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Wikileaks
A radical new development in the fight against censorship emerged in 2006. Wikileaks allows whistleblowers to upload documents which may prove embarrassing to governments and corporations without risk of harrassment.
Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations.
- Raffi Khatchadourian: No Secrets: Julian Assange's mission for total transparency
Assange is an international trafficker, of sorts. He and his colleagues collect documents and imagery that governments and other institutions regard as confidential and publish them on a Web site called WikiLeaks.org. Since it went online, three and a half years ago, the site has published an extensive catalogue of secret material, ranging from the Standard Operating Procedures at Camp Delta, in Guantánamo Bay, and the "Climategate" e-mails from the University of East Anglia, in England, to the contents of Sarah Palin's private Yahoo account. The catalogue is especially remarkable because WikiLeaks is not quite an organization; it is better described as a media insurgency. It has no paid staff, no copiers, no desks, no office. ... Key members are known only by initials — M, for instance — even deep within WikiLeaks, where communications are conducted by encrypted online chat services. The secretiveness stems from the belief that a populist intelligence operation with virtually no resources, designed to publicize information that powerful institutions do not want public, will have serious adversaries.
- White House condemns release of Afghan war documents
A hacker-founded whistleblower website called Wikileaks has released [July 25, 2010] close to 75,000 documents, from the battlefront in Afghanistan, which purportedly show the complicity of Pakistani spy agencies and the Taliban in waging a war against Western military forces.
- In Disclosing Secret Documents, WikiLeaks Seeks 'Transparency'
WikiLeaks.org, the online organization that posted tens of thousands of classified military field reports about the Afghan war on Sunday, says its goal in disclosing secret documents is to reveal "unethical behavior" by governments and corporations.
- 'Data journalism' scores a massive hit with Wikileaks revelations
The emerging form of disclosure through the internet, pioneered so successfully in the past couple of years by Wikileaks, deserves our praise and needs to be defended against the reactionary forces that seek to avoid exposure.
Cablegate
On November 28, 2010, Wikileaks began releasing the first of 250,000 secret, confidential and NOFORN ('not to be shown to foreigners') cables sent between the U.S. State Department and numerous U.S. embassies around the world, cables which, in the words of Israel Shamir, "throw a bright light upon the murky policies of the American Imperium, on their methods of collecting information, of delivering orders, of subverting politicians and robbing nations."
Predictably, the U.S. State Department condemned the release, and there have been attempts to block the Wikileaks Cablegate website. An advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has even called openly in a TV interview for Assange's assassination. Acting in her role as U.S. puppet the Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has declared WikiLeaks to be "acting illegally" — without, however, saying which law in which country has been broken (and Julian Assange is rightly considering suing her for slander).
It was the Zionist Senator Joe Lieberman who leaned on Amazon to ban Wikileaks from its servers. And he also leaned on Tableau Software to prevent Wikileaks using its visualization software to display some things graphically. It's so amusing to see people like Lieberman and Hillary Clinton (who "waxed lyrical in a speech in January about an Internet free of government interference") squirming in the light of the Wikileaks revelations. They show no reluctance to invade the privacy of ordinary people but these hypocrites complain loudly when the tables are turned. And note that people such as Lieberman and Clinton have a right to privacy only as ordinary people, not when they are acting as the official (elected or appointed) representatives of the citizens who elected the government of which they are part.
"The website of whistle-blowing organisation Wikileaks has been shut down
by the company [EveryDNS.net] providing it with domain name services."
The Wikileaks and Cablegate websites can still be accessed via several IP addresses, as given at Wikileaks Mirrors (the IP addresses for Cablegate are: 91.194.60.90, 91.194.60.112 and 204.236.131.131). If that URL goes down also then that page can be accessed via: http://87.102.255.157 For a complete list of mirrors see Cryptome's page.
Support for AssangeWe protest at the attacks on WikiLeaks and, in particular, on Julian Assange. The leaks have assisted democracy in revealing the real views of our governments over a range of issues which have been kept secret and are now irreversibly in the public domain. All we knew about the mass killing, torture and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan has been confirmed. The world's leaders can no longer hide the truth by simply lying to the public. The lies have been exposed. The actions of major corporations such as Amazon, the Swiss banks and the credit card companies in hindering WikiLeaks are shameful, bowing to US government pressure. The US government and its allies, and their friends in the media, have built up a campaign against Assange which now sees him in prison facing extradition on dubious charges, with the presumed eventual aim of ensuring his extradition to the US. We demand his immediate release, the dropping of all charges, and an end to the censorship of WikiLeaks.
— Letter to The Guardian (UK), 2010-12-10, from John Pilger and 17 others
Clearly, the world will never be the same. Now's the time for all ordinary people to say "Fuck you!" to the American Imperium and to the corporate capitalist global elite (with the U.S. government as its compliant tool) — and none too soon. And also to all the puppet governments (Sweden, Australia, Canada and others) upon which the American Imperium depends; without their active support it cannot last long.
Further reading:
- Why Amazon Caved, and What It Means for the Rest of Us
- Darren Pauli: Wikileaks site down ... but not out
- WikiLeaks site's Swiss registrar dismisses pressure to take it offline
- Okke Ornstein: How WikiLeaks builds a global open source insurgency
- Deepa Kumar: WikiLeaks, Iran, and the US's Arab Allies: What the Corporate Media Are Not Saying
- Bruce Sterling's take on Wikileaks
- U.S. Subpoenas Twitter Over WikiLeaks Supporters
- The War on WikiLeaks: John Pilger's Investigation and Interview With Julian Assange
- Expressen, 2011-03-11: Interrogator [Irmeli Krans] in the Assange case friend with woman [Anna Ardin] accusing Wikileaks founder
- James Moore: WikiLeaks and the myth of objective journalism
- Moon of Alabama: The Thaileaks — "He [Andrew MacGregor Marshall] sets those cables [from the U.S. embassy and consulate in Thailand] into detailed and lucid political and historic context in a four part Thaistory."
- Chase Madar: Bradley Manning: American hero — Four reasons why Pfc Bradley Mannning deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom, not a prison cell.
- Harry Browne: Dublin Wikileaks Cables Reveal Irish Govt. Groveling to the US
The revelation that a senior Irish official discussed possible amendments to domestic criminal law with the US ambassador is contained in a Wikileaks cable ... Like many of the cables from around the world, the Dublin cables so far revealed through Wikileaks show US diplomats effectively united with their local counterparts against a common enemy: the people — whether the people take the form of anti-war activists, jurors or voters in an upcoming election.
Added later:
- Steve Fishman and New York Magazine: Perception Management
- Julian Assange files new challenge against extradition to Sweden
Details here.
| Julian Assange Walks Out of CNN Interview | |
| Open letter: To Julia Gillard, re Julian Assange | |
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