Community | December 12, 2010 | 27 comments

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source: http://bit.ly/eYBsaU

I have lost count of the politicians and opinion formers of an authoritarian bent warning of the dreadful damage done by the WikiLeaks dump of diplomatic cables, and in the very next breath dismissing the content as frivolous tittle-tattle. To seek simultaneous advantage from opposing arguments is not a new gambit, but to be wrong in both is quite an achievement.
Publication of the cables has caused no loss of life; troops are not being mobilised; and the only real diplomatic crisis is merely one of discomfort. The idea that the past two weeks have been a disaster is self-evidently preposterous. Yet the leaks are of unprecedented importance because, at a stroke, they have enlightened the masses about what is being done in their name and have shown the corruption, incompetence – and sometimes wisdom – of our politicians, corporations and diplomats. More significantly, we have been given a snapshot of the world as it is, rather than the edited account agreed upon by diverse elites, whose only common interest is the maintenance of their power and our ignorance.
The world has changed, not simply because governments find they are just as vulnerable to the acquisition, copying and distribution of huge amounts of data as the music, publishing and film businesses were, but because we are unlikely to return to the happy ignorance of the past. Knowing Saudi Arabia has urged the bombing of Iran, that Shell maintains an iron grip on the government of Nigeria, that Pfizer hired investigators to disrupt investigations into drugs trials on children, also in Nigeria, that the Pakistan intelligence service, the ISI, is swinging both ways on the Taliban, that China launched a cyber attack on Google, that North Korean has provided nuclear scientists to Burma, that Russia is a virtual mafia state in which security services and gangsters are joined at the hip – and knowing all this in some detail – means we are far more likely to treat the accounts of events we are given in the future with much greater scepticism.
Never mind the self-serving politicians who waffle on about the need for diplomatic confidentiality when they themselves order the bugging of diplomats and hacking of diplomatic communications. What is astonishing is the number of journalists out there who argue that it is better not to know these things, that the world is safer if the public is kept in ignorance. In their swooning infatuation with practically any power elite that comes to hand, some writers for the Murdoch press and Telegraph titles argue in essence for the Chinese or Russian models of deceit and obscurantism. They advocate the continued infantilising of the public.
Nothing is new. In 1771, that great lover of liberty, John Wilkes, and a number of printers challenged the law that prohibited the reporting of Parliamentary debates and speeches, kept secret because those in power argued that the information was too sensitive and would disrupt the life of the country if made public. Using the arcane laws of the City of London, Alderman Wilkes arranged for the interception of the Parliamentary messengers sent to arrest the printers who had published debates, and in doing so successfully blocked Parliament. By 1774, a contemporary was able to write: "The debates in both houses have been constantly printed in the London papers." From that moment, the freedom of the press was born.
It took a libertine to prove that information enriched the functioning of British society, a brave maverick who was constantly moving house – and sometimes country – to avoid arrest; whose epic sexual adventures had been used by the authorities as a means of entrapping and imprisoning him. The London mob came out in his favour and, supplemented by shopkeepers and members of the gentry on horseback, finally persuaded the establishment of the time to accept that publication was inevitable. And the kingdom did not fall.
Over the past few weeks, there have been similarly dire predictions from sanctimonious men and women of affairs about the likely impacts of publication, and of course Julian Assange finds himself banged up in Wandsworth nick, having neither been formally charged with, nor found guilty of, the sex crimes he is alleged to have committed in Sweden. Making no comment about his guilt or innocence, or the possibility of his entrapment, I limit myself to saying that we have been here before with John Wilkes; and the reason for this is that authorities the world over and through history react the same way when there is a challenge to a monopoly of information.
It is all about power and who has access to information. Nothing more. When those who want society to operate on the basis of the parent-child relationship because it is obviously easier to manage, shut the door and say "not in front of the children", they are usually looking after their interests, not ours.
I don't argue for a free-for-all, regardless of the consequences. In the WikiLeaks cables, knowledge and the editing and reporting skills found in the old media, combined with the new ability to locate and seize enormous amounts of information on the web, has actually resulted in responsible publication, with names, sources, locations and dates redacted to protect people's identities and their lives.
America is sore and naturally feels exposed, but the state department would have had much less cause for regret if it had listened to Ross Anderson, the Cambridge professor often quoted here in relation to Labour's obsession with huge databases of personal information. His rule states that it is a mathematical impossibility to maintain a large and functional database that is also secure. Hillary Clinton must rue the day that the Bush administration built a great silo of cables that could be accessed by three million staff. The Chinese and Russians would never have been so trusting.
There has been more than a hint that China and Russia have empathised with the Americans. The unseen affinities of the powerful may also be responsible for the unforgivable behaviour by Amazon, which pulled the plug on hosting WikiLeaks, and PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, which unilaterally stopped customers making donations to WikiLeaks. There was not the slightest consideration of principles about free information or the freedom of their customers to make up their own minds. What next? Will these corporate giants be blocking payment to the New York Times and the Guardian? It is hard to feel much regret over the cyber attacks on their websites because, in the end, they did not seem much better than Shell and Pfizer, the companies that appear to be running so much of Nigeria like the worst type of imperial powers.
Nothing but good can come from revelations about these companies, and in this brief moment when we have a glimpse of how things really are, we should relish the fact that publication of the cables, as well as the shameful reactions to it, have brought light, not fire.
http://bit.ly/eYBsaU
  1. groups:
    Community,   Opinion,   Actual News,   Unfeatured,   3 more
  2. tags:
    Wikileaks,  Freedom of Speech,  Freedom of the Press,  Freedom of Information
  3. recommended by:
    pjacobs51,
    remanns
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27 comments // Comment is free

  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  

    • Itsbatman Which way is up?
      Vierotchka Within hours of having its .org address cut off, Wikileaks moved to a Swiss address .ch, which pointed to an IP address in Sweden with servers located in France.

    • 1 year ago
  • ras_menelik
  • Itsbatman_Durr
    • 0
      Itsbatman_Durr  

    • JY: You may be aware that Wikileaks has claimed sponsorship by
      several notables who claimed they never heard of the org when
      contacted by reporters, Noam Chomsky an example, who has
      lately joined the supporters. Cryptome posted an email exchange
      with Chomsky about WL:

      http://cryptome.org/0001/wikileaks-noam.htm

      JY: Julian later admitted Chomsky's involvement was not true.

      BG: One last thing: why did you turn so suddenly and sharply against WL?
      It's clear you were skeptical about the $5 million funding goal and the
      1 million documents, but you go from skepticism to fuck-you-all without
      any apparent transition in the archive. What touched it off?

      JY: Caused by private emails pleading I back off my criticism
      to protect a "fragile initiative" for which my "support is
      essential." I have received these flattering back-channel
      suck-ups in other cases, which are con (blow) jobs.
      They are commonly deployed by manipulators to bring
      dissenters and doubters into the fold, yep, like all
      authoritatives. Julian is a skilled practitioner of this,
      and it usually works. That is what brought Ellsberg
      into the fold as well as the Guardian, NYT, Der Spiegel
      and the others now racing to protect their reputation
      against being gulled by a master. Time was an early
      victim -- the Time 2007 report by Tracy Smith which was
      assisted by back-channels to me and I assume others
      fingered by Julian to be seduced by media attention,
      then as now.

      JY: His back-channel entrapments would be wondrous to leak,
      no? I don't mean those to cohorts, celebrities and media,
      I mean the deep pocketed ones.

    • 1 year ago
  • Itsbatman_Durr
    • 0
      Itsbatman_Durr  

    • i agree with some points you make, but the hyperbole must stop. paypal and amazon stopped the donations because they felt, and its their right to feel this, that there was illegality going on. and there was. the leaks were stolen, regardless of the potential for good that has come from them. the new york times and the guardian, should they participate in illegal activities, might get shut off as well i would expect. the decision by these companies was not to stifle free speech, but to follow a business practice of not facilitating a possible crime. The cyber attacks on master card and others are criminal. necessary perhaps, and i believe that the stranglehold the corporations has placed on our freedoms has left us little choice but to operate outside of legality in the name of freedom. the boston tea party was an illegal act as well as many of ghandis peaceful demonstrations, and sometimes when the powers amassed against you are so all encroaching and so vile in their machinations, the rule of their law must be suspended. but to attack them simply for not wanting to do business with a party they feel is operating illicitly, i can not fault them for that. that is not freedom, for all then, but only freedom for all who think the way you do, and that is not what we need, but freedom for all equally.

    • 1 year ago
  • KSirys
  • ras_menelik
    • +2
      ras_menelik  

    • Maasanova sounds like you have read all 0.5% leaked cables so far and came to a confusion on the whole 250,000

      Assange and anon are not a focal point at all but more like a lightning rod (for 3 million Americans with security clearance and a billion humans with Internet access)
      Even wikileaks has morphed in to openleaks and also been copied on the country level in Indonesia
      You say people are awake to what's happening I say less than one in a thousand is on the global scale but now that will Change and change fast

    • 1 year ago
  • BoB__Yandenberlom
  • ras_menelik
  • VoyagerFilms
    • +3
      VoyagerFilms  

    • Well stated and a great article. Those who sensor the information to us enable the divisive and manipulations of propaganda.

      More power to Julian Assange and those like him. We are not servants to self-appointed masters. Those fools who seek to manipulate and deceive us are not superior, they are inferior and should be stripped of ill gotten wealth and certainly all power.

      What has been stolen from us should be returned with damages.

    • 1 year ago
  • maasanova
    • -2
      maasanova  
    • Image

    • http://www.rys2sense.com

      This anon hacking is a bunch of bullshit and it is not helping at all, aside from forcing politicians to get their internet censorship and net neutrality legislation in place as soon as possible.

      Quote from Ry Dawson of www.rys2sense.com

      "Three types of info comes from Wikileaks:

      1 "no shit" cables about things that have been in the public domain for years ie Americans kill Arabs with high-tech weaponry

      2 personal data on world officials that amount to little more than glorified gossip of the grocery store tabloid variety, but strangely not much on Israel or India

      3 state propaganda about Iran, Al Qaeda, Pakistan etc all bullshit ie Osama bin Laden is still alive

      Julian Assange is a con-artist attention whore. Stop drooling over the soap opera and get back to crushing the TSA and the FED. We had the ball rolling before the theatrical good guy vs Evil narrative was thrust on the airwaves. IGNORE IT. Get back on track. Wikleaks has not reported a thing of substance not already on 100s of patriot blogs.

      Where was this kind of outcry when they gagged Sibel Edmonds? She had real leaks with actual substance. Assange has done little but reiterate the obvious while promoting state propaganda and serve as an emotional tennis ball. This hero or trade dichotomy created by the media is just another false paradigm."

    • 1 year ago
  • bailey78
  • maasanova
    • +1
      maasanova  
    • bailey78:

      Protect "them" from us. This is an information war, and we the people are (were) winning that war because a lot of people no longer believe the bs that is coming from the media.

      These stupid fucking anon hackers aren't fighting anything, they are just pissing people off.

      The politicians already have the new infrastructure set up, but they just need a good excuse to enact the legislation. Assange is the perfect fake hero to help set the trap.

    • 1 year ago
  • bailey78
  • Itsbatman_Durr
    • 0
      Itsbatman_Durr  
    • maasanova:

      thank you for that i feel the same way. i dont naysay the value of free spech or of fighting this horrible system, but on assange i agree completely. he is a media whore and the so called leaks were nothing. in fact do not be shocked when it turns out the the leaks were permitted to get out so that the forces behind the facade of government could clamp further down on our civil liberties and freedoms.

    • 1 year ago
  • pjacobs51
    • +2
      pjacobs51  
    • Image

    • . . . and there's this, maybe, not sure really, found over on boing boing

      The long-awaited Collateral Murder (2010) was released soon after and benefited from authentic, muscular riffs and a tortured atonality which highlighted its more aggressive sound. And yet the production's energy, while benefiting from Sugarcubes-esque rhythm work, offers a starkness often at odds with haunting melodies that remain fastidiously progressive in their length and (some contend) lack of clarity. The most exciting moments are, indeed, easy to miss, though the dark melancholy of the album as a whole is unavoidable. A tour de force, it vanquished memories of earnest but anemic efforts such as 2009's Trafigura and 2008's The Secret Bibles, which recalls Sting at his most superfluous. Nevertheless, few predicted Assange's stunning follow-up later in 2010, which would unite him with legendary proto-punk axeman Ellsberg and return him to the heights of 2006's seminal Julius Baer's Cayman Islands Banking Adventure. His status as this generation's Astley would be secured; but at what cost?

    • 1 year ago
  • maasanova
  • ras_menelik
    • +3
      ras_menelik  

    • MasterCard.com has been taken down after a second distributed denial of service attack by Anonymous. The first attack occurred 3 days ago, after which Visa and PayPal were also successfully attacked.

      MasterCard's payment processing systems were affected during the first DDoS attack on Wednesday, with many consumers reporting that they were unable to pay for goods online. Businesses reported a corresponding drop in trade during that first attack.

      Anonymous struck out against MasterCard after the credit card giant announced a move to ensure that WikiLeaks would not be able to accept payments using MasterCard-branded products. Anonymous also tried to attack Amazon.com in retaliation for terminating WikiLeaks' EC2 web hosting services, but the first attempt did not succeed.

      This second attack against MasterCard was announced in IRC channels, on Twitter and on http://anonops.eu. The group's previous website was suspended on Wednesday. The new site is hosted at OVH in France, where wikileaks.ch is also hosted.

      IRC remains an important component in the group's command and control structure. Thousands of volunteers have installed the LOIC attack software, which receives its next attack instructions from the group's IRC network.

      The total number of computers involved in these attacks is unclear, as some volunteers have been experiencing difficulties connecting to the IRC network and so have been running the software manually. Additional volunteers have also been using a browser-based version of the attack tool, which can be run without having to install any software. Some of the previous attacks have involved at least 2,000 computers.

      The group's IRC network has continued to grow and is now spread across 18 servers. Not only does this allow more users to connect, but it also makes the IRC network more resilient to attacks and other outages.

      This latest attack against MasterCard was initially directed towards www.mastercard.com. A few hours later, the target was changed to mastercard.com, which was served from a different IP address. When www.mastercard.com became accessible again, the homepage contained the following statement ...

      "MasterCard has made significant progress in restoring full-service to its corporate website. Our core processing capabilities have not been compromised and cardholder account data has not been placed at risk. While we have seen limited interruption in some web-based services, cardholders can continue to use their cards for secure transactions globally."

      ... however, its corporate website at mastercard.com then became innaccessible due to the DDoS attack.

      Real-time performance graphs for www.mastercard.com, mastercard.com and several other sites involved in the WikiLeaks attacks can be monitored at http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/performance/wikileaks

    • 1 year ago
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
    • ras_menelik:

      "The new site is hosted at OVH in France, where wikileaks.ch is also hosted." - wrong, wikileaks.ch is hosted in Switzerland, not in France. Any site with ".ch" is hosted in Switzerland exclusively.

    • 1 year ago
  • remanns
  • remanns
    • +4
      remanns  

    • Heh ! (such a good line, really-
      "To seek simultaneous advantage from opposing arguments is not a new gambit, but to be wrong in both is quite an achievement". )

      +^d !

    • 1 year ago
  • bailey78
  • ras_menelik
    • +2
      ras_menelik  

    • It took a libertine to prove that information enriched the functioning of British society, a brave maverick who was constantly moving house – and sometimes country – to avoid arrest; whose epic sexual adventures had been used by the authorities as a means of entrapping and imprisoning him

    • 1 year ago
ras_menelik
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