jon jonson writes "Information from the collapsed Icelandic bank Kaupthing has been leaked to WikiLeaks, revealing billions in insider loans, and the bank has been working day and night to censor the information contained in the document. Last night at 6:55pm GMT, they served an injunction against the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, five minutes before the 7pm news was due to be aired. The TV station just displayed the WikiLeaks URL instead. They've also injuncted Iceland's national radio, banning all discussion about the contents of the document, and they are actively trying to censor the rest of the Icelandic media along with WikiLeaks."
Kaupthing had fallen over and if they hadn't tried to stop people finding out, it wouldn't have been posted to Slashdot and I and many others would never have known. We need a name for when attempted censorship leads to wider distribution of the information. The Kaupthing effect, perhaps?
Like most wikileaks documents, I've found it nearly impossible to verify the high level claim (insider trading) off the information provided. They always seem to drop the ball on writing down their analysis...or letting others (otherwise, it's NOT a wiki!). I expect several pages of summary and analysis, but instead, just broad claims with little or no references or supporting facts.
For those of us who aren't experts in Icelandic corporations and banking, here's a sample, after some googling- one of the listed parties is a Robert Tchenguiz [icelandweatherreport.com].
If the claims in that blog posting are true, 500BN of Iceland's citizens' money flew out the door in "loans" to tax haven countries.
If it was a bunch of lies, then the bank officials would have pointed that out. That they are scrambling to censor is proof this is absolutly 100% legit. kind of nice of them to remove any doubt eh?
If it was a bunch of lies, then the bank officials would have pointed that out.
And when a guy stands in the driveway of a GM plant screaming that alien technology is being used to make Corvettes, does that mean it's true because GM refuses to answer questions from him or reporters and then kicks him off the property? Of course not.
First off, I didn't say the claims were lies. I said there was no explanation or analysis, and thus no way for me to verify them. There isn't even any explanation as to why they believe the documents are authentic. I was lamenting, in general, at the lack of explanations and analysis of documents posted to Wikileaks as a whole. Putting down a list of companies and calling it "analysis" isn't.
Second, it does not logically follow that if someone doesn't deny something, it is true- in part or whole. 5th Amendment, anyone? Same goes for trying to get something out of the public spotlight. Maybe the whole reason they want to suppress it is because it IS bullshit, and letting it spread would make it difficult or impossible to find impartial jurors in a criminal or civil trial- or harm existing companies that have done legitimate business with them.
Lastly, very often a public relations effort involves not even acknowledging claims, regardless of their merit. There are a variety of reasons why. For example: sometimes the claims are bullshit but you don't feel you can convince the public otherwise. Sometimes you want to keep a low profile and hope people will get bored and move on to shinier news items. Sometimes you cannot say anything because of pending legal action- either because it would be risky to comment, or you've been told not to.
But hey, feel free to play out the simple Hollywood conspiracy movie plot. The world is rarely that simple.
And when a guy stands in the driveway of a GM plant screaming that alien technology is being used to make Corvettes, does that mean it's true because GM refuses to answer questions from him or reporters and then kicks him off the property? Of course not.
But they also don't take him to court and file a gag order against him or issue takedowns. Furthermore, if the guy is on public property and not interfering, they can't really do anything. (Right to free assembly.)
I think anyone that looks at a corvette knows it's not alien technology.
Of course it isn't; you have to research it yourself. Ion Cannons, Drones, Super Heavy Chassis and Gravity Generators, on the other hand, you can all get from the Bentusi.
If it was a bunch of lies, then the bank officials would have pointed that out. That they are scrambling to censor is proof this is absolutly 100% legit. kind of nice of them to remove any doubt eh?
Just like someone deleting his hard drive is proof that he's guilty of some kind of computer crime or copyright infringement, eh?
Innocent till proven guilty, people - while it certainly looks suspicious, it isn't any kind of proof of anything.
The downside of following "Innocent until proven guilty" as a rule to live by in general is far less than the downside of witch hunts! I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
It was 500 billion in Icelandic currency (krona), not 500 billion euro or USD.
According to xe.com:
500,000,000,000.00 ISK = 3,904,722,881.3900 USD
However, the wikileaks summary says "45 million to 1250 million euros". I haven't read the post that the GP links, except to check the currency type, to find out where it gets the 500 billion number.
However 500BN of assets is not proportional to the size of the Icelandic real economy - it is not plausible that the citizens could have lost such amount.
The blog posting contains numbers on the order of 300 billion, not 500 billion -- and those are Icelandic crowns (ISK), not euros or dollars. That puts the total at about 2.3 billion U.S. dollars.
Given that Iceland's population is only about 320 thousand people that's still a pretty massive hit to their economy (call it 7000 USD per capita), but not totally implausible (particularly for a heavily leveraged state-controlled bank).
To protect private interests against the public's need to know.
This is the stuff that we should be angry about. Not putting some trailer-trash families in rehabilitation programs discussed about in the recent front page article (That's the one with the hyperbole about 24hr surveillance BTW).
We (in the USA) still have no idea where our
TARP [wikipedia.org] funds went. And no documentation likely to appear on Wikileaks either. When our gov't asked the banks what they did with the money we gave them, they just replied, "We'd rather not say".
The banks unable to pay back (...the TARP funds...) end up being owned by the feds anyway, and then the books are wide open.
Perhaps you're thinking about some other country? The US government is anything but transparent, notwithstanding any "Hope & Change" rhetoric to the contrary. It took an FOIA request and months to even be allowed to see the Air Force One Manhattan fly-over photos that everyone knew existed.
The chances of the books being opened would be particularly slim if the bank(s) end up being owned by the Federal Reserve. I know that politicians are currently making noise about publicly auditing the Fed, but that's all it will end up being...noise to placate the proles. Unless politicians suddenly start finding themselves losing elections en masse and/or finding themselves at the working end of pitchforks & shotguns.
WaMu (failed completely), Citigroup and Bank of America (effectively insolvent absent direct government investment). And still, nobodys talking.
We've injected capital into at least a dozen major banks through the TARP program. And, although these institutions have claimed that their capital margins were damaged by 'bad paper' and they were unable to make loans, they have refused to open their books to regulators (the Fed doesn't count as a regulator. It is owned by its member banks) to show them the magnitude and type of this bad paper.
The banks' portfolio of mortgage CDOs were (supposedly) insured by AIG's CDS's. When AIG appeared to be illiquid, one proposal was to have the gov't issue banks its own guarantees to replace the (useless) AIG policies. Possibly by swapping bundles of CDOs along with their covering CDSs for Treasury notes. But the banks refused to divulge what sort of CDS paper they had on their books. So, the government was forced to prop up AIG. Problem: About 80% of AIGs CDS policies were sold to speculators. That is; people who had no insurable interest in any mortgage paper, but were just buying said paper as a gamble*. So we were forced to bail out 4 speculators for every one bank we rescued.
*It wasn't that many years ago that such speculation (buying insurance policies against people or property for which one has no insurable interest) was racketeering and would earn said 'investors' a quick trip to a federal penitentiary. This was one racket that the mob engaged in. Until Congress made it legal.
No one cares, really... they are loans and will (mostly) get paid back. The banks unable to pay back end up being owned by the feds anyway, and then the books are wide open.
Aw. They're so *cute* when they're that trusting, aren't they?
Per the cease and desist order [wikileaks.org], it appears that the lawyers on behalf of Kraupthing are doing their job.
The laws themselves appear to be there to protect the client's confidential information. Paraphrasing (IANAL, IANAL, IANAL!) they are:
58. Banks are not suppose to disclose their customer's financial information. 59. Exception #1 - if there is a risk to a parent company 60. Exception #2 - if the customer(s) say it is okay to disclose the information.
So basically the bank and the bank lawyers are doing the job they are legally obligated to do on behalf of their customers.
The difference impacts the rendering of the document beginning on page 16. It appears to have HTTP headers inserted into the file. The same difference is seen across these download programs: firefox, lynx, wget. There may be a bad replication to that site. Maybe they used a bad HTTP client.
You know, it's really refreshing to see a story about censorship and (presumed) government corruption that's *not* about America for once. Go Iceland!:)
But wait, there's more! According to my favorite Icelandic blogger [icelandweatherreport.com], the commissioner who issued the injunction has a son who is or was a spokesman for the bank, and another who was an executive and the recipient of one of the no-payments loans.
Iceland is a close-knit society. The anger there is fueled by a sense of betrayal that people from big heterogeneous countries can't fully appreciate.
From any practical standpoint, you're quite wrong. I just spent a couple of hours going through the massive FOIA disclosure [csmonitor.com] of the Air Force's internal emails dealing with the aftermath of the Air Force One flyby of the Statue of Liberty back in April. Much of the 553-page document is concerned with detailed observations of bloggers' reactions, even to the point of discussing the rate of change in "tweets per minute" criticizing the White House and USAF.
The US government, at least, takes amateur online journalism very seriously. It's safe to say other governments do as well.
Yeah, unless, of course, it's the blogs that break a story.
Like Monica Lewinsky, Dan Rather's Memogate, the doctored Reuters pictures of bombings in Lebanon, the firing of U.S. prosecutors, "Macaca", etc. etc.
Face it, the relationship between bloggers and the mainstream media is not parasitic anymore, it's symbiotic.
It's true, most blogs (including my twitter feed) contain only marginally useful information, if at all. But so do most newspaper articles or TV shows, that merely recite the stuff fed to them by corporations and governments.
Good investigative journalists are a rare kind. Some of them blog.
Censorship Function: noun 1 a: the institution, system, or practice of censoring b: the actions or practices of censors ; especially : censorial control exercised repressively
Censor Function: transitive verb to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable
That was Ireland, sometimes called "the green island", which should not be confused with Greenland, though, as Greenland is more like Iceland than Ireland. I hope you're less confused now.
Interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
You're being subtly humorous, aren't you?
(in case you aren't: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect [wikipedia.org] )
Parent
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
There is also (usually) a correlation between their enthusiasm for suppressing the information and the need for it to be revealed in public interest.
Parent
Re:Interesting (Score:4, Funny)
What's that noise? WHOOSH? Yeah, that's it. WHOOSH!!!
Parent
Good thing WikiLeaks's still around (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good thing WikiLeaks's still around (Score:4, Informative)
Ya, wikileaks rocks. I think this underscores the importance of enshrining freedom of the press too.
Reply to This
More to the point, this completely demonstrates the importance of applying "freedom of the press" to new media.
Parent
Who are the insiders? (Score:5, Interesting)
revealing billions in insider loans,
Like most wikileaks documents, I've found it nearly impossible to verify the high level claim (insider trading) off the information provided. They always seem to drop the ball on writing down their analysis...or letting others (otherwise, it's NOT a wiki!). I expect several pages of summary and analysis, but instead, just broad claims with little or no references or supporting facts.
For those of us who aren't experts in Icelandic corporations and banking, here's a sample, after some googling- one of the listed parties is a Robert Tchenguiz [icelandweatherreport.com].
If the claims in that blog posting are true, 500BN of Iceland's citizens' money flew out the door in "loans" to tax haven countries.
Re:Who are the insiders? (Score:4, Informative)
Exista == Kaupthing
Landic == Gaumur == Baugur == Glitnir Bank
Stodir = FL Group = Baugur = Glitnir Bank
etc. etc. etc.
Parent
The proof is in the reaction (Score:3, Insightful)
If it was a bunch of lies, then the bank officials would have pointed that out. That they are scrambling to censor is proof this is absolutly 100% legit. kind of nice of them to remove any doubt eh?
logical fallacy, for starters (Score:5, Insightful)
If it was a bunch of lies, then the bank officials would have pointed that out.
And when a guy stands in the driveway of a GM plant screaming that alien technology is being used to make Corvettes, does that mean it's true because GM refuses to answer questions from him or reporters and then kicks him off the property? Of course not.
First off, I didn't say the claims were lies. I said there was no explanation or analysis, and thus no way for me to verify them. There isn't even any explanation as to why they believe the documents are authentic. I was lamenting, in general, at the lack of explanations and analysis of documents posted to Wikileaks as a whole. Putting down a list of companies and calling it "analysis" isn't.
Second, it does not logically follow that if someone doesn't deny something, it is true- in part or whole. 5th Amendment, anyone? Same goes for trying to get something out of the public spotlight. Maybe the whole reason they want to suppress it is because it IS bullshit, and letting it spread would make it difficult or impossible to find impartial jurors in a criminal or civil trial- or harm existing companies that have done legitimate business with them.
Lastly, very often a public relations effort involves not even acknowledging claims, regardless of their merit. There are a variety of reasons why. For example: sometimes the claims are bullshit but you don't feel you can convince the public otherwise. Sometimes you want to keep a low profile and hope people will get bored and move on to shinier news items. Sometimes you cannot say anything because of pending legal action- either because it would be risky to comment, or you've been told not to.
But hey, feel free to play out the simple Hollywood conspiracy movie plot. The world is rarely that simple.
Parent
Re:logical fallacy, for starters (Score:5, Insightful)
And when a guy stands in the driveway of a GM plant screaming that alien technology is being used to make Corvettes, does that mean it's true because GM refuses to answer questions from him or reporters and then kicks him off the property? Of course not.
But they also don't take him to court and file a gag order against him or issue takedowns. Furthermore, if the guy is on public property and not interfering, they can't really do anything. (Right to free assembly.)
Parent
Re:driveways !public and neither are private docs (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:logical fallacy, for starters (Score:5, Informative)
In this case, one of the threatening letters explicitly said:
These are highly sensitive confidential information from Kaupthings bank hf. loan book regarding the banks clients subject to bank secrecy in Iceland.
I take this to mean that the documents are legit.
Parent
Re:logical fallacy, for starters (Score:5, Funny)
Of course it isn't; you have to research it yourself. Ion Cannons,
Drones, Super Heavy Chassis and Gravity Generators, on the other
hand, you can all get from the Bentusi.
Parent
Re:The proof is in the reaction (Score:4, Interesting)
If it was a bunch of lies, then the bank officials would have pointed that out. That they are scrambling to censor is proof this is absolutly 100% legit. kind of nice of them to remove any doubt eh?
Just like someone deleting his hard drive is proof that he's guilty of some kind of computer crime or copyright infringement, eh?
Innocent till proven guilty, people - while it certainly looks suspicious, it isn't any kind of proof of anything.
Parent
Re:The proof is in the reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
"Innocent until proven guilty" is a rule in the judicial system to ensure safe trial, not a rule to live by in general.
Parent
Re:The proof is in the reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
The downside of following "Innocent until proven guilty" as a rule to live by in general is far less than the downside of witch hunts! I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Parent
Re:Think about it yourself... (Score:4, Informative)
It was 500 billion in Icelandic currency (krona), not 500 billion euro or USD.
According to xe.com:
500,000,000,000.00 ISK = 3,904,722,881.3900 USD
However, the wikileaks summary says "45 million to 1250 million euros". I haven't read the post that the GP links, except to check the currency type, to find out where it gets the 500 billion number.
Parent
Re:Think about it yourself... (Score:4, Informative)
The blog posting contains numbers on the order of 300 billion, not 500 billion -- and those are Icelandic crowns (ISK), not euros or dollars. That puts the total at about 2.3 billion U.S. dollars.
Given that Iceland's population is only about 320 thousand people that's still a pretty massive hit to their economy (call it 7000 USD per capita), but not totally implausible (particularly for a heavily leveraged state-controlled bank).
Parent
HelvÃtis fokkings fokk (Score:3, Funny)
'nuff said
injuncted? (Score:5, Informative)
There's no such word as injuncted. "to issue an injunction" is to "enjoin", so the form needed here is enjoined.
Re:injuncted? (Score:5, Funny)
I really enjoined that little piece of info.
Parent
A total misuse of the legal system... (Score:4, Insightful)
To protect private interests against the public's need to know.
This is the stuff that we should be angry about. Not putting some trailer-trash families in rehabilitation programs discussed about in the recent front page article (That's the one with the hyperbole about 24hr surveillance BTW).
Hey, at least they tried (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hey, at least they tried (Score:5, Informative)
The banks unable to pay back (...the TARP funds...) end up being owned by the feds anyway, and then the books are wide open.
Perhaps you're thinking about some other country? The US government is anything but transparent, notwithstanding any "Hope & Change" rhetoric to the contrary. It took an FOIA request and months to even be allowed to see the Air Force One Manhattan fly-over photos that everyone knew existed.
The chances of the books being opened would be particularly slim if the bank(s) end up being owned by the Federal Reserve. I know that politicians are currently making noise about publicly auditing the Fed, but that's all it will end up being...noise to placate the proles. Unless politicians suddenly start finding themselves losing elections en masse and/or finding themselves at the working end of pitchforks & shotguns.
Strat
Parent
Re:Hey, at least they tried (Score:5, Informative)
WaMu (failed completely), Citigroup and Bank of America (effectively insolvent absent direct government investment). And still, nobodys talking.
We've injected capital into at least a dozen major banks through the TARP program. And, although these institutions have claimed that their capital margins were damaged by 'bad paper' and they were unable to make loans, they have refused to open their books to regulators (the Fed doesn't count as a regulator. It is owned by its member banks) to show them the magnitude and type of this bad paper.
The banks' portfolio of mortgage CDOs were (supposedly) insured by AIG's CDS's. When AIG appeared to be illiquid, one proposal was to have the gov't issue banks its own guarantees to replace the (useless) AIG policies. Possibly by swapping bundles of CDOs along with their covering CDSs for Treasury notes. But the banks refused to divulge what sort of CDS paper they had on their books. So, the government was forced to prop up AIG. Problem: About 80% of AIGs CDS policies were sold to speculators. That is; people who had no insurable interest in any mortgage paper, but were just buying said paper as a gamble*. So we were forced to bail out 4 speculators for every one bank we rescued.
*It wasn't that many years ago that such speculation (buying insurance policies against people or property for which one has no insurable interest) was racketeering and would earn said 'investors' a quick trip to a federal penitentiary. This was one racket that the mob engaged in. Until Congress made it legal.
Parent
Re:Hey, at least they tried (Score:4, Insightful)
Aw. They're so *cute* when they're that trusting, aren't they?
Parent
Silly elected officials (Score:5, Insightful)
Once this shit hits the internet - it's out there. There is no undo button or magical legal action you can take to cover it up anymore.
You'd be better off to admit you fucked up and spend your efforts cleaning up the mess instead of trying to cover up this crap.
Oh yeah - and piss off the media - that helps your case too.
Bank, Lawyers do their job - film at 11 (Score:5, Informative)
Per the cease and desist order [wikileaks.org], it appears that the lawyers on behalf of Kraupthing are doing their job.
The laws themselves appear to be there to protect the client's confidential information. Paraphrasing (IANAL, IANAL, IANAL!) they are:
58. Banks are not suppose to disclose their customer's financial information.
59. Exception #1 - if there is a risk to a parent company
60. Exception #2 - if the customer(s) say it is okay to disclose the information.
So basically the bank and the bank lawyers are doing the job they are legally obligated to do on behalf of their customers.
Mirror early, mirror often (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.dattaway.net/images/kaupthing-bank-before-crash-2008.pdf [dattaway.net]
Information wants to be free in every country (Score:4, Insightful)
Especially if it describes how the country's currency became worthless.
Just because you are in ICEland doesn't mean you can freeze the free flow of information.
Warning, US link is a modified document (Score:4, Informative)
Here are the MD5 checksums I calculated for various downloads:
The difference impacts the rendering of the document beginning on page 16. It appears to have HTTP headers inserted into the file. The same difference is seen across these download programs: firefox, lynx, wget. There may be a bad replication to that site. Maybe they used a bad HTTP client.
Re:Streisand effect (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:5, Insightful)
When the government starts censoring things, I find that it is usually because of national security issues more than anything else.
I've seen quite the opposite. Censoring is much more likely to be about covering your ass than about national security.
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:4, Funny)
Don't forget about the children.
Won't someone think of the children?
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:4, Funny)
"I'm in charge of the nation and it affects MY job security.... so 'national security' applies!"
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:5, Funny)
You know, it's really refreshing to see a story about censorship and (presumed) government corruption that's *not* about America for once. Go Iceland! :)
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:5, Insightful)
The bank is owned by the goverment.
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:5, Interesting)
The police that are mandating the censorship are also owned by the government.
And to complete the farce, the newsroom being censored is ALSO OWNED BY THE STUPID GOVERNMENT.
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:5, Interesting)
But wait, there's more! According to my favorite Icelandic blogger [icelandweatherreport.com], the commissioner who issued the injunction has a son who is or was a spokesman for the bank, and another who was an executive and the recipient of one of the no-payments loans.
Iceland is a close-knit society. The anger there is fueled by a sense of betrayal that people from big heterogeneous countries can't fully appreciate.
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:4, Interesting)
I wouldn't be so sure of that. Most people in the US can barely contain their rage about the AIG bailout.
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:5, Interesting)
From any practical standpoint, you're quite wrong. I just spent a couple of hours going through the massive FOIA disclosure [csmonitor.com] of the Air Force's internal emails dealing with the aftermath of the Air Force One flyby of the Statue of Liberty back in April. Much of the 553-page document is concerned with detailed observations of bloggers' reactions, even to the point of discussing the rate of change in "tweets per minute" criticizing the White House and USAF.
The US government, at least, takes amateur online journalism very seriously. It's safe to say other governments do as well.
That makes them a "proper source."
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, unless, of course, it's the blogs that break a story.
Like Monica Lewinsky, Dan Rather's Memogate, the doctored Reuters pictures of bombings in Lebanon, the firing of U.S. prosecutors, "Macaca", etc. etc.
Face it, the relationship between bloggers and the mainstream media is not parasitic anymore, it's symbiotic.
It's true, most blogs (including my twitter feed) contain only marginally useful information, if at all. But so do most newspaper articles or TV shows, that merely recite the stuff fed to them by corporations and governments.
Good investigative journalists are a rare kind. Some of them blog.
Parent
Re:National security? Nah, that's not possible (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drudge_Report#Monica_Lewinsky_scandal [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
* Main Entry: 2censor
* Function: transitive verb
* Inflected Form(s): censored; censoring \sen(t)-s-ri, sen(t)s-ri\
* Date: 1882
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If a company tries to flex its muscle to influence lawmakers, it is. Indirect, but still.
Re:It's Not CENSORSHIP!!! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censoring [merriam-webster.com]
http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorship [merriam-webster.com]
What part of those definitions require that governments be involved again?
And no, just because it doesn't fit your needlessly restricted definition of censorship doesn't mean that it isn't censorship.
Parent
Re:Ireland? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Ireland? (Score:5, Funny)
>>>"Iceland" == "Ireland" False
Iceland's sheep == shaggy
Ireland's sheep == shagged
Parent