Category Archives: Wikileaks

Julian Assange is indifferent to lives being put in jeopardy by Wikileaks

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From here:

Julian Assange said U.S. informants named in secret cables ‘deserved’ to be killed and initially refused to redact their names, a new book has revealed.

WikiLeaks published thousands of names of Afghans in 77,000 classified war files put on the whistle-blowing website, attracting criticism from international charities and governments.

In later releases of secret U.S. embassy cables in November around 15 per cent of files were withheld to protect lives and every file was checked before release.

Amnesty International said in a letter to WikiLeaks last year that all names in Afghan war logs should be redacted.

‘We have seen the negative, sometimes deadly ramifications for those Afghans identified as working for or sympathizing with international forces,’ it said.

Assange’s apparent gung-ho attitude in an early meeting to naming to naming U.S. informants stunned his media collaborators, the new book claimed.

The title said he told international reporters: ‘Well, they’re informants so, if they get killed, they’ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.’ The book continues: ‘There was, for a moment, silence around the table.’

If this is true – and there is little reason to doubt that it is – Assange has painted a rather large target on his back. Of course, if he is assassinated – well, he had it coming to him.

Julian Assange: hyper-hypocrisy

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Assange is set to plaster details of the banking habits of rich and famous individuals in large letters across the digital sky:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has vowed to reveal confidential account details of rich and famous individuals he says have evaded taxes after taking delivery of a new dossier from a former Swiss banker.

Whistleblower Rudolf Elmer handed over two CDs filled with data to Mr Assange in London today.

And yet is upset when one of his own leakers tries to out-leak him because, irony of ironies, he has a financial interest in the leaks:

For someone who deals in illicit information, Julian Assange sure gets touchy when people share information against his will…

Now Assange is upset that the Guardian would publish some of the leaked cables without the permission of Wikileaks (ironically, the info had apparently been leaked by a Wikileaker!). According to Vanity Fair, “he owned the information and had a financial interest in how and when it was released.”

Julian Assange wants his bail address kept private

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From here:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tried to hide his bail address from the public in an astonishing move for the man responsible for leaking thousands of diplomatic secrets.

Assange’s lawyers argued that the location – a 10-bedroom stately home – should not be disclosed on grounds of privacy during yesterday’s hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

And who can blame him? After all, it’s so inconvenient to have one’s private life plastered on the Internet for everyone to see.

Poor Julian; now everyone knows he is languishing in a 10 bedroom mansion. We can only hope his telephone is bugged.

What is Wikileaks really about?

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This:

The familiar irony is that the medium used to disseminate the leaked information was invented by the military of the imperialists that these protestors seem intent on smashing. And it is now maintained by the commercial interests of the same imperialists.

To compound the irony, hackers mounting Denial of Service attacks against banks and governments in the name of free speech, by trying to bring down web sites, are actually doing their bit to suppress free speech.

The members of this particular coterie of twerps are the new Luddites: they won’t be happy until they have destroyed the underpinnings of the system that maintains the technology they love to play with. They still won’t be happy, though, because spoilt children that they are, they will have broken all their toys.

Our priorities are Wikiwonky

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A 17 year old boy was arrested recently because he mounted a Denial of Service attack that brought down the servers for the online version of Call of Duty.

Meanwhile, back in the real word (RL as compulsive gamers like to call it), in retribution for cutting off Wikileaks’ funding and saying unkind things about Julian Assange, hackers have mounted Denial of Service attacks on the sites of Visa, Paypal, Mastercard, the Swedish Government, Sarah Palin, and are openly advertising how others can join in the fun.

And no-one has been arrested – well, other than Julian Assange for not using a condom.

Call of Duty is a very good game – if a trifle violent – but it’s difficult not to spot the disproportionate amount of energy the law is expending on protecting on-line gamers while ignoring acts that have the potential to bring down banks and governments.

Any doubts that Wikileaks means business should be dispelled by the sight of the hardened bunkers used to house its servers:

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Submarine engines converted to run a UPS:

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And Wiki Elves toiling away:


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Here is a report from the BBC:

[flv:https://www.anglicansamizdat.net/wordpress/videos/Wikileaks-BBC.flv 700 400]

Anyone who uses “partner” as a verb should be treated with suspicion

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Not that I needed that particular hint to be suspicious of Avaaz.org which has piously proclaimed its support for Wikileaks  (or as a CBC radio announcer intoned on the 5:00 p.m. News the Licky Weaks – he did, really):

The massive campaign of intimidation against WikiLeaks is sending a chill through free press advocates everywhere.

Legal experts say WikiLeaks has likely broken no laws. Yet top US politicians have called it a terrorist group and commentators have urged assassination of its staff. The organization has come under massive government and corporate attack, but WikiLeaks is only publishing information provided by a whistleblower. And it has partnered with the world’s leading newspapers (NYT, Guardian, Spiegel etc) to carefully vet the information it publishes.

This is all nonsense: it has next to nothing to do with freedom of the press and everything to do with Assange’s contempt for the West and his desire to undermine it.

The information he has published may or may not be damaging in itself; what, without doubt, is damaging is the fact that he has published it, destroying any lingering doubts over whether the US is prepared to do what it takes to keep its secrets – secret.

It is too late to stop the information spreading, but it is not too late to send the message that anyone else tempted to indulge in similar informational espionage will suffer the same fate as Assange  – and be “partnered” with the Guardian.

Wimpy Wikileaks founder

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Question: What is the one thing you cannot afford to be if you plan to make a name for yourself by exposing someone else’s secrets?

Answer: thin skinned.

Julian Assange, feels “contaminated” by personal probing, poor dear. I have considerable difficultly in believing that Assange’s revelatory exertions are a product of his disinterested, big-hearted largesse: the whole Wikileaks enterprise is an exercise in a pompous ass’s self promotion. Nothing remarkable about that, I suppose, but when something that really is all about him turns into something less than flattering that is all about him, he takes his ball and runs home crying to mummy.

Poetic justice at its most satisfying.