Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
At The Back => The Dressing Room => Topic started by: nfe on December 08, 2010, 11:53:16 PM
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We've not had a thread on this but we're now at saturation point with it dominating every news network even moreso than the first front page coverage ten days ago (for this phase of the leak).
It's all getting a bit Al Capone with a journalist being denied bail for a crime he was exonerated of in September that was then reopened after intervention by a US senator by different unit in a different city to the original investigation. Quite aside from the questions around the accusations in the first place.
US officials calling for the execution of an Australian who hasn't committed any crimes against the US, companies bowing down to the US state department for simply operating their businesses and comunities of supporters trying to take down Mastercard, Visa and the like.
Nobody calling for the editors of The Guardian, El País, Le Monde, Der Spiegel or The New York Times to be strung up, all of whom have had exactly the same part in releasing the information.
Then the US had the audacity to launch World Press Freedom Day today.
It's bananas.
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It's a thorny issue and yes, the rape case against him seems to be just a little too "convenient". It all stinks of muck raking and sinister men in black suits. Assange seems to be being made an example of simply for embarassing the governments of the western world by revealing their secrets. Any claims that "lives are being put at risk" would be very difficult to justify or even quantify, especially as all I've really learned is that a member of a certain royal family may have possibly been rude to someone at some point.
Assange seems to me to be a man perhaps too obsessed with revealing the "truth", like he cannot bear to think that a government may actually want to keep secrets from other countries or even their own electorate. While that's an admirable ideal, in the real world some things really have to be classified. Simply blurting the truth out to all and sundry isn't always the wisest course of action.
As for the AES-encrypted "insurance file" supposedly stacked full of top secret information that Assange may or may not reveal the password to, who knows what's in there? It's been downloaded by thousands of people and still exists on the Wikileaks mirror sites, just waiting for someone to release the password to the internet at large. Then perhaps Pandora's box of nasty little secrets really will be opened. My bet is that it proves Adolf Hitler, Elvis and JFK are living in the television studio where Richard Nixon faked the moon landings.
Just reading this back so there's no prejudicial remarks, libel or cuss words. Sub judice's a biatch, just remembering that the case hasn't come to trial so being a bit non-commital in this post.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0xLyoc9DxU
incredible CGI report on wikileaks
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its a pretty terrible thing.
they keep saying it is not politically motivated but it's obvious that it is.
I read that an Isreali minister said that wikileaks was slowing peace in the middle east...? Surely what is slowing it is the "secret" calls for the bombing of Iran that got made public... You can't call for the bombing of thousands of innocent people and then say the medium for how people found out is to blame for tension.
twice as many people have been extradited from the UK to the US as in the opposite direction.
It's a lot less likely for the US to send people here for trial, but if we screw with the US then thats it... we're over there. This EU extradition treaty also seems to be a way to move people around the EU til they get a country with a different extradition treaty with countries outside the EU. Handy!
even the likes of Gary McKinnon with Asperger's. He made a direct attack on US military and NASA computers because he was obsessed with UFO's and that combined with his condition led him to do it. The US wants him sent there for trial. It would be massively damaging for him but the UK isn't doing much to fight his corner.
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in the real world some things really have to be classified. Simply blurting the truth out to all and sundry isn't always the wisest course of action.
Perhaps, but very little in these leaked cables was classified. And of the stuff that was, 3% of the US population already had free access to it and none of it is from the higher two tiers* of classification, it's all from the lowest security one.
twice as many people have been extradited from the UK to the US as in the opposite direction.
It's a lot less likely for the US to send people here for trial, but if we screw with the US then thats it... we're over there. This EU extradition treaty also seems to be a way to move people around the EU til they get a country with a different extradition treaty with countries outside the EU. Handy!
Worringly, the European Arrest Order shouldn't even have been granted since it can only be used when someone has been charged with a crime, and Assange is only wanted as a witness.
even the likes of Gary McKinnon with Asperger's. He made a direct attack on US military and NASA computers because he was obsessed with UFO's and that combined with his condition led him to do it. The US wants him sent there for trial. It would be massively damaging for him but the UK isn't doing much to fight his corner.
It has actually come out from these leaks that Gordon Brown all but begged to have McKinnon remanded in custody and serve any time in the UK. The US told him to beat it.
* Or at least the highest two tiers of official classifications, one would imagine there several levels of super-duper-secret above that.
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yeah, I had actually read that Gary mckinnon cable. I should have said that the government seems powerless to prevent extradition. even when it concerns a person in Garys situation.
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From what I know wikileaks have kept an aweful lot back and edit stuff out. I think they have a record of not reporting highly sensitive things.
Personally I'm glad all this is comming out as I'm getting increasingly pissed off with the general state of afairs. I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting older, or if things are actually getting worse, but it's got to the stage where I don't even watch BBC News anymore as you can just see the glossy layer of bullshiteeee covering everything.
For example, in the student protests today, I bet the news shows some people kicking the cr@p out a riot van which happens to have been (rather conveniatly) abondoned by the coppers under a TV camera. They showed a lot of this deliberate set up last time, but very little of them charging horses into one of the protests up north.
I'm hoping that wikileaks and the current unrest starts to change things and get us a bit further from the George Orwell times that we're rapidly turning in to. So many civil liberties have been removed now that something has to change, otherwise I think that we are heading for a massive amount of trouble, and trouble that the general public wont be able to get out of.
Sadly I think it will end up going a bit 80's on us and we'll just end up more fooked :lol:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQl6itOxBVM
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as some may know, for the past few years I've worked in transmission at the bbc. I've watched a lot of bbc news. I have to say, it has gone downhill. its been most noticeable since the general election I think. now its pretty sickening to watch
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I think the sad thing is that nothing much will change.
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I don't think the leaks themselves are of anything more than mild interest, but the government reaction is very revealing of their true attitudes to freedom of speech.
Attempting to shut down wikileaks whilst the files are already on p2p is a massive waste of time.
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http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/assange-to-escape-from-police-at-the-top-of-some-stairs-201012073327/
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Interesting twist in the tale ...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/09/bradley_manning_wikileaks_no_help/
and
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/07/cryptome_on_wikileaks/
... seems to suggest Assange has just been selling secrets, concerned less about freedom of information than he was about £££££MONEY
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He's a journalist. I Is Amazed! :lol:
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http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/assange-to-escape-from-police-at-the-top-of-some-stairs-201012073327/
Loving that! Facebooked!
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i've been following this on zerohedge.com which is a good site for truthfull financial realities.i've heard some bloggers saying the cia are using this as a means for blocking internet content aka free speech.
today the corporations and financial elite 'own' the politicians and main stream media which is rather sad if you
value freedom and justice.
the said powers that be don't like the blogosphere because inquiring minds can shine lights on the political/economic
structure and expose the corruption and outright criminality at the highest levels of government.
lets hope freedom of speech( and un-censored internet )and the freedom to challenge the bilge the mainstream media put out prevail.
for all our sakes.
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I love the irony.
We kind of accept that governments know everything about their people but if the people get to know stuff about the government, the government goes ape.
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http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/war/assange-to-escape-from-police-at-the-top-of-some-stairs-201012073327/
Loving that! Facebooked!
The dailymash is fantastic- I liked "Britain trapped under two feet of global warming bullshit".
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/britain-trapped-under-two-feet-of-global-warming-bullshitee-201011253286/ (http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/britain-trapped-under-two-feet-of-global-warming-bullshitee-201011253286/)
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Has anyone seen that charges the Assange is up for.
Firstly, you have to keep in mind that no one has actually told Mr Assange what the charges are and that they have been mysteriously reopened after originally being quashed in Sweden (and no one has said who has reopened them).
With all the papers repeatedly stating they are rape charges, the issue is that he was having concenting sex and the condom broke. She said he must have known it broke, he said he didn't. Apparently Sweden is the only place to have this law and the woman who has broght forward the accusations is apparently famous for her blogs on how to get back at ex-boyfriends.
Smells fishy (on two counts) :lol:
Hopefully this will be the catylist for something bigger.
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In one case his offence is a condom splitting yeah, the other varies between him forcing her and him having sex with her while she slept, depending on who is reporting it at the time. In both cases they had sex hours before consensually. The two women who supposedly didn't know each other previously and had never met went to a police station together to ask if what had happened constituted a crime. They were told it was, though he was exonerated in September. After the cables were leaked, a US Senator contacts a different police unit in a different city to where the crimes were originally reported and has them reopen the case and demand him for questioning. Issuing a European Arrest Warrant (illegally, as he hasn't been charged) and attempt to extradite him.
Have to be careful about what we say about women in sex crimes cases, if just to prevent making future victims scared of reporting things, but at face value, the above is certainly very worrying.
Surprising nobody in the states is locking up Bill Keller who they can go arrest from his office in New York any time they fancy, but plenty are calling for the execution of an Australian who hasn't broken any laws. A bit like pretending BP are called British Petroleum to divert attention from an entirely American operation, I suppose.