7 ms·

> Curious how we never seem to see Russia as the focus of Wikileaks releases. I can't even comprehend what you're trying to imply here. Do you genuinely think

by TillE 11y ago

> Curious how we never seem to see Russia as the focus of Wikileaks releases. I can't even comprehend what you're trying to imply here. Do you genuinely think that Wikileaks is friendly to Russia for some reason? If so, say it. Because that would be really bizarre and inexplicable.

tptacek 11y ago
Yes, I do genuinely think that. Didn't Assange have a show on Russian state-sponsored TV? Did I miss the part where Wikileaks refuted the allegation, which ran in several mainstream media outlets, that representatives of Wikileaks funneled unpublished leaked information from the Manning dump to the dictator of Belarus? I don't like the NSA, but, impolitic as it may be to admit it here: I like Belarus a lot less.
- tawaynow 11y ago
  Didn't Assange have a show on Russian state-sponsored TV? More baseless allegations. Isn't that one of the tactics the NSA uses? To attempt to destroy reputations of selected targets? https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...
  - schoen 11y ago
    Note that JTRIG is a GCHQ activity, not an NSA activity.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I'm pretty sure Assange's presence on Russian state-sponsored TV is not in fact a baseless allegation.
    - napoleond 11y ago
      FWIW, "state-sponsored" TV doesn't necessarily imply what you're suggesting. If Assange appeared on the BBC or the CBC, you would not accuse him of being a shill for the British or Canadian governments. EDIT: Of course I'm aware that Russia has a different relationship with its media than the UK, Canada, etc. Just pointing out a thing.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        I don't know enough about the BBC to comment on its independence from the UK government. On national security and signals intelligence matters, I do not have a lot of faith in the UK government.
        napoleond 11y ago
        Right, me neither, and yet no one would ever use one of Assange's multiple appearances on the BBC as evidence that he's a shill for the British government. (I do concede that giving interviews is different from having his own show, but can't really think of a way that it matters in this context.) It does certainly seem like Wikileaks is mainly focused on publishing anti-US material, but I can think of a million reasons for that which are more plausible than them being in Putin's pocket (which, in fairness, you've merely implied). EDIT: No idea why you're being down-voted. I've up-voted in case it helps. To everyone else: I know it's become customary to down-vote for disagreement, but in situations like this it discourages dialogue.
        rtpg 11y ago
        There's a decent amount of documentation as to the role of the Kremlin in RT's editorial process. I don't have any examples in mind but I feel like the BBC has never held back on criticizing the government/people in power, and doing reports on gov't scandals and the like.
        jacquesm 11y ago
        In the run-up to the Iraq war the BBC was very much a mouthpiece for the UK government. As a rule of thumb you can use any news service as a source of information as long as you don't use it for information about the government of the country where it originates from and the major adversaries of that government or country. That makes reading the news and staying current a lot harder and probably will require you to gain language proficiency beyond what you can get at through the English language press.
  - tzs 11y ago
    How is it a baseless allegation? Assange did in fact have a show on Russian state-sponsored TV [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tomorrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tomorrow
- foobarqux 11y ago
  > Did I miss the part where Wikileaks refuted the allegation Yes, you did. You can find it with a simple web search. The accusation is pretty tenuous when you look at the facts.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I looked. I searched for the name of the reporter who broke the story and any variation of "discredited", along with "Lukashenko" "Assange" "Wikileaks" "Belarus". Can you point me at a reported link? Would you agree that funneling intelligence to the government of Belarus is a grave accusation?
    - foobarqux 11y ago
      If it were true. http://wlcentral.org/node/1412 http://wlcentral.org/node/1412 http://wlcentral.org/node/1186 http://wlcentral.org/node/1186
      - tptacek 11y ago
        The only sources you have refuting reports that ran in the mainstream media about Wikileaks funneling information to Belarus is Wikileaks itself? Those allegations ran in The Guardian, in Al Jazeera, in The Daily Beast (that time, from a source within Wikileaks), and several others. I don't like the NSA. Am I required to like Wikileaks? I don't.
        foobarqux 11y ago
        You wrote, > Did I miss the part where Wikileaks refuted the allegation that is, you asked specifically for Wikileaks response, which is contained in one of the links I posted. I don't believe that wlcentral is Wikileaks itself, and in any case the evidence and arguments they present should stand on their own, regardless of whether one likes Wikileaks or not.
        tptacek 11y ago
- zxcvcxz 11y ago
  I'm suspicious of wikileaks too, but they do have a whole section of Russian documents. https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Russia https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Russia
  - csandreasen 11y ago
    After surfing around https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Countries https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Countries for a minute or two: - Category:Russia - 57 pages total - Cyprus - 54 pages - Latvia - 50 pages - Lithuania - 47 pages - Estonia - 46 pages ------- - Japan: 90 pages - Italy: 99 pages - France: 128 pages - Canada: 153 pages - Germany: 278 pages - United Kingdom: 384 pages - United States: 9729 pages Interesting set of priorities they have there... I'm curious as to why a G8 country has as much information posted as a country with 1/140 its population.
    - sondr3 11y ago
      Probably because Russia has a very different approach to whistleblowers compared to most other countries on their list.
    - malandrew 11y ago
      I would also imagine that it's very much a cultural issue as well. You can't get these documents without people who believe strongly that they are making the world a better place by collecting them and releasing them. Now the US has a lot of idealism going on, so much so that many people grow up idolizing institutions like the CIA and the NSA. They join these institutions as believers, but day after day they are exposed to more details on the inside that bursts that idealism and one day cognitive dissonance gets the better of them and they choose to collect information to become a whistleblower. Compare this with other countries where there isn't as much blind reverence cultivated for such institutions. The same talented kids that would grow up under circumstances where they would have a much more realistic view of the good and bad these institutions are capable of. This in and of itself is a major limiting factor in how high you would rise in such an institution, assuming you chose to join in the first place. You can't be a whistleblower if you don't have access to anything to whistleblow about. Whistleblowing happens when values clash with reality. If values are never really part of the equation, and you have organizations where "the ends justify the means" is not only accepted, but rewarded, then you don't get whistleblowers. With things like Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations, and all these realizations from the Snowden docs, I fully expect that idolization bubble to be pretty much popped by now insofar as institutions like the NSA and CIA are concerned. For that reason more than any other I expect whistleblowing to become less frequent for these institutions. If and when whistleblowing drops for these institutions drops, it's will be explained by better security measures, but I would expect it having more to do with those who have the personality to be whistleblowers never joining or rising high enough to have that opportunity.

by TillE 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

Yes, I do genuinely think that. Didn't Assange have a show on Russian state-sponsored TV? Did I miss the part where Wikileaks refuted the allegation, which ran in several mainstream media outlets, that representatives of Wikileaks funneled unpublished leaked information from the Manning dump to the dictator of Belarus? I don't like the NSA, but, impolitic as it may be to admit it here: I like Belarus a lot less.

tawaynow 11y ago
Didn't Assange have a show on Russian state-sponsored TV? More baseless allegations. Isn't that one of the tactics the NSA uses? To attempt to destroy reputations of selected targets? https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...
- schoen 11y ago
  Note that JTRIG is a GCHQ activity, not an NSA activity.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure Assange's presence on Russian state-sponsored TV is not in fact a baseless allegation.
  - napoleond 11y ago
    FWIW, "state-sponsored" TV doesn't necessarily imply what you're suggesting. If Assange appeared on the BBC or the CBC, you would not accuse him of being a shill for the British or Canadian governments. EDIT: Of course I'm aware that Russia has a different relationship with its media than the UK, Canada, etc. Just pointing out a thing.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      I don't know enough about the BBC to comment on its independence from the UK government. On national security and signals intelligence matters, I do not have a lot of faith in the UK government.
      - napoleond 11y ago
        Right, me neither, and yet no one would ever use one of Assange's multiple appearances on the BBC as evidence that he's a shill for the British government. (I do concede that giving interviews is different from having his own show, but can't really think of a way that it matters in this context.) It does certainly seem like Wikileaks is mainly focused on publishing anti-US material, but I can think of a million reasons for that which are more plausible than them being in Putin's pocket (which, in fairness, you've merely implied). EDIT: No idea why you're being down-voted. I've up-voted in case it helps. To everyone else: I know it's become customary to down-vote for disagreement, but in situations like this it discourages dialogue.
        rtpg 11y ago
        There's a decent amount of documentation as to the role of the Kremlin in RT's editorial process. I don't have any examples in mind but I feel like the BBC has never held back on criticizing the government/people in power, and doing reports on gov't scandals and the like.
        jacquesm 11y ago
        In the run-up to the Iraq war the BBC was very much a mouthpiece for the UK government. As a rule of thumb you can use any news service as a source of information as long as you don't use it for information about the government of the country where it originates from and the major adversaries of that government or country. That makes reading the news and staying current a lot harder and probably will require you to gain language proficiency beyond what you can get at through the English language press.
- tzs 11y ago
  How is it a baseless allegation? Assange did in fact have a show on Russian state-sponsored TV [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tomorrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tomorrow
foobarqux 11y ago
> Did I miss the part where Wikileaks refuted the allegation Yes, you did. You can find it with a simple web search. The accusation is pretty tenuous when you look at the facts.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I looked. I searched for the name of the reporter who broke the story and any variation of "discredited", along with "Lukashenko" "Assange" "Wikileaks" "Belarus". Can you point me at a reported link? Would you agree that funneling intelligence to the government of Belarus is a grave accusation?
  - foobarqux 11y ago
    If it were true. http://wlcentral.org/node/1412 http://wlcentral.org/node/1412 http://wlcentral.org/node/1186 http://wlcentral.org/node/1186
    - tptacek 11y ago
      The only sources you have refuting reports that ran in the mainstream media about Wikileaks funneling information to Belarus is Wikileaks itself? Those allegations ran in The Guardian, in Al Jazeera, in The Daily Beast (that time, from a source within Wikileaks), and several others. I don't like the NSA. Am I required to like Wikileaks? I don't.
      - foobarqux 11y ago
        You wrote, > Did I miss the part where Wikileaks refuted the allegation that is, you asked specifically for Wikileaks response, which is contained in one of the links I posted. I don't believe that wlcentral is Wikileaks itself, and in any case the evidence and arguments they present should stand on their own, regardless of whether one likes Wikileaks or not.
        tptacek 11y ago
zxcvcxz 11y ago
I'm suspicious of wikileaks too, but they do have a whole section of Russian documents. https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Russia https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Russia
- csandreasen 11y ago
  After surfing around https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Countries https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:Countries for a minute or two: - Category:Russia - 57 pages total - Cyprus - 54 pages - Latvia - 50 pages - Lithuania - 47 pages - Estonia - 46 pages ------- - Japan: 90 pages - Italy: 99 pages - France: 128 pages - Canada: 153 pages - Germany: 278 pages - United Kingdom: 384 pages - United States: 9729 pages Interesting set of priorities they have there... I'm curious as to why a G8 country has as much information posted as a country with 1/140 its population.
  - sondr3 11y ago
    Probably because Russia has a very different approach to whistleblowers compared to most other countries on their list.
  - malandrew 11y ago
    I would also imagine that it's very much a cultural issue as well. You can't get these documents without people who believe strongly that they are making the world a better place by collecting them and releasing them. Now the US has a lot of idealism going on, so much so that many people grow up idolizing institutions like the CIA and the NSA. They join these institutions as believers, but day after day they are exposed to more details on the inside that bursts that idealism and one day cognitive dissonance gets the better of them and they choose to collect information to become a whistleblower. Compare this with other countries where there isn't as much blind reverence cultivated for such institutions. The same talented kids that would grow up under circumstances where they would have a much more realistic view of the good and bad these institutions are capable of. This in and of itself is a major limiting factor in how high you would rise in such an institution, assuming you chose to join in the first place. You can't be a whistleblower if you don't have access to anything to whistleblow about. Whistleblowing happens when values clash with reality. If values are never really part of the equation, and you have organizations where "the ends justify the means" is not only accepted, but rewarded, then you don't get whistleblowers. With things like Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations, and all these realizations from the Snowden docs, I fully expect that idolization bubble to be pretty much popped by now insofar as institutions like the NSA and CIA are concerned. For that reason more than any other I expect whistleblowing to become less frequent for these institutions. If and when whistleblowing drops for these institutions drops, it's will be explained by better security measures, but I would expect it having more to do with those who have the personality to be whistleblowers never joining or rising high enough to have that opportunity.