#WikiFear: What Are They Afraid Of?

There's an unexplored part of the WikiLeaks story. What exactly are its opponents afraid of? I'd like to know what you think.

WikiLeaks has done what any other news organization might have done if confidential yet newsworthy information had come into its possession. Here's Glenn Greenwald.

WikiLeaks has posted to its website only 960 of the 251,297 diplomatic cables it has. Almost every one of these cables was first published by one of its newspaper partners which are disclosing them (The Guardian, theNYT, El Pais, Le Monde, Der Speigel, etc.). Moreover, the cables posted by WikiLeaks were not only first published by these newspapers, but contain the redactions applied by those papers to protect innocent people and otherwise minimize harm.

Still, the blowback has been fierce.

Amazon drops WikiLeaks.

PayPal drops WikiLeaks.

Hillary Clinton implies WikiLeaks is illegal.

VISA. Mastercard.

Sweden. England.

Senator Joe Lieberman.

My question is, why?

All of the institutions going after WikiLeaks are afraid of something. What is it? I don't know. What do you think? Comment below and tweet using #wikifear.

(Note that Facebook is not removing WikiLeaks, and that it is a tech startup -- Flattr -- which is still allowing funds to flow to WikiLeaks.)

 

Follow Dylan Ratigan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DylanRatigan

Comments

[edlindaspy]

05:08 PM on 01/27/2011

My humble opinion is that the wikileaks holds the war crimes answers for the Bush Administration. Otherwise, why would Rove go to Sweden to try and talk to the PM there to get Assange extradicted back to the US? Rove is worried that all those documents hold evidence to the war crimes and the CIA leak on Plame revealed. Why else would Rove be so anxious to go to Sweden to pursuade them to hand Assange over?
If released it would certainly endanger many American operatives and Assange has information on the CIA leak knowing that Dick Armitage and Karl Rove leaked it to Robert Novak?

Plus, citizens who lost alot of money in their savings and 401k's have the right to know what these bailed out banks did with all this money! Obviously Assange has all that information on the CEO's that have and who are corrupt.

Assange offered the government to look over these documents before they were released the government declined to do it!!

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/julian-assange-threatens-to-name-arab-leaders-with-cia-ties-2010-12#ixzz1CH4U2m83

[Jophoenix]

07:10 AM on 01/08/2011

It's the banks money and government Mr. Tim's little conversations with AIG & his good friends at Goodman whatever I fine it interesting that Hillary Cilton foolishly got into this one. To bad. Anyway it's sad to witness this amount of public fear of the truth makes Nixon look like childs play which it is by comperison, we'ev come a long way baby !! My sense is the government, wall street and politicans alike know this could be there end game. Maby just maby the sleeping masses would awaken. ops end game

[mitsie]

03:40 PM on 12/30/2010

Maybe Craigslist should be more afraid then winki, if you do some research, you will find Nigerians who are taking millions from Americans, through offeres of apartments for rent that don't exist, houses for sale that don't exist, etc. No one is looking into why Western Union, are taking the money from innocent Americans and wiring it to the UK, knowing or should haved known that there is a distinct possibilithy a crime is being permitted, and no one is doing a damn thing about it. Take it from a senior citizen victim, who just lost $300 for a deposit on an apartment in Vt that does not exist. how violated does that make one feel, it's like walking into your house and it's been robbed. Why hasn't anyone questioned or researched this topic? Millions are going to Nigeria, and it's a terrorist training country.

[ydrittmann]

12:13 AM on 12/13/2010

They know the banking stuff is coming.

[madrediterra]

09:13 AM on 12/12/2010

Opponents are afraid everyone knows they are losing their grip. Because they are.

[twoyg2]

02:28 PM on 12/10/2010

Several reasons for the fear:
One; it again proves that America cannot keep secrets, which kind of blows all those conspiracy theories out the window.
Two; The media bosses can see the end to there monopoly on opinion forming, an open information society means people can make up there own minds and not be force feed pap by opinion leaders from the right and left.
And finally number three; there scared silly that they might have to be honest for ONCE.

[BraveWarrior]

06:56 PM on 12/11/2010

You left out the diplomatic cables about our relationship with Israel. They are smart enough to save the best for last.

[WilliamProc]

11:44 AM on 12/10/2010

What they are doing is trying to get on the good side of tha administration.

"See, guys! We're on your side; what else can we do for you? NO! We don't REALLY expect anything in return, just knowing that we helped our government and the corporat..err...American way of life!"

[Michael79]

08:56 AM on 12/10/2010

they are afraid of many things, most which is an open democracy. just ask JFK

[politicky]

02:29 AM on 12/10/2010

"...Putting someone like Assange in jail for publishing documents he did not himself steal, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of thing that First Amendment makes difficult. "From everything we've seen, [Manning] was merely responding to the notion that Assange might publish the cables," former CIA inspector general Frederick P. Hitz told TIME. "There's nothing to show that Assange played an active role in obtaining the information." He conceded that the leaks had been tremendously damaging, but added "I don't see any easy effort there" in pursuing charges...."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2035994,00.html#ixzz17gwbUrJT

[politicky]

02:23 AM on 12/10/2010

They are really afraid of when the bank documents get out there.

[Fi]

10:35 AM on 12/10/2010

I agree.

[OliverTwist]

09:04 PM on 12/09/2010

They chose this fight and they chose to fight it now.

I don't know why.

Perhaps they wish to move forward with an attack on Iran and/or Korea in conjunction with a more official suspension of civil liberties here in the homeland of the Empire and are just trying to set the stage.

[PrincessAnnie]

06:56 PM on 12/09/2010

If they've done nothing wrong, they have nothing to fear. Interestingly, if you go to the Wikileaks site under the About tab, there is a section called "3.3 Should the press really be free?" The bulk of that section does not refer to the government control of the press, but the CORPORATE control of the press. The diplomatic cables are a mere warning shot; the corporations now rule us, not government. Once they attack the corporations you'll see all-out war.

[Jophoenix]

07:24 AM on 01/08/2011

PrincessAnnie, how right you. I's odd how folks can take offence with there government but " the banker " now that's a no no.

[BigDaddyWow]

06:15 PM on 12/09/2010

Uh, this is secret and top secret information. Our government uses this information to build intelligence and characterize other governments. We live in a dangerous world.

To assume that leaking this information has some noble purpose is just silly. Americans are free to express opinions, criticize and at times, do some ugly things under the freedoms we have here in the US. This information that Wikileaks obtained illegally is information that is in part, used to protect these freedoms.

While the release of banking information is still questionable it does not pose a threat to the US or it's citizens (with the exception of the banker or two).

[JHBH]

06:13 PM on 12/09/2010

Once I saw that WikiLeaks would next be publishing material about a major US bank I knew the heat was going to be turned up relentlessly. The bankers don't want anyone to know what they are doing and will do anything to stop us from finding out. I really fear for Mr. Assange's life at this point; I hope that he is safe in his current custody.

[PrincessAnnie]

06:57 PM on 12/09/2010

I hope Mr. Assange remains safe, also, but it seems he has prepared in advance for an information release if anything happens to him.

[BraveWarrior]

07:06 PM on 12/11/2010

He has hinted that he has another cache of cables. He and his organization seem to have thought this out. How long did Bradley Manning have access to our digitized secrets? He likely also has a doomsday plan to save his own life. How many other informants is Bradley taking the blame for? How high was his security clearance? Can our empire survive the other 98% of the cables that remain unreleased? How many other whistle blowers are accumulating forbidden data for us? With the internet, what a great time to be alive and watch the spectacle of an empire's secrets being exposed daily.

[Brandyn Alexander]

04:07 PM on 12/09/2010

They are afraid because they don't know exactly what WikiLeaks has. They have a bunch of cables from all over the place and ANYTHING could be written or said in them. People in our government are scared out of their mind at being named or getting caught doing something they shouldn't have been doing. We all know that there is a ton of back-door dealing and illegal shenanigans occurring in our government and now that someone may be holding these people accountable for their actions they are scared. These people live by a different set of rules than the "average American". They are not used to being held accountable for the things that they do. If I were Hilary and the rest of them, I'd be scared too. My hopes are that the more cables that get released the more people we find doing things that shouldn't have been doing and are finally brought to justice for their illegal activity.