WikiLeaks Cablegate & Indonesia
Dec 4th, 2010, in Featured, News, by PatungIndonesian government preparing for the release of US embassy documents in Jakarta; the WikiLeaks Cablegate affair.
About 3,000 “secret documents” from the US embassy in Jakarta and consulate in Surabaya are believed to be part of the latest Wikileaks, ‘Cablegate’, release, out of about 250,000 total.
It appears there are 3059 documents from Jakarta, and 167 from Surabaya, from between the years 1990 to 2010, with most being dated from 2006 onwards. The files likely contain US diplomats’ commentary on Indonesian affairs and on leading figures in the government.
Security minister Djoko Suyanto has delegated initial responsibility for handling the matter to minister of Communications Tifatul Sembiring.
Tifatul said his department would collect the documents when they came out, and study them, and later make recommendations as to what to do or say about them to Djoko Suyanto. antara
It’s not clear whether all the information from Wikileaks is true; if it’s not true, if it’s propaganda, we will have to respond.
The documents so far released had been viewable at http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/ however service has been withdrawn from this domain; currently they can be viewed at http://213.251.145.96/cablegate.html
48 Comments on “WikiLeaks Cablegate & Indonesia”
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Hans says:
Sweden’s first terrorist attack. A suicide bomber blew himself up in the air in an unsuccessful terrotattentat to Christmas shopping in downtown Stockholm on Saturday. Around 16:52 pm exploded a car that was parked at the intersection of Olof Palme Street and Drottningatan. According to police, were both numerous explosions, then a fire started.
17:02, ten minutes after the first explosion, bang again. This time the intersection of Queen Street and Bryggargatan. The intersection was found a badly injured man who later was found dead. The same explosion injured two other people who are now being treated in hospital for his injuries. The deceased man was later identified as a suicide bomber who intended to blow himself up in the air and take the Swedes with him in death.
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jodi says:
more intensively to open All document in Indonesia for BETTER LIVING
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Arie Brand says:
The assessment of Wikileaks varies from it being just a collection of trivial embassy cables to revealing documentation of the fearsome tentacles of Empire. Some of the hysterical reactions in the US seem to show that the latter assessment is not far off the mark though one has to take into account that the producers of these documents often take themselves, and want others to take them, far too seriously. The diplomatic pose was once perfectly described by Rebecca West when she spoke of that British diplomat who even when he was peering down a woman’s dress managed to look as if he were thinking of India (thanks Alexander Cockburn).
When I wrote earlier on this site about Wikileaks I surmised that the honeytrap was only set after the interference of that ‘politician from Goteborg’. However I had not seen the bit of information that Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett already provided some months ago ( in Counterpunch) about the main complainant, Anna Ardin. From what they tell us it would appear that the trap was set right from the start. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this information. Hans who seems to be living near the source of this all can perhaps tell us more about it. This is what Shamir and Bennett said:
“Anna Ardin (the official complainant) is often described by the media as a “leftist”. She has ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups. She published her anti-Castro diatribes (see here and here) in the Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by Misceláneas de Cuba. From Oslo, Professor Michael Seltzer points out that this periodical is the product of a well-financed anti-Castro organization in Sweden. He further notes that the group is connected with Union Liberal Cubana led by Carlos Alberto Montaner whose CIA ties were exposed here. Note that Ardin was deported from Cuba for subversive activities. In Cuba she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro group Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White). This group receives US government funds and the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is a friend and supporter. Wikipedia quotes Hebe de Bonafini, president of the Argentine Madres de Plaza de Mayo as saying that “the so-called Ladies in White defend the terrorism of the United States.””
But the “feminist terrorism” angle is not lacking either though this information, says Shamir, comes from a Swedish forum (and might not be more than gossip):
” In addition to her anti-Castro, pro-CIA streak, Anna Ardin apparently indulges in her favorite sport of male-bashing. A Swedish forum reports that she is an expert on sexual harassment and the male “master suppression techniques”. Once, as she was lecturing, a male student in the audience looked at his notes instead of staring at her. Anna Ardin reported him for sexual harassment because he discriminated against her for being a woman and because she claimed he made use of the male “master suppression technique” in trying to make her feel invisible. As soon as the student learned about her complaint, he contacted her to apologize and explain himself. Anna Ardin’s response was to once again report him for sexual harassment, again because he was using the “master suppression technique”, this time to belittle her feelings.”
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I have spent some time on trying to check up on Shamir’s claims but I didn’t get very far. The Ardin articles on Cuba can be easily found by following Shamir’s prompts. I can’t judge how anti-Castro they are because my knowledge of Spanish is less than sketchy.
Any other Google reference I could find went back to Shamir’s article so that was not very helpful.
Shamir seems to be, somehow, involved with Wikileaks but here too precise details are lacking.
Concrete information on Anna Ardin is also surprisingly scarce though there is some gossip including a juicy bit about her “really” being a lesbian whose ladylove is called Petra Ornstein (photographs supplied).
Those who want to shoot the messenger (Shamir) tend to refer to the 2004 Bach, Johansen, Apfelblum article in ‘Searchlight’ which purports to show that Shamir is really an anti-Semitic Swede not living in Jaffa, as he claims, but in Stockholm . Their assertions have been repeated over and over in the hope that repetition somehow creates facts. Shamir claims to have moved to Israel, from Russia, in 1969 and to have served as a paratrooper in the 1973 war. If these facts were untrue the Israeli government could have easily denied them. To the best of my knowledge it has not done so, though Shamir must be high on its list of public enemies.
There is in my mind no doubt at all that Shamir is Jewish.
He seems to have some relatives in Sweden and might also have Swedish nationality but that is about it.
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Andrew Brown of the Guardian, that beacon of liberal enlightenment, tried to smear Wikileaks by suggesting that it was linked to the ‘notorious’ anti-Semite, Israel Shamir. I have reacted to his flabby piece in the Comment is Free section (to be found among the last 25 comments or so). Curiously, though my contributions were against the main stream there they received the highest number of recommendations. I am not saying this in a self congratulatory fashion: in fact I think it had little to do with the merits, or otherwise, of my contributions. What it does seem to show, I think, is that quite a few people are fed up with certain topics being out of bounds but still shy away from coming forward with their opinions.
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I have had on the Guardian’s CIF section a discussion about Israel Shamir who is usually misrepresented. There is a number of allegedly “incriminating” sentences from him floating around the internet and these are the usual basis for often quite vicious personal attacks.
On this particular thread the focus of these attacks were his alleged views on “blood libel” and the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. As far as the former is concerned: S’s remarks on these were made in the context of his review of two Israeli scholars, Israel Yuval and Ariel Toaff. Wikipedia has quite an interesting entry on the latter. His views, published in italian (he is the son of a chief rabbi of Rome and apparently a rabbi himself) caused a storm in his own community and led to threats of his dismissal from Bar Ilan University and even death threats. So he caved in (though he originally said that he would stand by his views even if he were “crucified” for it), took the first edition out of circulation and came up with a “purged” second edition.
My particular battle was with a character who calls himself “Sids Kitchen”. I composed an answer to him in the early morning hours. When I started to write the thread was still open. When I had finished the Guardian had closed it. So now I want to publish my last letter here. It will probably never come under the eyes of its addressee but will at any case be on the internet.
I reported earlier that I initially received some support for my views but, alas, in a further showing of my hand this was conspicuous by its absence.
SidsKitchen
You have the mind of an inquisitor. When you have been shown that Shamir’s remarks about ‘blood libel’ did not originate in his alleged anti-semitism but had a lot to do with the views of two respectable Israeli scholars (they were in fact made in discussing the views of these scholars) you are still determined “to have him” (or me).
Now you have withdrawn to this line:
“That is not comparable with Yuval, or even with Toaff. Shamir’s argument it is not about Jewish mass suicide, or even a Jewish Ashkenazi cult, it’s about “the Jews” as a people “
Here again you are quite mistaken. It is about Jews as ordinary human beings, instead of exceptional ones incapable of wrongdoing. He says so quite explicitly and you would have found this yourself if you took the trouble to read him instead of stopping at the first “incriminating” passage you can find and then rushing into print to denounce him. Here is what he says in his review of Professor Toaff’s book about the attacks on this scholar in his own community:
“A renown (sic) Jewish historian, rabbi and a son of a rabbi, wrote about 500-year old events – why should they bestir themselves? In the Middle ages, use of blood, necromancy, black magic were not an exclusively Jewish realm. Witches and wizards of gentile background did it too. So just join the human race, warts and all!. “
You went off half cock about the blood libel matter and now you do so about the “protocols”. If you want to know what S. thinks about these I suggest you read him with some other idea in mind than finding “incriminating” sentences.
Let me, however, assure you of one thing. S. does not hold that there is a world wide Jewish conspiracy, as you seem to think he does. He says quite explicitly about this supposed plot:
“ … I doubt human beings, Jews or English, Russians or Chinese are able to form long-standing plans spanning centuries and continents. Nobody was able to prove such a plot exists. “
And again:
“We can reach similar results rejecting the conspiracy line altogether, by applying the concept of self-interest to the real Jewish community …”
I doubt that this will deter you from further attacks on Shamir but you then will have to indulge in these without my company. I now take leave of you as I would of a troublesome customer in the local pub who shows too clearly that his main opinions were obtained in that very place.
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Most people here will be aware that in “the land of the free and home of the brave” there is such a thing as “Campus Watch” – an outfit originally organised by the rabidly pro-Israel Daniel Pipes. Its ostensible goal is to improve the quality of scholarship on the Middle East. According to many sceptical observers its real aim is to spy on what it regards as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel elements (for many of those involved the same thing) in the teaching and publications of American academics.
What I, until recently, was not aware of however, is that there is also a blog called “CIF watch”. CIF stands here for the “Comment is Free” section of the Guardian, a blog that is read by literally millions of people. “CIF watch” wants to keep an eye on “anti-Semitic” elements in the letters published there. When I became aware of the existence of this blog I decided to also place my last abortive letter for CIF, that I earlier published here, on this “CIF watch” blog. If anyone is interested in how I fared there s/he can find out at: http://cifwatch.com/2010/12/20/the-tragically-misunderstood-israel-shamir/
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My image of Sweden, a country I have never visited, is based on bits and pieces of information. There is, in the first place, its general reputation of being an enlightened and socially progressive country where the rule of law is taken very seriously. But, as a sort of counterpoint to that image, I have the impression created by a book of Peter Weiss (once, after the appearance of his play on Marat/Sade hailed as the new Brecht in Germany) who ultimately ended up there on his flight from the Nazis. He described it as a country in which quite conventional, self satisfied and limited bourgeois set the tone. And, finally, there is the bit of information provided by my daughter who once had a relationship with a Swede and travelled with him to his small home town in the far North of the country. What mainly struck her there was the uniformity of the housing and the fact that they had to be painted in one of three prescribed colours – which somehow ties in with that image of drab conventionality.
This image might be far removed from ‘reality’ but it makes it easy for me to believe that they will not shy away over there from bending the law to have a go at such an exotic Australian figure as Assange. What ‘helps’ is of course that there, as elsewhere, civil liberties are threatened because of the state of alarm in the West about that evil Islam. Secret Services have a heyday now.
As far as Assange is concerned, his female accusers have at any case reached this result in what looks more and more like a smear campaign that A. has thus far had to shell out more than three hundred thousand British pounds for his defence. I read that he signed a book contract for one million and a half British pounds and by the time he can put his hands on these he will probably need most of it for further legal costs.
I regard the coupling of his name with that of Israel Shamir as part and parcel of the smear campaign against him. The people behind this overplayed their hand when they published a photo of Assange with a Macchiavellian looking Shamir hovering in the background. This pic is obviously doctored. Andrew Brown of the Guardian tried hard to suggest that he had his information on Shamir directly from Swedish sources even though he knows probably as much of Swedish as I do, that is zilch. A far more likely but unacknowledged source is the far right wing Jerusalem Post that came up with identical information a few days before Brown did. Meanwhile Assange has declared that his outfit works with hundreds of journalists and Shamir has from his side stated that he is in no way an employee of Wikileaks – merely a cooperating journalist as so many others.
I have already said that I believe the usual accusations against Shamir (that he is an anti Semite and a holocaust denier who, in addition, believes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to be an authentic document) to be rubbish. That doesn’t mean that I am prepared to swallow everything he comes up with. I find his essays on Palestine enlightening but his glorification of former Soviet Russia is a bit too much for me. Also he allows, in his desire to widen the limits of discourse and to ignore the usual taboos, a few too many crackpots among the authors of the readings on his website. This can only hurt his own credibility and provides ammunition for his enemies some of whom want him to be booted out from the legion of pro-Palestinian activists ( in Britain mainly Tony Greenstein and Ronald Rance, fanatical Shamir haters – according to the former Israeli citizen Gilad Atzmon , a well known blogger and jazz musician, Rance is continuously messing with the write up on Shamir in Wikipedia).
Assange doesn’t seem to fear the Swedish part of this campaign all that much. What he. rightly, fears is extradition to the US where the ‘rule of law’ is not much of a protection for him and where prominent idiots like Huckabee have already called for the death penalty. I am not impressed with the attitude of the Australian government, particularly Julia Gillard, either. She had to tone down her comments on him a bit after the FederaL Police here declared that he had broken no Australian law but I doubt that the Australian consulate in Britain will do much to help him.
Here is a recent video with Assange:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/12/22/wikileaks.assange/index.html?iref=obinsite
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We now have the paradoxical situation that, in order to protect information that should be public, the U.S. Department of Justice wants to have access to information that should remain private. It has to that end obtained a court order for Twitter to submit information on some of its clients, either former or present cooperators of Wikileaks. In the first place, of course, Assange. Other names are Gonggrijp, Apfelbaum and Birgitta Jonsdottir. Jonsdottir happens to be a member of the Icelandic and European parliaments.
The information sought is wide ranging. Glenn Greenwald writes in Salon:
” It includes all mailing addresses and billing information known for the user, all connection records and session times, all IP addresses used to access Twitter, all known email accounts, as well as the “means and source of payment,” including banking records and credit cards. It seeks all of that information for the period beginning November 1, 2009, through the present.”
I find it a sure sign of Yankee imperial hubris that U.S. federal courts seem to act on the implicit or explicit assumption that they have worldwide jurisdiction. Some European politicians find this less than palatable. Greenwald writes:
“ Iceland’s Interior Minister, Ögmundur Jónasson, described the DOJ’s effortsto obtain the Twitter information of a member of that country’s Parliament as “grave and odd.” While suggesting some criticisms of WikiLeaks, he added: “if we manage to make government transparent and give all of us some insight into what is happening in countries involved in warfare it can only be for the good.” The DOJ’s investigation of a member of Iceland’s Parliament — as part of an effort to intimidate anyone supporting WikiLeaks and to criminalize journalism that exposes what the U.S. Government does — is one of the most extreme acts yet in the Obama administration’s always-escalating war on whistleblowers, and shows how just excessive and paranoid the administration is when it comes to transparency: all this from a President who ran on a vow to have the “most transparent administration in history” and to “Protect Whistleblowers.”” “
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There is a political angle to the Assange case. That much I surmised from the start. I mentioned earlier, in the wake of Shamir and Bennett’s article in Counterpunch, the possible links of Anna Ardin (one of the complainants) to right wing American foreign policy groups. I also mentioned, as a secondary aspect, the possible role of political feminism.
After the revelations in the deposition dated 27th January 2011 of Brita Sundberg–Weitman, a retired Swedish senior judge and academic, who is a witness for the defence, I am now inclined to think that political feminism is not an auxiliary but the main cause here.
I mentioned in earlier posts the role of the ‘person from Porlock’, in this case a then unnamed politician from Goteborg, who came to disturb Assange’s dream of having had in Anna Ardin an easy sexual conquest. I imagined this person to be a conservative politician acting in the interests of a foreign power that doesn’t need to be named. However, he turns out to be a social democratic politician and lawyer, called Claes Borgstrom, who is acting for the complainants in this case.
Sundberg-Weitman writes:
Outsiders will not be aware of the role the gender plays in politics in Sweden. In recent years, elements of the Social Democrat Party, including one of the complainants who is a well known and aspiring Social Democrat politician and her lawyer, Mr. Borgstrom, and some public officials like Ms.Ny (i.e. the Goteborg Chief Prosecutor who is after Assange A.B.) have taken the lead in amending Swedish law so as to try to make it more favourable to women.
This ex-judge calls this Claes Borgstrom an “ultra radical feminist and activist” who made on behalf of Anna Ardin and her fellow-complainant an appeal, after a Stockholm Chief Prosecutor had dismissed the case, to his fellow Goteborgian and sister in the creed, Chief Prosecutor Marianne Ny.
About Ms.Ny ex-judge Sundberg-Weitman writes:
Ms.Ny is a well-known radical feminist. For example, she is known to have said that when a woman says she has been assaulted by a man, the man ought to be detained because it is not until he is in prison that the woman may have the peace to consider whether or not she has been mistreated.
So this conviction might be at the basis of her demand that Assange is extradited from Britain to Sweden, even though it seems to be perfectly legal in cases where only an interview is sought (Assange has not been charged yet) to have a video exchange with a person residing outside the country. But that apparently wouldn’t do her. What she seems to be after is for Assange to cool his heels for a while in a Goteborg cell to ‘soften him up’ for interrogation. Meanwhile Anna Ardin and her co-conspirator can reflect whether they were indeed mistreated.
No wonder that Sundberg-Weitman, in reply to the remark by the barrister acting for the Swedish Government that Swedish Courts had deemed Ny’s manoeuvres (including the over the top arrest warrant) legal, said that she had been concerned for quite a while about the deterioration of Swedish law which started in the 70s.
Radical feminism
What is a radical feminist? Julie Bindel, a regular Guardian columnist and apparent adherent to this creed, explains it to us in a Guardian piece dated 30th January 2009 entitled “My sexual revolution”. She quotes at length from a 1981 radical feminist booklet with the title “Love your enemy? The debate between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism”. The authors of this lesbian-feminist manifesto stated, among other things:
… all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not f*ck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women.
And:
We think serious feminists have no choice but to abandon heterosexuality … Only in the system of oppression that is male supremacy, does the oppressor actually invade and colonise the interior of the body of the oppressed … (penetration) is more than a symbol, its function and effect is the punishment and control of women.
And:
Being a heterosexual feminist is like being in the resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe where in the daytime you blow up a bridge, in the evening you rush to repair it.
How do you like them apples?
Swedish PM, Fredrik Reinfeldt, is apparently concerned about the image of the Swedish judicial system that is created by this case. As well he might.
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ET says:
How do you like them apples?
I like them smashed and put in a jar. No need to add sugar.
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Soon no one remembers what Assange accused of!
The prosecution case is if he used a condom or not? one morning he WAKEN his girlfriend with his cock inserted in her, when she was sleeping!
she not likt to get AIDS.
THATS IT NOT MORE OR LESS -
Arie
What mainly struck her there was the uniformity of the housing and the fact that they had to be painted in one of three prescribed colours.Jesus, I’m not sure, but this painting law go away at least 20 years ago, and it was only available where the whole area was landscaped, mostly brand houses or terraced areas. rarely detached villas.
Ridiculous laws. In any case, we do lock in the school students in a school on fire, as they do in Sadi Arabi. contrary, if we have a rescue service that will be there ten minutes after the alarm, rescue service is fire department and Ambulans, Not the police they are not so importen.
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Assange has not been formally charged yet so we don’t know what exactly the prosecution will come up with, if anything. But it seems that for Swedish public opinion he is guilty of rape, no less.
I am not sure, but this painting law go away at least 20 years ago, and it was only available where the whole area was landscaped, mostly brand houses or terraced areas. rarely detached villas.
Ridiculous laws.
My daughter’s observation dates from around ten years ago. The law might have been no longer valid then but its results were still there.
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But it Seams That for Swedish public opinion he is guilty of rape, no less.
No it is not so, he is totally irrelevant to the people, but incredibly interesting to his old Communist colleagues.
Ridiculous Laws.
Ridiculously, it can be seen so for those less knowing, the law was to preserve the values and people’s money, there is no reason that idiots can ruin the value of neighbors’homes with $ 100,000 or more for a demented lunatic painting the house striped pink in a floral theme .it was like this! the three colors were preferred by those who voluntarily resettling in the area, if someone wanted to paint his house in any other color that could enrich the neighborhood, it´s only to call and ask the Planning Committee and then get written permission for a day or two, free and without bribes.
As I have said for the less knowing, it may not be easy to understand, to guess and invent your own opinions is easy. are you saying that the Swedes are locked at certain opinions, that they think they are the world’s conscience and is always right and look down on other cultures? then you have come close to how my old (85) Mother think and feel.100 000$ is abt 25% of 100% normal value in a city
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But it Seams That for Swedish public opinion he is guilty of rape, no less.
No it is not so, he is totally irrelevant to the people, but incredibly interesting to his old Communist colleagues.Well I am glad to hear it but that is not the impression I get from the bits I see on the internet. They are in Swedish but can be well understood after they have been translated into Googelese. I understand that as far as publicity is concerned the row was started by ‘Expressen’ which has shown a continuing interest in the case. This journal seems to be on the intellectual level of the British Sun, not exactly the favourite reading of communists. Actually I don’t know whom you mean with the term ‘his old communist colleagues’.
About those color scheme laws. It was you who called them ridiculous and now you have suddenly found a defence for them. I have never seen here ‘a house striped pink in a floral pattern ‘ – but no law was required to prevent such an absurdity.
As to the Swedes thinking that they are the ‘conscience of the world’ – don’t you worry the Dutch think that of themselves as well. The issue is not the Swedish superiority complex on this point, which you now believe to be confined to your old mother anyway, but the over the top feminism over there.
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Julian Assange was awarded the Gold Medal of the Sydney Peace Foundation for being ‘a champion of people’s right to know’ and for showing ‘exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights’. Since he is out on bail and can’t leave Britain the medal was awarded In the Frontline Club in London.
Comment on “WikiLeaks Cablegate & Indonesia”.
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When this year’s Nobel laureates in physics, Andre Geimer, would make his speech during the Nobel banquet on Saturday, it was not that the political establishment had in mind. The world is becoming a idiokrati, warned Geimer, where political correctness and cowardice control.
The 52-year-old physicist warned of increasing political correctness, which allows journalists and media destroy life-long political career after a single förfluget words. Democracy is being taken over by a mediokrati, or even a idiokrati, said Andre Geimer.
According to Geimer’s research is not immune political correctness, and it is doubtful that very many of the ancient scientific progress even been made about that time scientists have been surrounded by the same ethics and safety rules as they are today.
Disappointed dropout challenge Wikileaks
Wikileaks will be competitive. On Monday launched Openleaks, a new service for whistleblowers. Behind the website who defected from Wikileaks.
Wikileaks has been top down. And the published material has been overlooked.
That seems more critical key people who have quit in protest. On Monday they are offering a alternative to Wikileaks.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former member of Wikileaks and now writing a book about time there, is one of the initiators of Openleaks.
The new organization becomes more decentralized and transparent, “he told German der Freitag.
– It was too much around Assange and less on content that we published.