WikiLeaks next target - the banks

In the end... the only thing you need to stand up to powerful interests are BALLS. A lot of people in our government lack them - including Obama.

Assange is the mascot per say of wiki leaks even if anything happened to him it wouldn't stop wikileaks, this is the beauty of the organization at first glance. I'm assuming that wikileaks doesn't centralize its power structure and each member would be capable of picking up assanges slack in a worse case scenario. As gypsy said it takes balls, but more-so it takes some plain old sense of humanity.

but don't you kind of have to think about how he gets his information?

He steals it.

can't you anonymously submit information to him as well though? How do you know he doesn't have sources of those confessing to the corruption he makes public.

The files are hacked from the agencies and institutions. They were obtained through an inside source apparently, who is now facing charges. At least this is the alleged source of the files this far released.

Where do you think he gets his information?

Ever hear the story of the boy who cried wolf? Where any lives lost the first two times?

"In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their fathers' names."

"Among the documents is a report from 2008 that includes a detailed interview with a Taliban fighter considering defection. He is named, with both his father's name and village included. There is also detailed intelligence on other Taliban fighters and commanders in his area. The Times has withheld all details that would identify the man."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/afghan-informants-lives-at-risk-from-...

If informant's name's are out in the open, they'll be hunted down.

What locals are going to help the US if we can't keep their name and location secret?

Not to mention the huge propaganda and morale boost.

"For Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the latest WikiLeaks revelations are little more than an embarrassment. But it's a safe bet that AQAP will extract as much propaganda value from them as possible. "They will use these documents to say: 'See, just as we've been saying, the ruler of Yemen is a sinful man, who works for the Americans,'" says Mohammed Aish, a researcher on extremism in Yemen. The main audience for such propaganda may be the global jihad community, rather than Yemenis, Aish says. "This helps them in recruiting and raising money."

This is golden grist for AQAP, which regards Saleh as an American stooge. The group has been luring jihadists and wannabes worldwide to the badlands of eastern Yemen, from where AQAP has mounted a string of deadly attacks on Saleh's security for forces and foreign diplomats. It has also launched several failed attempts to strike the U.S. homeland."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20101130/wl_time/08599203363800

there may well have been and still to come. if conflict springs from iran being pissed that saudi said to bomb them, or north korea flips because they saw that china said negative things their way, then yeah lives will be lost. there is a reason that closed door diplomacy is closed door some times, and secret negotiations need to remain secret in some cases.

Stop asking us to bomb one another and the problem is solved. The only reason it HAS to be a secret is because those diplomats are assholes who think bombing families is a solution. The only way to avoid having secrets revealed, is to BE HONEST AND HONORABLE no matter if the other party is.

yes of course that is true. world peace, globa universal honesty and free ice cream are great goals. but they dont currently exist, and these releases add tension to an already tense planet with no benefit other than getting wikileaks the attention the crave. perhaps the banking releases will be beneficial, but this current lot was reckless, irresponsible and self serving.

Global Honesty will only happen if we start being honest and honorable. You can NEVER control how someone else will act, but we CAN control how WE act. Someone has to start being honest...if we always wait for the "other guy" to be honest first...then we will forever live in a world of lies. This way at least we can say...hey, if YOU want to lie...there is nothing I can do about it, but I will always be honest with you.

Also, when you allow the Government to keep secrets from the public, that is the end of freedom.

sad but true

PURE FUCKING LEGEND!!!

Hmmm . Checking it out now .... thanks : )

Well.... the affected parties want him dead.
Still, truth triumphs.

not unbiased and not news. state secrets, private conversations, and off the cuff discussions all released not for the betterment of mankind, but to make wikileaks and its founder an instant player in the media game, without having to do the hard work or learn about responsibility

How can it be anything BUT unbiased? If I film a house burning, and show you the footage of it with no commentary, that is AS unbiased as it could possibly be. The MOMENT a person comments on it...Bias is injected.

because he has an agenda, and perhaps only releases information that serves that agenda. that is a bias. he is an attention seeker, not some noble heroic figure. yes some good may come from his revelations. and yes some secrets need to be exposed. but in this case this guy is extremely self serving imho.

He may have a personal agenda, though what that is, I can not say. "Perhaps only releases information that serves that agenda." Implies you do not know what (or if) his agenda is.

Self serving or no...imo...the Government has absoltely ZERO right to privacy. The government IS ME, therefore, all that information is mine, and open to me. I live in San Jose, Ca. I remember the city brokered a deal to buy some land from Santa Clara County, and when the media requested through a FOIA request the response was that the details of the detail were protected by Attorney/Client privilege. Wait...I AM the client, since I AM the City of San Jose. Basically, Assange's personal agenda aside, I have a right to that information.

again i mostly agree with you, as my mistrust of the government was earned by them with the lies and secrets they keep. but this issue in this specific case i feel has become to partisanized, because i just see no real value to this. the agencies already know that they need to always protect their intel. and yeah i would love if we were the ones who said from now on nothing but above board dealing, but i dont see that this act by wikileaks will accomplish that, instead it will only give the governement more reason to cover up, and a cause to rally around to use fear to get people to give up rights

Could be, could be. I sense though a populous anger at all things governmental and political. This whole notion that the Tea/Republican Party "won" this election is as valid as when the Democrats though they "won" in the last election. The fact is, the last two election cycles were negative elections. People did not vote anyone IN, they voted incumbents OUT. I am finding more and more liberals disenfranchised by the Democratic Party, and many conservatives are finding that the Republican Party is not serving their interests. This was readily apparent in the Bail Out measures started by an outgoing Bush, and continued by the incoming Obama.

Say what they will (and their blind defenders WILL say it as if they are god on Mt Sinai) the people are beginning to see that corporate fat cats ALWAYS benefit, and we ALWAYS lose.

i hope people are seeing that. the tea party seems to hate government intervention, but only when its the other side intervening, the libs seem to want fairness but a lot of the times just lash out and discredit every thing that is remotely conservative.. i hope the time comes when people see us all as humankind, and use common sense to change the real issues we face, overthrow the real powerbrokers that profit from keeping us ignorant and enslaved and at each others throats, and as always, free ice cream.

cause i really do love that ice cream.

I'll have Mint Chocolate Chip...;)

they can't shut us down hahaha we haz birtorrent, rapidshare... i can go on.

I saw your post last night and and I thought it was just wishful thinking! My hat is off to you! They announced it the very next Day! I hope they pull it off.

Lets see how it goes, cause now he will be messing with the real puppet masters and they kind of frown on that sort of thing! If Interpol does capture him, hopefully someone else will step up, cause we need whistle blowers!

Let's hope not - and maybe we shouldn't talk that way. This is a new era and although, murder is well within the capacity of those corrupt bastards exposed, there are the rest of us.

What would happen if they murdered or otherwise persecuted Julian Assange? What effect would it have on the rest of us? What tidal wave would these bastards then have to deal with?

I'll tell you this, the wave of change and accountability is an unstoppable force and making martyrs isn't in the corrupts best interests - oh ya, my mistake. That assumes they can reason that far into the future.

There needs to be an underground and it has to be growing . People are not blind to injustice and corruption . Those who have not sold their morals know what he is doing is right and will help . That is the human response . Look at history .

Everything that Wikileaks has released, has been admitted to being true. Wikileaks makes no Accusations about anything in the release...Wikileaks is probably the closest thing to TRUE reporting we have...they simply release ALL the pertinent data...and you make up your own mind. *shrug*

The media just homed in on the juicy stuff which was obvious

Some places, like the NYTimes got an advanced copy.
That's how we knew about the release to being with.

Oh, the "media" is complicit. Not burying this also exposes the media for being the propaganda machine it is as opposed to "news".

I wouldnt go so far as prophet, he really is more of a vigilante, not that there is anything wrong with that, im just saying he is less bible and more comic book, like a real live batman or something.

It is one thing to go after the government. They are rightfully embarrassed all the time. But going after Banks is a whole lot of risky business. They enjoy being behind the curtain. If what Julian is doing is bad, let's go out and be bad guys.

Being bad is far more fun then being good. Hell if we all did what the government and the rich wanted us to do then we would never have any damn fun! And my wont it be fun to watch one of these banks hem and haw over whatever is coming out.

hahaha the execs to ever bank is in their office with their sexy secretary shredding all their documents

And yet to quote a Chinese General a few years back, "The world will soon forget."

Hey, there's the devil not even in disguise, that sick bastard over on the far right. Look in the dictionary, under the entry "Devil" is a picture of Greenspan

The Federal Reserve? That's the one to go down - one would hope.