… and counting. Brought to you by the Guardian and Rudolf Elmer:
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, today pledged to make public the confidential tax details of 2,000 wealthy and prominent individuals, after being passed the data by a Swiss banker who claims the information potentially reveals instances of money-laundering and large-scale illegal tax evasion.
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In a carefully choreographed handover in central London, Rudolf Elmer, formerly a senior executive at the Swiss bank Julius Baer, based in the Cayman islands, said he was handing the data to WikiLeaks as part of an attempt “to educate society” about the amount of potential tax revenues lost thanks to offshore schemes and money-laundering…
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Elmer will appear in a Swiss court on Wednesday charged with breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws, forging documents and sending threatening messages to two officials at his former employer.
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He denies the charges.
[…] __
Assange… said he would pass the information to the Serious Fraud Office(SFO), examine it to ensure sources were protected, and then release it on the WikiLeaks site, potentially within “a couple of weeks”.
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“Once we look at the data, yes, there will be full disclosure,” he said.
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He would not be drawn on questions relating to the extradition case, which will be heard at Belmarsh magistrates court on 7 February, or on other leaks the site has promised are forthcoming, including information involving a “big US bank”, which many believe to be Bank of America.
More details and video at the link. Don’t know if such a public display is going to protect Mr. Elmer from being mysteriously renditioned, but any negative attention to the “global financial elite” stripmining their various nations can only be considered a win for the rest of us.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
All together on three: Waaaah! Class warfare!
liberal
Huh. Antiwar.com has a link to a page claiming that someone in Justice said that whistleblowers are a bigger danger than spies.
Change you can believe in…
salacious crumb
methinks its a smart move on behalf of Elmer to go visibly public. that ensures he doesnt get renditioned because if anything happens to him people will start asking questions…
JPL
I’m cynical enough to think information implicating our corporate overlords in money laundering schemes will never be released. We must protect our economy, you know.
Ash Can
I’m thinking this is one document dump the US government will be happy to see.
Comrade Javamanphil
@salacious crumb: I think you seriously underestimate the sense of entitlement and viciousness of our Galtian Overlords. They will go after this guy with all guns blazing (literally?) and believe that is their right to get him by whatever means necessary.
Maude
OT I saw an AP headline that Cheney is considering getting a heart transplant.
Earl
This:
Beautiful.
joe from Lowell
@liberal:
And we believe the anonymous source on a page linked to by Justin Raimondo, why, exactly?
Other than “because it tells me what I want to hear,” I mean.
4tehlulz
Politico approves of this journalistic standard.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Maude:
There… more accurate that way, no?
The Republic of Stupidity
Hmmm… possible outcomes… possible outcomes…
Facebones
That does it! Get the CIA hit squads out there! Assange must die before he embarrasses anyone furher.
sko hayes
This could be quite interesting. I was hoping he would go after the banks rather than wealthy depositors (their behavior is worth some scrutiny right?), but this would be a good start.
kerFuFFler
Elmer deserves a parade!
It is interesting how much more careful WikiLeaks is being surrounding the release of this information compared to the wholesale dumping of all those other cables and emails from a couple months ago. I value the role of whistle-blowing but would like to know that it was being done responsibly even if that means a delay, or the even the withholding of some of the info.
NonyNony
@kerFuFFler:
My personal belief is that the guys running WikiLeaks are now sifting through the data more carefully to find potential blackmail items and hold them back. They started doing this a while back (with their encrypted “insurance” file) and I suspect that they now feel the need to have more “insurance” against various country’s legal maneuvers, illegal renditions, or potential hit squads.
I sometimes wonder if the guys who decided to do this really understood just how much they were going to be pissing on/off the global elite by releasing documents. Sometimes it seems to me that even Assange is somewhat surprised by the level of blowback he’s received.
Kevin
I believe that the US and Canadian governments and have already sued some Swiss banks for this info in the past year. UBS was the bank, and they reached an agreement where some, but not all of the tax evaders were named, so actually, I think this has a chance of not being ignored.
geg6
@kerFuFFler:
You do realize that your scenario about some sort of willy-nilly releases is not the truth?
He (and his organization) has been sorting through it all along, along with his partners in the media, The Guardian (I believe, may be wrong about which Brit newspaper) and the NYT. Most of the cables, etc. have still not come out as they are still being sorted through. It’s how everyone in the media and national security establishment is framing it, but they are proven liars.
Edited to add: Just go to the Wikipedia site and read it. This meme is bullshit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks
Odie Hugh Manatee
These are the kind of leaks that the public will happily be behind, the more the better. The robber baron class has had it too good for too long.
Smart in coming out as the one who provided the docs though, might help prevent any kind of ‘disappearance’ since he has identified himself as the source.
@Maude:
Someone like him has to have a heart to get a transplant. Maybe he is angling for a fresh lump of coal because his old one has burnt out?
Chris
Oh, this is just TOO AWESOME!!!
Still not sure how I feel about Assange or Wikileaks, but that part, I LIKE!!!
SenyorDave
@Maude:
Wouldn’t that be a heart implant?
General Stuck
@geg6:
While I support this leak fully, and the NEW methodology, you are wrong about wikileaks past MO. Whatever their affiliations with media outlets to vet, or investigate released info for newsworthyness, and context, wikileaks also released carte blance, or enmasse all of the files at once, in toto, on their own website.
The reason they changed this MO for the State dept cables was because it pissed the world off, and they came under intense DOS ( denial of service attacks) that prevented from doing the same as with the afghan and Iraq docs. And when Amazon denied them protection from these dos attacke within their Cloud Service, wikileaks and Assange went the route of handing them over to media outlets only, or almost only, they still publish unvetted a few pages per day.
From your own wikipedia link on wikipedia
Violet
I love that this is happening. I worked with the MOTUs for awhile on more than one occasion. They are every inch the entitled bastards you imagine they are. Moar of this please.
AuldBlackJack
@kerFuFFler:
I call bullshit. Zombie-MSM-CW bullshit, Croix De La’Diarrhée with oak & peanut cluster bullshit.
jcricket
Given that the powers that be are quite invested in keeping us from knowing what’s going on in the upper echelons of banking, this strikes me as an excellent development.
There have been a number of cases in the US in recent years busting the accounting firms that set up illegal tax-dodging vehicles for their ultra-rich clients. I’m sure given the near constant deregulation and shrinking of the IRS and SECs enforcement ability, those cases were just the tip of the iceberg.
Shorter me: more documents please.
burnspbesq
Renditioned? Y’all have taken up residence in cloud-cuckoo-land?
Elmer is going to end up in a Swiss prison. The Swiss take their bank secrecy laws quite seriously, and there is no dispute as to whether he violated them. After that, maybe the Cayman Islands get a shot at him. But the US? Not to my way of thinking.
What’s the violation of US law that any of y’all think you see here?
Or are you merely asserting that the US is utterly unconstrained by its own laws, and the rule of law is a joke?
The world is already full of stupid ideas without y’all adding to the supply.
kerFuFFler
@geg6:
Thanks for pointing that out—–I had just heard it described that way so many times I assumed that there was some sort of validity to it.
At least I understand global warming is not a hoax, and the healthcare bill is not job-killing. But poor, poor Sarah Palin—–everybody keeps picking on her with their blood libels! 8D
AuldBlackJack
@General Stuck:
Wikileaks asked for assistance from DOD & the State Department in redacting the material before they published it.
They were refused.
Wikileaks then went to the media for assistance. Second best? Yeah. The alternative? Not to publish anything. Fuck that. You got a complaint? Talk to DOD & the State Department.
Ash Can
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Agreed. This is an instance of Wikileaks living up to its potential, as far as I’m concerned. Hopefully these leaks will be as helpful to the legal authorities of various nations as they seem to have the potential to be.
scav
There’s still the hanging “large bank” (generally assumed to be BA I think) data release too, no? Feb might be very interesting.
REM: read to bottom of all quoted material, read to bottom of all quoted material, read to bottom of all quoted material . . .
Erik Vanderhoff
Seriously, I would not be surprised if Assange is assassinated now. You can fuck with governments, but super-rich assholes scare the shit out of me.
Violet
@Erik Vanderhoff:
I’ve been thinking the same thing. But isn’t he being protected on some large estate of a super-rich person?
geg6
@General Stuck:
It says there that he asked for help from Amnesty and Amnesty said no. It also says that he asked for help from the Pentagon and was rebuffed. It also said he asked other human rights groups for help and they said no. He has an internal group who vet from their various backgrounds and he has his media partners who also do vetting, which is why it is taking so long to get it all out (months after the announcement of the publishing of the leaks). There are no verified instances of anyone anywhere being harmed by any of the leaks. It’s a lie to say that he has not done any sort of due diligence here. Bitching, with no evidence to support the criticism, is just bitching and the meme remains untrue.
General Stuck
@AuldBlackJack:
the alternative is to do what they are doing now and hand over all of the documents to actual journalists to do journalism.
benjoya
OT, since there are no threads about it:
Tunisian revolution — does the US have a position? do we want ben-ali back? was he one of the “good” tyrants?
b-psycho
@burnspbesq:
You mean it’s not a joke?
matoko_chan
@Ash Can:
Stupid cudlips.
OBL and Assange both understand VERY WELL what you are too numb to see.
The banks ARE the governments.
Assange is junkpunching America in cyberspace like OBL junkpunched America in meatspace.
General Stuck.
So much fail.
the REASON the diplo cables are STILL being released a few at a time, is to induce paranoia reflex per Assanges system killer design.
The media outlets have ALL the diplo cables, and they are releasing them per Assanges requirements. The Guardian and the NYT ARE complicit, because Assange will cut them off next time, if they are not.
He did that to the WaPo. Big Media OBVIOUSLY believes Wikileaks is here to stay.
Elmer is a validation of Assanges New Paradigm of hacktivism– he believes leaking creates more leakers via MAXIMIZE EXPOSURE.
Assange also believes that inducing paranoia reflex in the modern security state will lead to nonlinear system collapse.
So far his system is WAI, and it cannot be turned off.
The US gov has tried everything, the diplo cables are being released according to Assanges design.
Around 2,000 have been released so far…..out of 250k to 260k that Assange AND his chosen media outlets HAVE IN POSSESSION.
the drip drip drip IS BY DESIGN.
morons.
General Stuck
@geg6:
You can argue with facts, but they remain facts. And it is lame to expect others to do wikileaks work for them, doubly so for people who claim to be journalists, like Assange. and especially asking the Pentagon to vet their own stolen documents.
Paul in KY
I hope some rich crooks are wetting their pants.
geg6
@General Stuck:
This is such a ridiculous response that all I can say to it is what a cudlip. Yes, facts are facts and I’m not the one arguing with them. He gave fair warning, those warned refused to act, and he still vets the docs and his media partners publish with no criticism whatsoever and certainly compared to the vitriol aimed at Assange and Wikileaks. And still you argue.
NobodySpecial
@burnspbesq: Got two words for that. Jose Padilla.
Omnes Omnibus
Well, this thread is going to the dogs quickly. Stuck and geg6 arguing about whether or not Wikileaks “vetted” the prior releases of documents, an argument that seems like it will come down to a semantic disagreement over what constitutes vetting… and now Jose Padilla being name checked as proof that the US is outside the rule of law, despite the fact that Padilla’s situation has almost nothing to do with the likelihood that anyone will get renditioned anywhere over the leaking of Bank secrets. Fucking brilliant.
Stillwater
@General Stuck: You were wrong when you took your toys and left last time, you’re wrong again. Christ man. Go trim your hedges or something.
THE
matoko, OT
you might like this article.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: Going to the dogs, wading in the blood of kittens . . .
Uloborus
@geg6:
…no. I’m sorry. It’s all there in ‘expressed reservations’. He asked for help ON HIS TERMS AND ONLY HIS TERMS. What were his terms, please? It’s so very, very easy to demand terms that the other party is not going to accept, and if there’s one thing that is completely clear about Assange it’s that he’s not, shall we say, easy to get along with.
He remains responsible for what he releases.
General Stuck
@geg6:
LOL, I’m only surprised you haven’t broke out the “do you ever get tired of not knowing what you’re talking about” .
I made my case, and the folks out there will just have to make up their own minds about it. I don’t take much serious what you have to say geg6, so there is that. And to repeat, I am thrilled with the coming release on US tax cheaters
Ash Can
@Omnes Omnibus: When do Wikileaks threads not go to the dogs here?
MattMinus
@matoko_chan:
Is that supposed to be a poem or something?
Russian oligarchs “grok” how to deal with “system killer design iphone app 3G superfamicon” in “meatspace”.
I imagine it will be their methods that end all of this.
General Stuck
@Stillwater:
stupid comment
Omnes Omnibus
@Ash Can:I guess I have found a separate peace on the Wikileaks issue. I have my doubts about some of Assange’s goals and methods, but I also see the need for greater transparency in government. Like many things, Wikileaks is a mixed bag. Oh, well, I shall now be called a cudlip and told that I am basically too stupid to understand.
Ash Can
@MattMinus: You have to admit, though, she is pretty bright for a 7th-grader.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yup, cudlip
eemom
@Ash Can:
Wikileaks: the new Israel. Tee hee.
Ash Can
@Omnes Omnibus: Heh heh! Yes, Wikileaks is certainly a double-edged sword. As long as it’s run by a showman who gets his strokes by dumping secrets, any secrets, there will be bad stuff released along with the good. But the release of this Swiss Bank material — assuming it takes place more or less on schedule and includes information that lives up to the build-up — looks like it’s coming at a good time, with several governments already having challenged the Swiss government and a DoJ investigation currently going on. The only thing I’d be concerned about is if the release of information were to somehow compromise or undermine the DoJ investigation, but I can’t imagine how it would. So if this particular dump were to put useful evidence in the hands of the DoJ and other legal authorities, I’d consider it all good.
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
I would agree with your assessment. I would not have gone about it the same way, but I simply haven’t seen an ounce of evidence that it has hurt anything or anyone. There seem to be a lot of hurt fee fees among heads of state and the national security apparatus, but nothing that hurts national security or has led to the physical harm of any particular individual. All in all, transparency is a good thing and hurt fee fees mean nothing at all.
Omnes Omnibus
@geg6: FWIW I think a lot of people have had concerns that Wikileaks methodology could increase the probability that someone will get hurt by their leaks. The new strategy appears to be designed to both decrease that probability and assuage the concerns of critics. This is a good thing.
THE
Personally I think this whole Wikileaks show is going to get a lot more exciting once the Julian Assange vs. Vladimir Putin episode gets going.
Time: Is Russia The Next Target?
joe from Lowell
@geg6: Amnesty International is not a head of state.
Concern about people being put in danger of murder is not “hurt fee-fees.”
Throwing up your hands and saying “You won’t do it my terms, then I won’t vet the documents to address your concerns” is not “vetting.”
None of these things become true because of YOUR fee-fees about Wikileaks, and you could stand to be a lot less obnoxious and a lot more willing to think critically when it comes to criticism of Assange.
matoko_chan
what is wrong with you people?
the bankstahs ARE the government.
they buy and pay for the governments.
who ever feeds the dog, owns the dog.
i cannot believe even juicers are this stupid.
incroyable.
matoko_chan
@THE: i believe Assange SAID China is the next target.
of course the lapdog media are going to throw chaff while Obama is talking with the Chicoms here.
mebbe they will throw us some trade crumbs.
joe from Lowell
I have a question: has anybody ever seen a comment from matako_chan that expresses any thought other than awe at her own intelligence?
“Ah-ha-ha, puny hu-mans!”
We get it, little girl. You’re very impressed with yourself. Nobody can figure out why, exactly, but your message comes through loud and clear.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
wallah wut oogle fruminous cralifrag
cudlips!
THE
@matoko_chan:
I think he said China and Russia are the next targets.
morzer
@joe from Lowell:
Well, to be fair, she’s been a superhacker and an elite government secret agent too, and all that by the age of 14. You can’t expect a global phenomenon to be modest.
Catsy
@THE:
That unnamed Russian official is living in a complete fantasy world.
Assange can be made to disappear. Wikileaks mirrors can be made to disappear on an ad hoc basis. What cannot be made to disappear is information, once it is public. It can be ignored, suppressed, outlawed, or refuted–but once it’s out, it’s out.
matoko_chan
@geg6: u retard.
this is why the new strat.
Assanges OWN WORDS.
you could, like, READ THEM.
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matoko_chan
THE GOAL IS JUSTICE, bitches.
matoko_chan
@morzer:
that is the difference between and me and you, sirrah.
i actually give a fuck about the content.
and i dont have peers….not here at least.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
Fine words from one whose mom still packs her a little Hello Kitty lunchbox for school.
morzer
@matoko_chan:
You wouldn’t recognize coherent content if it bit your little hairy ass and ran off down the street screaming “Look at me, I am coherent content”. So far you’ve been illiterate in English, French, Arabic and Matokobabble.
Just sayin’.
joe from Lowell
Sometimes, I even get the sense that matako could have something to contribute, but whatever “content” she might have to offer gets drowned out by the roughly billion to one ratio between her adolescent fury that there are people in the world who don’t think exactly like her, and any actual thoughts she has to convey.
THE
@matoko_chan:
Dilbert is more subtle
burnspbesq
@matoko_chan:
I’ll be curious to see whether Lord Julian deigns to visit his loyal vassal Rudolf in the Swiss prison to which he will soon be sent.
burnspbesq
@matoko_chan:
The goal is justice? How do you define justice?
morzer
@burnspbesq:
Please, don’t encourage her. The last thing we need is a re-run of Republic I as understood by Matoko-chan. Think of the children!
geg6
@joe from Lowell:
And, pray tell, where did I ever say such a thing? Oh, wait. I never did. I thought you were a church goer and there you are bearing false witness.
But this is not operative when you talk about the RCC, though, right?
Whatever. I really do not intend to take seriously any criticism of whatever fevered fantasy you have about what I think about Wikileaks (hint: whatever it is, I can guarantee you’re wrong) when it’s coming from one of the world’s biggest and most vitriolic defenders of the criminal syndicate otherwise known as the Roman Catholic Church. I am just stating facts. Let me know when you have a recognizable one, mkay?
Oh, and in case you didn’t notice, I’m a retarded cudlip, too.
eemom
hey matoko — why not fly to London, drive out to that mansion where your hero is, um, “imprisoned,” and offer yourself up as his sex slave? You know you want to.
Assuming, of course, that we’re not right about you being underage.
Catsy
@joe from Lowell: This strikes me as a sound observation. For my money, I’ve often thought that matoko_chan and I could have fascinating discussions about linguistics, if she were capable of translating the conlang she speaks into intelligible English.
BDeevDad
I’m sure they were just creating jobs
Barry
@General Stuck: “the alternative is to do what they are doing now and hand over all of the documents to actual journalists to do journalism. ”
Sure, if he could find any.
dollared
@burnspbesq: What exactly is stupid about his post? Did you go to sleep in 1978 and just wake up?
asiangrrlMN
@Omnes Omnibus: Agree with you on this. I can see why it’s a good thing, and I can see why it’s a bad thing. In this case, yes, I’m for it–but am I just using the means to justify an end of which I approve? I don’t know.
dollared
Jesus Christ on a stick, people, what do you expect of Julian Assange?
Of course he is hard to get along with. People who go along to get along work for defense contractors and worry about paying their mortgage.
Of course some of the releases have some bad with the good. The people who should be doing that sorting have failed at their jobs, and so we have to let the chips fall where they may. Do you remember Judith Miller or not?
Of course he has a messiah complex. He’s doing something that’s likely going to ruin his entire life, just to get us important information that incredibly powerful people want to hide from us. That’s noble, but it takes a weird, somewhat egocentric person to volunteer for prison just to prove a point.
(oh, and of course he’d do anything to get laid….he’s going to be in prison a long time…)
I’m with Rick Perlstein. http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/meaning-box-722 You people would have told MLK to stop violating the law and peacefully petition the Birmingham city government through the normal channels. And stop forcing the city to pay overtime to its law enforcement officers, and stop blocking traffic.
gypsy howell
Does anyone think for a minute that even one of our masters-of-the-universe overlords will do any jail time? I don’t. BEST case scenario, they pay a teensy weensy fine and shake hands with the nice IRS man who handled their case. Then back to business as usual in the Caymans or wherever they’re hiding their loot.
I’m not optimistic that these wikileaks will result in punishment of the guilty, but perhaps they will serve a purpose if the sleeping middle class schlubs who are getting FLEECED by these motherf8ckers start getting pissed off enough to do something.
Either way, it’ll be fun to watch how the media clowns spin this into “nothing to see here, folks” or better yet, turn the culprits into victims.
bago
So many of you olds aren’t ready for the future. Information is a drug, and most of are addicted, especially those on the internet.
That value of “some” in the phrase “You can fool all of the people some of the time” is rapidly declining. People who used to make their living off of asymmetric information are afraid of informatics equality.
dollared
My predictions:
1. We will see between 200 and 500 of the names of the “2000 tax cheats.”
2. Of that 2-500, less than 1/3 will be US citizens.
3. (what we know in our hearts but will never know in fact): if you take the total net worth of the names revealed, it will be less than 10% of the total net worth of all of the names on the list.
I think there are better than 20% odds that the list is quashed entirely.
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared:If you want to use a civil rights hero as a comparison, you could also consider John Brown. I am not saying that Assange and Brown are analogs, but I would also not say that King and Brown are analogs.
General Stuck
Must say, I is proud of myself for sticking to the new order of civility. Didn’t call anyone an asswipe, nor a single F bomb. Now I will have tea and crumpets and practice the Queens’s English some more.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Correction: “… but I would also not say that King and Brown …” should be “… King and Assange….” Carry on.
dollared
@Omnes Omnibus: I could agree or disagree, but I’m not sure I understand why one or the other. Can you elaborate?
Omnes Omnibus
@dollared: You had quoted someone who implicitly, at least, used King in comparison with Assange. I was just pointing out that, if one wanted to, one could find parallels with Brown. It is not something that I have developed in any great depth. Both are/were single-minded and fanatical. Both have/had a vision of a more just world with which liberals tend to agree. Both are/were willing to beyond the law to do what they believe is right. Both are/were somewhat immune to concerns about collateral damage. Both push/pushed far enough that they made their putative liberal allies uncomfortable. When I look at what King did, I can just say that I don’t know if I would have had the bravery do do what he and those with him did (I can’t know; I wasn’t there), but I know that both their cause and their actions were right. With both Brown and Assange, I don’t know that I can say that. Again, this is just a quick take on the analogy. I don’t really think Assange is a King or a Brown.
DougW
@Maude: We can hope that it will be the wrong decision, just like most of his over the years…
DougW
@Chris: This is awesome, and way overdue.
DougW
@matoko_chan: Talk about the pot calling the kettle….
matoko_chan
@DougW: look illiterate subsapients…..that means you too geg6.
THE QUOTE ILLUSTRATES EXACTLY WHY ASSANGE CHANGED HIS FORMAT.
IN HIS OWN WORDS.
no need to speculate, geg6, stuck, et al.
he thought people would go all wikipedia on his releases– they didnt.
they swallowed the government drench of nothing to see here, keep on walking….. cattle.
and a WHOLE LOT of the commentariat here either swallowed the drench or dived into crotchsniffing Assanges trumped up rape charges like sooner and eemom.