Wikileaks...is it espionage?

[jokersarewild]

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7463759-a-peek-into-wikileaks-united-states-diplomatic-cables-leak

 

Wikileaks' disclosure of over 250,000 classified documents detailing correspondence between U.S. embassies around the world has been released. About an hour prior to the planned release of the documents on 28 November, Wikileaks announced it was undergoing a massive distributed denial-of-service attack, but vowed to still leak the cables and documents via prominent media outlets including El País, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and The New York TimesThe New York Times.

 

Some information included are the following:

 

Middle East issues

• [ ]Strong Arab distrust for Iran referring to them as “evil”, as well as encouragement for a military strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran.[ ]Iran alledgedy is in possession of missile derived from a Russian design and obtained from North Korea that are more powerful than any weapon publicly admitted to be in Iran's possession. These missiles, designated the BM-25, have a range of up to 2,000 miles (3,200 km).[ ]Claims that the Iranian Red Crescent is actively controlled by the government and are involved in illicit arms smuggling and intelligence gathering on behalf of Iran.[ ]Israel was ready to attack a nuclear-armed Iran.[ ]Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.[ ]Increased Syrian arms shipments to Hezbollah despite their claims that new shipments have ceased.[ ]Devastating criticism of the UK's military operations in Afghanistan.[ ]Analyses of numerous leaders, including comparing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler, calling Vladimir PutinVladimir Putin an "alpha-dog", Hamid KarzaiHamid Karzai as being "driven by paranoia" andAngela Merkel as someone who "avoids risk and is rarely creative".

 

The rest of the story is at the link above.

 

Now, Diane Feinstein said this "goes beyond free speech" and is an act of espionage.

 

What are your thoughts on it? Do you consider it espionage, or something else?

 

Personally, I've no problem with WikiLeaks. They're posting things they get from people who are actually committing espionage. But what say you?

[phreakwars]

Wikileaks is just doing the job real reporters should have been doing for years. It just seems real funny to me how the whistle blowers are demonized more then the guys who have committed the heinous acts Wikileaks has reported on.

 

Why is that?

.

.

[eddo]

Wikileaks is just doing the job real reporters should have been doing for years. It just seems real funny to me how the whistle blowers are demonized more then the guys who have committed the heinous acts Wikileaks has reported on.

 

Why is that?

.

.

 

Excellent question.

[jokersarewild]

Wikileaks is just doing the job real reporters should have been doing for years. It just seems real funny to me how the whistle blowers are demonized more then the guys who have committed the heinous acts Wikileaks has reported on.

 

Why is that?

.

.

 

Because our media is more controlled than we like to admit it is. When real reporting happens (or something like this), Rupert Murdoch shits himself. Also, might not want to start comparing world leaders to unpleasant things. Just a suggestion, White House.

[mercury]

I haven't really been following the whole thing, but the few things I did pick up on makes me think: "Oh noes!! Someone published a middle school slam book on the net!"

[ImWithStupid]

[jokersarewild]

I could almost agree with the video, IWS. I will say that what WikiLeaks does isn't journalism. Journalism requires investigation, research, etc. What Assange does is post Leaks that come to him. That would be like me calling the guy who sings popular songs in the shower a songwriter. It just isn't true.

 

Now, do I think what he does could be PART journalism? Possibly. He's getting the leaks. Essentially, for a real journalist, he would be PART of the investigatory/research process. But he's not the whole.

 

I also take issue with not actually looking over the things he plans on uploading to see if they'll possibly lead to the deaths of people in other countries, at home, etc, etc. I don't believe governments should be quite as secret as they are, as transparency leads to accountability, but putting people's lives at risk (that aren't your own) for the "freedom of information" is a load of sh t. If you get even ONE person killed, you should be considered guilty of manslaughter, if not something higher. If they can prove he KNOWINGLY put people in danger or got them killed, I firmly believe he should be put in jail. Those people aren't worth his bullshit ideals.

[timesjoke]

I agree with joker on this point, and a little further.

 

Many newspapers refused to report on the leaked emails of scientists that proved they were "cooking the books" on man caused global warming because they said it was wrong to use stolen or hacked information in legitimate news, one of those outlets was the new york times. But the same new york times has printed some of the info from wikileaks, so how do they justify that?

 

 

The concept of real journalism is seen only when those issuing it are not trying to push a specific agenda. The new york times has a vested interest in pushing the man caused globam warming concept so they make a choice to never post stories that hurt that idea. They on the other hand want to tear down America so they will take any chance to write stories like that. This idiot is even more focused, his main stated goal is to make Governments, especially America, look bad. That is all he sees and his only agenda so he is not a journalist, he is an activist at the least and possibly even a terrorist but certainly he encourages other pwoplw to steal this information if he does not steal it himself so that makes him an accomplice to the crimes to steal this information.

 

 

Look at it this way, if I encouraged someone to go rob a bank then give me all the money, am I an innocent?

[atlantic]

As far as government and our military goes, this information should remain confidential for our safety. On the other hand, I'd like to see Bank of America take a hit B)