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Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#821

Post by awacs »

linkregister wrote: post #773
awacs wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur with this view. I don't necessarily think the Wikileaks are not valid, but from my point of view, Wikileaks lost all credibility being 100% anti-Hillary, with zero anti-Trump information released. Somehow I don't think the RNC would have much different internal e-mails floating around at this point. That being said, I read the Goldman transcripts and other things that were supposed to be so damaging, and the…

I don't think it's entirely fair to blame this imbalance on Wikileaks; they may not have received any information derogatory to the Trump campaign. Wikileaks' current agenda appears to be to disrupt Western governments through leaking damaging information. I don't see a clear preference for political parties; the Manning leaks were damaging to the Republican Bush administration. I believe that the most probable sourc…

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I have seen zero information leaked during this election that didn't have an anti-Hillary agenda, content discussion and validity aside. If there is anything critical of Trump, please share. With that being the case, it's clearly beyond a disruption agenda, and a pro-Trump agenda. Again, maybe I just haven't seen anything anti-Trump, but I've looked and found nothing.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#822

Post by snowwrestler »

grandalf wrote: post #699
javajosh wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saddens me greatly to hear this sentiment reflected here at Hacker News. To reject the entire institution of journalism is a radical position, and not justified by fact. Manipulating the timing of release is a common tool used by literally every public figure and institution. To characterize timing manipulation as collusion and to imply that it means no-one can be trusted is a critical mistake. Given my position,…

How is the NYT trustworthy. The front page contains a dozen or so anti-Trump stories and zero about anything in the email leaks. I want to trust the NYTimes but it's hard to take seriously a paper that ignores something important. The same would be true if it had ignored Trump's leaked tax docs.

That is because the recent email leaks just validated what everyone already knew about Hillary Clinton and her campaign.

The fact that the emails were LEAKED OMG is not the newsworthy part. It is what is in them. And largely speaking, there's not much news in them.

IMO a major problem in the U.S. today is that not many people understand how political campaigns or the federal government actually work. So a lot of people can be led to believe that boringly standard practices like revising talking points over email, and getting updates on court hearings, are actually proof of corruption. But they're not.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#823

Post by notahacker »

steamer25 wrote: post #805
HillRat wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, "state actor" could certainly refer to Ecuador deciding to turn off Assange's access. WikiLeaks tends to be fairly economical with the truth about its own operations, so being purposefully ambiguous isn't anything new for them. And, while Ecuador hasn't had to deal with meaningful diplomatic repercussions from sheltering Assange, the high-profile role WL is taking in the 2016 elections, and specifi…

Looks like it was in fact Ecuador: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/788099178832420865 . I haven't seen any word on their explanation, though.

Yup. No explanation from @Wikileaks either (a two day delay after the original enigmatic tweet and kludging yet another reference to Hillary Clinton Goldman Sachs emails - hardly likely to be Ecuador's main concern - into the followup suggests that whoever is managing the Twitter account is more worried about managing the US election news cycle than anything else...)

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#825

Post by whamlastxmas »

xenadu02 wrote: post #693
whamlastxmas wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That website is frankly misleading. Their classifications of "overhead" are ridiculous. Look at the actual filing from the Clinton Foundation itself: https://www.clintonfoundation.org/sites/default/files/clinto... Page 18 and 19. Out of a budget of $217 million, they spent $34 million on direct program expenditures. That's about 16%, not 88% as your link would lead us to believe. Additionally, what is this money spen…

And Trump uses his charity to pay off his businesses legal settlements. Every time we get a new accusation from Trump (Clinton Foundation is a slush fund!!!) it turns out that Trump is actually the one doing it. It's classic mis-direction. Accuse your opponent first to put them on the defensive, then when evidence if your own wrongdoing comes out you can muddy the waters and say no one has clean hands. The Clintons u…

>uses his charity to pay off his businesses legal settlements

This is unproductive and dishonest hyperbole and I'm not going to waste my breath explaining the obvious.

>It's classic mis-direction

So is your post. "Just look at how bad Trump is!".

>to lobby drug companies to give massive discounts on AIDs drugs to poor people

What they've actually done is lobby drug companies into business dealings that make money for everyone. Do you think the drug companies are just giving shit out for free because Hillary and Bill asked nicely? Of course not. This would be like Trump saying he's saved lives by providing employment with health benefits.

>Trump's charity has done nothing charitable

It's funny that you try to say this in the same post as "Trump uses his charity to pay off his businesses legal settlements" because that pay-off was actually a donation to a charity for veterans (something the city of Palm Beach agreed to).

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#826

Post by spaceheeder »

ElComradio wrote: post #791
spaceheeder wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the Stern recordings were getting play during the primaries, but they weren't slowing Trump down since his opposition was split among so many different candidates. The bus tape was archival footage. If you're suggesting that every hour of archival audio and video of Mr. Trump should have been sought after as soon as he became the nominee, then, again, you're underestimating just how volatile and fickle the ne…

Occam's razor _supports_ my take. Regarding Stern, CNN had as "BREAKING NEWS!@ ! " that Trump told Stern it was OK to call Ivanka a piece of ass. Possibly CNN was lying about presenting this as something they just discovered; is that what you are claiming? Yes, I am suggesting that every show would have stuck someone (more likely, a team) on reviewing their material (prioritizing the outtake material, if anything) on…

> I am not clear as to why you think this would not have occurred

Because those "teams" live from headline to headline and those sorts of fishing expeditions are expensive.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#827

Post by spdustin »

kbenson wrote: post #792
linkregister wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's entirely fair to blame this imbalance on Wikileaks; they may not have received any information derogatory to the Trump campaign. Wikileaks' current agenda appears to be to disrupt Western governments through leaking damaging information. I don't see a clear preference for political parties; the Manning leaks were damaging to the Republican Bush administration. I believe that the most probable sourc…

While I'm not sure you can entirely fault Wikileaks for the material they receive, I do believe I can fault them for their release policy. I'm not sure of any reason to dole out the leaks slowly over time, leading up to the election. All that does is reduce the time available to get useful information, context and verification about the leaked data. That seems less about journalism informing the public, and more abou…

That's an excellent point that I had not considered. The doling out of emails over time, segmenting them into topics (should a leak be editorialized?) and offering up what are essentially promotional teases for more data ... that does seem to move the needle away from "journalists educating the electorate" to "politically motivated guy with a chip on his shoulder".

Honestly, Assange shouldn't have been the face behind the leaks. It should've been the agency's "face", and it should've been dumped all at once, like most of their past releases.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#828

Post by linkregister »

awacs wrote: post #821
linkregister wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's entirely fair to blame this imbalance on Wikileaks; they may not have received any information derogatory to the Trump campaign. Wikileaks' current agenda appears to be to disrupt Western governments through leaking damaging information. I don't see a clear preference for political parties; the Manning leaks were damaging to the Republican Bush administration. I believe that the most probable sourc…

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I have seen zero information leaked during this election that didn't have an anti-Hillary agenda, content discussion and validity aside. If there is anything critical of Trump, please share. With that being the case, it's clearly beyond a disruption agenda, and a pro-Trump agenda. Again, maybe I just haven't seen anything anti-Trump, but I've looked and found nothing.

Wikileaks and the Russian-state-linked DCLeaks may have zero anti-Trump documents, but the 1995 Trump tax return and the surreptitiously-recorded sexual assault boast tape are examples of leaks exposed in this campaign. I believe the anti-Trump leaks have had significantly more impact than the anti-Hillary leaks so far.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#829

Post by angry-hacker »

snowwrestler wrote: post #822
grandalf wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the NYT trustworthy. The front page contains a dozen or so anti-Trump stories and zero about anything in the email leaks. I want to trust the NYTimes but it's hard to take seriously a paper that ignores something important. The same would be true if it had ignored Trump's leaked tax docs.

That is because the recent email leaks just validated what everyone already knew about Hillary Clinton and her campaign. The fact that the emails were LEAKED OMG is not the newsworthy part. It is what is in them. And largely speaking, there's not much news in them. IMO a major problem in the U.S. today is that not many people understand how political campaigns or the federal government actually work. So a lot of peop…

And what don't we already know about Trump? Even if true, if this is serious journalism, why they keep printing she said he said? Wouldn't it be excellent time to print the stories of the alleged rape victims of Bill Clinton too? Since they publicly admit he and Hillary is a team? If you think media is not one sides, even if sided slightly more sane side, you're out of your mind.

Re: Wikileaks: Julian Assange's internet access 'cut'

#830

Post by 3princip »

markwaldron wrote: post #407

What are the odds that Donald Trump has reached out to Assange and made a deal with him? I don't think it would be outside the realm of possibility that Trump would say if he won he'd push for the US to drop charges against Assange (although that doesn't clear him of the charges brought by other countries) in return for Assange releasing whatever information he has on Hillary leading up to the election.

Considering that Hillary wanted to "drone" him, it's a safe bet Trump can hardly be worse, deal or no deal.
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