Read moreA global civilization appears to be emerging for the first time. It’s unstable, unevenly distributed, and blindly fumbling its way forward. But we have unprecedented tools for sharing information; slowly developing theories of behavioural economics, cognitive bias, and communications that move beyond the crudely simplistic (and wrong) 19th century models of perfectly rational market actors: even models of development that seem to be generating sporadic progress in those countries that were hammered down and ruthlessly exploited as colonial assets by the ancien regime and its inheritors.
We need — quite urgently, I think — plausible visions of where we might be fifty or a hundred or a thousand years hence: a hot, densely populated, predominantly urban planetary culture that nevertheless manages to feed everybody, house everybody, and give everybody room to pursue their own happiness without destroying our resource base.
Because historically, when a civilization collapsed, it collapsed in isolation: but if our newly global civilization collapses, what then …?
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Read moreIf WikiLeaks can gain access to secret material, by whatever means, so presumably can a foreign power. Words on paper can be made secure, electronic archives not. The leaks have blown a hole in the framework by which states guard their secrets.
Read moreit’s wrong in a way that futurists are often wrong: it assumes a clean break with history and the positive extinction of the past. It predicts an information landscape that is reminiscent of the Radiant Garden Cities that Jane Jacobs railed against: a “modern” city that could only be built by bulldozing the entire city that stood before it and building something new on the clean field that remained. Every futuristic vision that starts with a clean slate has a genocide or an apocalypse lurking in it. Real new cities are build through, within, around, and alongside of the old cities. They evolve.
Read morePayPal has permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity. We’ve notified the account holder of this action.
Read moreSearch engine outfit Google has decided to start censoring searches so that they do not offend the music and film industry.
The outfit is going to stop allowing its search engine to find torrent sites and places that might be distributing pirated content.
Google has announced an updated copyright plan and promised to respond to takedown requests in a more timely manner and focus more intensely on expelling infringing content from its products.
Read moreAmazon Web Services (AWS) rents computer infrastructure on a self-service basis. AWS does not pre-screen its customers, but it does have terms of service that must be followed. WikiLeaks was not following them. There were several parts they were violating. For example, our terms of service state that “you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content… that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy and will not cause injury to any person or entity.” It’s clear that WikiLeaks doesn’t own or otherwise control all the rights to this classified content. Further, it is not credible that the extraordinary volume of 250,000 classified documents that WikiLeaks is publishing could have been carefully redacted in such a way as to ensure that they weren’t putting innocent people in jeopardy. Human rights organizations have in fact written to WikiLeaks asking them to exercise caution and not release the names or identities of human rights defenders who might be persecuted by their governments
Read moreIt’s been left to astute bloggers to articulate the importance of establishment embarrassment at a time when US foreign policy under Obama has mostly continued the pattern set by the Bush administration.
One example is the litany of documents that prove Israel and the US looking to spy on Palestinian officials and gather information such as frequent flyer and credit card numbers. Many in the Israeli press are pleased that the documents prove that US-backed autocrats support the hardline Israeli stance on attacking Iran. Why a supposedly democratic nation like Israel would want to be in bed with one of the most brutal regimes in the world, Saudi Arabia, has gone largely unremarked.
But little of this has surfaced in the corporate press as they’ve been too busy repeating the talking points of outraged officials in Canberra, London and Washington. The reaction of Arab bloggers has also been mostly ignored.
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But where is the bravery in the media assessing the fallout of the leaks? Slate’s Jack Shafer calls for the resignation of Hillary Clinton because of the hard evidence that she demanded her foreign-service officials to spy on friend and foe. Here was – in black and white – documentation that shows Washington engaged in a global network of espionage. When Tehran or Beijing acts similarly, it’s called terrorism.
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It’s as if the corporate press can’t quite bring itself to acknowledge the lies told by the US government, fearful of losing access in the process. Instead, many in the Australian press are giving valuable space to the US ambassador in Canberra who unsurprisingly condemns the leaks.
Moreover, one of the key take-away points from the revelations is the US contempt for democracy around the world. Public opinion can be essentially ignored for the perceived greater good; backing Zionist and Arab dictatorships in the name of oil security. We should care that US officials pressured nations not to investigate alleged human rights committed by the US post 9/11.
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The job of real journalists is not to insulate officials or governments from embarrassment but to investigate legitimate stories relevant to the public interest. Note how many reporters are primarily worried about Washington’s loss of information, not the details contained within the files.
Damaging the “national interest” is a principle that should be questioned when policies of the state are deliberately designed to ensure secrecy over state-sponsored terrorism. Transparency and accountability are what WikiLeaks offers. Those who oppose it must be vigorously challenged.
Whatever a U.S. diplomat hears or says in conversations with local government officials and colleagues from other countries now runs the risk of being published and read by thousands of people from dozens of countries. Such conversations are bound to be governed by the fear of public exposure. America’s diplomatic relations with friends and allies, Mr. Assange will be pleased to hear, have been severely damaged. Not permanently, but at least for a while.
Some say Mr. Assange does not seem to understand that the United States is still the behind-the-scenes catalyst for resolving tough regional and global issues. And that he has made it harder to resolve critical issues around the world by making the U.S. a less trusted interlocutor. The flip side of the coin says “International Subversives.” They seek global chaos to spawn a New World Order. It’s also called the totalitarian temptation, which has existed from time immemorial.
DE BORCHGRAVE: International Subversives – Washington Times
immanentize the eschaton?! He IS Hagbard Celine, at least in this guy’s eyes..
Around the world, governments seem to be more interested in obeying the goals of industry lobbyists and the rich than in actually governing well; this isn’t an accident, but the outcome of the capture of the machinery of governance by groups of individuals who are self-selecting for adherence to a narrow ideological outlook. In effect we are beset by accidental authoritarian conspiracies — not top-down conspiracies led by a white-cat-stroking Bond villain, but unintentional ad-hoc conspiracies by groups of individuals who work together to promote common interests. By coordinating, they can gain control of our institutions and impose an agenda that is agreeable to their interests (but not to the majority of the public). Familiar examples might include: the music and film industries and their catspaws among the lobbyists attending the WIPO intellectual property negotiations, the oil and coal industries, the religious right, and so on.
Assange has a model of how the abduction of governance by common interest groups — such as corporations and right wing political factions — works in the current age. His goal is to impair the ability of these groups to exert control over democratic institutions without the consent of the governed. By forcing these authoritarian institutions to apply ever-heavier burdens of secrecy to their internal communications, wikileaks aims to reduce their ability to coordinate and, thus, to exert control:
“Authoritarian regimes give rise to forces which oppose them by pushing against the individual and collective will to freedom, truth and self realization. Plans which assist authoritarian rule, once discovered, induce resistance. Hence these plans are concealed by successful authoritarian powers. This is enough to define their behavior as conspiratorial.”
Assange’s analysis parallels Chomsky’s — modulo having a somewhat different ideological outlook — but he’s gone a significant step further, and is fighting back. His own explanation is here (warning: PDF).
Wikileaks is not attacking the US government; rather, it’s acting to degrade the ability of pressure groups to manipulate the US government to their own ends. Those who benefit the most from their ability to manipulate the State Department are the most angry about this: autocratic middle eastern leaders, authoritarian right-wing politicians, royalty, corporate cartels. Those of us who are scratching our heads and going “huh?” about the significance of Muammar Ghadaffi’s botox habit are missing the point: it’s not about the content, but about the implication that the powerful can no longer count on their ability to lie to the public without being called on it.
In an ideal world, wikileaks wouldn’t be necessary. But the US mass media has been neutered and coopted by the enemies of the public interest.
Julian Assange, defending our democracies (despite their owners’ wishes) – Charlie’s Diary
Stross’s analysis is spot on. Click through for more, and links.
Read moreLook at your wiki. Now look at me. Now back to your wiki; now back to me. Standing in a shower of leaky secrets, of course! It won’t be long before no one has any secrets–no one except Julian Assange, that is.
The Committee to Nuke Elysium 