[nickysielicki]

A one-off tweet from a wikileaks twitter account about some other organization publishing something questionable is not at all the same as the document dumps that wikileaks publishes and puts their name behind. I'm obviously talking about the latter.

I think it says something that this is the best you can come up with.

[travmatt]

https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2016/9/9/12864328/wiki...

Assange censors whistleblowers against the Russian government who he openly collaborated with. Do you think this is ethical behavior?

[thatlongthrow1]

>I think it says something that this is the best you can come up with.

Hi I can basically see you sneering with a "gotcha" face through that text. Sorry but Assange's history of leak revisionism, favoring Russia specifically, is deep.

When Assange was working with "Anon" who was really an FBI snitch, he accepted files hacked from Syria. When they were released they were missing information about Russia including bank transfers of billions of dollars. Assange's selective leaking based on his biases has been documented for years:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikileaks-syria-files-syria-r...

>The court records, placed under seal by a Manhattan federal court and obtained by the Daily Dot through an anonymous source, show in detail how a group of hacktivists breached the Syrian government’s networks on the eve of the country’s civil war and extracted emails about major bank transactions the Syrian regime was hurriedly making amid a host of economic sanctions. In the spring of 2012, most of the emails found their way into a WikiLeaks database.

>But one set of emails in particular didn’t make it into the cache of documents published by WikiLeaks in July 2012 as “The Syria Files,” despite the fact that the hackers themselves were ecstatic at their discovery. The correspondence, which WikiLeaks has denied withholding, describes “more than” €2 billion ($2.4 billion, at current exchange rates) moving from the Central Bank of Syria to Russia’s VTB Bank.

We know this because the courts showed the data that Assange personally held back.

[dijit]

Ugh, don't make me do this:

Selectively releasing documents is not the same as releasing something later proven to be false, which is what the GP asserted.

FWIW you could play devils advocate here and say that wikileaks could not independently verify the omitted things; but I'm not going to go there because it's conjecture. Just as your suggestion that it's collusion with Russia, however likely, is also conjecture.

[fsloth]

Selectively releasing everyone else's dirt except for Russia is a strong indicator of non-neutral stance.

[dijit]

Sorry I must have missed where anyone in this thread-chain has asserted that statement at all.

[uep]

Lies of omission are still lies.

To use an extreme example, if a reporting organization writes a story about one nation launching missile strikes against another, and leaves out that they were retaliatory strikes from a previous attack, that dramatically changes the perception of those events. If this sort of thing is continually done to benefit one entity, it is reasonable to question the honesty of the reporter.

Even if the released documents are all accurate, the previous lies of omission would cause a reasonable person to question whether or not the released documents provide adequate context.

[belorn]

This is the primary reason why every time I read a news article that seems to have a bit "too perfect" narrative about who is good and who is bad, I go and check Wikipedia or other news sites. It usually result in a broader context. Few things tend to be black or white, and never in any political topics.

Out of all news I read there is maybe one small set of investigative journalist that I trust to give me a balanced amount of context to from my own opinion, and as a mark of quality, they are disliked by the government, activists, the left and the right.

[dx87]

There's this from the top level comment.

> Stand up for journalists. Real journalists.

I wouldn't think that "Real journalists" would selectively choose what to report based on who their friends are.

[dijit]

I want to downvote this for having loaded controversial commentary, but I can't as it's a direct reply.

"who their friends are" is an uncharitable interpretation of the situation. You might not like that they didn't report on some information that was Russian, but to assume it's due to friendly relations and not fear of reprisal is spinning a narrative. Just as asserting the exact inverse is also spinning a narrative.

I don't claim to know everything and people seem really emotive about this so it's common to see people finding things that please their current mindset and presenting it as if its evidence of whatever they believe.

Please attempt removing your emotions and coldly look at the facts, try to consider an alternative theory for what happened or is happening, especially if you're American because Americans seem to be _especially_ heated when it comes to Assange.

Whatever your beliefs on the subject, a lot more has happened due to wikileaks stories; over something like NYT or bloomberg stories, which are highly regarded news outlets. So a charitable interpretation is that they're doing "real journalism" because they're digging in to things in the public interest.

[somerainbows]

>I wouldn't think that "Real journalists" would selectively choose what to report based on who their friends are.

Then who is a "real" journalist anymore these days? That's is exactly why so many people are abandoning mainstream media (CNN, Foxnews, NBC, BBC, Guardian, Al Jazeera), because those established entities time and time again choose to selectively report on events when it fit their political bias and omit when it isn't possible to put a spin on the story.

[thatlongthrow1]

WikiLeaks Turned Down Leaks on Russian Government During U.S. Presidential Campaign

https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...

>In the summer of 2016, as WikiLeaks was publishing documents from Democratic operatives allegedly obtained by Kremlin-directed hackers, Julian Assange turned down a large cache of documents related to the Russian government, according to chat messages and a source who provided the records.

>WikiLeaks declined to publish a wide-ranging trove of documents — at least 68 gigabytes of data — that came from inside the Russian Interior Ministry, according to partial chat logs reviewed by Foreign Policy.

>The logs, which were provided to FP, only included WikiLeaks’s side of the conversation.

>“As far as we recall these are already public,” WikiLeaks wrote at the time.

>“WikiLeaks rejects all submissions that it cannot verify. WikiLeaks rejects submissions that have already been published elsewhere or which are likely to be considered insignificant. WikiLeaks has never rejected a submission due to its country of origin,” the organization wrote in a Twitter direct message when contacted by FP about the Russian cache.

Assange would later go on to propagate and distribute manipulated leaks sent by Guccifer 2.0 and other known Russian fronts like the "CyberBerkut" promotion of his I linked at the thread top.

[fwklein]

WikiLeaks published hundreds of thousands documents about Russia[0][1] and there's no evidence for your quoted claim made by ForeignPolicy. Where are those chatlogs?

For matters about Assange you should definitely look for more independent sources than only FP. A lot has happened since 2016/17, and there's been cases which show that certain groups within the US establishment been wrong for alleging Assange of a Russia connection[2].

[0] https://search.wikileaks.org/?q=Russia

[1] https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/

[2] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/07/31/assa-j31.html

[belorn]

In 2016 the relationship between Julian Assange and the US is about as hostile as possible. He was seeking asylum against this very extradition process that is ongoing. A big part of that drama was also that the US secretary of state under the previous years, ie the U.S. government's minister of foreign affairs, was a candidate for the 2016 presidential campaign and thus is it likely that there is a personal grudge between Assange and her.

And he was given documents that could hurt her. He used them.

It seems pretty clear that neutrality has not been on the tables for Assange ever since he sought political asylum. As pointed out above, this does not mean he has fabricated documents, or knowingly distributed fabricated documents, but since 2012 he has been in an active conflict against the government of the USA and in particular the foreign affairs side of it and thus leaks should be seen in that context.

[wyck]

What most people seem to fail to realize is that in of itself is not necessary proof of collusion. There is the "street" theory that publishing records on powerful Russians ends with a bullet in your head( or worse) and not jail or any legal proceedings. Something to think about.

[fsloth]

Well, yes, getting to Russia's shit list is a nasty experience even for non-Russians, as well known examples show, such as that of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessikka_Aro

[stx]

Is it really necessary to leak information on Russia? Outside Russia we already know that they have done bad things. Besides was the information he leaked untrue? As an US citizen I am most interested in when is going on inside my own country not only because it affects me but also because I have the ability to push for change.

[thatlongthrow1]

Assange asking Guccifer 2.0 for Hillary leaks: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dt6BBwBXcAEL-Fj?format=jpg&name=...

Assange helping Guccifer 2.0 distribute manipulated Hillary leaks: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/764256561539735552

How the leaks were taken from other sources and manipulated: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qkjevd/guccifer-2-is-bull...

>Guccifer 2.0 — believed to be a misinformation campaign operated by Russian intelligence — posted an 860-megabyte file on Tuesday afternoon that he claimed was donor information he hacked from Clinton Foundation servers.

>A sampling of the posted documents include a spreadsheet of big bank donations, a list of primarily California donors, an outdated spreadsheet of some Republican House members — and a screenshot of files he claimed to have obtained, one of which was titled “Pay to Play.”

>But there are a number of red flags that suggest the documents are in fact from a previous hack on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), not a new hack on the Clinton Foundation.

>A spot check of some of the people on the donor list against FEC filings found that they all lined up with DCCC contributions.

[koheripbal]

This does not alter the claim that info released by Wikileaks was never fake.

[DaniloDias]

It is not worth engaging. I have met powerful people who have an unreasonable bug up their ass about Assange.

These are Americans who state that this Australian is a traitor who should be prosecuted and executed for treason over the collateral murder video. It is the same exact moral and ethical rot that has corrupted our police forces.

Edit: These downvotes are enlightening.

[fit2rule]

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

Ask yourself this: why is it so important to leak information that is being held in secrecy by a state that is committing war crimes at an alarming rate?

The answer is: because the 5-eyes War Coalition is committing war crimes at an alarming rate. It literally started what it hoped to conflagration into World War 3, by invading Iraq illegally and on false pretences in 2003. And every day since that invasion, the world has been on fire.

The world has not forgotten the victims of these wars. Millions of innocent people have been massacred by the USA and its War Coalition in an utterly dire conflagration. The sheer SCALE of the war, of which the Western public are indeed extremely ignorant, is staggering.

If you had two criminals in the room, one of them was thieving the cutlery and the other was burning a pile of dead bodies in the corner, which would you want to deal with, first?

The USA and its War Coalition has a lot of criminal activity going on. Like, a lot. And every twenty minutes for twenty years, it has been dropping bombs - mostly on innocent people - for its own economic purposes.

That is a fire that the leaks will put out.

(The leaks will continue, because the crimes are huge.)

[lordlimecat]

> And every day since that invasion, the world has been on fire.

Obviously things were peacable around the world beforehand, and every conflict or human rights violation since then can be blamed on the Iraq invasion.

Never mind that civilian casualties by coalition forces are absolutely dwarfed by those by the opposition, or that US in general gets an extremely high degree of scrutiny and commits relatively few war crimes / civilian casualties.

This is a brilliant attempt at distraction from the incredible corruption and human rights violations from other countries such as Russia. Should the US get a free pass? Of course not, but it's rather tiresome to hear Chinese and Russian agitators say "but what about the 10k civilian casualties over 10 years" while asking the world to please ignore the Uighur genocide or the invasions of Ukraine.

The fact is that Wikileaks has a well established bias. They publish things that are true when it harms the US, and often leave out as much exonerating context as possible. Collateral murder for instance specifically tried to downplay the aspects where the gunner provided a rationale for engaging and sought approval, instead using voiceovers and editing to imply a lack of ROE.

>Millions of innocent people have been massacred by the USA and its War Coalition in an utterly dire conflagration.

I'd love to see a source on this. The most critical estimate I've seen (Iraq Body Count) has coalition innocents killed around 30k, Over 15 years. While opposition are over 300k. Please source your facts.

[fit2rule]

"The world is always at war" is not an excuse for the following illegal military murder and death campaigns waged against innocent people: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen.

The bombing must stop. The drones must be denied.

>Body Count:

https://www.psr.org/blog/resource/body-count/

2 million people lost in one war 'arena' is one thing. Another war arena, is another thing. 12 of them, for 20 years, is shear lunacy.

Iraq lost 5% of its population to US war.

[lordlimecat]

You should probably read the source you provide. Like many of these body counts, they make no attempt to differentiate US-caused, coalition-caused, Russian-caused, or opposition-caused deaths--or even whether the rise in mortality was actually caused by the war!

So, as is reasonable, you are just blaming them all on the US.

[fit2rule]

I think you didn't read the report. It very definitely does make an attempt to differentiate. If only this task was made more reliable and accurate by way of true facts from the very people dropping the bombs.

Alas, the American military is as terrified of the true statistics as anyone could be. Even General McMaster, an utter war criminal, has made an effort to ensure all his peers know how much danger they are all in, should the true scale of the wars be revealed to the American public.

"Good thing" there is a lot going on right now to distract people from the burning piles of rubble America has left all over the world.

I assure you, the victims and the families of those victims, and the friends of those victims HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN.

[jessaustin]

...even whether the rise in mortality was actually caused by the war!

You need proof that war causes death? This seems like some sort of nadir of tabula rasa foolishness.

[mapgrep]

Selective leaking and selective redaction do not correspond to any US crimes and if they did could be leveled against many publishers.

What is the point of raising this in the context of a criminal indictment? I haven’t even examined what you are raising for accuracy, I’m merely asking, what does this have to do with throwing someone in prison?

[ClumsyPilot]

This is a politically motivated perversion of Justice , you here are implying he is loyal to Russia and therefore deserves it.

You know, even if you were right, you are not helping your case?

Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

[thatlongthrow1]

>Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion.

From the article you linked:

Mr Nils Melzer, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; is part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

>they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

[ClumsyPilot]

I see two possible interpretations:

A - This is a special process meant to assure that reports are truly independent and neutral. These conclusions are even more trustworthy.

B - UN Special Rapporteur can't be trusted, it's is a random nobody that can publish untrue allegations and slap UN logo on top.

It appears you are implying B is the correct interpretations. If so, why? Additionally, can you suggest a more trustworthy, unbiased party than the UN?

[thatlongthrow1]

OK I'll be explicit.

You attempted to spin the opinion of special rapporteur into that of the UN. In every special rapporteur article they have to put the disclaimer I posted because of people like you attempting to frame something in false or malicious ways.

To recap your claim:

>Its not just my opinion, its the UN opinion.

UN's actual position as stated in the article you posted:

>The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council's independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures' experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

That line is meant for you:

>they are not UN staff

[monocasa]

The UN's own press statements refer to the Special Rapporteurs as "UN Experts"

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

[ClumsyPilot]

This paragraph contains neither "UN's actual position" nor a disclaimer, so I don't why you keep posting it.

If you actually understand how the UN works, clarify for the rest of us, who would be the UN authority on the matter. I would humbly accept the enlightenment.

Alternatively, if you don't know, you should not be running around and accusing people of "false or malicious ways" and "spin". You seem to be misinterpreting the statement .

Not everything UN does needs to be a resolution passed passed by 194 countries in the general assembly.

[DiogenesKynikos]

Any proof that WikiLeaks actually had the emails about that particular Russian bank transfer?

The theory you're promoting is that Assange leaked a huge trove of emails on Syria, a Russian ally, including large numbers of emails detailing Syria's relationship to Russia. But then, because Assange is secretly a Russian agent, he removed one particular set of emails.

The obvious question is: why did he publish the emails in the first place?