

WikiLeaks says it has obtained 2.4 million emails from Syria - danso
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/wikileaks-says-it-has-obtained-24-million-emails-from-syria-claims-revelations-forthcoming/2012/07/05/gJQADE86OW_story.html?hpid=z2

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tibbon
While some would make it sound as though Wikileaks was 'against' the US or any
specific country, it seems clear to me that they are really just out to shine
light on everyone that has secrets.

I, for one, don't see this as a terribly bad thing. Governments and large
corporations are under the impression that they can do as they please and no
one will ever know the wiser.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

~~~
cobrausn
The cynic in me is waiting for the day they start releasing Russian internal
communications and state secrets. I don't predict Russia's current government
would react to that with words and legal action... or, at least, not _just_
that.

~~~
sneak
They already released US state secrets and he's been under house arrest for
over 500 days without charges.

~~~
commandar
>he's been under house arrest for over 500 days without charges

I feel this is somewhat disingenuous. He's been under house arrest pending
extradition hearings because the UK received an arrest warrant for him from
Sweden.

EDIT:

And while it's technically true that charges haven't been formally filed yet,
it's my understanding that this is due to a peculiarity in Swedish law where
they have to have a person physically present to bring charges. Hence the
arrest warrant.

~~~
sneak
That's not accurate. They have said they want to interview him before charging
him, and they've refused to do the interview in the UK or remotely, instead
insisting that he be on Swedish soil.

The whole thing's a fucking scam so that the US can snag him without a fuss
and then disappear him into their network of black sites.

~~~
commandar
>They have said they want to interview him before charging him, and they've
refused to do the interview in the UK or remotely, instead insisting that he
be on Swedish soil.

He's already fled the country once ahead of questioning. It isn't unreasonable
to want to have him physically present if the questioning is going to result
in an arrest. Hence the warrant.

~~~
halterophie
He was given explicit permission from the prosecutor to leave. He was
travelling regularly on that time and went to a scheduled event for the
release of documents.

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locusm
A better link might have been <http://wikileaks.org/syria-files/>

------
tokenadult
始吾於人也，聽其言而信其行。今吾於人也，聽其言而觀其行。

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3063174>

It certainly would be delightful to see a trove of internal documents from the
current regime in China, with opportunity for the whole world to examine the
inner workings of that regime. I daresay many current issues about effective
development policy for third-world countries could be better understood if we
all better understood what is going on in China behind the Great Firewall.
That would surely be of benefit to the common people of China themselves. For
that matter, we might better understand what is going on in Syria just now if
we had full access to internal documents from the regime in China.

~~~
ordinary
I'll save everyone the trip to their favourite search engine. It's part of a
larger quote:

"宰予晝寢。子曰：「朽木不可雕也, 糞土之牆不可朽也。於予與何誅 」子曰：「 _始吾於人也, 聽其言而信其行; 今吾於人也, 聽其言而觀其行。_
於予與改是。」"

"Tsai Yu slept during the daytime. The master said, "Rotten wood cannot be
carved; dirty earth cannot be used for cement: why bother scolding him? _At
first I used to listen to what people said and expect them to act accordingly.
Now I listen to what people say and watch what they do._ I learned this from
Yu."[0]

(I hope Chinese uses quote signs too.)

_____ [0] <http://www.lrsolution.com/konkar/SF_LunYu.html>

~~~
mkr-hn
「 and 」 are quotation marks.

~~~
tibbon
Thanks! I really like those visually. While non-standard, I just might have to
start using those in my English typesetting/formatting of documents.

As a complete tangent, I think that over the next 50 years, various Chinese
phrases, language quirks and usage will start bleeding into English, much as
Spanish has if not moreso.

~~~
compay
> I think that over the next 50 years, various Chinese phrases, language
> quirks and usage will start bleeding into English

Right on. That was one of my favorite elements of the Firefly TV series.

~~~
Wingman4l7
One of the criticisms of Firefly was that for a future that was supposed to
have a large Chinese population / integration of Chinese culture, you never
really saw any Chinese characters (aka whitewashing). That said, I always
thought it was an elegant work-around to broadcast TV's limitations on
cusswords.

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locusm
Just as interesting as the leaks themselves has been the pathological hatred
traditional journos seem to have for Assange/WL or new press in general.

~~~
Shivetya
At least in the US the old press is protected by the First Amendment. Far too
many here in the US seem to think it applies nearly everywhere else too. Yet
one disturbing side effect is that the "press" is more than willing to see the
government of the US put restrictions if not ban political speech made by
other groups and individuals provided they are not part of the traditional
press. Blogs, political action groups, radio commentators, and even
television, are all fair game according to the tradition press for
restrictions they themselves would scream if placed on them.

So yeah, they don't want competition.

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egs
Since these kinds of leaks are very difficult to authenticate, there is an
opportunity for intelligence agencies to game WikiLeaks by (slightly) altering
stolen documents.

I'd take everything in these documents with a huge grain of salt.

~~~
mkr-hn
Most of the mainstream media is unquestioning at best. The government doesn't
_need_ to manipulate WikiLeaks. The sort of people who are more inclined to
listen to WikiLeaks over CNN or Fox News were already skeptical, so there's
nothing to gain by feeding them false information.

~~~
krschultz
There's no value to an intelligence agency slipping in some bits of
information for CNN or Fox News to parrot and throw an advisory off track?

