WikiLeaks is in the news for dumping thousands of documents allegedly detailing CIA techniques for hacking and surveillance. The documents are bound to embarrass the intelligence agency.
In this case the timing is suspect. The revelations come just as America's worst ever president is at war with America's intelligence community, including the CIA and the FBI. Trump is alleging that his predecessor even tapped Trump's phones during the election campaign and afterward. Presumably these documents will be manna from heaven to the Great Orange Bloat.
The timing is suspect, coming just days after Trump confidante. dirty trickster and some time advisor, Roger Stone, tweeted that WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, collaborated with the Trump campaign.
Trump loyalist and former top adviser Roger Stone claimed on Twitter that he had a back channel to work with Julian Assange at Wikileaks to spread damaging leaked Clinton emails.
US intelligence has unanimously said that Russia interfered in the US election in what it called a "multifaceted campaign" of "cyber espionage", and that Clinton's emails were obtained by Russian hackers.
Stone's claim that he worked with Assange to spread Clinton's emails comes amid growing reports of Trump staffers meeting with Russian officials, then lying about it.
Neither Assange nor WikiLeaks has responded to Stone's allegation that they worked with, aided and abetted, the Trump campaign to damage Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency. That brings into question the timing of today's revelations.
Assange has a vested interest in currying favour in Washington. If he can get a deal from the sitting administration, amnesty perhaps, he can get out of his self-imposed house arrest in the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Trump is looking for something, anything to support his bare allegations that, during the campaign and after, he was subject to wiretapping.
Roger Stone's twitter rants are enough to put a cloud over WikiLeaks, one that both it and Assange need to address before it can again be deemed credible. If it's disseminating information, selectively, to advance its own or its founder's interests, everything it releases is suspect at best.
Meanwhile, the British paper, The Express, comes right out and asks if Trump will grant Assange immunity for WikiLeaks election help?
Meanwhile, the British paper, The Express, comes right out and asks if Trump will grant Assange immunity for WikiLeaks election help?
Lets see who we can blame tRump on...
ReplyDeleteIts Jill Stein ... she's the Ralph Nader of 2016 - don't buy iy?
Its the Russkkies ... dirty commies ... err whatever
Its Julian Assange .. that's the ticket!! (besides he's a dreadful rapist too, eh?)
Kinda like blaming Harper on the Greens eh Mound?
NPoV - get on topic. Nobody is claiming that WikiLeaks or Julian Assange delivered the White House to Trump. This is about WikiLeaks and whether it is, as I have argued for a good while, compromised, bent. That indeed seems to be the case. If you don't like that, I couldn't care less. Assange is so desperate to get out of the Ecuadorian embassy that he's compromised WikiLeaks itself. His tweets during the campaign only reinforce that conclusion. WikiLeaks has allowed itself to become an agency for the benefit of Assange. Selective, targeted leaking is the information equivalent of fake news, engineered revelation. If you want to respond to something, respond to that.
ReplyDeleteSorry I forgot a big one. (Lost in the memory hole - cause we've found so many new memes that seem to work better these days.)
ReplyDeleteIt Bernie's fault for exposing/running against a war-mongering-Wall-street-goon-ette when he could see the fix was in. Oh ya then he campaigned for her bigly ... that really proves he's part of the cabal and an anti-woman old male-chauvinist.
I am trying to point out that you've succumbed to the media narrative* that deflects from the BIG story:
ReplyDeleteyour TV (& everything else) is hack-able by the whole world..... courtesy of the CIA.
*Can't refute the message then smear the messenger.
We all own this. Or at least the dreadful populace to our south 'own' Trump just as us lovely CDNs 'own' selfie-boy. Enough with the silly scapegoating already.
You still don't get it, NPoV, so I'll spell it out for you one more time. This post isn't about what the CIA is or isn't doing. It's about Assange and what he is doing and his apparent motives. Divulging information is one thing. It's giving voice to whistleblowers and WikiLeaks is right to protect their anonymity. That's great but when circumstances arise that make one question the timing of leaks, how they're targeted and what Assange chooses to divulge or perhaps not divulge, that raises a very legitimate question of whether WikiLeaks is manipulating the information it possesses for Assange's personal benefit. The question is whether Assange is bent and WikiLeaks thereby corrupted? Now that alt.right and Breitbart have become fans that's a reasonable question, one that you seem determined to deflect. Every comment you've made on this post is off-topic.
ReplyDeleteAssange must be going insane cooped up in the embassy.
ReplyDeleteNo one could blame him for hedging his bets.
Assange is not a hacker; he only puts out hacks that he deems usable, interesting or self serving.
TB
What matters Mound that Assange is a purveyor of the truth. Incomplete in your view? Why the devil he is publishing about is, in your eyes better, than the other one, the devil you are obsessed with? So Assange took sides... like you.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, NPov has a valid point, not unlike you :-)
A..non
Has Wikileaks ever done any big document dumps exposing Russian intelligence services?
ReplyDeleteGee, I wonder why not?
A..non, you're brighter than that. Court cases are won and lost every day not on truth versus lies but on how much truth is revealed. Partial truth can be even more deceptive than outright lies because it can be built on a credible foundation. Every fraud artist knows that brilliant truth. The only thing that surprises me is how many people never seem to grasp that little truism. They're inevitably found in the ranks of the swindled.
ReplyDeleteA few things things:
ReplyDelete1. The CIA (or anyone else) can only spy on you if your appliances are internet connected. If you bought internet connected appliances you're their accomplice. Bad on you.
2. Assange has never claimed not to have any self interest. However, there are a lot of people working for Wikileaks, very idealistic people putting a lot on the line for those ideals who would quite probably kick up a fuss if they thought that Assange was selectively curating the releases for purely self serving reasons.
There's a good reddit conversation I found from a few months ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wikileaks_staff_despite_our_editor/
3. Does it matter? I mean *really* matter. The qualitative differences between the Repubs and the Dems are largely cosmetic (Bernie notwithstanding) just as we've learned to our dismay that the differences between our Libs and Cons are largely cosmetic as well. I mean looked at one way it's probably better that some kind of revolution be brought about sooner rather than later.
Here is a possible link between Trump and Assange.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-julian-assange-ecuadorian-embassy-london-lbc-ukip-a7620921.html
TB