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The interesting bit I didn't know was the article says that Wikileaks did not publish the complete contents of the Vault 7 materials they had. Not sure whether

The interesting bit I didn't know was the article says that Wikileaks did not publish the complete contents of the Vault 7 materials they had. Not sure whether they just published shasums of the bits they didn't, or if they proved some other way they had parts they were holding back as leverage. It's odd to read what was really at stake. Pompeo's team was ready to assasinate Assange in London, and the only thing stopping them was the justice dept and only nominally the office of the President. What WL (and Snowden) did was show to the public the intelligence community, who was ostensibly accountable to them, for what they truthfully were. The news media took a bigger credibility hit for their history of spiking these stories and delivering hit pieces than the spies ever did. Most people saw how the sausage was made and decided they still liked sausage. Not only do we tolerate what these services do, but now that we know about it and have done nothing to change it, we have acknowledged it and rewarded them for it all. Snowden's story practically created the ability for retired generals to accept pulpits from tv news where they can armchair QB the issues of the day, and they should thank him for the minor television celebrity and speaker circuit fêting they now enjoy. Whether that undermines the credibility of their institutions is still to be seen, but all that plotting to kill Assange just to sustain some lame narrative about a bureaucracy seems like it was just a fatal distraction from the real unseating of western power that we are clearly into the endgame of today.

GordonS 5y ago
> Most people saw how the sausage was made and decided they still liked sausage. I'm not sure that's really true. All of the stuff Snowden and Assange leaked was very much down-played by the popular media - it felt like it was very under-reported and even then with a fair bit of bias. If you ask some people about how they feel now, they'll say that it wouldn't affect them "because they haven't done anything wrong", or "but Assange is a rapist!", or even "that's just movie stuff, conspiracy bullshit". I really believe that the population at large either don't believe what the CIA are doing, are in denial about it, or just don't care because it largely affects brown people in far off lands.
- smolder 5y ago
  The population at large has been trained not to think about things like what their government does on their behalf; them's terrorist thoughts. Support da troops. One must give the appearance of being a team player by timidly ignoring Uncle Sam's glaring failures to operate within its claimed principles.
  - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    It's basic cognitive fatigue, the basis of the success of the big lie. If American's don't adopt the big lie, then all of a sudden they need to accept: - the US enacted genocide on Native Americans and still effectively does via reservations and enforce poverty - the US started the vietnam war and would need to realize that we did in fact do the Gulf of Tonkin - the US has strongly backed dozens of repressive regimes that have collectively murdered millions of people. By strongly backed, I mean trained, advised, and directed these operations to kill and torture political opposition "inconvenient" to the US. - the current Mexican cartel leaders were formally trained by US operatives at the "School of the Americas", as part of the program to strongly back repressive regimes - the Iraq War was a massive scam from its inception to the end - the Afghanistan War was a massive scam for 90% of its period - the CIA and other security agencies have a 100% functional total information awareness and infrastructure for complete totalitarian control of the US. All it needs is one president to decide to activate it on a whim. It's basically a switch sitting in the Oval Office. and so so so many other transgressions.
- blitzar 5y ago
  > Most people saw how the sausage was made and decided they still liked sausage. > I'm not sure that's really true. All of the stuff Snowden and Assange leaked was very much down-played by the popular media - it felt like it was very under-reported and even then with a fair bit of bias. It was not at all played down, especially not Snowden, it was rolling 24 hour news for weeks, they still try and drum up some drama over it whenever they get a chance. The problem is, people dont care. I feel genuinely sad that Snowden blew up his life, and outside of a few privacy communities nothing has changed. Everyone agrees it is wrong, but they dont care, you are a traitor if you dont believe it has to be done. He should have won a Nobel prize and been given a ticker tape parade for blowing the whistle, but instead he is holed up in Russia, the illegal spying goes on, and the people call for more spying at every turn.

GordonS 5y ago

> Most people saw how the sausage was made and decided they still liked sausage. I'm not sure that's really true. All of the stuff Snowden and Assange leaked was very much down-played by the popular media - it felt like it was very under-reported and even then with a fair bit of bias. If you ask some people about how they feel now, they'll say that it wouldn't affect them "because they haven't done anything wrong", or "but Assange is a rapist!", or even "that's just movie stuff, conspiracy bullshit". I really believe that the population at large either don't believe what the CIA are doing, are in denial about it, or just don't care because it largely affects brown people in far off lands.

smolder 5y ago
The population at large has been trained not to think about things like what their government does on their behalf; them's terrorist thoughts. Support da troops. One must give the appearance of being a team player by timidly ignoring Uncle Sam's glaring failures to operate within its claimed principles.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  It's basic cognitive fatigue, the basis of the success of the big lie. If American's don't adopt the big lie, then all of a sudden they need to accept: - the US enacted genocide on Native Americans and still effectively does via reservations and enforce poverty - the US started the vietnam war and would need to realize that we did in fact do the Gulf of Tonkin - the US has strongly backed dozens of repressive regimes that have collectively murdered millions of people. By strongly backed, I mean trained, advised, and directed these operations to kill and torture political opposition "inconvenient" to the US. - the current Mexican cartel leaders were formally trained by US operatives at the "School of the Americas", as part of the program to strongly back repressive regimes - the Iraq War was a massive scam from its inception to the end - the Afghanistan War was a massive scam for 90% of its period - the CIA and other security agencies have a 100% functional total information awareness and infrastructure for complete totalitarian control of the US. All it needs is one president to decide to activate it on a whim. It's basically a switch sitting in the Oval Office. and so so so many other transgressions.
blitzar 5y ago
> Most people saw how the sausage was made and decided they still liked sausage. > I'm not sure that's really true. All of the stuff Snowden and Assange leaked was very much down-played by the popular media - it felt like it was very under-reported and even then with a fair bit of bias. It was not at all played down, especially not Snowden, it was rolling 24 hour news for weeks, they still try and drum up some drama over it whenever they get a chance. The problem is, people dont care. I feel genuinely sad that Snowden blew up his life, and outside of a few privacy communities nothing has changed. Everyone agrees it is wrong, but they dont care, you are a traitor if you dont believe it has to be done. He should have won a Nobel prize and been given a ticker tape parade for blowing the whistle, but instead he is holed up in Russia, the illegal spying goes on, and the people call for more spying at every turn.