Wikileaks had 1.2 million documents during the Bush administration.

[pnwmom]

According to it own site, Wilileaks had over 1.2 million documents by 2007.

Funny that they were never calling for Bush’s head. Or Cheney’s. Are we supposed to believe that Assange had nothing on the Bushes?

Here’s an interesting quote from Wikileaks:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080216000537/http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks:About#Wikileaks_has_1.2_million_documents.3F


"We do not require that every source document is analyzed, but it is important to get the framework right so political impact is strong.
“How do you measure the authenticity of any document?
“Wikileaks does not pass judgement on the authenticity of documents. That's up to the readers, editors and communities to do.”


A key difference between real journalists and Assange is that real journalists do their best to check their sources -- to get anonymous tips confirmed -- and to check for ulterior motives. By contrast, Wikileaks leakers are all anonymous, so anyone can post anything. And, according to Wikileaks, having a strong political impact is more important than having authentic documents.

So what kind of political impact are they striving for? Let's see. They've called on Clinton to resign. They've called on Obama to resign. But nothing in their cache of 1.2 million would have prompted them to call on Bush to resign. Hmmm . . . .

[FrenchieCat]

1. but, but, but......

it's about information and the right to know, baby! :headbang:

[sabrina 1]

49. Yes, it is about information. You jump to conclusions based on wrong information

in this OP. Wikileaks did have over a million documents in 2007, BUT, they did NOT have documents from the US. Do you understand that the world doesn't revolve around the U.S.?

They did not have the material they leaked on the Iraq War until Manning gave it to them.

Do you know WHEN that was? It was NOT in 2006.

They had documents from countries all over the world and they DID LEAK THEM. Do you know anything about this organization and what it has done in less than four years?

Do you think Whistle-blowers fall out of trees and all one million documents in Wikileaks' possession were from the U.S. back in 2006?

This OP is so totally incorrect, so full of paranoid assumptions, if I had written it I would either start correcting the errors, or just delete it and start over again, with some facts this time.

Again, the million docs Wikileaks had were not from the U.S. They did NOT withhold documents to hurt Obama. They DIDN'T HAVE THEM. When they got them, they released them which was over the past several months.

[Le Taz Hot]

63. You need to post this seperately

to counter the misinformation in the OP. Really.

[sabrina 1]

65. Thank you, I think I will. This whole post was so

totally wrong I didn't know where to begin to try to correct it. Eg, Wikileaks is an award-winning news org. that has been exposing corruption and human rights violations in countries that are NOT the U.S. since its inception. It has received several awards for its work, one from Amnesty International.

This blatant attempt to smear them to protect one politician in this country is simply mind boggling to see on a democratic board.

Thank you for reading. I don't have time right now, but later I will be posting some facts about the organization. Something I thought people here already knew, but this post and some of the comments surprised me in their ignorance to be honest ~ :-)

[Bluerthanblue]

2. Hmmmm....

good questions.

[Write Left]

3. Who told you anyone can post anything on Wikileaks? I've never heard that one.

[pnwmom]

7. Read the link. It's from their site. Welcome to DU, by the way. n/t

[Write Left]

14. Thanks for the welcome.

The page you're linking to seems to discuss the development of technology that never came to fruition.

[pnwmom]

20. Not so far, anyway. n/t

[boppers]

31. Other way around. They stopped using the technology.

The "wiki" in their name (Wikileaks) was from the wiki software, as created by Ward Cunningham. It allowed rapid, multi-user, building of web pages. Mediawiki software is used for Wikipedia, for example.

A downside to wiki technology is that false information is easily created with such software, so it requires heavy user participation to scrub/clean information.

[sabrina 1]

58. Wrong. You are completely wrong. Read what they say here:

http://www.wikileaks.ch/submissions.html

1. Material we accept

Wikileaks will accept restricted or censored material of political, ethical, diplomatic or historical significance. We do not accept rumor, opinion, other kinds of first hand accounts or material that is publicly available elsewhere. This is because our journalists write news stories based on the material, and then provide a link to the supporting documentation to prove our stories are true. It's not news if it has been publicly available elsewhere first, and we are a news organisation. However, from time to time, the editors may re-publish material that has been made public previously elsewhere if the information is in the public interest but did not have proper news analysis when first released.

If you are sending us something, we encourage you to include a brief description of why the documents is important and what the most significants parts are within the document. It will help our journalists to write up and released the story much faster.

You completely misinterpreted the quotes you placed in your OP also.

It is obvious your claim that they will 'accept anything' as if they don't care about facts, is totally incorrect. I wish you would admit that.

[glinda]

9. I have heard him say they verify/research the info before posting.

[pnwmom]

13. The link is from the Wikileaks site. Maybe you misheard. n/t

[boppers]

25. No, it's not, anybody can look at the URL and see that's false.

It's from archive.org.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080216000537/http://www.wi...

Not the current site, it's from an older version of the site, back when they used a wiki model for content posting. They don't do that anymore.

[Catherina]

Unbelievable. Thank you boppers. n/t

[laughingliberal]

55. Thanks. I'm thinking the poster hasn't spent much time on Wikileaks' site. nt

[glinda]

26. Maybe you misread. I said that I have heard him say otherwise. I know what the linked site says. I

know you do not like Assange also.

[sabrina 1]

11. Clearly the OP has not read Wikileaks site where they

explain what kind of material they will accept. This OP contains zero facts. As you can see there are no links, so it's just the opinion of the OP, with no basis in fact.

I have read Wikileaks criteria for material they will accept. It is clearly explained on their site.

I would suggest people go there and read it for themselves, but the Obama administration has been censoring the site, so you may not be able to get the information from there. Censorship is a very evil thing and far more of a threat to a democracy than all the documents leaked by Wikileaks so far.

There are other sites hosting Wikileaks though, so it is still available as hundreds of other sites have volunteered to help keep them online.

[pnwmom]

15. What are you talking about? The quotes are from a Wikileak document.

Maybe you should actually follow the link to the document in the Wikileaks archives.

Here's another quote, from the same link at the OP:

"How many steps are there between my submission and publication?

"For online submissions, all a whistleblower needs to do is upload the document and specify the language, country and industry of origin.
The documents go into queue to obscure the date and time of the upload. Internally the document is distributed to backup servers immediately.
However, just like a file uploaded to Wikipedia, unless other people care enough to link it into to rest of the tree of Wikileaks information, very few will come across it. In this manner only those documents the world finds to be of significance are prominent; those it finds irrelevant are available, but unseen, until perhaps one day they take on an unexpected poignancy."

[Tunkamerica]

30. click on the submissions tab on the current website

i'm not sure why you're using an archived page instead of the current page

that's what the previous commenter is talking about

[sabrina 1]

41. I am talking about your claim that they will accept anything.

You gave the impression that they don't care what people send them. You have completely misinterpreted what they mean by the statements you did quote.

They require material that is authentic and can be verified. It says so right on their site. You wrote the OP, it is your job to provide backup for what you are claiming.

You also claimed that they had one million documents and gave the impression that those documents were from the U.S and could have brought down Bush, but that they waited until Obama was in the WH to do it.

That was false. They did not HAVE U.S. leaks until Manning sent them in. And that was NOT in 2006.

Are you aware that they have leaked documents about many other countries for several years? People outside this country have a very different view of the world than most Americans. They know a lot more about the bad guys in other countries than most Americans, and that is why Wikileaks was started. To go after bad guys EVERYWHERE. Even after they have left office.

I guess you would consider them authentic ONLY if they were working for Democrats! Very narrow minded of you.

[Tunkamerica]

28. sorry commented to wrong person

.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. makes one wonder

[sabrina 1]

5. The organization started in 2007. What exactly is your point?

Much of what has been released by Wikileaks is devastating to Bush and Cheney.

How could an org. that just started up release that many documents to the press BEFORE establishing some trust with the press?

This OP is just silly. No one has been more damaged by these documents than the Bush administration.

Clearly you have not bothered to read them. No one who has even begun to read them, could make a judgement like this.

Unrec'd for just plane silliness.

[pnwmom]

8. It actually started in 2006. The Bush administration would be far more

damaged if it was still in office.

[sabrina 1]

32. The site was launched in 2006 but they were not publishing

leaked material from the U.S. right off the bat. They didn't get that material until Manning leaked it to them. And that was certainly not back in 2006.

You are thinking like a party loyalist from a single country. The world is a big place. The U.S. is NOT the world. You forget that these are not Americans. They are from all over the world. Their goal was not to bring down Bush. Their goal was to encourage people from all the over the world to provide them with documented proof, and yes they WANT LEGITIMATE verifiable authenthic documents, contrary to what you claimed in your OP, documented proof of wrong-doing by government officials ANYWHERE in the world.

So YOU would have liked them to direct their activities to the U.S. alone, to damage a political party that you oppose. Their goals are far bigger than any one country and they are not operating based on U.S. political terms of office. A war criminal doesn't have to be nailed while in office, in fact they RARELY are. Intelligent people know it takes time, sometimes decades, to get them.

Your view is confined to 'local' politics, local in the global sense. Do you really think everything revolves around the U.S. and around Democrats and Republicans to the rest of the world?

Wikileaks DID have, according to them over one million documents but they were not necessarily from the U.S. were they? They published material that brought down some pretty nasty guys in other countries, because THEY HAD THE MATERIAL to do so.

What makes you think they had anything that could have damaged Bush in 2006? We know who leaked to them from the U.S. Manning did not leak to them in 2006 did he?

You made a claim that they had a million documents, and then went on to assume that they could have damaged Bush. Can you prove that there was someone other than Manning who leaked material to them related to Bush back in 2006?

As far as I know they had nothing on the U.S. worth publishing, until Manning leaked to them. And they leaked it as soon as they could. It's inconvenient that Bush was no longer in office. But whistle-blowers are not easy to find, especially ones with authentic documentation of what they are claiming.

You made several errors in your OP. I think you should correct them unless you have some proof to back them up, frankly. This is how rumors get started and how people become so misinformed.

[pnwmom]

If Assange is so neutral, why is he calling on Obama to resign?

Shouldn't he be letting U.S. citizens do that?

[sabrina 1]

56. This administration, shamefully

has attacked his organization and threatened to charge him with espionage. This is ludicrous. Their unfounded attacks on him have resulted in death threats against him AND his son.

Obama is protecting Bush and Cheney. They are severely damaged by these leaks. Nearly everything so far relates to their policies.

Obama protected Bush and his torturers from the Spanish court. These documents have revealed that Obama pressured that court NOT to prosecute Bush torturers.

This administration has acted in the most outrageous way towards Wikileaks, and have failed completely to address the real crimes verified in the documents.

Any world leader who aids and abets torturers and war criminals, SHOULD resign. We felt that way about Bush, in fact we were a lot less kind, we wanted him prosecuted.

I don't care who the president is, TORTURE and WAR CRIMES are NOT acceptable. I am devastated to know that the president I placed all my hopes in to end the Bush nightmare, was, behind our backs, PROTECTING BUSH.

Assange has not claimed to be neutral. He was very clear that he started Wikileaks to go after the 'bad guys' around the world.

Obama right now is acting no better than Bush. And I have a feeling that if Bush was president you would be defending Assange. So, what changed?

YOU are helping Bush by attacking Wikileaks. Do you want Bush exposed to the world or not?

We KNOW Obama doesn't. He is Bush's fiercest and most powerful defender. So what do you want? You seem to think Obama is right about everything. Do you agree with him silencing Wikileaks and protecting Bush now? What is it you want? I don't understand.

[Goldstein1984]

6. Well, the government certainly seems to be responding as if...

fact checking wasn't really needed.

As far as the timing, are you upset because Wikileaks waited until a Democrat was running the evil empire to expose it.

Perhaps, like the rest of us, he was expecting more of Obama, and decided to start releasing documents when Obama merely perpetuated and even expanded Bush/Cheney policies?

Facts are facts. The problem is a U.S. foreign/military/economic policy that enriches the few at the expense of the many. Since that policy transcends administrations, timing is really irrelevant for anyone whose concern in moral rather than political.

[pnwmom]

12. One of the "facts" they have recently released is a list of facilities

around the world that the U.S. has deemed as critical to national security -- things like dams, pipelines, etc. Do you honestly think Americans are better off having that degree of "transparency"? Do you really support making it THAT easy for potential terrorists to decide on their targets?

If Assange weren't getting so political -- calling on Obama and Clinton to resign -- I still would condemn what he is doing: indiscriminately releasing anonymously-leaked documents onto the web without regard for consequences. But if he weren't so politically motivated, I wouldn't be as suspicious as I am now of his motives.

[Lord Magus]

16. Things like dams and pipelines tend to be more than a little obvious.

As in, you can't exactly hide them. Everybody with an Internet connection or even a bunch of paper maps can find them.

[pnwmom]

22. The internet won't tell you which ones the U.S. government considers critical.

Or at least, it hasn't until now. The installations mentioned were all over the world, by the way, not just in the U.S.

[Lord Magus]

42. It wouldn't be hard to figure out.

It just takes an IQ slightly higher than the average Teabagger.

[Goldstein1984]

24. Truth is truth

Democracy and secrecy are incompatible.

I think transparency is more important than security.

The U.S. government has gone too far in the direction of secrecy, and the opposition has responded in kind.

I am far more comfortable with the degree of transparency than I am with the degree of secrecy.

Perhaps we would have fewer secrets if we had fewer skeletons in the closet.

Yes, I'm very comfortable with the limits placed on the empire by transparency.

For example, the hypocrisy regarding our response the the military coup in Honduras. That transparency exposes a corrupt foreign policy based on economics, not justice.

The good outweighs the bad.

[pnwmom]

36. Sometimes secrecy is vitally important, even in a democracy.

For example, from the London Daily Mail:

"Just imagine that D-Day is only weeks away.

"Months of secrecy and disinformation have succeeded in confusing the Germans about when or where the inevitable invasion will come.

"Then an anarchist activist, insisting that in a democracy everyone has the right to know everything, publishes the secret plans for Operation Overlord.

"Inconceivable then, but today that is precisely what WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, would do in a similar situation."

SNIP

Pressed on whether his actions risk harming the innocent - soldiers on active service for example - he says, in a scary echo of the kind of the language used by the military that he despises, that 'collateral damage' is inevitable, and concedes that WikiLeaks might end up with 'blood on our hands'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297917/Is-Wiki...

[Goldstein1984]

43. Secrecy has been taken too far

We aren't talking D-Day being exposed before the fact, we're talking about war crimes, duplicity and hypocrisy being exposed after-the-fact.

The good of this involuntary transparency outweighs the bad.

The only negative I see is the response of the government. I was pleased to learn that Assange was smart enough to disperse thousands of copies of a Doomsday file to cover himself.

[pnwmom]

45. How do you know we're not talking about defensive plans being explosed

before the fact? Or other harmful effects?

For example, they've already leaked a list of facilities all over the world that the U.S. considers to be critical to our security. Things like pipelines, dams, etc. What is the good in making such a list easily available to anyone on the internet? Yes, someone already can search for pipelines on the internet. But the typical terrorist would have no way of putting together a list of which installations worldwide are most critical to the U.S. But now Assange has handed it to them.

[Goldstein1984]

57. Here's where our opinions will part drastically

The people we're labeling terrorists have good reason to attack the empire. They're the victims of a foreign and economic policy that victimizes third world and developing nations for the sake of profit for U.S. companies. They're attacking a nation that has 5% of the world's population but does 50% of the world's military spending. They're "terrorists" because they are confronting the status quo. The U.S. is among the last of nations that should be hurling charges of terrorism. Terror is a tactic, and the U.S. (I no longer say "we") is expert at using that tactic. Remember "shock and awe?"

Frankly, we need to lose in Iraq and Afghanistan to take the edge off of our imperial hubris. If release of plans caused the U.S. to abort those plans, then good. Obama, like Bush before him, is a war criminal in my opinion. Americans are not "innocent" because we elect the leaders and finance the military committing the crimes.

So, I don't care if U.S. plans are being mucked up. I care about children in mud huts being blown up by Hellfire missiles fired from pilotless drones being flown by cowards sitting safely at consoles thousands of miles out of reach of the people they are killing.

I look forward to our loss in Afghanistan. I mourn the loss of the children of the poor wasting their lives in imperial wars that benefit the few.

Manning is a hero. Assange is a hero. I've already contributed to their defense funds.

[EFerrari]

59. Omg. Now Al Qaida can attack us with a LIST!

[LooseWilly]

60. You were quoting from what is obviously an opinion piece, not a news story.

Just because an opinion is printed in a newspaper doesn't mean that it's true... and it certainly doesn't mean that that opinion now carries more weight than it would if it had been scribbled on a bar napkin, or on a roll of toilet paper.

The allusion to giving away the secrets of D-Day is ridiculous in this day and age... unless we are worried about Al-Qaida beefing up the defenses on an Afghan or Pakistani beach somewhere.

And, from what I've heard thus far, neither Assange nor Wikileaks have actually released the information you refer to... they've merely distributed it with the threat to release it if he's arrested or killed/injured grievously.

From my point of view, that's no more reprehensible than the US Government's threat of the use of economic and military might to prevent the arrest of Dick Cheney on bribery charges in Nigeria (not to mention refusal to extradite him)... let alone the refusal to prosecute Bush for the waterboarding he ordered.

As far as I'm concerned... more power to Assange for maneuvering himself into a position where he, like the president and all the president's men, is untouchable by the law.
:toast:

[Puregonzo1188]

10. Do you know who founded Wikileaks?

Chinese Dissidents. Do you know what their mission was?


Their "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations."


They're not only focused on the US, in fact--not even primarily so. But someone gave them a bunch of documents, pertaining to both the Bush and Obama years and they treated them the same way they would have if they came from the Chinese government.

This hyper-partisan/cult of personality nonsense is sickening.

[laughingliberal]

18. American exceptionalism. We think everything's about us. nt

[pnwmom]

23. Then why didn't they release any when Bush was in office?

And why aren't they attacking Chinese political figures?

[Tunkamerica]

33. because they didn't have them

that seems more than obvious.

But you seem intelligent enough to figure that out for yourself.

[pnwmom]

35. And you know there was nothing seriously incriminating

in the 1.2 million documents they had in 2007?

[Tunkamerica]

61. No, just like you don't know that there was.

I don't start threads implicitly stating otherwise.

[Le Taz Hot]

64. You know what, you ask the same questions

over and over again, even though you've been answered time and again. Really, what's the point other than cheerleading?

[EFerrari]

17. That fact is, two of those "real journalists" asked Assange

a direct question about Obama and Clinton. Did no real journalist ask him about Bush? What are the odds that the media let Torture Boy slide?

On the other hand, no one has done more to expose the crimes of George W. Bush than Wikileaks. So, if you are really interested in Bush getting the infamy that is coming to him, you're knocking the wrong people.

[xultar]

19. All they put out were those fucking gitmo handbooks.

[boppers]

21. LOL, using archived versions of old policy to make false claims about current policy?

It doesn't work that way anymore. Realizing that fake stories could be "planted", they now take efforts to vet the information.

That being said:
Funny that they were never calling for Bush’s head. Or Cheney’s.

They were. Repeatedly. With evidence of war crimes. Maybe you weren't paying attention.

A key difference between real journalists and Assange is that real journalists do their best to check their sources -- to get anonymous tips confirmed -- and to check for ulterior motives.

Here's how the pipeline works for cablegate:
1. Source (probably Manning) gets massive dump to wikileaks
2. Wikileaks sets up an operation with several media sources
3. Journalists at those sources vet the cables and their claims
4. When the journalists release the stories, the corresponding cables are released

[pnwmom]

27. But Wikileaks also says they will be publishing additional documents on their own site,

without input from journalists.

How do you feel about them doing that? And how do you feel about Assange's threat to start "thermonuclear warfare" if he is nailed for unrelated sex charges?

[glinda]

29. I like Assange. Free speech is very important. Who knows really where he is going with all of this.

[boppers]

37. They can do their own vetting on smaller document loads.

This one was far too big.

How do I feel about that? They've been doing a pretty good job of vetting.

How do I feel about the bigger threat of the "insurance files" being released? I think it could be a very good thing.

[pnwmom]

40. Just redacting names isn't sufficient vetting. Identities can be gleaned

from all kinds of information, not just names.

[laughingliberal]

50. Well, Wikileaks has a lot of people working for them. I'm sure they'd have room for one more.

Perhaps you can show them how it's done.

[boppers]

51. 5 full time paid folks, 800 part time volunteers.

The more the merrier!

[laughingliberal]

54. Yep! nt

[boppers]

53. Oh, a lot more is being redacted.

Names, locations, in some cases, many paragraphs, and content not relevant to the stories being published has been removed. In some cases, the redactions continued *after* initial publication.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_diplomatic_cables_leak#Content_removal

[laughingliberal]

46. He said that would happen if something happens to him. I'm sure he's had things ready to go on a...

dead man's switch for a while.

How do I feel about that? I'm very happy. He's made sure if they kill him or lock him up, they don't stop the flow of information.

[inna]

34. Incredibly lame. So, Assange's motivation is Obama-hating.

:crazy:

[pnwmom]

38. No, his chief motivation appears to be self-promotion. n/t

[laughingliberal]

48. I'm sure you would have felt differently had you been paying attention when he was exposing Bush.

You've shown in this thread that you had no idea Wikileaks was publishing back in the Bush years or that it was formed by the Chinese dissidents.

So, you don't like his personal style? Oh, well.

[Tunkamerica]

62. :crickets:

[TheKentuckian]

39. Pitiful and myopic

[and-justice-for-all]

44. Would Julian be so kind to roll those out for us....nt

[Rex]

47. He was a Karl Rove super agent all along!

[laughingliberal]

52. ROFL!! That must be it! nt

[readmoreoften]

66. Yes, it's all a big rightwing conspiracy.