Wikileaks relases a ton of documents that seriously piss off governments and Assange walks into a police station and turns himself in. Anyone know where he's going with this?

I suspect they threatened to do harm to Assange, or someone he cares about, but is not nearly so hard to find, if he didn't come in. I've also heard rumors, among the paranoid, that the whole thing is a preamble for some anti-internet freedom campaign, and it maybe this is just part of that.

I was kinda with Wikileaks on some of this... Although I kinda draw the line at the "critical US installations" leak... Like nearly everything else Wikileaks has put out, it wasn't really a secret (nothing we didn't already know, nor, in this case, anything anyone was interested in couldn't already readily get ahold of), but there's no moral upside to a release like that. Probably not doing any real harm, but it seems designed to scare the paranoid and be sensationalist. It's one thing to leak "secrets" to expose incompetence, maliciousness, or hypocrisy - but that particular "leak" seemed to be put up just to piss folks off. Granted, anyone can post to Wikileaks, so I'm not sure if Assange himself had anything to do with it.

Of course, the best part of this whole thing, is now Torrents are part of Homeland Security's concerns.

I suspect the days where "www" stands for "wild-wild-west" are numbered - but I have a feeling the political stuff will get clamped down on well before all the illegal transactions and scams are, so long as someone like Meg Whitman can still make money off them.
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"We got into Iraq under false pretenses? We are targeting civilians and reporters we don't like? We're allowing torture in our off-shore prisons? Embassies double as headquarters for spy agencies? With breaking stories like these, I wonder if 'wikileaks.org' has a redirect from 'captainobvious.com'" - Lorely's Logistics
Thothie

The spin in collateral murder is ridiculous, I expect them to leak things, not give opinion like faux news

you can find more about that here http://postgradbonanza.wordpress.com/20 ... al-murder/


but I can sum it up with




I like the concept of wikileaks, it's just some things seem to be for hype and exposure and not for leaks sake

I remember watching that video when it first came out, and my opinion now is the same as it was then - if you hang around guys with guns and RPGs while attack helicopters circle overhead, you are inviting disaster. It's unfortunate that people get caught up in this kind of shit, but they either knew the risks and accepted them, or didn't know, and clearly demonstrated a profound and willful ignorance.

Granted, I don't know if you *can* hang about in Baghdad, and avoid your company involving guys with guns.

Given that we had tanks shooting at the floor on a high-rise serving as headquarters for Al Jazeera and some "liberal" un-embedded American reporters, under the pretext that there were snipers on the floor below them (even though a video clearly showed all the windows on that side of the building had been plated over, having been blown out days before)... Coupled with the Al Jazeera transmitter station we took out, that wasn't even in Iraq, killing twenty civilians, makes this sort of collateral damage seem passé, to say the least. Again, the fact that we occasionally ice civilians or reporters we don't like is hardly "secret", nor is the fact that we occasionally accidentally, or even, once in awhile, just out of frustration, ice an entirely innocent civilian - that's just war. Sh*t happens.

Granted, it is disturbing that we know all this and, even when it's entirely against public sentiment, keep doing it anyways. I don't think Wikileaks does much to emphasize that aspect though.
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"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." - George Orwell
Thothie

I also find it absolutely hilarious how the media is trembling in terror of the Low Orbit Ion Cannon being aimed at Paypal, Amazon, Visa, and Mastercard as a result of this BS. Funny to see it on NPR in particular. Ya think the work filters would stop these fools from picking up stories from 4chan.
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"Like riding an exploding wave of chocolate down a volcano in Hawaii. The sky is a beautiful shade of pink, and looking up, you realize the clouds are all perfect breasts clapping together in symmetry. Cheering you on." - 4Chan
Thothie

4chan, Internet superheros
I largely support what Assange is doing. If nothing else the whole story is just amazingly epic. Hackers vs the world