You have been Wikileaked!

It is very likely now that a new word is entering our already extensive volcabulary.

Wikileaked, to mean essentially to have ones private and confidential (and perhaps secret) information exposed to the world.

Example, "The government of Dinatopia has been wikileaked! What they really think of foreign diplomats has been exposed."

This is not the first time a word has been created or changed to impart a new meaning. There are literaly thousands of examples.

For example, the Milk Board in Britain some years ago embarked on a campaign to introduce a new word into society as part of their promotion to drink more milk. The word "pinta' (pronounced 'pint a' or 'pynta') was introduced and this word, meaning a pint (roughly equiv to half a liter) of milk can now be found in the dictionary.
Ref: "VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol VII No 3

The word gay used to mean happy or joyful. Now the word has been changed to mean Homosexual and is virtually never used to mean happy or joyous anymore. This gives new meaning to those songs of yesteryear with the word 'gay' in the lyrics.

There are many words that have been either, changed, invented or hijacked in order to portray something else or given measning to something that, did not have a word to describe it before.

Hence Wikileaked. I guess we can expect to see, wikileaking, wikileaker, wikileakish and even wikileaklike to enter the volcabulary soon and not just in relation to Wikileaks, but in the activitiy of others 'doing the same thing', as it were.

I can just imagine, a civil servant (a contradiction in terms some might say)sitting there ruminating about the latest cut in resources and extra work piled on his desk and thinking to himself, "I feel wikileakish today. What shall I leak?"

Double Standards in full play

Wikileaks has published material leaked to it on:

Extrajudicial killings in Kenya,
Toxic waste dumping in Africa,
Church of Scientology manuals,
Guantanamo Bay procedures,
Banks such as Kaupthing and Julius Baer.

During all of these the US government remained silent. Possibly even enjoying the exposure others had and regarding it as somewhat of a joke,.

The joke turned serious however, when leaks about the US governments activities in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were laid open. The video, Collateral Murder, cause the US government to sit up and take notice. Then, on 28 November 2010 when WikiLeaks and its five media partners began publishing secret US diplomatic cables, the White House and various US figures began calling for Assange's head on a pike.

It became a frantic case of, "don't expose how many people we have killed as that is a terrorist act." The US government is not known for picking the right target and, again, they have wonderfully missed ther right target and picked a target that is more a scapegoat to applease embarrasement and everyone knows it.

Charging Assange with terrorism will not change anything. There will still be leaks, not because of wikileaks, but because many people in governement are honest folk who get mighty sick of the two faced double standards employed by the US State Dept. The Media will still be accepting leaks as a source of material as they are interested in controversy and exposure. There is nothing so 'meaty' as a government exposed with their trousers down. Assanges only crime is that he participated in yanking the Us governments trousers down.

Others will do the same, and the more it is done the more others will come forth with material worth publishing. It was once said that there are 200 governments in the world and 300 of them are corrupt.

So the lesson for governments now is, not to deceive the public and use terrorism as an excuse to restrict freedom of the individual, but to be more open and honest.

What was it President Obama promised, more transparency? Well now is the time to deliver!

One Million Dollar Book Deal for Assange

Many authors dream of a million dollar book deal. Julian Assange has achieved just that.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has reached a deal with a U.S. publisher to write a book about his life and his organization.

The New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf confirmed that they reached a deal with 39-year-old Assange, who is expected to deliver a manuscript in 2011.

Assange earlier told Britain's "Sunday Times" newspaper that he was agreeing to book deals worth some $1.3 million as a way to pay for the the costs of defending himself in legal cases as well as to keep WikiLeaks operating.

The publisher, Alfred A Knopf, New York publishing house, was founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House.

Over 17 Nobel Prize and 47 Pulitzer Prize winning authors have been published by Knopf, and it is likely Assange's story could join these august ranks.

Hidden campaign to disparage Assange?

There appears to be a hidden campaign to disparage Assange through a miltitude of blogs that have been either just set up or existing being used.

Mostly they emphasis past comments by Assange and attempt to portray him as a either a Zionist pretender or a sex maniac or something equaly derogatory.

Example, mysteryworshipers.wordpress.com for one is 'quoting' Assange but does not give any time, place, event or any information other than heresay.

Now, I wonder who might have a vested interest in doing that?

Todays wikileaks events

Norway's largest newspaper, Aftenposten, now claims to have access to ALL the Wikileaks Diplomatic cables. Up to now not one news organisation or outlet has been able to lay claim to having all the cables, only dribs and drabs.

Aftenposten editor Ole Erik Almlid declined to say who had leaked the leaks but one could guess that it might have something to do with the cables being stored on a database in Norway?

If this is so it is going to complicate matters considerably. Wikileaks would no longer be in control of cables issued and how are Aftenposten going issue the cables they claim to have? There is apparently no agreement between Wikileaks and Aftenposten. so it is now becoming open slatter.

Aftenposten stated, "We have worked long to get the documents, but it would be wrong of me to tell who is the source. We have not paid for the material, which we have gained access to (with) no conditions. It is we who decide what to publish and how we should handle it."

So, in essence, all bets are off. If control is now out of the hands of Wikileaks they can hardly be blamed for future issuances.

And, as reported on ReadWriteWeb:

1. How many more leaks (of these leaks and others) will happen?
2. How will they effect what Wikileaks does in the future?
3. How will it complicate the relationships, both partnerships and antagonisms, that have flowered around these leaks?

Seems the world could be in for a bumpy ride with no one at the controls!

According to a survey re wikileaks, most Australians agree

ZDNet Australia readers do not support retaliatory hacking or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on companies which have cut off Wikileaks, according to a global ZDNet survey.

The surveys show some interesting results. For example 83 percent of Australians agree with the publication of documents by wikileaks and 83 percent conssider the information published is useful.

Surveys on wikileaks

Meanwhile, back at the ranch a cloud of suspense surrounds Bank of America over the propsed leaking of documents about their executive activities. According to the Chalotte Observer, "Analysts say it's possible WikiLeaks could stir up new trouble for the nation's biggest bank, perhaps exposing more problems in the mortgage arena or reviving questions about its Merrill Lynch acquisition. It's also possible the revelations cause little harm or that WikiLeaks bypasses the bank altogether."

Bert Ely, a Virginia-based banking consultant, said he suspects all major financial institutions are girding for the group's next move.

"We don't know it's Bank of America," he said. "It could be one of a number of banks."

Read more at "Analysts say it's possible WikiLeaks could stir up new trouble for the nation's biggest bank, perhaps exposing more problems in the mortgage arena or reviving questions about its Merrill Lynch acquisition. It's also possible the revelations cause little harm or that WikiLeaks bypasses the bank altogether. Bert Ely, a Virginia-based banking consultant, said he suspects all major financial institutions are girding for the group's next move. "We don't know it's Bank of America," he said. "It could be one of a number of banks."

Read more at Charlotte Observer.

The Chinese got it right. We DO live in interesting times.

Wikileaks Mirrors now almost 1500

Wikileaks continues to be mirrored around the globe with more and more people putting their server where their belief about freedom is and work to ensure that Wikileaks is not shut down or suppressed.

Here is a list of the current mirrors: http://wikileaks.axdf.net/Mirrors.html

In addition here are some other interesting ways of looking at the Wikileaks Mirrors spanning the globe:

A facinating pictorial Watch as the lights representing each mirror flick on. Very appropriate for this time fo the year. A sort of Christmas Tree of Freedom you might say.

Wikileaks Mirros spanning the Globe through the eyes of Googlemaps