The way I see it is that the Assange's actions didn't get anyone killed no matter what way you spin it. The UK and US are targets for invading another country then pissing on locals. They're targets already. Why a lot of people seem to hate Assange is the fact he has now put the ball firmly in the public court. It is up to the voting people to stand up against the sleeze and BS of their current governments that they are responsible for electing. Without the information people can claim blissful ignorance that it isn't their fault they're sending young men to their death. Its the governments fault and they got caught with their knickers down. Now Assange is the convenient scape goat to soak up news and ignore the real truth in the story. The west's behaviour appals me. Greed, corruption, scandal, shelfishness seems to be the top traits. To quote Dave Lister "now their smouldering corpses can enjoy their freedom". Welcome to Northern Ireland II. Only way to resolve it is to put the terrorists in power.
No, they provided opinion. The Guardian and the NYT, both of which collaborated heavily until they decided they suddenly didn't like Assange then both suddenly decided that perhaps some of the stuff they were releasing might make it more difficult for the coalition, or could in their minds cause harm to informants - yet no informant has been harmed, so I'm going to call nonsense on this. Let's face it guys, no-one has died as a result of these leaks, the only people to take any real harm are governments and some members of the armed forces who've been shown to be behaving very, very badly (unlike the vast majority of our armed forces, who do an excellent job). There is no valid case against Assange or Wikileaks for leaking the data it has leaked. The traditional news media has turned its back on him because he won't play by their rules, and governments hate him because he's actually capable enough to harm them by releasing truths about them to the world. edit: Further, Mechh69, not that I disagree with the Afghan war (and I'm on the fence with Iraq) but if you're going to make "purposefully endangering lives" a crime then most of our politicians are going to jail for a long long time.
Not convincing. You argue that living in exile in some South American backwater is going to keep him in the public eye better than going to court in Sweden, playing the murdered innocence and possibly doing time in Sweden for a charge that he can keep appealing against whilst playing the political prisoner. I call that BS. So far we have heard a lot of accusations but no proof. Assange has delivered proof for every one of his accusations. Where is the proof of his detractors?
You can say that no-one has died as a result of the Wikileaks but you can't prove it just as I can't prove that people have died. Deadlock as far as I'm concerned on that one. On the question of whether anyone was put in danger as a result of the leaks, I still can't prove that this is the case, and in turn you cannot prove that this is not the case. Having said this, I still believe that there is every possibility that informants have been put in danger. My reasons are as follows: Assange and his team did release information that could be used to identify informants, or at the least could assist in the effort to identify informants. I don't think anyone who has studied the leaked information can really deny this fact, and to do so would be short-sighted and also silly. As I've said in previous posts, informants for the security services in the cold war were often caught out with just the flimsiest of evidence against them. It's often the flimsy evidence that allows counter intelligence agents to begin the process of elimination. Al Queda, and the Taliban are known to be ruthless when it comes to weeding out suspected informants. Whole familes, and also whole villages have simply disappeared in efforts to purge the informants. Can you honestly say that even the smallest shred of evidence, such as a location, or a family name would not be jumped all over by those who are searching for informants? I would suggest that it is the height of ignorance to try and claim that this would not be entirely possible.
OK so it may not be convincing. We will have to agree to disagree on that one then. Another chain of thought, Maybe he is petrified of spending time in any prison, even if it is one you would consider cushy?
Negative. I need make no assertion that no-one has died to clear Wikileaks - in order to accuse them of anything you must assert that someone has, and this requires evidence on your part, not on mine. This is not deadlock, this is me being most likely correct until you provide evidence to the contrary. As above. This is similar to christians who say "I can't prove god exists, but you can't prove he doesn't." - I don't need to prove the negative, you need to prove the positive. In what manner? Do you have a reliable source for this? I've looked at the information and have found nothing which would appear to endanger anyone. Conjecture on either side. So essentially what you're saying is - I can't prove that nothing has happened, and the Taleban are nasty, so despite the US government and many other IO's reporting that no-one has died as a result of the leaks, you're saying that all the IO's and the US government themselves are wrong, and that people have died, based purely on conjecture?
No I am saying that there is every possibility that informants have been placed in danger. I thought it was obvious really.
There's every possibility that x for all x. If you want to change that from "It could be the case" which includes every occurrence which is necessarily possible to "it is like that this is the case" then you need to provide some actual evidence to support your claim, not just conjecture.
I never stated that it was the case, merely that there was every possibility that it could be the case. As I said I cannot either prove or disprove, all I can do is to hazard an opinion, exactly the same as you are able to offer. Why so aggressive with the argument?
I don't think that spec is being aggressive. He is just challenging your reasoning. You are making the assertions so you have to back them up.
And I believe I have done so. If Specofdust doesn't feel that what I have put forward is enough then that is his/her choice. I don't appreciate taking what I said and it being twisted into something I didn't say though.
If you are prepared to limit the strength of your argument to "It is possible that people have died as a direct or indirect result of the leaks released by Wikileaks" then sure, I accept you've stated enough, because this would be an extremely weak claim and really just a description of the possibilities of the universe - so deeply uncontentious. If you want to state anything stronger than this then you still need to bring some evidence that something specific has occurred - this will be significantly harder to achieve, although you're more than welcome to try. edit: As for aggression, I am not being hostile or aggressive toward you in anything more than a discursive way. You made a claim that I disagree with, so I'm dismantling that claim. Nothing else. As I stated earlier, I need make no claim that people haven't died for my opinion to win out, I need only show that the claim that people have died as a result of the leaks is without evidence or merit, which I believe I have so far carried out. I refer you to my earlier discussion about arguments for god if this is not clear enough.
think what bee is getting at is- the guy put those listed in the leaks in danger.. whether or not they were covered in the field after the leak is another thing.. no denying he did the wrong thing I can't believe you guys hold someone who is hiding from rape charges (true or not- he's still acting guilty as hell) and has shown he didn't care about who was in the leaks (watch the documentary on him sometime- have to find the link.. his own core group left and started openleaks because he was such a toolbag- it wasn't about the leaks for him.. it was about his celebrity.. these are the people closest to him not the media) there's other leak sites- thing is who's going to trust them anymore.. he's done way more harm than good.. only reason people still like the guy is because he was able to get the leaks in the first place.. problem was he was the last guy you'd want holding that kind of stuff.. it's like lolsec in a way.. sure anyone could have taken down sony.. most places are like that- full of very ignorant admins who know nothing about security.. but the peeps who can do it don't (well they peek and see but they don't destroy).. it's a white/grey/black area, I liked lolsec though- it gave kids kind of a peek into what's possible and might help spawn more hackers- then you have guys like assange who is baboons ass red
Why do you focus so much animosity towards Assange though? The furor aimed at him by politicians is a smoke screen to divert the attention away from the content of the leaks. If you want to be angry at someone for placing informants lives in danger be mad at the idiots who allowed an intelligence system so weak a low ranking individual in Iraq could access them. Or better yet aim your anger at the real villains.
You realise they carried out massive redactions right, removing names of people who would be put in danger if their names were known? It seems to have worked, since no-one has died as a result of the leaks according to the US.
yeah they redacted the information.. but the problem was brought up before he went live with it.. assange was so keen on making himself look good- he basically said forget it.. and put it all up knowing full well what he did
everyone have blinders on over there or what.. he said it himself in a conference after the leaks were talking about occurred.. I'll have to find the video the guys a psycho.. maybe you don't see it because your listening to some media outlet or something.. just watch the wikileaks documentary
