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CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

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Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#121

Post by woodruffw »

rmrfstar wrote: post #120
woodruffw wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm normally loathe to defend any aspect of the US MIC, but I think Pompeo's point is that Wikileaks knowingly publicizes information that has already been processed into Intelligence , and willfully turns a blind eye to its role as a laundromat for hostile powers under the guise of an ideology of totally free data. I, for one, think that all information should be free. I think Pompeo's motivations are suspect and ge…

The primary threat to "liberal democracy" is CIA, DHS, MI5, and MI6. It is not SVR or MSS. This has been true since the Cold War. Who did more harm to "liberal democracy", J. Edgar Hoover (who tried to extort MLK into suicide), or KGB?

I'm not going to play the historical game of who-did-what-is-worse. Hoover was a criminal, and the US MIC/IC has a long history of committing domestic and international atrocities. But, on the long tail of things, I'd rather be subjected to the US legal (and extralegal) system than the Russian legal system. I have more confidence that the former offers just recourse, even if it takes a generation or two.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#122

Post by medicineman »

shadowgovt wrote: post #108
whatshisface wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying this, but never include the story. What's the meat behind the claim that they did this?

The New York Times did reporting on the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Clinton emails that suggested the timing indicated political motivation. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed...

Her entire career has been politics. Releasing any information on her at any time can be suggestive of political motivation.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#123

Post by woodruffw »

tremon wrote: post #119
woodruffw wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm normally loathe to defend any aspect of the US MIC, but I think Pompeo's point is that Wikileaks knowingly publicizes information that has already been processed into Intelligence , and willfully turns a blind eye to its role as a laundromat for hostile powers under the guise of an ideology of totally free data. I, for one, think that all information should be free. I think Pompeo's motivations are suspect and ge…

chiefly benefits powers whose long term vision is the decline of liberal democracy. ...by exposing the hypocrisy of said liberal democracies. What good is a liberal democracy when the demos remains oblivious of the negative aspects what the cracy is doing? If things like the collateral murder videos, or the treatment of Manning and Snowden are the work of said "liberal democracies", then I'm fully in the camp that wa…

No arguments here. The US is a nation of profound and disgusting hypocrisies. But see my sibling comment.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#124

Post by rmrfstar »

woodruffw wrote: post #121
rmrfstar wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary threat to "liberal democracy" is CIA, DHS, MI5, and MI6. It is not SVR or MSS. This has been true since the Cold War. Who did more harm to "liberal democracy", J. Edgar Hoover (who tried to extort MLK into suicide), or KGB?

I'm not going to play the historical game of who-did-what-is-worse. Hoover was a criminal, and the US MIC/IC has a long history of committing domestic and international atrocities. But, on the long tail of things, I'd rather be subjected to the US legal (and extralegal) system than the Russian legal system. I have more confidence that the former offers just recourse, even if it takes a generation or two.

What about this summer? The way DHS and local police specifically targeted journalists? That's way more harmful to "liberal democracy" than some foreign sock puppet dumping evidence of high-level corruption.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#125

Post by bitcharmer »

shadowgovt wrote: post #108
whatshisface wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying this, but never include the story. What's the meat behind the claim that they did this?

The New York Times did reporting on the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Clinton emails that suggested the timing indicated political motivation. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/assange-timed...

The problem I have with this accusation is that it works either way. Had they published after the elections they would have been called a secret Clinton ally. There is always some group to gain/loose politically from exposing documents like that regardless of the timing.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#126

Post by px43 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #113
px43 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BOA leak, and several others, got burned by that Daniel Dumbshit guy over some petty personal disputes on how Wikileaks was run. That's what the Benedict Cumberbatch movie was all about, told from the perspective of the shithead who wiped all that data. Wikileaks had an image of a Bank of America VP laptop with email discussion about the creation and exploitation of predatory loans, and a complete indifference to…

> Wikileaks had an image of a Bank of America VP laptop with email discussion about the creation and exploitation of predatory loans, and a complete indifference to the eventual 2008 crash that they knew it would cause. How do we know this is true if the data was burned?

> How do we know this is true if the data was burned?

Sadly we don't, and likely never will. Assange mentioned the laptop data and hinted at what it might contain in an interview. We do definitely know that a large cache of data got held hostage and eventually burned when fuckhead left. Like I mentioned before, there was a whole Benedict Cumberbartch movie made about the fallout there: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837703/

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#127

Post by woodruffw »

rmrfstar wrote: post #124
woodruffw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to play the historical game of who-did-what-is-worse. Hoover was a criminal, and the US MIC/IC has a long history of committing domestic and international atrocities. But, on the long tail of things, I'd rather be subjected to the US legal (and extralegal) system than the Russian legal system. I have more confidence that the former offers just recourse, even if it takes a generation or two.

What about this summer? The way DHS and local police specifically targeted journalists? That's way more harmful to "liberal democracy" than some foreign sock puppet dumping evidence of high-level corruption.

I agree completely. I look forward to more leaks that discredit and diminish the DHS and law enforcement. But that doesn't mean that I trust Wikileaks to adequately balance the motivations and lensing of its sources with its mission of absolute transparency.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#128

Post by 13415 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #111
yurielt wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After Assange and h Snowden is pretty clear nobody is paranoid the documents are out there the NSA has a system where they monitor people inside and outside the United States the real question is what do you do when they are after everyone

Statistically speaking, they are after hardly anyone. But they have an obvious vested interest in having sufficient data to track the motions of anyone, because they can't know a-priori who is involved in an activity harmful to the interests of the United States of America until they have evidence an activity has happened or will happen and need to begin connecting the dots to identify the pattern. You can't connect…

Talking about "connecting the dots" is a bit naive in this context, though. The NSA has been pursuing what they called a "total information awareness" program since the late 90s / early 2000s. The goal is to collect all digital data about all of the world citizens, so it can be used later in case that's deemed "necessary" for "national security." Basically like Facebook+Google, plus geolocation and mobile phone data and information from national police registers, credit card companies, and travel agencies. All of this integrated and searchable in real-time.

It's a realistically attainable goal for an agency like the NSA. However, the Snowden revelations put it into jeopardy because their prior policy was that merely storing data about Americans is constitutional if it is not queried in an unconstitutional way. It is not. But they are allowed to store anything about anyone else, and they probably still do that. I mean, advertising companies do this at a city block level in many countries already.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#129

Post by dmix »

woodruffw wrote: post #105
for_i_in_range wrote: post #99

He makes an important point early on in outlining the mission of Wikileaks centering on making Data and Information freely accessible to all (the concept of Dataism, for those who have read Yuval Harrari’s HOMO DEUS ). However, the processing of Information into Intelligence that can be acted upon is what characterizes Intelligence agencies. Wikileaks does not concern itself with this phase. Yet, the CIA’s Pompeo is…

I'm normally loathe to defend any aspect of the US MIC, but I think Pompeo's point is that Wikileaks knowingly publicizes information that has already been processed into Intelligence , and willfully turns a blind eye to its role as a laundromat for hostile powers under the guise of an ideology of totally free data. I, for one, think that all information should be free. I think Pompeo's motivations are suspect and ge…

If Wikileaks treats all leaks as equal then I don't see how this argument holds water.

Where else are we going to get insight into the globbal power "underworld", which the intelligence community just happens to always have a finger in? Anonymous sources feeding into New York Times? Because that's all we had before and continue to have today otherwise.

People just don't like when certain inconvenient information comes out and Wikileaks didnt care about the source.

People constantly try to pin ideological stuff on Wikileaks or data leaking in general but that misses the bigger point and it's a point that extends beyond Wikileaks itself and goes into information releasing in general (we don't need to defend Assange personally or Wikileaks itself to be concerned or defend the general idea). I also highly doubt they are selectively choosing NOT to release political information... like news outlets apparently do.

But I also don't care, there's a huge amount of risk and blowback doing such a mission regardless of source or content which we should respect.

They get what they can from where ever and publish it if it has some value to the general public, and we've gotten tons of value from Wikileaks already. So do plenty of other organizations now inspired by Wikileaks, plenty which have exposed corruption in a new way (like Panamaleaks).

The fact this sometimes can have an 'agenda' or be exploited by the original sources will never negate the value of a neutral 3rd party who releases stuff publicly we'd never see otherwise. And will continue to do so as long as operational.

My only fear is that there won't be people brave enough to do this given nation-state harassment and those who think its all a political-inspired conspiracy (which litter every social media site).

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#130

Post by NOGDP »

woodruffw wrote: post #105
for_i_in_range wrote: post #99

He makes an important point early on in outlining the mission of Wikileaks centering on making Data and Information freely accessible to all (the concept of Dataism, for those who have read Yuval Harrari’s HOMO DEUS ). However, the processing of Information into Intelligence that can be acted upon is what characterizes Intelligence agencies. Wikileaks does not concern itself with this phase. Yet, the CIA’s Pompeo is…

I'm normally loathe to defend any aspect of the US MIC, but I think Pompeo's point is that Wikileaks knowingly publicizes information that has already been processed into Intelligence , and willfully turns a blind eye to its role as a laundromat for hostile powers under the guise of an ideology of totally free data. I, for one, think that all information should be free. I think Pompeo's motivations are suspect and ge…

'I think all information should be free. Except anything that could be damaging to CIA, NSA, US government. And only approved actors can release this information. Because uhhh, democracy.' Okay bud.
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