Mastercard

olly300

Really2 wrote: »

Right, I think you have hit my problem there, some things like the us military tapes etc must have been given to them.

And to my mind that was to open the public's eyes to what has happened and to prompt change.
I really don't feel like any of the recent stuff has been in the public interest, it has been all to political.

If you aren't interested in politics fine ignore it. Some of the previous leaks i.e. BNP list have been political.

Really2 wrote: »

I just prefered it when they were righting wrongs, the recent stuff does not feel the same to me.
It seems to be to cause damage, it seems to have gone past public interest.

Actually the thing that is causing the most public damage is arresting the guy who set it up.

Most people wouldn't pay that much attention to the leaks due to their political nature and the sheer number of them - on "I've Got News For You" they were bored by them. However trying to extradite the guy who set the site up in a strange manner on charges that were originally claimed to be unfounded by a Swedish prosecutor is causing people to pay more attention.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Really2 wrote: »

Right, I think you have hit my problem there, some things like the us military tapes etc must have been given to them.

I don't think you get the full meaning of what I was trying to state.

Some information has been given to wikileaks with the full authorisation & assistance of the Governments knowing full well it would get published.

olly300

Malcolm. wrote: »

Were it not for a tragic event, I doubt politicians could have used the national security card to invade Iraq. If you can goto war on the back of national security, you can pass internet censorship laws too.

The nu Labour government tried that with back up from the Conservatives - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/08/digital-economy-bill-passes-third-reading

The new clause allows the secretary of state for business to order the blocking of "a location on the internet which the court is satisfied has been, is being or is likely to be used for or in connection with an activity that infringes copyright".

The Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming protested that this could mean the blocking of the whistleblower site Wikileaks, which carries only copyrighted work. Stephen Timms for the government said that it would not want to see the clause used to restrict freedom of speech – but gave no assurance that sites like Wikileaks would not be blocked.

Date of article April 8th 2010 just before the General Election.

Really2

olly300 wrote: »

If you aren't interested in politics fine ignore it.

I did not politics as in running a country, politics as two apposing sides trying to outdo each other.

Political as in personal pursuit. A bit like office politics, there seems to be an agenda.

vaporate

Really2 wrote: »

I would argue it is the shoppers and shops that are suffering the most not the two companies.

So? Cause and effect. :beer:

Really2

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

I don't think you get the full meaning of what I was trying to state.

Some information has been given to wikileaks with the full authorisation & assistance of the Governments knowing full well it would get published.

What, you mean the west would like to show that it has allies (lose, people who want them to bomb someone) in the middle east.;)

Of cause, to be honest my earlier post was fairly irrelevent to what you said, it just sparked off why I was starting not to agree with some of the releases.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

Really2 wrote: »

What, you mean the west would like to show that it has allies (lose, people who want them to bomb someone) in the middle east.;)

Of cause, to be honest my earlier post was fairly irrelevent to what you said, it just sparked off why I was starting not to agree with some of the releases.

Nearly all of it (if not all) would have been pre-authorised.

Got to put a couple of dodgy bits in to mix it up.

lemonjelly

Very interesting debate.

Some of the conspiracy theory stuff is getting a little bit Asheron though...:eek:

Interesting thoughts nonetheless.

& relevant - affecting shoppers/business'.:)

StevieJ

Well the extradition is based on having sex without condom, and sex with a women in slumber.

According to lawyer Rodney Hylton-Potts of Hylton-Potts Legal Consultants Ltd, Mr Assange's arrest under the EAW has been an accident waiting to happen. He said: "There is no control now, no demand for evidence. People are being extradited to face trial in foreign countries where there is often no legal aid and where they can't speak the language. And on what basis?

"The only defence against the extradition is that the charge is politically motivated. But how do you prove that?"

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/The-European-Arrest-Warrant-tele-1294962885.html?x=0

vivatifosi

I've been reading the wikileaks releases daily and am still in two minds as to whether they are a good thing.

For the most part, I think the releases are harmless. As many have said already, it isn't like we don't already know that Prince Andrew is a boorish twit, or Sarkozy is a shortarse with Napoleon syndrome, or that Merkel can't make her mind up about things is it?

Furthermore, some release is definitely in the public interest: the stuff which proves that politicians didn't exactly say what needed to be said at the Iraq enquiry for example.

However I remain concerned about the indiscrimiate leaking about sensitive information. The list of strategic sites is one example, another would be that America has been active in the Yemen and that the Yemen government has been using US drones to target Al Qaeda bases in the region. Taking this second piece of info by itself, imagine that the government of Yemen falls, which is not a whacky far-fetched scenario. It wouldn't just be as a result of wikileaks for sure, but you cannot deny it could play a part. In that event, not only would Al Qaeda have an even greater stronghold on the Arabian peninsular, but it could potentially hold the other side of the Suez Canal to that already held by a bunch of Somali pirates, in effect making one of the world's most important waterways inoperable.

Of course, this may not happen. It probably won't happen, but its the kind of info that I'm very wary of. The same as that about North Korea for example, another unstable government where wikileaks would be spun into some sort of Armageddon scenario. We've only seen about 1,000 of the leaks so far, 249,000 to go. There's a good chance that Assange has kept back some of the more juicy ones as insurance policy.

Then onto the subject of Assange. If Wikileaks hadn't done this, someone else would. What is ludicrous is that the US made state secrets so naievely and widely available. Hunting down one person, who I still believe is extremely misguided, makes certain US politicians sound like a blood-thirsty mob. A spot of looking what happened internally is what is needed, don't shoot the messenger.