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I think a lot of the leaks have taken this way too far and are putting individuals at risk

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giving away secrets of espionage puts future operations at risk

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Originally posted by MrsK:
Re; the rape claims. I'e read a fair amount, and it seems that "American's" (North Americans? What ever.. so I'm putting it in quotes) don't have a withdrawn consent rape law? That once consent has been given, it's given and can't be withdrawn?

As a woman, I'm sorry, I have the right to say no at ANY time and for my partner to respect that and stop what ever the fuck s/he is doing. If I am having sexual intercourse on the understanding that a condom is used, and the guy knows the condom has come off and continues - yes, I'm sorry, in my eyes that is not what I have given consent for and thus is rape.
And don't anyone DARE to say that a man can't stop once he has started. That's utter bull shit.

As for the rest.

I believe very strongly that we, the general public, need to know a hell of a lot more about what goes on. Too much is kept secret.
BUT. I think a lot of the leaks have taken this way too far and are putting individuals at risk, and putting US at risk. A world with no secrets is all very nice and fluffy, but some secrets are needed..

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No means no, at any time during the act.

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Originally posted by Boogerhead:
My bet is that when the world sees where the nazi gold went, things will fall pretty far.

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Originally posted by MrsK:
(...)
As a woman, I'm sorry, I have the right to say no at ANY time and for my partner to respect that and stop what ever the fuck s/he is doing. If I am having sexual intercourse on the understanding that a condom is used, and the guy knows the condom has come off and continues - yes, I'm sorry, in my eyes that is not what I have given consent for and thus is rape.
And don't anyone DARE to say that a man can't stop once he has started. That's utter bull shit.

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As for the rest.

I believe very strongly that we, the general public, need to know a hell of a lot more about what goes on. Too much is kept secret.
BUT. I think a lot of the leaks have taken this way too far and are putting individuals at risk, and putting US at risk. A world with no secrets is all very nice and fluffy, but some secrets are needed..

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Originally posted by Boogerhead:
What I mean is the individual account holders, be they government, like the Bush family, corporate like GE or Siemens, or private. It also allows us to track the distribution of all that blood money and see who founded families, corporations or governments with the proceeds and interest. All of this has been kept very secret for the last half century or so.

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Originally posted by Boogerhead:
The "nazi" gold was kind of a metaphor, but the effects of that smuggled wealth are still very tangible.... Those who held it directly after teh war are indeed long dead, but their heirs....
(...)

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Mark Hosenball reports that aside from some pockets of short-term damage, the impact of the Wikileaks leak of diplomatic cables has been embarrassing, but not damaging.

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Internal U.S. government reviews have determined that a mass leak of diplomatic cables caused only limited damage to U.S. interests abroad, despite the Obama administration’s public statements to the contrary.

A congressional official briefed on the reviews said the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers.

“I think they just want to present the toughest front they can muster,” the official said.

But State Department officials have privately told Congress they expect overall damage to U.S. foreign policy to be containable, said the official, one of two congressional aides familiar with the briefings who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“We were told (the impact of WikiLeaks revelations) was embarrassing but not damaging,” said the official, who attended a briefing given in late 2010 by State Department officials.

[snip]

National security officials familiar with the damage assessments being conducted by defense and intelligence agencies told Reuters the reviews so far have shown “pockets” of short-term damage, some of it potentially harmful. Long-term damage to U.S. intelligence and defense operations, however, is unlikely to be serious, they said. [my emphasis]

More important than yet another indication that the Obama Administration has oversold the damage done by Wikileaks is the reason given by Hosenball’s Congressional source as to why they oversold that damage: to bolster legal efforts to shut down Wikileaks’ website.

The Administration lied, says a congressional official, to make it easier to shut down Wikileaks.

Now that’s important for several reasons. First, all this time the government has been pretending that the series of decisions by private corporations to stop doing business with Wikileaks were made by the businesses on their own. Surprise surprise (not!), it seems that the government was affirmatively trying to shut down Wikileaks.

Just as importantly, Hosenball’s story seems to suggest, the government was going to service providers–the same service providers they routinely go to on terrorist investigations–and lying to get them to do the government’s bidding. The government was making claims about the damage of the leak to convince service providers to shut down Wikileaks.

And companies like Amazon, Visa, and PayPal complied.

So, to these companies, now tainted with cooperation in government censorship, was it worth it? Was it worth being branded as a collaborator, knowing you were lied to?

And to Philip Crowley, whom Hosenball quotes talking about “substantial” damage: given your critique of Tunisia’s suppression of social media, and given that we now know you lied in the service of similar repression, do you still want to claim there’s no disjunct between claiming to support free speech while squelching that of Wikileaks?

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More important than yet another indication that the Obama Administration has oversold the damage done by Wikileaks is the reason given by Hosenball’s Congressional source as to why they oversold that damage: to bolster legal efforts to shut down Wikileaks’ website.

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So, to these companies, now tainted with cooperation in government censorship, was it worth it? Was it worth being branded as a collaborator, knowing you were lied to?

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Schmitt told me that for all Assange’s bombast and dark conspiracy theories, he had a bit of Peter Pan in him. One night, when they were all walking down the street after dinner, Assange suddenly started skipping ahead of the group. Schmitt and Goetz stared, speechless. Then, just as suddenly, Assange stopped, got back in step with them and returned to the conversation he had interrupted.