The New York Times Ruling Capitalist Propaganda Hit on WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks Media-Military-Industrial-Complex  The New York Times Ruling Capitalist Propaganda Hit on WikiLeaks WIKILEAKS RESPONSE  to New York Times propaganda hit via @WikiLeaks  NYT Capitalist Propaganda | direct link The Young Turks Julian Assange Hit Piece In New York Times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_npSb-tyGQ RT News - Aaron Swartz Major Media Trying to Cut Out WikiLeaks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H1zLZ-xS0w TRANSCRIPT [For quotation purposes, confirm audio] Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA In the wake of WikiLeaks one-upping every news organisation on the planet, with a large trove of classified information they received, the major newspapers are trying to cut them out of the picture. As we've told you before on this show, The New York Times and The Guardian have been working on creating their own leaking sites, and yesterday, the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, launched their own leaking website called 'Safe House'. But, is this going to be enough to cut out WikiLeaks, to inspire whistleblowers to come to their site instead? It doesn't seem so, if you look at the fine print. In The Wall Street Journal's terms and conditions, those leakers who choose to remain anonymous, must first enter into a Confidentiality Agreement that states that any of the information sent to the journal can be used in any purpose. As in, they hold the right to disclose any information about the leaker, to law enforcement authorities without notice, in order to 'comply' with laws. AND 'Safe House' leakers have to agree not to use the service for any unlawful purpose. So does this just destroy the basic principles of anonymity aligned with leaking, and does it serve as a vindication for WikiLeaks? Joining me to discuss this is Aaron Swartz, Executive Director of DemandProgress.org. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Aaron, thanks again for coming back on the show. Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Thanks for having me. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Do you think that WikiLeaks has really changed the playing field over the last year? We're seeing this journalism 'arm's race' as to who can set up their own leaking site, or I guess alternative, faster. Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Clearly.  I mean, this is a huge vindication for WikiLeaks.  We've gone from everybody saying they should be locked up in prison, to the point where every newspaper and news outlet wants to have their own WikiLeaks site. I mean, we've got to a point where if they want to lock up Julian Assange, they're going to have to lock up every editor of every major newspaper in this country. It's just ridiculous. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Well, it's interesting, too, because The Wall Street Journal didn't get any of the document dumps from WikiLeaks, so I'm wondering maybe there's a little bit of bitterness involved there, too. I mean, why would Rupert Murdoch want to do this? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Yeah.  I mean, we've seen incredible sets of sour grapes from some of WikiLeaks' critics. For example, after The New York Times was cut out of one of the WikiLeaks scoops, their editor went around calling Julian Assange a crazy bag lady. I mean, the pettiness of these journalists is just incredible. So, I think what we're seeing is some of the more right-wing papers like The Wall Street Journal, which have had biased coverage and sort of right-wing slants on all their news, now they're trying to provide a competitor to WikiLeaks to get stories for themselves, so they can slant it instead of letting WikiLeaks control the story. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Let's talk about all the ways in which this Wall Street Journal experiment fails. First of all, not only do they not guarantee you any type of anonymity and say they might hand you over to the authorities, or at least your information, if they have to, I also hear that there are a lot of technical loopholes here. Can you tell us about some of those? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Yeah, that's exactly right.  They recommend that you use a secure anonymity service called Tor; which is a great idea.  Everyone should be using Tor to submit documents anonymously. But, unfortunately, they never tested it with Tor.  So if you did try to use it, it just didn't work. Similarly, the encryption system they use had serious flaws that allowed the government to decrypt some of the encrypted communications, under certain scenarios, and there were other multiple vulnerabilities in it. It just seems like they hadn't thought it through. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA But the fact that they also say it has to be lawful and that we might hand over your information to the authorities if they ask for it; I mean, that seems to go against the basic principles of what it is to be a whistleblower, what it is to be an anonymous source of some kind of documents. So do you think this just proves that all the news organisations are now scared. Now, all of a sudden, leaking isn't what it used to be and now they feel like they have to comply with the law no matter what and do what the government puts pressure on them to do? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Yeah.  I mean, I'm sure the lawyers got in here and said, look, we've got to have the free right to put everyone, you know, out to dry if we want to. The good news is that fewer Wall Street Journal journalists will go to jail. The bad news is that all the sources will go to jail.  The people who don't have the resources of a newspaper to protect them.  They're going to be hung out to dry and they're going to be the people most at risk, the people who are doing the hard work of actually leaking these documents. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA But at the same time, you know, I bet you that if WikiLeaks were to have another major document dump, even if that was to be obtained illegally, which I think is still obviously up for debate right now, I still think that The Wall Street Journal would go ahead and print it.  What about you? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Oh, definitely. There's a great study in The Atlantic today, that found The New York Times, which has been somewhat critical of WikiLeaks, like I've mentioned:  half of every paper issued by The New York Times this year - half of all of them - had WikiLeaks based stories in them. So on the one hand they criticise it, but on the other hand they put it into almost every newspaper they print. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA So what's your prediction, then, for The Wall Street Journal 'Safe House'? Do you think it's going to be a success?  Do you think that whistleblowers are actually going to go towards it, because they're so afraid with the example that the government has made out of WikiLeaks, out of Julian Assange, out of Bradley Manning, or does it really kind of put a dimmed light on all whistleblowing? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA You know, I think people who don't trust WikiLeaks aren't going to trust Rupert Murdoch any more. You know, what I think what we're going to see is this continued proliferation of leaking sites all across the internet. Because the internet is fundamentally designed to share documents. It's not something that you can shut down by just shutting down one website. And, so, what I'm hoping is that an open community will develop.  We will learn these best practices - these security things, like the ones Jake Appelbaum has pointed out today, about how to ensure that your site is safely encrypted, as well as operational security things about how to keep yourself anonymous and how to share documents securely, so that instead of relying on one single point of failure or one right-wing newspaper company, documents will be spread all over the net by everybody. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Well, you know, I think you wrote up a good point before, when you mentioned The Wall Street Journal and, obviously, how some of their coverage might be a little bit biased. Do you think that it would be the type of scenario, where unlike WikiLeaks who puts it all out there no matter what it is that you send, that they would even censor?  They might not even, you know, print stories about the leaks you send, especially if it might be a corporation with which Rupert Murdoch is associated with? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA I think that's very clear. I mean, one of the fascinating innovations of WikiLeaks is this thing they call 'scientific journalism'. You know, they don't just write stories about the documents and quote them out of context, like The New York Times will do. They put the full documents online so that you can read them for yourselves without the spin; you know, without putting it in certain context. You can read the raw facts and make your own decisions. It's really hard to imagine Rupert Murdoch doing that. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Well, I think we'll have to wait and see whether this is successful at all. Wait and see whether The New York Times and The Guardian come up with their own versions. Al-Jazeera already has, you know, a certain unit that they've dedicated to that, too. But, somehow, I just don't really see this working out all that well. I think it's a bad, bad imitation of WikiLeaks. Aaron, I want to thank you, for joining us, very much. Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Thanks for having me.  [Nods] ... Assange proffered a vision of America as superbully: a nation that has achieved imperial power by proclaiming allegiance to principles of human rights while deploying its military-intelligence apparatus in “pincer” formation to “push” countries into doing its bidding, and punishing people like him who dare to speak the truth. [NYT] Media-Military-Industrial-Complex  [Michael Hastings] Michael Hastings: Army Deploys Psychological Operations on U.S. Senators in Afghanistan War Effort DemocracyNow.org - "Federal law prohibits the military from using propaganda and psychological tactics on U.S. citizens, but that is exactly what may have happened in Afghanistan according to reporter Michael Hastings, who was interviewed by Democracy Now! about his recent expose for Rolling Stone magazine is called, "Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-ops on U.S. senators." In the article, Hastings writes that Lt. General William Caldwell, the commander of NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan, illegally employed psychological operations to manipulate visiting U.S. senators into providing more troops and funding for the war effort. "It show how far-off the rails the entire operation has gone," Hasting says. "The most important battlefield isn't in Afghanistan, it is in Washington."" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGi6FHi2zOE Discussing Afghanistan with Michael Hastings Published on 14 Jun 2012 "In 2010, Michael Hastings wrote a controversial piece for Rolling Stone that potentially ruined the reputation of US army general Stanley McChrystal, then commander of NATO's internal security assistance force in the war in Afghanistan. The article, which detailed McChrystal's disapproval of President Obama, caused McChrystal to resign his position. We got in touch with Hastings and he gave us the opportunity to discuss counter insurgency in Afghanistan, criticisms of President Obama and the ongoing tension between the Pentagon and the White House." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZwTATnSsvA Michael Hastings on 'The Operators' Uploaded on 11 Jan 2012 "Michael Hastings the Rolling Stone reporter whose profile of Stanley McChrystal ended the General's career has now expanded his experiences with troops, his thoughts on COIN, the rise and fall of McChrystal, and the toxic reaction from other journalists into book form. He joins the show to discuss his new book, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan"." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMzMs67cj38 DEAD. The Young Turks More Details Emerge on the Death of Michael Hastings "Our friend and colleague Michael Hastings died early Tuesday morning in a one-car crash in Los Angeles. Wikileaks' Twitter account is now reporting that hours before his death, Hastings contacted Wikileaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson saying he was being investigated by the FBI. Some establishment media outlets have taken care to try and assault Hasting's character and achievements as a journalist. Cenk Uygur breaks it down." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoyuXzM059Q DEAD. 'Aaron was killed by the government' - Robert Swartz on his son's death "On Tuesday, the funeral services of Aaron Swartz took place outside of Chicago, Illinois. Swartz reportedly committed suicide on Friday, and his family says the US government is to blame for the legal action taken against the 26 year old for allegedly hacking into secured computers. RT web producer Andrew Blake brings us more from Highland Park, Illinois." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yKkk-cUk6c IN DANGER U.S. Demands to Assassinate Assange Published on 27 Nov 2012 "High-level U.S. government officials, including Clinton and Biden, demand for the assassination of Assange and to list WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization." http://shop.wikileaks.org/donate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQW0US2sJw