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Wikileaks: Something is up

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Re: Wikileaks: Something is up

#41

Post by nolochemical »

eob wrote: post #10
eob wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two reasons: First, the "confession" -- whosever they are trying to elicit -- has more value if given out of paranoia. Think about it this way: you have a brief glimpse into something wrong that happened, but you don't know the full story. Let's say you know 10% of the full story. If you come forward with the evidence, the accused party need only acknowledge or refute the 10% that you've divulged. However if you make…

Still, I think the idea of a small amateur (as far as spycraft is concerned) organization pressuring the DoD like this is insane. They're risking their own wellbeing.

They didnt close Gitmo for no reason, its cost effective to outright eliminate people.

Re: Wikileaks: Something is up

#43

Post by andreyf »

nolochemical wrote: post #41
eob wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, I think the idea of a small amateur (as far as spycraft is concerned) organization pressuring the DoD like this is insane. They're risking their own wellbeing.

They didnt close Gitmo for no reason, its cost effective to outright eliminate people.

Except we never closed Gitmo, and even if we did, the public outcry is associated with that base's name alone. If the military were to rename and move it a couple miles over, the public perception wouldn't ever reach Gitmo levels at least as long as Obama is in office.

Re: Wikileaks: Something is up

#44

Post by biafra »

smackfu wrote: post #36
barrkel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd feel a lot more inclined to donate if they were clearer about where the money went and why they need so much for what amounts to a moderated and anonymized public file share.

IIRC, it was basically funding a couple of salaries. Which uses up money a lot faster than hosting costs. Edit: Oops, it's apparently $600k to fully fund with salaries, and $200k to just fund operations. Still seems crazy high.

It seems high but they are not hosting this information on an easily rented server. First they have to anonymize the data but keep it as authentic as possible. Second (and this is directly from one of the operators of WikiLeaks) they have to host it in a way that it crosses at least 3 jurisdictions from them to you.

They were operating this out of their own pockets. Donations were scarce when they just asked (for years for it) but were still online. When they took away the information and asking for donations they went way up. I did not like this to but he explained it, and it made sense to me.

The one person I personally know from WikiLeaks has been online 20 minutes ago. So at least he seems to be fine.

Re: Wikileaks: Something is up

#45

Post by fnid2 »

sliverstorm wrote: post #40
fnid2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those loyal to truth are often the enemy of all. We all have secrets to hide. Watching a philosopher speak the other day, he said a quote from someone I can't remember, but goes something like this: Those who introspect and attempt to confront the demons within must have more courage than a soldier on the battle field. In this case, if the "leader of the free world" is responsible for something so dramatic that this…

> Those who introspect and attempt to confront the demons within must have more courage than a soldier on the battle field. Nice rhetoric, but I don't buy it. Methinks the author of said quote has never been a soldier.

I thought that too. It's one thing to think about death and another to face it. But I have faced it. 4 times I've almost died: Once I was saved from drowning, I was in two car crashes, and the last time was due to an illness. Everything went blue. My vision shrank to a pin hole and right before I passed out and collapsed, this feeling of peace came over me. I remember thinking, "This is what it is like? This is dying? It's not so bad."

Since then, I've spent more time thinking about life and death and it is through that reflection that I feel fear. I try to imagine not existing. It's hard and I come to some place of blackness which is much more terrifying than that last time I almost died, but in all fairness to soldiers, there were no bullets flying by me, bombs exploding, or adrenaline in my veins.

Re: Wikileaks: Something is up

#46

Post by waterlesscloud »

andreyf wrote: post #43
nolochemical wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didnt close Gitmo for no reason, its cost effective to outright eliminate people.

Except we never closed Gitmo, and even if we did, the public outcry is associated with that base's name alone. If the military were to rename and move it a couple miles over, the public perception wouldn't ever reach Gitmo levels at least as long as Obama is in office.

Which is pretty much what's happening, except it's moving to the other side of the world.

And we're just killing people rather than bringing them in.

So, there's your Gitmo solution.

Re: Wikileaks: Something is up

#47

Post by rdtsc »

fnid2 wrote: post #38
eob wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two reasons: First, the "confession" -- whosever they are trying to elicit -- has more value if given out of paranoia. Think about it this way: you have a brief glimpse into something wrong that happened, but you don't know the full story. Let's say you know 10% of the full story. If you come forward with the evidence, the accused party need only acknowledge or refute the 10% that you've divulged. However if you make…

Those loyal to truth are often the enemy of all. We all have secrets to hide. Watching a philosopher speak the other day, he said a quote from someone I can't remember, but goes something like this: Those who introspect and attempt to confront the demons within must have more courage than a soldier on the battle field. In this case, if the "leader of the free world" is responsible for something so dramatic that this…

> Those loyal to truth are often the enemy of all.

And lately especially of the US govt.

Our govt. holds secrecy of classified information above morality. I am sure CIA and other such agencies have blood on their hands, and they have done many morally questionable things in the name of 'national interest'.

For them morality is only manifested as legal limits -- the amount of stuff they can get away before being found legaly guilty of something. This means two things, they will try to influence the legislative branch to widen up the laws so they can have more 'freedom' (this happened after 9/11, Patriot Act, torture laws etc)., but it also means that they will do things that are clearly illegal if they are sure these things will never be publically released or opened. I think we are dealing with the later -- as set of things that will be hidden forever but un-exectedly got out.

Wikileaks breaks govt.'s modus operandi. At some point there will be a person working for them that will hold morility above their freedom, and professional duty ( and /put tin foil hat on possibly their life). In the past it was much easier to handle and contain such leaks, this becomes much harder with the wikileaks infrastructure.

I am not defending the government here. The truth should and will come out. I just hope wikileaks people know what they are doing and know how to protect their sources. If they compramise their whistleblowers somehow, they will lose credibility.

EDIT (type): second paragraph, 'about' changed to 'above'

Re: Wikileaks: Something is up

#48

Post by kiba »

fnid2 wrote: post #45
sliverstorm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those who introspect and attempt to confront the demons within must have more courage than a soldier on the battle field. Nice rhetoric, but I don't buy it. Methinks the author of said quote has never been a soldier.

I thought that too. It's one thing to think about death and another to face it. But I have faced it. 4 times I've almost died: Once I was saved from drowning, I was in two car crashes, and the last time was due to an illness. Everything went blue. My vision shrank to a pin hole and right before I passed out and collapsed, this feeling of peace came over me. I remember thinking, "This is what it is like? This is dying…

I knew of an economist who has to flee to the United States because he was high on Nazi's wanted men list.

Re: Wikileaks: Something is up

#49

Post by djcapelis »

akikuchi wrote: post #42

New Update: "To those worrying about us--we're fine, and will issue a suitable riposte shortly." http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/10993931099

Yeah but can we even trust that?

I mean probably, but if we're really talking about the wikileaks team being detained for serious business, can we realy trust that no one went and logged onto their twitter account to tell people that these weren't the droids they were looking for?

I'm going to assume they're likely fine, but a post on Twitter hardly provides complete assurance of that. Unfortunately I'm not sure there's really a provable way to deal with this problem that wouldn't compromise too much information.

Re: Wikileaks: Something is up

#50

Post by dkimball »

k33n wrote: post #37
Estragon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why this comment is being voted up. What does it mean, and how does it relate to the comment it's responding to?

It means that the free and open exchange of information is the public's best weapon against corruption.

If that's so, why is Africa still a mess? We have no shortage of knowledge about the scale of corruption south of the Sahara (and north of it); the problem is that those who are prepared to fight in, let's say, Nigeria and those who want to stop corruption in Nigeria are seldom the same people.

In the end, weapons are the most important weapons. If a group of people no longer care about anything but their own power, and they're armed, the thing to do is to deprive them of those arms -- not to catalog their abuses and trust in the power of words.

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