US slams 'criminals' behind WikiLeaks

UncannyGarlic said:
I agree but apparently they are considered a journalistic organization and that would be extremely difficult to argue otherwise in court. There is something to be said for licensing journalists in a manner similar to how Lawyers and Engineers are licensed in order to grant them the extra legal protection but the issue comes in how licensing is decided..
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Just the people working for Wikileaks are not professional journalists nor are they a organisation even similar to investigative journalism or some newspaper which are somewhat responsible for the information they show. Yes freedom of spech works both ways. And even a journalist has to act within the laws of his nation. It is somewhat an gray area but it works most of the time.

Investigative journalism par excellence is what Anna Politkovskaya and the Nowaja Gazeta did and she got probably killed for her work. Or Günter Wallraff which is incognito researching as undercover journalist about the conditions of Gearman guest workers. I also can not see either Assanage or Wikileaks contributing to the situation about the world in the same way as Rebiya Kadeer which aims To Help Uyghur People from Exile

The problem which I see here and BN explains very nicely (not talking about you garlic) is that some seem to have a very huge bias toward the gouvernement and it smells almost to me like those conspiracy theories. I would not be surprised if most of the people here which hold some grudge against "their" gouvernemt life in one of the democtatic states like the USA or those in Europe. Truth is even if we dont like everything in our gouvernemt it doesnt work without them. And I think when it comes to the state it self its not that bad as some explain it here.
 
Here's an article which discusses the issue of whether or not they are journalists. I think that the conclusion is pretty reasonable:
That’s what defines professional journalism. It’s not the paycheck. It’s not the type of employer. It’s the tool-gathering skill set. It’s the knowledge to verify and test for accuracy, to provide context via other sources and to provide opportunity for the subjects to respond. It’s about acting responsibly, recognizing the potential harm in the information and vetting it to ensure safety of person and security of government.
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But there does not seem to be a strict difference between Wikileaks and a news organisation. I don't see how you can seperate them legally. I wouldn't call them good journalists or freedom fighters, but they're not criminals/enemy combatants.

Edit: post before garlic
 
Directly from the Blog you linked:

If you’re looking for consensus on WikiLeaks, don’t ask a group of journalists. Several of our committees have been batting around the ramifications all week, and we can’t even agree on the most basic question: Is WikiLeaks journalism?
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It's the first paragraph!
Just because she herself thinks that it is journalism doesn't mean anything, she's free to think so, but only an US court will be able to define if it's journalism in the USA.
I'm no expert for US-american law, but i guess it's quite common for them. Because a lot of people claim their work is art - and therefore protected (e.g. banned pornography). Or they claim it falls under freedom of speech (e.g. racial slurs).

Courts might rule out journalism if the personal contribution is too little. Or they think they don't follow a strict ethical codex (you know like threatening the USA to release more dangerous material if Assange gets into one of their prisons - or accepting help from Hackers or anything like that)...
 
So you have to to put much more persons in jail like "Mick Jagger" or maybe "Robbie Williams"...thinking also of some politicians...

You are just an envy person...nothing left to say
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[joke]Yes, envy![/joke]

Courts might rule out journalism if the personal contribution is too little. Or they think they don't follow a strict ethical codex (you know like threatening the USA to release more dangerous material if Assange gets into one of their prisons - or accepting help from Hackers or anything like that)...
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In think if he was in the states they would've arrested him by now...
 
Threepwood said:
Though one does wonder, how the Italian, French, and British leaders, will react knowing such choice comments have been made
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Nothing new to them either. But now they know they know they know. It's really advantageous for other countries to aid in putting the US through a diplomatic wringer. This has been extremely harmful to the US' standing internationally.

DGT said:
I disagree; checks and balances are built in because people distrust government,
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Then what do you disagree with? I didn't say anything that contradicts this. I think all organizations with public responsibilities should have checks and balances. Governments do, WikiLeaks don't.

DGT said:
The CoS bit I agreed with Anon because the Church was trying to suppress information, something I disapprove of no matter who's doing it -- in fact, I would say most NMAers would say so, considering the general reaction here to Bethesda trying to squash negative feedback or blacklisting fansites.
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Sure, but guess how us admins would react to a proposal to DDoS Bethesda's websites? We'd ban your ass faster than you could blink. Why? Because no matter how unhappy I am with Bethesda, I simply do not have the right to do any financial damage to them other than not buying their games (and I do buy their games, because I want to play them (none of the DLCs tho)).
Simply because I feel one "evil" should go doesn't mean I'll support another "evil" to get rid of it. They're both wrong, so I don't approve of either.

smilodom said:
Nevertheless I am still not tired to post my contribution to this thread that I will don´t give up to cry out my mistrust against the governements of the now so called "Neoliberal countries".
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Sure, not telling you to stop posting.

Didn't know I live in a neoliberal country. I loathe neoliberalism. Retarded political view.
 
Brother None said:
Didn't know I live in a neoliberal country. I loathe neoliberalism. Retarded political view.
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Being that we appear to be living in a nation where politicians under the employ of corporate 'donations' all tout a "free market will save everything, including education and health care" doctrine, we do indeed appear to be living in a neoliberal country.

And it is retarded.
 
Bad_Karma said:
Just because she herself thinks that it is journalism doesn't mean anything, she's free to think so, but only an US court will be able to define if it's journalism in the USA.
I'm no expert for US-american law, but i guess it's quite common for them.
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I'm pretty sure that they have yet to make any ruling which defines what journalism is, this would be the first. The case against him is pretty weak regardless as they will have to either prove that he was responsible for the leak (espionage) or prove damages, which is going to be very difficult.

Bad_Karma said:
Or they claim it falls under freedom of speech (e.g. racial slurs).
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Racial slurs are legal as long as they aren't targeted at any individual and even then it's situational.
 
Brother None said:
Then what do you disagree with?
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It seemed to me like you were saying distrust of government was a bad thing or something, whereas I was arguing it's very healthy as long as you don't take it to ridiculous conspiracy theory lengths.

Brother None said:
They're both wrong, so I don't approve of either.
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Yeah, I can't really argue with that -- I was more trying to say I could at least agree with their motivations that time, if not all/most/any their methods... because, let's face it, Anon = crazy.

Edit: Ah yes, it was this.

Brother None said:
I can't help but feel the whole support of WikiLeaks stems from the inherent mistrust some folks have of anything government does. This isn't well-reasoned.
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I was saying distrust of government is well-reasoned, but it no longer seems that you were trying to say all distrust of government is bad, just unreasonable/extreme. Seems like we might be in agreement after all.
 
wikileaks.png
 
I used to think Anonymous and /b/ were funny, i almost went to one of the Scientology protests in Philly, then i grew up.

Don't think they give a shit about politics or freedom, because they don't. They do stuff like this because they can. But I will say that they aren't total assholes when they protest, i'll give them that.
 
UncannyGarlic said:
I'm pretty sure that they have yet to make any ruling which defines what journalism is, this would be the first. The case against him is pretty weak regardless as they will have to either prove that he was responsible for the leak (espionage) or prove damages, which is going to be very difficult.
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Actually one of the cases that has to be proven is if Assanage really sexualy attacked those 2 females. That is in my eyes the really interesting incident. I dont care what ever if the diplomatic informations have been leaked or not.

Though I definetly agree that the case has to be checked well. But if it happens that he really didi it. Jail time. So much for sure.

Assanage in my eyes is as suspicious like any other gouvernement out there eventually. I am curious how he feels now since most of the world has a huge interesting in his past. I know I would not.

And the main problem here is what BN said. Whos watching the watchmen ? No one here should argue that a certain mistrust to your gouvernenet is unhealty. We all know coruption happens and many of them do wrong things. But even without Wikileaks those informations have been made public eventually. Or else we would not know about those situations. And many times the information and investigation came from the gouvernement or people working for it. I think the journalists we have today are already doing a good job. No need for a holigan like Assanage and his assistants.
 
Crni Vuk said:
That is in my eyes the really interesting incident. I dont care what ever if the diplomatic informations have been leaked or not.

Though I definetly agree that the case has to be checked well. But if it happens that he really didi it. Jail time. So much for sure.

Assanage in my eyes is as suspicious like any other gouvernement out there eventually. I am curious how he feels now since most of the world has a huge interesting in his past. I know I would not.

And the main problem here is what BN said. Whos watching the watchmen ? No one here should argue that a certain mistrust to your gouvernenet is unhealty. We all know coruption happens and many of them do wrong things. But even without Wikileaks those informations have been made public eventually. Or else we would not know about those situations. And many times the information and investigation came from the gouvernement or people working for it. I think the journalists we have today are already doing a good job. No need for a holigan like Assanage and his assistants.
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Firstly, why should Assange's indiscretions be interesting? He's a douchebag/arsehole who managed to piss off two unrelated women in a short time span to the point where they pressed (poorly backed) charges. It's a good thing he's not a proper journalist so I don't hear his opinion in a leak. But it's because journalists are actually not doing a good job that we need hooligans like him.

As I said before, we already know what happens, but we don't know why (though we can make educated guesses) and that's the important part.
 
34thcell said:
As I said before, we already know what happens, but we don't know why (though we can make educated guesses) and that's the important part.
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Just that a hooligan isnt doing the job of a good journalist. Also there ARE many good journalists out there. It just happens that assanges "lidle" dirty secrets what he did with 2 females or what some diplomaths think is catching more attention then the investigative journalism of someone in Chechnya or that the US cosmetic industriy is making 44 million dollars each year on parents which torture their children to particiipate in useless contests who is the "pritiest" girl. Or how about the 6 nations with a permanent seat in the UN beeing the bigest weapon dealers on earth ?

You know. Its easier to listen to Justin Biber and why he thinks his "mom" is the greatest person on the world.

As said. If Assanage would be REALLY a important person or have something important to say do you think he would get the attention ? They can make money out of it at the moment. many people think about him and its the attention wikileaks gets for those useless dimplomath informations or the one or other war crime they show (and evn that is disputable, I was not there I cant comment about the situation!).

Remember Abu Grahib was leaked to the public and that long before Wikileaks. Investigative journalism is sure not what Wiki leaks does.
 
Sadly, Crni partially has a point. Plenty of journalists are doing great work. None of the WikiLeaks stuff is actually new, it's at best just confirmed. But people treat it as new and shocking. It edges towards empty hype, but hey, if that's what it takes to make some of the lazy people out there become more aware of world politics, then so be it.
 
Knowledge of current world politics isn't a bad thing, but the problem is that people still seem to lack the sense to question what is happening and are really able to judge people and organizations.
All the leaks should teach people that every goverment has it's secrets and you've allways to question what an organization or person says and what their real goal and their modus operandi might be.
But what happens? Instead of blinldy following some goverment or traditional movement, they now follow blindly Assange and Wikileaks. Because their agenda must be pure and good. Or even worse they begin to follow groups like Anonymus, because they linked themselves to wikileaks....

The whole situation reminds me somewhat of the following phrase (which exists in a lot of different variations):
'If you are not a [liberal]/[communist]/[socialist]/[revolutioner]/[...] at twenty, you have no heart and if you are not [conservative]/[communist]/[socialist]/[revolutioner]/[...] at thirty, you have no brain.'
 
As I already posted earlier "Assange" isn´t accused of raping
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/sex-by-surprise-at-heart-of-assange-criminal-probe/19741444 this can not be the main question:

Quote Cnri Vuk"> Actually one of the cases that has to be proven is if Assanage really sexualy attacked those 2 females. That is in my eyes the really interesting incident. I dont care what ever if the diplomatic informations have been leaked or not.<" ??? I am pretty sure that´s a part of a campaign to disgust "Assange"

I am real "PRO "Anonymous" because of what "Master Card" " Visa" and "Pay Pal" do is criminal because it lacks of any law to warrant this kind of restriction.
By the way you can always donate your money to Ku-Klux-Klan by using your Visa or Mastercard.
 
smilodom said:
I am real "PRO "Anonymous" because of what "Master Card" " Visa" and "Pay Pal" do is criminal because it lacks of any law to warrant this kind of restriction.
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Unlike what Anonymous is doing?

I wish you would make sense at some point, smilodom.

BM said:
But what happens? Instead of blinldy following some goverment or traditional movement, they now follow blindly Assange and Wikileaks. Because their agenda must be pure and good. Or even worse they begin to follow groups like Anonymus, because they linked themselves to wikileaks....
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Humans be humans, what else is new.
 
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