We've set up a web page at fsrn.org slash crisis
It has the latest of what's going on and provides some links to relevant resources about this situation
Thanks, Nathan that was FSRN administrator Nathan Moore
This is free speech radio news. The newscast was produced by Katherine comp. Thanks for listening in San Francisco. I'm Danny wood
You
And it's seven o'clock you're listening to radio station WBA I and it's time once again
For off the hook
Make a car
I
I
Am
Good evening
This is a manual and I am wikiLeaks
Hi, I'm Mike and I'm wikiLeaks
Hello, I'm red hat and I'm wikiLeaks
Hello, I'm dot rent and I am wikiLeaks. Hello. I'm Rob T firefly and I'm wikiLeaks. I'm Voltaire and I'm also wikiLeaks
I'm Kyle and I'm wikiLeaks
I'm Bernie s and I am wikiLeaks and
Jim
Yeah, me too. Okay
Awesome. Yes folks. We are all wikiLeaks
we have all we have all committed our souls to to the furtherance of this kind of of
action that's been going on over the last a
couple of years and especially several months and last few weeks and days
It's it's been unreal and of course if you've been following how do you how do you not follow a story like this?
This has been everywhere. This has been front page in every country in the world, hasn't it?
You know, it's kind of interesting to have seen it snowball
I mean back when we spoke to Julian and he was here in the studio
When was that?
That was April April beginning of April and and and and since then kind of his view or the view of him
He's coming to the spotlight in the media and in obviously the the are of politicians
But yeah, it's been interesting to see it grow first with the collateral murder video and now, you know with that with the cables
and it's interesting because they're also, you know, the thing is that
They do do a bit of journalism on it and that they do try to redact things that could be
it's you know, especially sensitive but
You know, it's it's well the way it works the way it works from what I understand
Is that the the mass media the newspapers that were selected by WikiLeaks to to spotlight certain memos or cables or whatever?
They do the work of redacting
Various names and saying this is probably too sensitive and for the most part WikiLeaks goes along with that and then they they actually
Release this information afterwards after the media has gone through it
So it's it's it's rather intelligent to have them do all that work and then then release it
But it also makes them exactly the same as WikiLeaks as far as getting information out. They're doing the same thing
WikiLeaks is let's not forget though that we each are the first people to get the information and they have to do like a ton
Of work to cure it and make sure everything to verify it. They're just like I'm not saying they don't do any work
I'm saying they it'd be impossible to do work on
250,000 documents or however many they have and it's good to share the load like this
No one's saying they're not doing any work
But basically what you're saying is when a lot of people are saying that they are
Responsible for all sorts of threats around the world because of all the secrets they released in reality
they and other real and respected journalistic organizations have also take played a part in
Checking so obviously I mean this is
They're under attack because they're releasing things that were meant to be confidential
They're meant to be private and just exchanges between you know
Different diplomats and so obviously the politicians would be embarrassed
There are things in there that you know different countries talking about other countries, you know
Everybody apparently wants Iran to be bombed things like that
that
You know are sensitive
But the fact the matter is that the genie is out of the bottle and so it's kind of
you know, it's tough to say what the right move is for the government to go from here and well and
Also, just one thing I'd like to mention is that there is this insurance file that was released a while back
To p2p networks. It's number one on billboard about a hundred thousand people
I think have this a lot more by now probably at this point
But and so if so right now, you know
WikiLeaks and and the journalistic organizations are going through the process of kind of trying to redact things before they post them
But you know if the whole thing were just to go away or be taken down or something were to happen
All it would take was one of the people and I'm sure there are more than one who know the password to release it
and then suddenly, you know, all of these hundreds of thousands of people now have the
Well, we assume this is what's in it, but have the the unredacted diplomatic table. I'm curious how that password is gonna be released
Well, well Julian just stare into the camera and say the red dog jumps over the moon
And all of a sudden that the whole world is going to implode or so it's just so so Hollywood
So I think so
I think it's kind of you know
I mean, I understand why the government would want to go after him and demonize him and the organization
But I don't know what how much they can do it
The the information was out there from the moment
It was leaked period and it was out there before them because way too many people had access to it
One guy who seems to have really gotten it is the Australian Finance Minister who earlier today?
His name is Kevin Rudd. He said the United States is to blame for the release of the diplomatic cables
he said that
He doesn't care about the criticism
He says I don't give a damn about the criticism of him in the cables because his name showed up there as well
Now the Prime Minister of Australia Julia Julia Gillard had earlier called mr. Assange's
Julian Assange's release of the cables are grossly irresponsible and
This is the first indication that a government actually is is standing behind him his his his home country
in fact, he's seen as a folk hero there most people seem to think he's doing something really courageous and
and and
This this guy's is basically stepping forward as one of the first political leaders to actually say something in support
Well, the there are other governments that are supporting me as well the government of Bolivia
The vice president of Bolivia is mirroring on the on the website of the vice president of Bolivia all
embassy cables
Related to Bolivia and translating them into Spanish so that people in Bolivia can read what the US government is saying about them
That's nice. Well as
Many people probably know Julian Assange was taken into custody
In in London and he's has not been released on on bail
Yeah, I kind of expected that to happen people saying they're surprised that he wasn't released
I'm not surprised that they they refused to do that. What I find interesting though, is that
Right after he was taken into custody
That's when we first started hearing words from the US government that they're looking into extradition from
Sweden which right away points to this whole thing being
orchestrated to get him into custody so they could do just that so all the people who were saying all this is part of a
Smear campaign and were dismissed as being crazy. Not so crazy now
Well now wasn't it initially that these charges were raised and then they were dropped and then some politicians stepped in and then had them
You know re-raised or something like that. Like they had dropped them at one
yeah, at one point at one point they were dropped and then reinstated but
They reinstated after the the two
Accusers got an attorney that really wants to push this thing through and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
Pretend to know what actually happened or who's saying what thing is it's got nothing to do with with this issue
It's got nothing to do with WikiLeaks itself
So anybody who makes that connection
Obviously is using that for that for that purpose as an advantage get him on a parking ticket or get him on on
You know some some kidnapping charge from 20 years ago and
It's got it's got nothing to do with the WikiLeaks. That's my point
Isn't that isn't WikiLeaks currently being hosted in Sweden? I believe so. It's in that mountain
That's the James Bond thing. It's inside a mountain. I think they actually filmed the James Bond movie in there
It's in Switzerland and it's also in France and there's some servers in Holland and the domain is in Switzerland
So they really have a transnational hosting situation going on
Which is why I need to put it on that floating oil rig. Well, I think I bombed
Sealand
Yeah
I don't I don't know what happened to it
But thing is a lot of people are mirroring now where there's there's thousands of thousands thousands of mirrors. I think over a thousand
Yeah
And what we're doing is we're pointing and this is how we got into trouble with the Motion Picture Association of America back in 2000
We pointed to the DCSS code
That's all it took and because our name begins with a two and it comes before a we're the first on a list
So right if they're looking to sue people they find us first and then they find out we're hackers and it's like oh, yeah
No judge is gonna rule in favor of hackers
So yeah
You know
We're putting ourselves on the line by just doing this by just pointing but you can't not do something in a situation like this
So as soon as as soon as all the nonsense started happening last week with Amazon
removing
wikileaks.org or removing the service to wikileaks.org
And then the the the site moved over to wikileaks.ch in Switzerland and that disappeared
Sorry to get a little confusing where do I find wikileaks or wikileaks.nl works wikileaks.de works, but maybe it won't tomorrow
So what we did was we made wikileaks.2600.com point to what everyone is working right now
So if they take down 10 tomorrow, we'll find one that works and point it there
And of course now you have all the mirrors as well, which is which is great. This is not going away anytime soon
I know Bernie you've got something on this good. Yeah
I just I wanted to point out to our listeners that yes, Julian Assange is in prison in London right now
But he has not been charged with committing any crime nor has anyone at wikileaks been charged with committing any crime
Yet we have high-ranking US government officials like Senator Joe Lieberman, Connecticut
Pressuring amazon.com to stop hosting wikileaks web services
We have other US government officials pressuring pressuring Visa
International MasterCard and eBay which owns PayPal to stop accepting electronic donation payments to wikileaks from its
you know many supporters around the world in order to strangle the wikileaks financially and
And we also have a leaked Pentagon document proving the existence of a US military strategy to prevent wikileaks from
From continuing to publish. Well, I'd like to get into that a little bit more later
But but something that was revealed today involving PayPal
They say a PayPal executive now says his company's decision to suspend payments to wikileaks
Came after the US State Department said the whistleblower site was engaged in illegal activity
Now the State Department says they didn't send such a memo this PayPal executive
Says they did and it's the first indication really that there was pressure from from the US government on this
See, there's a clarification needed because wikileaks as of you know
Even a couple weeks ago did not have a PayPal account
What does have a PayPal account is or did anyway until recently is the Val Holland Foundation, which is a run by some folks
mostly from the the CCC in Germany and does think it
Accepts donations on behalf of wikileaks, but it also does all kinds of other things and their whole financial infrastructure is being shut down
Because of the Association because of the association with wikileaks
So they're suing PayPal and some others and and hopefully they'll they'll come out
But it just goes to show how how all kinds of people get affected by this. They supported wikileaks
They said okay, we're gonna help you by running by having PayPal funds get forwarded to you
And because somebody at the State Department decides that wikileaks is breaking the law even as you said, they have not been charged with any crime
they PayPal just unilaterally shuts them down and that's that's that's just one of a series of
Denial of service attacks on wikileaks and it is a denial of service PayPal visa MasterCard
Amazon the list keeps going on corporate America basically is at war with wikileaks more so than the government at this point the corporate
America seems to be the soldiers involved in this and the government is sitting back there saying, okay shut them down and and well
We'll make them powerless. It's not working though
Well, that's because the government at least in certain cases is constrained by the state of the laws that they actually exist
the in order to throw someone in jail the government needs to find a law that was on the books before the
Action in question was committed and and showed that you broke it
But they can just say you broke the law and scare Amazon and Amazon can terminate a service for any reason asking
apparently visa MasterCard and PayPal and who knows and you know every DNS the DNS provider a number of people have been going around
Finding other groups that PayPal is is still providing service to we found the American fascist movement
I think that's our URL American fascist movement calm. They have a PayPal account. No problem. They're fascist
They started World War two for God's sake leaks what it leaks do they they they reveal information which is more dangerous PayPal
You know, I don't I don't think it's relevant. I think they should both be allowed to receive. I agree with you
I agree with you. This is not PayPal's call. They should not be the moral police of the Internet saying
Oh, you're you're righteous. You're not you get to have funds come in
If you want to be a bank act like a bank don't act like the you know, the moral police here
That's the Julian's Swiss Bank shut his account down as well
Yeah, his personal account or something like that very strange and what they don't seem to realize is that every one of these attacks these shutdowns
Simply mobilizes the people that support him more
There would not be so many mirrors or not be the pointers that we're doing without all of this without this this
Attack going on in the first place now with all this stuff going on
I had some interesting suggestions from people like, you know, they were saying maybe maybe we need a new sticker campaign
You know a free Julian or even a safe Wikileaks. You want me to buy the stickers again? I did it for Kevin, you know
But yeah, I think everyone knows Julian now
It's just so weird to see this guy who you know
We hung out with just all of a sudden front page news everywhere and in such a way
I've never seen anybody vilified so quickly as having all this power and you don't know what he's gonna do next
Like red hat said it's very interesting red hat said it's very interesting to see how this
Snowballed actually personally watch this go from step one to step two and so on
I for one would just really love to see the looks on all the politician and pundits faces when they realize that Julian was
Arrested and yet Wikileaks is still a thing that's going on without him
Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely
I'm actually really interested in the the the fact that some of these corporations are basically
like you guys said the foot soldiers of
You know making Wikileaks unfavorable and uncool and and it's sort of an interesting element
How it's a social thing like if if you know the places where people are, you know doing their holiday shopping or whatever start saying
well this this
Journalistic organization is uncool, you know that that that's like a pretty it's pretty lousy tactic
but I think that's you know, sort of a weak attempt at making people sort of start to you know,
Think that they're you know, not something that they're not an honorable
Organization and then you know, then it falls out of favor and then of course the facts get lost and then it becomes you know
Even more skewed and and and fake, you know now what did what did Joe Lieberman do today regarding the New York Times?
What was that yesterday? He he's actually
Wants to go after them now as well Walter. He said they could be equally
Prost prosecuted bullet. That's a word. He said that okay. Yes. You know, I think this this is just good because if he starts attacking
You know real big
Journalistic organizations have clout in the United States now now they are grouped with Wikileaks and now they'll they're already on one side of the
fence and that's much more of
More resources to help show people that this this is not something to be fearful of
I just want to say that right after Senator Lieberman pressured amazon.com just to stop hosting
We can leak see as you just pointed out
He strongly denounced the New York Times for publishing stories and excerpts about these leaked US State Department cables
but this is a really dangerous situation because we do leaks call it what you want, but it is a
News media outlet. It's a news media outlet
It doesn't actually write stories. It just publishes information. That is clearly news
So you have high-ranking US government officials like Senator Joe Lieberman?
Overtly and covertly pressuring web hosting providers and payment processors like a visa MasterCard PayPal to cut off services
to a news media outlet
without any
judicial
Oversight no warrant. No criminal charges, you know, and and now Joe Lieberman is a is ranting about the New York Times
So they're gonna call the New York
It is literally we're gonna call the New York Times web hosting provider and say cut him off
This is our furrow a full-out a government attack on the First Amendment and this is really scary stuff
it's and it's more than just the First Amendment because this is global and this is something I never thought I'd see this kind of
Thing happen in my lifetime where basically governments are pitted against people
worldwide
Everyone wants to see what's happening here
Every government is against them seeing it because they all are gonna get black eyes somehow by having things revealed about them that they want
To keep secret and there's nothing they can do about it
The information is out there and people really want to see this. So yeah, it's a
Very interesting times and we don't know where it's going to go from here
And and what you say about the New York Times
How are they any different than then than WikiLeaks as far as as far as as what they are doing?
They're releasing the information
they've gotten leaked documents and
They're as guilty as WikiLeaks in and I think the eyes of many of these politicians. So why don't they shut down their PayPal accounts?
Why don't they take them off the internet? Why don't they?
Prosecute them on whatever crimes they can they can find
Badges they've press badges that all takes
Okay, I think a better question is why is the New York Times editorial page so obsessed with denouncing WikiLeaks did they denounce WikiLeaks
over and over the the
I thought they supported WikiLeaks
You're saying that they print information from WikiLeaks and then they denounce
That's one of the reasons why they weren't included and and they had to get the leech from the Guardian. They didn't have yeah
I was wondering about that seemed like there was a tiff of some sort. Yeah, it's because last time they were so anti-wiki
Uh-huh. Well again anti WikiLeaks are just asking some some pointed questions
There's a difference. I don't know. I don't think no the New York Times really think they're anti-wiki
Well, I'd like to see the editorial in question Mike
I think the New York Times is a very big organization and there are people in it with all sorts of different interests and it's sort
of
Nefarious to pin down exactly what the New York Times as an entity thinks. Well, I mean if it's the editorial that's that's that's supposedly
What the New York Times think but if it's an opinion piece, that's simply opening it up to two different opinions Rob
Yeah
I think it's worth noting that the fact that Lieberman and others are willing to now attack the New York Times along with WikiLeaks
Anyone who is trying to say that WikiLeaks is not is not a you know
Reputable journalistic this and that they're they're being categorized right now. It's hard with the same brush with the paper of record quote-unquote
So I think when you're when you're pissing people off on this kind of scale, you know, you're doing something, right I
Agree, and we mentioned some of the news stories are coming out as a result of this
I see headlines all over the place top Chinese officials led Google hacking according to the WikiLeaks documents
Libya putting pressure on the UK to release the Lockerbie bomber according to WikiLeaks
all kinds of things that we're learning about that I think we have every right to know and
Like we said before it's out there. It's already there
It's a question of do the how many people had access to these documents millions of people several million people
I feel like three or five million three million
That's a lot of people as far as I'm concerned
It's already out there when it's when that many people have access to it
It's just being kept from us and I think it's that's not right to keep that kind of information from us
Three million people is about 1% of the country too
It's not you know, just a couple guys in an office somewhere and and and also another question
How do we know how many people
Didn't get killed as a result of these documents coming out how many lives were saved by the truth being revealed
We keep hearing how many people are going to be put at risk by having this information out there
It works the other way, too
It works the other way, too
If you tell people about threats and about the truth what is being said what's being thought?
Things can be avoided conflicts can be avoided all sorts of things are possible. There's no way to know for sure
What kind of effect anything has so I think that's really a bad road to go down when you when you take that seriously
It's so true
but and just one other thing to really think about is that
Erring on the side of openness is usually the better way to go about doing things as soon as you try to give people permission
To keep secrets from you
They're going to keep things a secret that that's they just want to that, you know
Like you have a club of three million people
I don't did anyone else get to look up that a proposed shield law
Actually think Lieberman is actually one of the champions behind that to Bernie and I think about this
It's it's the exact opposite of what shield laws normally do which is protect journalists
I just want to point out that
All these claims that wikiLeaks was in from wikiLeaks leaks. We're going to cause all these people to be killed
the Pentagon backpedaled on that claim and
Not a single person's name
No, no, but no person has been named yet who's in killed been killed or harmed by with the release of wikiLeaks
Leaks either, you know in the past couple of years
So this is all hot air
It's vilifying wikiLeaks and I think we should really look at the facts as opposed to listening to the hysteria
Absolutely. Now there's there's more to this story. First of all, I'm into Paul finally got a picture of
Julian Assange here it is
looks an awful lot like Bill Maher, but I
Was looking through some of my old pictures the other day and discovered that I have pictures of Julian Assange
Everyone has pictures of Julian. It's really not hard to find. No
I'm sorry what they have an old picture of him too. It is. Yeah, it's taken a very long time ago
I'm not sure if it's a copyright issue or what but yeah, so that's that's that's an update
I'm sure that'll make it easier for them. Of course, they already found him. He wasn't really hiding
Yeah, he turned as redacted
they the
Swedish people I guess finally got their papers in order and and gave them to the UK people
Correctly this time and in Assange came to the UK police the next day and said hi here. I am. I heard you're looking for me
so
He's not very good at hiding if that's what I'd like to know. He's he's currently in a British prison in southwest London and
He I don't know if has he been asked any questions about wikiLeaks by anybody other than fellow inmates
Because if he has been that's a clear
Stepping over the line if he's actually in there for and he's only in it for questioning to even the Swedes are saying he's not
Under arrest, you know, I like to know what the difference is. They just want to talk to him
They just want to ask some questions. They just want to talk to him long enough for the u.s. To try extraditing him
Why don't they come to England and ask him questions instead of actually if he's not under arrest
Why don't they come over to England and simply ask him questions there? Is that not allowed? I heard they have
Telephony links between Sweden the United Kingdom these days. They also have train links. I can just take a train over
It's a long train ride. I don't know
It just seems like this is something that they can deal with without all the all the drama Rob
Yeah, and it's worth noting that Assange had offered to the people behind this this particular case
He had offered to get them on the phone to get them on the video link and to give his side of the story that
Way, but that wasn't good enough for some people I guess. Yeah also
representative Ron Paul of Texas is
Standing up as one of Julian Assange's few defenders in Washington. He said the WikiLeaks found that you get the same protections as the media
And that's that's very interesting
He says in a free society
We're supposed to know the truth in a society where truth becomes treason
Then we're in big trouble and now people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it this whole notion that Assange who?
Is an Australian that we want to prosecute him for treason? Aren't they jumping to a wild conclusion? This is media, isn't it?
I mean, why don't we prosecute the New York Times or anybody that releases this and unfortunately that was in the house
But Joe Lieberman was walking by and overheard that and now he wants to prosecute the New York Times. That's how that happened
Yeah
It's not much that should remain secret in Washington
I mean the thing about the matter is right that these were confidential and secret
And so if they were to if they were to find the person who's you know
Who's responsible for leaking them and I'm not saying that they have found that person necessarily
That person might be subject to you know to prosecution because they did in fact break a law that you know
They released these things that were confidential but the the media outlets that post them. I don't think should be responsible for that
I mean, I was thinking about that too. I mean we're talking about Bradley Manning who's who's
Widely believed by by people or by by prosecutors that have been the source of at least one batch of these these releases
Somebody who does that basically and somebody who's does that and doesn't just give the information to quote-unquote the enemy or some
Rival country or faction or whatever, but gives it to everybody
That is somebody who's doing this for idealistic purposes and they are basically sacrificing their life to get that information to us
We need to think of it in that way because this guy is in prison now
I don't think he's ever going to get out of prison for this if if he is found to be
One of the people involved and his reasoning for doing this because the truth needed to be known that is a valiant sacrifice
Which is true, but at the same time he did break a law. So he has I mean there are repercussions
Yeah, I'm not saying it's not valiant. I'm just and you'll find you'll find that the most courageous people in the world break laws to
Make points what's interesting is that well all this has been going on
There have been some actual spies who have been found there was a Russian spy
Allegedly working in the office of a UK parliamentarian and the punishment for that is apparently just deportation
so these these espionage laws are a very weakly enforced against actual spies because
Because of the the fear of reprisal they work for different countries now
They could be deported if you work for your own country. I think it's they take a dimmer view apparently
Yeah, it's very strange
Yes, go ahead. Bernie. I just want to point out one of the beauties of the whole wikiLeaks infrastructure
Is that when you submit information to wikiLeaks, they don't know who you are
It's an it's an encrypted system and it's designed to specifically
Insulate your identity from wikiLeaks
So, you know, even if Julian Assange is waterboarded by the United States government or anyone else
He can't tell you he can't tell anyone who submitted these leaked documents
which makes it much harder for the u.s. to prosecute wikiLeaks or Julian Assange for
For espionage because it makes it much harder to prove a case of conspiracy with a particular individual
But I just wanted to point that out that wikiLeaks doesn't know
Who sent it any documents? So basically they can prosecute him for keeping a
Secure system that maintains anonymity. I
Just want to add I mean, it's is they're not responsible
They're not obligated to to participate or cooperate in any sort of investigation
About who may or may not have committed a crime as a journalistic organization
Aren't they there aren't they?
I mean viewed as an institution that ought not to have to release their source journalists are widely
Protected jurists are widely protected, but there are cases where a grand jury demands that you release a source and
Journalists go to prison for this kind of thing
Why aren't we hearing more of that now? Yeah, and there hasn't been a grand jury
There hasn't been any kind of indictment or any kind of of crime against anyone involved in wikiLeaks Rob and in a neat point
The journalist who who broke the story of the Pentagon Papers way back when his name is escaping me now
Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg Daniel was not a journalist but worked for the Rand Corporation
That's a that's correct. Um, he he tweeted earlier today that every single thing that's being done to Julian Assange right now
What's done to him back then? Uh-huh
Interesting. Well, we've been tweeting a lot too. If you want to follow us on Twitter, we're actually 2600 2600 and
It's incredible to see the response that this this story is getting
simply by revealing information about something else that PayPal is doing that's hypocritical or
just something in the media some kind of
Observation to see it just spread around really really quickly as it's fascinating
So, please send us any information that you find OTH at 2600 comm will be glad to to spread it throughout
The entire net now something else that's going on. That's a part of this
And by the way, we're gonna take some phone calls
We're gonna take a lot of phone calls
Beginning in a few minutes at 2 1 2 2 0 9 2 900 had a lot of good calls last week and like to continue that
Because this is one hot story
But there is another aspect to all this and you might have read this in today's New York Times a small army of
activist hackers orchestrated a broad campaign of cyber attacks on
Wednesday and supported the beleaguered anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, which has drawn government
Criticism from around the globe for its release of classified American documents and has found that Julian Assange is being held in Britain on accusations
of sex offenses
Targets include MasterCard comm which stopped processing donations for WikiLeaks Amazon comm which revoked server space from the group the online payment service
PayPal which cut off its commercial cooperation the lawyer representing the two Swedish women who have accused mr. Assange in the second case
We don't have his website and post finance the Swiss Swiss postal systems financial arm, which closed mr
Assange's account after saying he provided false information by saying that he resided in Switzerland
Now anonymous a leaderless group of activist hackers that had vowed to wreak revenge on any organization that lined up against WikiLeaks
Claimed responsibility for the MasterCard attack and according to one activist associated with the group was conducting multiple other attacks
basically
There were there was another name that might get the name of the the group. That's that's launching the attacks today
Anybody? Yeah, no, it's all over the media. I can't find it in this story
Army of operation payback operation payback. Thank you. That's it
You know, I've got real problems with this because I think denial of service is is simply doing what they did
Doing what the other side did as far as cutting you off silencing you
Trying to take away your power by taking away your voice. I don't think that's the way to fight this fight
I don't think simply flooding flooding people with data or flooding organizations with data and clogging up the system
I don't think that's a valid way to go about it
I think there's enough public support where that kind of thing simply isn't necessary. All right
Well one thing that I think people really should be doing especially when you have, you know
legislature legislators trying to propose
Laws that actually would make what WikiLeaks is doing a good service illegal is to actually, you know
Let your representatives know what the heck you think, you know
If if they're starting to then push through with the stuff, you know people who can you know do
peaceful protests
Instead, you know get out in the street or write letters flood flood flood those people rather than the voting packets
It just it just makes
Everybody look bad when that's it's vandalism. It's it's being a thug. It's for people who have run out of ideas
I can't vocalize in words what their point is and by calling them hackers. What's this got to do with hacking?
I'm looking at at something on on
Yeah, it's just cuz moto low orbit ion cannon an application
That is designed to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks on websites. It's a push-button application
It can allow you to participate in attacks
Even if you've no clue how to hack you just download a copy of LOIC available for Windows Mac and Linux
Punch in the target information like a URL or an IP address and zap and that's all there is to it
Where is the hacking in that? This is not Katie hacking. I'm sorry. What's good Katie? Yes good kitties
That's that's what it takes Rob and I I think a denial-of-service taking down a website
That's basically censorship and whichever direction it goes in
Censorship, I personally find it offensive. I think the the and the enemy of bad speech is not censorship
It's better speech. So it makes a lovely you said that's so much better than I could I'm definitely not
necessarily for denial-of-service attacks
but I don't think it's exactly the same as as what they're doing to WikiLeaks because we leaks is a media organization and they're a
It's attempting to silence somebody. No, but they're an infrastructure. They're a business. They're not they're not like a a
Political viewpoint or if they were like it affects people though
Yeah, but if people but if they're doing unethical things and maybe they should I think it's more productive to have
Really the only way to know I think it's the least productive but I'm not I think the most harmful
I think it just makes the side look really bad and and and it demonizes hackers not not only does it make people look bad
It's fighting fire with fire, you know, it said people should actually be following order doing, you know a proper
Conduct with how you act, you know, we shouldn't see, you know government officials trying to change laws
Just as we shouldn't see people acting like thugs, you know
We if we're gonna criticize one side for disregarding the rules that are should be in place. We shouldn't do the same thing
Take the high road
Yeah. Yes. Go ahead Bernie. I just want to say we recently aired that whole
That tirade that all shut up thing about you know
You should just shut up instead of speaking your your liberal or progressive viewpoints. I
equate
Denial-of-service accounts. I'm sorry. I equate denial-of-service attacks on on that whole mindset. We just shut up
You're shutting you're shutting up a source of information and I totally agree with Rob who said that the answer
I think that that's really amounts to censorship that the answer to
Information you don't like is better speech not shutting someone else up. But what?
Publishing information that is more relevant and more interesting and more
Amenable to your you know, it makes your point better than anything else and now it's time we want to
Give to our listeners to make their points and and and ask their questions
Here's here's actually a letter from one of our listeners on our email address OTH at 2600 comm dear off the hook
Everyone is talking about the significance of the 250,000 diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks
But what is this cables business? I thought the telegraph was long dead
It makes it sound as though the embassies are still tapping out Morse code to communicate with one another
Surely our embassies are using modern telecommunications
So why is it called a cable our diplomatic cables just specially formatted emails?
What communications media are so-called cables being transmitted over radio landline?
I would really like to know what a cable actually means
Strangely with all the attention WikiLeaks is getting right now
I haven't heard anyone ask what these cables are all about signed Michael from Oakland Bernie. Yeah any idea
Well, I don't know exactly but it's probably some secure
encrypted network
There is this zipper net CIP our net which is a secure network
That the US government operates throughout different as I do with it. It's IPR. Sorry. That's not serpent net
SIP our net and that's that's the network that what something like three million people had access to were these were these
leaked documents
Were were downloaded from so I assume that that's it's sort of a closed email system
Over kidding, right?
It's the most open email system in the world right now
What I find interesting is if at the bottom of almost every one of these cables that has been released is a
Invitation to the reader to go on to the super net and learn more about
The the region in question, but I can't click the links. They don't work for me
Well, there've been all kinds of ideas being floated around
I know there's some talk here at the radio station of having an open reading of some of the some of the documents from the
cables
Having listeners come in and do some dramatic. I think that's really awesome a great idea
that I've heard from the Arts Department here and
Another idea is standing on street corners handing them out just out to people
Yeah, wouldn't that be something here for WikiLeaks WikiLeaks?
Constructive things people could do. Uh-huh. Like I was saying get out in the street. There you go
Yeah, there's you hand out these things little yeah, but it's interesting question
Why why it's called a cable, but you know what? I have an interesting question. Why is it called WikiLeaks?
Because it started out more wiki-ish
Wiki is defined by Wikipedia and they should know as a website that allows the easy creation and editing of
Any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language?
And of course with WikiLeaks, you can't really change anything, but you say it started that way memory serves
it started that way, but just just with
Like just security and and all sorts of technical reasons they shipped it away from that, right?
Well, I think it has more to do with the fact that anybody can participate anonymously by submitting something therefore you can contribute
Oh, that's your way of editing by by by submitting. Okay, I see that
Their website used to be a wiki. Yeah, and not anyone could edit it only the WikiLeaks editors could edit it
But it was a wiki. Mm-hmm
So the name has carried over just like the name cable has carried over and something like that
That's nice. I did I have an idea and I don't want to suggest anyone implement it because you might get in trouble
Theoretical discussions here, but I wonder what would happen if someone in in Washington DC went to
Somewhere some public property near the State Department and started posting these cables like taping them onto lampposts
Because because the State Department has let its employees know they may not read these cables
So would they all get fired or something?
That's another thing the State Department, which is the source of many of these cables
They're not allowed to read what's in The New York Times that the whole world is able to know
They're the source of all these cables. It's a collection of is it state every single one of them?
Well, it's the State Department in Washington and communicates with the embassies overseas. Uh-huh. They go in both directions
Yeah, so, you know what? It's not classified anymore if it's been leaked
It's public then you know, it's it totally is that almost sounds like they can't read it if they're actually
Authorized like in the office. Okay, you can't read this file anymore. And yeah, even though you have authorization
Okay, I'm gonna take some phone calls talking about can I construct your points of protest?
There's in for people in New York at tomorrow at at 6 30 p.m. At the New York Times building
There's going to be a protest. I don't know why there but then there is there a protest to get The New York Times prosecuted or
To support wikiLeaks to support wikiLeaks. Yes, and they're gonna be protests throughout the world tomorrow evening and you can find out more about
I still don't get why why why the New York Times?
There's so many other yeah people attacking wikiLeaks a lot more than they've been. No, they're not
I don't think purchasing at the knee towards the New York. Okay. It's just a place to gather and they're
produced throughout the world in your local city, so go to
wlcentral.org
wlcentral.org, okay
The unofficial official wiki. We have a full switchboard and I'd like to get as many calls in as possible
Now our listeners have a whole lot to say on this issue and please don't feel compelled to agree with us
Raise issues. Let's have an interesting discussion here. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Hi, I have four quick points. I hope I remember them all. Okay on the topic of not being able to
Access information that originated inside your department. There's a story about someone having published a book on the CIA and
the fact that CIA employees were
Some of the most prolific buyers of this book because they didn't know anything about it either
Interesting, but the second point is why not burn it to a DVD and find some gray market
DVD distributor if you like to see diplomatic cables being sold on blankets
Outside. All right. Yeah
The third is
Wrapped the third and the fourth together. Okay
You know aside from the insurance file that people haven't really been talking about
Is it possible for WikiLeaks to say hey
Here's some unredacted cable
as opposed to relying on the
Poison pill encrypted file for leverage
I'm not I'm not sure what you're saying. I mean to not to not have
Have the encrypted file to simply give it to people or ignore the existence of the encrypted file other leverage would be
Start releasing unredacted, but you see that the encrypted file. It's it's it's brilliant because you don't know what's in it
You know, it's it's it's this mystery. It's an enigma. You don't know what's actually going to going to come out of it
if if WikiLeaks is
And forbid shut down somehow that file will be the epitaph on the tombstone
Well, yeah, of course and my only worry is that there should be so many more organizations like WikiLeaks out there
It shouldn't just be one person and it's not it shouldn't just be one organization
There should be a whole lot of organizations designed to spreading information that gets leaked and you have to wonder
Why is the information being leaked in the first place people?
Inside organizations believe that others have the right to know this kind of thing interesting thing about the encryption file though
Think about it
if if the State Department
Had used that kind of protection in the first place that Julian Assange or WikiLeaks has used to make this file
They wouldn't have had this whole issue in the first place. You know, it would have been
Maybe a pointer for them. Well, it's not quite right
They use encryption in transit
But they have the data has to get decrypted at some point or no one will be able to millions of people
Yeah, the mistake is that they gave three million people my point
I mean you basically give people what they need to have access to and you keep the rest encrypted
I'm not convinced though that I wish to encourage the government to restrict access to thing
I you know
I'm not gonna insert my ideology into this but I
Know the government's like to keep secrets if they if they really are intent on doing that
They should do it right and not to blame the messenger. All right. Thanks for that call. Let's take another one
Good evening. You're on off the hook
Speak up. Yeah. Hi, what's on your mind?
Okay
You know what you gotta have a point ready to go good evening you're on off the hook
The hypocrisy the hypocrisy of the US government
The exposure of these documents is
Is
Righteous and it and the true patriot is wicked is the WikiLeaks
Organization. Those are the Patriots. Those are the people are getting bombed now
By a government whose mask has been torn off their face
Okay. Thanks for your opinion. Yeah. Okay, cool. Good night and good evening. You're on off the hook
All right, good evening you're on off the hook
Speak up. Hello. Yes, please speak up
Yes
I don't know you guys were like talking about WikiLeaks all day. Like you were last episode. Yeah, we were we were good evening
You're on off the hook
Really people you got to listen to the radio show. Good evening. You're on off the hook. All right
I'd like to know like what is it? WikiLeaks dot 2600 dot the world. I don't know
WikiLeaks dot 2600 dot org. I dot com that should work to WikiLeaks. I try to turn dot com org
But WikiLeaks dot org does not no longer works. I don't believe
like
Is there a central location to find out like I'm what I'm thinking about it's like
You're down on the idea of of throwing them massive denial of service stuff at them at these companies
But they certainly are worth a boycott
Oh, yeah
Absolutely, but you can only do that if you know who the hell they are
And I don't know like Visa MasterCard and PayPal. Those are the only names I know right off the top of my head
Hmm, so I'm just wondering like is there any place?
Where like maybe WL central I where I can get a current list as it evolves because it has to be evolving all the time
Guardian has an updating article about everybody that's been a douchebag to WikiLeaks and
WL center probably linked to that. I think it's like list of people that protect where you something like that Rob. I
Also wanted to mention that the boycotts are happening and they do have an effect a good friend of mine
Recently canceled her PayPal account
I think it was because of this and she couldn't use the automated system to do it a crash
So she called in and got an operator and basically told that there are so many people doing it that they have to keep a list
Like companies are
Really sensitive to that kind of stuff. They really hate losing business
I'll hang up and I will listen to the rest of the very interesting show. Okay, okay
Well, I take as many phone calls as possible. Let's grab another one. Give me you're on off the hook. Yes. Hello
Hi Tom from the Bronx here. I'd like to say that WikiLeaks
In other words and the US government the US government should only have a computer system. That's
Geared for them if they want to keep everybody else out that nobody else could get into their system
Should be a special system
now where
WikiLeaks is doing a good service in a way and
What it is is more embarrassing to all the governments in the world that are involved in this story
Then in other words, it's not exactly letting so much secrets out. It's just giving them a lot of embarrassment
to me and
One thing about this guy here who is in charge of WikiLeaks in England. He's in England, right?
Let's hope they don't pull a ruby on them where they either poison him in jail or he gets shot by somebody
I really I if because if they have that paranoid
They're liable to take that route and I hope that doesn't happen
Well, let's keep Sarah Palin and Peter King away from him. Hopefully he'll be safe. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Hey, how's it going? Hi, I'm pretty computer illiterate. I've been listening to you guys for years. I love your show
Thanks. There are two things. I want to say is one
This is a case of all this secrecy
Connett will eventually expose the dirt on everybody because they're snooping on everyone
That's a very indirect thing
and the other one is I can't wait till they start releasing some information about the dirty wars in Central America because
there seems to be a lot of rewriting of history and I think it's really timely to let some of the myths about
Reagan and past presidents come out
absolutely, and if just one war crime is
Uncovered as a result of all of this. Is that not worth all the embarrassment and all the
Ruined relationships between diplomats. We need to know the truth Mike
You're making the assumption that
Anyone in the US will ever be prosecuted for war crime in there
There's not a whole lot. Don't you think we should at least try to find out the truth before we
Assume that it's not gonna go. I mean, I love more truth more truth is always better
But there are certainly war crimes that the US has committed that that are already known about in the public domain and for which no
One's been prosecuted, but we can't go back in time. This is moving forward. So I'm talking about recent history
All right. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Speak up. Oh dear. All right. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Speak up
All right. Gotta move faster. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Yeah
There's government and a lot of others. They're busy spying on everybody reading their emails listen to their cell phones
They're probably listening to this when they could just tune into the radio
Is it possible for you to play just give me some truth by John Lennon as you sign off?
I don't have it with me
But it's a great song and it's very appropriate for both the day and the occasion and I will certainly be thinking of the lyrics
Thanks for that suggestion. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Speak up
Hey, sorry
wondering if there was a
alternative place to make donations
To WikiLeaks. Well, I think what do they have on their website now? They have some other yeah, they have
They are bank account information. But unfortunately for Americans, it's it's expensive and time-consuming to make
International wire transfers, so hopefully more options will become what what could somebody in the United States do somebody who has
Some kind of resource access to some kind of online payment system
I mean if you simply took your PayPal account and took donations for WikiLeaks and and were trusted enough to actually get it to
Them would they just not shut you down like they did the Val Holland Foundation. It's an interesting question
I mean if you had
It costs at least with most banks around $30 to make an international law transfer. So if you have
Aggregated donations of substantially more than that
You could transfer money to the Val Holland Foundation and and I don't know how they could stop you
There's an indirect way to use PayPal to pay WikiLeaks, which is actually what I did. There's a service called flatter
flattr, which is like a micro payment website, but
It lets you
Set up with your PayPal account or your credit cards and I guess Visa and MasterCard. Does it work with weeks?
Yes, it does flattr.com. Yes flattr.com. Yep. And how do you make a donation to WikiLeaks through them?
You just look up on the website. Just we search for WikiLeaks are flatter comm slash like what you Lisa flash profile
Okay, we'll check into that. Let's take another phone call. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Okay, I think I cut before I just want to do a
Say my support for WikiLeaks again
and that and that the fear of that Joe Lieberman is apparently doing some sort of
Trying to redo the Espionage Act law because if they if we managed to get Julian Assange
extradited here like the United States is hoping for
That the Espionage Act is apparently not strong enough to convict him
So Joe Lieberman and a bunch of senators want to redo that law
Basically any person who leaks information as well as any
Organization or person that publishes it would be able to be tried and sentenced for at minimum a life sentence in jail
And yeah
They're out of their minds and they're panicking and it's going to be fascinating to see what else they do and they realize they've totally lost
control of the situation as
They never should have had in the first place. Good evening. You're on the button. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Hi, what's on your mind?
Say that I think it was president. Oh my god, Jefferson that said if he had a choice between a
government or a free press
He would go for the free press. I think that speaks volumes
Yeah, absolutely. And those guys back then they they understood quite a few things that we don't say to them now. I'm sorry
What they understand slavery? Well, no, let's say I said some things. I'm sorry. Go ahead. You're on the air
Yes, speaking of hypocrisy
I don't know if you recently saw the movie fair game with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts and
after seeing that movie how Edith Palme was outed during the Bush Cheney era and
There was barely a peep and now
everyone's outraged about
WikiLeaks now when Edith Palme was outed
People's lives really were at stake people were endangered and I wonder why was the no outrage then?
Why why now? Oh
Hypocrisy definitely is is a reason
Because she was outed by the people in power and I served them
Yeah, I mean it seems like during the Bush Cheney era you could get away with anything
And it was just the way it was and now once again during the Obama era
There's outrage everybody's outraged it seems like
No matter what this guy does. He can't get any credit. He can't you know, he's he's always getting trashed
Well, also there's there's you know, the difference in that that was you know one thing and here you're talking about
250,000 things and I don't know if they know what which
Cables they all are. So so there's fear of the unknown in there. Can you imagine they have and so so at this point, you know
Since it's not
Out there yet in its entirety. They're they're panicking and trying it to figure out ways to keep that from happening
But I think at this point it's a lost cause especially if the insurance file. Yeah contains all the cables
Yeah, it's it's gonna be pretty interesting. I take a couple more calls in the time. We have left. Good evening. You're on off the hook
Okay, what's on your mind my name is Brad dose and it's been on Berlina and it's been on WikiLeaks
Good for you, but I don't want to write on your coattails because I want to say in
Constitutional limitations on criminal law. There's a quote by Bernoulli the guy with the
With the spray gun Bernoulli's law
anyway
Here's a lot of
Great science, but he said you can tell the lion by its claw. So let's tell the lion by its claw
let's see them follow this through because
In a just government if they took this man to quit if the United States
Specifically is what I mean. They took this man to court
I'm gonna call him a man because I don't see him guilty of anything until he's prosecuted
So all this other talk about rape and this it's just
Divide and conquer. It's just COINTELPRO. It's just a farce because they don't like what he did, but if they took him to court
Like they won't take a lot of things to court like I ran Contra and 9-11 properly if they took him to court
Couldn't you raise a bunch of things that they've done that are on file?
Theoretically, but are they going to do it in a respectable way with people like Peter King?
They're not going to do in a respectable way
No, absolutely not right now. They'll change the laws to to suit themselves and to get their their their desired effects
Thanks for the call. I'm gonna try to take one more in the time we have left
Good evening, you're on off the hook
Speak up. Yes. Hi. I don't know if you guys went through it already
But can you give us an idea how to read those torrent files?
I'll just hang up and listen. Okay. Okay, which torrent files you mean the current from the WikiLeaks WikiLeaks? Okay
So there's a I don't remember the name of it's called insurance. You can probably find it on a number of torrent sites
It's like a one point something gig. It's one point something games, but it's an encrypted file
So you can't actually read it
The idea is that if something were to happen to WikiLeaks where they wouldn't be able to release any more cables
They could release the password for the file
But but you're not you mean if you were to download it, you'd really just be another person to have it
How do we know that the powers that be haven't polluted the torrents by putting fake programs out there fake files?
Okay, well hopefully hopefully that's been that's been thought of to answer the guys question though
if you wish to download the file you need to just search for bit torrent client and follow the
Instructions that you'll find and they'll instruct you how to work the torrent file to get the other file
Download any illegal movies while you do that
And a lot of the mirrors are hosting the current files
Some don't have the insurance value those you have to find on the torrent sites
but the mirrors the mirrors are hosting current leaks and
Yeah, okay. We are out of time. I'm too bad. Nobody disagreed with us, but oh well right to us
Oth at 2600 comm we'll be back next week. I'm sure talking about this some more. Yeah
Spread the disease
Spread the disease
From the satellite spread the disease to the
Disease
Spread the disease
Spread the disease
Spread the disease
Spread the disease
Whoo
They always play the greatest music and I particularly like that one
Yes
this is
eight o'clock exactly on the dot and it is
December the 8th
2010
And you're listening to WBA I New York 99.5 FM also streaming on the web at
PC radio show dot o RG. Don't forget to pick up Hank and his stream
the WBA I stream at PC radio show
dot
O-r-g and this is Stevie DB and I am
WikiLeaks