Wednesday, December 01, 2010

WikiYawn

Been watching the Wikileaks freakout by the tighty righties and the U.S. government with amusement. Especially amusing is the fact that this latest document dump has even led a few journalists to, well, commit acts of actual journalism (gasp!). For example, this evening on NPR News, NPR's correspondent in Baghdad asked around quietly about the Iranian influence upon the current Iraqi government and... err... found that this part of the document dump was, well, true (duh!). Which even Poppy Bush coulda told you, that's why he didn't depose Saddam in the first place back in '93, 'cause it'd turn the place into Iran West, but WTF, you gotta lead today's "journalists" to stories by the nose and stick it into the story nostril-deep before they can see what's been in front of their face all along...

Meanwhile, watching the tighty righties and Obama administration fulminate about how they want to have Wikileaks declared a terrorist group (yeah, their document dumps are a terror alright, but only a terror to liars who don't want the truth to come out), about how Julian Assange should be charged with the crime of espionage (he's not in the United States, he's not a U.S. citizen, he's not subject to U.S. jurisdiction, about the only way you could do that would be to invade Sweden and kidnap him like we did Noriega, and that's unlikely), etc., just goes to show that the term "freedom of the press" is a foreign term to both the tighty righties and to the Obama administration, which continues its authoritarian ways. The person who gave Wikileaks the documents could be charged with espionage, but committing an act of journalism by, well, actually publishing them, that's called "journalism" a.k.a. "the press" and in case you haven't figured it out, you can't legally go after folks for publishing government documents here in the United States because said documents are public domain.

Next up, Assange is going to publish some documents from one of the big banks (rumor says BofA) showing that they knew they were issuing fraudulent mortgages, and engaged in many other sketchy activities, but didn't care. Unfortunately, this *will* open up Wikileaks to legal challenges that the current document dumps didn't address. Those documents are copyrighted by BofA, and publishing them outright is a violation of numerous copyright laws. Assange is probably going to argue that there is a public interest exception for documents of this nature, but that exception allows you to publish only the minimum amount needed in order to illustrate your commentary, it doesn't allow you to just verbatim publish copyright documents without any surrounding commentary for each excerpt published. Maybe Assange *should* be accepting that refuge in Ecuador (whose leftist President, an acolyte of Hugo Chavez, has offered said refuge)... on the other hand, Ecuador's tiny military would be hopeless if the U.S. decided to do a Noriega on him. Decisions, decisions...

-- Badtux the Easily Amused Penguin

6 comments:

  1. Surely by now the man would have wealthy benefactors protecting his identity, hiding him, etc. Or maybe I live in dreamland.

    He wouldn't be stupid enough to come to the US, though did I read somewhere that his native Australia want to revoke his passport?

    And surely he cares little about BoA's proprietary documents. I wouldn't. This may be the only way to get widespread, critical, media coverage of the whole bank fiasco.

    Doesn't need to be earth-shattering, just rock-solid proof of serial fraud. Evidence can't be too hard to come by if there were any real journalists left at major media outlets, but since there aren't, only something like WikiLeaks may be able to garner the necessary attention.

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  2. Undoubtedly Assange does have some wealthy benefactors somewhere, but there's only so much that can be done when you have half the governments on the planet gunning for you because you just showed that they're ruled by incompetents, evil, or both.

    - Badtux the not-betting-on-Assange-dying-of-old-age Penguin

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  3. Glenn Greenwald has been excoriating the lame-ass meeja for all its shouting that Assange is HORRIBLE because he revealed the truth. Fcuking pansy "journalists," screeching over how someone is doing what should be THEIR job, except THEY don't want to do the hard yards of busting the corrupt government's chops any more. Bill Keller, exec editor of the New York Times, was interviewed by Reuters and he said flat-out that they run their Wikileaks stories by the Pentagon for approval before they publish them. Whenever I see the financial troubles that newspapers are in, I don't give a flying crap any more, because they deserve to fail. They're failing at doing what they're supposed to do, so let 'em fail on the money front too. The truth is on the Internet, but the fascists are working to kill Net Neutrality, so eventually the truth will disappear from there, too.

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  4. We The People don't need to know what our government is up to, 'cause Big Brother knows best, y'know. Just like war is peace, ignorance is strength, and so forth. We The People must be protected from that awful "truth" stuff by Big Brother 'cause our feeble little minds just can't deal with it, y'know?

    - Badtux the Snarky Penguin

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  5. I guess Pres. Hopey-Changey has accomplished a few things, but - alas - I don't remember what they were.

    This is feeling more and more like the third term of Pres Chimp.

    I need a nap and a drink, in that order.

    WASF,
    JzB

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  6. Whenever I see the financial troubles that newspapers are in, I don't give a flying crap any more, because they deserve to fail. They're failing at doing what they're supposed to do, so let 'em fail on the money front too. The truth is on the Internet, but the fascists are working to kill Net Neutrality, so eventually the truth will disappear from there, too.

    And that so many newspapers have failed/are failing financially is strictly down to their own professional failings. Newspapers in Europe are doing quite well, and even sometimes tell people what's going on. So the idea that newspapers are somehow victims of the internet or the economy or whatever is just a cover for their own idiocy.

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