Wikileaks vs US

Im sure atleast some of you have been following this story lately but for those that haven't here's a quick overview as i understand it:

Spoiler for Timeline:

• Thursday 12th july 2007, an airstrike in New Baghdad, Iraq, kills at least 18 people. The US military claims 2 civilians (Reuters journalists) had been killed, the rest being insurgents:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/wo...st/13iraq.html

• Monday 5th April 2010 - Wikileaks released a video showing the Baghdad airstrike from the crosshairs of the apache that fired. The video shows the apache firing into a crowd of people, 2 of which were reuters journalists who's camera equipment was mistaken for weapons (according to assange). The helicopter also fires upon people trying to help the wounded afterwards.
Collateral Murder, 5 Apr 2010 - WikiLeaks

• 21st May 2010, 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning initiated a series of online chats with former hacker Adrian Lamo where Manning claimed to be responsible for the leaked video, and also for 260,000 classified State Department diplomatic cables (memos/reports), an iraq war log, and other material, a portion of the chat's can be found here:
‘I Can’t Believe What I’m Confessing to You’: The Wikileaks Chats | Threat Level | Wired.com

• 26th May, Manning was seized by Army authorities and put into pre-trial detention in Kuwait after Lamo tipped off the FBI.

• US government panics over potential release of the classified cables discussed by manning and a manhunt for Julian Assange (wikileaks spokesperson and editor in chief) is rumoured:
With Rumored Manhunt for Wikileaks Founder and Arrest of Alleged Leaker of Video Showing Iraq Killings, Obama Admin Escalates Crackdown on Whistleblowers of Classified Information

• 25th July 2010 - Wikileaks released a file containing almost 80,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. 15,000 of the Afghan reports were (and still are) temporarily withheld by wikileaks.
Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010 - WikiLeaks

• 30th July, in an apparent reaction to US government threats wikileaks released a huge (1.4gb), mysterious encrypted file simply named 'insurance' with no description. The file is rumoured to be the entirety of the leaked documents still held by wikileaks as insurance incase something happens to wikileaks or assange.
WikiLeaks Posts Mysterious ‘Insurance’ File | Threat Level | Wired.com

• Thursday 5th august 2010, Defense Department Press Briefing takes place in which pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell requests wikileaks remove all relevant data from the wikileaks servers or further action would be taken.
C-SPAN Video Player - Defense Department Press Briefing

The whole thing is quite fascinating and looks to be a pivotal point in the life of wikileaks.

I was wondering what the general consensus was here on the morals of Manning and the wikileaks organisation, and also the US military who seem to be spending more public time demonizing wikileaks and its whistleblowers than discussing the deaths of civilians which have came to light due to the release of classified documents.

Should sites like wikileaks be available to help make governments accountable and to keep them as honest as possible? I think yes. Is there a limit to what wikileaks should make available when war is still ongoing? Hmm.

Im somewhat undecided on all accounts, on the one hand i feel really sorry for Manning, going by the chatlogs he seems like a bright guy who became very disillusioned by the war effort and what he saw as lying and propaganda. He states he wanted the truth out for everyone to make their own minds up. On the other hand he seemed to have ego invested into this, why approach lamo at all? And there's no way he could've known what all of the 260,000 leaked diplomatic cables discussed, there's potential for serious damage in relations between the US and other countries like china etc.

As far as wikileaks goes i honestly dont see what the US can do to take the site down without the cooperation of foreign governments or illegal activities.

This is how I view it. Wikileaks as far as I understand it does not go out and find sensitive material. That would be espionage and the government would have power to act. No, instead, sensitive material is given to them.

Wikileaks never made any oath of secrecy to the government. Only those who made an oath of secrecy can be held in the court of law for breaking it! Since wikileaks has made no oath, wikileaks has no obligation to keep secrets secret.

The fact that government has had to demonize wikileaks via the media, instead of handling this quietly over the court of law, is in my opinion, because the government has no legal grounds to punish wikileaks. The only one who can be punished for their 'crime' is one or the ones who gave wikileaks the sensitive material, because no doubt this person did take an oath. The only legal battle as far as I understand, is whether or not wikileaks has the right to remain silent, or the right to disclose this individual.

Who ever this person is or persons are, I believe that they already knew that the government would find them and arrest them. I believe they already knew what they were sacrificing for the sake of truth. It's only a matter of time.

I believe we should honor their sacrifice. They probably have a family and loved ones and are probably heading for life in jail - just so we americans can know the truth.

For those who don't know, the man who gave wikileaks the recent video of the shootings is in jail - for a very very long time. Does the punishment fit the crime?

There isn't much to say about this. The soldiers that shot innocent people because they were careless should be kicked out of the army. The officers trying to cover it up should be arrested. The person who leaked it should be set free. And the site should be praised for posting it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alric

There isn't much to say about this. The soldiers that shot innocent people because they were careless should be kicked out of the army. The officers trying to cover it up should be arrested. The person who leaked it should be set free. And the site should be praised for posting it.

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Agreed. 100% :thumbup:

thank god i am not alone. i was starting to think that spreading information was EVIL.

It isn't WikiLeaks vs the U.S..

Countries all over the world are blocking WikiLeaks, the U.S. isn't. The reason it hasn't blocked WikiLeaks is because the result would be an exodus of Americans supporting WikiLeaks for the simple fact of free speech and free media to prevent censorship. Ironically, the military can't do anything legally, but it HAS said it could take action through cyber attacks. They could plug up the networks for WikiLeaks etc., which would be no different than censorship. This means they have already come out and said that they want to censor WikiLeaks like all the other countries, but they are in a pickle because it could open a whole new can 'o worms.

Further looking into things, why is it that the military didn't block WikiLeaks from government computers, but is telling military personnel that if they access or download any classified documents from WikiLeaks, then it will open up Pandora's box in the legal sense? All it would take is one military personnel to download a confidential document from WikiLeaks, then mass e-mail personnel. The result is multi-million dollars in damages for having to scrub each computer. This is beyond retarded.

Would people be naive enough to believe that in order to block access to WikiLeaks in the government sector that the public sector would have to be censored too?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alric

There isn't much to say about this. The soldiers that shot innocent people because they were careless should be kicked out of the army. The officers trying to cover it up should be arrested. The person who leaked it should be set free. And the site should be praised for posting it.

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the same goes for those who were arrested for filming police officers abusing their powers. both sets of officers just want to cover their asses. leaks of sensitive information aren't anything new, but at present day these things can reach a larger audience faster and potentially influence audits to organizations who're supposed to be acting in our interests.

I think what Wikileaks is doing is great, although I'm a little wary of them because they get money from MSM groups. Meh.

So long as they don't leak anything that'll endanger the war effort/NATO soldiers.

Incase anyones interested, the cables have been released on the guardian newspaper site and are due to be released in a few hours on wikileaks (which is currently under DDOS attack). They look pretty damaging. take for instance this:
US diplomats spied on UN leadership | World news | guardian.co.uk

Apparently a republican has demanded that Wikileaks is added to the US's list of terrorist organisations.

A republican terrified of the truth... whatever next?

The entire republican party relies on ignorance. If these things are posted free on the internet, they will loss a lot of support. They also spend most of their time demonizing the sites that report the problem, instead of fixing the problem itself. Remember when photos were leaks of Guantanimo Bay prisoners being tortured?

Running in the same vein as America doing stupid bullshit, have some anti-America propaganda:

https://americathegrimtruth.wordpress.com/

Cool post... I actually agreed with pretty much everything there to varying degrees. I've always found the rhetoric about 'freedom' half humorous, half disturbing, and put it down to a historical thing which has been maintained by ignorance of the surrounding world.

I also think America's been in decline for a while... the entire place seems to be suffering from some kind of popular malaise. The American people just don't seem to have the willpower any more to be a powerhouse of manufacturing. The government is racking up crushing debt, and there are oil shocks and further financial disasters just around the corner. Whenever you see the place it just seems to have a tired, decaying look about it.

I'm just hoping America's boat stays afloat long enough for me to secure a permanent residence elsewhere and convert all my American assets to more stable, foreign ones.

It isn't just the US that is sinking. The eurozone is collapsing after an extremely short run at things. Australia's government already does things like censoring the internet, and China controls most of asia, and it is one of the least free countries in the world, developed or otherwise. The only thing that I didn't agree with is that the only option is to flee the country, since that isn't much of an option these days. If the United States goes through catastrophic and sudden systemic collapse, the rest of the world will have it's own hard time staying afloat. In my opinion, the best thing to do is to stay where you are and try to carve out your own micro community to make as self-sustainable as possible.

At the very least one should distance themselves from major cities. I can't imagine a worst place to live in a society that's on its way to economic hell.

True, true. I'm quite glad to be living in a small village with a wood burner, solar panels, a garden, and quite a bit of game.

I'm not sure what's going to happen with the Eurozone... but it's looking quite likely that America and Europe could have trouble at the same time, which would be a pretty terrible perfect storm.

The UK's relatively insulated from the Euro crisis fortunately. I'm not an expert but you also have to bear in mind that the countries which are sinking are the tinpot ones. The economic powerhouses in the North are at least showing good growth after cutting back on government debt. It's even been speculated that the Eurozone could be split in two (into the mighty countries and the crappy ones).

The only countries with problems have been the ones which have been crushed by government waste... this is the main problem with America; it's done the opposite thing to the countries which are now doing well. This problem was caused by debt and America has tried to solve it in its traditional manner with more debt... and it looks very much like it's on the brink of recession again, except this time there's nothing left to borrow.

In order to solve the US' public debt crisis, it needs to seriously revamp its tax system. The money for trillion dollar wars and bailouts doesn't come from trees.

In order to solve most of the problems we have, the U.S. needs a major paradigm shift; one that steers away from the superficial pleasures of consumerism, and begins to focus more on the most fundamental deficiency we have - that of humanism.

The more we connect with a financial "bottom line" (a suitable term for the prevalent ideology of today), the more we disconnect from what ensures the longevity of any nation - which is a sense of familiarity and responsibility to one another.

That's just not what is taught over here, though. Sure, it's what people will tell you, during an assembly. It's what people will tell you, during any marketable opportunity, but it is not what we (at least most of us) practice, on a daily basis. At the end of the day, we are taught to look out for number 1. We are taught that our wants and desires are what are most important; that - as long as you are taken care of and can impose your will, to whatever extent - your life is successful.

The "Eurozone" is so commercialized that it is losing track with anything that doesn't have to do with consumerism. It looks at its material accomplishments and places more stock in them that its humanistic accomplishments. Fixing a tax system (or whatever other material system) isn't going to solve anything. It will create a band-aid that will eventually fall apart, whenever greed and #1-ness takes hold again. Unfortunately, we (as a whole) just don't understand that, over here. We flirt with it, but with no sort of consistency. It's not just debt. It's not just 'government.' It's no mere coincidence that the wealthiest nations of the world also tend to have the most internal problems. We can bitch and moan about what systems work and what systems don't, but at the end of the day, the systems are only as good as the people who create and perpetuate them.

The West doesn't need an economic fix, it needs a psychological one.

/rant. :P

What do you mean by Eurozone..?

Actually, I meant the West. I thought that's what you meant, when you used it. U.S., Europe, even Australia. You know; the West. If that's not what you meant, then I withdraw the term. Been drinking and just felt like ranting. :P

[Edit:]
But, I see that you differentiated U.K. from the rest of 'Europe', so you probably weren't talking about the U.K. Personally, though, I think all of the West has their hand too far in the cookie jar, but as far as the U.K. is concerned, that's just the impression I've gotten, from over here.

We do love cookies. There's no denying that.

So what do you guys think is instore for the US? I see that the fed have started another round of quantitative easing and some countries like Brazil, China and Russia seem to be turning away from the dollar.. eg: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2...t_11599087.htm

I really need schooling on this subject as much as it interests me, i just wonder how long the US can continue printing paper before people completely lose faith in its ability to pay debts. Surely the US needs to take the pain now and begin saving more money, shrinking the state and producing more goods?

lol yeah, I was just confused by your post. Eurozone is a common term which means anywhere which uses the Euro as currency. The UK is very intimately linked with the Eurozone but we're not officially in it (we use good ol' pound sterling).

There's a lot of talk in the news of trouble in the Eurozone at the moment due to the debts of countries like Spain, Greece, and Portugal. The rest of the Eurozone is linked to these countries and has a degree of obligation to help them out. Ireland was bailed out a few days ago and there are fears that the instability could spread.