Argus Posted August 23, 2012 Report Posted August 23, 2012 (edited) No I appreciate efforts to fight governments rampant abuse of secrecy, and efforts to promote transparency and fight censorship. Yeah, probably 0.0001% of hackers do stuff like that - part time. The rest are just into stealing information they can sell, or causing general mayhem. And even the ones who leak stuff to Wikileaks are probably thieves and vandals most of the time. I appreciated when wikileaks helped expose the fact that Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi was stealing millions of dollars from Kenyans and moving it out of the country. Why? He's an African leader. I simply presume that all African leaders are thoroughly and completely corrupt, and stealing everything they possibly can. I had thought everyone else did too. I appreciated when they published the membership list of the BNP... a British white nationalist party. Why? Not that I'm a fan of the BNP, but they're a private organization and it's nobody else's business who belongs, any more than it's anyone's business who belongs to the NDP or the Communist Party or Marxist Lenonists, or other disreputable organizations. It's nobody's business who belongs to kinky porn sites, or what library books they take out, or what they watch on TV. Why is it people rant on about privacy protection when Toews wants to do something, but are gleeful when the privacy being invaded belongs to people they find morally inferior? I appreciated when they published the ACMA blacklist... a list of sites banned by the Australian government which was supposed only include illegal sites, but ended up having all kinds of perfectly legal sites on it. The Australian government is made of up Leftists. You have to assume that they'll be banning all sorts of sites. That's what Leftists do. Again, nothing new there. I appreciated it when wikileaks disclosed to the Japenese people that their government was lying to them about Nuclear radiation leaks. Again, this is a surprise? I appreciated when wikileaks disclosed a spree of extrajudicial killings by the government of Columbia. South American governments do that sort of thing. Is Wikileaks going to breathlessly expose the fact that it gets cold in Winter in Edmonton? I hope wikileaks and groups like them can greatly diminish the ability of governments to operate in secret. They won't. They'll just be even MORE secretive. Edited August 23, 2012 by Argus Quote "A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley
bleeding heart Posted August 23, 2012 Report Posted August 23, 2012 Yeah they were fine with it until they leaked US documents. I didnt see any of these people spewing moral outrage when wikileaks hosted the CLIMATEGATE emails! Gods, no! Then they were performing a public service! Now, they should learn a little sycophancy and obedience to Power. It's the proper, default position for any Commissar. Quote “There is a limit to how much we can constantly say no to the political masters in Washington. All we had was Afghanistan to wave. On every other file we were offside. Eventually we came onside on Haiti, so we got another arrow in our quiver." --Bill Graham, Former Canadian Foreign Minister, 2007
Argus Posted August 23, 2012 Report Posted August 23, 2012 Get a grip, that's vandalism. Which is what almost all hackers do almost all the time. Opening up official state files aka the public's domain, to the light of total public awareness is a revolutionary heroic act of empowering the governed. This is just the start of a new human movement towards a reversal of paradigms in state vs human relationships where, amongst other things, the governed will monitor their governments to an extent that would make Orwell himself blush. You live in an interesting fantasy world. Quote "A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley
dre Posted August 23, 2012 Report Posted August 23, 2012 Yeah, probably 0.0001% of hackers do stuff like that - part time. The rest are just into stealing information they can sell, or causing general mayhem. And even the ones who leak stuff to Wikileaks are probably thieves and vandals most of the time. Why? He's an African leader. I simply presume that all African leaders are thoroughly and completely corrupt, and stealing everything they possibly can. I had thought everyone else did too. Why? Not that I'm a fan of the BNP, but they're a private organization and it's nobody else's business who belongs, any more than it's anyone's business who belongs to the NDP or the Communist Party or Marxist Lenonists, or other disreputable organizations. It's nobody's business who belongs to kinky porn sites, or what library books they take out, or what they watch on TV. Why is it people rant on about privacy protection when Toews wants to do something, but are gleeful when the privacy being invaded belongs to people they find morally inferior? The Australian government is made of up Leftists. You have to assume that they'll be banning all sorts of sites. That's what Leftists do. Again, nothing new there. Again, this is a surprise? South American governments do that sort of thing. Is Wikileaks going to breathlessly expose the fact that it gets cold in Winter in Edmonton? They won't. They'll just be even MORE secretive. Youre basically saying that theres no value in disclosing specific information about an event if its generally known that those type of things happen. Might as well shut down the entire free press then. No point in reporting on government corruption at all because "Hey! We know it happens all the time!". No point in reporting a murder or a crime because "Hey! We dont need the press to tell us that murders and crimes happen". In fact you could use your twisted logic to dismiss any and all insitutions that provide the public with any and all kinds of information. Id rather we had access to ALL the raw data, and let people decide for themselves whats important. If you hate INFORMATION so much, then dont read it. Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
dre Posted August 23, 2012 Report Posted August 23, 2012 (edited) They won't. They'll just be even MORE secretive. Luckily as long as theres a lot of smart people trying to get at the data, governments simply dont have the where-with-all to successfully keep a lot of secrets, and as governments in the west have become more and more closed and less and less transparent, and arbitrarily classified such a huge volume of stuff, the more they will leak like a sieve. They simply are not good at this stuff, and the brightest people information technology people are not civil servants and never will be. If they were responsible and they only classified truly sensitive information, then they could probably manage it. But instead they classify billions of pages that have no national security implications at all. And that has been the big story about these various leaks. Its not the "smoking guns" found within the leaks its the sheer volume of data that gets classified simply out of convenience. Most of this stuff is not even sensitive in nature and never should have been kept from the public in the first place. Edited August 23, 2012 by dre Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
bleeding heart Posted August 23, 2012 Report Posted August 23, 2012 As to your second point, that is the rub, there certainly has been no evidence provided to suggest Mr Assange’s fears of being extradited to the United States are justified. that country has a disturbing history of lawlessly handing over suspects to the US. A 2006 UN ruling found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for helping the CIA render two suspected terrorists to Egypt, where they were brutally tortured (both individuals, asylum-seekers in Sweden, were ultimately found to be innocent of any connection to terrorism and received a monetary settlement from the Swedish government). Perhaps most disturbingly of all, Swedish law permits extreme levels of secrecy in judicial proceedings and oppressive pre-trial conditions, enabling any Swedish-US transactions concerning Assange to be conducted beyond public scrutiny. Ironically, even the US State Department condemned Sweden's "restrictive conditions for prisoners held in pretrial custody", including severe restrictions on their communications with the outside world. Quote “There is a limit to how much we can constantly say no to the political masters in Washington. All we had was Afghanistan to wave. On every other file we were offside. Eventually we came onside on Haiti, so we got another arrow in our quiver." --Bill Graham, Former Canadian Foreign Minister, 2007
bleeding heart Posted August 23, 2012 Report Posted August 23, 2012 (edited) Glenn Greenwald weighs in again...and counters every single argument I've yet heard condemning Assange: When it comes to the American media, I've long noted this revealing paradox. The person who (along with whomever is the heroic leaker) enabled "more scoops in a year than most journalists could imagine in a lifetime" – and who was quickly branded an enemy by the Pentagon and a terrorist by high U.S. officials – is the most hated figure among establishment journalists, even though they are ostensibly devoted to precisely these values of transparency and exposing serious government wrongdoing. (This transparency was imposed not only on the US and its allies, but also some of the most oppressive regimes in the Arab world). It is vital to note, as was just demonstrated, that this media contempt long pre-dates, and exists wholly independent of, the controversy surrounding the sex assault allegations in Sweden, and certainly long pre-dates his seeking of asylum from Ecuador. Indeed, given that he has not been convicted of anything, to assume Assange's guilt would be reprehensible – every bit as reprehensible as concluding that the allegations are a CIA ruse or that the complainants' allegations should be dismissed as frivolous or inherently untrustworthy. It would be genuinely nice to think that the same British government that refused to extradite the mass rapist Augusto Pinochet has suddenly developed a devoted passion for ensuring that alleged sex assault offenders are brought to justice – just as it would be nice to believe that the sudden interest in denouncing Ecuador's press freedom record was driven by some newly discovered and authentic concern in the west for civil liberties protections in South America. But as Milne put it last night with great understatement: "such posturing looks increasingly specious." As he rhetorically asked: "Can anyone seriously believe the dispute would have gone global, or that the British government would have made its asinine threat to suspend the Ecuadorean embassy's diplomatic status and enter it by force, or that scores of police would have surrounded the building, swarming up and down the fire escape and guarding every window, if it was all about one man wanted for questioning over sex crime allegations in Stockholm?" Other causes are more subtle though substantive. Many journalists (and liberals) like to wear the costume of outsider-insurgent, but are, at their core, devoted institutionalists, faithful believers in the goodness of their society's power centers, and thus resent those (like Assange) who actually and deliberately place themselves outside of it. By putting his own liberty and security at risk to oppose the world's most powerful factions, Assange has clearly demonstrated what happens to real adversarial dissidents and insurgents – they're persecuted, demonized, and threatened, not befriended by and invited to parties within the halls of imperial power – and he thus causes many journalists to stand revealed as posers, servants to power, and courtiers.Then there's the ideological cause. As one long-time British journalist told me this week when discussing the vitriol of the British press toward Assange: "Nothing delights British former lefties more than an opportunity to defend power while pretending it is a brave stance in defence of a left liberal principle." That's the warped mindset that led to so many of these self-styled liberal journalists to support the attack on Iraq and other acts of Western aggression in the name of liberal values. And it's why nothing triggers their rage like fundamental critiques of, and especially meaningful opposition to, the institutions of power to which they are unfailingly loyal. Not only Assange defenders, but also his own lawyers and the Ecuadorean government, have worked relentlessly to ensure that he faces those allegations in Sweden. They have merely sought to do so in a way that protects him from extradition to the US to face espionage charges for his journalism – a threat that could send him to prison for life (likely in a torturous super-max facility), and a threat only the wilfuly blind could deny is serious and real. In their New York Times op-ed this week, Michael Moore and Oliver Stone correctly argue that it is "the British and Swedish governments that stand in the way of [the sex assault] investigation, not Mr Assange." That's because, they note, Assange has repeatedly offered to be questioned by Swedish authorities in London, or to travel today to Sweden to face those allegations if he could be assured that his doing so would not result in his extradition to the US to face espionage charges. Time and again, "Correa said Ecuador never intended to stop Assange from facing justice in Sweden. 'What we've asked for is guarantees that he won't be extradited to a third country,' he said." Both Britain and Sweden have steadfastly refused even to discuss any agreement that could safeguard both the rights of the complainants and Assange's rights not to be imprisoned for basic journalism. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/22/julian-assange-media-contempt Edited August 23, 2012 by bleeding heart Quote “There is a limit to how much we can constantly say no to the political masters in Washington. All we had was Afghanistan to wave. On every other file we were offside. Eventually we came onside on Haiti, so we got another arrow in our quiver." --Bill Graham, Former Canadian Foreign Minister, 2007
wyly Posted August 24, 2012 Report Posted August 24, 2012 Glenn Greenwald weighs in again...and counters every single argument I've yet heard condemning Assange:good post...what I find very relevant is this part "Can anyone seriously believe the dispute would have gone global, or that the British government would have made its asinine threat to suspend the Ecuadorean embassy's diplomatic status and enter it by force, or that scores of police would have surrounded the building, swarming up and down the fire escape and guarding every window, if it was all about one man wanted for questioning over sex crime allegations in Stockholm?" there is huge amount of fuss to what are relatively minor accusations, this indeed seems politically motivated...all sweden need do is assure assange's lawyer that he won't be extradited to the US that they won't give that assurance would indicate that is exactly what would happen...these kind of legal deals are done all the time between countries, canada requires nations not execute anyone they send back to face murder charges...on such relatively minor accusations you would think sweden would have no issues at all with that request... Quote “Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.”- John Stuart Mill
Guest American Woman Posted August 24, 2012 Report Posted August 24, 2012 (edited) Interesting article on Assange: Lifting the veil on Wikileaks mastermind Julian Assange Evidently he started hacking fairly early on: The Wikileaks mastermind began hacking computers as a teenager in his bedroom. He helped formed the International Subversives, a small hacking collective in Melbourne, after moving out of home as a 17-year-old. But Assange was arrested in 1991 by the Australian Federal Police, who had been tracking him as he hacked the systems of RMIT, Australian National University and Nortel, a Canadian telecommunications company. Assange pled guilty to 24 charges but avoided jail, instead receiving a good behaviour bond and a $2100 reparation order. Would everyone who is championing Assange be onboard with the police hacking whomever they please in order to gain information 'for the good of the people?' Edited August 24, 2012 by American Woman Quote
dre Posted August 24, 2012 Report Posted August 24, 2012 Interesting article on Assange: Lifting the veil on Wikileaks mastermind Julian Assange Evidently he started hacking fairly early on: The Wikileaks mastermind began hacking computers as a teenager in his bedroom. He helped formed the International Subversives, a small hacking collective in Melbourne, after moving out of home as a 17-year-old. But Assange was arrested in 1991 by the Australian Federal Police, who had been tracking him as he hacked the systems of RMIT, Australian National University and Nortel, a Canadian telecommunications company. Assange pled guilty to 24 charges but avoided jail, instead receiving a good behaviour bond and a $2100 reparation order. Would everyone who is championing Assange be onboard with the police hacking whomever they please in order to gain information 'for the good of the people?' Oh I already know the police and government are doing this. They dont even have to hack, they just write laws that allow them to shake down your ISP, or they tap your phone. You are protected in that they cant use illegally obtained information against someone in COURT but thats about it. So its the governments own behavior that makes this kind of thing necessary. We wouldnt need the press, or leaks or whistle blowers if intitutions of authority behaved perfectly, and didnt classify stuff that they shouldnt. Just like its proven that employees at a casino will steal much less if you put a camera up behind the till, we get the best government when politicians feel the publics eyes burning a whole in their back, and leak media is just one more way of keeping tabs on them. Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
Argus Posted August 24, 2012 Report Posted August 24, 2012 Luckily as long as theres a lot of smart people trying to get at the data, governments simply dont have the where-with-all to successfully keep a lot of secrets, Oh please. All Assange has managed to uncover are minor embarrassments of no real consequence. All the really secret stuff is far beyond the likes of his legions of hacker admirers and vandals. And as I said prior to this, 99% of these hackers are vermin anyway, malicious virus creators and thieves. Quote "A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley
Argus Posted August 24, 2012 Report Posted August 24, 2012 Youre basically saying that theres no value in disclosing specific information about an event if its generally known that those type of things happen. Some hacker breathlessly informed us the government of Kenya was corrupt? Like that was a secret. Now if they found Harper funneling money into his Swiss bank account that would be different. Wikileaks is nothing but the on-line version of News of the World. Quote "A liberal is someone who claims to be open to all points of view — and then is surprised and offended to find there are other points of view.” William F Buckley
dre Posted August 24, 2012 Report Posted August 24, 2012 Oh please. All Assange has managed to uncover are minor embarrassments of no real consequence. All the really secret stuff is far beyond the likes of his legions of hacker admirers and vandals. And as I said prior to this, 99% of these hackers are vermin anyway, malicious virus creators and thieves. You dont seem to know what leak media is. Its not generally about hacking. Its about encouraging insiders that already have access to the data to leak it if they think its in the peoples interest to know about it. Wiki leaks just gives them a site where they can anonymously post it. 99% of these hackers are vermin anyway, malicious virus creators and thieves I have no idea what youre even on about here. Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
dre Posted August 24, 2012 Report Posted August 24, 2012 Some hacker breathlessly informed us the government of Kenya was corrupt? Like that was a secret. Now if they found Harper funneling money into his Swiss bank account that would be different. Wikileaks is nothing but the on-line version of News of the World. Actually its really more like YOUTUBE for large document collections. Quote I question things because I am human. And call no one my father who's no closer than a stranger
Guest Derek L Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 that country has a disturbing history of lawlessly handing over suspects to the US. A 2006 UN ruling found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for helping the CIA render two suspected terrorists to Egypt, where they were brutally tortured (both individuals, asylum-seekers in Sweden, were ultimately found to be innocent of any connection to terrorism and received a monetary settlement from the Swedish government). Perhaps most disturbingly of all, Swedish law permits extreme levels of secrecy in judicial proceedings and oppressive pre-trial conditions, enabling any Swedish-US transactions concerning Assange to be conducted beyond public scrutiny. Ironically, even the US State Department condemned Sweden's "restrictive conditions for prisoners held in pretrial custody", including severe restrictions on their communications with the outside world. As to your second point, that is the rub, there certainly has been no evidence provided to suggest Mr Assange’s fears of being extradited to the United States are justified. Quote
waldo Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 oh... you're back, hey? Still waiting: let's see just how far you're prepared to take your intellectual dishonesty... your lies... and your weasel moves. Quote where I, as you stated, " claimed Mr. Assange's innocence in relation to the Swedish "problem" as fact " .........You on the other hand claimed Mr Assange’s innocence in relation to the Swedish “problem” as fact…… Quote
Guest Derek L Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 oh... you're back, hey? Still waiting: Still have your nose out of joint? Quote
Guest Derek L Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 Just like its proven that employees at a casino will steal much less if you put a camera up behind the till, we get the best government when politicians feel the publics eyes burning a whole in their back, and leak media is just one more way of keeping tabs on them. By extension, couldn’t that also be applied to the general public? Or no personal privacy, would equal no crime? Quote
waldo Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 Still have your nose out of joint? still have your intellectual dishonesty in hand? You're not big enough to admit and retract your lie, hey? let's see just how far you're prepared to take your intellectual dishonesty... your lies... and your weasel moves. Quote where I, as you stated, " claimed Mr. Assange's innocence in relation to the Swedish "problem" as fact " .........You on the other hand claimed Mr Assange’s innocence in relation to the Swedish “problem” as fact…… Quote
Guest Derek L Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 still have your intellectual dishonesty in hand? You're not big enough to admit and retract your lie, hey? What lie? let me bother... to call your BS - I have most definitely not spoken of the innocence... or guilt... of Assange in regards to the Swedish investigation. What I most certainly have beaten on is the matter of the questioning of Assange. Quit making shyte up, hey? he has repeatedly stated he is innocent in regards the Swedish questioning matter... It’s gold, Actually like Scotch……..getting better with age Quote
waldo Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 What lie? It’s gold, Actually like Scotch……..getting better with age so... you're back to the same shyte! What does what you quoted have to do with your lie, this lie: let's see just how far you're prepared to take your intellectual dishonesty... your lies... and your weasel moves. Quote where I, as you stated, " claimed Mr. Assange's innocence in relation to the Swedish "problem" as fact " .........You on the other hand claimed Mr Assange’s innocence in relation to the Swedish “problem” as fact…… acknowledge you lied... and retract it. Quote
Guest Derek L Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 so... you're back to the same shyte! What does what you quoted have to do with your lie, this lie: acknowledge you lied... and retract it. Where did I lie? Perhaps I should have highlighted your conflicting post in a Multicoloured “quote box”, indented of course, as such I’m truly sorry if I offended your sensitive sensibilities Waldo……….I do hope you didn’t lose any sleep due to my committed travesty..... Pot.Kettle.Black Quote
waldo Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 Where did I lie? rather than continuing to disrupt this thread, your intellectual dishonesty has been more appropriately refocused - here: Quote
eyeball Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 By extension, couldn’t that also be applied to the general public? Or no personal privacy, would equal no crime? It might, but I expect instead once the enforcement of accountability and transparency is concentrated near the top of society that honesty and decency will trickle down throughout the rest just like wealth. Quote A government without public oversight is like a nuclear plant without lead shielding.
Guest Derek L Posted August 25, 2012 Report Posted August 25, 2012 It might, but I expect instead once the enforcement of accountability and transparency is concentrated near the top of society that honesty and decency will trickle down throughout the rest just like wealth. Interesting theory………Rare that you’ll see someone attempt to refute the dogma associated with both Calvin & Hobbes in one go……….. Quote
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