Assange’s latest showed the duplicitous nature of American foreign affairs, not that that really surprised anyone whose read Confessions of an Economic Hitman or other unsanitized history. Now this. About time someone exposed the banks.
In a rare interview, Assange tells Forbes that the release of Pentagon and State Department documents are just the beginning. His next target: big business.
Early next year, Julian Assange says, a major American bank will suddenly find itself turned inside out. Tens of thousands of its internal documents will be exposed on Wikileaks.org with no polite requests for executives’ response or other forewarnings. The data dump will lay bare the finance firm’s secrets on the Web for every customer, every competitor, every regulator to examine and pass judgment on.
(For the full transcript of Forbes’ interview with Assange click here.)
When? Which bank? What documents? Cagey as always, Assange won’t say, so his claim is impossible to verify. But he has always followed through on his threats. Sitting for a rare interview in a London garden flat on a rainy November day, he compares what he is ready to unleash to the damning e-mails that poured out of the Enron trial: a comprehensive vivisection of corporate bad behavior. “You could call it the ecosystem of corruption,” he says, refusing to characterize the coming release in more detail. “But it’s also all the regular decision making that turns a blind eye to and supports unethical practices: the oversight that’s not done, the priorities of executives, how they think they’re fulfilling their own self-interest.”
Palin has no interest in being president.
The job is “too hard”.
She just wants the $100,000 fee she gets for speaking, and for pretending she wants to be president.
Duh.
Money spent on security may be money wisely spent but I think this man already has the downloads he is planning on posting next.
It wasn’t treason because he isn’t an American but he isn’t going to last. The powers that be in many nations are afraid of what he might spill next or steamed that he has confirmed things they didn’t want confirmed and they are going to shut him down.
God I hope it it Goldman Sacs.
But I sadly doubt GS will ever be touched. They could openly stomp kittens, molest children, rape nuns, and bankrupt America, and they are untouchable.
He’s targeted Hillary Clinton…hopefully other liberal / progressives will be added to his hit list.
Somehow I suspect progressives will soon stop wikileaks…he is starting to hurt them.
As long as it was just America and her allies getting hit, hardly no protest from this administration…barely lifting a finger to stop it…
But now that he’s going after progressives…watch the hell fire that the ruling elite can deliver.
Alfred,
You’ll need to ice down your groin after that stretch for a liberal conspiracy theory.
One criticism of Assange that I agree with is that he seems to be obsessed mostly with the US.
How about China? Or Israel? Or Pakistan? Or Saudi Arabia?
Now THOSE countries could use some bright light shone on them.
Oh — one American memo-dump I’d love to see is Fox News.
Which Big Bank? Likely it’s one with the Initials “B” and “A”, or “C” and “M”, or just “C” (and starts with “Citi-”). But anyway. Whoever it turns out to be, they’re going to have to do an awful lot of damage control Tv ads, to make everyone forget the WikiLeaks. The same way Bank of America and Chase Manhattan did all those Tv ads, after their robot foreclosure practices recently came to light. But hey! Forget what scoundrels they are, they now have great new banking services, to win you over. When they’re not making you a homeless person.
I understand that Bill O’Reilly is really pissed off at WikiLeaks. As if he really cares that the Obama administration is embarrassed by confidential State Dept. memo disclosures. He probably didn’t even know what WikiLeaks was, until one of this handlers told him. And why he should be angry at them. He’s such a puppet.
What the leaks apparently reveal, that got these wags so steamed, is some idle chatter by US diplomats about their foreign heads of State hosts. And you have to ask yourself, why it took these “leaks” to hear anything bad about these people? Is US international news so politically sanitized?! You can bet that the news bureaus over in Russia, and other places don’t hesitate to criticize and defame the US officials. And what we’ve learned by these “revelations” is how many of these heads of State are pretty flawed. And what the US (and other countries) has do deal with, in negotiating thru these characters. The US Ambassadors probably get a better view of their nature, than their own country’s people ever do. Of course some countries either won’t care how drunk or sleazy their leaders are. Or they just won’t believe the leaked info about them.
The thing is, I don’t see why the US should be in the business of keeping their dirty laundry hidden. Or why are ambassadors even bothering to make such personal assessments a matter of record, for the State Department. For future blackmail purposes? All this heat about Wikileaks exposing this international gossip. And nothing about the people responsible for creating the gossip, in the first place. Neat piece of misdirection, huh?
Bill O’Reilly and friends, misinformation merchants all.
BTW, NONE of what was “leaked” has been reported as “Top Secret”. So the message item starts out with a piece of misinformation itself, in the form of its crafted jpeg. It should be labeled “Confidential”. And then perhaps “JUICY GOSSIP”, below that. In Mission Impossible style fonts.
Not to worry, that info will never see the light of day. Already Interpol has issued an arrest warrant for Assange for a “sex charge” out of Sweden. He will no doubt be “suicided” once in custody. There are too many secrets the power brokers of the world don’t want you to see.
All the interviews and articles I’ve seen about Assange make him seem like the classic James Bond villian. Educated, impeccable diction but deranged.
James: “Well played Assange. Exposing me for the chauvinistic pig I am. But, as soon as we find your secret cave lair, we will put an end to your evil doings.”
Assange: “In my role as Wikileaks editor, I’ve been involved in fighting off many legal attacks. To do that, and keep our sources safe, we have had to spread assets, encrypt everything, and move telecommunications and people around the world to activate protective laws in different national jurisdictions.”
Not reported was the joy both Obama and Holder share with Assange that America is finally getting what it deserved, and its collaborators in the Muslim world exposed to the radical Jihadists in their countries.
Rev Wright can make many sermons from this material, with glee.
I wonder if the reason WikiLeaks is so anti-US is because the information released is all in English? What if the dirt from other countries is just waiting to be translated?
I’ve only heard of 2-3 of the wikileaks subjects and imports, but “so far” I haven’t seen anything that is “anti-USA”–in fact just the contrary. So far–our public diplomatic face is very consistent with the info that has been released. That “assumes” no one thought YEMEN was launching drones against Al Queada? No one thought THAT right? Or that the House of Saud did not want air strikes on Iran?
Let’s see, what is the most horrible that can be imagined? Bush knew there were no WMD in Iraq? Bush let Osama escape from Afghan?? USA is paying off the Taliban Terrorists not to attack us at the same time we are negotiating for a longer term peace?
What could it be that is not already known???
If you aren’t a stooge or a tool, the truth is fairly observable.
Is there a list anywhere of media outlets, reporters, or bloggers, who were upset over the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity, who are upset about WikiLeaks?
Bank of America
Say Mickey–what equivalency/difference are you looking for between our own President releasing secret information meant to harm an innocent man by putting his wife and her contacts at risk all for the President’s imagined political gain, and the release of information by a WORLD HERO fighting government corruption/duplicity??
Without those lists at your ready, I assume you are a stooge?
What exactly is in the latest Wikileaks that is either surprising, or makes the U.S. look particularly bad? I haven’t yet been able to find anything specific that would explain why so many people are soiling their tighty-whiteys.
The overall impression of WL that I get is that it’s a front for the world’s greatest egomaniacal nut job.