“In his interview with The Daily Beast, Mr. Coombs shared a list of books Private Manning had asked his family to buy him, which included: “ Decision Points,” by George W. Bush; “The Critique of Practical Reason” and “The Critique of Pure Reason,” by Immanuel Kant; “Propaganda,” by Edward Bernays; “The Selfish Gene,” by Richard Dawkins; “A People’s History of the United States,” by Howard Zinn; “The Art of War,” by Sun Tzu; “The Good Soldiers,” by David Finkel and “On War,” by Carl von Clausewitz.”
—Lawyer Describes Solitary Confinement of Suspected WikiLeaks Source - NYTimes.com
December 2010
20 posts
“One problem is that information in oceanic magnitudes can confuse and confound as easily as it can clarify and empower, even when the information is correct. There is vastly more financial data set down in the world’s computers than there ever has been before, including publically accessible data, and yet the economy is a mess. How can this be, if information is the solution?”
—The Hazards of Nerd Supremacy: The Case of WikiLeaks - Jaron Lanier - Technology - The Atlantic
“Keep Assange in prison without bail until he is questioned, by all means, if we are suddenly in a real feminist worldwide epiphany about the seriousness of the issue of sex crime: but Interpol, Britain and Sweden must, if they are not to be guilty of hateful manipulation of a serious women’s issue for cynical political purposes, imprison as well — at once — the hundreds of thousands of men in Britain, Sweden and around the world world who are accused in far less ambiguous terms of far graver forms of assault.”
—Naomi Wolf: J’Accuse: Sweden, Britain, and Interpol Insult Rape Victims Worldwide
“In a country fractured by sect and ethnicity, from villages like this all the way to the government that is finally forming in Baghdad, Mr. Muhammad’s last act was a burst of heroism and humanity set against the viciousness that still stalks Iraq.”
—Some Iraqis Make Ultimate Sacrifice to Blunt Suicide Bombs - NYTimes.com
“I suspect this point will seem obvious to many of you: the fact that the charges are (apparently) politically motivated is indeed a reason to regard them skeptically, and they make it less likely — perhaps much less likely — that Mr. Assange is guilty of them. (Although he may be guilty of being a creep even if he is not guilty of a crime.)”
—A Bayesian Take on Julian Assange - NYTimes.com
“The F.B.I. had help from an unlikely source when it caught up with Army intelligence officer Bradley Manning, the alleged source of the WikiLeaks “Collateral Murder” video. Former hacker Adrian Lamo, 29, who notoriously broke into The New York Times computer system in 2002, tipped off authorities after Manning, 22, allegedly contacted him to brag about providing the controversial combat video and 260,000 classified diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, a whistle-blower website”
—WikiLeaks: Who is hacker ‘hero’ Adrian Lamo? - The Week
“These attacks, in addition to being a misguided effort that doesn’t accomplish very much at all, are incredibly simple to launch and require no technical or hacker skills. While writing such programs requires a good degree of ingenuity and knowledge of security weaknesses, this doesn’t mean that everyone who runs them possesses the same degree of proficiency, nor should we necessarily believe people who claim to be doing this on behalf of the hacker community.”
—2600 NEWS: PRESS RELEASE - 2600 MAGAZINE CONDEMNS DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACKS
“If I have five words left and I’m about to fuckin’ expire and all I have left to say is to curse fuckin’ Tron, I’m probably not going to say, “Tron funkin’ blow.”
—Dean Murdoch, Fubar (2002)
“If it is full democracy, then why have they hidden Mr. Assange in prison? That’s what, democracy?” Putin said, in the strongest Russian criticism of the affair. “So, you know, as they say in the countryside, some people’s cows can moo, but yours should keep quiet. So I would like to shoot the puck back at our American colleagues,” Putin said at a briefing with his French counterpart Francois Fillon.”
—
Vladimir Putin, on the US, Britain and Wikileaks.
WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates | News | guardian.co.uk
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#cablegate and Canada
The WikiLeaks #cablegate leaks don’t contain too many cables from Canada, but there are some juicy bits.
A cable sent from the US Embassy in Ottawa in July, 2008 covers a wide-range of topics, from Federal Election predictions to security concerns. Former CSIS director Jim Judd is quoted on the Omar Khadr interrogation tapes, which he says would “no doubt trigger ‘knee-jerk anti-Americanism’ and ‘paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty’” (the American specialty being, presumably, illegal interrogation techniques).
The most recent cable from the Ottawa Embassy from January, 2009. It sets the stage for President Obama’s first visit to Canada, shortly after his election. Directly addressing the president, the author, Terry A. Breese writes:
“Your enormous popularity among Canadians (an 81 pctapproval rating) is to Conservative Prime Minister StephenHarper both a blessing — because he can for the first timesince taking office in 2006 gain politically from public andpolicy association with the U.S. President — and a curse —because no Canadian politician of any stripe is nearly aspopular, respected, or inspiring as you are to Canadian voters, a genuine factor in the historically low turnout inthe October 2008 Canadian federal election. Many Canadians,especially university students, volunteered on your campaign,and busloads traveled to Washington for your inauguration.”
Like many of the cables, this one is written in strangely casual, and severely honest language. Another cable, also from 2008 has the bizarre title ‘THE U.S. IN THE CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION — NOT!’.
These cables make for fascinating reading. For the time being, you can see them here:
http://213.251.145.96/
