
Wikileaks internal memo on "The Fifth Estate" - sidi
http://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/wikileaks-dreamworks-memo.html#about
======
meowface
It is rather sleazy that they tried to portray Assange as a self-obsessed,
egomaniacal cult leader of some kind. Claiming he was in a cult and bleaches
his hair, etc. Quite an ad hominem (even if the movie is not intended to be a
documentary or a polemic). People are going to watch the movie, see that, and
go "oh, what a nut job" even though it's completely fictional.

Really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Also the claims that Assange is
responsible for the harm or death of Americans, or that they later leaked
unredacted documents.

The Social Network's dramatization of Zuckerberg wasn't nearly that acrid, in
comparison.

~~~
mpyne
> It is rather sleazy that they tried to portray Assange as a self-obsessed,
> egomaniacal cult leader of some kind.

It is still sleazy if there's element of truth to that? Cult leader, maybe
not, but his ego is visible from the ISS, and his narcissism is fairly hard to
miss as well.

Likewise Assange is certainly intermingled with harm/death to Americans, if
not directly involved. He claims there are higher reasons such as his effort
to foist transparency on the U.S. government in particular, but you don't leak
hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and still end up Doing No Harm.

Additionally it was Assange's mistakes that left the archive of unencrypted
unredacted documents on a public web server in the first place. The Guardian
journalist should have been just fine to publish the password years after the
fact as the FTP share used to push the documents to the journalists doing the
analysis was not required to be public for years! So again, although Assange
is not "the sole gunman" here he does share in the responsibility.

And all of this now reaches back into why it might be appropriate to describe
Assange with cult-like descriptives. You ask a U.S. Democrat and they'll
probably be able to list at least 5 things they don't like about a prominent
Democratic politician. Even a Republican would be able to list faults with
their politicians.

But to hear people describe Assange, he is almost _literally perfect_ , has
never done something wrong, makes snap decisions that are revealed to have
been 100% beneficial years later, and never suffers from normal human
misunderstanding or flaws in decision-making. Where does this come from?? I
screw up something at least twice before breakfast every day, but any fault
people point out with Assange must be as part of a vast government and media
conspiracy to discredit him? OK, sure...

~~~
belorn
> Likewise Assange is certainly intermingled with harm/death to Americans, if
> not directly involved.

Source? In what way has he directly been involved in any harm? Second, US
Brig. Gen. Robert Carr vittnessed under oath that the armies investigation
could not identify a single death. Do you know something that the second
largest army in the world could not prove?

> So again, although Assange is not "the sole gunman" here he does share in
> the responsibility.

I guess the architect for the World Trade Center do share some responsibility
when the two building crashed in 2001. Had he built them more secure, more
like a bunker, then so many people would still be alive. _so again, althrough
Daniel Libeskind is not "the sole gunman" here he does share in the
responsibility._

or maybe, just maybe I want to put the whole blame on Al-Qaeda.

~~~
quesera
Libeskind is the new guy. The original was designed by Minoru Yamasaki

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Yamasaki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Yamasaki)

Or was that a joke? :)

~~~
belorn
I am sorry, you are totally right. I got the two designers mixed up. Thanks.

------
sidi
I found the memo quite insightful as it goes into specific details on why and
how the movie depiction differs from their perspective. Some quotes from the
memo:

"THE FIFTH ESTATE falsely implies that WikiLeaks harmed 2,000 US government
informants. ... US Brig. Gen. Robert Carr – who was tasked to investigate this
matter by the Pentagon – in fact stated under oath when examined by the
defense counsel that there was no harm whatsoever."

"Although THE FIFTH ESTATE purports to be about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks,
the film was made without the involvement of WikiLeaks or any of its staff,
including Julian Assange. ... The multi-million dollar production, produced by
Dreamworks and distributed by Disney, has not financially contributed to
WikiLeaks or any of its defence funds."

~~~
mpyne
> US Brig. Gen. Robert Carr – who was tasked to investigate this matter by the
> Pentagon – in fact stated under oath when examined by the defense counsel
> that there was no harm whatsoever

Not being able to prove harm is different from proving that one did _not_ harm
someone. Especially when, in this case, the U.S. took measures to pre-
emptively mitigate any harm as a preventive concern. Was the U.S. supposed to
let their informants be killed by the Taliban just to be able to say that
Assange is an even bigger asshole? Please.

~~~
hhw
I guess you don't subscribe to innocent until proven guilty? Even after
exhaustive investigation and efforts to prove such guilt?

~~~
mpyne
I believe there is a difference between reality and what the legal system is
able to prove. They are necessarily different, as the legal system must apply
to society as a whole, which means that we require it to have safeguards that
will necessarily reduce its ability to deliver convictions.

This doesn't mean that any party not convicted didn't do it; it simply means
they were convicted, just as the legal system sometimes manages to deliver
convictions on people who were actually innocent.

In this case there's no way to even think of how to apply a legal-style
investigation except under some kind of quantum parallel-universe model.
Exhaustive investigation or not, the fact remains that as soon as the U.S.
learned of the leaks they took prompt action to forestall the ability of AQ
and the Taliban to act on those leaks, which forever screwed up the
possibility of conclusively determining which particular individuals would or
would not have been slain.

That the threat was mitigated doesn't mean there wasn't an existential threat
though, nor does it need a jury of 12 people to demonstrate what is plainly
obvious: Loose Lips Sink Ships.

------
BWStearns
>> "stated under oath when examined by the defense counsel that there was no
harm whatsoever"

First, I don't actually believe that the Wikileaks releases (Manning's) really
caused that much damage, in fact we came out smelling like roses in most
cases, our allies however frequently looked like asses (think Saudis wanting
to tag gitmo inmates with bird trackers).

The thing here to consider is 1) by the Wikileaks statement above it would
seem that the purpose was never to counter US interests [calling bullshit
here, support or oppose Assange/WL != pro US gov], so it is disingenuous at
best to us the lack of damaging information to suggest that WL was not an
anti-USG group.

Is the Disney film less than fully accurate? I'd bet so, it's a commercial
endeavor.

I'm more disappointed that Wikileaks chose to focus on the USG and GB than all
of the upstanding states around the world like Syria, Russia, North Korea, and
China. Sure, when the US fucks up, call us out on it, that's part of an
informed democracy.

WL/Assange pretended to be the vanguard of transparency (and when they first
announced such ambitions I actually was rooting for them). Instead of focusing
on the most opaque and oppressive governments, they focused on finding the
warts on governments that by and large are respective of human rights. Russia?
Fuck it you get a pass because Assange doesn't have ricin-proof pants yet. NK?
Do you know how hard it is to get documents from there?

</rant>

Seriously though, I am disappointed. When they stood up I thought they were
going to actually go after folks who actively opposed free speech and human
rights. Instead they went after the targets that were easiest to create media
stories out of. I would like for Wikileaks to get the memos on the election
rigging in Azerbaijan, I would like for them to get the UN memos between RF
and Syria. To borrow the line from Rick, I don't mind a whistle blower, I just
mind a cut rate one.

~~~
CatMtKing
I haven't browsed through much of Wikileaks, butt I was under the impression
that they do leak documents from many governments, not solely the US or GB.
However, is it a surprise that the documents that get the most press are US-
related? And, after all, the bigger the government, the bigger the paper trail
/ surface area for leaks.

~~~
BWStearns
There are pathetically few documents on WL from governments with truly
atrocious human rights records. There are more documents from fucking
fraternities than oppressive governments. Governments are pretty reliable,
there are documents even in the most dysfunctional governments.

Wikileaks is less interested in publishing these than anything that is
embarrassing to the US/UK. I know I'm throwing HN Karma down the toilet here,
but really, while the behavior of the USG is far far from ideal, the behavior
of Wikileaks is also so, and in a more insidious manner since its silence on
more oppressive governments gives them validation.

Also for those downvoting, please see my other posts. I am not blindly pro-USG
or anti-whistleblower. I have more complicated feelings regarding Snowden but
wrt Wikileaks I have been disappointed in their focus. I feel this is a valid
concern as the obsession with taking the US down a peg also gives validation
to those oppressing their own people. Taking the US down a peg and denouncing
real atrocities should not be incompatible. I feel that Wikileaks has
sacrificed the more valuable duty of the latter in favor of the former.

~~~
vidarh
You are jumping to a lot of conclusions regarding WL's agenda, when it is
quite possible the reason most of the documents are from the US/UK simply
because they are reasonably easy to get leaks from compared to more brutal
regimes.

~~~
BWStearns
This is no doubt true (it's easier in the US than NK), but as I commented
below, they posted that they had some stuff on Russia, and then shut the hell
up about it. What is the takeaway?

~~~
algorias
Sometimes, painful compromises need to be made? Pick your battles, fight one
bad guy at a time. Would you rather have Snowden in jail?

Also, as a non-US citizen, I think it's justified targeting the US
specifically, because they have an inordinate amount of influence on global
policies (basically, they force their laws on everybody else through so-called
trade agreements)

~~~
mpyne
The change in WikiLeaks's tune regarding Russia _far_ predates Snowden.

Assange was using Russian state media (RT) as a mouthpiece for a television
show of his before Snowden as well. I believe one of his first interviews was
with the leader of Hezbollah, of all people.

~~~
algorias
I stand corrected. My general point still holds, though.

------
Debugreality
Very insightful for me the most interesting part was near the end where it
outlines -

"The most significant journalists and whistleblowers in the world (that) are
either political exiles, political prisoners, or the targets of criminal
investigations by an overreaching security state."

Many of these I had heard of but many more I had not... It's a little chilling
honestly.

------
Bartweiss
This movie seems a lot more like character assassination than either
fictionalized storytelling or documentary. It's not as though the Wikileaks
story lacks drama, moral ambiguity, or a couple of clear villains when told
accurately. This begs the question - why give a wildly inaccurate version of
events if it isn't significantly enriching the film?

~~~
nilved
You answered that question in your first sentence.

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steve19
It's a press release, not an internal memo.

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dublinben
"internal"

I don't believe for a second this document wasn't intended for public release
from the outset.

~~~
seabee
Their raison d'être is transparency, but publicising an internal memo doesn't
magically turn it into a press release. It is clearly structured and written
for WikiLeaks affiliated staff to use when discussing the film, anything else
is a bonus.

~~~
mpyne
Correction: Their raison d'être _used_ to be transparency. They are certainly
willing _now_ to hold onto documents that do not advance their own political
agenda.

Likewise the memo is sitting on a public folder on wikileaks.org, I'm pretty
sure Assange or his troops could hack together a private intranet _if_ that
was what was actually desired here. This is a PR release that is just as
transparent as when the U.S. "leaks" positive news to the NYT.

------
rurounijones
Couldn't they sue the film-makers for defamation / libel / slander (whichever
one it is) for the "2,000 informants harmed" claim?

Be hard for the "Based on a true story" defense to work for that I would
think.

~~~
sidi
Although it contains real names and real places, the film will justify itself
as fictional making it harder to target for defamation / libel / slander.

Edit: Another way the film can get off the hook is by claiming the information
depicted is based on the sources (books) it uses for forming the script. I can
only speculate, but what matters is shaping the public opinion and they are
doing it by leaking the script and expressing their opposition to it.

Another guess is they need definitive evidence before sueing the film/makers.
To quote from their memo: "Although the film has premiered at the Toronto
International Film Festival and numerous other media organizations have been
shown review copies, the studio continues to refuse to show the film to
WikiLeaks staff."

~~~
rurounijones
That would seem like a _very_ flimsy defence. If I were wikileaks I would be
arguing that one.

~~~
tehwalrus
certainly in the UK weasel words get you precisely nowhere in Libel. If you
know what you were saying, and your audience knew it too, then you can be
sued.

------
junto
Can ayone explain this statement that Wikileaks makes?

    
    
      Sarah Harrison, the WikiLeaks journalist who accompanied 
      Edward Snowden from Hong Kong and assisted his successful 
      asylum bid, is in effective exile in Russia.
    

Why is she 'effectively in exile'? What would she be charged with if she
returned to the UK?

~~~
mattlutze
Aiding and Abetting, maybe. She'd certainly be arrested and interrogated, and
then potentially be charged with contempt if she refused under order to
disclose other information she may know about Snowden.

------
nilved
It's a shame such a remarkably terrible film had such a good lead. Now I can't
watch any of his other works.

------
junto
We should look at the finances of the film and see if the USG helped to fund
it.

------
camino020
This kind of movie is called Propaganda. But oh, wait, there is no such thing
in a democracy..errrr...

