Bank of America blackmailing Wikileaks?

[shabby]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VdFtb4zNXE#t=1h01m55s

Amy: speaking of banks Jullian, you mentioned a while ago that you had a good deal of documents on bank of america. But they haven't been released, are you planning to release them?

Jullian: theres a complication with those documents and another group of docuemnts, so we are under... a type of blackmail in relation to these documents that will be dealt with over time, but it is quiet diffucult to deal with at this moment.
I don't want to specifiy what type of blackmail that is because it might make it harder to address the situation, it is perhaps something like people might guess, you know theres a range of possibilities and its probably the first or second possibility if you're guessing.

A bank blackmailing wikileaks? Now why on earth would they do that, do they have something to hide?

 

[Brainonska511]

What's the other side to the story?

 

[Farang]

Skeptical. Assange's power lies in that he has big secrets to tell. Without the secrets, he is nothing. But if they are such big important secrets, why is he withholding so many of them? Excuses like this one?

He needs some inventory of classified info to hold any power, and he needs power to gain any more classified info. So it is in his best interests to hype what he has without disclosing most of it.

 

[Craig234]

Skeptical. Assange's power lies in that he has big secrets to tell. Without the secrets, he is nothing. But if they are such big important secrets, why is he withholding so many of them? Excuses like this one?

He needs some inventory of classified info to hold any power, and he needs power to gain any more classified info. So it is in his best interests to hype what he has without disclosing most of it.

Paranoid ranting. Care to back up attacks on his track record of being accurate? You misrepresent his agenda, saying it's about him 'getting power'.

His agenda is simple, as he has explained: he thinks that large organizations who can operate in secrecy are pulled into a lot of wrongdoing.

He's a supporter of exposing their secrets to throw a monkey wrench into their being able to easily do bad things secretly.

There's every reason to believe his explanation of what's going on with hit, and none behind your attacks his statements are inaccurate. 'Hyping' hasn't been how he's done this.

He promoted the video of the military killing journalists; it was news.

I think that exposure has been shown important, an example of not much care being taken on targets, and only excuses for the killings.

I'm not sure what blackmail he is hinting at to guess. Do they have Wikileaks money or real estate? Can they be threatening to steal them? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[ProfJohn]

Assange: You have my money in a locked account and I want it.

Bank: You have stolen documents of ours and we want them back.


Seems simple enough.

 

[Farang]

Paranoid ranting. Care to back up attacks on his track record of being accurate? You misrepresent his agenda, saying it's about him 'getting power'.

His agenda is simple, as he has explained: he thinks that large organizations who can operate in secrecy are pulled into a lot of wrongdoing.

He's a supporter of exposing their secrets to throw a monkey wrench into their being able to easily do bad things secretly.

There's every reason to believe his explanation of what's going on with hit, and none behind your attacks his statements are inaccurate. 'Hyping' hasn't been how he's done this.

He promoted the video of the military killing journalists; it was news.

I think that exposure has been shown important, an example of not much care being taken on targets, and only excuses for the killings.

I'm not sure what blackmail he is hinting at to guess. Do they have Wikileaks money or real estate? Can they be threatening to steal them? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

Correct me if I'm wrong, my impression was he has actually released a very small percentage of the secret documents he holds. Why not one big release? It is in the organization's best interest to slowly leak bits at a time, to stay relevant.

I don't think Assange's stated goals and his efforts to maintain relevancy through selective leaks are conflicting interests. I just think its important to understand what his motives might be in accusing banks of something like this.

 

[Tsavo]

Assange: You have my money in a locked account and I want it.

Bank: You have stolen documents of ours and we want them back.


Seems simple enough.

+1.

 

[Nebor]

WTF, they let him out on bail for a REASON. Why has no one killed this clown yet?

 

[between]

...

 

[ProfJohn]

I still say we send him some documents about Israel and let them take care of him...


Assange: I have documents here that prove that Israeli... <bang>

 

[between]

...

 

[ProfJohn]

because extra-judicial execution is illegal and immoral?

I agree with you...

but for some reason talking about illegal and immoral and Assange is kind of funny.


The sad thing is that Assange doesn't seem to be as interested in the truth as he is interested in the truth about people whom he disagrees with which is why his leaks tend to target certain groups and organizations.

 

[ProfJohn]

this is why most of the world has so much contempt for "America". Because deep down, you truly believe that freedom is for Americans only.

No, deep down I believe that only Americans have a sense of humor...


There is is a point where a country might have to kill someone like this if they threaten their national security, but I don't think Assange is any where near that point. At least for the US.

But tell him to start releasing details of Israel's nuke program and see what happens. Or tell him to publish a picture of Mohammed and then visit the Netherlands....

 

[Craig234]

this is why most of the world has so much contempt for "America". Because deep down, you truly believe that freedom is for Americans only.

That's such an understatement of what's wrong with PJ and Nebor.

Actually, Nebor, hard as it is to believe, is worse, an active, murderous sociopath.

 

[cubby1223]

That's such an understatement of what's wrong with PJ and Nebor.

Actually, Nebor, hard as it is to believe, is worse, an active, murderous sociopath.

Says the man who dreams of Hugo Chavez ruling over him

Assange is in the game for money & fame.

I would not believe what Assange is claiming about blackmail. He has not earned my trust.

 

[woolfe9999]

Paranoid ranting. Care to back up attacks on his track record of being accurate? You misrepresent his agenda, saying it's about him 'getting power'.

His agenda is simple, as he has explained: he thinks that large organizations who can operate in secrecy are pulled into a lot of wrongdoing.

He's a supporter of exposing their secrets to throw a monkey wrench into their being able to easily do bad things secretly.

There's every reason to believe his explanation of what's going on with hit, and none behind your attacks his statements are inaccurate. 'Hyping' hasn't been how he's done this.

He promoted the video of the military killing journalists; it was news.

I think that exposure has been shown important, an example of not much care being taken on targets, and only excuses for the killings.

I'm not sure what blackmail he is hinting at to guess. Do they have Wikileaks money or real estate? Can they be threatening to steal them? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

I think Farang has a point here. Why is Assange not releasing documents he purportedly has, and making extremely vague allegations at BofA to justify it? "Blackmailing" can, of course, mean a number of things, including, for example, that they are legitimately threatening litigation if private financial information is contained in said documents. We don't really know. We only have Assange's word that he even has anything incriminating. It could be the proverbial empty piece of paper - ala Joe McCarthy - because that is where the power really lies. It lies in possibility.

In any event, so far as I'm concerned, he has no documents incriminating anyone unless or until he actually releases them. Until then it is a non-issue and no inferences should be drawn from anything he says. And I say that as someone who is generally very distrustful of large financial institutions, for obvious reasons.

- wolf

 

[OCGuy]

Not surprising that our resident Leftist would slop\b JA's knob. I am waiting for the FSB or CIA, or China to take him out. Will be a great day.

 

[Infohawk]

You can't be blackmailed unless you have something to hide. An organization like Wikileaks is supposed to be above that kind of thing...

 

[Throckmorton]

Wait, so Wikileaks doesn't want information about itself to be released?

 

[Craig234]

Says the man who dreams of Hugo Chavez ruling over him

I'd say this shows you as an idiot, but you did put a smiley, so I'll let you off as kidding.

Assange is in the game for money & fame.

Funny, putting yourself in the crosshairs of many governments isn't much way to do that, not to mention over a million dollars in legal bills so far. Hard to let you off on this.

I would not believe what Assange is claiming about blackmail. He has not earned my trust.

That's up to you. It's another thing to say he's lying.

I'm not ruling it out; I've had people who are on the right side of issues disappoint, take John Edwards. But IMO his track record is fine, and there are a lot of ignorant attacks.

If there's one thing I'm suspicious of him not telling the truth about the most, it's the allegation that his first reaction to the State Department leaks was to not redact names, on the grounds 'they collaborated', so it's not his concern - this is consistent with disrupting the 'secrecy operations' as he wants to do.

He denies it now, and that might be either convenient because it's highly criticized, or he may have changed his opinion - or maybe he didn't say it.

But a lot of the posters are just going to blindly rant against him regardless.

The interview does have other interesting comments, I listened to the second half. For example, he discusses that free speech means little without the 'right to information'.

It reminds me of Jefferson's quote that between government without the press or press without the government, he'd prefer press without government.

What you don't hear from Assange critics much is any acknowledgment of a problem of excessive secrecy - much less any plan to deal with it.

 

[Craig234]

Wait, so Wikileaks doesn't want information about itself to be released?

You don't really think that's a very clever point, do you?

It's like saying 'oh, the founding fathers want to overthrow government, but to BE one?'

Wikileaks is about reducing the secrecy under which large organizations are able to do bad things - they're not a large organization doing such things. They do have some transparency.

 

[Nebor]

because extra-judicial execution is illegal and immoral?

And yet a policy supported and carried out by our president(s) for the past... I don't know, 50 years? Even against American citizens.

 

[Nebor]

this is why most of the world has so much contempt for "America". Because deep down, you truly believe that freedom is for Americans only.

Freedom is a concept of a bygone age. It's too dangerous a concept in modern times.