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CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

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Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#271
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to see the dirt on every politician also. But I'm not going to complain because I can only see the dirt on some of them. And if Wikileaks received information about Politician D and did not publish it because they did not have equal information about Politician R to release at the same time then they would be taking an editorial bias in favor of D. Now if you show that Wikileaks sat on information about…

How do you know Wikileaks does all of these things? How do you audit wikileaks?

You can’t know, and you don’t need to know. I think that’s really missing point of what I said. There is no requirement that Wikileaks or any media only publishes simultaneous dirt on opposing politicians. That would be impossible and can never make sense by the own twisted standards people who complain about Wikileaks are constantly coming up with. To make it possible would mean wikileaks would have to hold back publishing dirt on one until they had enough on the other. Which automatically makes Wikileaks biased in that time period in favor of the one they hold back on. Complaining about Wikileaks publishing dirt makes no sense. The only thing that can make sense is if evidence were ever leaked from a whistleblower in Wikileaks that they had dirt on someone they didn’t leak. Then you’d have evidence of bias. Until then there is none.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no reason why the use should be limited, now or in the future. In practice, the information will be fed to automated systems effectively putting everyone into surveillance, and I wouldn't be surprised if the number of manual pulls is in the 100 000 people per year range.

It's up to us to make sure the government doesn't abuse that privilege. There is no reason why the use of the military on our own citizens should be limited either, yet we still have a military.

There is no way for you to make sure the government doesn't abuse that privilege when they can classify their abuses top-secret and prevent anyone from leaking them.

The use of the military on citizens is very severely limited in essentially all democracies. Hell, even in the PRC it is limited.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You do realize she shed light on war crimes right? Do you consider war crimes 'state secrets' that 'exist for a reason'? What warcrimes? Please be specific. Because if you're talking about that Helicopter gunship video, that was not a warcrime, and was selectively edited by Wikileaks to try to make it look worse. All of which made Wikileak's claims far more dubious.

> Because if you're talking about that Helicopter gunship video, that was not a warcrime Since when is killing journalists not a warcrime?

The Apache gunner did not know that they were firing on a journalist, they had believed they were engaging a legal target and were doing so within given rules of engagement. Which is legal. It's a tragedy that they were mis-identified, but again, not a warcrime. Had they known they were non combatants and fired on them still, that would have been a warcrime.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#274
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know Wikileaks does all of these things? How do you audit wikileaks?

You can’t know, and you don’t need to know. I think that’s really missing point of what I said. There is no requirement that Wikileaks or any media only publishes simultaneous dirt on opposing politicians. That would be impossible and can never make sense by the own twisted standards people who complain about Wikileaks are constantly coming up with. To make it possible would mean wikileaks would have to hold back pub…

You're missing the point.

How do you know that wikileaks is trustworthy? Answer please.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#275
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power of liberal democracies is not that bad things never happen in them. The power is that despite all of that, people can still vote and make change. That's why we have amendments and legislature - we see wrong, we try to change it. > 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 wants to decline t…

we see wrong, we try to change it. Exactly! But that's predicated on "we see wrong". What Snowden and Wikileaks (and the various paradise leaks) showed, is that there's a lot of wrongs we don't see. Maybe I didn't specify this explicitly in my earlier post, but my core position is this: attacks on Wikileaks are attacks on the ability for the voting population to see the wrongs, and as such are attacks on democracy it…

So essentially - any attack on wikileaks or journalism/the press in general is an attack on democracy?

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's up to us to make sure the government doesn't abuse that privilege. There is no reason why the use of the military on our own citizens should be limited either, yet we still have a military.

There is no way for you to make sure the government doesn't abuse that privilege when they can classify their abuses top-secret and prevent anyone from leaking them. The use of the military on citizens is very severely limited in essentially all democracies. Hell, even in the PRC it is limited.

When you can control the legislature and presidency, there is a pretty clear path to policing what is labeled top secret.

The problem is to function as a military power you can't just spill the beans on everything. What's your solution here? Magic?

> The use of the military on citizens is very severely limited in essentially all democracies. Hell, even in the PRC it is limited.

It's limited because the people limit it. That's my point - if the people want to limit surveillance they can - whether they choose to or not is up to them.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#277
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The power of liberal democracies is not that bad things never happen in them. The power is that despite all of that, people can still vote and make change. That's why we have amendments and legislature - we see wrong, we try to change it. > 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 wants to decline t…

we see wrong, we try to change it. Exactly! But that's predicated on "we see wrong". What Snowden and Wikileaks (and the various paradise leaks) showed, is that there's a lot of wrongs we don't see. Maybe I didn't specify this explicitly in my earlier post, but my core position is this: attacks on Wikileaks are attacks on the ability for the voting population to see the wrongs, and as such are attacks on democracy it…

> It's ironic for the CIA to claim that Wikileaks "works towards the decline of liberal democracy", when the CIA itself is working to suppress democratic checks and balances.

the CIA in the past has installed brutal dictatorships and actively tortured the most vulnerable of our own citizens. I think it's fair to say protecting liberal democracy is hardly a priority of theirs.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#278
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Publishing reliable information that is politically relevant Trying desperately to turn emails (that amounted mostly to dirty laundry) stolen by a government into manufactured scandals and conspiracies the day after the worst revelations about Russia's preferred candidate dropped was not, and is not, journalism. How on earth can you get something so basic wrong? > We already know that all of his communication in th…

>How on earth can you get something so basic wrong? Nothing you said has any connection to whether it's journalism. He received and published politically relevant information. >We are talking about Assange's official relationship with Russian military intelligence years before he hid in the Ecuadorian embassy So based on something he did in 2016, you think that's proof he was a Russian agent from the mid 2000's that…

Russia hacked both the DNC and the RNC. They only leaked DNC material (via their cutout Wikileaks so people can claim in bad faith it wasn't really Russia), and did so at the time it was most needed by the Trump campaign. If you consider receiving state-hacked materials and leaking them in perfect coordination with a political campaign (see Roger Stone indictment) journalism, then there's nothing else to discuss. Oh, and it wasn't just any political campaign. It was the campaign actively supported by the state actor that gave you the materials to begin with. All common coincidences in the journalism world I guess, right?

> So based on something he did in 2016

Speculation no one can answer, ignored.

> The need for intelligence agencies to keep their information secret is not more important than the accused's right to a fair trial.

You aren't listening to what i'm saying. If you suspect someone of espionage and they are already sitting in prison of sex crime charges, you have no reason to expose the methods and sources you used to catch said person.

And responding to any claim made exposes you publicly to confirm what you know and how you know it, which further damages your intelligence collection efforts. Which is why "show me the evidence" is not in good faith, especially not someone like Snoweden that knows damn well how intelligence works. He knows he won't get push back publicly, so he has complete ownership of the narrative. "None of my leaks results in anyone dying". The American IC is not going to list their assets that were executed in hostile countries as a result, for the reasons I mentioned.

> accused's right to a fair trial

Funny, both Assange and Snowden fled their respective "fair trails" to hide from justice. Neither had any intention of risking jail for "what they believe in" - yet some people still view them alongside whistleblowers that actually did.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#279
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Be skeptical of intelligence agencies" shouldn't be a political perspective.

As I'm sure (by your "scare quotes") you know, the actual Left never believed a damn thing CIA said. They remember all of their comrades killed by CIA. My semi-skeptical praise was for the idea that anyone in public view would act any differently just because there's a new occupant.

I actually don't know anything about the actual left and the fake left. I think you are overestimating how familiar other people are with things you know a lot about.

Re: CIA vs. Wikileaks [video]

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the obvious election fraud caught on camera, forensic evidence, voter roll issues, intimidation of poll watchers, lack of transparency, & the lack actionable oversight that we saw in the 2020 election, is there any hope to reform the corrupt political system or even to ascertain "the consent of the governed"? If you add a backstop against political outsiers gaining office, only insiders who are under control of…

> is there any hope to reform the corrupt political system or even to ascertain "the consent of the governed"? A shared interpretation of reality would be a good start. Most of the things you named in your first sentence happened at such low counts that they had functionally zero impact on the outcome of the election. For starters, there has been no instance of obvious election fraud caught on camera, no forensic evi…

Actually the Fraud caught on camera in Atlanta was shown to have swung the election, if you overlay the surge of Biden votes that occurred when the poll watchers were told to go home yet counting resumed. The problem is there is not institutional effort to investigate the irregularities. The problem with Election fraud is that plausible deniability & passing the buck is too easy to accomplish for any party not willing to prosecute the obvious crimes being committed.

The election fraud is obvious & you know it. Even if you think its not enough to swing the election, we still have a responsibility to investigate.

George Catlin does not need to be a political scientist to state what is obvious. People do not need to "stay in their lane" to participate in political discussions that ultimately affect them in one way or another

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