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djones520 wrote:What a lot of you people seem to be missing is why this data was classified in the first place.

No, its just that some of us don't buy into the concept of governments keeping secrets, engaging in clandestine activity, and purposefully misleading the citizens of the country in question.

Stormrider wrote:Interpol wants him on rape charges in Sweden,

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when-it-comes-to-assange-r-pe-case-the-swedes-are-making-it-up-as-they-go-along/

The consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors.

More than three quarters of internet references to his name refer to rape.

Regardless of guilt, that's hilarious.

Ahtman wrote:You keep saying public good but you don't explain what that means, or at least what it means to you. I don't really see much good coming out any of this except inflaming everyone. No one has learned anything they didn't already know. A combat zone is dangerous? WTF are you serious? Diplomats speak candidly in private memos? You have got to be kidding me! Why, the average person is so much more enlightened now! The public good of these items is fairly anemic. Its inflammatory value on the other hand is quite high.

Sharing secrets isn't a valuable service in and of itself, which is mostly what we are getting here.

My understanding is that much of the current batch consists of private diplomatic cables, which were not classified secret, though they would be protected by diplomatic immunity and the diplomatic service's normal standards of behaviour. I don't there has been much to surprise any moderately well-informed observer of the international scene. The shock is merely the embarrassment of such plain speaking being made public.

So I agree these leaks don't have much of a "public interest" defence.

Earlier leaks have included genuinely disturbing material that implicated US forces in various questionable incidents and in cover ups about them. These are matters that it is in the public interest to lay bare and investigate, IMO.

The problematic issue is that the great bulk of these leaks are "anti-American" in the sense that they are leaks of information the US would have preferred to keep secret, which are embarrassing. The relatively innocuous nature of the latest batch makes it look like Assange has got it in for the USA. However the reaction from some US commentators makes it look like the US wants to use the excuse of the recent release to stop him leaking the really important stuff.

If governmental blunders regularly get exposed, it will probably make the government try to be more competent and honest so someday there will be nothing to expose.

Sadly, some people would rather just shoot the messenger (some literally,) don their tin foil hat and live happily ignorant ever after.

I think it's important that people see the screw ups that happen in war not because it will demonize the troops (I think that's a really dumb reaction, the troops are generally doing their best in a crappy situation) but because it brings home to the people funding the war at home how nasty war is. It helps curb gung ho, immature attitudes to warfare. We need to see it for the nasty, often ambiguous and bloody work it is. Seeing that footage doesn't make me hate america, it makes me think "Yup, wars are crap."
Kanulwen's attitude in this thread is far too aggressive, I think. I agree with Sebster (as usual, heh) that yer man himself seems to have poor judgement but that doesn't mean everything on Wikileaks is bad. (he also seems to have an anti USA bias, which hurts his credibility in my mind pretty severely. In terms of dodgy dealings, the US isn't even close to the top, internationally.)

agroszkiewicz wrote:

djones520 wrote:What a lot of you people seem to be missing is why this data was classified in the first place.

No, its just that some of us don't buy into the concept of governments keeping secrets, engaging in clandestine activity, and purposefully misleading the citizens of the country in question.

It's already been discussed that the idea of no classified anything is unlikely and a bad idea. Sometimes you need to have a secret or two. Not everything is for public consumption, whether it be in the public or private sphere.

lord_blackfang wrote:If governmental blunders regularly get exposed, it will probably make the government try to be more competent and honest so someday there will be nothing to expose.

If anything it will just make them more paranoid and tighten security up.


I also don't get this idea that people think war is fun or not difficult. The people that naive probably aren't going to change their mind by any of this stuff and are probably the ones overreacting.

sebster wrote:It kind of reminds me how much some people worship at the temple of state power

You can just as easily worship at the alter of civil disobedience. CD can be a good thing, just as sometimes a state having some authority can be a good thing. The problem is when one just assumes that one is right by virtue of being what it is without looking at the context. CD just for the sake of CD is hollow and meaningless.

Is it just me who wonders whether its possible the US government is putting pressure on the Swedish one to get Assange locked up, in order to tar his name?

Imagine if that plot were real and it got leaked.

Ketara wrote:Is it just me who wonders whether its possible the US government is putting pressure on the Swedish one to get Assange locked up, in order to tar his name?

Yes, it is just you. No one has considered that. It is a silly idea. Of course perhaps another country is putting pressure on them to do so knowing that the tinfoil hat brigade will assume it is the US doing it. Or, perhaps, he might have actually done it. We don't know.

Kilkrazy wrote:Imagine if that plot were real and it got leaked.

Imagine if it were fake and fake details got leaked?


At this point he is almost bullet proof becuase whatever he does or doesn't do, it can all be explained away as a conspiracy against him.

The other thing that can happen is that fake leaks can be made to manipulate public opinion.

Da Boss wrote:I think it's important that people see the screw ups that happen in war not because it will demonize the troops (I think that's a really dumb reaction, the troops are generally doing their best in a crappy situation) but because it brings home to the people funding the war at home how nasty war is. It helps curb gung ho, immature attitudes to warfare. We need to see it for the nasty, often ambiguous and bloody work it is. Seeing that footage doesn't make me hate america, it makes me think "Yup, wars are crap."

Your attitude is a very rare one. Screw-ups that happen in war don't necessarily have to "demonize the troops". They can also break public opinion of supporting the war, with people thinking "This is why our soldiers are dying?!". Look up the US embassy siege in Saigon during the Vietnam War and the effects of it being broadcast on TV.

Kilkrazy wrote:The other thing that can happen is that fake leaks can be made to manipulate public opinion.

Or real leaks can be made to manipulate public opinion. That sword cuts both ways.

Of course, that really is the point of all this isn't it? Official press releases, unofficial releases, real leaks, fake leaks, they are all about public manipulation. I don't mean that as some conspiracy either. Different ideas are competing and so they try to get their message out.

Dogma was probably right when he wrote that Assange is a puppet of the CIA or some other governmental entity that is getting out it's information in a clandestine way. That is the real plot.

Ahtman wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:The other thing that can happen is that fake leaks can be made to manipulate public opinion.

Or real leaks can be made to manipulate public opinion. That sword cuts both ways.

Of course, that really is the point of all this isn't it? Official press releases, unofficial releases, real leaks, fake leaks, they are all about public manipulation. I don't mean that as some conspiracy either. Different ideas are competing and so they try to get their message out.

Dogma was probably right when he wrote that Assange is a puppet of the CIA or some other governmental entity that is getting out it's information in a clandestine way. That is the real plot.

Indeed.

I think the sudden success of Wikileaks has given it a cachet which could be exploited by leaking false information.

Anyway we all know no government could possible lie about killing civilians or coverup freindly fire incidents

(seriously america needs to work on reducing the freindly fire)

Wikileaks should be used to release evidence of wrongdoing etc not mundance diplomatic cables

things like the collecting info on diplomats (apparently things like passwords and credit card numbers aswell as biometric data), the air strikes in yemen and coverups should have been the focus

Releasing 10 damning documents is far for damaging than losing them in 250,000 "meh" ones

The plot thickens.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11911162

Ahtman wrote:

Ketara wrote:Is it just me who wonders whether its possible the US government is putting pressure on the Swedish one to get Assange locked up, in order to tar his name?

Yes, it is just you. No one has considered that. It is a silly idea. Of course perhaps another country is putting pressure on them to do so knowing that the tinfoil hat brigade will assume it is the US doing it. Or, perhaps, he might have actually done it. We don't know.

That is correct. The very concept of the US government making a smear campaign against someone who is proving of tremendous irritation and embarassment to them, is of course, an unthinkable and silly idea. /sarcasm off

I'm not saying its the case. But knowing how badly the US government reacts to being embarassed, and the unnecessary lengths they sometimes go to as a result of that (the Gary Mckinnon case springs to mind, amongst others), I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility. Considering how ridiculous the rape laws there appear to be, one wonder if this would even have come up if he wasn't in the position he is now.

Ketara wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Ketara wrote:Is it just me who wonders whether its possible the US government is putting pressure on the Swedish one to get Assange locked up, in order to tar his name?

Yes, it is just you. No one has considered that. It is a silly idea. Of course perhaps another country is putting pressure on them to do so knowing that the tinfoil hat brigade will assume it is the US doing it. Or, perhaps, he might have actually done it. We don't know.

That is correct. The very concept of the US government making a smear campaign against someone who is proving of tremendous irritation and embarassment to them, is of course, an unthinkable and silly idea. /sarcasm off

I'm not saying its the case. But knowing how badly the US government reacts to being embarassed, and the unnecessary lengths they sometimes go to as a result of that (the Gary Mckinnon case springs to mind, amongst others), I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility. Considering how ridiculous the rape laws there appear to be, one wonder if this would even have come up if he wasn't in the position he is now.

It isn't the idea that is silly, it is the idea that you are the first to consider it, or at least pretend that you were the only one. It also isn't that your idea is entirely unfounded either, it is that it is to narrow in scope. The US doesn't have a monopoly on any of the things you state and would not be the only ones to profit from both smearing Assange as well as making the US look bad. Of course the truth is we don't know what happened. It is entirely possible that he is both a political agitator and a rapist, or one, or neither.

As far as I can gather both women entered into sexual intercourse with him willingly... but his condom broke, they say they asked him to stop after this happened, he says they didn’t, and either way he didn’t. And then rape charges were filed.

Ketara wrote:Is it just me who wonders whether its possible the US government is putting pressure on the Swedish one to get Assange locked up, in order to tar his name?

I kind of felt this way, but the sex crime deal in sweden has been a pretty long term thing. Given what I've read of Assange and my own knowledge or personality types/proclivities its entirely possible that he latched onto this Wikileaks idea in order to keep the sting of a rape trial off himself.

Then again, it IS entirely possible that its a smear campaign. Really its up to the observer to make their own call.

Yes.

It's a smear campaign, that was done "just in case" Assange leaks documents. They sent two women to have sex with him and sabotaged the condoms.

Those devious bastards!

It's a smear campaign regardless of whether he is actually guilty of rape or not. Just look at it, there's a notice about him on top of Interpol's webpage http://www.interpol.int/
Your run-off-the-mill rapists don't get this kind of publicity, do they? Interpol doesn't usually even deal with rape (there seem to be only about 50-ish wanted rapists in their database and none of them have a front-page notice)

Did you actually read the notice or just see it?

If you haven't:

LYON, France - INTERPOL has made public the Red Notice, or international wanted persons alert, for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the request of Swedish authorities who want to question him in connection with a number of sexual offences.

The Red Notice for the 39-year-old Australian, which was issued to law enforcement in all 188 INTERPOL member countries on 20 November, has now been made publicly available by INTERPOL following official authorization by Sweden.

All INTERPOL National Central Bureaus (NCBs) have also been advised to ensure that their border control agencies are made aware of Assange's Red Notice status, which is a request for any country to identify or locate an individual with a view to their provisional arrest and extradition.

Many of INTERPOL's member countries however, consider a Red Notice a valid request for provisional arrest, especially if they are linked to the requesting country via a bilateral extradition treaty. In cases where arrests are made based on a Red Notice, these are made by national police officials in INTERPOL member countries.

INTERPOL cannot demand that any member country arrests the subject of a Red Notice. Any individual wanted for arrest should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

I'm sure run-of-the-mill rapists don't get this kind of publicity simply because they're not him, unless they're particularly heinous individuals who've made the news beforehand.
However, with Assange, something crops up that affects how this is going to be perceived. He's a public figure. The allegations were going to get public attention, regardless of how this case was handled.
When Swedish authorities originally filed a request with British authorities for extradition, it made the news.

Was that a "smear campaign"?

Who can say?

No-one would bother to smear a two-bit non-entity.

OTOH, just being an Internet Celebrity doesn't mean you cannot be genuinely suspected of a crime.

I don't know the timing of the alleged offences, the complaints from the women involved and the US reaction to different sets of leaks. This surely is important in forming an idea of whether it is or isn't a smear.

Kilkrazy wrote:Who can say?

No-one would bother to smear a two-bit non-entity.

Exactly. But then again...

OTOH, just being an Internet Celebrity doesn't mean you cannot be genuinely suspected of a crime.

This is also in effect. And of course, whenever someone who is "sticking it to the man" is suspected of a crime, it OBVIOUSLY has to be a conspiracy to take them into custody where they'll disappear and Jack Ruby will get them!

I don't know the timing of the alleged offences, the complaints from the women involved and the US reaction to different sets of leaks. This surely is important in forming an idea of whether it is or isn't a smear.

The complaints from the women involved were after he leaked "documents from the Afghan conflict" and that's really all I can find about it.

I believe he is alleged to have shagged them when he visited Sweden in August. The Afghan leak was earlier than that.

reds8n wrote:

Stormrider wrote:Interpol wants him on rape charges in Sweden,

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when-it-comes-to-assange-r-pe-case-the-swedes-are-making-it-up-as-they-go-along/

The consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors.

Oh the mighty Swedish authorities

Stormrider wrote:

reds8n wrote:

Stormrider wrote:Interpol wants him on rape charges in Sweden,

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when-it-comes-to-assange-r-pe-case-the-swedes-are-making-it-up-as-they-go-along/

The consent of both women to sex with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors.

Oh the mighty Swedish authorities

You're aware that consent can actually be retracted in some cases, right?

Like say...ohhhhh, a condom breaks in the middle of intercourse. Which is what's claimed to have happened.

The women are both saying that when the condoms broke, they "told him to stop and put a new condom on, but he refused to and just kept going".
It's a reach to say that it's "rape" in anything but the loosest sense...but consent can be withdrawn during sex.

Indeed. It's a bit difficult to prove such an offence though, is it not? She can say she told him to stop, he can say she didn't. Which is what's happened. It's not quite the same as him breaking into his wicked way with them.

Kanluwen, I could have an interesting and detailed discussion about whether it could or could not be a smear campaign, and we could go through all the different historical precedents, and the facts of this case, and it would probably be quite interesting. If it was with another poster, say sebster.

The problem is, you seem to follow the 'figure of authority' be it GW, the US government, or whoever it is in the topic of discussion so blindly, that frankly, I don't think the conversation would turn out being that way. And that's actually a real shame. Not the stance you choose to argue your corner, but the fact that I perceive that if I even tried to have an interesting conversation with you, you'd refuse to budge an inch from whatever you say in your initial statement, treat the whole thing like its an argument, and as if anyone who disagrees with you is stupid. It's a real shame that it makes me not actually want to have a conversation with you. It truly is.

Ketara wrote:Indeed. It's a bit difficult to prove such an offence though, is it not? She can say she told him to stop, he can say she didn't. Which is what's happened. It's not quite the same as him breaking into his wicked way with them.

"No" means just that though, Ketara. It means "No". Of course, the whole thing would be moot and solving it in making the public establish either a "guilty" or "not guilty" if it were a child or teenager that was making the accusations(what? he's a child molester? who cares if he's a public figure, burn him!) or if the women were seeking monetary recourse(oh, they want money? obviously they're lying or being put up to it!).

It's also worth noting that in these kinds of cases where consent is retracted mid-intercourse, they have actually successfully prosecuted...but mostly when STDs are involved(reckless endangerment of the public is one that I remember, but I don't remember an exact case name. Man with AIDS was engaged in sex while wearing a condom, it broke and he kept going without informing his partner the condom broke).

Kanluwen, I could have an interesting and detailed discussion about whether it could or could not be a smear campaign, and we could go through all the different historical precedents, and the facts of this case, and it would probably be quite interesting. If it was with another poster, say sebster.

No, you couldn't. This case has been in the works since before the US government really got upset with Assange, and as has been mentioned...
It's not necessary to make a smear campaign on someone if they truly are guilty of a crime.
There's also of course, been the suggestion that he's only doing the leaks of diplomatic cables right now to avoid prosecution for these rape charges and to garner sympathy for himself and the ability to claim the charges are politically motivated(despite Sweden not being a country targeted by any of the leaks).

If you really want to go into conspiracy theories, I like that one.

But there's also the fact that he claims that he's going to be assassinated by Western intelligence agencies(really? The guys who leaked the Pentagon Papers, arguably far more important than any of the crap he's leaked so far, weren't killed). Sounds so much better as a public stance than him admitting that he is evading the police for questioning in relation to these rape allegations.

Which is another thing that bugs me about the whole thing. He's wanted for questioning. They're stating it like they're waiting to question him until they finally decide if they can actually prosecute or not.

The problem is, you seem to follow the 'figure of authority' be it GW, the US government, or whoever it is in the topic of discussion so blindly, that frankly, I don't think the conversation would turn out being that way.

This makes so little sense to it makes me want to poke you with a stick loaded with some of my posts. But I'll refrain. You have to come to me with actual proof, not coincidences or hearsay to make me change my mind from backing an entity that I find credible(To give an example... if you had came to me saying "DARK ELDAR ARE SQUATTED! I HEARD IT ON THE INTERNET!" while Games Workshop was saying "We're in the process of redoing them, we're just not sure exactly how we're going to do them.." You better have a signed memo from GW's development team stating some solid evidence to prove something so blatantly against what they're saying/doing).

And that's actually a real shame. Not the stance you choose to argue your corner, but the fact that I perceive that if I even tried to have an interesting conversation with you, you'd refuse to budge an inch from whatever you say in your initial statement, treat the whole thing like its an argument, and as if anyone who disagrees with you is stupid. It's a real shame that it makes me not actually want to have a conversation with you. It truly is.

Fair enough, I will admit I'm not the greatest in debates on the Internet.

I still will hold on to my stick poking rights though.