Wikileak's insurance plan.

[Triple Zero]

It lists deaths as coalition, iraq, civiilan or enemy.

It also lists the cause of death.

How do they determine "cause of death: Wikileaks" ?

Well, thats just by process of elimination:

-Not dead by drones? Check
-Not dead by friendly fire? Check
-Not dead by air strike? Check
-Not a smudgy person? Check...

Then how do they differentiate it from "death by qxapoiu" ?

[Rumckle]

How do they determine "cause of death: Wikileaks" ?

Those are the ones Julian has gone out and killed himself.

[Cainad (dec.)]

I read an article in the NY Times yesterday about Assange: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/24assange.html

Apparently he's much admired by his supporters, but increasingly regarded as kind of a dictatorial douchebag.

[Requia ☣]

Aaah. That I did not know. Everyone's playing a crafty old game with this one, who's to tell if indeed its NOT a deliberate disinfo release. Seems pretty daft not to just go in and edit out anything too secret, unless they want them to know that they know ... ag.

I guess they could of thought that it was a waste of time, because (being a government agency) they probably would have also scrubbed out stuff that made them look bad, which would have just pissed Wikileaks off.

I dunno, maybe they care more about looking good to the public, than actually looking after their operatives/troops.

While it may have been a waste of time, it's still standard practice for news organizations and government agencies to do this prior to releasing secret information.  I think it has more to do with not wanting to legitimize wikileaks by cooperating, they want to build a case that this is an act of aggression against the US and not reporting.

[Iason Ouabache]

And now a Fox News "analyst" thinks that the guys from Wikileaks should be declared "enemy combatants":

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/fox-news-editorial-wikileaks-employees-declared-enemy-combatants/

Leading the attack on whistleblower web site WikiLeaks, Fox News editorialist and former Bush-era US State Department official Christian Whiton said on Monday that the US should classify the proprietors of WikiLeaks as "enemy combatants," opening up the possibility of "non-judicial actions" against them.

"So far, the Obama administration appears to have been asleep at the wheel in responding to this," he wrote for FoxNews.com on Monday. "The same is true of the Democratic-controlled Congress, which has no fewer than ten committees of jurisdiction that could be doing something about this—but which are not."

He proposed a number of actions the US could take to shut down the secret-spilling site for good:

1. Indict Mr. Assange and his colleagues for espionage, regardless of whether he is presently in a U.S. jurisdiction, and ask our allies to do the same.

2. Explore opportunities for the president to designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them.

3. Freeze the assets of the WikiLeaks organization and its supporters, and sanction financial organizations working with this terrorist-enabling organization so they cannot clear transactions denominated in U.S. dollars.

4. Give the new U.S. Cyber-Command a chance to prove its worth by ordering it to electronically assault WikiLeaks and any telecommunications company offering its services to this organization.

5. Holding meaningful congressional hearings to look into how this much classified information could ever be compromised and how the U.S. can better identify and combat political warfare organizations like WikiLeaks.

The writer's other recent hits: recommending that Republicans in Congress withhold money from health care recipients, calling for a US-sponsored coup in North Korea and praising Bill O'Reilly's crusade against National Public Radio.

"Non-judicial action" is newspeak for "assisination".

[Don Coyote]

And now a Fox News "analyst" thinks that the guys from Wikileaks should be declared "enemy combatants":

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/fox-news-editorial-wikileaks-employees-declared-enemy-combatants/

Leading the attack on whistleblower web site WikiLeaks, Fox News editorialist and former Bush-era US State Department official Christian Whiton said on Monday that the US should classify the proprietors of WikiLeaks as "enemy combatants," opening up the possibility of "non-judicial actions" against them.

"So far, the Obama administration appears to have been asleep at the wheel in responding to this," he wrote for FoxNews.com on Monday. "The same is true of the Democratic-controlled Congress, which has no fewer than ten committees of jurisdiction that could be doing something about this—but which are not."

He proposed a number of actions the US could take to shut down the secret-spilling site for good:

1. Indict Mr. Assange and his colleagues for espionage, regardless of whether he is presently in a U.S. jurisdiction, and ask our allies to do the same.

2. Explore opportunities for the president to designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them.

3. Freeze the assets of the WikiLeaks organization and its supporters, and sanction financial organizations working with this terrorist-enabling organization so they cannot clear transactions denominated in U.S. dollars.

4. Give the new U.S. Cyber-Command a chance to prove its worth by ordering it to electronically assault WikiLeaks and any telecommunications company offering its services to this organization.

5. Holding meaningful congressional hearings to look into how this much classified information could ever be compromised and how the U.S. can better identify and combat political warfare organizations like WikiLeaks.

The writer's other recent hits: recommending that Republicans in Congress withhold money from health care recipients, calling for a US-sponsored coup in North Korea and praising Bill O'Reilly's crusade against National Public Radio.

"Non-judicial action" is newspeak for "assisination".

and torture

[Placid Dingo]

I read an article in the NY Times yesterday about Assange: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/24assange.html

Apparently he's much admired by his supporters, but increasingly regarded as kind of a dictatorial douchebag.

Some organisations need that as a driving force. Zappa was apparently one.

So was Kevin Rudd (Might not have paid off long term, but won him an election.)

[Cain]

Remember the NYT have something of a vendetta against Assange.  Most of their writers willingly cheerleaded the war in Iraq, and published propaganda coming directly from Rumsfeld and the White House as "evidence" of Saddam's imminent threat (and this attitude continues.  The NYT spun the US military handing over detainees to known torturers who worked previously for Saddam as "US treat detainees better than Iraqis", for example).  Assange is doing their job better than them, and exposing them for the cheap propagandists they are.  That's gotta sting, just a little bit.

That's not to say Assange hasn't come across as a little.... odd to me before now... but given the kind of lifestyle he is apparently leading, that may not be too surprising.  He was also a rather accomplished hacker, back in the day, and that's a group that certainly has a fair share of oddballs as well.

[Triple Zero]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/fox-news-editorial-wikileaks-employees-declared-enemy-combatants/

He proposed a number of actions the US could take to shut down the secret-spilling site for good:

1. Indict Mr. Assange and his colleagues for espionage, regardless of whether he is presently in a U.S. jurisdiction, and ask our allies to do the same.

2. Explore opportunities for the president to designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them.

3. Freeze the assets of the WikiLeaks organization and its supporters, and sanction financial organizations working with this terrorist-enabling organization so they cannot clear transactions denominated in U.S. dollars.

4. Give the new U.S. Cyber-Command a chance to prove its worth by ordering it to electronically assault WikiLeaks and any telecommunications company offering its services to this organization.

5. Holding meaningful congressional hearings to look into how this much classified information could ever be compromised and how the U.S. can better identify and combat political warfare organizations like WikiLeaks.

The writer's other recent hits: recommending that Republicans in Congress withhold money from health care recipients, calling for a US-sponsored coup in North Korea and praising Bill O'Reilly's crusade against National Public Radio.

What about point 4? That sounds pretty reasonable? [ok just the first part, actually] I mean, if there is an organisation spilling your state secrets, why not hack / DDOS them?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/fox-news-editorial-wikileaks-employees-declared-enemy-combatants/

He proposed a number of actions the US could take to shut down the secret-spilling site for good:

1. Indict Mr. Assange and his colleagues for espionage, regardless of whether he is presently in a U.S. jurisdiction, and ask our allies to do the same.

2. Explore opportunities for the president to designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them.

3. Freeze the assets of the WikiLeaks organization and its supporters, and sanction financial organizations working with this terrorist-enabling organization so they cannot clear transactions denominated in U.S. dollars.

4. Give the new U.S. Cyber-Command a chance to prove its worth by ordering it to electronically assault WikiLeaks and any telecommunications company offering its services to this organization.

5. Holding meaningful congressional hearings to look into how this much classified information could ever be compromised and how the U.S. can better identify and combat political warfare organizations like WikiLeaks.

The writer's other recent hits: recommending that Republicans in Congress withhold money from health care recipients, calling for a US-sponsored coup in North Korea and praising Bill O'Reilly's crusade against National Public Radio.

What about point 4? That sounds pretty reasonable? [ok just the first part, actually] I mean, if there is an organisation spilling your state secrets, why not hack / DDOS them?

Heaven hath no fury like a hacker hacked...

[Remington]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/fox-news-editorial-wikileaks-employees-declared-enemy-combatants/

He proposed a number of actions the US could take to shut down the secret-spilling site for good:

1. Indict Mr. Assange and his colleagues for espionage, regardless of whether he is presently in a U.S. jurisdiction, and ask our allies to do the same.

2. Explore opportunities for the president to designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them.

3. Freeze the assets of the WikiLeaks organization and its supporters, and sanction financial organizations working with this terrorist-enabling organization so they cannot clear transactions denominated in U.S. dollars.

4. Give the new U.S. Cyber-Command a chance to prove its worth by ordering it to electronically assault WikiLeaks and any telecommunications company offering its services to this organization.

5. Holding meaningful congressional hearings to look into how this much classified information could ever be compromised and how the U.S. can better identify and combat political warfare organizations like WikiLeaks.

The writer's other recent hits: recommending that Republicans in Congress withhold money from health care recipients, calling for a US-sponsored coup in North Korea and praising Bill O'Reilly's crusade against National Public Radio.

What about point 4? That sounds pretty reasonable? [ok just the first part, actually] I mean, if there is an organisation spilling your state secrets, why not hack / DDOS them?

Methinks the Streisand Effect would come into play.

[Cain]

It should be noted there is a distinct difference between whistleblowing (which is leaking secret information about illegal and unethical activities by governments) and just leaking/stealing secrets.  Governments almost routinely use secrecy laws to hide their own culpability in a multitude of sins, not necessarily because they "need" to remain secret.  It's not like Wikileaks is picking exclusively on America here, either, they've hosted information showing Kenyan police being involved in political assassinations, the wheelings and dealings of Swiss banks, and how UK and Dutch companies called the shots when it came to extracting a pound of flesh from Iceland.

Also, here is an article which explains in more detail how the character assassination done in the NYT relied on a single source and is more telling of NYT priorities than it is of Assange's personality.