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Wikileaks Is Running Out Of Cash
- TylerE 15y agoMaybe they'd have fewer problems if they you know, actually released stuff?
- gldalmaso 15y agoIt impresses me just how much combined effort is being put towards boycoting transparency, just on the grounds that the powers that be are embaressed by their ugly operations.
- battlebee 15y agoExcept that people in the State Department are actually pretty pleased with how they appear in the cables.
- pconf 15y agoAlso impresses me by how many posts here believe the media coverage of Assange. Just goes to show, Americans are the most naive consumers of commercial news on the planet, by a considerable margin. All I want to know is where I can send a check. Long live government transparency.
- Ixiaus 15y agoHere's their bitcoin address: 1HB5XMLmzFVj8ALj6mfBsbifRoD4miY36v
- redthrowaway 15y agoThe problem with sending money via bitcoin at the moment is that it will likely be worth significantly less tomorrow than it is today, and less still the day after. It would be nice to have a bitcoin alternative that was actually a viable currency; as of now I know of no such thing.
- Tichy 15y agoThey just have to exchange them back into dollars today then. Why wait till tomorrow?
- jordanvisco 15y agohah, might be the only real use for bitcoins so far!
- Tichy 15y agoDo you have a citation for that? I've never visited the Wikileaks site, and now it seems to be down. Edit: oops, never mind, it is at wikileaks.org, not .com - found the BitCoin reference. Could not make sense of their IRC thing, though. Why not generate a new BitCoin address directly on the page?
- nir 15y agoI think it's very wrong for banks to disallow money transfers to WikiLeaks, and I think Americans are often naive but "Americans are the most naive consumers of commercial news on the planet" is highly exaggerated.
- pconf 15y agoI can see how someone who has not spent significant time living outside of the US could be of this opinion, but every US resident I know who has lived outside of the country for any significant period of time is also of this opinion. You don't need to spend much time reading European or Asian newspapers, listening to or watching BBC, DW, then be insulted by FOX and Clearchannel to see exactly what the issue is.
- untog 15y agoI'd be interested in Wikileaks providing a rundown on what they spend their money on. Every cent might be in the direct pursuit of free information but I worry that isn't the case.
- cube13 15y agoI would love to see that as well, and it would make me much more comfortable with donating to them if I knew that my money was going directly towards supporting their operations(which I support), instead of Assange(whom I do not).
- knowtheory 15y agoThe real question is how many documents they've taken in. The impression i was left with over the split between Wikileaks and OpenLeaks (and incidentally here's link to open leaks: http://openleaks.org/ http://openleaks.org/ ) was that WikiLeaks was left w/o any infrastructure to accept new documents, making it, effectively, useless. I am not going to donate to Julian Assange's defense, as i think he's destroyed Wikileaks' credibility and capability to continue operating.
- palish 15y ago> I am not going to donate to Julian Assange's defense, as i think he's destroyed Wikileaks' credibility and capability to continue operating. I completely missed any recent news regarding Assange... do you mind expanding on your reasons? I'm really interested.
- __alexs 15y agoPresumably the part where he is was at best a complete douchebag to several women, and at worst raped someone.
- knowtheory 15y agoWell, while he does seem a bit scummy, innocent until proven guilty and all that. The reasons that i have are not directly tied to the substance of the accusations against him there.
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- Daishiman 15y agoI find it funny that you consider it a joke and yet it has made more impact in journalism than anything else in the last 10 years. It also appears to be one of the most well-reported jokes around.
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- yardie 15y agoFirst they laugh at you.......................then you win.
- rick888 15y agoI suppose if "you win" means a jail sentence, then yes.
- raganwald 15y agoIs that what you have to say about King, Ghandi, Castro, and Mandela (amongst others)? I am not equating Assange with these folks, but I am using their jail sentences to suggest that while going to jail is not winning, it certainly doesn’t preclude winning later on. If anything, it may indicate that they are doing something to endanger the status quo, which is a necessary precondition of winning.
- Gustomaximus 15y agoI think it is good they split out: "WikiLeaks and Julian Assange Defence Fund" As while I think many people want to support Wikileaks, they don't want to support his personal legal case, be it politically motivated or not.
- danso 15y agoWhat is thhe status of WL mirror sites? I remember when WL went down for financial reasons, hardly any of the mirror sites seemed to function, never mind have most of the archives
- derrida 15y agoMine is up. The major ones I have checked are still up. Report any noticed downs in the Wikileaks IRC.
- amritsharma 15y agoYou know we've turned a very dangerous corner when the 'land of the free' is choking the free flow of information. http://www.wikileaks.org/support http://www.wikileaks.org/support
- robfig 15y agoCan someone explain why diplomatic cables should be free and open?
- skeptical 15y agoThey shouldn't. Everyone seems to be ignoring that, so you get my upvote. We should be aware that wikileaks actions are indeed crimes. That said, some cables put it crystal clear, some politicians are really corrupt and are using their privileged position to their own advantage. Do the goals justify the means?
- mrleinad 15y agoProvided that the goals are: 1) Exposing corrupt politicians. 2) Stop politicians from screwing millions of people over and over again. And the downsides are: 1) Some politician loses his/her reputation, and the people of his/her country know who he/she really is. 2) Some frictions between countries, for example when an embassador is just a mean for creating a corporations' lobby. I'd say yes, the means are well justified in this case. Truth can never be a bad thing.
- rimantas 15y ago> 1) Exposing corrupt politicians. Were there any cables discussing how big a bribe should one bring? > 2) Stop politicians from screwing millions of people over and over again. Common content of the diplomatic cables, for sure. I heard disclosing those cables let us know who do politicians nickname each other. I guess I can do without that info. The thing is — if there is anything worth knowin in those cables it will become visible through the actions of the officials sooner or later. If it will not — I don't care.
- libraryatnight 15y ago"Employees of DynCorp, a US government contractor funded by US tax dollars, in Afghanistan paid for the services of underage "dancing boys", apparently a euphemistic reference to Bacha bazi, which is considered child prostitution.[22] The boys were auctioned off to be sexually abused by Afghan policemen, with some to be kept as sex slaves and participate in events funded by DynCorp" "The U.S. bargained with other nations on moving prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to other countries. In one case, U.S. officials allegedly offered Slovenia a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama, if the country accepted one of the Guantanamo Bay detainees.[24][25] Offers to other countries include economic incentives or a visit from Obama" "In 2009, the U.S. manipulated — via spying, threats, and bribes — the Copenhagen global climate change summit to coerce reticent participants into supporting the treaty. The U.S. punished countries such as Ecuador and Bolivia, which were deemed "unhelpful" for not signing the Copenhagen Accord, by cutting off millions of dollars in necessary funds;[27] while, the U.S. relieved Saudi Arabia, the world's second-biggest oil producer and one of the twenty-five-richest countries in the world, of any kind of obligation.[28] The U.S. used funds in millions of dollars to recruit the Maldives to sign the Copenhagen Accord, after it has relentlessly took a stand against it" The above is a sliver of things I've personally learned, and am glad I know, from the leaks. It may not be pleasant or happy information, but I want to know what the Governments and corporations are doing. You may not care or want to know, but some of us do care what is happening. (used wikipedia's listings to find what I was looking for, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak_(Region_%E2%80%94_Americas) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contents_of_the_United_States_d... )
- ryandickherber 15y agoThey accept bitcoins. If you want to make sure they get your money, pay with that.
- Helianthus 15y agogood thing cash is running out of time.
- skrebbel 15y agoI'm impressed by the amount of comments here that point out some (perceived) hypocrisy in the actions of Wikileaks or Assange. This isn't the point. I myself don't really know what to think of Wikileaks. I, however, do know that major banks and financial institutions find it perfectly okay for you to send money to all kinds of horrible organisations (say, the Ku Klux Klan, clubs that campaign for underage sex, Westboro Baptist Church, whatever you can come up with, and they probably have a bank account), but not to Wikileaks. I can't imagine how Wikileaks can be considered a so much more evil organisation than Stormfront (http://www.stormfront.org/forum/announcement.php?a=63 http://www.stormfront.org/forum/announcement.php?a=63, all cards accepted) that the first needs to be blocked and the latter does not. It can only be that at least this part of what Wikileaks is saying is true: Major banks and businesses, a scarily small number of organisations that control a large part of the world's financial transactions, want to control to who you give your money. This means that they want to control who gets money and what they do with it. This shit is NONE of their business, and the fact that they can do this without serious legal issues scares the shit out of me. I like to believe that western governments are out to serve their citizens and protect their freedoms, but I cannot explain how that fits with what these banks are doing and how the governments just let it happen. This has absolutely nothing to do with the nature of Wikileaks as an organisation. Really, this fact alone makes me want to send money in an envelope to Wikileaks, despite how ridiculous I thought Cablegate was. Edit: If Wikileaks were a terrorist organisation (blowing up buildings and people and whatnot), I'd understand governments to force a ban. Not banks banning them on their own initiatives, but governments forcing it. If you genuinely feel that Wikileaks is as bad as Al Qaeda and Hamas and the alikes, then I'll understand if you disagree with me, although even then I hope you agree that it should've been a government decree, and not banks solo-piloting their sense of morality. In all other cases, really, I can't wrap my mind around it.
- steve19 15y agoI am just explaining the reasoning. Don't hate/downvote me for saying it ... Silencing people's political opinions (even horrible evil people) is considered bad. This is why donations to these evil organizations is tolerated. Wikileaks is being blacklisted not because of their political opinions, but because these organizations, rightly or wrongly, believe Wikileaks is threatening security of the nation, causing deaths of informers and collaborators in the Middle East. And last but not least, Wikileaks seems to be actively perusing leaks in banks and financial organizations. If you bite the hand that feeds you ...
- antimora 15y agoIs anyone getting 404 when clicking on donate link? http://shop.wikileaks.org/donate http://shop.wikileaks.org/donate
- ww520 15y agoCan Wikileaks simply release the leaks via BitTorrent? Sign the distribution with a crypto certificate and let BT take care of the distribution.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- chimeracoder 15y agoThis is what I never understood - aside from the 'insurance' file that they released ~1 year ago, it seems they haven't really taken advantage of P2P networks as much as they could. It certainly would cut down on hosting costs, and it's not like the Wikileaks guys are unaware of encryption/signing. Anybody know why they haven't gone this route?