WikiLeaks readies next release

WikiLeaks used Twitter to tell the world it is to release a CIA document later today. The site's supposed crusade of transparency has been over-shadowed in recent days by its founder's legal difficulties in Sweden. Swedish prosecutor Eva Finne is still considering whether or not to prosecute the site's founder Julian Assange …

[lglethal]

I dont know about you...

... but am i the only one that is seeing Wikileaks slide from being a relevant whistleblower site where people working in governments or companies could upload documents that they felt were in the publics interest to know, to a publicity seeking whore site which basically will release any document it comes across which is considered classified/secret or just not really worth releasing to the public, without actually seeing if it is something worth the public knowing about?

I'm sure there are still relevant documents being uploaded to wikileaks but you dont hear about them these days because there buried in so much sh*te...

[PerfectBlue]

Probably

So, you're saying that it's not in the public's interest to know what the military (one of the largest sinks of tax payer's money) is up to?

Personally, I think that it's more important for the state to be accountable than a private company.

I can boycott Coke or Pepsi if they use Indian slave labor, I have that choice if i'm made aware. But I can't refuse to pay my taxes if they are being used to blow up Afghan civilians. That's not a choice that I have. So it's more important that we be made aware in order to shame them into stopping.

[lglethal]

I didnt say...

I didnt say that Wikileaks should not be releasing sensitive documents. I said RELEVANT documents.

Of the 150,000+ reports leaked, the vast majority said nothing more then - "On Patrol in X, Did Y, went back to base. End of Mission.". I mean seriously, how is that in the public interest?

The release of the video that showed the chopper gunning down civilians - THAT was in the public interest. Some seargent speculating that he thinks that Pakistan Inteligence Services may be behind the funding of the Taliban or that this source said that, is not really in the public interest.

Going on the sort of campaign that Wikileaks seems to be on at the moment against the US Government, just means that the really important whistleblowing documents get buried in amongst the crap and so never see the light of day that they deserve.

Thats my problem with Wikileaks at the moment. Get it back to how it was 6 months ago when the documents it released where relevant and actually newsworthy, i do not need to know what some general in afghanistan had for breakfast...

[Jim_aka_Jim]

So what you are saying is...

That you want someone to filter all the inputs you get from the world so you only get the interesting ones? An un biased filter of course. One that would never hide any information that may be of interest. You realise that such a filter can never exist? It's all or subjective: deal with it.

[PerfectBlue]

There should be no need for Wikileaks

In an ideal world there should be no need for Wikileaks to publish these documents.

The Washington should have archived them and willingly made them available for public consumption itself.

The government is needlessly keeping millions of documents secret, or worse, is destroying them without ever admitting to.

The constitution needs amending to end this endless and needless secrecy. If American troops in Afghanistan are forced to reveal what they are doing then maybe they will think twice before dropping bombs on civilians and torturing people, and if they aren't killing civilians or to torturing people then there won't be any documents to reveal

Take the names of informants out by all means, but leave in the rest. If the government is spending tax payers money bribing the Taliban, or compensating the families of dead civilians, then the tax payer should be informed

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: There should be no need for Wikileaks

"In an ideal world there should be no need for Wikileaks to publish these documents.

The Washington should have archived them and willingly made them available for public consumption itself.

The government is needlessly keeping millions of documents secret, or worse, is destroying them without ever admitting to."

Why should Washington make any of it public? They kept it secret for good reasons (to protect the safety of troops and their Afghan sources in an ongoing war), its not up to us to second guess that choice and decide that our right to know is more important than the lives of our soldiers and others who put their lives on the line!

Every government in the world needs to keep certain documents secret, thats the way of the world. I don't see Assange gunning for others like he is for the USA. (Bet if he leaked secret Russian or Chinese documents he would go missing)

Its all too easy to play armchair general and think that we know better than those whose jobs it is to fight wars on our behalf.

[I didn't do IT.]

Re: All too easy to play armchair general

"...and think that we know better than those whose jobs it is to fight wars on our behalf."

Then hear it from one of those people who did the job and does know better - you won't know the half of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

After you...

with the rose tinted specs.

[Ad Fundum]

Self-promotion?

"... self-promotion by Assange himself"

Really? The guy is so desperate for publicity that he would somehow engineer the leaf of a fabricated story saying that he was wanted for rape? What an utterly pointless and bizarre thing to say.

I don't know which outlet made that one up (almost certainly The Daily Mail) but that really is the stuff underneath the bottom of the barrel being scraped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Providing a valuable service

Wikileaks provides a valuable service to the world. This "supposed" crusade for transparency released how many thousand classified military documents last month? How on earth is this self promotion? The governments in the UK and the USA badly need more transparency - we are living with a massive deficit of democracy. Documents published on wikileaks have led to a much needed discussion on the morality and behavior of the occupying forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange has been a source of controversy since he started publishing the documents that make the USA and the UK (and whoever else) look bad. That he has now been implicated in this issue comes as no surprise to me. The CIA and MI6 have a long and sordid history of smear campaigns - it's a standard part of their arsenal, to believe otherwise is naive. Also, the wall Street journal is not a paper that is known for "fair and balanced reporting", by any means.

[Anonymous Coward]

not that much difference.

" Also, the wall Street journal is not a paper that is known for "fair and balanced reporting", by any means."

We have a similar tabloid called The Sun.

[cannon]

EXPOSING MURDER

good for him for exposing the war crimes that the USA & UK have covered up, why is this not the main focus from the corporate media?

[Dick Kennedy]

Important but annoying

Wikileaks is an important medium for information that would otherwise be suppressed. It's just a shame that, while providing a valuable service, Assange devotes so much time to behaving like a dickhead. Mostly, I find his attitude merely immature. The approach of 'information must be free at all costs' is the kind of naive tosh you'd expect of an undergraduate. I'm looking forward to the day that Assange grows up - then he'll do something really useful.

[Thomas 18]

anonymity for rape allegations

Well this wouldn't be a problem now if the coalition had followed through on its commitment to provide anonymity for people accused of rape... and... you know, if he lived in Britain.

How about anonymity for all crimes, or is innocent until found guilty a relic of the past.

[Anonymous Coward]

cuts all ways

Of course anonymity when subject to such charges is only in the interest of the accused, and not the public interest. Thus clearly the public interest will be best served if wikileaks publishes all such suppressed information.

[JohnG]

Allegations in Sweden

It is possible that the two women concerned did not actually know the name of Julian Assange until it was plastered around the world's press. Maybe it was actually having a name to give Police that made the difference in deciding to make a complaint.

However, this case should be the definition of why anonymity should be mandatory for accused and accusers in similar cases.

[david wilson]

Prosecute?

>>"Swedish prosecutor Eva Finne is still considering whether or not to prosecute the site's founder Julian Assange..."

Wouldn't it generally be the case that people are at least interviewed, statements taken, alibis checked, etc before deciding whether to prosecute?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: things done BEFORE deciding to prosecute?

Sorry, old chap - that's real work, don't you know. No time for that. We have quotas, you know.

[Seanmon]

I'm generally

of the opinion that wikileaks is, on balance, a Good Thing.

I'm not half getting bored of that tiresome twat though.

[Anonymous Coward]

CIA docs next?

Right, piss off the spooks.... I'm waiting for the news release that Julian Assange was killed in a "mysterious car accident".

What, no sniper's crosshairs icon?

[mhenriday]

We need Wikileaks more than ever,

now that the planning for the USA's next imperial war of aggression - that on Iran - is proceeding apace. Now that the political process in the United States has failed utterly - the man who won election as a «peace candidate» in the (deluded) eyes of many is now as president continuing and expanding upon the policies of his predecessor - sites like Wikileaks, which publish all the documents the government so desperately wishes to keep hidden, so that readers can judge for themselves, may well be our only chance to avoid a development which could put the survival of the species at risk. We need more sites like Wikileaks - and with access to more documents from more countries....

JohnG will be interested to know that here in Sweden anonymity is, in fact, mandatory in investigations like that which on-duty prosecutor Maria Häljebo - but in this case, it was «leaked» to a certain tabloid, Expressen, of predictable tendency (yes, not dissimilar to the Daily Mail). Wonder just how, who, and why ?...

Henri