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Internet Has Become 'Surveillance Machine': Julian Assange
HONG KONG - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange blasted the mainstream media, Washington, banks and the Internet itself as he addressed journalists in Hong Kong on Monday via videolink from house arrest in England.
The Internet itself had become "the most significant surveillance machine that we have ever seen," Assange said in reference to the amount of information people give about themselves online. (photo: Andrew Winning, Reuters) Fresh from accepting a top award for journalism from the prestigious Walkley Foundation in his native Australia on Sunday, Assange spoke to the News World Summit in Hong Kong before keeping a regular appointment with the police.
He defended his right to call himself a journalist and said WikiLeaks' next "battle" would be to ensure that the Internet does not turn into a vast surveillance tool for governments and corporations.
"Of course I'm a goddamn journalist," he responded with affected frustration when a moderator of the conference asked if he was a member of the profession.
He said his written record spoke for itself and argued that the only reason people kept asking him if he was a journalist was because the United States' government wanted to silence him.
"The United States government does not want legal protection for us," he said, referring to a US Justice Department investigation into his whistle-blower website for releasing secret diplomatic and military documents.
The former hacker criticized journalists and the mainstream media for becoming too cozy with the powerful and secretive organizations they were supposed to be holding to account.
In a 40-minute address, he also accused credit card companies such as Visa and MasterCard of illegally cutting WikiLeaks off from funding under a secret deal with the White House.
"Issues that should be decided in open court are being decided in back rooms in Washington," he said.
The Internet itself had become "the most significant surveillance machine that we have ever seen," Assange said in reference to the amount of information people give about themselves online.
"It's not an age of transparency at all ... the amount of secret information is more than ever before," he said, adding that information flows in but is not flowing out of governments and other powerful organizations.
"I see that really is our big battle. The technology gives and the technology takes away," he added.
The anti-secrecy activist then help up a handwritten sign from an aide telling him to "stop" talking or he would be late for a mandatory appointment with police.
Assange, 40, is under house arrest in England pending the outcome of a Swedish extradition request over claims of rape and sexual assault made by two women. He says he is the victim of a smear campaign.
79 Comments so far
Show Alljulian assange and bradley manning are heros of our post modern world. thank you wiki leaks for all of the revealing secrets you shared w/ the world (and hopefully will continue to share).
"WikiLeaks' next "battle" would be to ensure that the Internet does not turn into a vast surveillance tool for governments and corporations."
too late...
"He says he is the victim of a smear campaign."
i believe him.
freedom to the people for the people. ¡Ya basta!
...peace...
Everything iowablackbird wrote...
I second your seconding of what IBB wrote!
I'll "third" it. When the times turn around, as the pendulum can't stay STUCK on the right for long... Julian will be regarded as the hero, and champion of the true ideal of freedom (and democracy) that he is! Any government that uses those "brand names" needs to answer to its constituents; and when there's a virtual lock-down on what government does in our names, and when those who pull back the curtains expose the nature of the various and sundry back-room deals... they do this brave work for all of us! The real obscenity--which is to say that which ought to be on trial--is the ease with which "democratic" governments make war on 3rd world nations.
In the court of public opinion, honest and decent persons recognize the charges against Julian for the farce that they are. In other words, he's won the case; but it's a shame he fell into a very old and compelling trap... the ambush of (erotic) fate.
Assange is one of the few REAL journalists having a large audience.
Most popular journalists deliver corporate press releases.
Of course Assange's a hero. A really accomplished one, too. Of course he's a journalist - he's delivered more scoops on governments over the last two years only than the rest of the world press combined!
I wasn't aware that any certification was required for the occupation of journalist.
I think the more applicable question would be: Does the dispensing of information on an internet web site constitute press? And I think the overwhelming consensus on that would be: Yes.
"The First Amendment doesn’t refer just to professionals
In the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, released just a few weeks ago, the judges pointed out that the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of the press “encompasses a range of conduct related to the gathering and dissemination of information,” and that citizens have the right to investigate government affairs and share what they learn with others. Judge Kermit Lipez also specifically noted that these protections don’t just apply to professional journalists. He said in his decision:
[C]hanges in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders [and] and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status."
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/media-migraine/2011/sep/12/all-journalism-citizen-journalism/
Garden: Thank you. Your post provides useful, important information.
Where did this stupid idea come from that distinguishes a "journalist" as some sort of deliniated expert?
Oh, I know!! I know!! (hand waving up in the air). The people in charge tell them when they get to be journalists, right? I mean, they need to be licensed by the state, and told what they can say, right? Don't they need special degrees to be experts, like everyone?
Elizabeth H. -- I couldn't agree more with you on the issues that you raise in your post.
Years ago, I watched an Orson Welles documentary, F FOR FAKE, which is focused, specifically, on so-called "experts" in the field of art. However, the bigger issue is that he is urging all of us, at every turn, to question those who set themselves up as the experts. Maybe, they really aren't as "expert" as they claim. It's a brilliant documentary released in 1973. Welles didn't ever fit into anything/any categories that could be described or misconstrued as conventional.
And, although I've written about David Halberstam's 1972 book, THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST, before on CD, I'll just state that David Halberstam's message was similar to the message Welles delivered a year later, always question the so-called experts. The title was actually meant with a bit of irony, and probably with a bit of sarcasm, too.
You probably know all of this -- you are very well read on a variety of subjects. But it ties into your questions, and the tone that accompanied both Halberstam and Welles. You are in very good company!
Elizabeth, thanks, as always, for your perceptions and your ability to put those ideas into words! I always enjoy reading your posts.
Nice piece of work gm!
If the internet is a giant surveillance machine, then why use the internet to tell us that? Why use the net to download secret information?
Is the government really keeping track of the latest cat videos on Youtube?
Julian had a right to do what he did, but he is also missing the point.
A bookstore is a giant surveillance machine. The government kept track of books written that it found threatening.
Did people continue to write books?
Queer: It's hard to tell if your post is arguing FOR the government's use of surveillance, or against it. There once was a romantic fairy tale associated with the idea that the individual had a right to privacy. Would you like every sex act you've ever done to be published on the Internet? How about any moment you spoke in anger? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I remember when I was in high school I was walking down a hall telling the two friends with me what an asshole I thought a particular teacher was, and he was right behind me. I felt badly that he heard me. It doesn't change the fact that I thought he was an exceptionally lousy teacher, but it hurt me that he heard the hurtful words. -------------------------------------------------- As I continue reading the excellent book, "Dangerous Dossiers," it becomes clear that peoples' lives are impacted when secret files are kept on their acts and beliefs, and jobs they apply for blocked. They may never even know that this type of thing is going on, but it's like a secret war waged against those rigid governments find "troublesome." ---------------------------------------------------------- Most of society's progress is founded upon trouble makers, or those who step out of line. Every invention represents a shift in the status quo; and as is widely known now, those innovators who've reached beyond coal/oil/nuclear power to OTHER alternatives frequently have their patents bought out by the pre-existing giants to insure that no permutation need impact the status quo, ecologically suicidal as it is. -------------------------------------------------------- "Dangerous Dossiers" also points out something that I had forgotten, the wise words of one of America's most broad-thinking Court Justices, Brandeis... "that the individual has a right to be left alone." Therefore, if a government determines that the "radical" individual is one who does not deserve to be left alone, all sorts of intrusions into their life take place; the most obvious being incarceration (or, as appears to be the new power our corrupt government has arrogated to itself: the right to "Pull a Pinochet," as in just making said person disappear! Presto! No trial required. No Habeas Corpus. Nothing pesky like due process.) ----------------------------------------------- Because the power equation has swung so far to the right, and because technology can be of major use to a state that wishes to quell dissent, the Internet spying is a REAL problem. Your post seems to whitewash the whole matter... as if suggesting that history's examples of earlier crackdowns somehow makes what's happening now "a norm."
Thanks, SiouxRose. Well put.
Note: to make paragraphs on C.D., do this exactly, only skip the spaces in between. < p > < p > and then hit enter twice to skip a line.
Most of us are aware that we have NO privacy on the Internet nowadays - activists, especially, should be aware of this all the time so they don't inadvertently say something that might be construed as "bad."
It's important to note that movements do best when they stick to legal actions for as long as possible. The American Revolutionaries worked quite openly and publicly for as long as they could before they won over the populace to the side of open Rebellion.
The tasks before the Occupy and other social change movements are these: educate the populace on the issues, and - really important - propose rational alternatives so people have something to look forward to and struggle towards.
Then comes the age-old problem: how do we make good things happen? Which tactics or strategies are going to be most effective at any given point in time?
EFFECTIVENESS is what we're after, building the movements to EFFECTIVE size.
This isn't about individual activists feeling good or martyring themselves; it's about doing what's best for society as a whole. Trite as that sounds, it's nonetheless important to remember as we move on towards a truly democratic and just society.
"Note: to make paragraphs on C.D., do this exactly, only skip the spaces in between. < p > < p > and then hit enter twice to skip a line."
For now. It's bound to change...without notice. And btw, no skipping of lines are necessary, the p's will take care of that (tho, the one at the end of each paragraph should really have a slash before the p).
Certainly I cannot now prove that Department of Security surveillance teams are not monitoring this site, but I would bet that--since I am intentionally using the word "bomb"-- it is. There are all kinds of software that screen language used at websites and that information is stored somewhere.
What of it? So what if an anti-terrorist organization gets information on you? Suppose I ran for office. It is reasonable to guess that my incumbent opponent could get any sort of negative information on me and use it to his advantage. He would not be exposed in the same way, giving him an enormous advantage.
Net surveillance is happening. All of those billions of dollars going to Homeland Security is being spent to employ those listening in and keeping folders on suspects. The next step is using that information to secure political advantage. Perhaps that is already being done.
Paranoia? I don't think so, given Wikileaks revelations. The government is playing hard ball and the left isn't. Maybe it should.
"Paranoia? I don't think so, given Wikileaks revelations."
I don't think so either, given the past. COINTELPRO may have been scrapped, but in name only. I'm sure there are even more sophisticated measures now, including Net surveillance.
I guess acceptance is a step in realizing that we can't really hide, no matter how anonymous we think we really are. Including, of course, anonymous handles on sites such as Common Dreams.
The 'anonymous handles' here on CD are not.
Just for posting here and on other forums, engaging in my right to freedom of speech and expression, as guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the US Constitution, I have been subjected to 'randomly selected extra screening' while flying domestically. I have recently been barred/banned from entering the US because of a secretly passed law that prevents the entry into the US of ANY person who has ever had contact with Police due to mental health issues, even non-violent ones like depression.
These forums (and every other one on the 'Net, as well as every e-mail, FB posting, Tweet, text and cell-phone call) are monitored in real time by PROMIS and ECHELON software, as well as by paid trolls of DHS/CIA/FBI/NSA (in the US) and RCMP/CSIS (in Canada), and the IP information is readily and voluntarily shared by the Telecom Corporations with their host Governments.
All of the information is collated to an account with your personal history on it. With a few keyboard strokes, the PTB can call up your entire life, from school and medical records, financial information and shopping habits, voting record, everything. All that information can be combined with the RFID/GPS chips in the cell-phone you voluntarily carry everywhere, a cell-phone that can be remotely commanded to act as a surveillance microphone no matter where you are. If you have an onboard camera in the phone, that can also be activated and accessed to provide real-time locational information, thanks to Government tie-ins to Google 'Streetview'(tm).
That's just some of the reasons why the Elite have no fear of OWS as well as us here. They know who we are, where we are, who we are communicating with, and what we are saying. We may as well be out on the street screaming our intentions right to them.
Agreed.
[Assange] "said WikiLeaks' next "battle" would be to ensure that the Internet does not turn into a vast surveillance tool for governments and corporations." I think Assange is waaaaay tooooo late on this one. It's done. Finished.
Just to add to your post, lest we forget about our Local Fusion Centers, that incorporate local, next door law enforcement "apparatus" into the "action," whilst no one, NO THIRD INDEPENDENT PARTY is monitoring all these activities. These include, but are not limited to: collusions with the businesses you shop/bank/insurance/medical/all spending really, your neighbors/realtors/financial advisors, your colleagues/coworkers/bosses, your local elected officials, local city/county ees like garbage/water/sewer/code enforcers/traffic cops, etc etc etc... Everyone can get "a piece of the action" if they want to take all of your "stuff," and whence take you down--and all for a very competitive price mind you.
In other words, one thinks of corruption now as "the banks" or "the medical insurers." But one rarely goes in depth to find the obvious, widely-spread used, uber-profitable, top-down, bottom-up, detail-oriented database-structured nature of The Patriot Act working its way directly into very infinitesimal aspects of one's own life. And rather surprisingly, as Assange is sitting right now in house arrest, he STILL doesn't get that this is EXACTLY what has happened to him. It boggles...
This all may very well be true. But I have to wonder why you (and folks who think like you do) continue to post here. If I believed as you do, I would lose myself in some good beer and wine and skip all this cyber effort.
My suggestion to one and all is to spend time with people who are dying (as I have done recently). It puts some things into context. There is still enough in this life to appreciate. And that appreciation is enough to make me want to fight. Not fight against Big Brother (I know it exists and perhaps they have looked into me [Green Party, protest against government treaties, written extensively in papers and blogs, including CD, etc.]).
What I'm getting at is that all this is the same shit that's been going on for hundreds of years - the old order wanting to protect itself and its loot from change (see Martin Luther). Nothing new under the sun.
What would be new, really new, is if we decided to not fight the current paradigm, but turn our backs on it. The "hippies" tried it in the 60's with their communes, and the back-to-the-landers tried it in the 70's. And for a while, it worked. However, they did it during a time of seeming rising prosperity and unlimited resources, but the sirens lured them back to "reality." We know better now. It was the opposite and we are at the end stages of our resources.
So, if we really want to affect change (assuming we just don't want to climb into the bottle), it seems we would be asking different questions. Such as: Is there really a different way to be in this world? And: What can I do to bring this about? And: If I am interested in bringing this about, where are my leverage points?
I await the sound of crickets.
I think you deserve an answer. I'm waiting, too.
But as far why I'm still doing this (I won't speak for anyone else): I refuse to relinquish my First Amendment rights under any circumstances.
Thanks, sffmadman.
I'm not saying that folks shouldn't voice their opinions, just that our opinions won't get us very far. Discussions are great, and they are important, but there has to be something after the discussions.
We have to figure out what we need to do to create a new reality...and start doing it. If we don't there are plenty of people who are all too happy to create a reality for us. Maybe it's time we asked ourselves how this reality is working out for us...
Ted,
I wish more people would think like you. This role of victim mentality is really getting us nowhere as a civilization. I think protests and upheavals are a great trigger to revolution, but they are not the revolution. As you said, the answer lies within the perception and manifestation of a new paradigm. We see so clearly the way we wish things not to be, so lets make them the way we do want them to be! It has to start within the heart of the individual, which will spread out to the families, then to the communities.
There is only love!
Thank you, sffmadman.
I see victim mentality everywhere. And truth be told, I used to play the victim too. Along with being the victim, I believed there was someone who was responsible for my victimhood. Not to say that there aren't agents of ill who are controlling things. It's just that so often we fail to see the fact that our victimhood is keeping us from creating a new way.
This is a frustrating place, this Common Dreams. It's frustrating because many of the people I identify with ideologically (for the most part) want to keep playing the victim. There is scant, scant, talk of what people here are actually doing, or planning on doing, or even ideas of what they want to do, to change their reality. Instead, I hear many of the same things that the left has been railing against forever. And there is much to be angry at. But that anger has to be channeled into something positive or it festers into cynicism, which is what I see here (and in other left circles). There is not much positive energy here, and that's a pity.
So, you are right - it all starts with each of us, inside of us, and it goes out from there. Revolutions come and go, but real change starts within. That's where our new reality, our new paradigm will come from.
Computor cams and mics may be remotely activate as was the Dalai Lama's and other pc's in over 100 nations a single action. 77 USA Fusion Centers
Humanity has definitely been sliding down the ladder towards another Dark Ages. Feel sorry for all these babies being born as they will be the slave caste for the controlling elite of our planet. So freedom is another red herring like giving females equal rights? Never dreamed I would live to see the demise of my beloved country and what it represented.
The spy network, our govt. tax dollars at work, are tracking words and phrases and then that person is red flagged. It was done when I was serving in the military and is now state of the art. This has been going for for a very long time. Hoover and the FBI probably held the record for surveillance, spying, and illegal breaking and entering until Bush 2 came along and the DHS was invented and the FBI, CIA, NSA, ATF, DEA, all police departments, and dozens of other agencies were turned loose to do as they saw fit. Assange is correct and all those who want freedom of information and speech halted are going after the net, and those on it. I'm surprised at this stage that Mr. Assange hasn't met with an accident to silence him and his colleagues. As for Mr.Manning, by the time he gets his day in court, he will be a babbling idiot. This is how our govt, and elected officials, treat truth tellers.
Hi Siouxrose. That reminded me of an old friend from many years ago. He fought against the Fascists in Spain in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
For the rest of his life, he was unable to get a good job in the United States. Every time he applied for a job (He was well educated and qualified) he was turned down.
He finally found out he was on the Attorney General's list as, I kid you not, "a premature anti-fascist!" That is to say, he was anti-fascist before that had become government policy and was punished for the rest of his life for it.
This crap has been going on longer than most people are aware.
My dad was kind of a"premature anti-fascist" too. He joined the British in North Africa before Germany declared war on the US. This was not a problem for him, since he sided with our future ally. In the case of "premature anti-fascists" in Spain, the crime as far as the US was concerned, is that a lot of those who fought in the Lincoln Brigade were communists. Your friend was either a communist, or was suspected of being one.He was far from being the only brigadista to suffer from this stupidity.
Hello, Mini.
I am reading the book, "Dangerous Dossiers," by Herbert Mitgang. Its copyright date is 1988, so he writes it without knowledge of what 911 did to Civil Liberties or the types of surveillance campaigns that event gave rise to. However, it's quite a piece of documentation insofar as revealing the LENGTHS our "protectors" will go to in keeping watch over the Intelligentsia here in the Homeland.---------------------------------------------------------
Mitgang used The Freedom of Information Act to obtain the files on the following persons. A few were only 20 pages or so, but most files ran over 100 pages (and some over 300 pages) with significant portions redacted. Why? Herbert Hoover passed the ideological torch, it seems, to Joseph McCarthy and anyone left of Right wing was considered a threat to national security. Files were kept by the FBI, CIA, Navy & Army on writers, artists, and poets!
Here are the persons whose files he chronicles:----------------------------------------------------
Sinclair Lewis, Pearl S. Buck, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Thomas Mann, Carl Sandburg (the poet), John Dos Passos, Thomas Wolfe, Dororthy Parker, John O'Hara, Nelson Algren, Dashiell Hammett, Irwin Shaw, Truman Capote, Thornton Wielder, Robert Sherwood, Elmer Rice, Maxwell Anderson, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, Archibald Macleish, Robert Lowell, Robert Frost, etc.---------------------------------------------
Anyone who was considered open to peaceful foreign relations became a target. Behind the scenes black-lists ruined careers and stopped job opportunities from surfacing. Most persons on this list didn't know they were being watched. And a LOT of man power/paid hours went into these long-term efforts to spy on peaceful citizens.------------------------------------------------------
It's my contention that this is taking place again now. Most files were marked "Security Matter," or matter of Internal security, or secret, etc. These individuals were construed as threats to the state, and their files maintained for decades. Imagine this same mentality now with access to far more sophisticated tools of surveillance, those able to record very sensitive PRIVATE information about people. Elliott Spitzer comes to mind.
The book reveals how far the right wing authoritarians will go in efforts to control, blemish, blacklist, or bad mouth those whose moral, spiritual, and intellectual concerns fly high to leave them, the self-appoited moral police and Watchers, in the dirt.
Assange is the journalist of this generation and perhaps this century. In history he will be recognized as a major hero like a Thomas Paine. If the US Government hadn't been overthrown by the corporate controlled Justices of the Supreme Court, Assange would be getting Congressional and Presidential awards.
"Internet Has Become 'Surveillance Machine': Julian Assange"
The wonderfully weird saga of Julian Assange goes on. The idiot US gov't has pushed him into a spot where the only thing he can do is to keep exposing them. Good for US.
I wonder if there's any chance at all the hypothetical maximum sentence for the alleged transgression of not using a condom in a consensual sexual intercourse is higher than house arrest in England for a year soon? - Don't think so.
Thank you so much for your support of the Elite and their criminalization of dissent agenda.
"2 B Smarter"? I think not.
How is what 2 B said in support of the "criminalization of dissent"?
yeah, i think someone inferred
what had not been implied.
that happens
at times.
I don't know if it's accurate or not, but I remember reading that the maximum sum of all the charges he's facing adds up to $470. His lawyer said the major concern was extradition to the US from Sweden.
Assange is a hero. Extremely courageous in the face of such concerted, heavy-handed governmental attacks. It seems his release of cables confirming the obvious - the imperialist behavior of U.S. foreign and corporate policy - was the spark of uprisings from Arab Spring to European summer to American autumn.
It was about time.
I think Assange is also warning clearly, though he veiled it, that TPTB want to use the internet as a surveillance tool. I feel there is much more to come in this area, as U.S. Govt. wants to replace the internet as it now functions with one where it can monitor citizen information much more clearly.
The phony war on terror is in reality a cover for a war on citizens, as the power elite wants to reduce citizens the world over (i.e. the economic terrorism courtesy of Wall Street on Europe, one country's debt market at a time - and it is happening here too except MSM hides it) to neo-feudalism, enslaved to the global corporate order.
rgardener nails it! That is why in this magical moment of a window, opened a crack by Wikileaks, Wisconsin, Arab Spring, & Occupy Everywhere (especially the financialized economy), we must seize the time and redouble our efforts at this psychological moment. It may not come again in many of our lifetimes (if at all).
So, let's agree to lend our minds, bodies, and voices to every protest we can join, to sign every petition we can, send letters and emails to newspapers and politicians, vote for whoever we damn want, and engage people we know personally as skillfully as we can get them to join us in our involvement.
I apologize if this seems too simplistic and obvious. I'm somebody that can never hear the right things too many times.
In a belated spirit of thanksgiving, I am grateful for Common Dreams compiling such an insightful array of articles and attracting such a conscious group of commenters. So, I would further request that we all spread the voice of Common Dreams and whatever other sources of truth that we love by advertising them to everyone who will listen.
rgardener nails it! That is why in this magical moment of a window, opened a crack by Wikileaks, Wisconsin, Arab Spring, & Occupy Everywhere (especially the financialized economy), we must seize the time and redouble our efforts at this psychological moment. It may not come again in many of our lifetimes (if at all).
So, let's agree to lend our minds, bodies, and voices to every protest we can join, to sign every petition we can, send letters and emails to newspapers and politicians, vote for whoever we damn want, and engage people we know personally as skillfully as we can get them to join us in our involvement.
I apologize if this seems too simplistic and obvious. I'm somebody that can never hear the right things too many times.
In a belated spirit of thanksgiving, I am grateful for Common Dreams compiling such an insightful array of articles and attracting such a conscious group of commenters. So, I would further request that we all spread the voice of Common Dreams and whatever other sources of truth that we love by advertising them to everyone who will listen.
rgardener nails it! That is why in this magical moment of a window, opened a crack by Wikileaks, Wisconsin, Arab Spring, & Occupy Everywhere (especially the financialized economy), we must seize the time and redouble our efforts at this psychological moment. It may not come again in many of our lifetimes (if at all).
So, let's agree to lend our minds, bodies, and voices to every protest we can join, to sign every petition we can, send letters and emails to newspapers and politicians, vote for whoever we damn want, and engage people we know personally as skillfully as we can get them to join us in our involvement.
I apologize if this seems too simplistic and obvious. I'm somebody that can never hear the right things too many times.
In a belated spirit of thanksgiving, I am grateful for Common Dreams compiling such an insightful array of articles and attracting such a conscious group of commenters. So, I would further request that we all spread the voice of Common Dreams and whatever other sources of truth that we love by advertising them to everyone who will listen.
And not just the government. Organisations of all kind watch over , even control, how we use the internet. From advertisers, search engines and even cults.
One notorious case is of Scientology who routinely install net nannies, unknown to the Scientology member, that stop any site critical of Scientology coming up in searches.
That is a very good point. Most of these and many of the most aggressive ones are for-profit corporate entities, religious or otherwise and with or without government contracts.
Private corporations are usually quicker to respond to leaks than most government agencies, even the military, at least until recently. They are far more likely to respond aggressively to Net-based intrusions. The response in some cases has been lethal and can involve governmental or quasi-governmental forces. If you include the companies' own routine intrusions designed to hijack client resources to determine market information, advertise, and disguise remote activities as in-house computer services, their intrusions are far more frequent than direct government action, if arguably somewhat less ominous, altogether.
Also, as treacherous politicians subvert representation by farming government functions into corporate control in what gets called "privatization," corporate spying not only takes on the character of government spying, but becomes government spying.
In particularly sensitive documents, avoiding or misspelling sensitive words can reduce the odds of attracting a bot's attention. I doubt anyone who is spotted or of obvious interest can hide this way or that it makes sense start writing nucular on CD, but it is not a bad precaution while using Skype chat or Facebook or email or one-to-one communication in general.
Of course, those of us who do nothing worthy of such attention have less reason to worry about the more invasive practices for the moment. I had an odd conversation a couple years ago with someone who apparently tried to work out whether or not I might be a violent threat to Mr. Obama. At first, I believed that my questioner was indeed a pollster, but as the questions shifted from determining my political opinions to trying to establish my emotional stability, it finally dawned on me that I was being played.
My questioner and I kept each other on the phone for a good while, trying to figure each other out, and since I myself knew that I had no such intentions, I was glad to keep the fellow occupied. However, Net communications do reproduce themselves and endure in odd files on odd servers across the Net, to be retrieved and used years later by methods and for concerns that did not exist at the time of the original communication. Even someone who cracks the firewall of some facility in some way that is perfectly safe at the time of entry can be caught years later.
In general, all these kinds of actions have become far, far less safe, a pattern that will almost certainly continue, barring the intervention of considerable public action. On the other hand, passing to Wikileaks any information that anyone actually does have has been extremely safe -- not for Wikileaks itself or the people who run it, but for the mole who passes the leak.
To paraphrase Julian Assange: Of course! I am not a whore or a presstituted journalist !
The internet is also the counter surveillance machine that Julian and a lot of us journalists and posters have used for getting the truth out.
It had to be said again, heroes of the mordern struggle against Neo Fasisct Right Wing Corporations
julian assange and bradley manning are heros of our post modern world. thank you wiki leaks for all of the revealing secrets you shared w/ the world (and hopefully will continue to share).
"WikiLeaks' next "battle" would be to ensure that the Internet does not turn into a vast surveillance tool for governments and corporations."
too late...
"He says he is the victim of a smear campaign."
i believe him.
freedom to the people for the people. ¡Ya basta!
...peace...
The people gather to discuss the man. >
"He's chasing fame." said Olig.
"Romantic hipster with other people's stories to tell." said Shmal.
"He is clearly brilliant and is a very deep thinker", remarked Victoria.
"What is important to those outside of his circle of family and friends is what he has DONE. And that is absolutely heroic and epochal", Caleb pointed out.
"It's a viable philosophy ; even if we can't live by it", Areti said.
"Its hard to decide what's believable", complained Cassandra.
"Cult-like, idealistic, romantic.", said Rai dismissively.
"Hero!", answered Leos.
"They want him for 'questioning'", said Ax.
"And he doesn't really have rights, he'll be arrested." replied Futu.
"This man believes without a doubt that what he's doing is right and just and it is all beyond him." Johnn said.
"Clearly he does have a cause", Ike admitted.
"We can definitely learn from it if we stop being so afraid of it", Areti countered.
"The internal struggle is quite intense for the astonishingly gifted", Mage offered.
"He is a true revolutionary for our times", Johnn agreed.
" Unlike most humans, the man thinks", said Han.
"Who cares what he is or what he thinks" sneered Resi.
Perso remarked, "He seems to be a man who is so heavily into philosophy that he has lost sight of reality."
Verit stood on a rock and said to all, "There is a purpose and agenda to your demonization of him and that is to discredit him. We on the other hand, are just more appreciative of being told the truth by someone, for once."
"His goal is to bring truth to bear to help create order.." Dyus concurred.
Byn interrupted. "I think he's an operative."
"You have pigeonholed a man who seeks no favors" whispered Logi.
"His sensitivity, intelligence and honorable intentions are undeniable" said old Pheus.
"A very bright fellow, comes across as well spoken and thoughtful , but is horribly misguided", Cair agreed.
"He obviously has handlers." Eniu joked.
"How dare he be so different from us!" said Eru.
"Our government is paid to protect us!" cried Olig.
Ree was saying, "He has the conviction to put himself on the line for a greater good. Hard to comprehend."
"Doesn't mean I can't find his ramblings bizarre" said Perso.
"I am pretty certain that he wanted the world to know these thoughts", Victoria replied.
. "He's interesting -- a young would-be hero, a complete romantic, even down, I fear, to the tragic ending. Very smart, courageous , noble, idealistic . A bit too reckless. He's like a knight in search of a dragon to slay. His chosen dragons are the power structures of his time" spake Cele, with a deep sigh.
Nivil spoke up. "I believe he is a marked man."
"I wish I could shelter him, protect him", Cele prayed.
"He will be remembered for the light, however brief, he brought to the dark", mused Hand.
========================================================
(I wrote this last year and saved it, and when I just copy/pasted it, it wouldn't retain the original paragraphing.)
Quotes are verbatim from a Dec 2, 2010 article discussing the persecution of Julian Assange.
The names are derived from short groups of consecutive letters in the original posters' screen names.
Quotes source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-unger/julian-assange-blog_b_791173.html?#comments
FROD: Interesting post. Reminds me of the parable of the blind man and the elephant, only I'd expand that to include the blind man's comments when he was inside a Fellini-style circus tent. It also brings to mind what a policeman once told me: that after an accident, you can take details from a number of onlookers and they all will manage to see different things. Perception can be quite selective and involve far more projection than most would wish to own or admit.
BTW: I realize a few people have coached me on how to make paragraphs, but honestly, I need to see it done ON my computer. Left brain instructions are Chinese to me.
That, for some reason, reminds me of a story I read a few years ago. Two cars were in a pretty bad accident. The driver of one car, a woman, got out of the car and went over to the other driver who was badly shaken.
She said, "You look awful! Maybe this will make you feel better," and handed him a bottle of wine. He took a drink out of the bottle and thanked her, saying he felt a bit better. Then he asked her if she would like a drink also.
She answered, "No, I'll wait until after the police have left."
Visa, PayPal, et al had resisted the call by govt. to cut off WikiLeaks until it was announced that they had a copy of the hard drive of the CEO of BofA and were going to release it in early 2011. The roof fell in almost immediately. The release of govt. secrets didn't bother them much, but the possible exposure of business conspiracies caught them by the gonads and the reaction was quick and unified. And the neocons complain about the UN being a world govt! Assange has aged markedly since.
He was asked during a public and recorded conversation why the hard drive info had not been released and he responded that WikiLeaks was essentially threatened and blackmailed not to release the info and when queried as to the nature of the threats, said that we could imagine, but he couldn't comment further. I suspect he is keeping it as insurance against disappearing. I would! It must be powerful stuff that could knock the support out from under the rickety world vampire financial system. If it is released, you better have enough cash on hand to buy eggs and beer for at least a month, because the electronic money system will probably be down.
It is tragic that a country founded on the ideal of personal secrecy and government transparency has exactly flipped that ideal. And what is more tragic is that too many people are OK with that because we are being "protected".
The person that gave the hard drive, if still alive, probably still has it and has either sold it back for considerable or is in hiding. So that part of the story is still ongoing.
Wasn't the whole purpose of Wikileaks to publish this very sort of material? Could the information change the game quickly enough that it would be too late to attack Wikileaks or any leaker(s)?