Anybody care to see what the documents have to say?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_wise_monkeys
Any monkeys around "hear" ?
On Oct 23, 1:33 pm, Bear Bear <thatbear...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A surprisingly frank, for the times, look at the idiot behind Wikileaks.
>
> Personally I think the guy is a traitor. My lefty neighbour says he is not a
> traitor as he leaked U.S. documents and he is an Aussie.
> Well, the Australians have soldiers in this war too. And his actions have
> endangered them. As well as my Canadian countrymen and friends serving in
> Afghanistan.
>
> He is paranoid about the CIA. (time for the aluminum foil hat?) But, one of
> these days he is going to leak the wrong file and insult the Taliban and
> their friends in the west. Then he will see just what it is like to be on
> the run. And will probably then want the U.S. or Britain to protect him.
>
> Bear
>
> WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Chased by Turmoil By JOHN F.
> BURNS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_f_b...>and
> RAVI SOMAIYA Published:
> October 23, 2010
>
> LONDON — Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. In a noisy Ethiopian
> restaurant in London's rundown Paddington district, he pitches his voice
> barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears.
>
> He demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted
> cellphones and swaps his own as other men change shirts. He checks into
> hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and
> uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends.
>
> "By being determined to be on this path, and not to compromise, I've wound
> up in an extraordinary situation," Mr. Assange said over lunch last Sunday,
> when he arrived sporting a woolen beanie and a wispy stubble and trailing a
> youthful entourage that included a filmmaker assigned to document any
> unpleasant surprises.
>
> In his remarkable journey to notoriety, Mr. Assange, founder of the
> WikiLeaks<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/w...>whistle-blowers'
> Web site, sees the next few weeks as his most hazardous.
> Now he is making his most brazen disclosure yet: 391,832 secret documents on
> the Iraq war. He held a news conference in London on Saturday, saying that
> the release "constituted the most comprehensive and detailed account of any
> war ever to have entered the public record."
>
> Twelve weeks earlier, he posted on his organization's Web site some 77,000
> classified Pentagon documents on the Afghan conflict.
>
> Much has changed since 2006, when Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian,
> used years of computer hacking and what friends call a near genius I.Q. to
> establish WikiLeaks, redefining whistle-blowing by gathering secrets in
> bulk, storing them beyond the reach of governments and others determined to
> retrieve them, then releasing them instantly, and globally.
>
> Now it is not just governments that denounce him: some of his own comrades
> are abandoning him for what they see as erratic and imperious behavior, and
> a nearly delusional grandeur unmatched by an awareness that the digital
> secrets he reveals can have a price in flesh and blood.
>
> Several WikiLeaks colleagues say he alone decided to release the Afghan
> documents without removing the names of Afghan intelligence sources
> for NATO<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/n...>troops.
> "We were very, very upset with that, and with the way he spoke about
> it afterwards," said Birgitta Jonsdottir, a core WikiLeaks volunteer and a
> member of Iceland's Parliament. "If he could just focus on the important
> things he does, it would be better."
>
> He is also being investigated in connection with accusations of rape and
> molestation involving two Swedish women. Mr. Assange denied the allegations,
> saying the relations were consensual. But prosecutors in Sweden have yet to
> formally approve charges or dismiss the case eight weeks after the
> complaints against Mr. Assange were filed, damaging his quest for a secure
> base for himself and WikiLeaks. Though he characterizes the claims as "a
> smear campaign," the scandal has compounded the pressures of his cloaked
> life.
>
> "When it comes to the point where you occasionally look forward to being in
> prison on the basis that you might be able to spend a day reading a book,
> the realization dawns that perhaps the situation has become a little more
> stressful than you would like," he said over the London lunch.
>
> *Exposing Secrets*
>
> Mr. Assange has come a long way from an unsettled childhood in Australia as
> a self-acknowledged social misfit who narrowly avoided prison after being
> convicted on 25 charges of computer hacking in 1995. History is punctuated
> by spies, defectors and others who revealed the most inflammatory secrets of
> their age. Mr. Assange has become that figure for the Internet era, with as
> yet unreckoned consequences for himself and for the keepers of the world's
> secrets.
>
> "I've been waiting 40 years for someone to disclose information on a scale
> that might really make a difference," said Daniel
> Ellsberg<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/daniel_e...>,
> who exposed a 1,000-page secret study of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became
> known as the Pentagon Papers.
>
> Mr. Ellsberg said he saw kindred spirits in Mr. Assange and Pfc. Bradley
> Manning<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/bradley_...>,
> the 22-year-old former Army intelligence operative under detention in
> Quantico, Va., suspected of leaking the Iraq and Afghan documents.
>
> "They were willing to go to prison for life, or be executed, to put out this
> information," Mr. Ellsberg said.
>
> Underlying Mr. Assange's anxieties is deep uncertainty about what the United
> States and its allies may do next. Pentagon and Justice department officials
> have said they are weighing his actions under the 1917 Espionage Act. They
> have demanded that Mr. Assange "return" all government documents in his
> possession, undertake not to publish any new ones and not "solicit" further
> American materials.
>
> Mr. Assange has responded by going on the run, but has found no refuge. Amid
> the Afghan documents controversy, he flew to Sweden, seeking a residence
> permit and protection under that country's broad press freedoms. His initial
> welcome was euphoric.
>
> "They called me the James Bond of journalism," he recalled wryly. "It got me
> a lot of fans, and some of them ended up causing me a bit of trouble."
>
> In late September, he left Stockholm for Berlin. A bag he checked on the
> almost empty flight disappeared, with three encrypted laptops. It has not
> resurfaced; Mr. Assange suspects it was intercepted. From Germany, he
> traveled to London, wary at being detained on arrival. Iceland, a country
> with generous press freedoms , has also lost its appeal, with Mr. Assange
> concluding that its government is too easily influenced by Washington.
>
> He faces attack from within, too.
>
> After the Sweden scandal, strains within WikiLeaks reached a breaking point,
> with some of Mr. Assange's closest collaborators publicly defecting. The New
> York Times spoke with dozens of people who have worked with and supported
> him in Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Britain and the United States. What emerged
> was a picture of the founder of WikiLeaks as its prime innovator and
> charismatic force but as someone whose growing celebrity has been matched by
> an increasingly dictatorial, eccentric and capricious style.
>
> *Internal Turmoil*
>
> Effectively, as Mr. Assange pursues his fugitive's life, his leadership is
> enforced over the Internet. Even remotely, his style is imperious. When
> Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old political activist in Iceland, questioned
> Mr. Assange's judgment over a number of issues in an online exchange last
> month, Mr. Assange was uncompromising. "I don't like your tone," he said,
> according to a transcript. "If it continues, you're out."
>
> Mr. Assange cast himself as indispensable. "I am the heart and soul of this
> organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder,
> organizer, financier, and all the rest," he said. "If you have a problem
> with me," he told Mr. Snorrason, using an expletive, he should quit.
>
> In an interview about the exchange, Mr. Snorrason's conclusion was stark.
> "He is not in his right mind," he said. In London, Mr. Assange was
> dismissive of all those who have criticized him. "These are not
> consequential people," he said.
>
> "About a dozen" disillusioned volunteers have left recently, said Smari
> McCarthy, an Icelandic volunteer who has distanced himself in the recent
> turmoil. In late summer, Mr. Assange suspended Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a
> German who had been the WikiLeaks spokesman under the pseudonym Daniel
> Schmitt, accusing him of unspecified "bad behavior." Many more activists,
> Mr. McCarthy said, are likely to follow.
>
> Mr. Assange denied that any important volunteers had quit, apart from Mr.
> Domscheit-Berg. But further defections could paralyze an organization that
> Mr. Assange says has 40 core volunteers and about 800 mostly unpaid
> followers to maintain a diffuse web of computer servers and to secure the
> system against attack — to guard against the kind of infiltration that
> WikiLeaks itself has used to generate its revelations.
>
> Mr. Assange's detractors also accuse him of pursuing a vendetta against the
> United States. In London, Mr. Assange said America was an increasingly
> militarized society and a threat to democracy. Moreover, he said, "we have
> been attacked by the United States, so we are forced into a position where
> we must defend ourselves."
>
> Even among those challenging Mr. Assange's leadership style, there is
> recognition that the intricate computer and financial architecture WikiLeaks
> uses to shield it against its enemies has depended on its founder. "He's
> very unique and extremely capable," said Ms. Jonsdottir, the Icelandic
> lawmaker.
>
> *A Rash of Scoops*
>
> Before posting the ...
>
> read more »
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