I’ll admit ignorance about what their “mission” and is; and am very skeptical about their promise that “We Open Governments”.
For the Life of me, I don’t see them “opening up” anything but the US government; and any entity that may directly or indirectly be related.
What exactly is their “mission”?
Where and who are the other governments that they “open”?
Where are the leaks from places like China and Russia especially?
Let me know what I am missing here, please.
They are run by a fugitive child rapist who is likely currenty sitting in his underwear in a dusty room in front of a screen thinking he is some sort of voice of truth. Their mission is only to make $$ just like every other organization claiming to be after some grander goal.
Off the top of my head I would say that they might have released stuff on other nations, it is just that nobody gives a shit.
Or, maybe, whistleblowing is as deeply American as guns and applepie.
Plus, I don´t know where child rapist comes from, all accusations I know of are BS regret sex nonsense, which just might get him deported to Sweden which most definitely will get him extradited to the US and mebbe he does not want to end up in Gitmo with a lightbulb shoved up his ass.
Who hurt you?
They release leaked info. That’s all. They have released stuff on Russia and some African governments as well. Not one thing they have released has ever been proven false but the way they release things is sensationalized often. Either by them or the press.
Example. The Bradley Manning release had a video showing a US helicopter blowing up an unmarked white van that was bringing supplies/ammo to enemy combatants and hauling wounded insurgents away. Turns out the genius driving the van brought his kid to a gun fight. The ROE is crystal clear: “no red cross, not an ambulance”. Also they offloaded ammo before they took wounded, which makes it not an ambulance. The press ran with “video of US troops killing ambulance crew and child.”
How much of what they release has been proven true vs. assumed to be true?
Well for their videos, techs looked at them and found no evidence of tampering/editing/photoshop. They publish the whole things for context.
So they don’t screw with the data that whistleblowers give them. They claim they try to vet it but don’t say how.
Most of the targets of the leaks refuse to confirm or deny to cast doubt on the leak.
Is wikileaks crooked? I don’t know. If they are they are pretty good at it. But if they had no morals why not just blackmail the targets for millions?
IMO…Assange is a Prime example of where “morality” is “in the eye of the beholder”…
If you listen to him…what he does is “pure” Journalism in that he just “reports the facts” and people can reach their own conclusion. In other words, he feels he is “moral”, and practices the highest ideals of journalistic integrity.
I personally wouldn’t recommend the guy for Sainthood just yet.
To your original question…he is being financed and protected by someone or some entity…and in a big way…so extortion does not seem to be something he needs to do.
And back to my original point…he seems very “one-sided” (U.S./Western/non-Russian/non-Chinese)…in directing his “Journalistic Integrity”…and in some cases (like the apparent selective nature of the Leaks in this past election), far from being “journalistically pure”.
I’ll take a pass on Assange’s “integrity”.
First of all, Wikileaks is the unofficial service of the Russian government. They have never published anything substantial about Putin or Russia, focusing on the pro-Kremlin agenda.
In the past third parties have offered them source material for publication, but they rejected it outright if it was anti-Kremlin - the most famous example were SurkovLeaks, gigabytes of mails related to Putin’s number two advisor ofered by the hacker group CyberJunta.
Not only did they refuse to publish the SurkovLeaks, but screamed “fake, fake” long after Kremlin tacitly admitted it was true (passport scans and family photos of Surkov played a part in the verification as well as confirmation from his e-mail correspondents).
Also, for a supposedly independent organization they went out of the way to attack the Golden Shower dossier. A logical reaction would have been “We don’t know about it, this didn’t go through us and we can’t determine it’s authenticity” but they screamed “everything in it is fake!”. A bit strange, don’t you think?
In the French Presidential race, which is a three-horse race, Wikileaks have prepared extensive leaks for Macron and Fillon, centre-right and independent candidates respectively not financed by Russia. The far right Marie Le Pen is financed by Russian banks and is a staunch advocate of Russian foreign policy. These claims are not for debate as she cheerfully acknowledges them, the last instance being her CNN interview.
So even a cursory glance at their Twitter feed shows they’re pro-Trump, anti-NATO and pro-Russian:
It doesn’t seem as though Mr. Assange is as impartial as he would like many to believe.
Didn’t wikileaks confirm to lying about that Keller guy from the NYTimes? I can’t think of any others off the top of my head, but I’m sure there are more.
IIRC the scare with the Keller thing was they created a pretty flawless knockoff, and the implication being if they can do that with 1 guy, why can’t they do that with the rest.
They are doing the job the press was originally intended to do but refuse to as the corporate interest has infected them.
Goddamnit…
LOL!
I thought that it may be some more info on Trump’s Pee-Pee Escapades!
Nah, that won’t happen unless Trump starts saying mean things about Putin.
You sonofa…
The water play was admitted to be a lie, or more was admitted to be made up as an example for explaining some things in the intelligence community. The media either by accident or on purpose reported it as real and never made much of a point to retract once the truth was out.
Sarcasm, dungeondwellwer…sarcasm…
Just bustin’ the President’s Chops like he has done with everybody from “Lying’ Ted” and “Lil’ Rubio” to “High-Energy Jeb”, “Cooked Hillary” and the “Fake News” Media…
Wiki leaks is run by Russia…Putin let’s those guys and their families live in return for servitude…It’s obvious