WikiLeaks is a right wing website, PERIOD

[ButterflyBlood]

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/758855786806190080

Fuck anyone who thinks this right wing cesspool ran by a rapist Putin puppet is good for anything.

[Thinkingabout]

1. Read it and pass it by, just like the rags in the checkout lines.

[oberliner]

2. A rapist Putin puppet?

What the heck?

[rjsquirrel]

3. That describes Julian Assange

to a tee.

Ok "alleged" rapist Putin puppet.

He's a scumbag.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

4. Alleged scumbag?

[rjsquirrel]

6. Oh no he's definitely a scumbag

Last edited Sat Jul 30, 2016, 06:19 PM - Edit history (1)

Just having a show on Russia Today makes you a scumbag.

And yes I know who else has such shows. They're t useful idiots, at best, working for the Kremlin.

And yet RT is treated as a reliable source by plenty around DU.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

13. So are the "plenty" on DU also useful idiots?

That sounds like a lot.

[awoke_in_2003]

9. His anti-semitism

has popped up several time. No alleged- he's a scumbag.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

12. Do you have links to this anti-Semitism.

[phleshdef]

15. You can start here...

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/mar/01/julian-assange-jewish-conspiracy-comments

And then after that, you can stop being lazy and use Google.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

39. Ah, I love it whensomebody makes a claim and then tells others

to do their own research.

Also, the article is a claim made by the editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop.

Is that it? A claim?

[Stinky The Clown]

46. Sorry. Link requests are misdirection, obfuscation, and deflection.

If you want to know something, crank up your googlemachine.

[Orrex]

53. That's false

It is the responsibility of the claimant to document his or her claims. It is intellectually dishonest to make a claim and then to require one's readers to "look it up."

In this case, Assange is manifestly an anti-Semitic asshole, but it's still the poster's responsibility to provide sources when asked.

[Stinky The Clown]

54. Got a link to the internet rules?

[Orrex]

55. If you make a claim, you can't get sour when someone calls you on it.

Last edited Mon Aug 1, 2016, 08:21 AM - Edit history (1)

However, if it'll help you get over yourself, you might start with THIS:

Cite your sources
This is something this is standard practice in assignments, but it’s also something that you definitely shouldn’t forget when posting in an online discussion forum. It’s important to remember that you can’t simply state opinions as facts and that you always need to cite your sources when referencing details and figures to support your argument.

or with THIS.

4. Facts, Information, and Data. Often you’ll want to use facts or information to support your own argument. If the information is found exclusively in a particular source, you must clearly acknowledge that source. For example, if you use data from a scientific experiment conducted and reported by a researcher, you must cite your source, probably a scientific journal or a website. Or if you use a piece of information discovered by another scholar in the course of his or her own research, you must cite your source. But if the fact or information is generally well known and accepted—for example, that Woodrow Wilson served as president of both Princeton University and the United States, or that Avogadro’s number is 6.02 x 1023—you do not need to cite a source. Note that facts are different from ideas: facts may not need to be cited, whereas ideas must always be cited. Deciding which facts or pieces of information require citation and which are common knowledge, and thus do not require citation, isn’t always easy. For example, finding the same fact or piece of information in multiple sources doesn’t necessarily mean that it counts as common knowledge. Your best course of action in such a case may be to cite the most credible or authoritative of the multiple sources. Refer to a later section in this booklet, “Not-So-Common Knowledge,” for more discussion of how to determine what counts as common knowledge. But remember: when in doubt, cite.

There are many other similar resources, but two sources are sufficient here.

You can continue to demand that people back up your statements for you, but on the off chance that you want to be taken seriously...

[Stinky The Clown]

74. :)

[mike_c]

77. for nearly fifteen years they have been a mainstay of discussion on DU....

Many a ridiculous assertion has been revealed without merit because the OP lacked substantiation.

[Stinky The Clown]

80. Got a link?

Mike I actually agree that links are important and mostly supply them when they're available. When something is. Heard on tv, though, links are often unavailable for a while, if at all

On the flip side, "got a link" is all too often a substitute for "fuck you".

[emulatorloo]

63. Start Here: " I don't think Julian Assange meant to leak this"

I don't think Julian Assange meant to leak this
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028041899

I hope you'll stop accusing your fellow DU'ers of being liars.

[charlyvi]

5. And Julian Assange is a sexist piece of arrogant shit. eom

[misterhighwasted]

7. Thought Control.

Who doesn't use wiki for info at some point.
WIKI is the detour on the information highway.

Ugh

[MH1]

35. Let's be clear about "wiki". It is a technology. NOT a single site.

(I'm not sure of your meaning but I think it might be important to put this out there)

Most of us use Wikipedia at some point, some of us frequently.

Wikipedia has NOTHING to do with Wikileaks (that I know of), except presumably the technology in their name.

Many of us use other wikis and/or build and create content for them for various purposes.

There are many different software products that can be used to create a wiki. Wikipedia uses Mediawiki, which I consider the best. At work I am afflicted with SharePoint wiki, which is coming along but still a poor, poor shadow of a wiki technology.

Anyway I hope the above is already known to pretty much everyone who uses the internet, but sometimes I wonder.

[Matrosov]

8. So Chelsea Manning is a RW extremist?

Remember when Wiki Leaks was supposed to be a far-left web site, because they dared to disclose information that showed US military killing Iraqi civilians for shits and giggles?

[MrScorpio]

10. Bad judgement on her part to trust Assange

Now she's in prison for it, while Assange is free making an ass out of himself.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

14. Better to be a "good little German" and keep secrets

than to expose the state for the rough beast it has become!

[phleshdef]

16. I believe in what Manning set out to do. The way she did it was reckless though.

I also think her prison sentence is too harsh, but I agree that some prison time was acceptable.

[ronnie624]

17. +1

[Zynx]

20. Assange randomly happens across meritorious things.

He's generally a malevolent little twerp who deserves something far worse than a civilized society can deal out.

[MrScorpio]

23. There are right ways to do things and wrong ways...

She did it in a reckless manner, which exposed herself to the fullest degree of retribution by the state. There was no protection for her by dumping all of that data into Assange's lap.

I hate to say this, but she practically begged to be prosecuted. Perhaps she looks at herself as a martyr, but it was a self-induced martyrdom.

There were always alternatives for her, that had nothing to do with Assange. The first thing that she should have done was to see whether or not she was bound by a non-disclosure agreement, secondly she should have consulted a lawyer. Thirdly she should have worked through her chain of command and lastly she should have exhausted all of her options before going to her congressperson.

She also could have separated from the military and worked to expose those crimes from the outside.

I'm sorry, but I have very little sympathy for her over her prosecution, in spite of the fact that I detest the actual actions by the military that she exposed.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

40. Would you have been alright with imprisoning Woodward and Bernstein as well as

"deep throat" for exposing the srongs of Nixon?

I love the backflips that some do to justify today's secrets.

[MrScorpio]

41. Bad analogy

Woodward and Bernstein were journalists, not military members who were sworn and charged with following the orders of their superiors.

[cherokeeprogressive]

65. Following orders. Like good Germans.

[MrScorpio]

81. It's not an unreasonable expectation for soldiers to follow lawful orders

There was nothing unlawful for her to NOT dump classified data in Assange's lap. If she felt that she should dump classified data into Assange's lap then she shouldn't have been in the military in the first place.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

85. Your assent is off. Woodward and Bernstein were/are civilians.

Deep throat was...FBI...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Throat_(Watergate)


State secrets are bullshit in a democracy; especially when they show corruption and criminal disregard for the rule of law.

[6000eliot]

24. It's even better if you only keep some people's secrets.

Perhaps the people who pay you and use you for their own purposes? Where are the exposés of Russian atrocities?

[Tortmaster]

27. There are whistleblowing procedures, Mr. Godwin.

Because Chelsea and Edward didn't follow them, the former is in prison, the latter in exile. Part of living in a civilization is having rules. What some would like is anarchy from their privileged positions. Democrats, on the other hand, want Government to work, and they want a strong whistleblower system, because that keeps Government honest.

Besides giving away secrets to foreign countries and terrorist organizations, the only thing that Snowden proved was that a person with Administrative Privileges on NSA computers and a number of months to steal as many documents as possible couldn't turn up anything except we spy on Bermuda and Germany. What a dangerous world we would live in if everybody acted like Snowden.

[Vattel]

51. Or follow a whistleblowing process that will ensure the secrets remain secrets.

[emulatorloo]

58. Godwin's law fail

Could you try not to smear folk who disagree with you by comparing them to Hitler supporters?

Thanks in advance.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

83. When the boot fits, my friend.

[LanternWaste]

78. Better to allow only an extremist possibility panting people who may disagree with you as merely aut

Better to allow only an extremist and simplistic possibility which pants any who may disagree with you as mere authoritarians, regardless of how roughly you indeed, treat your little beast.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

84. I am truly amazed at how this info dump has the Dems lining up

in defense, making all possible excuses, but if this had been George Bush's emails the same group would be calling for more: praising Assange in the process.

[Fast Walker 52]

38. yes, and bad judgement to release classified info in the military

they have a different set of rules for justice

[Igel]

11. Without changing, it morphs.

Halo effect and fundamental attribution error. It does something right, it's wonderful and always will be. It does something we think is bad, it's rotten to the core and always has been.

What it really is doesn't matter for our socially constructed reality.

[Tortmaster]

29. We have whistleblower procedures for ...

... the actual reality.

[TipTok]

18. Manning was just a criminal with access and placement that Assange took advantage of...

Manning deserves to rot and Assange should go face his rape charges.

[PoutrageFatigue]

61. Wow! Did I just read this on "Democratic" underground?

Dafuq????

[TipTok]

70. Pretty sure...

Not everyone has to agree on everything all the time you know...

[Adrahil]

32. Chelsea Manning was a gullible dupe.

She was conned into serving Assange's agenda and ego. And now she pays the price for her foolishness.

[msanthrope]

86. No....far right, even then. And Stephen Colbert called Assange out on it.

By selectively edit editing the collateral damage video, Assange made sure that any wrongdoing would be obscured by claims that the information was taken out of context... And guess what that worked?

[davidn3600]

19. If Assange was harassing Trump and the RNC, DU would cheer him on

What's sad is that we need to rely on Assange, hackers, and Russia for our own government to tell us the truth.

[Zynx]

21. The problem is that they're selective. They only seek to embarrass one party.

They're not objective revealers of "the truth." The reveal as much of it as they want to tell a particular story.

[davidn3600]

22. Assange has a grudge against Hillary

He blames her for leading the charge to try and indict him. He believes the US is out to get him and would use a trumped up rape charge in Sweden as a way to get him extradited. And he feels she (and Obama) do not support internet freedoms and a free press. He also blames Hillary for the situation in Syria and Libya.

Assange also isn't a hacker himself. His organization relies on anonymous whistle-blowers to feed information to him. He may be telling the truth that he's not working for Russia. He may be getting info from hackers who are working for Russia. Who knows...maybe the source is a mole inside the DNC.

[jcgoldie]

57. Not working for Russia?

He has a show on RT. Assange has been in Putin's pocket for years.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. Wired: wikileaks has officially lost the moral high ground

https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost-moral-high-ground/

[bobGandolf]

26. Did not know....

Thanks

[Calista241]

30. So, until last week, Assange and wikileaks were our friends

Periodically, calls for pardons and other support appeared here.

[1939]

34. DU hero to zero in such a short time. NT

[geek tragedy]

43. No, they were always unethical nt

[Jim Lane]

31. I've read this entire thread and there's one huge omission

There's not a single post proving or even suggesting a single instance in which a Wikileaks leak was false.

The most I've seen is that maybe Wikileaks doesn't always tell the complete story. Well, duh, Assange and his helpers would like to have access to every secret document, but they don't, so there's room for some selection bias in what they get their hands on.

It's also conceivable (which I italicize to stress that there's no evidence for this hypothesis) that, of the important information it does get, Wikileaks doesn't release items that don't fit a preconceived agenda. That doesn't mean that information it releases is inaccurate. It's true as far as it goes. It means only that with Wikileaks, as with any other source, you have to bear in mind that there may be more to the story.

In general, if governments or other entities embarrassed by a Wikileaks disclosure thought there was an outright falsehood, or thought that there were missing facts that put their conduct in a less unfavorable light, they would be free to issue such a refutation. My recollection is that no Wikileaks disclosure has been subjected to such substantive criticism that turned out to have any merit. That's undoubtedly part of reason for the ad hominem attacks on Assange.

[geek tragedy]

44. It's not that they fabricate, it's that they disseminate

materials only if they harm western liberalism.

Their big first splash was to try to invalidate climate change scientists.

They've shared material sub rosa with the dictator of Belarus.

They have their own show on Russian state media.

[Jim Lane]

49. Snowden's revelations and the DNC emails are but two of many counterexamples

Western liberalism is helped, not harmed, by revelations of the misdeeds of powerful people.

Here's Wikipedia's summary of Wikileaks's early years:

2006-08

WikiLeaks posted its first document in December 2006, a decision to assassinate government officials signed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys {of Somalia}.[28] In August 2007, the UK newspaper The Guardian published a story about corruption by the family of the former Kenyan leader Daniel arap Moi based on information provided via WikiLeaks.[132] In November 2007, a March 2003 copy of Standard Operating Procedures for Camp Delta detailing the protocol of the U.S. Army at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp was released.[133][134] The document revealed that some prisoners were off-limits to the International Committee of the Red Cross, something that the U.S. military had in the past denied repeatedly.[135] In February 2008, WikiLeaks released allegations of illegal activities at the Cayman Islands branch of the Swiss Bank Julius Baer, which resulted in the bank suing WikiLeaks and obtaining an injunction which temporarily suspended the operation of wikileaks.org.[136] The California judge had the service provider of WikiLeaks block the site's domain (wikileaks.org) on 18 February 2008, although the bank only wanted the documents to be removed but WikiLeaks had failed to name a contact. The website was instantly mirrored by supporters, and later that month the judge overturned his previous decision citing First Amendment concerns and questions about legal jurisdiction.[137][138] In March 2008, WikiLeaks published what they referred to as "the collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology," and three days later received letters threatening to sue them for breach of copyright.[139] In September 2008, during the 2008 United States presidential election campaigns, the contents of a Yahoo account belonging to Sarah Palin (the running mate of Republican presidential nominee John McCain) were posted on WikiLeaks after being hacked into by members of a group known as Anonymous.[140][141] In November 2008, the membership list of the far-right British National Party was posted to WikiLeaks, after appearing briefly on a weblog.[142] A year later, on October 2009, another list of BNP members was leaked.[143]

You'll note that the first two items are about illiberal African leaders, and a later one is about Scientology, hardly a component of Western liberalism. As for the third, the Gitmo revelations, did the dissemination of those materials "harm Western liberalism"? I'd say that the harm to Western liberalism came because the U.S. military decided to lie to the public about whether it was allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to have full access to the prison.

It's certainly true that various malefactors, including the U.S. government and the Democratic National Committee, would have better reputations if they had succeeded in keeping their misdeeds secret. My view, however, is that any reputational harm is the fault of the people in power who made the bad decisions, not the fault of the outsiders who exposed them. In 1973-74 I was rooting for Woodward and Bernstein, not for Nixon.

[geek tragedy]

52. To put it another way, there's a distinct lack of material published

that is unflattering to Russia, China, Iran, Belarus, and post-2008 Republicans.

Also, virtually everything that is posted there is stolen via a violation of privacy, usually by hackers who in some cases are likely aligned with state spy agencies. The pro-privacy and pro-Wikileaks stances are becoming increasingly impossible to reconcile, especially given the obviously malicious and malignant purpose behind Wikileaks's latest efforts--to elect Donald Trump as President of the United States.

[Jim Lane]

69. I already pointed out that some materials are lacking. That doesn't show inaccuracy.

I wrote in #31, "Assange and his helpers would like to have access to every secret document, but they don't, so there's room for some selection bias in what they get their hands on."

It's probable that the dictatorships you list are more effective at keeping secrets.

You try to insinuate bias based on a lack of material about "post-2008 Republicans." Is your interpretation that WikiLeaks was pro-Democratic through 2008, then abruptly shifted and started attacking the Democratic Party? I'll give you an alternative explanation: WikiLeaks concentrates on data about governments and big business. It's rare for them to leak anything about a U.S. political party, or about politicians in their non-governmental roles. In a quick skim of the Wikipedia article that I linked, I find the leak about Palin in 2008, a leak about the campaign of Norm Coleman (R-MN) in 2009, and the leak about the DNC in 2016. That's it. WikiLeaks just doesn't get all that much stuff about such subjects. (As Lee-Lee pointed out in #50, WikiLeaks doesn't do the targeting.)

You previously asserted that "they disseminate materials only if they harm western liberalism." Presented with counterexamples, you've dropped that charge.

Of course, none of this undercuts my fundamental point -- that nothing in this thread gives any reason to doubt the accuracy of a WikiLeaks disclosure. The OP's attitude is, "Fuck anyone who thinks {WikiLeaks} is good for anything." As I look over the record of WikiLeaks disclosures, I think the site is good for a great deal. One can believe Julian Assange to be personally guity of rape and yet also believe that WikiLeaks's publication of Iraq War documents was a good thing. (The Guardian covered the leak and wrote, "A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes." Did that disclosure make Putin happy? I don't care. I think war crimes should be exposed.)

Privacy concerns are legitimate, but bear in mind that most WikiLeaks disclosures are about governments or large corporations. I don't think the U.S. military has any legitimate privacy expectation with regard to documentation of its numerous lies.

[geek tragedy]

71. Wikileaks has helped Lukashenko track down dissidents in Belarus

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/03/belarus-assange-lukashenko

In December 2010, Israel Shamir, a WikiLeaks associate and an intimate friend of Julian Assange -- so close, in fact, that he outed the Swedish women who claim to be victims of rape and sexual assault by Assange -- allegedly travelled to Belarus with a cache of unredacted American diplomatic cables concerning the country. He reportedly met Lukashenko's chief of staff, Vladimir Makei, handed over the documents to the government, and stayed in the country to "observe" the presidential elections.

When Lukashenko pronounced himself the winner on 19 December 2010 with nearly 80 per cent of the vote, Belarusians reacted by staging a mass protest. Lukashenko dispatched the state militia. As their truncheons bloodied the squares and streets of the capital, Minsk, Shamir wrote a story in the American left-wing journal Counterpunch extolling Lukashenko ("The president of Belarus ... walks freely among his people&quot , deriding the dictator's opponents ("The pro-western 'Gucci' crowd", Shamir called them), and crediting WikiLeaks with exposing America's "agents" in Belarus ("WikiLeaks has now revealed how... undeclared cash flows from the U.S. coffers to the Belarus 'opposition' &quot .

The following month, Soviet Belarus, a state-run newspaper, began serializing what it claimed to be extracts from the cables gifted to Lukashenko by WikiLeaks. Among the figures "exposed" as recipients of foreign cash were Andrei Sannikov, a defeated opposition presidential candidate presently serving a five-year prison sentence; Oleg Bebenin, Sannikov's press secretary, who was found dead in suspicious circumstances months before the elections; and Vladimir Neklyayev, the writer and former president of Belarus PEN, who also ran against Lukashenko and is now under house arrest.

Did Assange at this point repudiate Shamir or speak up against Lukashenko? No. Instead he upbraided Ian Hislop for publishing an article in the Private Eye that exposed Shamir as a Holocaust denier and white supremacist. There was, he claimed, a "conspiracy" against him by "Jewish" journalists at the Guardian. Addicted to obedience from others and submerged in a swamp of conspiracy theories, Assange's reflexive reaction to the first hint of disagreement by his erstwhile friends was to hold malign Jews responsible.

His subsequent attempts to distance himself from Shamir were undermined when James Ball, a former WikiLeaks staffer, revealed that not only did Assange authorise Shamir's access to the cables -- how else could he have got hold of the documents from this impenetrably secretive organisation consecrated to transparency? -- he also stopped others from criticising Shamir even after news of his Belarusian expedition became public.

The collaboration with a vile, reptilian Nazi like Israel Shamir is more than enough to put Assange on the villlains' side of history.

[Jim Lane]

75. At this point, you and I are addressing different questions.

Your issue is that Assange individually and WikiLeaks organizationally have done some things that you deplore, putting Assange on the villains' side of history.

My dispute is with the OP's position: "Fuck anyone who thinks {WikiLeaks} is good for anything." Whatever other villainy has gone on, I still see no allegation, let alone evidence, of fabricated documents. My conclusion is that disclosures by WikiLeaks are reliable (as far as they go, of course, allowing for the inevitable selection bias that I've repeatedly pointed out). Because I consider many of those disclosures to have been valuable in exposing official wrongdoing, my further conclusion is that the WikiLeaks site is good for a great deal.

That they've done a lot of good things isn't inconsistent with your charge that they've also done a lot of bad things. I'm not concerned with whether Julian Assange will get to go to Heaven. I don't even believe in the place. I'm saying only that, if WikiLeaks releases documents, they're likely to be legitimate, and I will credit their accuracy.

[geek tragedy]

76. If Wikileaks were to disappear tomorrow, someone else with more principles

would take their place.

Snowden didn't use Wikileaks. Neither did Daniel Ellsberg.

[egduj]

33. Under the bus with you, Assange.

[HereSince1628]

36. We're gonna need a bigger bus,

There's going to be a lot of tripping off the curb before Nov.

[Zynx]

37. Julian Assange has always been awful. He's just making it clearer.

I'd gladly toss that miserable twerp under a bus.

[geek tragedy]

45. He's always been a piece of shit. nt

[Adrahil]

68. He's always been there for me.

I've never trusted that self-obsessed egotist. Many who did ignored the obvious signs that he's a shit, IMO.

[Little Tich]

42. We still need Wikileaks. n/t

[flamingdem]

47. Right or left, Debbie Wassermand Schulz

is out of a job

[Lee-Lee]

50. Keep in mind Wikileaks doesn't hack anyone direct, they just distribute what others hack

I'm no fan of them for many reasons- including the fact that reports I actually wrote are in there leaked with my name on them. Reports that are of no whistleblowing value at all and just show how wide and foolish the Manning dump was.

But they are just a clearinghouse for the info. They don't steal it, they just sit around hoping somebody gives them something good to share. So it's not them who "targeted" the DNC, that was the Russians who then just handed then data over.

They don't care if it's emails from the DNC or the RNC or the Turkish government or Sony. You give them something people have kept hidden and it will get published.

[HereSince1628]

56. No doubt Assange is angry at the US. Fear of US pursuit of him drove him to refuge

that has basically been years of house arrest.

HRC was the secretary of state at the time, and it isn't a great leap of imagination to suppose that Assange sees her as a significant nemesis who would continue to pursue him if she were president.

[emulatorloo]

59. ...

See Warren's link above:

Wikileaks has officially lost the moral high ground
https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost-moral-high-ground/

[PoutrageFatigue]

60. Nope. Not even your ALL CAPS makes that so.

Just stop with the bullshit.

[ButterflyBlood]

66. But that poll does

Wikileaks is a site of Trump supporters.

[melman]

72. No it doesn't

[CanSocDem]

62. Too much info makes my head hurt. nt

[Capt. Obvious]

64. What's wrong with therapist puppets?

[AlbertCat]

67. Wow

The list of people who apparently need to get fucked is growing exponentially.

[uhnope]

73. & don't forget WikiPEDIA

http://calvertjournal.com/comment/show/2967/wikipedia-russian-government-edits

Knowledge is power: why is the Russian government editing Wikipedia?

After edits to Wikipedia articles related to the conflict in Ukraine have been traced to the Russian government, Olga Zeveleva unpicks this latest twist in Russia's information wars

A troll on DU has been trying to use Wikipedia links in a crusade to defend the poor little Putin gov. It's bad enough that a Wikipedia entry could literally be written by anybody, including the person posting it as proof, but now we see it's hacked by the Putin gov also. WTH

[shenmue]

79. Yep

[JCMach1]

82. No, they are just a conduit for lots of inconvenient information

that whistleblowers (and yes, hackers) want to leak.