didn't think so many people would be saying "Russia anything is lies!" so vehemently given the activist/journalist/governmental sources documenting Kremlin's role in fostering relations with Wikileaks while spinning up their own personas like Guccifer 2.0 to act as fronts for the distribution of hacked data to Assange.
Did you create that throwaway account in anticipation of yesterday's release of this story, or do you keep a stack to pick from?
That you cannot address any of the comments and only wish to speak of my account age says volumes about where you are coming from.
There are others in this thread arguing both sides of this debate respectfully and within the guidelines, so you needn't look far for good examples.
If you still talk about Russia, you have been fooled immensely and for me it is beyond comprehension how anyone could earnestly believe that story arc.
You are spreading lies.
James Comey knew this just as well as Senator McCarthy did. They didn't even need to change the protagonist.
The reason people are speaking about it more now is such Marxist groups seized part of one city (Seattle) and staged riots nationally. Generally speaking, when an ideological group uses their network to stage violent riots, people talk about it.
People such as Jordan Peterson or Michael Knowles have been speaking about Marxism in universities and other institutions for a while.
The people who seized part of Seattle are anarchists, which, if you read about the history of the labor movement, broke with the Marxists in the 19th Century over some very fundamental issues of how they view society.
Modern identity politics is diametrically opposed to classical Marxism, whatever its proponents choose to call themselves, because it emphasizes identity over class. In those circles, calling someone a "class reductionist" is an insult.
BLM staged riots nation wide two weeks ago.
Nationwide, chapters of the John Brown Gun Club have been seen at or involved with the BLM riots.
What of that do you not find factual?
I find your entire narrative hiliarous and non-factual. You jump from one BLM guy being marxist to all BLM being marxist to riots being due to BLM Marxists with antifa affiliates.
Please tell me what led you to these conspiracies? Do you recognize police were executed by right wing extremist groups who have been named by prosecutors?
Do you see antifa when you close your eyes?
So yes, she is probably a trained Marxist, in that she knows how to do class analysis and material analysis. So are most social scientists worth their salt, it's just that not all of them know that it came from Marx. Jordan Peterson and Michael Knowles for example, are not trained in such methods of analysis because they are extreme fringe kooks.
As far as riots, read what Durkheim wrote on rioting. When a societal need is not accounted for and there seems to be no avenue for change, then rioting is the natural consequence. This was the case for what happened after the killing of George Floyd, where there seemed to be no realistic avenue to stop racist police violence, and so riots arose, as they did throughout centuries again and again. Crime in general follows a similar pattern.
Tell that to Adrian Chen or anyone that has actually investigated Russia's meddling in foreign affairs:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html
This was reported before the election detailing the agency that would go on to be fingered by the state department and others in their role in US election meddling.
This involved actual reported places, actual employees. Same with with "Guccifer 2.0" and "CyberBerkut" or any of the other Russian fronts Assange worked with.
>You are spreading lies.
You'll be able to find specific things I've said and detail how they are lies right? Because you have factual information about this yes?
> The thing is, I don't really want to be an expert on the Internet Research Agency and Russian online propaganda. I agree with my colleague Masha Gessen that the whole issue has been blown out of proportion. In the Times Magazine article that supposedly made me an authority, I detailed some of the Agency's disturbing activities, including its attempts to spread false reports of a terrorist attack in Louisiana and to smear me as a neo-Nazi sympathizer. But, if I could do it all over again, I would have highlighted just how inept and haphazard those attempts were.
Adrian Chen also gave an interview with Chris Hayes on the Internet Research Agency, in which he made the point that it was an unsophisticated marketing campaign, staffed by around 90 people with a poor grasp of the English language, American politics and culture.[2]
1. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/a-so-cal...
2. https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/inside-the-russian-troll-...
The idea that if Russia had an opinion about a US election and utilized its diplomatic powers to encourage its preferred outcome, all of the endless conspiracies about Russian meddling have been verified - it's not good.
It's not as bad as the thing where if a Russian national ever spoke to anyone, "Russia" was involved.
There's very little argument about whether trump broke the law (he did) - it was just a matter of whether his corrupt party would vote for impeachment (they didn't.)
So the one-sided reporting of Russia meddling is indeed a scam. Russia meddled on behalf* (originally said behest - wrong word as far as we know) of both candidates in order to sow discord. The meddling against Clinton is well known, probably the wikileaks emails and a bunch of Facebook ads. The meddling against Trump's campaign resulted in constitutional violations by a court which is only made accountable to the public by the Inspector General report - which the mainstream media has broadly ignored or mischaracterized because it does not support their narrative that Russia meddled only on behalf of Trump. As well as Russia, our own government also meddled against Trump's administration - and they appeared to coordinate to do so. See 18 U.S. Code § 2384.
[1] https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2019/o20012.pdf (pp. vii)
[2] https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/redacted_minori...
[3] https://www.scribd.com/document/409446360/CU-FOIA-Document-R...
[4] https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/16/steele-dossier-sources-st...
a) Widespread evidence not just from US but from UK and EU of efforts to interfere in elections and referenda e.g. Brexit.
b) State sponsored propaganda via social networks which even as recent as last week was having to be removed.
c) Continued meetings between Trump and Putin where only translators are present i.e. no State Dept representatives.
d) 20+ years of Trump Organization taking loans from Russian oligarchs via Bayrock.
Maybe he created his account two weeks ago? How old was your account two weeks after you created it?
It was made then. This was a very dumb question. One that tells more about where the person asking it is coming from than what could possibly be put into the answer itself.
What did you expect?
"Oh yes I made this account for the purposes of manipulating public opinion about Assange in this specific thread. Muahaha and I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for someone looking at my profile creation date."
The only valid point you could make here is that the swedish legal system defines a broad range of "non-consentual things related to sex" as rape, where it would get defined as something else in other countries.
As such, I don't think these are "grand accusations", this is more what one should reasonably conclude, if you followed the case from the beginning.
Edit: to those who think what I wrote merited downvotes, I suggest that the effort to find sources should not always need to fall on anyone who claims anything otherwise. To some extent, there is reasonable assumption that someone should be able to figure stuff out and educate themselves. There are plenty of resources found just in this hacker news discussion alone. And there are search engines when if combined with some critical thinking should get you a step further. I've had too many such back and forths, and facts and references rarely have an effect.
According to Swedish law, stealthing is rape. So even if neither of the women believe that they were raped, if the circumstances they describe would be seen as rape according to Swedish law, then Assange should be investigated.
However, Assange should definitely have retained anonymity during those investigations.
The Swedish police have been pretty incompetent (it certainly wouldn't be the first time [1]), but it is highly misleading to claim that the rape story was completely fabricated.
> A legal representative by the name of Claes Borgström was appointed to the two women at public cost. The man was a law firm partner to the previous justice minister, Thomas Bodström, under whose supervision Swedish security personnel had seized two men who the U.S. found suspicious in the middle of Stockholm. The men were seized without any kind of legal proceedings and then handed over to the CIA, who proceeded to torture them. That shows the trans-Atlantic backdrop to this affair more clearly.
The "Egypt affair" is well-known in Sweden precisely because it's the only such case. It happened shortly after 9/11 in 2001 and the people responsible for it are no longer involved in politics (the Minister for Foreign Affairs who ultimately made the decision to deport Ahmed Agiza and Muhammad Alzery has been dead since 2003 [2]). So to make the claim that Assange would automatically have been extradited to the US had Sweden arrested him is not a fair claim to make imo.
Like I wrote earlier: the police have definitely mishandled the case, but I doubt that there's been any kind of conspiracy involved from the start.
Assuming what you said is true, don't you think that some things should be secret, at least for a while?
This is almost certainly sabu/Hector Monsegur. [1]
This guy put Jeremy Hammond [2] behind bars, and now he's being used to bring down Julian Freaking Assange. More lives ruined than you can count on one hand.
I hope people don't forget that Wikileaks has never published anything that has been proven false. Not once. Julian Assange is in solitary confinement in a prison on bullshit charges, and this is just another one.
Stand up for journalists. Real journalists.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Monsegur
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hammond
edit: as pointed out below, Assange was moved from solitary confinement in February.