so why is wikileaks a good thing again.com

[Hissyspit]

http://sowhyiswikileaksagoodthingagain.com

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WikiLeaks exposed 217 cases of UN peace-keepers being accused of sexually abusing and impregnating girls in eastern Congo.
January 14th, 2009
http://mirror.wikileaks.info/wiki/UN_finds_217_sex_abuse_claims_against_blue_helmets/index.html

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[EmilyKent]

1. That one item alone proves it is.

Not to mention all the other things it's exposing.

[bobthedrummer]

2. K&R n/t

[struggle4progress]

3. Um .. that wasn't a wikileaks revelation. The UN was investigating such stories years earlier

U.N. Sexual Abuse Alleged in Congo
Peacekeepers Accused in Draft Report
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 16, 2004; Page A26
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 15 -- U.N. peacekeepers threatened U.N. investigators investigating allegations of sexual misconduct in Congo and sought to bribe witnesses to change incriminating testimony, a confidential U.N. draft report says ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3145-2004Dec15.html

December 23, 2004
Sex scandal in Congo threatens to engulf UN's peacekeepers
They should be rebuilding the country, but foreign workers face serious accusations
By Jonathan Clayton and James Bone
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article405213.ece

Saturday, 8 January, 2005, 02:58 GMT
DR Congo sex abuse claims upheld
By Susannah Price
BBC News, United Nations
Some 10,000 UN troops have been serving in DR Congo
A United Nations inquiry has found that UN peacekeepers working in DR Congo sexually abused girls as young as 13 ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4156819.stm

[Hissyspit]

9. Proof makes all the difference.

Scott Hoton investigated the suppression of Spanish investigation of Bush torture; people here speculated on it. No one of us had proof.

[struggle4progress]

20. The story about sexual exploitation in the Congo was widely reported years ago

and it was widely discussed here at DU. It was a story with international consequences, and it produced some prosecutions and convictions. The real problem is that the UN itself has no disciplinary authority over troops serving as UN peace-keepers: that authority remains with the country that supplied the troops, so all prosecutions for such offenses must be conducted by the source country

This story was in headlines worldwide in 2004/5. Wikileaks didn't even have a website until 2006

[Hissyspit]

22. I know that.

You are misrepresenting what WikiLeaks does and is. If your problem is with the website in the OP, then you should address the website instead of attempting to marginalize WikiLeaks with the 'nothing new here' talking point. There is plenty of room for debate about what "good" is, and that's an issue with this website, and I have a particular problem with the wording of the "climategate" leak on the website (it completely misrepresents), but this website is not WikiLeaks.

[struggle4progress]

24. The point of your OP seems to be "Wikileaks exposed problems in the Congo

so Wikileaks is good." I think that's a poor argument, and I've explained clearly why

[suston96]

4. That one item proves it's a bad idea.......

217 cases of accusations? Any follow-up on whether the accusations were real and led to convictions?

Sorry, cannot get to the link for the full story. I repeat, any follow-up on how those accusations turned out?

How many cases of destructive violations of privacy of innocent people?

[EmilyKent]

6. Can't solve a problem if you

don't know it exists.

[suston96]

8. Sorry, don't know what that means....

There must be public records of what happened to those accusations. When exposures are made they must be responsible and fair. This helter-skelter throwing out of all this information without the ability to view the sources is dangerous and solves very little.

[laughingliberal]

18. Yeah, too bad there's no responsible press to follow up on some of what's found. nt

[Bluerthanblue]

17. see post # 3- the UN was aware of this before wikileaks

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9702121#9702187

The proof is good. I don't believe I've heard ANYONE on here say that everything about wikileaks is wrong.

But I've heard many people refuse to believe that anything is.

:shrug:

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[goforit]

5. wow...thanks.

[laughingliberal]

10. But someone on DU said it was all about Prince Andrew and a blonde with big boobs!!!! nt

[laughingliberal]

11. Here's a good one

WikiLeaks has demonstrated how Australia, Finland and Denmark are using child pornography as an excuse to censor legitimate websites.

[jberryhill]

12. That is not a Wikileaks disclosure

That has been widely reported previously

[laughingliberal]

31. Well, I found many reports online when I searched but none dated earlier than this one:

Wikileaks: 600 docs show UN Peacekeepers raping and stealing!
by the national gadfly, Tue Jan 13, 2009 at 07:28:10 PM EST

This bulletin just came in from Wikileaks:

Wikileaks has released over 600 United Nations investigative reports, over 70 of which are classified. The reports expose sensitive matters from allegations of hundreds of European peace-keepers sexually abusing--and impregnating--refugee girls, to generals in Peru using Swiss bank accounts to engage in multi-million dollar procurement fraud. <snip>

http://mydd.com/users/the-national-gadfly/posts/wikileaks-600-docs-show-un-peacekeepers-raping-and-stealing

If it was reported before then, it doesn't appear it got much attention.

[jberryhill]

38. Try 2004

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15363-2004Nov26.html

U.N. Says Its Workers Abuse Women in Congo
Report Laments a 'Significant' Incidence of Pedophilia, Prostitution and Rape

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 27, 2004; Page A27

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 26 -- Sexual exploitation of women and girls by U.N. peacekeepers and bureaucrats in the U.N. mission in Congo "appears to be significant, wide-spread and ongoing," according to a confidential U.N. report that documents cases of pedophilia, prostitution and rape.

[laughingliberal]

40. Looks like Wikileaks released a massive amount of information on it.

Perhaps some details not known before. Regardless, I don't see how having more eyes on something like this would not be of benefit.

[jberryhill]

41. Perhaps some details not known before?

Don't you know?

Obviously your eyes aren't going to be bothered by it too much.

[laughingliberal]

43. I'm for anyone who gets more information to the public & increases the chance for more people to...

see it. Why wouldn't that be a good thing? I don't like the shadow governments and I don't like police states. I'm for anyone who's helping to pull the curtains back on them.

[laughingliberal]

13. And another:

WikiLeaks revealed how Trafigura, an African oil company, caused widespread illness through a toxic gas dump.


Wow! Some DUers said he was only releasing things to hurt Obama and the US!

[suston96]

14. This would have been a better link than just a "wikileaks dump".......

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/87600

[laughingliberal]

15. Oh. Another good one not about the US!

The leaked Kroll report may have shifted the 2008 general elections in Kenya, an online whistleblowing activist claimed on Monday.

Julian Assange the most talked about man in the US media today is credited with leaking the report which highlighted massive looting of state coffers during the regime of former president Daniel Arap Moi.
Australian born Assange is the Editor-in-Chief of WikiLeaks a website that collects and posts highly classified documents and videos online. His website has sparked a heated debate on how much the public should know after classified Afghan war documents were posted on the site with the White House saying that this has a potential to harm America’s military.
In 2003, according to Mr Assange who was speaking in a Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference, the then newly elected government of Mwai Kibaki commissioned the Kroll investigation shortly after his election on an anti-corruption platform. The report was handed over to the Kenyan government in 2004 a fact that was confirmed in 2007 by the government spokesman Alfred Mutua. However Mr. Mutua dubbed the report as “incomplete and inaccurate and based on a lot of hearsay.”

Mr Assange said he went to Kenya in 2007 and was able to get hold of the report just prior to the December elections. He said that he released the report three days after Moi had announced his support of President Kibaki’s re-election bid.

http://habarizanyumbani.jambonewspot.com/2010/07/26/wikileaks-founder-on-kenya-corruption-and-more/

[Dogtown]

16. K&R n/t

[laughingliberal]

19. One more:

WikiLeaks uncovered the truth behind Iceland's 2009 financial crisis, bringing many corrupt managers to justice.

Kaupthing’s loan book exposed and an injunction ordered against RÚV
by ALDA on AUGUST 1, 2009
Yesterday the website WikiLeaks* published TOP SECRET information about loans made by Kaupthing bank just before the Big Meltdown last October. The info is a 209-page inside document containing slides used at a meeting of the bank’s loans committee on September 25 last year.

The leaked document shows definitively that the bank made massive, high-risk loans to a select few, most notably the largest shareholders in the bank and associated parties. These loans had more than EUR 45M exposure to the client and were in many cases awarded without any collateral or covenants <snip>

http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/08/kaupthings-loan-book-exposed-and-an-injunction-ordered-against-ruv.html

[struggle4progress]

21. That's nice ... but there was already an investigation into the bank, which

had collapsed almost a year earlier, and the investigator forwarded his recommendations to prosecutors, at almost exactly the same time of the Wikileaks release: so it's not clear to me that Wikileaks accomplished anything except stealing the spotlight briefly. Hey! Quick! Look over here! It's us! Wikileaks!

[laughingliberal]

23. Huh. Would tend to make one wonder why they threw such a fit about Wikileaks publishing it.

As soon as the information became available on WikiLeaks, Kaupthing’s legal department went into overdrive trying to get the info removed. They started by threatening the site holders with a lawsuit. The site holders responded by giving them the finger, to wit:

No. We will not assist the remains of Kaupthing, or its clients,
to hide its dirty laundry from the global community. Attempts by
Kaupthing or its agents to discover the source of the document in
question may be a criminal violation of both Belgium source protection
laws and the Swedish constitution. Who is your US counsel?

Not to be undone, Kaupthing today applied for an injunction against RÚV which was planning to cover the matter during its evening news hour . Unbelievably THE INJUNCTION WAS GRANTED just before the news was to go on the air. For some reason it was only aimed at RÚV, not at the other Icelandic media, although the latest is that Kaupthing has threatened injunctions against them, too, if they do not remove all discussion of the matter from their sites.

http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/08/kaupthings-loan-book-exposed-and-an-injunction-ordered-against-ruv.html

[struggle4progress]

26. There was a referral for criminal investigation and prosecution; I can't address

Icelandic law works under the circumstances or what steps defense attorneys can take there. The question is whether Wikileaks actually exposed something in that case: my point is that the Wikileaks release seems to have been timed to steal the spotlight from the announcement of a referral for criminal investigation and prosecution, so it's not at all clear to me that Wikileaks was somehow in the forefront of exposing wrongdoing associated with the bank collapse

[laughingliberal]

27. Perhaps the point is the information was more widely disseminated by Wikileaks and, thus, became...

harder to bury. How many investigations do we hear about that are ordered, disappear from the news, only to hear a couple of years later the investigation cleared the party of wrong doing or assessed a pittance of a fine?

There had to be some reason they went into overdrive to kill the story on Wikileaks.

[struggle4progress]

33. Your claim was "WikiLeaks uncovered the truth behind Iceland's 2009 financial crisis, bringing

many corrupt managers to justice"

I pointed out the WikiLeaks release you cited was essentially timed to coincide with a criminal referral, by an officially appointed investigator

So your claim seems dishonest to me

[laughingliberal]

34. Wasn't my claim. I took it from the website in the OP. However, I notice you provide no support...

for your assertions.

So, cough up your links and let me decide if Wikileaks' release contained unknown information.

[struggle4progress]

35. Just look at the time frame: your claim is that the 31 July 2009 wikileaks disclosure

exposed corruption in the Kaupthing bank

Here's a blog from May 2009:

Because the best way to rob a bank is to own one*
by ALDA on MAY 11, 2009
According to a report on the RÚV evening news, the Financial Supervisory Authority has so far sent ten cases to the office of the special investigator of the bank collapse, and five more are imminent. The FSA also expects to send 15 more cases <at least> to be investigated before the end of the year. These involve insider trading, market manipulation and high-risk lending ... http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/05/because-the-best-way-to-rob-a-bank-is-to-own-one.html

Here's the same blog in early July 2009:

Kaupthing bank dishes up yet another scandal
by ALDA on JULY 2, 2009
... We already know that Kaupthing “loaned” some ISK 500 billion <USD 4 billion> to its largest owners and their affiliates just days before the bank collapsed last October. Now it has transpired that Kaupthing’s chief lawyer Helgi Sigurðsson received a bullet loan of ISK 450 million <USD 3.5 million> from the bank ... Anyway, bad as that is, it pales in comparison to the nearly ISK 900 million <USD 7 million> loan awarded to one Kristján Arason, ex-head of the bank’s corporate division ... http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/07/kaupthing-bank-dishes-up-yet-another-scandal.html

So the investigation was ongoing and rather predates the 31 July 2009 public wikileaks release of the loanbook -- which investigators and prosecutors already had. It's just dishonest to claim wikileaks was responsible for the investigations and prosecutions, which actually began long before the wikileaks release

[laughingliberal]

36. I don't believe it's possible for you to show they already had all the information contained in...

the 209 page inside document that Wikileaks published or that everyone they exposed was already known.

If nothing else, I know there was a lot in his release the public did not know. Kind of like we know, in a general way, that the Fed funneled a ton of money to the banksters but we don't know how much.

[struggle4progress]

37. The bank had been taken over by the government

[laughingliberal]

39. Yes. Here's what the site I linked to was questioning:

Particularly baffling in this is that New Kaupthing bank is not the same bank as the one that collapsed – the bank that applied for the injunction today is a bank OWNED BY THE PUBLIC SECTOR and it is hard to see why it goes to such great lengths to keep this information hidden from its owners – the Icelandic public. To the point of legally banning the national broadcaster – also owned by the people – from discussing matters of such great public importance.

http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/08/kaupthings-loan-book-exposed-and-an-injunction-ordered-against-ruv.html

Close to the same question I had. If there was nothing not known posted on Wikileaks, why would they have thrown such a fit to try and get it taken down? If it was all 'old news,' wouldn't that have been something of a waste of energy to have it taken off one website when everyone already knew? Doesn't make any sense. I'm guessing it exposed things that were not known, at that point.

[kgnu_fan]

25. .

[Azathoth]

28. WikiLeaks has the potential to be a vital international resource

Unfortunately, Assange's ego is cutting the organization's throat.

[laughingliberal]

29. He has it set up to carry on just fine if something happens to him. nm

[Azathoth]

30. It won't matter if he turns the organization into a universally reviled pariah n/t

[laughingliberal]

32. Universally reviled pariah as definded by the US media. Lol. nt

[kgnu_fan]

42. Wikileaks is good for democracy --- USA needs to take some bitter medicine