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posted by takyon on Thursday January 25 2018, @09:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the if-it-walks-like-a-duck dept.

FBI Whistleblower on Pierre Omidyar and His Campaign to Neuter Wikileaks

FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds asserts Pierre Omidyar decided to create The Intercept to not only take ownership of the Snowden leaks but also to continue his blockade against WikiLeaks and create a "honey trap" for whistleblowers.

WikiLeaks, the transparency organization known for publishing leaked documents that threaten the powerful, finds itself under pressure like never before, as does its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Now, the fight to silence Wikileaks is not only being waged by powerful government figures but also by the media, including outlets and organizations that have styled themselves as working to protect whistleblowers.

As this three-part series seeks to show, these outlets and organizations are being stealthily guided by the hands of special interests, not the public interest they claim to serve. Part I focuses on the Freedom of the Press Foundation, The Intercept, and the oligarch who has strongly influenced both organizations in his long-standing fight to silence WikiLeaks.

[...] WikiLeaks, in recent tweets, has suggested that Omidyar's influence was responsible not only for the [Freedom of the Press Foundation's (FPF) decision to terminate processing of WikiLeaks' donations] but also for the unusual attacks that some FPF members have launched against WikiLeaks, particularly Assange, in recent months. The most outspoken of these members has been FPF director Micah Lee, who is employed by the Omidyar-owned publication, The Intercept.

In February of last year, Lee called Assange a "rapist, liar & ally to fascists" in a tweet — despite the fact that Assange was never charged with rape, his alleged accusers have also claimed that Assange had not sexually assaulted them, and there is abundant evidence suggesting that the rape investigation was a means of ensnaring Assange to ensure his extradition to the United States. Based on Lee's other tweets, the "ally to fascists" charge ostensibly refers to Lee's belief that Wikileaks' publications of emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta was done explicitly, with Assange's blessing, to aid the Trump campaign.

Related: Feds Arrest NSA Contractor in Leak of Top Secret Russia Document


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  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday January 25 2018, @09:25PM (5 children)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Thursday January 25 2018, @09:25PM (#627867) Journal

    how many people would know about the funding?

    How many people working for these organisations would know who was pulling the strings?

    How would they know?

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @09:56PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 25 2018, @09:56PM (#627891)

    Try reading the linked article, idiot. That would be a good start.

    • (Score: 2, Disagree) by MostCynical on Thursday January 25 2018, @10:48PM (3 children)

      by MostCynical (2589) on Thursday January 25 2018, @10:48PM (#627913) Journal

      Read, before posting.
      Does *every* employee buy in to this supposed anti -wikileaks stuff? Do they get asked at interview? Or is it just the editorial direction? Why would anyone want to work for them if the editorial direction is at such odds with the marketing?

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday January 26 2018, @02:55AM (2 children)

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday January 26 2018, @02:55AM (#628054) Homepage

        There is a tipping point.

        For example, you realized that all mainstream media was fake when NPR and MSNBC started squawking the same talking points as FoxNews. Those talking points were the condemnation of Assange, traditionally a darling of liberal media. The tipping point for The Intercept came pretty late, and it was the fact that an article of theirs suggested Oprah 2020 with a straight face. It is their face of contempt when they've been found out (or people stopped reading them after Snowden's leaks stopped being headline news on every independent media website) and are going full scorched-earth into jerking around their readers.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by pTamok on Friday January 26 2018, @08:33AM (1 child)

          by pTamok (3042) on Friday January 26 2018, @08:33AM (#628150)

          I think the tipping point for The Intercept was the lack of operations security [wikipedia.org] dealing with Reality Winner's [nymag.com] documents. At that point, they lost all credibility with any potential whistle-blowers/leakers who understand operations security.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @03:56PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @03:56PM (#628300)

            Interesting article, thank you.

            You really would expect more from people who decide to go into that line of work. I mean even I know about steganography, whether it's yellow dots from a printer or custom typos for each recipient of a memo. And I'm not exactly a security expert despite my tinfoil headpiece...