Former Wikileaks Spokesman Destroyed Documents 469
bs0d3 writes "Former Wikileaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg claims to have destroyed more than 3,500 unpublished files that had been sent from unknown informants and are now apparently lost irrevocably. Among the files destroyed are the US gov's 'no-fly list' and inside information from 20 right wing organizations. Daniel Domscheit-Berg is now known as one of the founders of openleaks."
Tragic... (Score:5, Interesting)
I would really like to have seen the No-Fly list. My older brother has been "randomly selected" for several flights in a row and I strongly suspect it is a name association with someone else. But our democratic republic uses "secret lists" now to persecute people. What can you do?
Re:Tragic... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's sometimes okay to kill cops and you already named the case. When the cops are murdering people, or even you, you have the right to defend yourself and others with lethal force.
Cops are no different than any other people. I'll say it again. Cops are no different than any other people. Bad people who desire power go to where the power is, and cops have power. Cops are also just as likely, independent of this, to be bad as any other ordinary human being.
When is it okay to kill another human being? When they are murdering people, or murdering you, to prevent that death or deaths. Cops are human beings, and thus, this rule applies to them as well.
I'm not saying people should preemptively kill cops because they might be bad, or to kill them after the fact in revenge, but if killing a cop saves another human's life that's about to be murdered, do it. They should enjoy no special protection because they wear a badge.
This will not be a popular viewpoint from the law enforcement community, who like to feel they are above the law or are the law, but the majority of them have not, nor will end up murdering anybody, so relax. I am simply saying that cops aren't special when it comes to self defense and the defense of others when it's the cops doing the killing.
Re:Tragic... (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider this:
Before the Republican party allied itself with the bible-thumpers, the Republican party was considered the Liberal side while the Democrats were the conservatives. The democrats didn't change. The Republicans simply swung even further to the extreme than the Democrats... enough to make them look "liberal" by comparison. It wasn't always the way we see it today you know.
Re:Bullshit Summary, after Bullshit Summary (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tragic... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, they're not using 'secret' lists anymore. They're just going after people because they have been granted the authority to do so. I live about 100 miles from a US border (within the 200 mile from any border that the DHS has been granted full authority) and even though it was promised to only be used for external threats, recently the US Border Patrol in conjunction with local police recently used heat seeking drones to find pot plantations in the area and made arrests.
Re:Tragic... (Score:5, Interesting)
this story has another side (Score:4, Interesting)
Rather than just raging against DDB, maybe his side of the story should be heard as well.
It goes somewhat like this:
Once upon a time, there was a big fallout between Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheidt-Berg, and Julian kicked Daniel out.
Daniel took his personal hardware with him, which happened to contain this hard-drive full of leaked documents.
A couple of other wikileaks staff sided with Daniel and also left. This included the so called Architect, who took down wikileaks submission-site for the following reasons:
- he built it
- he knew it was insecure
- once he was gone, there was no-one left to fix it
Given that Julian accused Daniel of stealing these documents in order to use them for his new site OpenLeaks, Daniel didn't wan't to publish them himself.
There have been attempts to give these data back to wikileaks, but these failed. Daniel insisted that after the loss of much of its technical staff, wikileaks had to prove that is was still able to protect the sources' identities. The CCC tried to mediate the exchange. Whatever happened here was not made public, so one can only guess what kind of mess it was.
Re:More information please (Score:3, Interesting)
If you have been following DDB and Wikileaks since last year, the mud was actually flowing from DDB toward Wikileaks/Assange, not the other way around. DDB went so far as to write a book about his time at Wikileaks, generously throwing mud at Assange in the process. There was such retarded stuff in there that it made DDB look silly, obviously he was holding a grudge. In the few instances where Wikileaks referred to DDB was to say he had been fired at some point in the past, period. No mud-slinging. This week only Wikileaks addressed the DDB-saga [wlcentral.org] by disclosing more about DDB when it appeared the unpublished leaked materials was not going to be returned.
No need to speculate, stick to the track record so far to judge, and Wikileaks' track record is impeccable when it comes to standing up for whistle-blowers, to publish their leaked materials, and to defend in court the publication of their leaked materials. On the other hand, DDB's track record rather shows a trampling, not support, of the whistle-blowers' wishes.
Re:Tragic... and explanation (Score:2, Interesting)
moonbender's is probably as full and even-handed an explanation of the wikileaks v. openleaks altercation as can be put in a few short paragraphs.
The WL v OL business is an odd mess, and with deletion of data has become odder, but also clearer. A reason given by D-B for breaking from WL was "protection of data". An initial intention thatD-B asserted was to set up "media-partnerships" to provide "improved screening" for leaked data. The stated intentions, in themselves, suggested more agenda than the "battle of egos" explanation, which was roffered then, and since, and is usually raised in popular press coverage.
With a block of data carried away, that block, according to both sides, containing a combination of leaked embarrassing-to-government data and leaked embarrassing- to-"right-wing neo-nazi" groups data, and the embarrassing to "right-wing neo-nazi" group (government opponents) part being released to a "media partner", and the embarrassing to government part being destroyed, politically biased "data protection" and "media (and other) partnering" are indicated.
In analysis from beginning to present, with smoke-and-mirrors glare and obscuration stripped away, D-B's purpose does appear to have been, from the beginning, to control damage. With the selective release and destruction of specifically different parts of data from a single block, that D-B's purpose has been and is damage-control for "partners" appears confirmed.
Re:Tragic... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm wondering if you live up here in Washington State, near me, where DSH is in full force on the Olympic Peninsula - many miles from any boarder crossing - setting up road-blocks where citizen or not, you better show them your "papers" unless you want to be inconvenienced for a few hours... They say they are there to protect us from "terrorists" but in fact they spend most of their time harassing US citizens and rounding up undocumented (illegal) farm workers. It's the roadblocks and the demand to see my papers that tick me off...