Wikileaks

[William]

Do you guys support Wikileaks? In my personal belief they are like my new heroes.
(and the last hope, in my opinion, for us to catch the government doing something they aren't suppose to be doing.)

[2348z]

Personally, no. But, I do like that they expose the government's doing but, I hate they've mainly picked the military, I which it would go more into the financials and what not, the stuff that could show us why it's going..

but do you see that Mastercard's website is down? lol, Wikileaks strikes back..

[HiddenKnowledge]

They are first releasing some parts of it, the financial part will come later.

[2348z]

If they make it that far, they are being attacked from all angles and everyone like mastercard visa paypal are all backing out..

[Zach]

Even though they are putting some informants in danger, their overall goal is righteous. It exposes precisely what is going on inside our government. If something shady is going down, then the people have a right to know about it. If the government doesn't like the people knowing about it, then they shouldn't be doing it.

[Matt]

Wikileaks' purpose is awesome, what I don't love is hackers throwing DDOS-bombs around like beach balls nowadays :/.

[William]

Wikileaks' purpose is awesome, what I don't love is hackers throwing DDOS-bombs around like beach balls nowadays :/.

I like what they are doing, it shows that not only will they not silence us but we won't go without a fight. I've been following this war ALL DAY, its really epic and I believe the future of this world, right now, depends all on Wikileaks.

I'll give you all the update: The hackers website was shut down by their webhost, Twitter shut down their account (and they began DDOSing twitter lol), facebook shut down their account, and that's all I know at the moment. Oh, and mastercards website is back up (for now)

[Vanilla]

I also like the fact, that they expose shady military stuff such as this
http://www.collateralmurder.com/ - and other crimes.

But I don't see why they should have any reason to expose bilateral relations to the public, and personal attributes (such as Berlusconis' wild parties), when they are to absolutely no good. Also, global diplomacy and politics is already fragile enough as it is, and if diplomacy fails, war or conflicts is usually the next step.
The same goes for the financial secrets, there is a reason to these being secret. There is no reason to trigger unnecessary financial crises.

[HiddenKnowledge]

If they make it that far, they are being attacked from all angles and everyone like mastercard visa paypal are all backing out..

They will make it that far, or do you think they would stop all torrent traffic in the world? There is more then one way of sharing information. :) And the information is shared between multiple people over the world.

And they could release it all at once if they would want, but that would probarly cause a war...

[HiddenKnowledge]

Dear friends,

The massive campaign of intimidation against WikiLeaks is sending a chill through free press advocates everywhere.

Legal experts say WikiLeaks has likely broken no laws. Yet top US politicians have called it a terrorist group and commentators have urged assassination of its staff. The organization has come under massive government and corporate attack, but WikiLeaks is only publishing information provided by a whistleblower. And it has partnered with the world's leading newspapers (NYT, Guardian, Spiegel etc) to carefully vet the information it publishes.

The massive extra-judicial intimidation of WikiLeaks is an attack on democracy. We urgently need a public outcry for freedom of the press and expression. Sign the petition to stop the crackdown and forward this email to everyone -- let's get to 1 million voices and take out full page ads in US newspapers this week!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petiti...a8f4301665

WikiLeaks isn't acting alone -- it's partnered with the top newspapers in the world (New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, etc) to carefully review 250,000 US diplomatic cables and remove any information that it is irresponsible to publish. Only 800 cables have been published so far. Past WikiLeaks publications have exposed government-backed torture, the murder of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and corporate corruption.

The US government is currently pursuing all legal avenues it has to stop WikiLeaks from publishing more cables, but the laws of democracies protect freedom of the press. The US and other governments may not like the laws that protect our freedom of expression, but that's exactly why it's so important that we have them, and why only a democratic process can change them.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether WikiLeaks and the leading newspapers it's partnered with are releasing more information than the public should see. Whether the releases undermine diplomatic confidentiality and whether that's a good thing. Whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has the personal character of a hero or a villain. But none of this justifies a vicious campaign of intimidation to silence a legal media outlet by governments and corporations. Click below to join the call to stop the crackdown:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petiti...a8f4301665

Ever wonder why the media so rarely gives the full story of what happens behind the scenes? This is why - because when they do, governments can be vicious in their response. And when that happens, it's up to the public to stand up for our democratic rights to a free press and freedom of expression. Never has there been a more vital time for us to do so.

With hope,
Ricken, Emma, Alex, Alice, Maria Paz and the rest of the Avaaz team.

SOURCES:

Law experts say WikiLeaks in the clear (ABC)
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content...086781.htm

WikiLeaks are a bunch of terrorists, says leading U.S. congressman (Mail Online)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...-King.html

Cyber guerrillas can help US (Financial Times)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d3dd7c40-ff15-...z17QvQ4Ht5

Amazon drops WikiLeaks under political pressure (Yahoo)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101201/tc_...ressamazon

"WikiLeaks avenged by hacktivists" (PC World):
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/ar...vists.html

US Gov shows true control over Internet with WikiLeaks containment (Tippett.org)
http://www.tippett.org/2010/12/us-gov-sh...ntainment/

US embassy cables culprit should be executed, says Mike Huckabee (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec...e-huckabee

WikiLeaks ditched by MasterCard, Visa. Who's next? (The Christian Science Monitor)
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Hori...Who-s-next

Assange's Interpol Warrant Is for Having Sex Without a Condom (The Slatest)
http://slatest.slate.com/id/2276690/

All WikiLeaks have done is publish documents that have been given to it. Now the interesting thing about that is WikiLeaks is publishing these documents in association with some of the great newspapers of the world.