Julian Assange joined the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism Conference

[kgnu_fan]

Source: WL Central

2010-11-28: ARIJ Conference
Submitted by admin on Sun, 11/28/2010 - 08:31

Julian Assange joined the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism third annual conference today via video link. ARIJ is the region's first media network supporting in-depth reporting. The conference is taking place in Amman, November 26-28, 2010.

According to the event website, over 200 Arab journalists, editors and university academics from 16 Arab countries, including those benefitting from the network in the eight ARIJ countries of operation — Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Syria, are attending:

"The conference, sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), is an ARIJ initiative to improve both the standards of hard-core investigations that promote accountability and transparency for the benefit of the public and to foster cross-border networking."

Read more: http://wlcentral.org/node/367

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Julian is safe as of today

[boppers]

1. "Julian is safe as of today"?

Well, the guy's kind of lame, but he's no messiah.

If he was killed tomorrow, wikileaks would continue....

...and have a martyr.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. "Lame"? Define please. n/t

[boppers]

4. Self Important. eom

[kgnu_fan]

6. You are jealous, that is all. Can you offer something more significant in your life?

[boppers]

54. I could, but I wouldn't be going to interviews and having press conferences about it.

For example, I can say with 100% certainty that you are using a website *right now* built with some software that I wrote, debugged, documented, etc. As a matter of fact, it's used on about 40% of the websites in the world. (I'm a PHP programmer. Not as in "I make websites with PHP", but as in "I was part of the team that built the PHP language itself". I was number 13 on the root commit team.)

(Or, if you want, you can make them "bop" instead of "php" pages, if you'd like:
http://php.net/manual/en/security.hiding.php
:evilgrin: )

Assange took an existing set of sites, copied their model, and then made a bunch of noise about how revolutionary his copied idea was. When the other leak sites update, they don't book media interviews... they update. They don't go on weird conspiracy rants about how important they are... they update.

See:
http://cryptome.org/

...for a site that's been doing this for quite a few years now (since 1996). They're not self important, it's just document collection and publishing.

[No Elephants]

8. LOL

[toppertwot]

5. KIND OF LAME?

Are you saying he walks with a limp? Maybe gets around with the aid of a cane?

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[No Elephants]

9. *rolls eyes*

[kgnu_fan]

10. Do you have prejudice or just simply ignorant?

For example, the prestigious name "Reuters" is Arabic word for "news". The Arabic world was much more sophisticated than the west for long time before it was started to get exploited and divided according to the western interest.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kgnu_fan]

12. US military killed many Iraqi journalists, on purpose, you know that, right?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

13. That's so bigoted it isn't even funny.

[Turborama]

14. WikiLeaks says latest leak covers "every major issue in every country in the world"

Source: AFP

AMMAN, Nov 28, 2010 (AFP) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said on Sunday the imminent release of classified US documents by the whistle-blower website will cover "every major issue" in the world today.

"The material that we are about to release covers essentially every major issue in every country in the world," he told reporters in Jordan by video link when asked if the new leaks again focused on US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Assange told the conference of investigative journalists that he was speaking to them by video link because "Jordan’s not the best place to be with the CIA on your tail." It was unclear from where he was speaking.

WikiLeaks was reportedly hours away on Sunday from releasing hundreds of thousands of confidential US diplomatic cables, with several governments fearing damaging revelations. Assange put the number of documents to be released at more than a quarter of a million.


Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/WikiLeaks+says+latest+leak+covers+every+major+issue/3896098/story.html

[xchrom]

15. pins and needles. nt

[earthside]

16. A Hopeful Event.

My suspicion is that we, the people, have been lied to and deceived up one side and down the other ... by Republicans, Democrats, conservatives and liberals.

Finding out the real truth could be a cathartic and liberating moment -- I hope that is the kind of information that is going to be contained in this 'leak'.

It's way past time that we found out what the insider elites have been doing "in our name" and allegedly for our own good.

[onehandle]

17. I find it interesting that these massive leaks didn't happen during the Bush years.

Very interesting.

[kgnu_fan]

20. Wikileaks was just about to start around 2007. Where were you when bush was in power?

[onehandle]

42. Bush's butlers were packing for Dallas by then. nt

[boppers]

57. The leaks existed. The PR campaign did not.

I'm still not sure what's "wiki" about wikileaks, other than trying to garner brand from wikipedia.

No quick edits. (wiki means "quick")
No communal edits.
No rapid, decentralized, system of publication.

[_ed_]

27. Get out the tinfoil hats

Yes, Assange (who is not American) hatched this entire website just to hurt Obama. Cue the black helicopters.

[Gman]

33. Very interesting

Maybe someone is trying to expose more war crimes and offer more evidence to convict the war criminals.

[boppers]

55. Yes they did, actually.

They didn't have a paranoid Aussie conspiracy theorist booking media interviews about how important his website is, but leak sites go way, way, back, along with large data dumps.

[Joanne98]

18. God I can't wait!

[Pavulon]

19. The CIA is the least of his concerns.

historically speaking he would be very lucky to end up in their custody.

[Turborama]

22. What happens to Assange seems to be a great concern of yours, though

Do you secretly admire him? You can tell me, I can keep a secret.

[Pavulon]

24. I admire Manning more, they are both scum but manning

actually lost something in the deal. His freedom. Assange (who is really a front man for an agency) has lost nothing.

Remember everyone wants to come to the party, enjoy it. Someone has to cleanup all the shit after, the FIT line item on you next check will be covering that.

[Turborama]

28. Which agency is Assange a front man for?

I'm assuming you have links to some fascinating reading?

[Dr.Phool]

31. link?

[No Elephants]

35. Meh. Billions of $$ of FIT get spent daily on things with which I disagree much more strongly.

[jberryhill]

21. So release it already. WTF?

This guy should do movie advertisements "The blockbuster thriller of the year! Coming soon to a theater near you!"

Can he take a day off from grandstanding and just release this stuff or what?

Lookit meeee!

[drm604]

25. See here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9642622

[jberryhill]

37. See what? Where are the docs?

[drm604]

23. Wikileaks Leaks revealed in Basel

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9642622

[warrior1]

26. how did he

get all of these documents?

[ProudDad]

46. There are good people in even the most evil, corrupt agency

in the Empire...

Who are ready and willing to inform the public of the Empire's crimes...

And now the mechanism is here to allow them to do it with relative impunity...

And when the evil f*cks put WikiLeaks out of business, there will be 100 more to take its place... :rofl:

Hooray for the internet tubes...!

[BetsysGhost]

32. I just rec'd your link

:hi:

Love this discussion, I'm so wired waiting for this release. Checked wiki in the last 5 minutes and it was down...

[dixiegrrrrl]

29. I find this link to be helpful:

http://wlcentral.org/

[Gman]

34. Daniel Ellsberg changed the course of history

I pray this does the same and much, much more.

[Imajika]

38. This will only cost us money...

...and threaten Obama's ability to forge alliances and attempts to improve America's image in the world.

Absolutely nothing good will come of this. Millions, even billions, of our tax dollars will go to improve security, politicians and bureaucrats will only become more tight lipped and secretive which means the President won't get frank and honest input from our embassies, and our allies will be less likely to talk to us.

It is sad that on a progressive website so many people are drooling at the prospect of extreme damage to a Democratic President.

[bemildred]

40. I was thinking about that this morning.

This will have a "chilling effect" on diplomatic dialog, people will be reluctant to ever think they are offstage. But I'm not sure that's all bad, enforced honesty and civility in international politics, on pain of exposure, could be good. But you are correct that it is going to make one hell of a mess in the immediate future.

[Imajika]

43. Diplomats need to be able to speak freely...

...to our leaders.

If some Premier somewhere is a drunk, we need to be able to relay that information to our President and foreign policy team without being the nation embarrassing said Premier and his/her country by releasing the information. It just isn't our place to release that information, but it is important that Obama and our State Department know about it.

Here we are on a progressive website that generally demands more careful diplomacy rather than stomping around like a bull in a China shop, and yet people are cheering the release of sensitive/embarrassing information we'd expect a smart Obama administration not to release.

What you said is correct, this will have a chilling effect on diplomatic dialog. Yet, isn't MORE diplomatic dialog something we want rather than the bluster and "us or them" antics we got out of the last administration.

This type of release will likely severely damage President Obama's foreign policy efforts, and yet people here are cheering it? Bizarre.

[ProudDad]

48. Progressives demand transparency, accountability and honesty

not the bullshit machinations of Empire...

That's why we're cheering! :woohoo:

[bemildred]

52. Well I hear you, but I think we are going to have to live with it anyway.

I don't see this being undone any time soon. And I feel that the government is itself culpable for so badly botching the balance between secrecy, confidentiality, and its obligations to be transparent and accountable in its operation. As you will note, a lot of people are cheering this on.

[ProudDad]

47. Oh, gosh, where does one start?

Your "Democratic pResident" is already costing you over $1,200,000,000,000 per year for the legions of Empire to stand astride the Earth...

In order to supply your corporate capitalist masters with the raw material and slave laborers for their personal short term profit...

While turning you into a "consumer unit" for the corporate capitalist "system"...

While "externalizing" the costs and turning the Earth into a dead planet in the process...

Nothing good will come from the continuation of the Empire...

The sooner it's dead the better off we'll all be...


And no one's safe now...their "secrets" aren't "safe", their nefarious schemes and plans are in jeopardy... :rofl:

Hooray! :woohoo:

[boppers]

56. Damnit. No "Oligarch".

I would have won at "Hyperbolic Bingo", but you didn't complain about Oligarchy, (which would have been one diagonal line), or Proletariat (top line) or Bourgeois (a bottom line).

Any chance of stepping it up?

[ProudDad]

58. "Hyperbole"

That's another word the head in the sand types in states of heavy denial like to throw at folks who tell them inconvenient truths...

Nice bullshit non-response :eyes:

[No Elephants]

39. i hope as well, but times, folks and politics are very different now than they were then.

For one thing, blowing up a toilet in thee Pentagon in the middle of the night then was the act of an activist protesting an unjust war, even though he risked arrest and jail time for it. Today, that very same act, some would say brave and patriotic act, is "domestic terrorism." And Homeland Security protects corporations from copyright infringement.

(Why do I have the feeling that, somewhere, Lewis Carroll and Jonathan Swift are scratching their heads?)

[iandhr]

30. The question is how did he get his hand on

State Department cables how ever it was done it was not legal.

[drm604]

36. Bradley Manning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning

[BetsysGhost]

41. Whistleblowers?

Whistleblowers are courageous Americans looking out for your Freedom.

http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=71

[Imajika]

44. Manning is not a whistleblower...

He is at best a criminal, at worst a traitor.

[ProudDad]

50. Even if he IS a source...

He's not the only source...

The Empire's sprung a huge leak and will never recover...

Hooray! :woohoo:

The Genie's out of the bottle and the dominator hierarchy is dying...

Let's all hope that the fuckers don't turn the Earth into a dead planet on their way down...

[BetsysGhost]

51. The people at the link I provided support him.

:smoke:

[Imajika]

53. Yeah, so do a lot of people here...

I just think they are utterly wrong.

But hey, if you want to go on applauding the serious damage being done to the Obama administration go for it.

Personally, I voted for the President in hopes he would help build a better world and don't actively cheer when crap is done to undermine him.

[ProudDad]

49. From REAL Patriots... (n/t)

[kgnu_fan]

45. kick