WikiLeaks RETURNS: Website Takes New Approach After Being Forced Offline New Address: http://www.WikiLeaks.ch WikiLeaks has returned roughly six hours after it was forced offline, but it's got a new address. The website's primary host in the United States pulled the plug after "mass attacks," according to WikiLeaks. Now the organization appears to be back online as WikiLeaks.ch instead of WikiLeaks.org. They made the announcement via Twitter, saying "WikiLeaks moves to Switzerland." Before the incident on Thursday night, WikiLeaks was booted from Amazon servers on Dec. 1, causing a brief outage, and tonight it went down again. The site had migrated to Swedish servers, per the AP. The WikiLeaks Twitter account (@WikiLeaks) initially took a while to respond to the outage, but finally spoke up, stating "WikiLeaks,org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks." The DNS outage meant that the Wikileaks.org domain name was down worldwide. The Pentagon said Wednesday it could take down WikiLeaks if it wanted to, but to that point had decided against it. There have been reports that Russia is interested in shutting the site down. WikiLeaks cables: Live Q&A with Julian Assange The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, will be live online from 1pm today to answer readers' questions about the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables The paper's website lists the start time as 1 p.m. (presumably GMT, which would be 8 a.m. ET).
The poll for this thread needs another option, "I don't have enough information to have an informed opinion of this." I live in the United States, "land of the free" so it is of course quite difficult to get non biased information. Even so called independent news outlets here are calling for Assange's murder. One of our more astute politicians has said "when truth becomes treason we are in a lot of trouble" and I would have to agree with that. My fear is that something like this will be the catalyst for totalitarian control of the Internet.
I have watched a TV broadcast about.....last Sunday night All about that 'sex crime' is an accusation of one woman, Assange has had sex with her. Before he has had sex with another woman (he knows both from his team.) Wilén and Ardin. Then one woman became jealous as she noticed about (same old story). As revenge she made a report at the police, but not about rape. She also wrote at her site about you should repay things with the same subject like sex by sex...probably she got support by Americans http://rixstep.com/1/20100902,00.shtml Also at the TV broadcast there were some notices about that USA has interest about to murder him. Yihetuan, have you watched it? I'm sure where you live it was broadcasted as well. I'm not stupid..
Personally, I think the U.S is harming it's own global profile by trying to supress wiki in this way.
He has surrendered. @Yihetuan you are right. One good thing, though. He's much safer in jail, there are no American bullets..hopefully.... @Myrrh. We are all getting biassed informations. Interesting to me is in what way. To figure about you need to compare the informations.
Some of the info they leaked over at WL should not have been made public, like the names of certain Afghan people collaborating with international army forces in Afghanistan that have now become prime targets on their backs. So this proves the motives behind WL and its emphasis on 'transparency' are not based in any care or wisdom. To just plop tons of information out for anyone to see -- people who are sometimes putting their very lives at risk -- is clearly a very callous and ignorant act. So please don't present Assange as some kind of freedom savior or something, he is not. Leaking information carefully and methodically to better certain circumstances in the world is one thing, but to indiscriminately dump info of behind the scenes exchanges out for everyone to see, it is just not wise at all. It would be one thing to live like some ascetic and dedicate your life to truth and purity, and then admonish governments for acting soullessly; but the reality is that Assange lives around the globe like some kind of playboy and it is not fair to say he is a moral example. So to mete out actions that endanger people and rat out entire governments (or do you want all your private discussions to be aired online? and yes, it is the same thing when you really think about it), it is not someone riding a wave of empowerment and enjoying the fruits of it. He is using this information, don't for second fool yourself into thinking that he is doing this for anything but his own goals and gains.
What has Assange and the persons in Afghanistan whose names should have been leaked in common? Both have become prime targets on their backs. Whereas only regarding Assange I’m quite sure he is already a target. You say Assange is doing all this for his own goals and gains and at the same time you are worried about persons whose names should have been leaked. Do you think Assange risks his life for his own goals and gains only? He is no soldier and has to be afraid of to be killed, whereas soldiers have chosen their job voluntarily. They must be aware of to become killed! So you are worried about a leaked name of a soldier and you aren’t worried about Assange himself? When you are talking about to endanger then you should have a look at both sides. He neither orders to kill somebody nor kills himself, soldiers are doing that, it's their job! Assange is a strong individual with his own way to fight. He uses modern technologies whereas soldiers are using real weapons. He was fascinated what all is possible when using a PC in a small isolated room. He recognized that you can do something even though you are a small resident of some country only. Never before has it been possible to compare the reality on the battlefield in such a detailed manner with what the US Army propaganda machinery is propagating. All the leaks are about to reveal how corrupt and liars some governments / facilities are. It depends on the situation what belongs to privacy and has to be protected and what has to be told to the public (to others) This occurs every day at court. Being witness of a criminal act the law can force you to talk about EVERYTHING, there will be no privacy anymore, if the goal is to ascertaining the truth, to reveal a criminal act, to find a culprit, to completely elucidate all matters. For example you would not agree with sharing some personal information like how was your evening with your girlfriend. That’s privacy, nobody needs to know about and that’s fine. But things will change immediately when your girlfriend would have been murdered at the next morning. Then there will be no more privacy about. Assange’s goal is to ascertaining the truth by revealing criminal actions. This matter is awfully well of public interest. Your argument about to make my private discussions public compared to the leaks of wikileaks are totally different matters. And what’s about Assange’s privacy? You are calling him a playboy because you can read about that he has had sex with 2 women. How could he? Bad boy! I agree with that the leaks could have been leaked more organized, more professional. I’m sure they will improve that. Wikileaks are of public interests (to elucidate criminal actions and lies are) wheras my private posts aren't.
It really disturbs me how the US are handling this, they label Assange as a terrorist. wtf? PayPal, Visa & Mastercard block transactions to wikileaks because of this, 'western' politics on it's best i would say...NOT! Is anyone going to take 'the west' serious from now on? Are we anything better as to so called (communist) regiments we accuse not being open & transparent to it's population?
The idea of free journalism is great. But there always is important to take responibility for what is made public. For example a person living in a society served with propaganda will not have the same understanding and world view like other people who are living in a 'free' society. What we think has influence on our sense of reality because there always is a focus in consciousness. People need to be taken along in respect from where they are. The internet is a very good platform to prevent censored coverage. Do we all have the media competence to understand subtle opinions behind the spoken or written word and how it has influence on us? Do we all have an understanding of diplomatic subtlety that is very important to establish diplomatic connections? Sure it is not very diplomatic to write such dispatches even if they are confidential. If people are discribed then it could be more respectful. Honesty, respect and patience are very important values. What is human dignity and how can it be held up for everyone? If politics is seen like a game where everyone tries to bring through his/her nations interests it cannot unfold its advantages. The advantages of democracy are for example that everyone can get in touch with decissions and can be part of the decission process. If we elect representatives they need to keep in mind that they have been elected to represent people and to make decissions in their interest with foresight and vision. We need to be told the truth and we need to learn to understand complexity in politics. Maybe we even need to be eductated again. Nobody ever is fully trained. Then we can really be mature citizens and politicians don't need to worry about being elected again because we know about the negative aspects. That means to be realistic. The free media and internet is a chance to get all the information we need. Therefore journalists and consumers need to find a standard in media competence that also needs to be educated in school and get aware of the power that media has. Sometimes it changes the mood of a lot of people. Very often people just show their way of thinking without the interest of building a symbiosis in order to find solutions to central issues. Mood also is very important in economic markets. The amount of individual trends is rising. What does individualism lead to? We all are still human beings with different life experience but with the same basic needs and wishes. We cannot cling on someone. We, everyone needs to take responibility. Yours faithfully and with best wishes for everyone, Jelges
Nice to hear from you again, thanks for your opinion. Sad to me is that more and more people are feeling that their government doesn't represent the citizen anymore. It happens in Europe and America as well. Because there's democracy we still can have access to wikileaks. There is no confidence. The government tries to soak and control the people, but is promising comfortable things to become reelected. And they make decisions the common citizen cannot reproduce at all. But what's real said is that there is the need to have those leaks. If governments / facilities would inform the people about without to lie, without to streghten their force only, there would be no need of leaks / the leaks would be boring and there would be no interest about.
A few youtube clips that should give US citizens a hand-palm moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbadrGIL1ck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbwiXRmzKi0 Open internet, yeah in between boundaries it seems
The west seem to emphasise a free and open society whilst looking down on certain other nations for not being the same way. Unfortunately a 'free' society is state of mind we've been indoctrinated into believing. The fear factor we are spun over so called 'terrorism' is justified to a point, yet the Governments milk it for all it's worth in an attempt to supress people under the banner of anti-terrorism. As a keen photographer, I'm amazed at how many Police Officers don't know the law regarding photographing buildings in public places: I've been told to stop taking pictures of buildings and told it's to do with 'anti-terrorism'.. when in fact these Officers have been brain washed into using the term as some sort of joker card. There's not very much I could take a picture of that isn't easily viewable on Google Street view. Instilling fear and control through fear/censorship/propoganda is nothing new.. Someone once said: "An evil exists that threatens every man, woman, and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland." - That was Adolf Hitler in 1933.
And what's ironic, Hitler was right about. What he didn't know/ accept was that it was Hitler himself that was all evil. Germany needed help from the Allies to stop all the atrocities. And others who have leaked info were shot therefore on his behalf.
Greetings Yen, some coherences are just too complex even for the polititians. They need a clear mind, have to stand up for positions that are mature or at least grow in that direction. But that is effert and has nothing to do with self-expression. Sometimes decissions and developments need their time. It happens just too often that people polarize. This way we get to positions that seem to be too much apart so a symbiosis is hard to find. It also isn't helpful to seek for a culprit. We all make mistakes. It is important to learn from them. It often happens that people make people aware of their mistakes to feel better or to cover their own ones. There is a change in Germany. Just take a look at the Stuttgart 21 project. Changes take time. Polititians unfortunately do not form goals to mention to the people step by step so we can look forword to a common connecting goal.
Yen, you say, Your reasoning is not clear. Those 'soldiers' did not rat Assange out, now did they? So that is Assange's action. What he brings upon himself is HIS decision then, isn't it? (That you seemingly can only construe of his motive as noble is, I think, disturbing.) So what you're basically saying is that it's OK to risk other people's lives when you're risking your own? I just hope you're not in a position of much power -- just like Assange himself has proven not to be able to handle such power. BTW, those operatives were not 'soldiers', they were Afghans that put their lives on the line upon the condition of their anonymity... working basically as one the of the people among the people, under cover as it were. Leaking information about their names as WL has done has directly put a target on their heads, which has been confirmed by the terrorist forces. And you say that's OK because Assange put a target on his own head as well. It sounds like you are not thinking right at all. It is not even decent how you think. You seem to think Assange is some kind of leader or fighter. But who has ever tested or established his quality and general political approach to life and how he thinks to achieve his goals? To me he's just a rogue publisher who does not care about what happens as a result of his actions. In every relationship there is a time and a place for things -- the way he is acting is not like a natural interchange between things (people and/or governments that build on years of correspondence and diplomacy) but instead he's bombing everything like a crazy guy. Some kind of official getting frustrated with officials of another country or its leadership in general does not represent the wish and reality of entire nations attitude toward it. And yet there is great risk of such ill managed information damaging relationships and indeed putting people's lives at risk in certain cases. That is just not acceptable behavior -- I'm not sure what planet you're from, but on mine that is not the way we do things.
@Trinket You should be wondering who's responsible for the information leaked in the first place... Right! The same people who are resoponsible for leaking are now accusing the man for being a terrorist... all he did was publishing the leaked information.
Certain people may know the whereabouts of your daughter at any given time-- yet you would find fault with the one who gave that information to a known pedophile (or in this case, the Taliban), now wouldn't you? So to say that Assange's hands are clean in this because there was another one like him that didn't think about the consequences on people's lives... that is not reason. The documents leaking was not a nation's policy, it was the action of one callous person. Plus, this is not merely a US thing, it is about the entirety. If Assange was a Middle Eastern guy of Islamic faith and he would be doing what he's doing, many would think differently about him. Yet his actions themselves would be the same. So I think people are seeing what they want to see in him, they're not looking at what he's really doing or how he's doing it. I just don't believe the motive behind these leaks is constructive or are meant to be. And yes, there has to be a reason why you do things. Unless you're just trying to maintain a lifestyle and reputation.