WikiLeaks Losing Support From Anonymous 140
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that members of computer hacker collective Anonymous have distanced themselves from WikiLeaks, claiming the whistleblowers' site has become too focused on the personal tribulations of its founder, Julian Assange. A statement linked from the Anonymous Twitter account, AnonymousIRC, described WikiLeaks as 'the one man Julian Assange show,' and complained that the website implemented a paywall seeking donations from users who wanted access to millions of leaked documents. 'The idea behind WikiLeaks was to provide the public with information that would otherwise be kept secret by industries and governments. Information we strongly believe the public has a right to know,' said the statement on behalf of Anonymous. The dispute could starve WikiLeaks of potentially newsworthy leaks in the future, as some of Wikileaks' recent disclosures – including the Stratfor emails – are alleged to have come from Anonymous."
Please don't misuse those terms (Score:5, Informative)
paywall seeking donations
Paywall by definition means REQUIRED payment (fee). In contrast, a donation is a VOLUNTARY payment (gift)
Re:If you really wanted to distance Wikileaks supp (Score:5, Informative)
All 9/11 conspiracy theorists can fuck off and die. Seriously, you're not clever, you're not fighting for truth. You're assholes who don't realize they make as much sense as birthers or moon landing hoax nuts.
Just stop.
Re:Bullshit (Score:2, Informative)
Cryptrome do nothing, never have, never will. So, bullshit to yourself. Whether you like Assange or not, he has a face, he gets media coverage, which leads to media exposure of leaked information. At least until the CIA told Sweden to do a number on him.
Re:Dissent amongst thieves? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, that was a veiled reference to the diplomatic cable leaks -- Bad Plan, Darlings. We don't need to know that our diplomats are sexually promiscuous, or that they're having marital problems, etc. Those are private matters -- diplomat or not, we need to respect the privacy of others unless there's a compelling public interest reason for disclosure.
If that's all you learned from the Diplomatic Cables, you should put down the gossip magazines and start reading serious news.
Things the diplomatic cables revealed:
1. The USA was bombing Yemen and lied to the American people about it. The Yemeni government provided cover for the USA's involvement.
2. Confirmation that the Chinese government directed the hacking of Google's servers in China
3. Our ally Kuwait refuses to take back the Kuwaitis we've picked up in Afghanistan and have been holding in Guantanamo
4. Funding for al-Qaeda, is still flowing from various rich individual in Saudi Arabia (our ally)
5. Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of President Hamid Karzai, is on the CIA payroll and a major drug dealer.
6. Indian politicans were giving and receiving bribes in order to vote for a nuclear deal with the USA
7. The US Government was secretly lobbying New Zealand and Canada to institute shitty copyright laws
8. The State Dept pushed The Washington Post into watering down a story about security contractors bribing Afghans with drugs and teen partyboys
9. The USA used the acceptance of Guantanamo detainees as bargaining chips
10. US troops rounded up and shot 11 people, then called in a missile strike to cover their murders. [wikipedia.org]
Feel free to go point by point and argue why there isn't a "compelling public interest reason for disclosure"
From what we've seen, a lot of what gets classified is either embarrassing, illegal, or a war crime.
Not anything whose disclosure would be a threat to national security, unless you consider justice a threat.
Guardian Angels? (Score:5, Informative)
The Guardian is not exactly an unbiased news source for matters related to Julian Assange and Wikileaks.
The Guardian was one of the newspapers given access to the unredacted cables that sparked global controversy. Initially, they honored their promise to keep the source material secret - after all, it contained names of sources whose lives might depend upon anonymity.
The Guardian's "Investigative Editor" David Leigh decided it would be OK to publish a book about Assange and Wikileaks, which incredibly contained the password for the unredacted cables file already circulating on torrent sites.
How many lives David Leigh affected will never be known - but obviously after this, the relationship between Wikileaks and The Guardian soured dramatically.
Re:Please don't misuse those terms (Score:4, Informative)
--Yes, and it makes TERRIFIC bloody sense to have a method of TRACKING those Concerned Citizens(TM) who want to have a look at the leaked documents. Jazus. Implement a paywall on a site that is supposedly concerned with the public interest?? WTF were they thinking!?