WikiLeaks' Biggest Document Dump Yet Coming Monday: What to Expect

Originally posted by Xcathdra
This guy is not a U.S. Citizen, and nor is he credentialed as media, so the freedom of speech you refer to does not exist for this guy except for the country he is in at the moment.

What does his nationality have to do with it? Freedom of speech is not exclusive to rights in the United States or of US citizens. Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right recognized in international law, it’s not dependent on the nationality of the person exercising it.

It's one thing to release information in a controlled and responsible manner (protecting sources, redacting names, address etc). (...) He does not care about the lives he is putting in danger.

If the Pentagon or the administration are so worried about sensitive information being disclosed and protecting the troops why did they decline to help Wikileaks find if such information was present in the documents Wikileaks was preparing to release? The information was going to be disclosed anyway, why not make sure there was no information that could be harmful to the security of the troops? It looks like that the Pentagon and US officials are more worried about demonizing Wikileaks.

And regarding the question of putting lives in danger and disclosing sensitive information, I’ll refer you to the Pentagon’s own investigation on the matter:

The online leak of thousands of secret military documents from the war in Afghanistan by the website WikiLeaks did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods, the Department of Defense concluded. (...) The assessment, revealed in a letter from Gates to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan), comes after a thorough Pentagon review of the more than 70,000 documents posted to the controversial whistle-blower site in July. (...)

The defense secretary said that the published documents do contain names of some cooperating Afghans, who could face reprisal by Taliban. But a senior NATO official in Kabul told CNN that there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.

he is not doing it to be a patriot to the cause either: He is doing it because he hates the establishment.

It doesn’t matter the reason why someone discloses information, as long as they don’t violate any laws while doing it. And did he?

You say that freedom of speech — and I assume of the press? — doesn’t apply to information that compromises national security. Based on what, legally speaking? The statement is undoubtedly true for military and government employees, but not private citizens.

In the United States it is not, generally, a crime for private citizens and journalists to publish classified information. There are only a few narrow categories of exception — certain cryptographic and signals communications intelligence, names of covert operatives and nuclear secrets — none of which pertain to the information disclosed by Wikileaks.

A few years ago two AIPAC officials were accused of receiving classified information from a DOD employee and passing it on to the Israeli Government and to various journalists. The DOJ failed to prosecute the two AIPAC officials for disclosing classified information, and they were only prosecuted on conspiring to obtain classified information.

Is Assange guilty of conspiring to obtain classified information? From what I’ve read so far there is no indication that Wikileaks conspired to obtain information. Wikipedia limits itself to publishing it, not actively going after people trying to convince them to get information and documents.

And the two AIPAC officials were US citizens which is not even the case with Assange, nor is Wikileaks a US organization.

So, what exactly is Assange guilty of and based on what?

Wonder if the newest planned leak has anything to do with the site going down today? Seems to be a hell of a coincidence, does anyone know if big releases like what they plan require taking the site down for a while? I would think not but then again I am not into running websites like that so?

What does his nationality have to do with it? Freedom of speech is not exclusive to rights in the United States or of US citizens. Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right recognized in international law, it’s not dependent on the nationality of the person exercising it.

Tell that to people in China, and some of the other nations that control their flow of information amongst their citizens under the penalty of work camps, persecution or death.

And regarding the question of putting lives in danger and disclosing sensitive information, I’ll refer you to the Pentagon’s own investigation on the matter:

That was concerning the last bout of information that was released, not the information pending......

You would feel a lot different if your friends or family members were over seas and there was a chance that any of the information could reveal information that could get them killed......

But there in lies the problem, its easy for people to make judgements and be unconcerned when they have nothing, and no one to lose from it.

So their site is down for scheduled maintainence - I wonder if they are still going to do it. It is Monday, after all.

Turns out this isn't true.

tl.gd...

Originally posted by ManBehindTheMask
Tell that to people in China, and some of the other nations that control their flow of information amongst their citizens under the penalty of work camps, persecution or death.

I fail to understand the point of your comment. If the goal is to underline the reality that not all nations respect even the most fundamental human rights, while it’s an unquestionable fact, it’s one most people are aware of, and certainly doesn’t come as news to someone who has a professional interest in law.

If, on the other hand, you’re implying that because some nations don’t respect some basic human rights it serves as an excuse to, when convenient, infringe on those rights — the “others do it, so why can’t we?" argument — I completely repudiate the idea and reject the absurd implication that the standards of conduct of my country should be those of China.

Please clarify the purpose of your comment.

That was concerning the last bout of information that was released, not the information pending......

Unless you are privy to some information those of us in the public arena aren’t, or have supernatural powers, we can’t judge the information, and whether it was released in a responsible manner, of documents that haven’t been released yet.

The fact that the last batch of documents didn’t disclose any sensitive information, as per the Pentagon’s admission, serves as an indication that US officials initially exaggerated the threat posed by their release and, if for nothing else, adds to Wikileaks’ positive track record. Which is not something that can’t be said for US military and intelligence as they’ve been shown — by Wikileaks and others through the years — to have lied, covered up and engaged in unlawful activities time and time again, so the kind of work Wikileaks does is extremely important in my opinion.

Until the documents get released and shown to have been so in an irresponsible manner, the preponderance of the evidence — Wikileaks’ history — as it is now, is on Wikileaks side.

You would feel a lot different if your friends or family members were over seas and there was a chance that any of the information could reveal information that could get them killed...

The accusations made were that Wikileaks and Assange have broken the law, and so I have asked those accusations to be substantiated. It’s an objective question — the law has been broken or not — for which personal interests are irrelevant. The law doesn’t change because of a personal stake in the matter.

But there in lies the problem, its easy for people to make judgements and be unconcerned when they have nothing, and no one to lose from it.

Nothing and no one to lose? You mean like the majority of our elected officials, who actually declare and send our sons and daughters to war?

Irrespective of the circumstances I will defend the freedom of speech and press, even when people exercising those rights make a lot of other people uncomfortable or angry. It’s a requirement for our democracy to function. And unless people are actually breaking laws when doing it there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.

My initial question stands: what laws is Wikileaks breaking?

reply to post by Soshh


Is that why Fox has dropped all the articles off their site about this?
2nd line

No document dump, nothing today... & the site is still down.

someone got someone good on this one. Glad it wasn't me!

reply to post by ugie1028


APPARENTLY!!! they are not releasing anything on Monday, it was a fabrication by a tabloid blog of Wired Magazine...

twitter.com/wikileaks

Where do all these claims about WikiLeaks doing something on Iraq today (Monday) come from?

Only 2 'BLOGS' to support your claim to wikileaks NOT releasing the documents.

Please support your claims with substantial hard evidence, and blogs/twitter don't count.

The site is down, and no 'OFFICIAL' word from wikileaks or Julian, and a bunch of blogs start sprining up the day the leak is supposed to happen? Fishy if you ask me.

What do I think? Wikileaks leaked their documents already, the Pentagon destroyed the site before anyone could see, and started spreading all this bs about a false leak, pulling our minds away from it. It would be convincing if the pentagon could gain access to the wikileaks twitter account. How easy would it be for a pentagon person to tap into the wikileaks twitter account?

That's just my 2 cents.

Plus, I doubt the Pentagon would have a 120 man team working around the clock if it was all just a big hoax.


2nd

This article is linked from their website:
www.reuters.com...

From the twitter feed link supplied by wikileaks.

Rather than apologizing for misleading the press, the Pentagon tries bully it into not reporting

And the title of the actual article:

Pentagon cautions news media on WikiLeaks documents

Well the sites down, so me thinks they are uploading the docs, it would take a long time.

And to add, that Twitter link is the official wikileaks twitter account.

reply to post by ghostsoldier


It has been down for a few days, at least at the times that I went on it. From their statement on twitter it can be assumed that they were never intending on releasing classified Iraq War documents, at least not on Monday or in the near future, or at least this is what they are trying to put across.

The questions being for what exact purpose would Wired magazine spread misinformation, or who informed Wired in the first place and why the release was called off.

reply to post by Soshh


I dunno, but it was Wired that spread the rumors about Wikileaks staff resigning over Assange's personality, which apparently were unfounded... so *shrugs*

Maybe the editor is on the CIA payroll, maybe they did a deal to get exclusive stories from the Pentagon... who knows...

I'm not going to make up my mind for another day or two.

reply to post by ghostsoldier


Since it is a false claim, what was the motivation for saying wiki leaks were going to release the docs? Part two of question two is WHY did the MSM jump on it like the did?

Was it to see how many people would bite?

hmmmm

reply to post by ghostsoldier


Well someone is lying, put it that way! Just at the moment we're not in a position to ascertain who that is.

If it was Wired, I would support the CIA bankroll theory too, either that or a source of theirs has fed them misinformation, likely a government agent. If it is Assange, then someone close to Wikileaks had disclosed a future release in advance and he didn't like it, but that begs the question of why Assange waited until the day of the alleged release to quash the rumours.

It seems like an elaborate plot to me, whoever is behind it.

reply to post by ugie1028


maybe they are the same question as you have eluded to.

Could of been a shock test to see as has been said, how many people would bite, how the media would react, how many internet searches were done, what WikiLeaks response would be, all of the above, who knows.

And the media would of jumped on it for ratings and not much else. $$

Now on their twitter feed it's saying nows a good time to download the insurance file.

Now is a good time to mirror this WikiLeaks 'insurance' backup http://(link tracking not allowed)/bRaiYF

For what it's worth the main site is still down.

Looks like the twitter feed might be down now too? Some strange events unfolding here in my opinion. Anyone seen or heard anything else on this?