A reader sent me this disturbing move from the US Senate to supposedly protect whistle-blowers but in fact is the complete opposite. Wikileaks is causing worries across the political establishment: On December 10, 2010, the Senate passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (S. 372) by unanimous consent. After a careful review of S. 372, the…
Wikileaks
Wikileaks is one of the biggest and most important stories in the world, challenging governments and journalists alike. I’ve been writing extensively about the group since 2006, featured an exclusive interview in 2008 with founder Julian Assange and examined the myriad of issues around the website. Assange himself asked me in the early days whether I wanted to be on the group’s board to vet incoming leaks and determine their veracity before publishing. I agreed but unfortunately this never eventuated.
Letting Mugabe retire peacefully sounds like a terrible idea
The Wikileaks news that really matters (and yet more evidence that the UN is far too keen to protect dictators rather than prosecute them): The head of the United Nations offered Robert Mugabe a lucrative retirement package in an overseas haven if he stood down as Zimbabwe‘s president, according to claims quoted in leaked diplomatic…
Let’s not get seriously side-tracked with Assange personal life
So the Guardian has smeared Julian Assange with sexual allegations and the focus has inevitably shifted from what Wikileaks is doing to what Assange may have done: As fresh snow erases the traces of Friday’s scrum of camera crews from the elegant lawns of a Georgian mansion in East Anglia, inside Ellingham Hall Julian Assange…
Wikileaks bastard children are growing
Wikileaks has made a call for similar websites to spring up and pry open the workings of nations. The call is being answered.
An info-struggle that we must win
An open letter published in the UK Guardian this week: We are writing this statement in support of democracy. Since Sunday, 28 November, WikiLeaks and five major newspapers from around the world (the Guardian, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El Pais) have been publishing redacted versions of leaked US diplomatic cables in…
This is what Murdoch produces on Wikileaks
Oh thank you, Bill McGowan: It’s one thing for journalists to challenge the government, to serve as a check on its power. It’s another to assume a knee-jerk oppositionalism that’s out of touch with the middle register of the country and with wartime exigencies. Far from being rooted in responsibility and idealism about how our…
Cuba ain’t no paradise and the US diplomat there is pernicious
These stories, via Wikileaks, if true are rather curious for a few key players. Western states are proven once again to largely ignore human rights (money is the key factor). And Michael Moore, for a film that certainly glorified the Cuban health system, is looking a little sheepish. One: Australia, Canada and several European countries…
This is how America treats people with a conscience
The alleged Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning is being tortured while in US custody. Home of the free, indeed: The last time Bradley Manning saw the world outside of a jail, most Americans had never heard of WikiLeaks. On Friday, Manning, the man whose alleged unauthorized release of hundreds of thousands of classified documents put the…
And nothing will ever be the same again…
Very perceptive and largely fair editorial in yesterday’s UK Guardian on the legacy of Wikileaks and the reasons for its importance: The sight of Julian Assange giving a stream of television interviews from the grounds of an 18th-century country house on the Norfolk-Suffolk borders was, at the very least, a confusion of the cinematic genre…