Pretty poorly written as it focuses on US disclosures (rather than say, the disclosures of the Erdogan emails), and adopts a zero-sum Cold War-like calculus for "Russia's benefit".
US media outlets and political campaigns crying wolf (bear?) every time their reputations are damaged or to discredit their opponents (Clinton campaign wrt Trump) looks a lot like a modern form of McCarthyism.
Indeed, the primary and most damaging leaks have been from US military whistleblowers - both Snowden and Manning documents - but also leaks from the former head of CIA (Patreus) betraying drone programs. Other leaks like the SONY leaks indicating the US State Department's active role in puppeteering "The Interview", while played down by US domestic media, was damaging to the normal and usually successful domestic propaganda narrative in the states.
The two leaks I can remember being attributed (possibly) to Russia include the DNC hacks, which disclosed huge election fraud and resulted in the retirement of the top five officials of the Democratic Party, and the leak (not published by Wikileaks) of the phone conversation by Victoria Nuland about supporting US-friendly political leadership transitions in the Ukraine (which the US media, again, covered as a scandal over swear words rather than content).
One of the interesting takes on the back and forth disclosure of corruption is that, in some sense, both Russian and US citizens 'win': they both gain access to transparency that their governments would otherwise prioritize their not having access to.
- Michael Lynton (the CEO of SONY) had been in consultation with the State Department over The Interview, and had been giving the Bureau of Information Programs (one of the State Department propaganda bureaus) early screenings.
- Lynton was in consultation with both State Department officials and a RAND expert on nuclear non-proliferation, North Korea and regime change (Bennett).
- The Special Envoy to South Korea had been speaking with Executives of SONY about plans to have The Interview smuggled into the North.
- Clinton staffers and CIA officials were on site during the production of The Interview.
Indeed, the North Korean hacker group attributed by the FBI for the attack (Bureau 121) has a mandate to (and history of) target media companies partnering with adversary states to develop propaganda as a deterrence strategy.
If you Google around for those names and themes you will stumble on articles from various reputable sources that cover it as well as original emails themselves in Wikileaks.
It should be noted that the Wikileaks dump of SONY also implicated them in partnering with the US State Department in other business related to "international messaging", while "The Interview" was merelyl a high profile case.
These hatchet jobs are petty tiresome. How stupid do they think readers are? If there is a suggestion that Assange, who is a publisher, has failed to publish documents leaked to him that would embarrass Russia (or anyone else for that matter) then they have something.
But they aren't suggesting he's selectively publishing leaks. So I guess they want him to publish documents nobody has leaked to him by use of the 27th dimension? The NYT itself, while usually excellent, has acknowledged failings in that regard.
So now we play guess the NYT motive. Is it patriotism, wikileaks publications embarrass the US so let's hatchet them. Is it support for Hilary - email leaks are embarrassing to her campaign that they will probably support so muddy the source as much as possible? Is it jealousy of the sheer number of scoops, which are the journalists currency of bragging rights given Assange is not "one of them" and hasn't "paid his dues" and if they would have played his hand differently (as we all would have). Is it something else? Whatever the reason the bias is pretty clear.
I want to make this explicit. I am no more a supporter of wikileaks than I am a supporter of the New York Times. I support both in terms of their rights to do journalism and neither in terms of speaking for me or agreeing with what they say on all issues. I like the NYT, it's a pretty good newspaper. Somehow especially when they write on wikileaks they embarrass themselves pretty consistently about an eccentric activist journalist who used tech to scoop them on big stories and maintains a perfect reputation for protecting sources and for publishing. The NYT's reputation has suffered on both counts.
Full disclosure - I've given the NYT money but not wikileaks.
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[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 31.1 ms ] threadRevelations from Russia and other authoritarian governments make them always weaker.
US media outlets and political campaigns crying wolf (bear?) every time their reputations are damaged or to discredit their opponents (Clinton campaign wrt Trump) looks a lot like a modern form of McCarthyism.
You could equally expect RT or Sputnik to run a headline "How the US Often Benefits When Leaked Documents Reveal Russia's Secrets". Or, if you could point to specific instances: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/04/04/russia-s...
Indeed, the primary and most damaging leaks have been from US military whistleblowers - both Snowden and Manning documents - but also leaks from the former head of CIA (Patreus) betraying drone programs. Other leaks like the SONY leaks indicating the US State Department's active role in puppeteering "The Interview", while played down by US domestic media, was damaging to the normal and usually successful domestic propaganda narrative in the states.
The two leaks I can remember being attributed (possibly) to Russia include the DNC hacks, which disclosed huge election fraud and resulted in the retirement of the top five officials of the Democratic Party, and the leak (not published by Wikileaks) of the phone conversation by Victoria Nuland about supporting US-friendly political leadership transitions in the Ukraine (which the US media, again, covered as a scandal over swear words rather than content).
One of the interesting takes on the back and forth disclosure of corruption is that, in some sense, both Russian and US citizens 'win': they both gain access to transparency that their governments would otherwise prioritize their not having access to.
- Michael Lynton (the CEO of SONY) had been in consultation with the State Department over The Interview, and had been giving the Bureau of Information Programs (one of the State Department propaganda bureaus) early screenings.
- Lynton was in consultation with both State Department officials and a RAND expert on nuclear non-proliferation, North Korea and regime change (Bennett).
- The Special Envoy to South Korea had been speaking with Executives of SONY about plans to have The Interview smuggled into the North.
- Clinton staffers and CIA officials were on site during the production of The Interview.
Indeed, the North Korean hacker group attributed by the FBI for the attack (Bureau 121) has a mandate to (and history of) target media companies partnering with adversary states to develop propaganda as a deterrence strategy.
If you Google around for those names and themes you will stumble on articles from various reputable sources that cover it as well as original emails themselves in Wikileaks.
It should be noted that the Wikileaks dump of SONY also implicated them in partnering with the US State Department in other business related to "international messaging", while "The Interview" was merelyl a high profile case.
But they aren't suggesting he's selectively publishing leaks. So I guess they want him to publish documents nobody has leaked to him by use of the 27th dimension? The NYT itself, while usually excellent, has acknowledged failings in that regard.
So now we play guess the NYT motive. Is it patriotism, wikileaks publications embarrass the US so let's hatchet them. Is it support for Hilary - email leaks are embarrassing to her campaign that they will probably support so muddy the source as much as possible? Is it jealousy of the sheer number of scoops, which are the journalists currency of bragging rights given Assange is not "one of them" and hasn't "paid his dues" and if they would have played his hand differently (as we all would have). Is it something else? Whatever the reason the bias is pretty clear.
I want to make this explicit. I am no more a supporter of wikileaks than I am a supporter of the New York Times. I support both in terms of their rights to do journalism and neither in terms of speaking for me or agreeing with what they say on all issues. I like the NYT, it's a pretty good newspaper. Somehow especially when they write on wikileaks they embarrass themselves pretty consistently about an eccentric activist journalist who used tech to scoop them on big stories and maintains a perfect reputation for protecting sources and for publishing. The NYT's reputation has suffered on both counts.
Full disclosure - I've given the NYT money but not wikileaks.