Didn't the Guardian Run Wikileaks?

[Swedes2]

Wikileaks were obtained by hacking, which is illegal.

Good post animula.

Oh and what animula said at 19:58:28

Sigh. The Wikileaks material that was republished by the Guardian was NOT got by hacking. The US govt. stupidly made it available to literally thousands of federal employees, and one of them - Bradley Manning - felt so strongly about what he was reading that he leaked the whole lot to Wikileaks, who then gave it to the New York Times, the Guardian and three other big European papers.

If you seriously can't tell the moral difference between a whistleblower leaking information of serious public interest to a third party who puts it into the public domain and then the Guardian publishes stories based on it, and a newspaper paying criminals to hack the phones of non-famous private individuals who have suffered unimaginable personal tragedies, then you deserve me being bitchy, long-time poster or not.

Very well said beanlet.

hear, hear! Beanlet!

But isn't it more fun, and productive, to actually engage, even with opinions that differ from one's own?

Swedes is a generous poster (or was - she's definitely the lesser-spotted Swedes now). She would have given an interesting opinion - and one outside what appears to be an mn consensus. I find it interesting to hear different opinions - I hear far too much of my own, and only my own .

I don't know about anyone else, but I now I;ve become a bit less "generous" (not quite the appropriate word, but it'll have to do) over my time on mn - partly through having engaged, once or twice, with posters who have turned out to be ... strange (to put it mildly). It's a shame. And I know I'm sometimes over-robust myself. Only speaking for myself here, but I find I like mn more when I don't do that.

there's opinions and there's facts, and i think this is spurious and specious nonsense.

The expression, and it definately has resonance this week, is 'Fortune Favours the Brave'.

So post your opinon. You might get knocked down, ridiculed, questioned, applauded, or otherwise. But it's your opinion, and you are entitled to keep it, change it or adapt it. And whatever happens, you learn something

But if you voice to opinion to 'win' then it's not likely, however clever you are, to continue for long.

Surely debate it the fun and the point of it?

The expression, and it definately has resonance this week, is 'Fortune Favours the Brave'.

So post your opinon. You might get knocked down, ridiculed, questioned, applauded, or otherwise. But it's your opinion, and you are entitled to keep it, change it or adapt it. And whatever happens, you learn something

But if you voice to opinion to 'win' then it's not likely, however clever you are, to continue for long.

Surely debate it the fun and the point of it?

The expression, and it definately has resonance this week, is 'Fortune Favours the Brave'.

So post your opinon. You might get knocked down, ridiculed, questioned, applauded, or otherwise. But it's your opinion, and you are entitled to keep it, change it or adapt it. And whatever happens, you learn something

But if you voice to opinion to 'win' then it's not likely, however clever you are, to continue for long.

Surely debate it the fun and the point of it?

Good god, once was enough! Not sure what happened - ooops sorry

I suspect Swedes knows the difference between publishing material of public interest that was obtained from a whistleblower and hacking the mobile phones of celebrities and victims of tragedies.

So am a bit confused about the purpose of the thread. Unless it's a Tory thing, trying to say 'look, the left wing are just as bad' (which isn't true if you look at the ICO report).

Agree about leftie press coming out well re. hacking.

Other point of dysymmetry is that wikileaks in Guardian is as nothing to the story here, which is less about hacking than about power, democracy and information - or rather has been a sort of "ta da" of revelation of structures of these. It has a lot more drama.

yes they did, and several people were killed and others imprisoned around the world as a result of this. they have also been found to lie re issues such as climate change.they have also printed many documents relating to the Government and other groups that had been stolen. the most famous being a ministry of defence document handed to them by Sarah Tinsdale a civil servant. who , when ordered by the courts they named and she received a prison sentence, it was either her or the editor and being honourable he named her. they are owned /run by the scott trust which closed itself then immediately reformed , same board etc so as to avoid a very large tax bill on a 1 billion pounds+ deal they had carried out. the chairman is liz fogan ex channel 4 and ex BBC boss both of whom have a vested interest in stopping skys growth. the scott group also have a huge range of other media companies, and is a major player in the project syndicate a worldwide media group set up by george Soros the man who broke the bank of england and made over a billion in the 90`s there are many questions to be asked about this group they are not the white knights they make themselves out to be.

Thereiver, do you have any idea how loony that sounds?!!! I've already lost count of the number of conspiracy theories bundled into one short post.

The purpose of the thread was really to suggest that hacking or otherwise obtaining information by illegal means isn't actually the problem. That the evil overlord Murdoch (and I'm no particular fan, by the way) should be painted as being personally responsible for our rotten Executive is laughable.

We should be really very angry with our policians, police and journalists. None of those groups is taking responsibility or apologising for letting us all down. Instead they are behaving like heroes: blaming Murdoch.

thereiver Fox News devotee much?

Let's have a look shall we?

I think you mean Sarah Tisdall, who stole papers from the FCO and sent them to the Guardian, who printed them and were then forced by law to hand over the documents to a court which had marks on them that clearly identified Sarah Tisdall as the person who had sent them. The Guardian did try to fight against the court ruling to hand them over.

Dame Liz Forgan was awarded an OBE by the government for her services to Radio and is currently the Chair of Arts Council England, appointed by the government. It's also a matter of public record that she left the BBC after a dispute with them, so she's hardly the biggest advocate of everything in that organisation.

It's also worth noting that the Guardian is critical of the BBC and regularly runs articles debating various decisions made by the organisation from salaries of senior staff, to programme content.

Project Syndicate is a web based outlet for media articles, reports and investigations into global issues and George Soros is a contributor (one of hundreds). More than 450 newspapers are partners, so hardly a monopoly. Furthermore, other contributors have included Ban-Ki Moon, Tony Blair, Mikael Gorbachev, Umberto Eco, Desmond Tutu... so exactly what are you accusing them of by writing for Project Syndicate?

And on George Soros, he donates approx 300 million per year to charities and though much loathed by Fox News and right wing Americans, is an incredibly successful and important philanthropist.

On the Scott Group/Trust, It wasn't a deal that they were making, but saving the company, turning it from a business to a charity. The Guardian turns over over 30% of it's income to the tax man every year.

I'm interested to know what you think the Climate Change lies are, and I'd like some evidence of who has died as a result of the Wikileaks releases? Surely, all media organisations who've printed any of the Wikileaks must be culpable if that's the logic you're following.

Finally, no one organisation is ever squeaky clean, or has pretences that they are and always have been. The difference here is that the Guardian is not guilty of any criminal actions, however it's increasingly clear that News International and News Corp might well be. If the imprisonment of two of their staff/freelancers so far, and the arrest of 8 others linked to the paper doesn't tell you that the company is a rotten egg, then I don't know what is going to convince you.

Perhaps, it's all a left-wing conspiracy to take over the known universe. Because, after all, capitalism and the right wing media have no power at all, do they?

Swedes2 honestly, many of us have been saying exactly this on the other threads. Many of us have been asking when the Mail will get its call from Parliament and the police. Many of us have been asking wtf our politicians and police have been doing - and ashamed that they did not have the guts to stand up to (particularly NI) media bullying. And there is a consensus that there are very few people who are coming out of this with any dignity or credit. BTW have you seen the Jon Stewart Daily Show clip referred to on headfairy's massive thread? Highly recommended

Just to follow up on BornSicky's comment above - it is unusual for the right wing press to hate someone like Soros who is so very successful commercially and so very wealthy. You need to ask yourself why. They dislike Soros because he does his own thing and he's so blinking stinking rich he does not need to give a stuff about what most people think. He doesn't go along with the "line" of the right wing press, he does not play their game. He does not need to. If only our politicians and police had adopted a similar attitude.

oh and a little more on Soros. I know the poster obviously loves the phrase "broke the bank of England" because it makes it siund like Soros bankrupted our country, but he did nothing of the sort. Soros made a speculative investment on the depreciation of the pound on Black Wednesday, and was right. His bet made him a lot of money, but hardly caused the decay of the British economy.

on the Mail, yes I think they will be in the firing line because of the ICO report, which is now a document of interest.

However swedes, I think it's disingenuous to now say your thread wasn't rabble rousing about the Guardian's role in the hacking and Wikileaks, as that's the subject of your OP and title. I think you were having a pop at the guardian, because you wrongly thought that phone hacking and wikileaks were the same thing.

This story itself has been hijacked, for the convenience of the transgressors. The important story is not slimeball hacks and bent rozzers. Nor is it about Milly Dowler and a little boy with Cystic Fibrosis. This is about the way in which our politicians have bought public opinion through a lazy and no longer independent media (not just NI). If Murdoch built his empire on dirty deals with our politicians, that tells us as much about our politicians as it does about Murdoch.

I think it's lazy to accept this as a party political problem. I mean what the fuck is a Prime Minister (of any party) doing at the wedding of the Editor of a daily paper?

BornSicky - Wikileaks are involved with hacking. I was having a pop at the Guardian because they are insistent that this is a party poltical problem: and Cameron's judgment is clouded. They are playing the party political angle because it occludes the real problem. As above.

Must do work.

love what the guardian has done on this story BUT i think animula's post is excellent. (also i think swedes has made a reasonable, if flawed, point, not sure why people are at her throat over it.)

even the fact that Alan Rusbridger says he 'warned' Cameron not to employ Coulson caused me to raise an eyebrow. he's not an elected representative, what's he doing interfering in the PM's choice of employee?

it goes against the interests of his paper, this whole story has more traction because of Coulson being at the heart of govt... so what did he hope to get out of encouraging Cameron to dodge the Coulson bullet?
(influence, a favour in the bank etc... that's what i'm guessing. which is all perfectly human imo but i did think it odd that no-one else went 'huh?' when he spoke about warning him).

Aitch - if you see someone about to step out into a busy road and there is a car speeding towards them, would you be "interfering" if you shouted "oi, look out!". no, you'd be trying to avoid a car crash. which is rather how i see that comment from Rusbridger
and it also has to be said - he wasn't the only one trying to advise Cameron on that point.