I spent eight years at InfoWorld working as a gossip columnist and know a thing or two about news leaks. So here is the gossip columnist’s view of this week’s huge Wikileaks story about U. S. diplomatic cables. It comes down, frankly, to a squandered opportunity.
Wikileaks is a garbage dump for embarrassing information. When it is about truly bad guys or even just the other guy (not us) most see some value in the site, but those in power really hate it and so do the media, which might surprise you.
Maybe an example will help. Back in the early 1990s I got a call one day from someone at Apple who wanted to tell me about the company’s product plans. We spoke for more than an hour, hung up, then he called back again with details he’d forgotten to mention the first time. Later by e-mail he followed-up the conversation with a spreadsheet containing Apple’s complete product road map for the coming 18 months including not just product code names but even component part numbers! In those days Apple wasn’t the tight operation it is today but nothing like this had ever happened before or, I’m guessing, since. It was the equivalent in PC circles of a Wikileak, yet I didn’t immediately write about it.
I was a gossip columnist in a hyper-competitive news market, here was a ton of information that could clearly fill dozens of stories, so why didn’t I write it? Two reasons: 1) I didn’t want to risk compromising my very reckless source who just might call me again, and; 2) I preferred to cover it not as an information dump but rather as the dozens of stories it deserved to be.
By keeping quiet we knew for the next 18 months everything Apple was going to do and were able to consistently be the first to write about it. It became a simple matter of corroborating the spreadsheet then writing the story, preferably a week or two before the actual product introduction. We drove Apple nuts, probably contributed to the company’s current paranoia, and made millions for InfoWorld and its parent company, International Data Group.
They call it the news business, remember.
Wikileaks, in contrast, is anarchistic journalism. Wikileaks takes the approach of just dumping on the web the actual documents for the rest of us to dig around in. One shot and they are done, which isn’t journalism but IS news. In one sense this is very generous in that anyone with time on their hands can probably dig through that material and find an untold story or two, but from the perspective of a professional journalist it is squandering material for the sake of spectacle.
Wikileaks is just showing-off.
The comparison to this leak that was made over and over in the press has been the Pentagon Papers, which were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg and published simultaneously back in 1971 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. How was that any different from Wikileaks? For Ellsberg — the leaker — there may have been no real difference. But for the two newspapers involved, the decision to print it all in a single edition came down to a worry that simply writing story after story based on the papers would result in a clamp-down by the Department of Justice and no news after that first story. So they printed it all — an astounding act that went completely against the concept of the “news hole,” that limited amount of space available in every newspaper to tell the stories of the day. For one day back in 1971, the Times and Post became like the Internet — almost infinitely deep.
It is noteworthy that despite winning the inevitable legal case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, neither paper ever did anything like that again.
We saw that same media hesitancy this past weekend when the Department of State began issuing warnings about the impending Wikileaks publication. Those warnings came, I’m sure, courtesy of tips from the newspapers that were getting an early look at the Wikileaks material in exchange for assisting in its promotion. The Department of State knew what was coming because the newspapers told them.
And why did Wikileaks need the assistance of those newspapers? Because Wikileaks feared that even its multi-homed international server strategy could be undermined by some covert CIA or NSA action. But not even the NSA can afford to piss-off the New York Times, so the files were released.
I have no doubt that Wikileaks could have been stopped and that the U. S. government very consciously decided not to do so, which is another interesting story in its own right. Why did they let it happen?
Note: Wikileaks is down today probably due to action by Amazon.com, apparently Wikileaks’s primary host for the USA despite all those stories about Icelandic hosting and global peers. I’m sure it will be back up shortly, however.
If China can subvert the Internet you can be sure the NSA can, too.
The newspapers would clearly have preferred to milk the Wikileaks material for Pulitzer Prizes, possibly trading the withholding of a story or two in exchange for getting an exclusive from the White House on something else. It happens all the time. But Wikileaks, the emerging and very scary face of news on the Internet, wouldn’t do it that way.
I get the feeling that a mantle of sorts has been passed.
Bob,
Great story. But it makes one wonder to what extent the “classified due to national security” nonsense will continue to be used when the truth is being told.
By the way, Bob, how is the second phase of the Startup Tour going? Is the bad weather slowing you down a little?
This will have a huge security impact but the nature of that impact really isn’t clear. No more PFC-access to diplomatic cables, that’s for sure, but I wonder how much further it will go?
As for the Startup Tour, well Thanksgiving got in the way and yes, the weather is a factor. Remember we have companies to visit in places including Fargo, North Dakota!
Yikes! “Fargo” was one of my favorite movies. But just thinking about the ice and snow they showed in that picture makes me shudder all over.
Fargo was only da openin scene. da rest of da movie was set in Central Mihnn’-a-soh’-ta, you betcha. You know der, up der nort, by Bemidji, aye.
the opening scene was shot in and around a North Minneapolis bar (d.)
the only North Dakota in the movie was east of Park River, the Road To And From Nowhere.
oh, and the woodchipper. ya sure by golly ya betcha then, Sven, we all had the woodchippers in our yards, yah. it ain’t all 40 below keeping out the riffraff, then.
Agree with you Bob.
It was a “shock and awe” campaign of sorts – dumping it all at once.
And yes, there will be “news” made from it, as we spend months sifting through the entrails.
I applaud the New York Times for publishing thoughtful articles about the Wiki Leaks on the one hand, but also agree they played a media puppet of sorts for the Wiki Leaks folks.
Curious how quickly the noise from this faded so fast; and more curious how quickly Julian Assange started teasing the next leak.
Perhaps he too knows how Warholian the big bang approach is – 15 minutes and poof.
Always appreciate reading your thoughts!
drew
I’ve been told that Wikileaks, itself, vetted some or all of the documents with the Feds. If so, some reporter should really get working on that aspect of the story.
While he has admitted that he had a reporter/publisher hat on in the past, maybe he just doesn’t wanna be bothered or it’s too much info to parse through; either way, I totally agree with your, “I get the feeling that a mantle of sorts has been passed”!
As I’ve been tweeting; #WikiLeaksRocks No affiliation 🙁
It’s wholesale versus retail. If you have no supply issues wholesale always scales better, though there is no way to see is as an art, then, or even a trade. Journalism is replaced with data.
Considering journalism has already been replaced by propaganda and stenography, I’ll be happy with some data.
The NYT/WP weren’t given the full set of cables. 5 European papers were, one of which gave some to the NYT.
https://www.guardian.co.uk is dripping them out as news stories, about 3 a day, for at least the next week or so, before the main data dump drops. They’ve learnt that lesson.
WikiLeaks website kicked off Amazon’s servers
https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jhz_WSgJ6HbSsp-jzPjG2hl9gu3g?docId=90b4520b2a9b455ea6e9d8d66fae1fec
Funny how Amazon won’t collect/pay local sales tax but is patriotic enough to cut Wikileaks off.
Like you said, its a business.
I would hate to be in Assange’s shoes right now.
Expose Afghani info – nothing.
Expose Diplomatic info – nothing.
[I still find it extremely unlikely that a single PFC had access to all of that data and was able to collect it before anyone knew about it]
Expose Bank of America secrets – he is in serious trouble now!
You don’t mess with the banksters!
What secrets? Like they’re depositing funds in Swiss banks to avoid taxes?
Finding out that US diplomatic strategy is akin to being a school yard bully is not news.
The hard truth is always embarrassing for those doing what they want and disregarding the rest of the world.
I had hope that the Obama folks would act like adults instead of using the same play book as “decision points” crowd. I want some change I can believe in.
I find it interesting that you would call the US a bully. Our leaders have made a commitment to protect and defend the US and it’s Constitution. In order to do that, it requires assessment of both friends and foes alike.
These “cables” were never intended for public release, hence the classification “CONFIDENTIAL” and “SECRET NOFORN”. Similar to how all of us interact amongst friends, we say things to or about others that are either good or can be embarrassing. Beyond the embarrassment though, this release has a couple of bad effects:
1. Our enemies (and we still do have them, even with Obama) know not only our strategies, but our process in developing them – at least in part.
2. That our SIPRNet can be compromised from an internal source (think HUMINT-Human Intelligence).
3. That shared information from external sources can be compromised (lessening our ability to be open with our friends).
All of these things, plus several others, make this a bad thing – they are playing it down as embarrassing, modest, etc… This is bad news for our intelligence forces and ultimately our security.
I regards to your bully comment – How is it that the single nation that is ALWAYS there for the rest of the world singled out as the bully? If not us, then who? China? They have such an emasculate record on human rights and civility. Russia? They are probably laughing silly at us, and certainly don’t have our best interest at heart. Iran? There is a stable regime. The EU? – hardly a group I would trust with our security. Canada? Nice people, not hardly capable. I think you have some animosity towards the US – perhaps it wasn’t your fault, I don’t know, but you need to grow up and understand life is a bit more complicated than a schoolyard.
“China? They have such an emasculate record on human rights and civility. Russia? They are probably laughing silly at us, and certainly don’t have our best interest at heart. Iran? There is a stable regime. The EU? – hardly a group I would trust with our security. Canada? Nice people, not hardly capable. I think you have some animosity towards the US”
I think you have some animosity towards everyone else. When you grow up you’ll see you’re no better than anyone else.
“How is it that the single nation that is ALWAYS there for the rest of the world singled out as the bully?”
Because the other bullies aren’t this annoying. The flex their muscles and force shit down your throat but at least they don’t act “mommy knows best, dear” or “we’re the good guys”.
Nobody likes anybody stucking their noses into their private stuff. Yeah so in the rest of the world we have breaking of human rights and twelve kinds of shit going down. Pardon us for not being the acme of civilization that the US is, I’m sure. But it’s the obnoxious entitlement and that high horse that the US shows off that’s really killing us.
When you hear the redneck neighbour beating his wife and you go there and tell him to stop, he’s gonna tell you to fuck off and he’s gonna hate YOU, not the cops you called. Get a damn clue about human nature. And if you insist to keep going against it at least drop the round eyed wonder act.
I think the goal is to do the right thing without worrying about whether or not the bad guys will hate you for it. Often it takes true strength to enable one to do what’s right. “Speak softly, but carry a big stick.”
to Big T
“regards to your bully comment – How is it that the single nation that is ALWAYS there for the rest of the world singled out as the bully?”
While I appreciate that organisations like the US Military (funded by the US taxpayer like yourself) are often the first in to provide practical aid (such as the Asian tsunami a few years back), I’d like to remind you of a few other people that the US Government (not the people, the GOVERNMENT) have been there for….
* Sadaam Hussein (during the Iraq Iran War)
* The Taliban (when the USSR / Russia invaded Afghanistan)
* Noriega (before he became a drug lord)
* etc….
The point is not to suggest you are a hypocrite. It is your GOVERNMENT that is hypocritical. Wikileaks (and whistle blowers in general) serve to remind us that all governments have an agenda that is sometimes at odds with that of the people they purport to serve, and both the spirit and the letter of their own laws. In the case of the US, this includes your US constitution, supposedly the model for government “of the people, for the people, by the people”.
I may sound as if I’m picking on your nation alone. Yes, other governments are just as bad. But only the US Government tries to bullshit me that they’re “the home of the brave and the land of the free”.
cya
The perception that the US is a bully stems from its actions to promote its own self interest above and beyond the rights of the citizens of foreign countries. The last 50 years of US foreign policy is a litany of abuse of power by toppling governments that do not agree with the US world view and supporting ones that abuse their own citizens but support US political and business interests.
Look at the history of countries like Chile, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam for examples of where the US has overthrown governments or supported corrupt ones for its own benefit. That is why the US has earned its bully boy reputation, the biggest joke is that its created most of its own enemies by doing so.
As far as Wikileaks harming the US by publishing its dirty laundry the US should apply the Front Page Story Ethics Test when going about its business. If you would be embarrassed by what your doing being printed on the front page of a newspaper it’s probably not ethical so you should either not do it or find another way to achieve your goals that is ethical.
No one would fault the US for seeking to protect the safety of its citizens but to topple democratically elected governments so US companies can secure Oil concessions is harder to justify.
Last 50 years? How about at least since Andrew Jackson’s presidency? Although I don’t suppose the European powers were particularly upset over how we treated the tribes. Certainly the Mexican War of 1843 qualifies as an exercise in imperialism. We’ve just picked up the pace since the First World War, and especially since the Second.
TEchcrunch reports Amazon has given them the bootski.
Some of this stuff is innocuous, but some of it is sensitive diplomatic correspondence which will hurt not only the U.S., but the other countries involved as well. Julian Assange may believe he is acting in the interest of free speech and full disclosure, but he is harming the free and open (albeit mostly diplomatic-speak) discourse among nations. These nations will now be hesitant to speak freely. His only goal was to embarrass governments. There are valid reasons for private and confidential correspondence.
The Sergeant who copied these items and passed them on committed treason, plain and simple. He needs to be tried by the UCMJ, stood up against a wall, and shot.
Julian Assange has committed espionage, and should be dealt with by a silenced .22 against the back of his skull.
US good, enemies bad! Kill, kill!
Big T, you need to get out more. Large numbers of people in many countries in the world consider the US a bully.
Bob, Wikileaks isn’t about news. It’s about ending the excessive power of sovereign nations, especially the ones who are bullies. AlQueda spent a few $K on printer carts. & cellphones and caused large $B expenditures on “security”, so they succeeded even in failure. Wikileaks spent a few $K on Amazon & other short-term hosts and caused the US govt. to strangle its own internal communications. Success even if they fail. And should anything happen to Assange, the already released encrypted file gets its key. Result, another success for Wikileaks, even if they get shut down worldwide.
Anon 4:49, you are right that Wikileaks isn’t about news, but I think its more recent strategy does reflect a late realization that publishers want to sell newspapers and eyeballs – a compromise between a desire for instant revelation and more widespread coverage.
Another Theory: If the information in wikileaks hands was dripped out slowly as suggested it would take so long to get everything out that most of it would no longer be relevant.Information overload indeed
“One shot and they are done”? As of right now 600 of the 250K cables have been released. Sure looks like dribbling it out to me.
There is several reasons why he is dumping the NEWS and not “dripping” it as you did.
One aspect is the amount of information. It is way more efficient to get it “crowd sourcing”, enabling the best journalists around the world to analyse and work on individual pieces with all the resources they have. In fact, this is not just the efficient way, but the only efficient way to deal with the amount and variety of information.
There is also a fundamental shift in the idea of collaboration since the early 1990s and today.
It is pretty simple, really.
While Wikileak is a major “pissant”, (to borrow Kurt Vonnegut’s word) for the US government and the political, economy elite – in the big picture it is truly a godsend.
Wikileaks is dumping huge amount of scandal, which is in an absurd way, perfectly good for the ruling elite. It is manufacturing the most effective way resignation, apathy and ultimately the view, that “yes, the whole world is totally corrupt, everybody knows, but nothing happens, obviously there is nothing you can do about it”.
The continuous flow of high-level scandal is perfect to distract attention and outrage related to any specific scandal, which will give home free status for everyone, involved in a scandal. It prevents specific actions, motivated by concentrated, focused attention on one specific case, issue, that would result in actual change.
It is like the constant yellow/red terror alert. The governing elite is busy to create some sort of “news Bin Laden” from Julian Assange, they are staging theatrical hunt for him relentlessly, but nobody actually wants to catch him, not to mention to stop him keeping the scandal level in the high yellow, low red range.
Leak-provoked continuous public outrage about things in the past is the perfect tool to distract attention from dirty deals happening right here, right now.
Julian Assange is granted jail-free immunity status for revealing the bad things in the past, for making it easier to do bad things right here, right now in front of our very own nose.
I don’t think that shutting down Wikileaks would be as easy as you claim, Bob. It might be possible, but I think the potential for screw-ups and major embarrassment is far greater.
In the absence of good old fashioned investigative journalism, raw primary sources are pretty much all we have… and are a good deal better than nothing.
As a guy who used to teach journalism I can tell you that investigative journalism isn’t old-fashioned at all. It didn’t exist, really, until the late 1960’s, about the time I started writing for a living.
This is a big world in which there is plenty of room for both data dumps and thoughtful analysis. But as outfits that still think in terms of a limited news hole and see themselves as fit to analyze the news, the Times and Post tend not to like the Wikileaks approach.
That may be true. But do we still have the required attention span to make the efforts worthwhile?
Well, judging from their comments, the “journalists” seem to be angry because they believe the role of the media is to protect the elite from embarrassment so they can retain “access.” The fact that their “access” doesn’t help us get useful or accurate information is beside the point: they need to keep getting invited to the pool parties. WikiLeaks is making them look like a bunch of powerless wimps, who can’t protect their masters… errrr, I mean sources. Just look at the comments after that freelancer did the Rolling Stone interview with McChrystal.
[…] “Robert Cringely” […]
“[…] but from the perspective of a professional journalist it is squandering material for the sake of spectacle.
Wikileaks is just showing-off.”
Isn’t their problem with Wikileaks rather that Wikileaks isn’t showing of? I.e. that Wikileaks have commoditized the leaks.
Yes, I was wondering the same thing. Since the news is indeed a business, that alone would likely tick off the New York Times, etc. In order to make money, I liked Bob’s example of milking a pile of raw data for the stories over time. But as a news reader, I prefer a combination of New York Times, etc., analysis, but having access to the raw data too. Since it is easy for a journalist to pick and choose their facts to “editorialize” a news story, having the raw materials available for all to see keeps a level playing ground so to speak. It prevents a journalist from blatantly slanting a story for their own purposes. I think you saw this with the Dan Rather story on George Bush. Regardless of how you feel about Bush, it certainly looks as if Rather (or perhaps the producer) was looking for a story to discredit Bush, regardless of its merits (or truthfulness). But the fact that the raw materials were available for review (i.e., the fake letter in this case) prevented a false story from taking hold.
Back when I was at InfoWorld, I covered an Apple developer conference in Florida. The most interesting session was closed to the press, but I discovered the PowerPoints for the session were stored on the Mac in the press room. I printed out the presentation (luckily, face down) as my Apple press handlers stood by unknowingly. I had my story.
Those were the days.
Without a free press we will have no democracy. Kudos to the US gov for deciding NOT to stop wikileaks. Yes cockroaches do run for cover when you turn on the light, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing . . .
Wikileaks has also now diverted attention from followup of individuals identified in the Iraq and Afganistan leaks, who are likely to be targeted due to the information in those documents.
While the NSA could probably block internet access to the documents, once the cat was out of the bag, it becomes impossible to stop the distribution of the data. Think about trying to intercept a few hundred copies on SD memory cards, being mailed, FEDEXed, and hand carried around the world. And once Der Spiegel or The Guardian start publishing, would the Post and the Times hold up? Ha!
Rather than the passing of a mantle, I think that this is just one more signpost on the path of the news publishing business, wending its way toward oblivion.
I’m also not surprised to see Amazon yield to government pressure to kick Wikileaks off their servers, either. They are also ‘in business’ and there are any number of inquiries or investigations by congress and US regulatory agencies that could divert most of their profits to lawyers and accountants for defense. Hopefully, they will at least whimper about being forced into the role of censor.
“By keeping quiet we knew for the next 18 months everything Apple was going to do and were able to consistently be the first to write about it. It became a simple matter of corroborating the spreadsheet then writing the story, preferably a week or two before the actual product introduction.”
And all this time I thought Bob was some kind of Technical Visionary… let this be a lesson to all of us 😉
Maxx
Looks like all it takes to be a visionary is access to information.
[…] Wikileaked: Wikileaks, in contrast, is anarchistic journalism. Wikileaks takes the approach of just dumping on the web the actual documents for the rest of us to dig around in. One shot and they are done, which isn’t journalism but IS news. In one sense this is very generous in that anyone with time on their hands can probably dig through that material and find an untold story or two, but from the perspective of a professional journalist it is squandering material for the sake of spectacle. […]
For those defending the white gown of the poor innocent US
https://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/12/hbc-90007836
I don’t think people understand what Wikileaks is at all. They’re a library, not an author or publisher. They don’t commit espionage, or indeed seek out data at all.
They accept data from “leakers” or whistleblowers, provide hosting services for the data on the web, and publish it to various levels of actual publishers (and eventually the general public) on their own schedule.
They are performing the role the NY Times and WaPo played for the Pentagon Papers, not the role of Daniel Ellsberg. Their whole point is that information wants to be free, and they’re providing an avenue for that to take place.
In a world where information is free, those who would conspire against the public interest will have their work cut out, and such secret conspiracies may become nearly impossible.
https://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LL04Ak02.html
Let’s examine Assange’s crime. Here he is, in his own words, in “State and Terrorist Conspiracies”:
To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us, and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not. Firstly we must understand what aspect of government or neo-corporatist behavior we wish to change or remove. Secondly we must develop a way of thinking about this behavior that is strong enough to carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity. Finally we must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling, and effective action.
So Assange understands WikiLeaks as an anti-virus that should guide our navigation across the distortion of political language. If language is a virus from outer space, as William Naked Lunch Burroughs put it, WikiLeaks should be the antidote. Assange basically believes that the (cumulative) revelation of secrets will lead to the production of no future secrets. It’s an anarchic/romantic/utopian vision.
To all those harping on the US for being a bully, thank you for speaking out. It is only when everyone sees how it is better to sit back and watch as hundreds of thuosands of people are raped, mutilated and murdered i nethnic clensings, when vile american ideas such as the right to life, or freedom of religeon are squashed that we can have a better world. Obviously if the US was not actively bullying other people by working to prevent ethnic clensing and the like there would not be war, poverty, strife, or anything bad in the world. Just look at any history book and you will find that there was no such thing as sickness or death until the US was founded right?
Please give the big bad US cries a rest. ALL nations work in thier self interests. There is no nation on earth that does not try to get others to do what they want. Pick one or a few specific things and argue against those actions. Claiming that the US is inherantly a bad bully nation is just as idiotic as the claim above that all ills of the world are due to the US interfeering.
To those who say that information wants to be free and so Wikileaks did nothing wrong, where is your social security #, your bank account #s, your home adress and what path your kids take to school? After all information wants to be free, if you get personally harmed by others because of it that is an incosequential after effect that should be ignored. Is Assange being intentionally hurtful? That can be debated. He may really think he is helping serve the greater good. But not all information SHOULD be available at public just because it is information. Should we have naked pictured of 10 year old children taken and posted about simply because it is information?
Replace US with NK and imagine yourself as an NK official and your speech above is just as logically consistent. Now do you see what is wrong with this viewpoint?
How was the Pentagon Papers case different from Wikileaks, you ask? You then answer: aside from motivation, not different at all. It’s a shame you didn’t spell out that answer at the end of that paragraph.
Indeed, the US Government had advance notice from the papers — specifically, the NY Times. In this case (as opposed to the Afghanistan War Wikileak) the NY Times did not have the advance notice from Wikileaks. Maybe because, as Times editor Bill Keller confirmed later, the Times vetted everything they got through the State Department — and only published what the government said they could. (The Times got the data from the Manchester Guardian, one of the 3 sources that did get the whole thing from Wikileaks.)
Wikileaks is currently searching for a state that has full freedom of the press and whistleblower shield laws for its home. Assange was only in Sweden to take advantage of Sweden’s strong protections for their press. But it seems likely that Swedish authorities went after Assange at the behest of the US State Department, even as they cracked down on Pirate Bay at the behest of State (who was acting at the behest of the MPAA).
Wikileaks could, and IMO should, make their dumps more ‘journalism’ as you state, by doing what the papers are doing: adding a few lines of summary before the documents. Yes, that’s all it takes to be a journalist today.
As for the reasons why Wikileaks dealt with these few journalism outlets, why, Bob, do you ignore their stated reasons, which seem good enough to explain it? They say they dole out the leaks this way because it brings these papers/magazines in as collaborators to make bigger headlines and maximize the dissemination and newsworthiness of the leaks.
And thank god for that mantle passing Mr. Cringely! Thank God.
Conservatives are misunderstanding the significance of WikiLeaks
Drift back in time to the early 1980’s. All that is available is CBS, NBC and ABC. State run media. Atrocious.
Then came the CNN. Not the best but better. It has evolved into Pravda – America but some progress because of Fox following the model later.
Then Rush Limbaugh. A huge conservative power because of the combination of humor and logic and a really good radio voice.
Then the nuclear bomb of disintermediation came. The internet.
The conservative cause has been furthered more than I thought it ever could be because of these developments. This is because reality is the friend of conservatism. Should the forces of disintermediation be impeded or set back the conservative cause will likewise be suffer.
This is why I feel extreme consternation when I hear conservative commentators badmouthing what has happened with WikiLeaks. Some have even called for the effete Assuange to be assassinated. That is about as dumb as I can conceive. We all know that had that USB drive been sent to the New York Times that the information would have been published.
What seems to escape so many people is that with the internet we are all journalists. Every last one of us. If you want to keep a secret you better make sure your organization does not leak.
Quoting Spengler: How do we explain the gaping chasm between Obama’s public stance and the facts reported by the diplomatic corps? The cables do not betray American secrets so much as American obliviousness.
This is satire or sarcasm, right? The biggest clue is putting “Rush Limbaugh” within a billion light years of “logic” or “humor.”
[…] Via: I Cringely […]
from the woman human population do not use the beats by dr dre headphones and rather straps on ill-fitting, not comfortable ones.
exclusive from the White House on something else. It happens all the time. But Wikileaks, the emerging and very scary face of news on the Internet, wouldn’t do it that way.