OH MY GOD. Did you guys even - did you see what was just released on Wikileaks? I mean, we all kinda thought that already, but we didn't know. OH MY GOD.

Just. I think Julian Assange and everyone at Wikileaks are HEROES. Real-life heroes, like, people who for no other reason and for no personal benefit put their own LIVES at risk for justice and for truth. They're the Supermen and women of our generation. Seriously. How much guts does that take? What they're doing? Just thinking of taking on THAT many governments and political assassins and intelligence agencies makes me pee my pants. So to speak. BUT THESE PEOPLE FACE IT ALL. And they do it for US.

Anyway, despite my saying this and very obviously being on Assange's side, I do welcome other opinions. 🙂 I could hardly be an Asssange fan and not welcome free speech, right? Lol...

Do you think Assange is a hero? Y/N? Answer the poll, and offer your thoughts!

I need googling first before i know who julian assange is..
It's really terrible on what happened to Iraq, i can't imagine living in that country...
the UN takes serious issue on it, but UN can't do nothin' towards world's most powerful country. Pathetic.
I think people who voluntarily helping others in need is heroes.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/lHjrfaR.jpg[/img]

I think wikileaks did the right thing.

On the downside the reputation of the whole western world may suffer thanks to the publication and nationalistic tendencies are likely to rise in the Iraq now.

But those truths had to be revealed. A democratic government has to be truthful and transparent, otherwise the people have no way of knowing if what is done is what they want.

And I hope those publications will be a historic lesson to current and future superpowers, that they can't do however they like and not face severe consequences.

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I wouldn't go so far as to say that they are risking their lives and taking on assassins. They are publicizing the details about what is going on over there. I'm sure most have an idea of what kind of hell war is but since its taking place halfway around the world we just don't care as much without the kind of details in these reports.

Obviously it paints a bad picture of the US which is why is was classified. If theres anybody you should be praising it should be the leaker, cause you can bet hes gonna be in prison for a long time.

Quote from Dissidence

A democratic government has to be truthful and transparent, otherwise the people have no way of knowing if what is done is what they want.

I find this only sometimes true. Its like how nobody wants to know how sausages are made, because the end result is so delicious. As long as my clothes are cheap, i don't want to know faces of the children's blood,sweat, and tears that went into making my shirt.

Quote from comel

the UN takes serious issue on it, but UN can't do nothin' towards world's most powerful country. Pathetic.

the UN in all honesty is worthless in terms of enforcing anything since it has no troops. At most the UN can levy sanctions on a country, which will never happen to a country on the security counsel(US,UK,France, Russia, China)

Quote from hazai

Quote from comel

the UN takes serious issue on it, but UN can't do nothin' towards world's most powerful country. Pathetic.

the UN in all honesty is worthless in terms of enforcing anything since it has no troops. At most the UN can levy sanctions on a country, which will never happen to a country on the security counsel(US,UK,France, Russia, China).

Basically accurate, though admittedly there are UN peacekeeping forces, but they're basically loaned by member countries. It's really just an issue of general enforcement- without any bite to the bark it's just empty rhetoric. The security council's veto is an obvious problem, but it can't be fixed because no country on the security council would ever be willing to give it up.

All that said, I actually presented a paper a few months back on a similar subject. Basically what Assange accomplishes more than anything else seems to be a blow against soft power. The reality is that in the information age, as long as information exists, it's probably going to find its way to the public eye eventually, the result being that organizations like wiki leaks can corrupt a few newscycles and alter public opinions to a certain extent. We can argue endlessly about what that actually means, there really isn't an answer. I just find it interesting that in the coming years, countries may not think they can cover incidents up.

Now, on to the topic at hand, I don't have any huge issues with wikileaks. I don't necessarily think that they're heroes, but they're not doing anything villainous or selfish either, so most of the critiques often seem either insipid or petty to me. My only real critique is that there's a clear bias in the way most of the information is presented. Now, I'm not exactly a pro-US person, but from the standpoint of journalistic ethic, you shouldn't claim to be presenting "hidden truths" or whatever and subsequently sensationalize videos or documents with pointed titles. But maybe that's just me, I'd still rather they kept going than stopped.

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Wikileaks latest publication detailing how The US evaluates foreign politicians, I think it wasn't very glorious.
The reason the now uncovered statements weren't said out loud before was in order to not be rude, which is not a bad reason. Thoughts are free, even for politicians. I don't mind them "gossiping" a little. The important thing is that they don't act against their obligations.

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He's still hosting national secrets.

It doesn't matter if he's doing it for good or bad reasons.

i think he's a hero in relation to iraq and afghanistan war logs, but the newest release concerning the diplomatic cables are absolutely ridicolous. he's just irresponsibly releasing info for his own dirty cause. i change my mind about him

I love hearing people try to argue why we shouldn't know the truth. The reason everything is so fucked up and our politicians are not ever held responsible is because we are never told the truth. The American government has been able to get away with absolutely horrible stuff simply because they dont have to tell us the truth.

I would have loved for the American government to have been the one to release these files, but they never were going to and sadly that responsibility has to fall to someone else. The information that has already been released is world-changing and should be known by everyone.

Julian Assange is absolutely a hero, but sadly he has and will continue to be smeared by pathetic American media outlets intent on protecting the government.

Quote from VenusInFurs

I love hearing people try to argue why we shouldn't know the truth. The reason everything is so fucked up and our politicians are not ever held responsible is because we are never told the truth. The American government has been able to get away with absolutely horrible stuff simply because they dont have to tell us the truth.

I would have loved for the American government to have been the one to release these files, but they never were going to and sadly that responsibility has to fall to someone else. The information that has already been released is world-changing and should be known by everyone.

Julian Assange is absolutely a hero, but sadly he has and will continue to be smeared by pathetic American media outlets intent on protecting the government.

It's a much more complex issue than that, but airing out truth, no matter what it is, is generally his goal. That much is clear, at least, and if it weren't Assange, someone on the internet would have eventually done the same thing. It's an inevitable step in the information revolution, I believe.

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Quote from VenusInFurs

I love hearing people try to argue why we shouldn't know the truth. The reason everything is so fucked up and our politicians are not ever held responsible is because we are never told the truth. The American government has been able to get away with absolutely horrible stuff simply because they dont have to tell us the truth.

This. Personally I'm glad that Julian did this. Kinda sad that an Australian had to do this though...

Quote from Klapzi

The cool part is that I never get tired of being deceived

Quote from tactics

Just because someone's head was chopped off doesn't mean they're dead. That's just silly.

[img]http://oi44.tinypic.com/vzy2qv.jpg[/img]

from what i understand, at least with the war leaks is that they are little better than a country that is basically ruled by terrorists saying that terrorists are innocents.

from my understanding, and i may be wrong, but most of those innocents that are supposedly killed, are carrying weapons and are taken out by snipers, or are acting so suspiciously by soldier camps that they are taken out.

the people doing the leaks and posting the leaks only leak the raw "innocent killed" data, not the whole situation data.

and i watched a bit of the video on that link in the op, i honestly cant blame the soldiers for killing innocents in vietnam, its basically just what the gorilla fighting forced them to do after months of smiling faces by day, and fighting those same people by night.

while i cant say killing an innocent is good, you also cant just listen to them say that without knowing what its actually like for them.

there are people on a roof with weapons, are they good or bad? do you go up and ask them waiting for them to fire at you or take them out from as far away as possible?

salute them for bringing the real info for us.
so that we able to know what really happening.
the government cant fool us anymore.
i didnt see it to judge who's right or wrong in war. only to know the truth.
and considering who's side is the right side really subjective.
anyway, just like what Shichibukai Doflamingo say "whoever win the war becomes justice"
😀

ꉂꉂ(ᵔᗜᵔ*)笑

Wikileaks original host terminated their website.

New website at http://wikileaks.ch/

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/wikileaks-website-back-up-on-network/story-fn3dxity-1225965396439

[color=green]"Officially, this machine doesn't exist, you didn't get it from me,
and I don't know you. Make sure it doesn't leave the building."[/color]

I can't stand the fact that America and Australia, so-called 'democracies' promoting freedom of speech, seem to think that this kind of behavior is okay - just pulling a host offline, or getting them to pull a website offline despite the fact that it has no morally or publicly harmful content! (I guess governments with image problems would disagree about the 'harmful' content... Lol, did you see Putin's emergency patch-me-up interview with Larry King, after Assange's leak about what the American diplomats said about Russia? LOL. Everyone in politics is working on overdrive to repair the damage caused by Assange's leaks! Heheheh...)

I also can't believe that stupid, trumped-up sex crime charge they're trying to use as an excuse to order Interpol to hunt Mr. Assange down with, EVEN THOUGH THE CHARGES HAVE ALREADY BEEN DROPPED, BECAUSE THEY WERE TOTALLY BOGUS. As this newspaper reveals (there are others, just Google it), the apparent 'crime' Mr. Assange has committed is having consensual sex with an adult woman... without a condom. OMG, NO CONDOM! OFF TO JAIL WITH YOU! Sheesh. Plus, it's not like someone already on the run and someone with an IQ as high as Assange's would be stupid enough to risk exposure by engaging in potentially criminal behavior. The timing of the accusations is also way too convenient... You can pay anyone to 'accuse' someone else! And it's not even a 'crime' that you sleep with women that want to sleep with you. WHICH IS WHY THE CHARGES WERE DROPPED.

Does it not even matter if a man is innocent before you get Interpol to chase him down? Then again, given the website hosting issue, obviously, constitutional laws regarding free speech are meaningless, too. Who cares about the law or about truth when you're hunting down an innocent man who is only trying to expose corrupt governments? Obviously, it doesn't matter to the corrupt governments. Because they're corrupt. You know.

Sigh...

Stay safe and stay well, Mr. Assange. I can only imagine how many governments, intelligence agencies and assassins are after you... I guess that's the sacrifice a hero is willing to make, but please, keep yourself safe, sir. For all our sakes.