But considering that Wikileaks is essentially a Russian intelligence services front at this point, spreading this kind of disinformation does a great deal to muddy the waters about the hacking.
Trump is crazy & I'm willing to believe the Russians helped him, but this is an equally baseless accusation.
Wikileaks has a history of pissing off both the left & right in the United States. I have a hard time believing the claims they're part of the Republican party.
To act like Wikileaks hasn't cut a tv deal with a Russian propaganda network and doesn't parrot its talking points runs pretty counter to recent history. And today they're at it again, trying to foster doubt about the safety of secure messaging apps among journalists (unsurprising, given Putins history of murdering journalists).
As to "when did he piss off Russia", did you ever consider that maybe he doesn't get many leaks from there? If someone leaked stuff to Wikileaks and then Assange sat on it for his own reasons, the leaker would just go somewhere else. It's not like there's a lack of outlets that would publish such info: any western newspaper would do it. Wikileaks came on the scene because western media proved that they would not publish leaked material that made the US administration look bad, as the NYT's handling of Iraq related matters made clear. It was only after Wikileaks gave leakers another outlet that Anglospheric newspapers started to get the balls to publish government secrets, knowing full well that if they didn't Assange would use his own channels to do it for them.
And today they're at it again, trying to foster doubt about the safety of secure messaging apps among journalists (unsurprising, given Putins history of murdering journalists).
If phones are hackable they're hackable, that has nothing to do with Putin. Remember we're talking about the CIA here, not the FSB?
There's not much there in terms of evidence or substance, so I'll skip that. But I would suggest that sometimes nations have conflicts with each other, and further suggest that Russia and the USA have one such hostile relationship - sometimes these hostilities take the form of interfering with each others plans and goals. I'd also point out that Russia has invaded a string of neighbors after coordinated cyber and information warfare campaigns, as well as the recent string of dead Russian diplomats who all purpotedly had contact with Michael Steele. Hopefully the idea that a country who is actively fights to disrupt the current world order may take steps to further this goal doesn't appear crazy to you, because that seems like a bizarre mischaracterization of some rather straightforward concepts.
>RT routinely gives airtime to all sorts of fringe characters that other stations don't, it doesn't mean those people work for, have "cut deals with" or are otherwise owned by Putin himself.
This is another criticism that is really odd to me, because again it's mischaracterizing what is happening. """ Russia’s propaganda efforts aren’t partisan per se, though in the US election their preferred candidate was Trump. “The Russians don’t care who they’re helping, whether it’s the left or right wing. There are no barriers, as long as it weakens the system,” says Meister. “What Russia wants is to further its own interests, and at the moment, right-wing parties tend to speak to those interests more than the left,” says Meister """ [http://www.cjr.org/special_report/putin_russia_propaganda_tr...]
So what I hear is "Russia is funding every extreme viewpoint they can find", for you to rebut with "Russia funds leftists and the right, therefore they're not against the united states" strikes me as nonsensical.
>As to "when did he piss off Russia", did you ever consider that maybe he doesn't get many leaks from there?
Again, you're not actually arguing against my point. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-out_(espionage)] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_of_influence]
> If someone leaked stuff to Wikileaks and then Assange sat on it for his own reasons, the leaker would just go somewhere else. It's not like there's a lack of outlets that would publish such info: any western newspaper would do it. Wikileaks came on the scene because western media proved that they would not publish leaked material that made the US administration look bad, as the NYT's handling of Iraq related matters made clear. It was only after Wikileaks gave leakers another outlet that Anglospheric newspapers started to get the balls to publish government secrets, knowing full well that if they didn't Assange would use his own channels to do it for them.
You're trying to blur the lines between what happened when wikileaks was founded vs today. To make it much simpler, Pussy Riot is a very vocal anti-Putin group, who put it very plainly: """ A member of Russian punk band Pussy Riot says WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange directly collaborates with Moscow.
“But Julian Assange, he openly works with [Russia],” Nadya Tolokno told The Daily Beast in an interview Thursday. "It’s not a secret. He’s connected with the Russian government, and I feel that he’s proud of it.
“I generally support the work that WikiLeaks is doing, but I’m not that thrilled about his decisions that are unethical, in my view, concerning his connections to the Russian government.” Tolokno said she visited Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London two years ago, saying their meeting convinced her WikiLeaks has ties to the Kremlin.
“He couldn’t deny it,” said Tolokno, whose full name is Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. "He often works with the Russian propaganda machine, and he doesn’t try to hide it.
“Julian Assange doesn’t try to hide that fact because he hosts at the Ecuadorian Embassy the editor-in-chief of the Russian propaganda team, Russia Today, and he has projects with them,” she added.
Tolokno added she confronted Assange about advancing Russian interests ahead of America’s.
“I understood his position: He’s in a state of war with the American government,” she said. "He’s smart and charismatic and will use any means to destroy the American government.
“And we had a conversation if it was really the ethical thing to do that with the hands of another government [Russia] which is, in fact, much worse and a real authoritarian government.” """ [http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/303172-puss...]
These were not just random samplings. They were cherry-picked from a huge collection and delivered with perfect timing. This is agency work, not Assange.
see http://www.mediaite.com/online/julian-assange-hillary-clinto...
and similar
Also, while I doubt they've ever released fake documents as part of a leak, they do often push incorrect and/or unverified theories and ideas on Twitter.
(Yes I know the accusations, but they don't appear backed by evidence or reason).
I'm no fan of imperialist American foreign policy, but Russia is just as grotesque.
http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/12/23/news/assange_wiki...
No, he didn't. I know The Guardian said he did, but they mislead readers so badly that the interviewer they were quoting specifically called them out for bad journalism. Wikileaks has gone off the rails lately, but the "vibrant" thing is from a hitpiece that's inaccurate in almost every way.
Assange said "In Russia, there are many vibrant publications, online blogs, and Kremlin critics such as [Alexey] Navalny are part of that spectrum." This wasn't part of a statement about Russia not needing dissent like Wikileaks, but about whether Wikileaks was competent to provide it. He continued "in Russia there are competitors to WikiLeaks, and no WikiLeaks staff speak Russian, so for a strong culture which has its own language, you have to be seen as a local player" and made similar comparisons to China and East Timor.
The question was about Wikileaks efficacy compared to Russian activists, not whether Putin suppresses critics. Note that Assange cited Navalny, a man Putin has put in prison. That shows pretty clear awareness of what criticism means in Russia, but The Guardian pulled the quote without the followup or example.
Worse, The Guardian also cited Assange as offering "praise for Trump" in the interview. That's flatly dishonest - no such statement appears, they just claimed it did. When asked, he described Trump as "gathering around him a spectrum of other rich people and several idiosyncratic personalities".
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of...
“But Julian Assange, he openly works with [Russia],” Nadya Tolokno told The Daily Beast in an interview Thursday. "It’s not a secret. He’s connected with the Russian government, and I feel that he’s proud of it.
“I generally support the work that WikiLeaks is doing, but I’m not that thrilled about his decisions that are unethical, in my view, concerning his connections to the Russian government.” Tolokno said she visited Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London two years ago, saying their meeting convinced her WikiLeaks has ties to the Kremlin.
“He couldn’t deny it,” said Tolokno, whose full name is Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. "He often works with the Russian propaganda machine, and he doesn’t try to hide it.
“Julian Assange doesn’t try to hide that fact because he hosts at the Ecuadorian Embassy the editor-in-chief of the Russian propaganda team, Russia Today, and he has projects with them,” she added.
Tolokno added she confronted Assange about advancing Russian interests ahead of America’s.
“I understood his position: He’s in a state of war with the American government,” she said. "He’s smart and charismatic and will use any means to destroy the American government.
“And we had a conversation if it was really the ethical thing to do that with the hands of another government [Russia] which is, in fact, much worse and a real authoritarian government.” ''' http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/303172-puss...
That's what anti-putin russian activists think of wikileaks.
Here's someone who also went to prison for protesting against Putin who says that Assange uses rhetorical dodges, but it's out in the open in Russia that he works with the Kremlin.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/27/pussy-riot-...
Yes, Assange is soft on Russia and Trump (and apparently Roger stone just copped again to a Trump-Assange connection). No, it wouldn't surprise me even a little bit if he's looking to the Kremlin for leaks and protection, and so publishing at their discretion. Yes, Russia clearly engages in censorship and violence against critics on a level not at all comparable to the US.
(The Manning/Snowden comparison on "in prison" is obvious, but I do realize the difference. The US doesn't have an epidemic of murdered journalists and civil rights advocates in exile, and wealth and fame aren't required to survive dissent.)
But because I worry about all of that, I wish the discussion of the topic wasn't so often allergic to context. Most articles and public statements on the issue are easily shredded for horrible inaccuracies, when even a straightforward summary of events is deeply alarming.
https://www.rt.com/news/313829-assange-advise-snowden-russia...
https://medium.com/@jeffreycarr/can-facts-slow-the-dnc-breac...