Assange Confirms that Bank of America Is the Target of Bank Leak

[Hannah Bell]

There has been widespread speculation that WikiLeaks would target Bank of America.

This has now been confirmed.

Specifically, Agence Press France is reporting:

Assange also confirmed that WikiLeaks was holding a vast amount of material about Bank of America which it intends to release early next year.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/12/guest-post-assange-confirms-that-bank-of-america-is-the-target-of-bank-leak.html

OTOH, reading in the comments, HuufPo denies this report.

[Lugnut]

1. Oh, good!

:popcorn:

[bananas]

2. UPDATE: Julian Assange did not confirm he has information pertaining to Bank of America. AFP misrepr

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/wikileaks-target-bank-of-america_n_800067.html

UPDATE: Julian Assange did not confirm he has information pertaining to Bank of America. AFP misrepresented an interview with Assange in a Times of London story, according to an email sent to Forbes from Times reporter Alexi Mostrous.

<snip>

[Occulus]

8. Heh.

"Julian Assange did not confirm he has information pertaining to Bank of America."

Julian Assange did not deny he has information pertaining to Bank of America.

I think I see someone trying to stave off panic.

:think:

[Hannah Bell]

9. which was in the op.

[PBS Poll-435]

12. The embargo "broke"

More sensation and pleasure.

[HEyHEY]

3. God this is growing tiresome

Just release the fucking information.

Must say though.

"As a result, he said, the women had gone to the police for advice "and then the police jumped in on this and bamboozled the women"."

Who goes to the cops when they think they caught and STD? Makes me wonder.

[sabrina 1]

16. Ask the women, that is one of their ever-changing claims.

As for you finding all this tiresome, clearly you have no idea of the sheer volume of material Wikileaks has, not just from the U.S. We are NOT the only country in the world, although living here, you get the impression that many Americans think so.

Wikileaks distributed the material to five major News Organizations who have dozens of people sifting through the material, analyzing it, editing and preparing it for publication.

Every day these news organizations have been releasing incredible information from those cables. I guess you haven't bothered to read them every day.

Just reading what they have published, is difficult to absorb, so much has been revealed, so much we already suspected, confirmed. I cannot imagine the work that has to go into getting it to press each day and choosing what is worth publishing and what is not. And redacting information that might be harmful to anyone.

From the beginning it was know that it would be at least January before they could get the Banking information out and all five news organizations agreed to release the info at the same time.

So try being a bit more realistic. I believe it is because of the economic news Wikileaks will be releasing that the U.S. is after him. If so, it is a waste of time and effort, because whether they get or not, it will be coming out.

[HEyHEY]

19. No, what's growing tiresome is this little shit taunting and threatening

I find it in poor taste.

[sabrina 1]

20. So, you're not for Freedom of the Press, and have no problem

with the fact that the 'little shit' wouldn't be talking at all, if he was not 'taunted, threatened with death, and unlawfully jailed in order to silence him. He HAS been doing this for over four years. You apparently never heard of him until our government decided to attack him.

I hope he does more tauning and threatening of the bad guys, because I know when he does, he always follows through, always has. I'm sure the Kenyan Government felt the same way you do about him, but their victims view him as a hero. I guess it depends on your principles. Whether you are a supporter of corrupt banks, governments, organizations, all of whom share your impatience with Wikileaks, or whether you are with their victims, the tortured, the imprisoned, the disappeared. Assange is with the latter group, as am I and I did think all Democrats. But it appears I may have been wrong.

[HEyHEY]

21. I am the press. So , yes I am pro-freedom of the press.

I agree with what he does and support that. However, any reporter with an ounce of dignity wouldn't be flaunting the information and threatening people the way he does.

Stop with your condescending "You have never heard" of this and that bullshit too. You sound like a hipster talking about an obscure director. I'm talking about his conduct, not his job.

[sabrina 1]

22. He was asked about the leaks AFTER the U.S. announced the

arrest of Manning and the charges against him which were that he had leaked documents to Wikileaks. He has every right to answer those questions rather than allow others to speak for him. And if the U.S. had not thrown a childish hissy fit over their own negligence, most people here would still not even know who he was.

I am glad he is scaring the criminals in this country. We don't hold our own criminals accountable if they are among the privileged few. So, it was inevitable that someone would.

He released information on one of Iceland's corrupt banks and that led to some justice for the victims of that corruption. Iceland's government didn't throw a fit to try to protect a corrupt bank, they were happy to get the information. Of course the old government would have acted very differently but Iceland threw them out and is now prosecuting the leader of that government.

But here, we turn a blind eye to war criminals and corrupt Wall St. bankers. Was this not a huge issue for Democrats for eight years? And if Bush was still president, I can guarantee that you would be cheering every word he says about the criminals in our government and banking system. This is what we were waiting, an accounting for the crimes that brought this country down.

And I did not hear him threatening, he PROMISED, not THREATENED to release the information he has on the banks. Very courageous of him. And since this government has threatened to kill him, or some of our formerly elected officials, anything he does to defend himself, to keep himself in the public eye, is absolutely necessary for his own safety.

So if you are a little annoyed or whatever, that's your problem. As a member of the press, have elected officials ever threatened to kill you? Have your children been threatened with being kidnapped and killed, your mother and other family members? I guarantee that if you were in his position you want all the publicity you could get. Killing a respected, well-known editor and publisher is a bit more difficult than killing someone the public is not familiar with.

[HEyHEY]

23. It seems everytime you turn around it's him

Waving these around. Again, I find it unbecoming and not something I want to catch on in the industry. We already have enough Delta Bravos running around besmirching the profession. We don't need showboating to catch on too.

[sabrina 1]

25. And I want to see far more Julian Assanges willing to take on

corruption and brutality no matter where or who is involved. It takes courage, obviously. He is an award-winning editor and publisher. He has always been, ironically, a very difficult person to get an interview with. Have you seen for the past four years 'all over the place'? I doubt it, he was criticized for being too 'elusive'. But, you see him now because his lawyers and friends are probably advising not to be so elusive anymore.

His life IS in danger from this government and from other governments he has exposed. That is why for the past number of years he was basically a nomad, moving from place to place to avoid being killed by disgruntled dictators and pissed off Scientology fans, to mention just a few.

The CIA has set up a task force to go after him. I think that would unnerve even the most courageous journalist.

When his and his family's lives were threatened publicly by former U.S. elected officials, people like Huckabee, and a former Governor of a U.S. state, and he was threatened with being kidnapped and taken back to this country, a country known to torture detainees and in many cases, killing them, his only recourse is to stay very public and I hope he does.

Too bad we don't have more journalists like him in this country. Most of our journalists would be terrified to cross this government. And seeing what they are doing to Assange, I'm beginning to understand why. However, there is strength in numbers and if all of them would now stand up against the persecution of Assange, as Australian Journalists have, and Reporters Without Borders, they would have less to fear.

Our press is a disgrace, I don't even bother reading or watching any news that comes from the MSM. It's mostly lightweight, government approved scripts.

[HEyHEY]

26. huh

"Our press is a disgrace, I don't even bother reading or watching any news that comes from the MSM. It's mostly lightweight, government approved scripts."

Uh yeah, except for when they print a whole bunch of wikileaks. Look, many reporters are lazy, some are bias, but if you think there's government approval going on I have a bridge to sell you.

[sabrina 1]

27. I read the Guardian's coverage of Wikileaks.

That is not our media. If you think the government is not controlling our media, all I can say is 'where have you been'?

What happened to Ashley Banfield? The Donahue Show? Aaron Brown? Who was pulling Judith Miller's strings? Have you ever heard of the Rendon Group? Just to name a few.

And all you have to do is watch what they are doing to Julian Assange. If Wikileaks exposed nothing else, they exposed why journalists in this country do not dare to report the truth even when they know it.

Joe Lieberman: 'Yes, I do think we should investigate the NYT'!

Joe Biden: 'Wikileaks is closer to being cyber terrorists'!

It would take a very courageous person to stand up to the U.S. government. Few around the world have forgotten the murder of the Al Jazeera and Spanish journalists at the beginning of the illegal Iraq invasion. Few will ever forget the murder of the two Reuters journalists two years ago, or the attack on Al Jazeera's headquarters in Afghanistan. Just to name a few reasons why it is taking your life in your hands to honestly report on real news about the actions of the MIC.

[Edweird]

17. Apparently Swedish women.

:shrug:

[Earth_First]

4. Go Julian, GO!

Why wait?

Let 'em rip and watch 'em squirm.

Unfortunately, they will get away with it...

[DJ13]

5. Lets not forget that the Fed & Treasury reclassified major investment firms

They are now legally "banks" so they could obtain the easy Fed money.

It could easily be one of those Assange is talking about.

[PBS Poll-435]

6. Intends to release?

Freaking do it already!

WTF?

[HEyHEY]

7. Don't you know? Real journalists taunt and threaten for months, then release their stories

[PBS Poll-435]

10. Really?

I figured it something of real importance was found then that would be a HFD.

Maybe Winkyderp can't find reliable internet access. What good it is to release secret and scary banky leaks after the 1st of the year?



:shrug:

[HEyHEY]

11. Good point, he won't even ruin any CEO's christmas... that kinda sucks.

[Occulus]

13. IF it's as big as he's acting, he may be waiting as long as possible to avoid

further tanking our economy. Let's face it: if it's some huge bombshell, top people at BoA could end up in jail. The company itself may have a fair chance of going belly-up. That last, at this point in time, could easily result in an economic crash, and I don't think anyone either here or abroad (except maybe the real terrorists) wants that at all.

Maybe it is all talk, but that alone takes the public discourse in a new direction: by making us speculate on what Wikileaks might have, he's getting us to talk about all the bad (and illegal) things BoA might be doing. That's a very good thing; that bank in particular needs a great deal of sunlight shined on its operations.

If we're being played, it's working in that direction and it's being done quite masterfully.

[HEyHEY]

14. I don't think it's all talk, but I do find it in poor taste to keep taunting people with it.

[PBS Poll-435]

15. We aren't being played

Some folks are, but I can see Joe Isuzu from my house.

[Edweird]

18. This I support 100%. Bank Of America definitely has it coming.

I would love to see them get destroyed by the shining light of truth.

[PBS Poll-435]

24. Good Journalism!

:rofl: