He makes an important point early on in outlining the mission of Wikileaks centering on making Data and Information freely accessible to all (the concept of Dataism, for those who have read Yuval Harrari’s HOMO DEUS).
However, the processing of Information into Intelligence that can be acted upon is what characterizes Intelligence agencies. Wikileaks does not concern itself with this phase. Yet, the CIA’s Pompeo is trying to paint a narrative that Wikileaks is doing this by labeling them a “non-state intelligence agency”, thereby justifying the CIA’s actions to attack Wikileaks.
In brief:
Narrative #1 - the CIA attacking an “Idealistic Free Information Publisher”.
Narrative #2 - the CIA attacking a “Non-state Dark Intelligence Agency”
The CIA is actively trying to create Narrative #2, which is a bit concerning.
I'm normally loathe to defend any aspect of the US MIC, but I think Pompeo's point is that Wikileaks knowingly publicizes information that has already been processed into Intelligence, and willfully turns a blind eye to its role as a laundromat for hostile powers under the guise of an ideology of totally free data.
I, for one, think that all information should be free. I think Pompeo's motivations are suspect and geopolitical and I don't trust him personally. However, I also think that Wikileaks has a myopic view of information freedom that chiefly benefits powers whose long term vision is the decline of liberal democracy.
If Wikileaks treats all leaks as equal then I don't see how this argument holds water.
Where else are we going to get insight into the globbal power "underworld", which the intelligence community just happens to always have a finger in? Anonymous sources feeding into New York Times? Because that's all we had before and continue to have today otherwise.
People just don't like when certain inconvenient information comes out and Wikileaks didnt care about the source.
People constantly try to pin ideological stuff on Wikileaks or data leaking in general but that misses the bigger point and it's a point that extends beyond Wikileaks itself and goes into information releasing in general (we don't need to defend Assange personally or Wikileaks itself to be concerned or defend the general idea). I also highly doubt they are selectively choosing NOT to release political information... like news outlets apparently do.
But I also don't care, there's a huge amount of risk and blowback doing such a mission regardless of source or content which we should respect.
They get what they can from where ever and publish it if it has some value to the general public, and we've gotten tons of value from Wikileaks already. So do plenty of other organizations now inspired by Wikileaks, plenty which have exposed corruption in a new way (like Panamaleaks).
The fact this sometimes can have an 'agenda' or be exploited by the original sources will never negate the value of a neutral 3rd party who releases stuff publicly we'd never see otherwise. And will continue to do so as long as operational.
My only fear is that there won't be people brave enough to do this given nation-state harassment and those who think its all a political-inspired conspiracy (which litter every social media site).
> If Wikileaks treats all leaks as equal then I don't see how this argument holds water.
To be absolutely clear: I don't have any reason to doubt the motivations of Wikileaks' current leadership. I also genuinely believe that they treat all leaks as "equal," in the sense that they believe in the absolute freedom of information and are liable to (eventually) release everything that they're given.
The observation is tantamount to the tragedy of the commons: give malicious actors unlimited means under an ostensibly just principle, and your principle will be monopolized for malicious ends or used to subvert itself.
But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have commons, or that I want to live in a world without Wikileaks. It's just an admonishment to be aware of a risk inherent in "neutral" venues.
>The fact this sometimes can have an 'agenda' or be exploited by the original sources will never negate the value of a neutral 3rd party..
I agree with your sentiment, but we are all aware of the role WL had in the 2016 election. And in chats Assange was found to have said, “We believe it would be much better for GOP to win,” .. and then he continued to play the Seth Rich conspiracy angle until finally distancing from it.
Under scrutiny, the agenda is not as neutral as one would like, and the consequences of this lack of neutrality are massive.
The Washington Post wasn't neutral either when it investigated Watergate. They had previously battled Nixon and had close ties with JFK and LBJ.
Nonetheless, in that case as well as in the case of Wikileaks, any result of reporting the truth should be blamed on the people who committed the unpopular acts, not the people who reported them.
This is really interesting to me because of the way the information age seems to have collapsed claims and evidence into one another. I was actually recently discussing this with a friend and we formulates three rules:
1) Claims of neutrality are evidence against being neutral
2) performance of neutrality is evidence of neutrality
3) blind adherence to neutrality is evidence of not understanding the goals of neutrality
>We believe it would be much better for GOP to win, Dems + Media + liberals woudl [sic] then form a block to reign in their worst qualities. With Hillary in charge, GOP will be pushing for her worst qualities, Dems + media + neoliberals will be mute.”
Not only is Assange allowed a personal opinion, why would a pro-GOP preference matter? Pro-GOP sites deserve their freedom of the press trampled?
chiefly benefits powers whose long term vision is the decline of liberal democracy.
...by exposing the hypocrisy of said liberal democracies. What good is a liberal democracy when the demos remains oblivious of the negative aspects what the cracy is doing?
If things like the collateral murder videos, or the treatment of Manning and Snowden are the work of said "liberal democracies", then I'm fully in the camp that wants to decline them, and replace them with better, more transparent, more accountable structures.
The power of liberal democracies is not that bad things never happen in them. The power is that despite all of that, people can still vote and make change. That's why we have amendments and legislature - we see wrong, we try to change it.
> If things like the collateral murder videos, or the treatment of Manning and Snowden are the work of said "liberal democracies", then I'm fully in the camp that wants to decline them, and replace them with better, more transparent, more accountable structures.
But that's not what will happen. Instead, populists will rise to power under the ruse of libertarianism, or going back to "the old ways." Eventually the nation will continue to divide itself until it collapses under internal infighting. Almost as if by design...
Exactly! But that's predicated on "we see wrong". What Snowden and Wikileaks (and the various paradise leaks) showed, is that there's a lot of wrongs we don't see.
Maybe I didn't specify this explicitly in my earlier post, but my core position is this: attacks on Wikileaks are attacks on the ability for the voting population to see the wrongs, and as such are attacks on democracy itself. It's ironic for the CIA to claim that Wikileaks "works towards the decline of liberal democracy", when the CIA itself is working to suppress democratic checks and balances.
> It's ironic for the CIA to claim that Wikileaks "works towards the decline of liberal democracy", when the CIA itself is working to suppress democratic checks and balances.
the CIA in the past has installed brutal dictatorships and actively tortured the most vulnerable of our own citizens. I think it's fair to say protecting liberal democracy is hardly a priority of theirs.
The current sitting president labeled the press the enemy of the people and has continually attacked it. How shall we deal with this enemy of democracy?
"Hurr durr America bad" is the standard trope on Reddit.
Most people on HN are pretty well informed of the less than nice things the .gov has done over they years even if they bury their heads in the sand when advocating for expansion of government scope on <insert personal favorite issue here>.
And the right has their own laundry list of reasons the government is not to be trusted. Those people have nearly zero trust for pretty much any gun-toting federal agency.
I wouldn't say that people are "oblivious". I'd say that people are divided on how to fix the issues.
The primary threat to "liberal democracy" is CIA, DHS, MI5, and MI6. It is not SVR or MSS. This has been true since the Cold War. Who did more harm to "liberal democracy", J. Edgar Hoover (who tried to extort MLK into suicide), or KGB?
I'm not going to play the historical game of who-did-what-is-worse. Hoover was a criminal, and the US MIC/IC has a long history of committing domestic and international atrocities. But, on the long tail of things, I'd rather be subjected to the US legal (and extralegal) system than the Russian legal system. I have more confidence that the former offers just recourse, even if it takes a generation or two.
What about this summer? The way DHS and local police specifically targeted journalists? That's way more harmful to "liberal democracy" than some foreign sock puppet dumping evidence of high-level corruption.
I agree completely. I look forward to more leaks that discredit and diminish the DHS and law enforcement. But that doesn't mean that I trust Wikileaks to adequately balance the motivations and lensing of its sources with its mission of absolute transparency.
I'm not sure that I trust Wikileaks on that either, but I don't trust the powers that be to adequately balance such motivations either, and ultimately I'd rather Wikileaks released information in dubious faith than not at all.
At least with information in the open, people can attempt to grok the full picture for themselves.
> "I'd rather be subjected to the US legal (and extralegal) system than the Russian legal system"
No contest but I think GP point was not about the absolute quality of democracy right now but rather about which power did more to destroy democracy in the recent years.
Are you really saying that the FBI has and continues to celebrate a criminal [1] and their own criminal behaviour as most exemplary? For nearly half a century now? And no bi-partisan political rebuke? And are not treated with total contempt by every adult in the USA and every court in the world?
How is that remotely possible? Surely this is a conspiracy theory?
Yes. Hoover was a criminal in the literal sense of the word: he repeatedly and brazenly violated US laws, and fostered a culture of illegality in the FBI. His crimes are well attested by both his own records and the official records of the FBI. The FBI is a law enforcement organization; anybody who knows this history of LEOs in the US shouldn't be particularly surprised that they defend their own.
Many Americans do hate him. But it's important to note that Hoover's criminality did not extend to the average White American: his efforts focused on Black Americans, gays, and anybody sufficiently "radical" by the standards of cold war America.
Ronald Reagan also has buildings named after him, mind you.
So you're saying the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a criminal organisation that does not respect the rule of law and indeed brazenly celebrates that in public in a way nobody could miss by making sure a criminal is its most famous ever employee?
And this doesn't come up in every single news article about the FBI? This doesn't come up to discredit every single piece of FBI evidence in court?
I would believe that kind of thing about the Soviet Union. Or some other dictatorship. And this is happening, right now, in the USA, largely ignored by media, by politicians, by courts, with massive BLM protests, you say?
>Many Americans do hate him.
Many Americans believe the world is flat. Tragically what "Many Americans" believe means nothing about credibility.
> you're saying the Federal Bureau of Investigation is a criminal organisation
No. What I said was that Hoover was a criminal, and that his reign at the FBI was marked by illegality. Whether or not the present FBI is a criminal organization is a separate claim that I'm not going to make right now.
> And this doesn't come up in every single news article about the FBI? This doesn't come up to discredit every single piece of FBI evidence in court?
It's an established fact about the FBI, the same way that the Tuskegee Experiment is an established fact about the CDC. Both agencies (claim to) have reformed, so there's nothing to "bring up" in court.
The fact that you don't personally know about it doesn't mean it's ignored. It's taught in US high schools as a critical part of America's cold war hysteria as well as the federal government's reaction to the civil rights movement.
> Tragically what "Many Americans" believe means nothing about credibility.
You asked specifically whether Americans hold Hoover in contempt, not for the factual content of their beliefs. I think that they're right to hate him, but the base factuality of their beliefs doesn't change the fact that his public image is negative.
Do you have any thoughts on why the FBI slow walked the Jeffrey Epstein investigation since the 1990s? Why they still haven't raided his ranch property in New Mexico? Why they seem to have done nothing with the extensive cache of CDs they raided from his Manhattan townhouse?
Not particularly, no. I think there's a world of difference between an established part of the FBI's history and (what would be) mostly speculation on my part.
Are you seriously defending the FBI and Hoover right now on the basis of the fact that newspapers dont openly criticise it and its history in every article on the topic?
Lets be serious here, the FBI continues to be a criminal organization like many other three letters: due to a top down compromise system... but why do I even bother with someone who has already slyly tried to dismiss the topic as surely a conspiracy theory (the implication being all conspiracy theories are false and/or batshit crazy). If your bias and immovable opinion weren't so obvious I might tell you more about things like the mafias (including Trumps mentor, Roy Cohn) part in the Hoover compromise, and other things.
> someone who has already slyly tried to dismiss the topic as surely a conspiracy theory (the implication being all conspiracy theories are false and/or batahit crazy).
The parent is clearly lampooning this perspective, not advancing it unironically. But I can kind of understand mistaking it for the real thing, the insistence on denying the possibility of conspiracies has reached some pretty serious Poe's Law proportions.
The incredulity is 100% genuine. Just seeing how everyone reacts looking at and seeing how absolutely fucking insane it is to have the FBI and their powers in a building named "J Edgar Hoover"
Someone said the fbi reformed since those days of criminality. Why would anyone believe that while they continue to celebrate J Edgar Hoover. While they go to work to protect the rule of law to a building named J. Edgar Hoover. Why would any judge take the word of any FBI agent when they've covered up criminal behaviour, and performed it and lied about it instead of arresting J. Edgar Hoover the first second they became aware of what he was?
They said they weren't criminals when Hoover was in charge. They lied. They continue to exult Hoover while claiming they aren't criminals anymore. Who actually isn't feeling sick at the idea of believing that? Hoover is the biggest FBI hero. A vicious criminal thug running the FBI as a criminal conspiracy is the FBI's biggest hero. Says so right there on their HQ.
It's something that's impossible to get your head around. 30 years ago. No sign of it changing?
The FBI flagrantly advertise their lack of respect for the rule of law. That's on all of us.
I'm right there with you dude. Every time they tear down some Confederate statue or take George Washington's name off of a school I'm just, "Dulles Airport is right over there! And he only lived 60 goddamn years ago!"
But it's not just a name. It's not just a statue. It's not purely symbolic.
It is who and what the FBI are! Take them at their word when they tell us this! It's so much worse than any symbol. They are out there doing their J Edgar Hoover thing with the force of law behind them! And rubbing our noses in it.
Oh my, I feel a bit ridiculous now. Thank you for the whoosh warning. Side note: I am convinced this is a side effect of me being way too serious, I need to learn to lighten up a bit.
This is like arguing that confederate generals actions weren't treasonous because they weren't charged and look there are military bases named after them!
Harry S Truman wrote during his presidency: "We want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail
He was a villain by any reasonable accounting whose exploits are at this point well known and his moral deviance, bigotry, hatefulness, contempt not so much merely for the letter of the law as for its spirit and purpose. A contempt for justice as it might be understood by anyone other than a straight, white, conservative, republican, man that ultimately overshadows his accomplishments.
Man, you think that's bad, just wait until you hear about how Americans treated the legacy of a gang of violent slave-owning traitors who tried to destroy the country and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in the process
> Who did more harm to "liberal democracy", J. Edgar Hoover (who tried to extort MLK into suicide), or KGB?
I get this is supposed to be a debate, but the FBI never rolled tanks into Poland or Czechoslovakia. The FBI never annexed the peninsula of a foreign country, then set up fraud elections to make it look organic.
Most importantly, the US largely ended it's support of anti-democratic forces post-cold war. The KGB has no such intention.
Specifically voiced support for the pro-democratic opposition leader that arguably won the election.
> the Middle East
Supported democratic reforms in Egypt against a long time pro-US dictator in Mubarak. Supported Syria's right to self-determination to the point of fighting with FSA for years.
> Bolivia
Bolivia is an interesting case, the opposition claimed fraud but i've seen no evidence of it. A black eye for sure to come down against the results of their election without proof.
The two main releases of documents by wikileaks, one being the center of the extradition case currently being conducted by the United state, involve raw data from the military involved in military actions, and raw data from diplomats.
Processed into intelligence it was not. The video from the helicopter strike was technically processed, but by no stretch of the imagination was it intelligence that an American airstrikes hit two journalists and family with young children.
Out of the leaks listed on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Leaks), how many of those can honestly be classified as processed intelligence by a hostile power, under the guise of an ideology of totally free data?
US government documents are public. You can legally publish and discuss them. No-one has a legal obligation to secrecy unless they sign it away as part of an employment contract with the government.
Thus the attempts to nail Assange for conspiracy, something that is self-evident nonsense given the Adrian Lamo chat logs published by Wired show Manning contacting Assange with express intent to leak.
What is not equal is the asymmetry of the information. In 2016 (2015?) the information was skewed to that provided by Russian intelligence.
If there were equal amounts of dirt on every politician, then fine, but there is clearly not. This is what bothers me about the whole thing. It can be manipulated by powerful states, and some of them are more willing to use it than others.
Additionally, the same dirt is damaging to different degrees, depending on the person it's about. See current politics in the US. But I would also think that a US president-approved hit on somebody in, say England, would be treated differently than the hits perpetrated by Russia.
It's a complicated balance act. You want to hold "your" party accountable, and the scale is not "better than the others". At the same time, you don't want to diminish the difference, by just talking about your side's problems. A "we publish everything we get" policy is then not necessarily balanced, if one party plays this game, and the other doesn't.
I would like to see the dirt on every politician also. But I'm not going to complain because I can only see the dirt on some of them. And if Wikileaks received information about Politician D and did not publish it because they did not have equal information about Politician R to release at the same time then they would be taking an editorial bias in favor of D. Now if you show that Wikileaks sat on information about R, then there is something serious to point at. Until then, to me it sounds like everyone who complains about this is really just upset that their preferred politicians dirt was exposed and they think they should be allowed to get away with it.
You can’t know, and you don’t need to know. I think that’s really missing point of what I said. There is no requirement that Wikileaks or any media only publishes simultaneous dirt on opposing politicians. That would be impossible and can never make sense by the own twisted standards people who complain about Wikileaks are constantly coming up with. To make it possible would mean wikileaks would have to hold back publishing dirt on one until they had enough on the other. Which automatically makes Wikileaks biased in that time period in favor of the one they hold back on. Complaining about Wikileaks publishing dirt makes no sense. The only thing that can make sense is if evidence were ever leaked from a whistleblower in Wikileaks that they had dirt on someone they didn’t leak. Then you’d have evidence of bias. Until then there is none.
That’s an impossible question for any organization but it’s entirely irrelevant and that’s what you’re missing. The information they leaked was real and important. Where it came from is secondary matter. People only got worked up about it because the information was about their preferred politician. The information could not be disputed, it was correct and not fabricated. But they cared more that dirt was leaked than the fact their politician was dirty. They should examine their principals.
> there were equal amounts of dirt on every politician, then fine, but there is clearly not.
If we are talking about the 2016 election then there is actually data on how much dirt was being thrown around. Looking at all the scandals being printed in news papers, with the big ones being the email scandals for Clinton and audio tapes for trump, the data as presented in a research paper was that the intensity of scandal articles was higher for Trump, but the duration of articles was higher for Clinton. Trump scandals got focused in the news during the last month of the election, while the Clinton scandals had been published on and off for almost a half year. In total, articles writing about scandals was around 3-4 times more in total for Clinton and distributed over a half year, than those of trump which was distributed over the last month of the election.
The general conclusion I got from that research is that dirt that can be dripped over a long period has a better chance to stick than a louder but shorter lived dirt. It also makes comparing one kind of dirt to an other difficult. This lesson seems to have been taken in by heart in the Snowden leaks and panamaleaks, both which stretched out their leaks for months.
> willfully turns a blind eye to its role as a laundromat for hostile powers under the guise of an ideology of totally free data.
Why "a blind eye"? An open eye. Wikileaks has no loyalty to the US government, and it isn't, nor should it be, a concern of theirs whether elements hostile to the US benefit or not from its publications. Wikileaks publishes information of public interest, and that's that.
Also, note that Wikileaks has published information about regimes the US perceives as hostile, e.g. Russia:
'I think all information should be free. Except anything that could be damaging to CIA, NSA, US government. And only approved actors can release this information. Because uhhh, democracy.' Okay bud.
Please read the sibling comments. I'm more than happy to see information about the US's disastrous and criminal programs exposed. But that doesn't mean that I uncritically accept that an unbiased source does itself have unbiased sources.
Except you're spreading FUD about a huge trove of information without any specific reference to how or why the information is suspect. The only actual reasons you mention as to why this information is untrustworthy is that it's hurtful to US government agencies.
> The only actual reasons you mention as to why this information is untrustworthy is that it's hurtful to US government agencies.
I said "liberal democracy," not "US government agencies." I also don't think the information itself is suspect. Please read the surrounding (very good) discussion around the difference between information and intelligence.
> I said "liberal democracy," not "US government agencies." I also don't think the information itself is suspect.
So, how does exposing high-level corruption, war crimes, mass surveillance, etc. lead to a 'decline of liberal democracy'? Unless you mean 'exposing the ways in which our society is not a liberal democracy leads to the decline of the illusion of liberal democracy'?
Any kind of democracy is incompatible with a system where intelligence agencies have absolute authority to hide information.
It used to be that Democracy meant that you could read any official document to make sure your government wasn't acting out. Intelligence agencies were a compromise on that, with the idea that at least if there was a disaster someone would speak out. Now even that is under threat?
The only long term vision that is compatible with this is the decline of democracy, liberal or not.
>However, the processing of Information into Intelligence that can be acted upon is what characterizes Intelligence agencies. Wikileaks does not concern itself with this phase. Yet, the CIA’s Pompeo is trying to paint a narrative that Wikileaks is doing this by labeling them a “non-state intelligence agency”, thereby justifying the CIA’s actions to attack Wikileaks.
Wait, think tanks, all political pundits, every newspaper with an opinion column, and everyone reading Hacker News processes information into intelligence. Who can't be targeted under this definition of a non-state intelligence agency?
I think the true narrative is probably somewhere in the middle of those. Did WikiLeaks not strategically publish information for their desired political outcome?
The problem I have with this accusation is that it works either way.
Had they published after the elections they would have been called a secret Clinton ally. There is always some group to gain/loose politically from exposing documents like that regardless of the timing.
They made extremely clear, however, that they thought a Clinton victory in 2016 would be dangerous for the world, while a Trump victory would reign in the worst tendencies of liberal leadership.
I honestly don't get why people act like there is or ought to be some gentleman's agreement that no bad press should come out about a candidate shortly before an election. The final lead up to the election has traditionally been the time of most intense scrutiny, and if someone has dirty laundry, it really should be aired before they've been elected to a position of power.
I think the gentlemen's agreement would be to give a fair amount of time to rebuff. If someone says something that isn't true it takes time to respond because (1) the responder doesn't know what was claimed since it is a fabrication and (2) responder can't necessarily grasp the damage or interpretation of the claim until some polling data comes in.
Smears unleashed in the last week of the campaign are a bit below the belt. Doubt that is ever going to stop anyone though.
Indeed - surely the best time to have a full picture of a candidate is right before they go to the polls?!
Also not to be a whataboutist (I didn't have a horse in the race), but plenty of other dirt was released on other candidates in the run-up to the election, and I didn't see the Clinton campaign condemning the timing of its release...
Not bad press. The stolen materials of a state-sponsored attack released at the precise time it would do the most damage. And people are claiming with a straight face this was a coincidence and Wikileaks wasn't working with Russian intelligence, against the American democratic party.
I'd take anything the New York Times's "reports" on political/etc with a grain of salt.
Also, I'm of the opinion that all news/media organizations are propaganda organizations. But so what? Let these propagandists fight to expose each other rather than colluding together to mislead the public by serving the same state.
They were very open about their desired outcomes alongside their releases. They had the express goal of affecting the election, as expressed by their site and their twitter.
Wikileaks stated mission was to "make secrecy expensive" (ie. so unweildy with rules and procedures to ensure secrecy, that even those with very deep pockets could not maintain it) - it was meant to democratize information - all information. Whether it was dangerous or not.
If I start a blog in which I take information about international affairs, and synthesize it into reports, analyses and appraisals - I am now a "Non-state intelligence agency", albeit a very small one.
So going after #2 sounds even more silly than going after #1.
As for the epithet "Dark", that's just empty rhetorical embellishment.
Pretty sure Wikileaks has been a front for the FSB for a while now. All the ideological people were pushed out a long time ago. They're not the release everything group that everyone wanted them to be.
The CIA recognizes Wikileaks as an arm of Kremlin information warfare. Western leftists are all too willing to help Wikileaks deflect from that obvious classification. (julian assange had a TV show on RT, what more do you need?)
> Recognizing Wikileaks as an arm of Kremlin information warfare
Isn't that the same strategy that countries like Iran, Russia, and China have against their whistleblowers? And isn't that the exact behavior that we always blame and condemn? We have human rights sanctions against Iran for punishing journalists.
> Isn't that the same strategy that countries like Iran, Russia, and China have against their whistleblowers?
We can't have a discussion if basic we can't get basic things right. Snowden isn't a whistleblower. He leaked stolen materials then fled to a hostile country.
Multiple IC whistleblowers were allowed to testify against the President in the last 4 years, all without punitive punishment (although the Trump's tried). Snowden could have chosen a different path. His impressive control of his own narrative seems to have most of this community fooled.
One of Wikileak's overt and major goals is to expose CIA secrets. The two are in direct opposition.
The CIA are known to be professional bad-faith liers (eg, [0]). It is quite possible they are lieing for political purposes. Their opinion on Wikileaks is not remotely authoritative.
No he is a Kremlin agent for using his once storied organization for espionage. The RT job was to point out the obvious relationship between himself and Russian propaganda efforts going back decades.
It has only been one decade since he created a show that RT broadcast, but you've done nothing to show why that relationship makes him a Kremlin agent but not King and Ventura.
This argument is ridiculous. If there was any actual evidence he was a Kremlin agent, why would they currently be using the flimsy hacking charges to extradite him?
Again, it's proof of a relationship. His actions via Wikileaks is proof he is a Russian asset. King and Ventura didn't participate in a coordinated attack on American democracy, so your comparison remains useless.
> If there was any actual evidence he was a Kremlin agent
"why don't spy agencies burn sources and methods to charge Assange with espionage when he's already in prison for other charges?" That's really not how it works.
Publishing reliable information that is politically relevant is not a "coordinated attack on American democracy," it's journalism. The only link you've provided is common between the three of them.
>why don't spy agencies burn sources and methods to charge Assange with espionage when he's already in prison for other charges?
We already know that all of his communication in the Ecuadorian embassy were tapped for years, what are they protecting?
> Publishing reliable information that is politically relevant
Trying desperately to turn emails (that amounted mostly to dirty laundry) stolen by a government into manufactured scandals and conspiracies the day after the worst revelations about Russia's preferred candidate dropped was not, and is not, journalism. How on earth can you get something so basic wrong?
> We already know that all of his communication in the Ecuadorian embassy were tapped for years, what are they protecting?
Nice little straw man there. We are talking about Assange's official relationship with Russian military intelligence years before he hid in the Ecuadorian embassy. The proof of said relationship, if made public, reveals how Russia was monitored/caught and helps them conceal their future efforts at recruiting assets.
Which is why the "if you have proof why not make it public?" argument in relation to espionage is and always will be a bad faith argument. Snowden did it too. He knows damn well everything he says will go unchallenged, and he uses that silence to his rhetorical advantage.
>How on earth can you get something so basic wrong?
Nothing you said has any connection to whether it's journalism. He received and published politically relevant information.
>We are talking about Assange's official relationship with Russian military intelligence years before he hid in the Ecuadorian embassy
So based on something he did in 2016, you think that's proof he was a Russian agent from the mid 2000's that the US intelligence agencies just let do whatever he wanted for years. I do not understand that point of view.
> always will be a bad faith argument
The need for intelligence agencies to keep their information secret is not more important than the accused's right to a fair trial.
I also don't have any clue what you think I knew already. I have seen no evidence that Assange or Snowden are foreign agents.
Russia hacked both the DNC and the RNC. They only leaked DNC material (via their cutout Wikileaks so people can claim in bad faith it wasn't really Russia), and did so at the time it was most needed by the Trump campaign. If you consider receiving state-hacked materials and leaking them in perfect coordination with a political campaign (see Roger Stone indictment) journalism, then there's nothing else to discuss. Oh, and it wasn't just any political campaign. It was the campaign actively supported by the state actor that gave you the materials to begin with. All common coincidences in the journalism world I guess, right?
> So based on something he did in 2016
Speculation no one can answer, ignored.
> The need for intelligence agencies to keep their information secret is not more important than the accused's right to a fair trial.
You aren't listening to what i'm saying. If you suspect someone of espionage and they are already sitting in prison of sex crime charges, you have no reason to expose the methods and sources you used to catch said person.
And responding to any claim made exposes you publicly to confirm what you know and how you know it, which further damages your intelligence collection efforts. Which is why "show me the evidence" is not in good faith, especially not someone like Snoweden that knows damn well how intelligence works. He knows he won't get push back publicly, so he has complete ownership of the narrative. "None of my leaks results in anyone dying". The American IC is not going to list their assets that were executed in hostile countries as a result, for the reasons I mentioned.
> accused's right to a fair trial
Funny, both Assange and Snowden fled their respective "fair trails" to hide from justice. Neither had any intention of risking jail for "what they believe in" - yet some people still view them alongside whistleblowers that actually did.
>If you consider receiving state-hacked materials and leaking them in perfect coordination with a political campaign (see Roger Stone indictment) journalism,
As I don't consider Assange to be a Russian agent, I don't have any issues with them receiving state-hacked information. They are under no obligation to determine the source's motive. And they are free to coordinate with a political campaign, they have the freedom of assembly as well as of the press.
The Roger Stone indictment was for obstruction of an official proceeding, false statements, and witness tampering. His discussions about Wikileaks weren't illegal, lying about them was.
>Speculation no one can answer, ignored.
What? You're the one claiming the DNC leaks prove they are a Russian agent. I don't agree, but I understand that argument. Then stretching it to include "Assange's official relationship with Russian military intelligence years before he hid in the Ecuadorian embassy" makes no sense to me.
>. If you suspect someone of espionage and they are already sitting in prison of sex crime charges, you have no reason to expose the methods and sources you used to catch said person.
I am listening to what you are saying, selective enforcement of laws absolutely violates your right to a fair trial. Without exposing their methods, we have no idea of those methods were constitutionally sound. They may not have any reason that benefits themselves, but I don't care.
Further, Snowden isn't behind bars. Why didn't they expose their methods and prevent him leaving Hong Kong rather than block his passport while layovered in Russia?
>Funny, both Assange and Snowden fled their respective "fair trails" to hide from justice.
As Assange's extradition hearing and the numerous whistleblower trials over the past fifty years have shown, they had no expectation of a fair trial. Quoting Daniel Ellsberg about his case
>(my) lawyer, exasperated, said he 'had never heard of a case where a defendant was not permitted to tell the jury why he did what he did.' The judge responded: 'Well, you're hearing one now'. And so it has been with every subsequent whistleblower under indictment.
> And they are free to coordinate with a political campaign, they have the freedom of assembly as well as of the press.
lol. "None of these things are crimes" is not the solid argument you think it is. To be a useful idiot aiding an autocratic government in their intelligence operations might not be technically illegal, but you give up all pretense of being "journalists" when you do so.
> His discussions about Wikileaks weren't illegal
Again, not what we are talking about. I'll take your constant efforts to move the goal posts from what constitutes journalism to what constitutes a crime as a tacit admission you don't have a leg to stand on.
> Daniel Ellsberg
A famous leaker is pro-leaker, what a shocking revelation. Difference is all of the pentagon papers were relevant to the ongoing crime of the Vietnam War. 95% of what Snowden leaked had nothing to do with domestic surveillance. Funny how that's never mentioned.
Also, maybe listen to people that actually know what they're talking about in 2020. Here's a lawyer that specializes in representing intel officers in whistleblower cases, talking about how Snowden did have options, and it's a lie to say otherwise.
He chose to run, he chose to avoid the consequences of his actions. And in more simple terms, a whistleblower is a legal term for something he chose not to be. He leaked, then ran away. Calling him a whistleblower is an insult to the brave people that actually did seek whistleblower protection in serious matters and were willing to testify and face the consequences.
>but you give up all pretense of being "journalists" when you do so
I do not have any idea what you consider to be journalism. Why would being a useful idiot make publishing politically relevant information eliminate your pretense of being a "journalist?"
>Again, not what we are talking about.
Then explain how Stone's indictment for spying is in anyway relevant to our discussion? I assumed you brought it up to claim Assange's actions were illegal, making prosecuting his actions not violate his freedom of the press. You just wanted to show he was in contact with GOP leaders?
>famous leaker is pro-leaker, what a shocking revelation
The relevant part was a judge saying he couldn't explain his actions. Assange's case was similarly run. They had no hope of a fair trial.
I had not heard of Zaid, my research pulled up this exchange he had though
>What result could Snowden have expected had he covered the bases and his butt by approaching an inspector general’s office or congressional committees?
And replied
>“Candidly,” Zaid said, “he likely would have been frustrated immensely with the lack of results from either, given the current posture.”
Though he's a vocal critic of Snowden, even he found it unlikely that the "proper channels" would have netted results.
> I do not have any idea what you consider to be journalism
Not being part of an information warfare campaign of an autocratic country's intelligence service, as we have definitive proof Wikileaks was. The fact that you keep saying this is fine and totally par for the course (also weirdly repeating that the DNC's personal correspondence about ordering pizza and shit-talking each other is 'politically relevant') makes me think you are either far too partisan in your admiration of Assange to discuss this objectively or you just don't understand what the journalism industry is. I don't really care which is true at this point.
You are also misrepresenting what Zaid has said, repeatedly. Being a whistleblower is not an easy thing and not without consequences, but Snowden didn't even attempt to become one. Which is why referring to him as such is misleading at best, and cynically misrepresenting what happened for ideological reasons at worst.
>Not being part of an information warfare campaign of an autocratic country's intelligence service, as we have definitive proof Wikileaks was
So because a foreign intelligence group took advantage of a "useful idiot" they aren't journalists? Their actions don't matter? Do you feel the same towards writers being used by the CIA to spread their stories?
I fully admit that some editing of the leaks would have been preferred, but I can also see how that would be difficult in their position and it would be used to cast further doubt upon them. Publishing them as is still qualifies as journalism.
Oh, and I personally find Assange to be an abhorrent person. He's egotistical, racist, and much of those sexual assault claims seem likely. His right to a free press still should not be trampled.
>You are also misrepresenting what Zaid has said, repeatedly.
By directly quoting him while providing the context? Maybe he's right and some set of actions could have put Snowden in a better position today. As things stand, Snowden would not receive a fair trial, as Assange is not.
> Do you feel the same towards writers being used by the CIA to spread their stories?
As per the previous question, it appears you don't understand what journalism is. Journalists report stories as objectively as possible, they don't play an active and knowing role in foreign intelligence operations. Surely the NYT and WaPo have played roles in furthering propaganda before (Iraq War), but they weren't co-conspirators. And it wasn't a foreign spy agency feeding them stolen materials to leak for destructive purposes. Big difference(s).
IF Wikileaks actually were journalists, they'd have a hell of a story to write about how their bipolar manic founder had been coopted by an autocratic intelligence agency to do their bidding, throwing away years of good work to actually expose the bad behavior of criminal governments.
I'd read that story.
> As things stand, Snowden would not receive a fair trial, as Assange is not.
Yeah that's not what he said. He said Snowden would face the full wrath of the US Gov (true) but that he's been able to protect others (in the last year even) that had the same pressures. The idea that Snowden "had no choice" is a ridiculous myth believed only by those who see him as a hero first (as part of their general world view), then figure out the facts of the matter later on.
>they don't play an active and knowing role in foreign intelligence operations
Let's recap the evidence you have provided showing he played a "active and knowing role." First, that his show aired on RT. Second, that Wikileaks published the information they received. That is not a convincing argument.
If further evidence did emerge clearly showing Assange knowingly and actively assisting Russia, my position on the legality of his actions may change, and punishing him would not violate his rights.
>And it wasn't a foreign spy agency feeding them stolen materials to leak for destructive purposes
No, but many of the CIA's worldwide operations are exactly that. Plus, I don't find a domestic spy agency feeding them stolen materials for destructive purposes much better.
>Yeah that's not what he said
Those are my words, based on similar trials I have mentioned. He may have had other choices, at this point he would not receive a fair trial. Zaid already believes he deserves the punishment, like you do, so you both seem unconcerned about whether his trial would be fair.
One of several advantages military/policing/etc forces have is detailed records of what worked & what didn't in a confrontation, and the other doesn't even necessarily know that they are fighting. That and purpose-built gear which nearly goes without saying.
Something I've noticed with the riots in Europe/America/China/the Middle East/Africa is that we now have first hand video footage of how situations play out. Often longform over 20 minutes which goes far beyond what traditional media forces would show.
It isn't anywhere near enough to erase the organisational gap, but it is the furthest along the civilians have ever been in that game.
The main advantage 'the man' has is organization and unit cohesion.
Riots look fun on TV. and then you're in one. And you've only met these protesters casually a few times. Are you ready to take a beat down for them? And are you willing to fight hard against a tight unit like LEO or the military who have a lot more weapons to escalate with.
I believe a better question to ask yourself in such a situation is "Are you ready to avoid senseless violence?" ie. "is this worth it?" I don't believe is worth fighting police during a demonstration. I'm biased, sure, but still if you are in such situation you need to stop for a moment and think about such questions.
Whenever I went to demonstrations -and, granted, its been a while since War in Iraq started- I made a very conscious decision about this beforehand. Its part of planning, because it might affect your OPSEC (things such as your possessions and your planned behavior).
I also believe its not a valid comparison between physical violence and emotional violence (such as threats). I'm currently reading Ronan Farrow's Catch and Kill, and I keep thinking: "now this is a fight worth fighting for". I'm at 2/3 and I have not read about physical violence [against the reporter, Farrow; not referring to the violated women!] as of yet.
> I don't believe is worth fighting police during a demonstration.
As many protesters will tell you, in a lot of cases the police start the fight. Are you saying you're okay with them being able to just silence you? What do you propose doing when they use violence to shut down your protest?
A protest is ordinarily not a story. The police suppressing a protest is a story. Protestors understand this, and there's a whole romanticism around getting arrested on camera.
Over the last month we've seen the strongest proof of this that one could imagine. In India, 250 million farmers and associated union members went on strike. Somehow this event went completely unreported by USA journalists. In nations where the USA "defense" department could conceivably waste more money, the threshold is considerably lower than 250M... more like, say, ten? Twenty? Possibly a hundred protesters in Syria or Hong Kong would be worth a report.
Sorry, I do not believe the police in uniform are the ones who start the fight. Not in my (democratic) country, at least.
Instead, you need to announce a permit for a demonstration. If you don't have one, the police will tell you to leave the premise. If you fail to comply, you might get arrested, even if you don't use violence. But the part where protestors fail to comply with (reasonable and legal) instructions by the police is the part you omit.
Whereas I never got into trouble with the police. Partly because I got the popular skin colour, gender, etc but also because I know when to be obedient and sincere. I can only recommend the same. Pick your battles!
> I do not believe the police in uniform are the ones who start the fight.
If they did, you would see police initiating physical violence against a group of otherwise non-violent protesters.
> Instead, you need to...
Or else, you would see police initiating physical violence against a group of otherwise non-violent protesters.
In a brutal dictatorship, violent suppression of dissent is direct and obvious. In your democratic country it is hidden among "reasonable and legal" stages; this keeps the Good Citizens [1] obedient and sincere.
Jail is probably the best possible outcome for someone who uses violence against the police, justified or not. As you note the color of law (and usually sympathy of the public as well) is the greatest of the asymmetrical assets of law enforcement and so the police at least in the US have the opportunity to assault or kill you with little or no legal liability.
> One of several advantages military/policing/etc forces have is detailed records of what worked & what didn't in a confrontation
And this play against them, an enemy can study them too. The saying it that the Sun clan spread its military manuals far, and wide to indoctrinate everybody into using few easily predictable military strategies.
A brilliant military strategy is always like a zero day exploit.
Seeing an errand enemy spy always showing up at known route, and known times to check your garbage, or steal your post? A perfect opportunity to confront him with a few muscular guys, and a soft enough rubber hose.
The reason the 1% is able to utterly dominate the remaining 99% is they are hyper organized. They're even organized around the concept, idea, and execution of organization.
The fact that the most desperate of the 99% will take the 1%'s money to oppress the rest of the 99% has something to do with it. Put another way, I never once met a cop from the 1%.
Honest question, please don't snipe at me. Can someone please point me to significant leaks from out of china, russia, iran on wikileaks?
Edit: since it appears no one can actually answer this question with an actual answer, and only down vote and troll, I think that probably means wikileaks does not make significant leaks from the military-industrial complexes of China or Russia.
Wikileaks is an English speaking website. All three of these countries aren't democracies, so whistle-blowers have no incentive to speak up. Finally, if you are from those countries and send info to Wikileaks, you would be sending information to a foreign organization which risks much harsher punishment.
For all of these reasons, it is much much less likely for any leaker out of China, Russia or Iran to leak to Wikileaks instead of someone else.
Julian Assange's Mandarin, Russian & Persian comprehension skills probably aren't up for the task. And copying and pasting leaks in Google Translate probably wouldn't work either.
Imagine you lived in any of those countries and had politically relevant information. It's incredibly unlikely you've heard of Wikileaks, by comparison how many Chinese language newspapers can you name.
On the small chance you had, you still wouldn't give an organization with nobody that speaks your language the information as none of your neighbors have ever heard of their website. You would give it to a local journalism source.
So yes, Wikileaks does not make significant leaks from the military-industrial complexes of China or Russia. Anybody expecting them to has no clue what they are talking about.
‘Later I realized that the border police uncle did not even listen to my answers, sometimes repeated question1 after answering question3. Turned out to be a delay tactic until green light on the screen; propably “team to follow me through my stay” was ready :/’ (page 11)
They ask these questions routinely and they're not particularly interested in the answer. They're interested in whether you can answer them fluently without stumbling or sounding evasive.
Whether they were used as a delay tactic in this case, I couldn't say. Surely they could just leave you waiting while they "looked something up" or "waited for the computer system"? It's not like you have any choice but to wait.
Heck, I've been quizzed this way by agents of the US while returning to the US, as a citizen, from abroad. What's your job, what did you do on your trip, how long was it. This was before I got on the plane, in a foreign airport.
They aren't interested in the answer, they're interested in whether you have a ready answer and don't sound evasive.
My experience and the experience of some friends of mine has been that questioning as much more stringent entering the US than leaving the US.
in fact, I have a friend who took a day trip to Canada with no problem and then, upon attempting to reenter the United States, was blocked because she had not brought her passport. Canadian authorities had accepted her driver's license as sufficient proof of identity for entering their country; US authorities would not accept it for reentering her home country.
You're absolutely right, it doesn't seem difficult at all.
That said, have you ever had stage fright? It's pretty common. Practice often seems to melt away when an actual performance is at hand. With that in mind, it's perhaps not unreasonable to think that this particular bar - quite low as you rightly and wisely point out it seems to be - will trip up no few liars at scale.
It's probably harder if you you're a first-time drug mule or whatever. This isn't designed to catch out international terrorists so much as people with illegal substances in their underpants.
And of course there are follow-ups: I got asked what programming languages I use at work. All very casual-like.
I always got these questions when I went via Eurotunnel to UK, but never got asked any questions when I left UK via the same transport (and I'm Dutch, not French). I found it very peculiar, given I remained within EU at such times. Now with Brexit, I feel like "whatever".
That doesn't make any sense. I'm from Greece and I've travelled to the UK many times from Greece. I've never been interrogated at the UK border. (bar Brexit)
I have, and not just me. Everyone who was part of the bus I traveled with. So it wasn't a special treatment.
I'd like to go to London at some point again, with my family (ie. not work related). Supposedly train from Amsterdam to London is only 4 hours, so its an attractive travel/stay.
He was crossing from Germany/Switzerland to the UK. 99.9% of people are never asked any questions. I've been travelling like this for over 10 years, a few times per year and was asked only once "do you live here?". I would be pissed if they asked me such questions.
Not necessarily, but if you're a well known hacker who is active since 80s and about to visit Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy and the questions appear to be asked mainly to stall you, then MI5 could be involved. At least it's a possible interpretation.
He also doesn't claim that it's strong evidence on its own. That uncertainty is actually part of what the talk is about. The evidence must be taken in combination with other issues, e.g. his claim that the Brits do not even try to hide their surveillance (and therefore have been photographed) and the sophisticated surveillance device he found in his crypto phone.
Counter surveillance training isn't hugely difficult but it takes a certain amount of skill. The idea that the Security Service would want to be seen is a little strange. Their operators are excellent and they would be very very reluctant to expose themselves easily to send a message or bad tradecraft. If they want someone to be clearly seen they send a copper.
There are many other possible options. Basic trained police (some have been exposed before in Wikileaks related stuff) or a military team, foreign actor or quite possibly a corporate intelligence team. Perhaps even criminal elements.
Working to help manage security for NGOs in London/elsewhere often means my organisation works essentially a counter-intelligence role against corporate intelligence (many of whom were often working on behalf of states). They are very prominent in digital and physical surveillance. Many times we identified and exposed very big operations targeted against activists - harrassment, hacking, physical surveillance, bugging etc. It's was one of the reason we built our open source Umbrella App (https://www.secfirst.org) to make it easier for activists and journalists to be able to learn about and manage things like surveillance. Covert method of entry teams in the UK are known as exceptional (you'd have to be working in Northern Ireland for decades), there's pretty much no way they would get stuck by a commercially available key. Also it's highly highly unlikely they would try make an entrance when the person is so near to their home. Especially if it resulted in damage. For such a sophisticated door they would have planned such a thing well in advance. It's plausible of course, maybe they were just lazy or whatever, but there are a number of possible other reasons.
I guess, but if they needed a ruse to delay someone at immigration it'd be much simpler to just say that the computer was slow or something. No playacting required.
Of-course - I was just answering OP’s query about why they get occupation questions at the border - probably to help spot if they were a potential illegal migrant (no ties to home) or a smuggler’s mule (income doesn’t match journey type).
After Assange and h Snowden is pretty clear nobody is paranoid the documents are out there the NSA has a system where they monitor people inside and outside the United States the real question is what do you do when they are after everyone
Statistically speaking, they are after hardly anyone.
But they have an obvious vested interest in having sufficient data to track the motions of anyone, because they can't know a-priori who is involved in an activity harmful to the interests of the United States of America until they have evidence an activity has happened or will happen and need to begin connecting the dots to identify the pattern.
You can't connect dots you don't have. Most of the NSA's behavior can be understood as maximizing their dots.
Talking about "connecting the dots" is a bit naive in this context, though. The NSA has been pursuing what they called a "total information awareness" program since the late 90s / early 2000s. The goal is to collect all digital data about all of the world citizens, so it can be used later in case that's deemed "necessary" for "national security." Basically like Facebook+Google, plus geolocation and mobile phone data and information from national police registers, credit card companies, and travel agencies. All of this integrated and searchable in real-time.
It's a realistically attainable goal for an agency like the NSA. However, the Snowden revelations put it into jeopardy because their prior policy was that merely storing data about Americans is constitutional if it is not queried in an unconstitutional way. It is not. But they are allowed to store anything about anyone else, and they probably still do that. I mean, advertising companies do this at a city block level in many countries already.
I don't think it's naive; I think you have correctly interpreted their goals and the ends those goals are structured to achieve.
Total information awareness, to be used in circumstances where it's necessary for national security. Pull the scare quotes off and it's directly in line with the NSA's mission "to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances."
There is absolutely no reason why the use should be limited, now or in the future. In practice, the information will be fed to automated systems effectively putting everyone into surveillance, and I wouldn't be surprised if the number of manual pulls is in the 100 000 people per year range.
There is no way for you to make sure the government doesn't abuse that privilege when they can classify their abuses top-secret and prevent anyone from leaking them.
The use of the military on citizens is very severely limited in essentially all democracies. Hell, even in the PRC it is limited.
When you can control the legislature and presidency, there is a pretty clear path to policing what is labeled top secret.
The problem is to function as a military power you can't just spill the beans on everything. What's your solution here? Magic?
> The use of the military on citizens is very severely limited in essentially all democracies. Hell, even in the PRC it is limited.
It's limited because the people limit it. That's my point - if the people want to limit surveillance they can - whether they choose to or not is up to them.
I'd say one slide later. On the slide you mentioned, some are wild claims which warrant more investigation but on their own are shallow.
I have my smartphone set to 4G only, and it works, as long as my provider supports VoLTE. Not all do, nor do all phones work with it. Phonecalls always used 2G (data connection stops).
I'd love to see the proof of what happened with GPG keys.
I recommend to people who ask my security advice to not have intelligence agencies in their personal threat models because it only encourages them and they need the budget justification. Working in cybersecurity for a couple of decades, lots of people have stories like these. There was even some speculation from one person that they keep people under surveillance just as training targets even when there is no intelligence value. The whole enterprise is pernicious, but apparently it's the price of civilization.
As an antidote to the paranoia for others, consider the sort of person who has to do this kind of thing as a job and whether they are the sort of person whose opinion you value.
At the end he is asking what he can do about it, to stop the surveillance. I didn't feel like he really got an answer for that unfortunately. Living like that must be like hell.
Maybe the best option is total transparency. There people operate in a shadowy world. If you take photos of the people following you and post them publicly, that might burn their agents and make the operation more expensive. People in that field probably don't want to end-up on the internet and be linked with image reverse search. Plus it acts as documentation.
> In February 2016, Assange wrote: "I have had years of experience in dealing with Hillary Clinton and have read thousands of her cables. Hillary lacks judgment and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism. ... she certainly should not become president of the United States."
It's maddening when you get caught up in such targeted surveillance efforts.
<story time>
At one point I programmed from the same cafe almost daily for much of a year. A mid-level drug dealer decided to setup shop in the cafe, often sitting near me. His street dealers would come in about once a week for a pow-wow where they'd all exchange cheap burner phones for new ones he'd supply, backpack was overflowing with phones. I always wore headphones so never really overheard their discussions, and never wanted to invite conversation, so I just ignored this hoping it'd just go away as these things tend to constantly move around. I'd always see some illicit activity in every cafe I worked from often enough, so it wasn't too surprising.
Then one day things got crazy with him running out to the nearby clifftop carrying massive binoculars looking over the Pacific ocean, running back in talking on his phone about locations and times of a shipment and trucks dumping "meth shit", it was like a breaking bad episode irl. Everyone in the cafe saw this happening, he was well on the road to getting busted for being so obvious in public. Something had gone wrong with a pickup and he was having a sort of crisis right there in the open, making all these calls and yelling at people about the situation.
I ended up mentioning it to the owners who seemed ignorant of this happening in their cafe, as they employed lackeys to run the place and were rarely around. They were furious and clearly intended to do something about it, especially when they realized he was a local guy they knew who went to school with their son.
So I avoided the cafe for some time after that. Maybe a month or so goes by and I start testing the waters, guy seems completely gone, all better right?
Not quite. Unfamiliar people started showing up at the cafe hovering around me, following me, asking about my phone, phone starts malfunctioning, asking about my laptop, totally obvious and annoying shit. They'd come in and sometimes just sit right across from me without ordering anything more than a single paper cup of black coffee just to have ordered something, and keep checking their watch. Right at the stroke of 5, up and walk out, they were working shifts and eager to leave. When I'd switch to another nearby cafe, they'd miss me for a few days then start appearing there too. When you spend enough time in a small local cafe over years you recognize the locals, you know the customer patterns, this kind of thing sticks out like a sore thumb.
All this just because I was in proximity to this bullshit happening in a cafe I frequented. Though, the fact that I was at the cafe nearly every day and probably appeared to not have a legitimate income source I'm sure didn't help. But I wasn't doing anything illegal, just taking a break from the SV grind.
What I learned was that there's substantial resources thrown at this style of policing. It's like a dust-devil blowing around to wherever some shit goes down, and whoever's nearby becomes a person of interest. Eventually it will blow on to another priority, but until it does you're annoyed by its invasion into your personal life.
I don't remember how long this went on for (if I ever really knew). I ended up stopping going to these cafes for months, just programming from my apt instead, and disposing of that phone not long after it started malfunctioning, simply going phoneless for a very long time. Fortunately my thinkpad never seemed to be affected, though I'm sure I retired it earlier than I would have otherwise.
I am afraid the real world journalists don't care too much about Wikileak. I am afraid that's how I feel this way. To me, Wikileak is the real meat journalists, no speculation, no opinion, just information, data for people to process. But we don't want it, we want to read tldr;, one sentence is something I am interested to read about a topic. Journalists know that, they rather publish unchecked facts, as long as it grabs eyeballs. They want to force opinion, ideology to people. Can news be news, not opinions? I don't know. I am not going to anything related to this on mainstream news media I am sure.
You would benefit a fair amount of reading Manufacturing Consent and Propaganda 1927 if you haven't, they will provide you with tools to verbalize your ideas and learn to better differentiate the media landscape
I think traditional journalists generally are unsure what to make of / wary of Wikileaks.
Rather than a site willing to release anything.... Wikileaks, even from the early days they, seemed to craft their own narratives in a way that many journalists find uncomfortable.
Even in the earlier days of Wikileaks when they had a facebook page (not sure if they do anymore) they'd regularly announce an upcoming data dump and imply that it was very important and serious and imply what it was about .... then radio silence. They never would release anything on that topic...
If you asked on their page, your comment was deleted ... whey did they not release it? No word. Many of these weren't national security type situations and there was enough info that you knew they never released it ever, just radio silence.
I liked the idea of what I thought Wikileaks was early on, but it never was that, and I'm suspicious of their choices and etc. They seem as interested in crafting something, what I'm not sure, keeping their own secrets, as any state. Who really is Wikileaks, what are they up to, I wonder sometimes...
On the internet of course this is all or nothing. You either are for a thing and against everything deemed to be the polar opposite or the other way. It's hard to have nuanced discussions about these things but I think that grey area is where you see the concern from journalists.
Data is useless without context. If you don't understand what you're looking at. Its more like to do harm than good. Like how all those maga people watched people counting votes. They didn't understand how the process worked so they thought every little thing was election fraud.
Isn't it something how so many people seem to think they are more 'enlightened' than actual journalists on the Wikileaks issue?
I think if you were to ask a journalist, you might get a more realistic answer, and that is they see that the institution itself is probably compromised. Leaked information can still be valid, but as an organization itself they probably don't trust it as being unbiased, or exactly what it says it is.
Integrity is a super important part of journalism, it has to be constantly earned.
Did you miss that WikiLeaks met with Trump campaign staff that had close relations with russian secret services and then leaked DNC campaign mails so that right wing actors could make that into a pedophile pizza place conspiracy theory?
I used to be a big WikiLeaks supporter but these days are long gone.
They promised leaks on russian oligarchs that never happened. They promised to "bring down" Bank of America. They promised to release another video showing war crimes by the US that was never released. They criticized the release of the Panama Papers.
People who still support WikiLeaks are either lunatics or they tend to have right wing agenda of their own.
The BOA leak, and several others, got burned by that Daniel Dumbshit guy over some petty personal disputes on how Wikileaks was run. That's what the Benedict Cumberbatch movie was all about, told from the perspective of the shithead who wiped all that data.
Wikileaks had an image of a Bank of America VP laptop with email discussion about the creation and exploitation of predatory loans, and a complete indifference to the eventual 2008 crash that they knew it would cause.
As to the DNC stuff, yeah Assange was probabally used by the Russian intelligence, but it was probabally an easy sell. Hillary really did (maybe jokingly?) call for Assange to be assassinated when she was secretary of state. He had every reason in the world to cut off her ascent to power.
If you want a really good look at Assange's humanity around the time of all the DNC craziness, Laura Portrias was living with him at the time and filming him all day every day, and turned it into a movie called "Risk". https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4964772/ Very similar vibe to Citizen Four, but with Assange instead of Snowden. Also for some reason it didn't get much attention because all sides hating on Assange became super trendy around that time.
For what it's worth, my political alignment is probabally far more liberal than the majority of people on this site, and I've been a Wikileaks supporter since they were just leaking internal fraternity documents.
> As to the DNC stuff, yeah Assange was probabally used by the Russian intelligence, but it was probabally an easy sell. Hillary really did (maybe jokingly?) call for Assange to be assassinated when she was secretary of state. He had every reason in the world to cut off her ascent to power.
Hillary's joke (if that is what it was) was an assault. She had the means to actually carry out the murder she suggested. Such actions, even in jest, have been known to cause people to get killed when some subordinate takes it as an order.
I think it takes a tremendous lack of empathy to not allow Assange a grudge against someone who quipped about murdering him and potentially the people around him, particularly someone with the awesome power of the united states behind them.
Journalists often have their axes to grind and their blind spots. It isn't great but it's just something we have to factor in... and I think this is one that a lot more justifiable than most.
And while he may have been used by Russia in the DNC leak, the leak revealed substantial unethical conduct that people were rightfully fired over. It brought transparency to the world that we deserved. If its publication depended on some bias on Assange's part, I think it wouldn't require much bias perhaps only would have been with respect to the timing of it.
> Wikileaks had an image of a Bank of America VP laptop with email discussion about the creation and exploitation of predatory loans, and a complete indifference to the eventual 2008 crash that they knew it would cause.
How do we know this is true if the data was burned?
> How do we know this is true if the data was burned?
Sadly we don't, and likely never will. Assange mentioned the laptop data and hinted at what it might contain in an interview. We do definitely know that a large cache of data got held hostage and eventually burned when fuckhead left. Like I mentioned before, there was a whole Benedict Cumberbartch movie made about the fallout there: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837703/
I'm not arguing anything, I'm recounting historical events. I don't need to beg for credibility, everything I'm saying is thoroughly documented on Wikipedia and various other sources. Daniel portrays himself as a hero in the book he wrote and in the movie he helped make, but he has been ostracized from the hacker community due to the atrocity of his actions.
Read his book, watch his movie. It's fascinating to see his perspective on how it all went down, but a lot of very bad people got away with some very bad things because of his actions, so forgive me for allowing a bit of contempt to seep through.
I wouldn't take either the word of one of the parties with obvious bias or a dramatization of events that was primarily sourced to the person with obvious bias at face value on a topic this controversial.
so you did not care about the content of the DNC campaign mails? And you are asserting an order of events that hasn't be established... is that what ran in your mind?
The illegal coordination between the Hillary campaign and the DNC was kind of a big deal, and did trigger a wave of corruption getting flushed out of the DNC. I voted for Hillary in 2016, she was by far the better candidate, but I also seeded the fuck out of those Podesta emails because DNC corruption is absolutely inexcusable.
It wasn’t illegal, surprising, or even a particularly big deal that the DNC was leery of Sanders and had friends in the Clinton camp. If anything it’s remarkable that there was no there there. All those emails and there was barely anything that, even out of context, looked really bad.
In the public imagination the hacked emails got conflated with the “Clinton email server”. The point was just to muddy the water.
I wonder if the Russians dumped the whole inbox rather than selected messages because they couldn’t find any really bad ones.
> .. did trigger a wave of corruption getting flushed out of the DNC
Sadly, it resulted in only a shuffle of players around the board. Wasserman-Schultz has plenty of congressional committee and leadership appointments. Donna Brazile was rewarded with Wasserman-Schultz's old gig at the helm of the DNC for leaking debate questions to Clinton
It wasn't illegal; DNC is a private org and sets its own rules. Name someone who went to jail over the content of the emails?
The emails do demonstrate that the party game is rigged (i.e. parties have favorites and tilt the scales in their favor). That's not only legal, it's intended---the point of parties is to coalesce political power.
The GOP demonstrates why the DNC is set up to tilt scales. GOP has fewer mechanisms to filter the popular vote in the party than the DNC does, and as a result, there was no backstop to Candidate Trump.
Democratic elections are how we choose between the candidates sponsored by the parties. Hypothetically, there's nothing actually stopping those elections from choosing someone outside the party, but when we're talking in election over a population of 350 million people, even getting an individual's name in front of the voters such that they think to write them in requires a level of organization on par with a national party. Popular votes also inform, but do not single-handedly control, who the parties sponsor.
But the story of the parties themselves is a story of slowly widening democratic representation. The DNC system was even more tilted towards party insiders before the McGovern election. It's been pulling in popular vote over the decades, but it's not a mobocracy. I wouldn't be surprised if the RNC, after Trump, modifies its rules to add some kind of backstop against a television celebrity having so easy a path to the Presidency over career politicians.
Given the obvious election fraud caught on camera, forensic evidence, voter roll issues, intimidation of poll watchers, lack of transparency, & the lack actionable oversight that we saw in the 2020 election, is there any hope to reform the corrupt political system or even to ascertain "the consent of the governed"?
If you add a backstop against political outsiers gaining office, only insiders who are under control of entrenched politicrats (who have no interest in reform), corrupt actors & revolving door beurcracats/lobbyists can win a significant political position.
Thats a lot of words to say the whole system is rotten and any narrow window of reform is quickly shut...
As George Carlin said:
It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. And by the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe
> is there any hope to reform the corrupt political system or even to ascertain "the consent of the governed"?
A shared interpretation of reality would be a good start. Most of the things you named in your first sentence happened at such low counts that they had functionally zero impact on the outcome of the election. For starters, there has been no instance of obvious election fraud caught on camera, no forensic evidence that has gone unchallenged, voter roll issues, while chronic, were being addressed for years leading up to the election, intimidation of poll watchers was in the eye of the beholder, and transparency was extraordinary (they had counts live-streamed). Actionable oversight also exists, but excludes "tossing the entire result of a state election," for obvious reasons (most of the actionable oversight is of the form "Screwing with elections is a federal crime and you do a lot of time for it").
There was a commission to look into instances of fraud in the 2016 election, and it concluded in 2018 that there were a handful of actionable events but the end result was the outcome was unchanged. The 2020 election's results were even wider than the difference in the 2016 outcome. It may not be unwise to appoint a commission to investigate the election results, but my money's personally on an outcome in 2022 similar to the outcome in 2018.
(... and Carlin was a great entertainer but not a political scientist).
Actually the Fraud caught on camera in Atlanta was shown to have swung the election, if you overlay the surge of Biden votes that occurred when the poll watchers were told to go home yet counting resumed. The problem is there is not institutional effort to investigate the irregularities. The problem with Election fraud is that plausible deniability & passing the buck is too easy to accomplish for any party not willing to prosecute the obvious crimes being committed.
The election fraud is obvious & you know it. Even if you think its not enough to swing the election, we still have a responsibility to investigate.
George Catlin does not need to be a political scientist to state what is obvious. People do not need to "stay in their lane" to participate in political discussions that ultimately affect them in one way or another
Every time we criticize Georgia, we should remember that the President's party is the one in charge of elections there, and the one in charge of auditing and assuring security of those elections. There is every incentive for the state election commission to cry foul if there was foul to cry; the fact they have not is extremely telling, and one really has to widen the conspiracy net to come up with an explanation that puts the state election commission of Georgia in on a conspiracy to defraud the electoral process.
> there is not institutional effort to investigate the irregularities
I don't know what you would consider "institutional effort," but there are absolutely processes for investigating irregularities and multiple investigations are currently in progress. Georgia just concluded one such audit today. https://www.ajc.com/politics/no-fraud-georgia-audit-confirms... - they don't get reported on in detail because, to be honest, the details are boring and therefore don't make for very good news; they have about as much fun as a tax audit with even fewer exciting variables. and to really get a big picture of what's going on, one has to track the news from multiple states, since every state manages its own balloting system.
A full and exhaustive audit takes time. The President commissioned such an audit at the federal level for the 2016 election, and it resolved in 2018, finding an absolute handful of actionable cases. I would expect the audits that are going on now to continue, as multiple parties are interested in pursuing them. But they take time; the one for 2016 took two years.
You missed the part where Donna Brazile gave Presidential Debate questions to Hillary Clinton? Or the collusion between the DNC and NYT/WaPo to kneecap Sanders' campaign? The DNC strategy to promote Trump over the other GOP candidates?
Edit: Downvote if you must, but the question was what was newsworthy about the DNC Wikileaks release. Is it incorrect or that you don't like it?
the part that stands out to me is that the Clinton campaign and the media coordinated to elevate the candidacy of Trump, believing that he’d be easier to defeat in a general election
The big scandal is the knowledge that third way democrats have moved so far to the right, that they need fascist-lite candidates on the right to contrast themselves with, to the point that they gave material support to the farthest right wing components of the republican party.
The major message for two presidential campaigns has been "we must do everything possible to defeat Trump, and by that we mean not voting for progressives" is BS when the third wayers had a major hand in putting him in the White House to begin with, and their long term strategy more or less requires similar tactics in the future.
The Epstein incident where they used the code word "pizza" for sex turned out to be real. Imaginations running wild turned that into a false conspiracy about a literal pizza shop. Is it fair to criticize wikileaks for unrelated parties imaginations running wild?
Pizza was never a codeword for sex---Epstein was wholly disjoint from the data Wikileaks divulged and was brought down by a long-running FBI investigation.
That they've over promised sounds like pretty weak reason to claim people that support them are either lunatics or right wing.
Political campaign staff and people with ties to secret services seem like the exact sorts journalists should be meeting with. If they're one and the same even better.
> I used to be a big WikiLeaks supporter but these days are long gone.
Then you've been duped. The prosecution of Assange is based on his work with Chelsea Manning on US war crimes in Iraq.
But if the lives of poor brown people far away are not as important as cheap partizanship then the CIA can make you believe anything.
Not to mention the fact HRC called for the assassination of Assange and his treatment has been characterized by the UN as torture. I presume you're OK with torture too as long as you think it serves your club?
> Not to mention the fact HRC called for the assassination of Assange and his treatment has been characterized by the UN as torture.
The claim of Clinton calling for Assange's assassination seems to be a completely unsubstantiated rumor.
Your "torture" claim is plainly false (even if it were true, what's the point in appealing to the authority of UN?), the "characterization" is by Nils Melzer, UN special rapporteur on torture (so he's just something like an independent consultant).
More importantly, basically everything Melzer said about Assange is bullshit. I read the interview of Melzer that seems to be the source for all of the absurd claims; and all of Melzer's claims there are vague, unsubstantiated, unverifiable or nonfalsifiable; except for one:
Turns out that Melzer's only concrete accusation is based on a misreading of evidence at best; the one against the Swedish police, of how they supposedly tampered with (even fabricated) one of the testimonies. The evidence for that is inconclusive, Melzer was possibly confused with the format of the Freedom of Information documents released by the police, but in any case Melzer is making a big fuss out of nothing and downplaying rape with his other comments at the same time.
Also see the comment by one of Assange's alleged victims:
> One of the women interviewed by Melzer later sharply criticised him and demanded his resignation. She said that by defining how a "proper rape-victim" would have to act, Melzer was engaging in victim blaming and that his report was partially "untrue and defamatory"
I think it should be pretty clear that Melzer's word is worth very little.
The only dupes at this point are the useful idiots who still support WikiLeaks. It has long since passed from being anything useful into being an cult of personality built around Assange.
I'd call it halfway between cult of personality and idealistic belief that maximizing free flow of information maximizes beneficial outcomes without attention to measuring whether that assumption is true.
It turns out some secrets are harmful, and some are helpful to the stable function of a society. Practically speaking, I believe it is hard to make a case that Wikileaks has been a net positive, unless one can see a president Trump as part of a net positive story. On the flip side, history is also dotted with obvious examples of secret keeping resulting in long-term damage.
The truth, I think, is that the beneficial nature of secrets is something you can only evaluate situationally.
The Manning leaks were hugely irresponsible. While whistleblowing is a vital activity, the data dumps Manning pulled from the military network and State Department were unredacted raw dumps. They catalyzed Arab Spring by pushing the delicate realm of international diplomacy into the eyes of the public, leading to hundreds of deaths and, fundamentally, no real change. Possibly setting back democracy in the Middle East by a generation or so.
I like Manning as a person, but state secrets exist for a reason and she deserved to be imprisoned for her crimes.
> The Manning leaks were hugely irresponsible. While whistleblowing is a vital activity, the data dumps Manning pulled from the military network and State Department were unredacted raw dumps.
WikiLeaks tried to get the Pentagon to help them redact documents[1].
They refused to do so knowing there would be people like you accusing WikiLeaks/Manning of wrongdoing here.
> I like Manning as a person, but state secrets exist for a reason and she deserved to be imprisoned for her crimes.
You do realize she shed light on war crimes right? Do you consider war crimes 'state secrets' that 'exist for a reason'?
The reason, oftentimes, is simply to hide wrongdoing, as was the case here. The fact Manning was imprisoned, (and tortured), while the killers of civilians and journalists she exposed were not shows that this is not a just system. It's designed to chill whileblowers and allow atrocities to continue, unpunished.
The military leaks did shed light on (possible; there is dispute in the international community) war crimes, and had Manning only leaked those specific videos, my opinion would be very different.
The State Department cable leaks were grossly irresponsible, as were most of the rest of the military intel leaks. She slurped and dumped without understanding of the ramifications of divulging all that information, which can endanger her fellow soldiers in the field, who had not committed war crimes. That she appears to have gotten lucky and it did not, in fact, endanger soldiers in the field is irrelevant to the reason such a slurp-and-dump is a court-martial offense.
I think reasonable people can disagree on whether, in aggregate, she did more harm than good. She shed light on (what we would want to be) senseless deaths of several civilians in a military theater, and separate from that, she catalyzed multiple revolutions resulting in the deaths of hundreds.
>You do realize she shed light on war crimes right? Do you consider war crimes 'state secrets' that 'exist for a reason'?
What warcrimes? Please be specific. Because if you're talking about that Helicopter gunship video, that was not a warcrime, and was selectively edited by Wikileaks to try to make it look worse. All of which made Wikileak's claims far more dubious.
Wikipedia gives a pretty good summary of how one arrives at that conclusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri... --- the short form is that the laws around war crimes give broad leeway to soldiers in the field interpreting a situation on the ground, and from the point of view of the gunship, they may have believed they were firing on attackers attempting to reach RPGs in the vehicle. This is one of the tragedies of modern insurgency warfare... Since nobody's in uniform, how can one be sure that the person in civilian clothing crawling through the operation is trying to escape or going for a concealed weapon?
I'm personally inclined to agree with Mark Taylor that "...what this video shows is really a case that challenges whether the laws of war are strict enough."
Within the US, there is a similar broad cultural argument ongoing on whether laws protecting police officers err too far on the side of assuming the cops' in-the-field interpretation of what happened should guide how the law understands what happened.
The Apache gunner did not know that they were firing on a journalist, they had believed they were engaging a legal target and were doing so within given rules of engagement. Which is legal. It's a tragedy that they were mis-identified, but again, not a warcrime. Had they known they were non combatants and fired on them still, that would have been a warcrime.
He's more journalist than most. Reprinting Twitter spats and press releases does not make you a journalist. Publishing newsworthy information in the public interest does.
I find it incredible that you think that the answer to this could be "no".
Would you honestly rather read from an "unbiased" journalist who diligently repeats what both sides said on Twitter than a biased one that actually uncovered important new facts?
Especially when that "unbiased" "journalist" probably is just as biased as Assange, anyway, and their only real purpose is to construct a filter bubble for you.
One of the questions from chat asked him exactly that. His answer was that he already lives in a government-sector in Berlin where he doesn't need cameras to feel safe at home. The main argument of this talk was about his experiences when he travelled abroad (UK/US) and experienced the surveillance and intimidation.
Sure, but they were in his home. If he had cameras streaming to a server recording everything they would stop doing that at least. (Or if they didn't, he would at least have evidence of the criminals faces)
It's not clear (from the talk) if they were in his home at all. He uses a stealth key, I guess the one from UrbanAlps where the key is 3d printend outside in.
As I'm sure (by your "scare quotes") you know, the actual Left never believed a damn thing CIA said. They remember all of their comrades killed by CIA. My semi-skeptical praise was for the idea that anyone in public view would act any differently just because there's a new occupant.
I actually don't know anything about the actual left and the fake left. I think you are overestimating how familiar other people are with things you know a lot about.
Exactly. Even if one doesn't know of him beforehand, this can be inferred from context: the emcee/herald refers to him as just "andy", suggesting he is a known figure in the context of the conference. A quick search for "andy ccc" reveals the rest of the information.
I can't tell which parts are supposedly not part of the original phone. The 870 doesn't have bluetooth, but some very similar looking models do, which could account for the antenna on the board.
Edit: See my follow up below. I'm now convinced this is a pretty complex tap inside the VoiP phone. No reason for a UHF transmitter to be inside a desk VoiP phone.
They replaced the entire keypad PCB, you can look at the 2 last pictures for comparison next to a normal keypad PCB. I'm very impressed by the complexity of the module.
Why? It's not the 1980s any more. The hot glued version would stick out like a sore thumb in today's electronics. Complex electronic components are very cheap and readily available.
Because it would work on any Voip phone instead of just one specific make/model. FWIW, this one does have a daughterboard that is hot glued on, it's just the main board that's nicely done. I imagine very few people actually open their phone up
5th image bottom left you can see a little board with 3 black wires running off of it that doesn't look original. Could be a factory bodge but definitely looks a bit out of place.
So that larger board would have to be part of the conspiracy. It's the one with the 2 FPGAs, NAND memory, board trace antenna, etc. That board is obviously custom fit for this specific phone, with passthrough cutouts for the LCD ribbon cable, mounting screws, etc.
Edit: Actually, I can make out a chip in the top left of that larger board linked above that says SX1231 on it, which is a Semtech UHF transceiver. The QFN24 packaging matches as well. Small excerpt from the data sheet:
"The SX1231 is a highly integrated RF transceiver capable of operation over a wide frequency range, including the 433, 868 and 915 MHz license-free ISM (Industry Scientific and Medical) frequency bands."
Which is a pretty fishy chip to be in a desk VOIP phone. Interesting that someone might have made a custom fit, nicely silkscreened and barcode part-labeled bug for one specific model of voip phone.
> Which is a pretty fishy chip to be in a desk VOIP phone. Interesting that someone might have made a custom fit, nicely silkscreened and barcode part-labeled bug for one specific model of voip phone.
I would imagine these bugs are designed by hardware engineers (a high skill job due to uniqueness of such trait), but not necessarily assembled by the same engineers (a lower skill job which requires different qualities).
So, for example, a 'TAO station' would not necessarily contain all those engineers who designed the bugs, but it would have technicians who can install/implement them.
Such a chip would enable the phone to act as a base station for a wireless headset. Snom make several varieties of such headsets. It is not necessarily proof of a "bug," could just be additional, perhaps never implemented, functionality for the phone.
There are also five green wires running from the same board - it reminds me of an old console mod chip. It could be a patch job for a hardware bug, but it definitely looks odd.
Lol, found the CIA plant. But seriously, how much time/money is it worth to put to planting agents in online forums like this to both monitor and influence?
However, the processing of Information into Intelligence that can be acted upon is what characterizes Intelligence agencies. Wikileaks does not concern itself with this phase. Yet, the CIA’s Pompeo is trying to paint a narrative that Wikileaks is doing this by labeling them a “non-state intelligence agency”, thereby justifying the CIA’s actions to attack Wikileaks.
In brief:
Narrative #1 - the CIA attacking an “Idealistic Free Information Publisher”.
Narrative #2 - the CIA attacking a “Non-state Dark Intelligence Agency”
The CIA is actively trying to create Narrative #2, which is a bit concerning.