OpenLeaks — 'A New WikiLeaks'

Flixie writes "Swedish newspaper dagens Nyheter reports: '...[S]everal key figures behind the website that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational or religious documents have resigned in protest against the controversial leader Julian Assange only to launch a new service for the so-called whistleblowers. The goal: to leak sensitive information to the public."

Assange gets arrested.

[thehostiles]

And ten more shall take his place

Re:Assange gets arrested.

[PhxBlue]

The new site doesn't appear to have anything to do with Assange's arrest. It's more about a disagreement regarding how to handle leaked information. OpenLeaks is looking to provide information to interested parties, e.g., journalists, whereas WikiLeaks is there to disseminate the information to everyone.

Re:One for all....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should moral responsiblity == solidarity?

Isn't that one of the problems with many movements, the leaders (w/ all of their faults) are often deified and thus are become easy targets for the opposition. Of course you can argue vaguely about a greater good or the lesser evil, but why not strive for an organization that isn't about a person, but is about an ideal? Do we always have to have egomanics representing a cause?

Misleading summary

[martin-boundary]

What kind of a misleading summary is that? From TFA:

Unlike WikiLeaks, Openleaks will not receive and publish information directly for the public eye. Instead, other organizations will access the Openleaks system and in turn, present their audience with the material. Documents will be processed and published by various collaborating organizations.

So there's no leaking, only controlled information transfer to participating organizations. If I was a whistleblower, I'd worry that the serious risks I'm taking to make information available will be wasted.

Re:Assange gets arrested.

[h4rr4r]

They can and do face legal action for intentionally lying about the facts they are representing.

This is not true, the courts have ruled they have no such obligation. There was a rather recent case in Florida about FOXnews doing just that.

Re:Assange gets arrested.

[Lazareth]

A good while ago now, but it started out as such.
I don't know if you knew that already or if you're being sarcastic; if the latter let me further elaborate:
WikiLeaks originally functioned like a wiki, thus its name. It no longer does, but now the name sticks. Contrast this to OpenLeaks, which starts out from the beginning with the statement that they won't release directly to the public but rather to someone they choose. Yeah, real "open" there from the start.

That aside I do think it is a good thing that more organisations like these spring up, but OpenLeaks can hardly claim the first part of their name.

Press

[Compaqt]

The Constitution doesn't mention "journalists". It references freedom of the press:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;...

A press is a device for duplicating written matter. So the Constitution is recognizing the right to publish using presses (as opposed to speaking with your voice). Time passes. Huge presses are reduced to small laser printers.

More time passes. A worldwide network for electronic publishing emerges. Anybody who cares about limits of government would say the Congress does not have the power to limit the ability to use presses (electronic or otherwise).

And the right of the press isn't limited to any one specially-favored group that calls itself "the" press.

Re:Assange gets arrested.

[alchemy101]

2008 - Julius Baer (Swiss Bank), Scientology (US but not govenrment), BNP member list (UK) + many more.

2009 - Petrogate recordings (Peruvian Government and Business), Barcaly Bank documents (UK), Natanz Nuclear accident report (Iran), Kaupthing bank (iceland), Australian censor list (Australia) + many many more.

2010 - Loveparade 2010 Duisburg planning documents (Germany)

That's a fair bit over a short period.

Re:Assange gets arrested.

[icebraining]

They weren't killed because they were informants or whatever and got "burned".

They were killed because they revolted against a corrupt dictatorship.

The leak exposed massive corruption by Daniel Arap Moi, and the Kenyan people sat up and took notice. In the ensuing elections, in which corruption became a major issue, violence swept the country. "1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak," says Assange. It's a chilling statistic, but then he states: "On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya. And many more die of money being pulled out of Kenya, and as a result of the Kenyan shilling being debased."

This wasn't Wikileaks "fault", this was a fight of a people against tyranny, who willingly decided to risk their lives to fight it.
If anything, we the so called "first world" countries are at fault for ignoring this people's struggle.

You've been fooled by the int to enemy angle

[dbIII]

When people leak stuff it's not about the cool new technology that ends up in some high tech weapon. They leak about people lying, cheating and generally breaking the rules. It's not about releasing information about soldiers killing enemy forces in battle. It's about unaccountable spooks breaking dozens of laws and the charter of their organisations by torturing people to death.
Now we've had a lot of bullshit where manipulative bastards say that anyone that says anything bad about their own side, true or not, is "giving comfort to the enemy." That's just an excuse to be able to let the dead wood say at their posts without being embarrassed by enormous fuckups. The comfort angle in this case is utter bullshit because it really does not matter if somebody does the equivalent of point at one of these things and say "haha".

Re:Assange gets arrested.

[cold fjord]

Having consensual unsafe sex is not rape unless you live in crazy-town.

When the woman withdraws consent the man withdraws his organ, or it is rape.... unless you live in crazy-town.

Assange allegedly didn't follow that rule, he isn't in crazy-town, so therefore it is possibly.....

PS - Anyone heard anything about Hans Reiser [slashdot.org] lately? (Creator of the Reiser Filesystem so loved in Linux land.)

Julian Assange rape allegations: treatment of women 'unfair and absurd' [guardian.co.uk]

The women were "very credible" witnesses, he said. "They have given very detailed stories about what they have been through."

Assange's reputation is less the focus of scrutiny online, but an acquaintance who met him and both women in Stockholm around the time of the alleged assaults told the Guardian he had warned Assange that his behaviour towards women was going to get him into trouble.

"I don't think it was a conspiracy, but this provided a golden opportunity for the enemies of WikiLeaks to use the situation to neutralise him," said the man, who wanted to remain anonymous. "A personality like Assange, who is known throughout the world, in the media every day, has a huge attraction to women. A lot of women invited him to their beds and he took that opportunity too much ... all the time.

"I spoke to him about this. I warned him that it was not a good way to behave ethically and also in terms of his security. ...

"These two women were molested by Mr Julian Assange at two different times, independently of each other," he said. One of the two women, who met Assange at a lecture he gave in Stockholm in August, wanted to contact him after the alleged assault because she wanted him to take a test for sexually transmitted infections. She contacted the second woman, who had helped organise the lecture, to see if she could help her to find him. "When they spoke to each other they realised they had been through something very similar so they went to the police. That's not odd," he said.

"They decided to go to the police, to inform the police of what happened, to ask for advice; also they were interested in whether there was a risk that they could have got HIV. They were not sure whether they should make a police complaint, they wanted to have some advice. But when they told the police officer, she realised that what they were telling her was a crime and she reported that to the public prosecutor, who decided to arrest Assange."