Thursday, December 02, 2010

A dream come true for WikiLeaks founder

“When governments stop torturing and killing people, and when corporations stop abusing the legal system, then perhaps it will be time to ask if free-speech activists are accountable.”  Julian Assange

3 comments:

doconnor said...

However, most of the recent leaks weren't about torturing, killing and abusing the legal system. It would be better if they limited the information released to the most serious cover ups we could get the most benefit without the problems of a more secretive and untrusting governments that these leaks may cause.

The Mound of Sound said...

Assange will pay, JB, that much is sure. He was doomed as soon as he revealed that wiki has the dirt on Bank of America. That sort of exposure cannot go uncrushed.

JimBobby said...

@doconnor - One of the complaints I've heard about the leaks is that we don't know if certain leaks were held back in order to promote a specific agenda. I'd rather have Wikileaks dump everything and let the news organizations, journalists and all who can see them decide what is or is not significant. Assange and other WL operatives cannot possibly be attuned to every country's specific issues. As such, they cannot always know what may or may not be serious.

@MoS - Yes, Assange will pay, no doubt. He may have been the victim of a honey trap, as Eric Margolis suggests, or he may just disappear, Pinochet-style.

What very few seem to be making much of is the fact that these latest documents were accessible by 3 million US government and military personnel. If they were so damned sensitive, who in the hell decided that 3 million people should be privy to them?

The big scramble is on to make Assange the story. He's just the messenger. The contents of the documents is what should be the story but the media and especially governments are doing is shifting the focus to the espionage/leak aspect and away from anything embarrassing that the leaks reveal.

It may well end up with a literal shooting of the messenger.