Geopolitical TMZ/PerezHilton - Wikileaks Cliff Notes

[premium]

They nabbed him in London. Too many security cameras I bet.

[premium]

Or how THEY look at it.

[puppy fields]

[archonemis]

Originally Posted by key_loser

Or just enough security cameras, depending on how you look at it.

I think it blows that we drift closer and closer to a literal and thorough Orwellian society.

OMG, is that duckspeak about newspeak? I totally don't bellyfeel it - LOL. Ungood to the max.

WTF is on TV 2nite?

[archonemis]

Originally Posted by puppy fields

It's almost like a work of art.

[lakeside resort]

Originally Posted by beanie

Know why you don't hear anything about Japan?

Because they're ninjas.

none of their diplomats had the balls to spill any beans. Asian authoritarianism.

[likeothers]

Originally Posted by Willie D

Not soon enough.



Especially re: outing of Afghan sources. Why not just go to Afghanistan and shoot their families and rape their kids?

i've been carefully following wikileaks story for months and months now and have been on-and-off checking its site since its inception (which started out as a wiki-style citizen journalism site that also collected primary source materials (the "leaks" in the wikileaks) ). i have heard this accusation on numerous occasions - but, only when it started leaking state secrets of US, never when it leaked info on any number of other notable leaks that pertained to extra-US entities - but, to date i am yet to hear about any instance of actual physical harm to a person resulting directly from any of the recent leaks. if you have some information i do not i would be interested to see it. i would imagine such an incident would be widely reported and cited by state officials in the US.

as to your other comment that the diplomatic cable leaks have not provided any info of substance... that is demonstrably false. unless you think such information as our secret yemen bombing campaign or hillary clinton's orders to spy on UN officials or its strong-arm tactics used to get other nations on board with the copenhagen accord, etc. as "water-cooler talks".

[puppy fields]

Originally Posted by archonemis

It's almost like a work of art.

you happen to see his bunker? or hear about his 'poison pill'?

[archonemis]

Originally Posted by key_loser

That's a society where the pigs milk the cows and boss around the horses.

You're referring to Animal Farm. I'm referring to 1984.

Cameras everywhere. Reality edited by official information agencies. A political system that controls everything. The populace being largely destitute. Certain thoughts being deemed bad or illegal. Dumbing down of people. An inability of those people to defend themselves due to ignorance and lack of comprehension regarding their subjegation. And so on. All of these things are going on right now.

[archonemis]

Originally Posted by puppy fields

you happen to see his bunker? or hear about his 'poison pill'?

He's the closest thing to a 'freedom fight' this planet has right now.

[Mikio4]

Originally Posted by Denstradamus

State Department: So you're hosting wikileaks websites...


Amazon: Yes Amazon believes in free speech. It's a tradition of journalism. The 4th estate has a right to criticize the ruling power structure. Wikileaks is the forerunner of the new web journalism: independent and not beholden


State Department: They're putting American troops in danger.


Amazon: Save the scare tactics for the housewives from the big rectangular states. You enforce decisions that put US troops in danger everyday. The only thing in "danger" is your inability to save face at the next diplomatic dinner in Prague.


State Department: Julian Assange had an inappropriate relationship with two female employees...


Amazon: Whatever. Classic Black Ops defamation protocol. You're the best at character assassination. Multinationals and diplomats have inappropriate relationships with interns everyday. You've never knocked them.


State Department: How about we contact federal regulators about enforcing online sales tax....


Amazon: Wikileaks will be off our servers in 15 minutes, Madame Secretary. We'll send you an email to confirm this reaction, Madame Secretary. We sincerely apologize. Would you like a gift card? Have you tried our new kindle?


a play in one act by Den.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...&feed=rss.news

Amazon.uk is selling wikileaks excerpts. Won't host it but will gladly profiteer off it.

http://www.startribune.com/world/111...c:aUvckD8EQDUJ

[archonemis]

Yes doi.

Really, though - sometimes it is a bit of a downer when you see a police state forming where you live.

[archonemis]

You aren't important enough to kidnap.

Moreoever, you believe in the system. They love people like you.

[likeothers]

i've been having an ongoing conversation on what exactly is the significance of the wikileaks story on a mailinglist i subscribe to. i thought perhaps it could stimulate the conversation here. in this excerpt, i've basically laid out some of my feelings on the matter. i've only modestly edited it so that it can more or less stand on its own without the context of the conversation.

-----

the main impact these leaks have is
to confirm and put into view what we instinctively suspect the
behavior of states are like behind the veil of secrecy. whether one
admits it publicly or not, such an instinct is an indelible stain on
the psyche of those generations that came after the birth of
information warfare - one only needs
to look at what is being disseminated in popular culture - e.g. at the rise in popularity of high concept movies imagining
all sorts of seedy covert operations state agents execute. whether or
not one approves or disapproves of such things, one
thing seems clear - it is, for all intents and purposes, universally accepted that state
agents are involved in all sorts of extra-legal actions in secrecy.

the historical significance of wikileaks, it seems to me, boils down
to this: it is one thing to read about some shady dealings behind
closed doors in a traditional media outlet, it is quite another to
have at your fingertips, literally, an unprecedented access to documents
detailing day to day inner workings of these state agents that are not
normally in the purview of the general public. even if one does not
actually browse through them herself the mere fact that the primary
source materials are available directly to the public gives any
reporting derived from them an air of autheticity as one can
*potentially* go directly to the source material to verify any claims
based on them. that seems to me quite significant. even if the
cable-leaks seem to be fairly mundane in many cases, it is not the case that all
are as such. and it can't be reasonably argued that they had no
impact. it seems quite clear that the state dept. has escalated its
attempt at shutting down the organization since the cable-leaks and
according to numerous articles it seems that the leaks have had
significant impact - negative or positive - on diplomatic relations of the US - whether it be
short term or not.

on the other hand, opinions of those privy to top secret
clearance seems to be that none of the leaks are the kind which
actually jeopardizes national security in a real tangible sense.
those kinds of information are privy to smaller pool of people that
are easier to and more closely control. if Pfc. Bradley Manning did leak these
documents, he certainly was not privy to any of those kinds of
information (SIPRNet which Manning allegedly used to download these
documents contain only up to documents labeled "SECRET" just one step
above "CONFIDENTIAL" - the lowest level).

as an aside, it seems to me that digitization of secret gov't
documents have had an inadvertently adverse effect on protection of
those documents. it is no longer enough to physically secure the
storage of these kinds of documents. the fact that digitization
allows for easy, efficient, and faithful replication and
near-instantaneous communication of them creates new security
obstacles that can only be addressed digitally. at the same time it
is not feasible to secure them completely offline. the utility of
intranet such as SIPRNet is now critical to efficacy of intelligence
analysts, one reason being the sheer volume of secret documents,
another being time (if all secret documents were to be completely
offline, it would damage the US's capabilities in the landscape of
information warfare, other nations would certainly be able to gather
and analyze intelligence much faster).

[lakeside resort]

waiting for wikileaks rival wikidumps to come out.