Interesting opinion piece by several former members of the intelligence community, including Daniel Ellsberg (the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers). From the article:

Ellsberg strongly rejects the mantra "Pentagon Papers good; WikiLeaks material bad." "That's just a cover for people who don't want to admit that they oppose any and all exposure of even the most misguided, secretive foreign policy. The truth is that EVERY attack now made on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon Papers at the time."

Aside from the blatant "me too" mentality and his clear vendetta, I actually 100% agree with him on one point
The challenge is to make the truth available to them in a straightforward way so they can draw their own conclusions .

That is EXACTLY what is needed. Unfortunately, the problem (that Wikileaks is notoriously bad at) is letting people draw their own conclusions. They apply just as much spin as NPR, CNN, and FOX. And, much as with outlets like The Daily Show and NPR, people seem to think they aren't applying a spin, and just take it at face value.

From all of the major Wikileak leaks in the past year or so, (in my opinion), none of them have been particularly important to the everyday person. And they have greatly been about attacking the US and trying to get attention

"Collateral Murder": Great, show footage that most people don't understand in an attempt to reveal the sad truth of ANY war (collateral damage). And make sure to spin it to make it look like cold-blooded and calculated murder.

Afghan War documents/Iraq War Documents: Again, what was the point of this leak, aside from risking the lives of those who helped the US Forces bring peace to the region (whether you want to interpret that as winning hearts and minds to shorten the war, or kill people to get the evil American Devils out of the place which was 100% happy and perfect before they came and started shooting children for fun and raping livestock and kicking kittens!). What was particularly important to the average person making an informed decision? If someone honestly didn't think there was collateral damage, they probably aren't smart enough to make their own decision anyway.
Or are you saying that they need to have it rubbed in their face? Because that is sort of PETA's mentality, and we all agree they are whackjobs.
And, again the spin was that this was all a massive cover-up and was pure evil.
Fortunately, there are no (reported) casualties. That being said, take it with a grain of salt. I mean, it isn't like the US government would EVER lie to its people in an attempt to protect its own interests :p

Diplomatic Cables Release: Even the people in this thread who love Assange are saying that there is nothing of particular worth being revealed. So all this did was just add future strain to diplomatic relations.


But, I know what the standard response is: "Everyone has a right to know everything!".

Do you need to know the coefficient of friction for the offramp on the highway before you figure out what speed you are going to drive at, or are you capable of doing rough estimates in your head (based on weather conditions, posted speed limit, and the sharpness of the turn) and still making an informed decision? So why can't people do that without having every single bit of information?

But fine, let's ignore that point for now, and simplify this to "Everyone has a right to make an informed decision", and ignore the question of just how much information is required to make an informed decision.
Don't you agree that everyone has a right to actually make their OWN informed decision, rather than having someone else tell them what the "correct" answer is? (The answer is "no", if you want to keep complaining about government propaganda :p). Because Wikileaks is all about the spin with their PR and taglines.
If you don't like Beck (ugh) spinning every bit of information for his followers, why don't you have a problem with Wikileaks doing it?

Taiwanese animators immortalize Assange, as well as portraying Americans as bumbling fools. Well that much is true probably.

4Chan hacking a banking site does not in any way equal progress, dude. If that's honestly your concept of progress, you need your head checked.

By its very nature anonymous has no core identity or agenda. Some people who hide behind that mask really are nothing more than malicious little cowards with too much time on their hands. But that doesn't apply to all of anonymous any more than you could stereotype the rest of the internet.

Considering that after MasterCard and VIsa went down, Paypal announced that they'll release Wikileaks money, I'll call that a big progress. ;)

So basically, terrorism is good?

Cause suffering and threaten a lot of people (instill "terror") in the name of getting what you want?

Attacking web sites isn't progress, it's immature and discredits the attackers.

Terrorism is a lot about perspective. Don't you think England thought of George Washington as a traitor? Certainly a lot of wealthy landowners in the new world didn't like him.

Attacking non combat, civilian targets is terrorism. I'm not sure attacking the computer of a huge financial institution qualifies. Does not being able to use your debit card one time instill terror in you?

What I see is a douchebag group attacking a douchebag company. In a battle of the douchebags everyone else wins:)

If Visa or Mastercard don't want to participate in funding someone I'd say it's their right. They aren't forced to provide such services

So yeah it's borderline terrorism. The next step is to say "Give us free monies or we DDoS you all! You're evil corporations so it's our right!"

Exactly. Somehow someone related to WikiLeaks got my e-mail so they sent me a request to sign some petition. I declined. I hope none of those shitheads get any funny ideas.

Unless you threw a fit at them why should they care, really? To them you are completely unimportant. If you sent a nasty email someone might sign you up for a bunch of spam lists or something:)

Dammit guys :)

They made progress for themselves and wikileaks! How hard is to see that? :D

They made progress in getting their group all over the news, but this does jack shit for wikileaks. Just because a bunch of script kiddies start making a scene won't change whatever happens to Assange or his co-conspirators.

It gives the government more ammunition against WikiLeaks. "I mean, if these are the kind of losers who support the site, it must be bad!"

It's only ammunition in the court of public opinion in the US. He's not being held by the US nor would the court of public opinion matter much in a trial against him.

Assange is fabulously successful, everyone who hates Wikileaks thinks only of him. There's 100 other anonymous staff behind the guy. Maybe some shadow group in the NSA knows who they are but even the US government at large does not.

Paypal was actually in the wrong here. Afaik they were under no legal obligation to freeze accounts and just decided to. It's nice to know there's someone out there that will hand their ass to them as the US government has has turned a blind eye to their malfeasance for years.