Wikileaks as Backchannel Distributor

Here's a horrific story... it's DoD video from an US attack helicopter, which is gunning down civilians in what we're told is Iraq. We're also told that two of the people that were gunned-down were Reuters journalists, and that others were children. I haven't been able to verify any of these claims, although I have not researched it thoroughly.

The purpose of this post is to explore the purpose of Wikileaks in a scenario such as this. Is Wikileaks operating as claimed, as a genuine media operation serving the public interest by providing information unobtainable any other way? Or, is Wikileaks being unwittingly duped by an establishment seeking to release footage designed to drive fear into viewers? Or, lastly, is Wikileads a controlled organization, established as a monopoly in order to control information (leaks) and serve as an outlet that is perceived as credible and uncontrolled?

Given that wikileaks has not yet been shutdown in what is a highly controlled society, and given that I believe the purpose of this video is fear propagation (as we don't know if any claims about children or journalists are factual, or if they are even the figures in this video), my view continues to be that Wikileaks is a controlled organization.

Here's the video, it's certainly disturbing.




http://collateralmurder.com/

Thoughts? How feasible is the hypothesis that Wikileaks is not only established to control leaked information, but to provide a creditable trust source of material designed to create fear or other relevant emotional reactions that assist in brain programming?

Certainly a disturbing video. Weren't the dead journalists confirmed reuters employees? Well who knows, eh? I thought about what you were saying as I was watching it. (before I read your post) Hell they could do the whole thing in CGI. As far a wikileaks being shutdown, it seems like there has been a pretty strong effort to do so, yet it's still up. My default position is to disbelieve the piece completely and/or agree with you IP that if it did happen the DOD could make a big show of suppressing the vid then release it to wikileaks. I had a thought of what would keep them from using this tech on the corner of Elm St., USA? Pretty effective as a terror device.

All they would have to do is pull their domain, or modify DNS tables. Wikileak's website is up because they want it to remain up.

That video is comparable to the guy behind the curtain yelling into the loud speaker system and banging pots & pans trying to scare Dorothy.

Wikileaks - Truth Purveyor or Government Propaganda Arm?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1O7jL_hKXQ&feature=player_embedded

Who is Julian Assange?

incognito wrote:

Certainly a disturbing video. Weren't the dead journalists confirmed reuters employees? Well who knows, eh? I thought about what you were saying as I was watching it. (before I read your post) Hell they could do the whole thing in CGI. As far a wikileaks being shutdown, it seems like there has been a pretty strong effort to do so, yet it's still up. My default position is to disbelieve the piece completely and/or agree with you IP that if it did happen the DOD could make a big show of suppressing the vid then release it to wikileaks. I had a thought of what would keep them from using this tech on the corner of Elm St., USA? Pretty effective as a terror device.

All good points. I have not investigated the details behind the journalists' deaths, but my question really is how can we confirm that the journalists are in this video? ... and that the video is of what we are being told it is of. Wikileaks is doing the framing here, and if they are not a trusted source, but a controlled source being presented as a trusted source, then how can we confirm the nature of this video.... that's really my point here.

I don't think the video is CGI, but then, I'm not sure my eye is good enough to tell the difference.

Explorer wrote:

Just look at this guy, doesn't he look like a demon-character you'd see in a Hollywood movie? The white hair, the ayrian appearance, black shirt, bright red tie, totally void of emotion. I don't want to sound trite here, but do you think a non-sociopath would act this way if they just got release a video of what they are claiming, and are now telling the world about it? Think about how a normal person would act in this situation. His entire presentation is almost surreal to me.

Certainly, we can investigate the facts, look at all the evidence, and try to approach this matter that way. On the other hand, aren't there some things here that just slap one in the face? Doesn't the simulacra seem, well, like simulacra to you? It's just more fake than Disneyland to me now. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps I've become too jaded and synical, but all the symbols and data points indicate to me that this is more simulacra.

The wiki guy is pretty freaky, for sure. Very Max Headroom.

I made a post on a FB link to the wiki video asking, what if - this whole thing was just made up - maybe even CGI - released by the gov to freak people out about their own capabilities...? Well, how many people have I recruited from there to here? Zero. Gotta keep tryin'...

Even the people who claim to be awake appear to be pretty much still under a spell. The biggest hurdle is in seeing that the flip-side is controlled as well. They think the "counter" industry is genuine. Most just buy into that whole scene and never escape it. I don't know how to get people beyond this point. It's a tough revelation, because it usually means that everything they believe in is false. Not many can accept that, or get through such a devastating revelation.

Steph seems to agree about the use of this piece as a state terror meme vehicle.

As I think you know, I don't really like listening to this Steph guy. Did he indicate at all that Wikileaks may not be legit, or did he build-up their credibility?

C1 wrote:

As I think you know, I don't really like listening to this Steph guy. Did he indicate at all that Wikileaks may not be legit, or did he build-up their credibility?

Neither really. He used it as a fine example to advance his moral argument against the state. Pretty good actually, he did it with subtitles as the video ran. Pretty powerful actually.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/how-wikileaks-shone-light-on-worlds-darkest-secrets-1938729.html

Oh really.

incognito wrote:

C1 wrote:

As I think you know, I don't really like listening to this Steph guy. Did he indicate at all that Wikileaks may not be legit, or did he build-up their credibility?

Neither really. He used it as a fine example to advance his moral argument against the state. Pretty good actually, he did it with subtitles as the video ran. Pretty powerful actually.

They are building up the credibility of alternative news sources. They HAVE to make them believable. People cannot be allowed to drop their belief in the system, even if their belief is only in the counter-mainstream news.

Stefan is pushing the anti-state meme, which is what these guys want. No matter the current issues, the state is the last remaining barrier between the elite and the public, and with the state out of the way they'll be able to lord-over the entire globe with absolutely no opposition.

Ask Stefan this, in a non-state based world, who controls all the nukes? How much do you want to guess he responds with the answer: some international group where the members are 'selected' experts of some kind.

Good point They Live.

Here is a new Wiki Simulacra article. Its long so here the link as well. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/03/27/wikileaks/index.html


A newly leaked CIA report prepared earlier this month (.pdf) analyzes how the U.S. Government can best manipulate public opinion in Germany and France -- in order to ensure that those countries continue to fight in Afghanistan. The Report celebrates the fact that the governments of those two nations continue to fight the war in defiance of overwhelming public opinion which opposes it -- so much for all the recent veneration of "consent of the governed" -- and it notes that this is possible due to lack of interest among their citizenry: "Public Apathy Enables Leaders to Ignore Voters," proclaims the title of one section.

Great find.

It's all just become so obvious now, hasn't it? Oh, the American gov't "ONLY" manipulates public opinion in foreign countries.

Sometimes I think they're panicking when I see this kinda stuff. Perhaps that's just wishful thinking.

The Wikileaks saga continues. So, is the message that is now being sent that Wikileaks is not a reliable source? Seems that's the case. But of course, Wikileaks is not to blame for the leak of their source.

Quote :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10255887.stm

Hacker explains why he reported 'Wikileaks source'

By Jonathan Fildes
Technology reporter, BBC News

Hackers often pride themselves on their anti-authoritarian and counter culture stance.

So news that former high-profile hacker Adrian Lamo had turned over an Army intelligence analyst to authorities was met with derision by some.

"A lot of people have labelled me a snitch," Mr Lamo told BBC News. "I guess I deserve that on this one but not as a generality."

"This was a very hard decision for me."

Mr Lamo is a former hacker, who exposed security flaws at the New York Times, Yahoo and Microsoft. After a brief stint hiding from the FBI, Mr Lamo was imprisoned and fined. He now works as a journalist and security analyst.
'By the book'

Mr Lamo says that he was responsible for reporting Specialist (SPC) Brad Manning to the military authorities after the analyst boasted to him that he had handed over thousands of classified documents and classified military video to whistle-blower site Wikileaks.

One video posted to the site shows a US Apache helicopter killing up to 12 people - including two Reuters journalists - during an attack in Baghdad in 2007. Two children were also seriously injured in the attack. Some of the men were armed.

Mr Manning, 22, reportedly acquired the video during the course of his work at a US Military field base FOB Hammer, on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Mr Lamo said that he did not suspect anything unusual when Mr Manning contacted him over instant messenger and e-mail.

"I'm contacted on a daily basis by all kinds of people who confess to all kinds of federal crimes," he said.

"I have never once turned them in, even when the FBI offered me a deal."

However, after Mr Manning confessed to distributing the documents, Mr Lamo said that he "felt the need to contact investigators".

"At the moment he gave me the information, it was basically a suicide pact."

"I was worried for my family - that if I were obstructing justice that they could be caught up in any investigation," he said.

"I wanted to do this one by the book, by the numbers. I didn't want any more FBI agents knocking at the door."
Code words

Mr Lamo also said that he had decided to report Mr Manning for reasons of national security.

Instead of going straight to the authorities, Mr Lamo disclosed the information to "a friend" who had worked as an agent in the Army counter intelligence unit.

"He put me in touch with some of his former colleagues who he felt could handle the issue in a low key way," he said.

Four agents - from different federal and military agencies - turned up at his house to read the conversation logs - from his e-mail and instant messenger conversations with Mr Manning - "one by one", he added.

"I gave them conversation logs that implicated Special Agent Manning.

"They were particularly interested in a code word for a major operation."

Mr Lamo also described how Mr Manning had supposedly obtained the documents.

"He described the process of operational security in detail," said Mr Lamo.

"What he described was a culture of insecurity with poor attention to information.

"The field base didn't have significant security."
'Impossible decision'

He said that Mr Manning would download the documents from a room that needed a unique security code to access it. However, security on the base had slipped, he said.

"He said you'd knock on the door and they'd let you in."

Mr Lamo said that Mr Manning would take a CD labelled Lady Gaga into the room which he would load into a computer.

"Basically he sat down and started burning data to the CD whilst pretending to be bopping along."

Mr Manning would then upload the documents to Wikileaks servers, which are held in various countries around the world, and anonymise the source.

Wikileaks has not confirmed Mr Manning as the source of the video and has said it never collects personal information on sources. It said that it has not been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables that Mr Manning reportedly leaked to the site.

Wikileaks also questions Mr Lamo's credibility.

However, the US military has confirmed that Mr Manning has been arrested on suspicion of leaking classified documents and video. He is being held "in pre-trial confinement" in Kuwait.

"I want to be proud of it but I can't bring myself to be. I keep thinking about what it was like being 22, alone and not knowing about my future," said Mr Lamo.

"Knowing that I did that to somebody - it hurts. I feel like I should be talking to a priest."

He said he had been placed in a situation where "an impossible decision had to be made".

"I hope that Manning gets the same chance as I did - the same chance to take his punishment as I did and start a new life as I did."

"I like to think I prevented him from getting into more serious trouble."

Also see:
US intelligence analyst arrested over security leaks
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/10254072.stm

I guess this propaganda was targeted at anyone inside the DC beltway thinking about releasing information.

Interesting imagery?


Julian Assange, founder of Wik­ileaks, looks over Micah Sifry and Daniel
Ellsberg.

Got this picture from Highlights of Personal Democracy Forum 2010
http://www.socialmedia.biz/2010/06/07/highlights-of-personal-democracy-forum-2010/

It's a pretty interesting article, but the article itself is not related to this thread.

C1 wrote:

Interesting imagery?


Julian Assange, founder of Wik­ileaks, looks over Micah Sifry and Daniel
Ellsberg.

Assange looks like what I imagined Screwtape might look like, referring to CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters. That is one freaky dude. What gov't whistle blower would trust that guy?

Ted.com: Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks

The controversial website WikiLeaks collects and posts highly classified documents and video. Founder Julian Assange, who's reportedly being sought for questioning by US authorities, talks to TED's Chris Anderson about how the site operates, what it has accomplished -- and what drives him. The interview includes graphic footage of a recent US airstrike in Baghdad.
About Julian Assange

Internet activist Julian Assange serves as spokesperson for WikiLeaks, a controversial, volunteer-driven website that publishes and comments on leaked documents alleging government and…

http://www.ted.com/talks/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks.html

I guess the secret agents gave Julian a pass while doing this ted.com gig.

Hey, I found this on crackbook. You'll never guess which one of the accounts was sharing this piece. Cindy Sheehan's. Word going around among the smarter kids is that the actual files are pure propaganda, even mentioning OBL. Wikileaks is down right now, I'll be doing some perusing asap.

Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation



Nick Davies and David Leigh
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 July 2010 22.03 BST

US soldier in Afghanistan The war logs reveal civilian killings by coalition forces, secret efforts to eliminate Taliban and al-Qaida leaders, and discuss the involvement of Iran and Pakistan in supporting insurgents. Photograph: Max Whittaker/Corbis

A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.

Their publication comes amid mounting concern that Barack Obama's "surge" strategy is failing and as coalition troops hunt for two US naval personnel captured by the Taliban south of Kabul on Friday.

The war logs also detail:

• How a secret "black" unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial.

• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.

• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.

• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of their roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

In a statement, the White House said the chaotic picture painted by the logs was the result of "under-resourcing" under Obama's predecessor, saying: "It is important to note that the time period reflected in the documents is January 2004 to December 2009."

The White House also criticised the publication of the files by Wikileaks: "We strongly condemn the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations, which puts the lives of the US and partner service members at risk and threatens our national security. Wikileaks made no effort to contact the US government about these documents, which may contain information that endanger the lives of Americans, our partners, and local populations who co-operate with us."

The logs detail, in sometimes harrowing vignettes, the toll on civilians exacted by coalition forces: events termed "blue on white" in military jargon. The logs reveal 144 such incidents.

Some of these casualties come from the controversial air strikes that have led to Afghan government protests, but a large number of previously unknown incidents also appear to be the result of troops shooting unarmed drivers or motorcyclists out of a determination to protect themselves from suicide bombers.

At least 195 civilians are admitted to have been killed and 174 wounded in total, but this is likely to be an underestimate as many disputed incidents are omitted from the daily snapshots reported by troops on the ground and then collated, sometimes erratically, by military intelligence analysts.

Bloody errors at civilians' expense, as recorded in the logs, include the day French troops strafed a bus full of children in 2008, wounding eight. A US patrol similarly machine-gunned a bus, wounding or killing 15 of its passengers, and in 2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.

Questionable shootings of civilians by UK troops also figure. The US compilers detail an unusual cluster of four British shootings in Kabul in the space of barely a month, in October/November 2007, culminating in the death of the son of an Afghan general. Of one shooting, they wrote: "Investigation controlled by the British. We are not able to get [sic] complete story."

A second cluster of similar shootings, all involving Royal Marine commandos in Helmand province, took place in a six-month period at the end of 2008, according to the log entries. Asked by the Guardian about these allegations, the Ministry of Defence said: "We have been unable to corroborate these claims in the short time available and it would be inappropriate to speculate on specific cases without further verification of the alleged actions."

Rachel Reid, who investigates civilian casualty incidents in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch, said: "These files bring to light what's been a consistent trend by US and Nato forces: the concealment of civilian casualties. Despite numerous tactical directives ordering transparent investigations when civilians are killed, there have been incidents I've investigated in recent months where this is still not happening.

Accountability is not just something you do when you are caught. It should be part of the way the US and Nato do business in Afghanistan every time they kill or harm civilians." The reports, many of which the Guardian is publishing in full online, present an unvarnished and often compelling account of the reality of modern war.

Most of the material, though classified "secret" at the time, is no longer militarily sensitive. A small amount of information has been withheld from publication because it might endanger local informants or give away genuine military secrets. Wikileaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, obtained the material in circumstances he will not discuss, said it would redact harmful material before posting the bulk of the data on its "uncensorable" servers.

Wikileaks published in April this year a previously suppressed classified video of US Apache helicopters killing two Reuters cameramen on the streets of Baghdad, which gained international attention. A 22-year-old intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested in Iraq and charged with leaking the video, but not with leaking the latest material. The Pentagon's criminal investigations department continues to try to trace the leaks and recently unsuccessfully asked Assange, he says, to meet them outside the US to help them. Assange allowed the Guardian to examine the logs at our request. No fee was involved and Wikileaks was not involved in the preparation of the Guardian's articles.

Here's a link to the wikileak, massaged for the Guardian judging by the URL at least...

http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/features/wanted-by-the-cia-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-14880073.html#

Wanted by the CIA: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

By Matthew Bell
Monday, 19 July 2010

There are not many journalists who, when you ask them if they are being followed by the CIA, say "We have surveillance events from time to time." Actually it's not a question I've ever asked before, and Julian Assange does not call himself a journalist.

But the answer is typical of this 41-year-old former computer-hacker: cryptic, dispassionate, and faintly self-important.

As the founder of Wikileaks – a website that publishes millions of documents, from military intelligence to internal company memos and has, in four years, exposed more secrets than many newspapers have in a century – Assange has become the pin-up of web-age investigative journalists. The US has wanted him for questioning since March, after he posed a video showing an American helicopter attack that left several Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists dead.

Understandably, he now avoids the US, and keeps his movements secret, though it's thought he operates out of Sweden and is spending time in Iceland, where a change in the law is creating a libel-free haven for journalists. But if the CIA spooks wanted him that badly, couldn't they have turned up, as a hundred adoring student journalists did, to hear him talk at the Centre for Investigative Journalism 10 days ago?

Perhaps it's just as well they didn't, as Assange is not a natural public speaker. He is more at home trawling data or decrypting the codes that mask it. His philosophy is that the more a government wants to keep something secret, the more reason to expose it. No journalist could argue with his essential belief in shining a light on malpractice, but shouldn't governments be entitled to keep some secrets? "Sure," he says when we speak after his talk, "That doesn't mean we and other press organisations should suffer under coercion."

What if publishing a document would threaten national security? "This phrase is so abused. Dick Cheney justified torture with it. Give me an example." What about the movement of US troops? Would he publish a document that jeopardised their safety? "We'd have to think about it." So that's a yes? "It's not a yes. If that fit into our editorial criteria – which it might, if it was an extremely good movement – then we'd have to look at whether that needed a harm minimisation procedure. We'd be totally happy to consider jeopardising the initiation of a war, or the action of war. Absolutely."

He may speak like a robot, and have a politician's knack at ducking straight answers, but in the flesh he could be a forgotten member of Crowded House, all ripped jeans and crumpled jacket, his distinguished white hair framing a youthful face. His grungy look ties in with his outsider status: he has a deep-rooted mistrust of authority. It has been speculated this comes from a youthful brush with the family courts after he divorced the mother of his son, though little is really known about his early life.

His obsession with secrecy, both in others and maintaining his own, lends him the air of a conspiracy theorist. Is he one? "I believe in facts about conspiracies," he says, choosing his words slowly. "Any time people with power plan in secret, they are conducting a conspiracy. So there are conspiracies everywhere. There are also crazed conspiracy theories. It's important not to confuse these two. Generally, when there's enough facts about a conspiracy we simply call this news." What about 9/11? "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud." What about the Bilderberg conference? "That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes."

Assange likes to see Wikileaks as a neutral platform for distributing information, and fends off criticism by saying it always follows its openly stated policies. But no news organisation is free from personal input, as he reveals when talking of Bilderberg, a shadowy annual conference of the influential. "I understand the philosophical rationale for having Chatham House rules among people in power, but the corrupting nature, in the case of Bilderberg, probably outweighs the benefits. When powerful people meet together in secret, it tends to corrupt."

Spending time with Assange, it's hard not to start believing that dark forces are at work. According to him, everyone's emails are being read. For that reason, he encourages anyone planning to leak a document to post it the old fashioned way, to his PO Box. It's ironic that an organisation bent on blowing secrets is itself so secretive, but Wikileaks couldn't operate without reliable sources. Except that, amazingly, Wikileaks does not verify them. "We don't verify our sources, we verify the documents. As long as they are bona fide it doesn't matter where they come from. We would rather not know."

After we talk, he is off to a safe house for the night and after that, who knows? He never stays in one place more than two nights. Is that because the CIA wants to kill him? "Is it in the CIA's interest to assassinate me? Maybe. But who would do it?" Isn't he brave to appear in public? "Courage is an intellectual mastery of fear," he says. "It's not that you don't have fear, you just manage your risks intelligently."
What we wouldn't know without Wikileaks

Trafigura's super-injunction

When commodities giant Trafigura used a super-injunction to suppress the release of an internal report on toxic dumping in the Ivory Coast in newspapers, it quickly appeared on Wikileaks instead. Accepting that the release made suppression futile, Trafigura lifted the injunction.

The CRU's 'Climategate' leak

Emails leaked on the site showed that scientists at the UK's Climate Research Unit, including director Phil Jones, withheld information from sceptics

The BNP membership list

After the site published the BNP's secret membership list in November 2008, newspapers found teachers, priests and police officers among them. Another list was leaked last year. The police has since barred officers from membership.

Sarah Palin's emails

Mrs Palin's Yahoo email account, which was used to bypass US public information laws, was hacked and leaked during the presidential campaign. The hacker left traces of his actions, and could face five years in prison.

incognito wrote:

What about 9/11? "I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud."

Might as well be holding a sign saying "I am a shill and 9/11 isn't part of my vector". He's an expert on all conspiracies just because people supposedly leak him stuff? Supposedly no one leaked him anything about 9/11 so it's a false conspiracy? Right... Anyone can say it's false but lets hear you talk about Building 7 Mr. Shill.

EXACTLY! LOL