This the question I would like my local member to ask the GOVT.

As a committed civil libertarian I am concerned that truth of wars in which we engage will be extinguished in a fog of embedded journalism.

Since the Theodocian Edict mankind has been taught "what to think" not "how to think".

Surely in this day and age, the truth should be available no matter how unpalatable it is to the powers that be.
If this is not the case then democracy itself is a fable.

The truth will curb the excessive behaviours of control freaks such as the U.S from being the very people they claim to be protecting us from.

Surely the one thing that protects us all from wilful deception by Gov't, is the availability of accurate information.
Shall our govt invoke it's already excessive power to ensure that the truth won't be heard in future?.

Perhaps they can have Assange and his whistleblowers assassinated instead for the greater good..

Agree thinker 2. "The greater good" has been used for all manner of horrific acts including war usually with a hidden agenda. We would all be a lot better for knowing more rather than less and being led into wars through deception and subterfuge.

Wikileaks is the start of a movement that reflects the people's ennui with spin, totalitarianism disguised as democracy and big brother mentality. Hopefully Andrew Wilkie's call for better protection for whistleblowers will come to fruition this time around rather than the Clayton's version we got last time.

As regards the government filter - I suspect that won't go as far as originally thought due to public pressure and technical practicalities.

If Labor is silly enough to impose a ban it will only make sure we find ways to read the information.
In fact net filtering is only a dream we are not after all China, why support such an unpopular thing? who knows.

My bet is it will never happen.

If government's want to use national security (or cabinet secrecy and the like) as excuses to withhold information from the public it should be made an act of official corruption with appropriate penalties to misuse that privilege.

R0bert

it has become a lot more pervasive than we might realise
you-tube has a message now with many clips
not allowed in your cunntry

this link...used to go to a free music site
http://www.projectplaylist.com/playlist/user/6206203

last time i visited..no songs would play

i dont know if i been conned to create playlists
or if its some freetrade agreement
or web2...all i know is i cant use it anymore

this visit..it even refused to connect

so cant acces even ..my own research

[i spent weeks searching and listing songs...
now i feel it was only to use me]..for free...

by the way i own the recordings on lp's [78/45/33 rpm..and cassets...and cd's..even 8 track...reel to reel...film/vidio..and in some cases even in...sheet music...

i chose the songs because i wanted to play them on my computa

guess.. it should be called a CONputa

there are many of my favourite sites been censored

wikileaks WAS..
but then after sbs/neagus did a story...and..it was available..

[but funny enough my laptop...via which i accessed the site
got some fluttering virus...which effectivly stuffed up..my con=puta
the very next day

it starts to flutter..then dies dead as a dodo

we trust govt at our own risk..;
who are they...to shut our acces down

or say you can see this
but cant see that

Wikileaks is probably sponsored by Israel.So the answer is no.

I'd imagine Wikileaks and similar sites are the reason WHY they want a filter.
It all depends if they think they will be able to get away with it or not.

Please. What qualifies anyone of us to decide whether 'war chatter' is truth or perception?. How are you going to get access to the entire story when all you've got is edited information sold from a sell out organization such as Wikileaks?.

Wikileaks credibility died with "Collateral Murder". Like "Wikipedia", Wikileaks is merely a place to start.

Official secret American documents are not what you euphemistically call war chatter StG.

In fact they are the truth revealed for all to see.

I feel safer when facts are available for all to see. Not tucked away in a draw somewhere, or wilfully modified or sanitised for public consumption by embedded journalists, whom are a disgrace to their so called profession.

During the Vietnam years when war was on television in reality, massive protests were the result, and another pointless American invasion war ended by an informed youth movement and a visionary Australian PM in Whitlam.

Like all crooks they learn from their mistakes (hence embedded journalism) but on this occasion thankfully a heroic whistle blower has saved us from a fate worse than death, that of blissful ignorance and the unknowing support of oppression and horror wearing a white hat.

pardon my ignorance, but what are Wikileaks?

not to be a spoil-sport...but..

this is typical...of how things go/..are
see we are talking about the messenger...NOT THE MESS-AGE

just like news today..is two reporters talking
or sportstars..yet again being..huh-?-man

how come it allways seems..we are missing the actual news
the revealation's.. revealed...BY wiki-leaks

i note the mention of iran..in this
[and that could simply be..being evenhanded...]
BUT..dirt sticks to all...war is hell..!

no winners..in any war..

[ok except..those looting and plundering
and selling..the guns bombs..and ammo

i hestitate to say...'fair and balanced'..
because thats been perverted..

but heck...think...
not even..a wiki-link

we been falling..for the old
watch the hand-trick....yet again...lol

really..if it wernt tradg-jic..
it would be..[sic*]

wiki has confirmed..the one million civilian..DEAD...!

we have here another typical..we-pens...of missdirection
we-opens..of mass destraction...

the news you get
when they dont want us
dis-cussing...the REAL news'sssss

ARN'T you shocked?
how blatently it goes down..?

Thinker,

They are incomplete.

At least it provides a starting point StG rather than what we often get from our representatives which is nicks or political spin and deception.

John Howard on Q&A last night still trots out the WMD story even after having admitted meeting with the US Ambassador the day after September 11 where talk about invasion was on the agenda. Invading Iraq had nothing to do with WMDs and citizens have a right to know what their governments are doing on their (so called) behalf and why.

Sorry to prick your balloon Thinker 2, but it wasn't Whitlam that
pulled the troops out of Vietnam it was Billy McMahon the Liberal
prime minister after Whitlam.

McMahon wasn't the PM after Whitlam, he was the PM before, wasn't he? Fraser was after Whitlam.

It was Whitlam who pulled the troops out of Vietnam.We had a big party because we were about to go there and fight this war of imperialism premoted by banks and arms dealers.

Billy McMahon the Liberal
prime minister after Whitlam.
Is this for real ? is that where my tax Dollar is wasted ?

Will the Govt's internet filter be applied to Wikileaks ? Not this Government, it's not switched on enough to outsmart Wikileaks. NBN will further enable Wikileaks to do even more harm. If Wikiileaks want to do the right thing then why don't they focus on the Public Service misdeeds ?

with respect, I think you have the wrong end of the pineapple here.

Take a look at this quote from Nurenburg which I posted because it said ALL about this subject, ie "if we did not know it was because we did not WANT to know"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewy60MEdJR4

Is the OP suggesting that merely by some "wiki-thing" TELLING us about WMDs etc we suddenly say "OMG, OMG we got taken"?

Hitler as the best ever marketeer the world has ever known summed it up simply as:

"It is a great fortune for Governments that the people do not think"

But for a bit of over-zeal he almost took over the world with that simple KISS edict.

IMHO it is interesting that Janing sort of explains the actions of the German non thinkers as being poor and wanting to get over that

BUT the now non thinking of American Beauty is because of being rich, and wanting to stay that way.

Michael Moore, Stephen Jones etc have put it all on a platter BUT NOBODY IS LISTENING.

So even a clot like GWBush and his CongoLine of Suckholes like Howard understood all this.

Surely the OP is not saying WE at this esteemed forum need some wiki-thing to think

Jefferson, Yes you are right he was before Whitlam not after, but it
was McMahon that withdrew the troops.
It probably would have happened anyway no matter who was in government.

well Vietnam was same Congoline of suckholes as Iraq or as in the AIDS Army killing off Africa, ie the 800 pound gorilla grunts and we bend over.

for the record Whitlam offered to make up the pay difference for any nasho that stayed in for full term but zip for those of us that were in the earlier calls up.

but by coincidence the biggest fraud [apart from Y2K] was America using Napalm Girl Hollywood BlockBuster to get OUT of Vietnam with tail between legs [and we followed as always].

so maybe you could call my UTube a wiki-leak, because even putting it all down in black and white [ie the Pulitzer prize photo] nobody has found any flaws in my logic as yet, but please be the first to make comment.

here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTpZkziY7SM

Bazz I don't know what it is that you mean in referring to Mcmahon.

Conscription was ended by Whitlam. Conscription, an affront to any thinking person that understands the value of civil rights was solely of the Coalition's making introduced to support the American invasion of Vietnam.

I specifically remember attending the rallies that bought and end to conscription and with it an end to the Vietnam war, and the incumbent Coalition Gov't. And the false notion of the domino theory and communists under the bed.

And I specifically remember the plain clothes police and most probably Asio operatives inserted in the crowds to incite violence and agitation in an attempt to justify the quelling of public opinion by force.
It didn't work because the hundreds and thousands of real protesters wanted to make love not war.

I know it sounds romantic Bazz, but you had to be there when protesters laid on the ground and dared the police to ride their horse's over the top of them.

I don't care which Liberal PM introduced conscription or remember, but I do remember the one time that the peoples voice was heard and change was the result. And recorded in history for all to see in the 1972 election result.

All I can remember about McMahon was that he had big ears and a socialite wife named Sonia.

And DD, Viet vets probably went through the worst of wars with things like Agent Orange for example, and compensation is obviously inadequate . And today, sulphur bombs used alleged used by Israel recently are just plain wrong.

My dad was machine gunned through his torso by a Japanese aeroplane in the WW2 and survived in a paddock for 3 days. He had a Gold card war disability pension. Never once in his life in the time I knew him did he ever attend an anzac day celebration or parade etc.
He never said why. con't...

And as for Wikileaks, Wikileaks has enabled the disclosure of official American documents. You don't have to form an opinion you can just read the documents. In exactly the same way you could observe the truth of war on television in 1972.

Embedded television is all you'll see with magnates in control today, and we must be sure they don't control the internet as well as the airwaves, just so the facts exist somewhere.

This is a basic of democracy isn't it?.

Quite true Thinker

I was interested individual in what sort of public service misdeeds you mean.

I would have thought that sending troops to foreign lands to face death for bogus reasons was up there and at the highest level in terms of public service misdeeds. Or at least a spectacular misuse of public office. Can Wikileaks cover everything? not without a whistleblower, that's the real limit to Wikileaks.

Is there censorship on the WL's website as well StG when you say incomplete?.
Edited highlights you mean?. This is always, also possible I guess StG.
Like I said in my last post you had to be there.

This topic is a double prong for me. "Collateral Murder" was a biased piece of intellectually insulting tripe. The content was tragic, yes, but the 'story' was opinionated journalism, and not 'a leak'. They INTENTIONALLY left out facts about that situation that change the ENTIRE dynamic of the footage. This is fact.

So from that point of view, how do I know that WL's hasn't intentionally left out facts - again - to cause damage and notoriety, again?.

Raw war chatter - of which much of this is - CAN be inaccurate and totally based on perception. It's like documenting thoughts of people in a natural disaster. Without interviews and eye witnesses this stuff is pointless, in reality.

For example, and a complete hypothetical:

"report bomb hit farmers in field"

How do I know that WL wouldn't leave out:

"ignore last, they were sheep"

That stuff happens. Without the ENTIRE story being in our hands we can't judge. These files should be printed out and sent back as toilet paper for the locals.

Stg if there was any serious leaving out key bit's of information we'd be reading about it from the US government. I'm pretty confident that if there was any viable way of discrediting Wikileaks on an issue like that the US military would be all over it.

R0bert

Well, they are. The US military already addressed the issue of them ignoring Iraqi forces torturing prisoners. Whether you believe them or not they still established that WL's info is incomplete. They even quoted the US military policy on such a situation arising and their policy wasn't to ignore it.

How many documents ARE there? It's going to take months to address all the accusations.

...and of course some fool will come along and accuse me of something. My only opinion is that the information is incomplete and should only be taken as an interesting and unprecedented insight into a war.

StG I was watching a US program discussing the some of the issues around the US response to Iraqi mistreatment (torture/execution etc) of prisoners and despite some strong disagreement on some issues there appeared to be some consensus that the documents showed differing responses at differing times. One of the concerns was that abuse was reported but there was a period where those further up the chain were not acting on the abuses. That changed over time.

It was also pointed out that US strategy provided a disincentive to reporting, the troop surge to gain control then hand over to local forces approach relied on the local forces being up to the task. The more abuse which was reported the harder it is to justify the idea that local forces are ready to take over.

I'd agree with the idea that what's released is not complete, unless it's clearly proven that there is deliberate withholding of relevant info by Wikileaks though the fault lies with those who as a matter of course hide infomation from the public which need not be hidden.

R0bert

A precedent is clearly proven.