Private lives are exposed as WikiLeaks spills its secrets

[webfact]

Private lives are exposed as WikiLeaks spills its secrets

By RAPHAEL SATTER and MAGGIE MICHAEL

 

CAIRO (AP) — WikiLeaks' global crusade to expose government secrets is causing collateral damage to the privacy of hundreds of innocent people, including survivors of sexual abuse, sick children and the mentally ill, The Associated Press has found.

 

In the past year alone, the radical transparency group has published medical files belonging to scores of ordinary citizens while many hundreds more have had sensitive family, financial or identity records posted to the web. In two particularly egregious cases, WikiLeaks named teenage rape victims. In a third case, the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality is punishable by death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom.

 

"They published everything: my phone, address, name, details," said a Saudi man who told AP he was bewildered that WikiLeaks had revealed the details of a paternity dispute with a former partner. "If the family of my wife saw this ... Publishing personal stuff like that could destroy people."

 

WikiLeaks' mass publication of personal data is at odds with the site's claim to have championed privacy even as it laid bare the workings of international statecraft, and has drawn criticism from the site's allies.

 

Attempts to reach WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange were unsuccessful; a set of questions left with his site wasn't immediately answered Tuesday. WikiLeaks' stated mission is to bring censored or restricted material "involving war, spying and corruption" into the public eye, describing the trove amassed thus far as a "giant library of the world's most persecuted documents."

 

The library is growing quickly, with half a million files from the U.S. Democratic National Committee, Turkey's governing party and the Saudi Foreign Ministry added in the last year or so. But the library is also filling with rogue data, including computer viruses, spam, and a compendium of personal records.

 

The Saudi diplomatic cables alone hold at least 124 medical files, according to a sample analyzed by AP. Some described patients with psychiatric conditions, seriously ill children or refugees.

 

"This has nothing to do with politics or corruption," said Dr. Nayef al-Fayez, a consultant in the Jordanian capital of Amman who confirmed that a brain cancer patient of his was among those whose details were published to the web. Dr. Adnan Salhab, a retired practitioner in Jordan who also had a patient named in the files, expressed anger when shown the document.

 

"This is illegal what has happened," he said in a telephone interview. "It is illegal!"

 

The AP, which is withholding identifying details of most of those affected, reached 23 people — most in Saudi Arabia — whose personal information was exposed. Some were unaware their data had been published; WikiLeaks is censored in the country. Others shrugged at the news. Several were horrified.

 

One, a partially disabled Saudi woman who'd secretly gone into debt to support a sick relative, said she was devastated. She'd kept her plight from members of her own family.

 

"This is a disaster," she said in a phone call. "What if my brothers, neighbors, people I know or even don't know have seen it? What is the use of publishing my story?"

 

Medical records are widely counted among a person's most private information. But the AP found that WikiLeaks also routinely publishes identity records, phone numbers and other information easily exploited by criminals.

 

The DNC files published last month carried more than two dozen Social Security and credit card numbers, according to an AP analysis assisted by New Hampshire-based compliance firm DataGravity. Two of the people named in the files told AP they were targeted by identity thieves following the leak, including a retired U.S. diplomat who said he also had to change his number after being bombarded by threatening messages.

 

The number of people affected easily reaches into the hundreds. Paul Dietrich, a transparency activist, said a partial scan of the Saudi cables alone turned up more than 500 passport, identity, academic or employment files.

 

The AP independently found three dozen records pertaining to family issues in the cables — including messages about marriages, divorces, missing children, elopements and custody battles. Many are very personal, like the marital certificates which reveal whether the bride was a virgin. Others deal with Saudis who are deeply in debt, including one man who says his wife stole his money. One divorce document details a male partner's infertility. Others identify the partners of women suffering from sexually transmitted diseases including HIV and Hepatitis C.

 

Lisa Lynch, who teaches media and communications at Drew University and has followed WikiLeaks for years, said Assange may not have had the staff or the resources to properly vet what he published. Or maybe he felt that the urgency of his mission trumped privacy concerns.

 

"For him the ends justify the means," she said.

___

Initially conceived as a Wikipedia-style platform for leakers, WikiLeaks' initial plan was for a "worldwide community of informed users" to curate the material it released wholesale, according to the site's now defunct question-and-answer page. Prominent transparency advocate Steven Aftergood privately warned Assange a few days before the site's debut that the publish-everything approach was problematic.

 

"Publication of information is not always an act of freedom," Aftergood said in an email sent in late 2006. "It can also be an act of aggression or oppression."

 

Those concerns were heightened after WikiLeaks published a series of documents leaked by U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, now known as Chelsea, in 2010. The publication provided explosive evidence of human rights abuses in Iraq and Pakistani cooperation with the Taliban in Afghanistan — among many other revelations — but it also led to allegations that civilians in war zones had been endangered.

 

Assange insisted WikiLeaks had a system to keep ordinary people's information safe.

 

"We have a harm minimization policy," the Australian told an audience in Oxford, England in July of 2010. "There are legitimate secrets. Your records with your doctor, that's a legitimate secret."

 

Assange initially leaned on cooperating journalists, who flagged sensitive material to WikiLeaks which then held them back for closer scrutiny. But Assange was impatient with the process, describing it as time-consuming and expensive.

 

"We can't sit on material like this for three years with one person to go through the whole lot, line-by-line, to redact," he told London's Frontline Club the month after his talk in Oxford. "We have to take the best road that we can."

 

Assange's attitude has hardened since. A brief experiment with automatic redactions was aborted. The journalist-led redactions were abandoned too after Assange's relationship with the London press corps turned toxic. By 2013 WikiLeaks had written off the redaction efforts as a wrong move.

 

Withholding any data at all "legitimizes the false propaganda of 'information is dangerous,'" the group argued on Twitter.

 

But some private information genuinely is dangerous, courting serious consequences for the people involved.

 

Three Saudi cables published by the WikiLeaks identified domestic workers who'd been tortured or sexually abused by their employers, giving the women's full names and passport numbers. One cable named a male teenager who was raped by a man while abroad; a second identified another male teenager who was so violently raped his legs were broken; a third outlined the details of a Saudi man detained for "sexual deviation" — a derogatory term for homosexuality.

 

Scott Long, an LGBT rights activist who has worked in the Middle East, said the names of rape victims were off-limits. And he worried that releasing the names of people persecuted for their sexuality only risked magnifying the harm caused by oppressive officials.

 

"You're legitimizing their surveillance, not combating it," Long said.

___

WikiLeaks was criticized last month after it released what it described as "AKP emails," a reference to Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish acronym AKP. But dissidents' excitement turned to scorn when they realized the 300,000 documents were little more than a vast collection of junk mail and petitions.

 

Vural Eroz, 66, was one of many people who'd written to the AKP, complaining in 2013 that his car had been towed from his lawn by authorities in Istanbul. He was startled to find that WikiLeaks had published the message along with his personal number.

 

"I would like to know for what purpose they exposed me," he said in a phone interview.

 

Prominent anti-censorship campaigner Yaman Akdeniz, who reviewed hundreds of messages like Eroz's, said there was nothing newsworthy in any of them.

 

Eroz said he admired WikiLeaks for exposing wrongdoing but said, "they should try to protect innocent civilians. They should screen what they leak."

 

Experts say WikiLeaks' apparent refusal to do the most minimal screening is putting even its own readers at risk.

 

Vesselin Bontchev, a researcher at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences' National Laboratory of Computer Virology, said he was startled to find hundreds of pieces of malicious software in WikiLeaks' dumps — suggesting the site doesn't take basic steps to sanitize its publications.

 

"Their understanding of journalism is finding an interesting document in a trash can and then dumping the can on your front door," he said.

 

Even Assange's biggest backers are getting uncomfortable. Journalist Glenn Greenwald, one of the site's leading allies in the media world, has distanced himself from WikiLeaks over its publication strategy. National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, whose asylum in Russia WikiLeaks helped broker, recently suggested the site should take more care to curate its work.

 

Others are disillusioned.

 

Dietrich, the transparency activist, said he still supported WikiLeaks "in principle" but had been souring on Assange and his colleagues for a while.

 

"One of the labels that they really don't like is being called 'anti-privacy activists,'" Dietrich said in a phone interview. "But if you want to live down that label, don't do stuff like this!"

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-08-23

[Kerryd]

Assange knows his days are numbered. Ecuador isn't going to shelter him indefinitely. He's really hoping that the statue of limitations on the rape charges in Sweden run out before the everyone clues in to the rather obvious fact that there is no "secret plot" by the Americans to have him arrested and deported to the US. He made that whole crap story up to avoid facing the charges in Sweden.

If the US had of wanted him they would have had a warrant out for his arrest and could have requested extradition from the UK back when he was first being held in British jail (while waiting for an extradition hearing on those same rape charges). As well, the US could have asked Ecuador to extradite him to the US many times over the last few years, but hasn't (and yes, it would have made the news in big bold headlines).

 

He obviously doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself, as evidenced by these latest leaks. He was a criminal before he started WikiLeaks, and he has (allegedly) twice committed what Sweden considers to be rape. Too think that all he had to do to avoid those rape charges was submit to an HIV/AIDs test and it would have all gone away. Unless of course he knew he was HIV positive and that is the real reason why he's trying to avoid being sent to Sweden.

It's one thing to take off a condom during sex without telling your partner (who had demanded that a condom be used), or agreeing to only have protected sex and then waiting until she's asleep before having a go at her without protection (both of which can be considered rape under Swedish law). Doing so while knowing you are HIV positive takes it up a rather large notch. 

Edited August 23, 2016 by Kerryd

[Class C]

What about the UN panel ruling a few months ago that Mr Assange should be allowed to walk free and be compensated for his "deprivation of liberty" ?

[Chicog]

Quote

If the US had of <sic> wanted him they would have had a warrant out for his arrest and could have requested extradition from the UK back when he was first being held in British jail (while waiting for an extradition hearing on those same rape charges).

 

No they couldn't because the UK has reasonably high standards and would require evidence of crimes committed by Assuange on US territory.

 

 

Quote

As well, the US could have asked Ecuador to extradite him to the US many times over the last few years, but hasn't (and yes, it would have made the news in big bold headlines).

 

Similary, the US/Ecuador extradition treaty specifies the types of crimes for which a person may be extradited; Assuange has not committed any of them. (It also says that people cannot be extradite over issues of a political nature).

I'm not quite sure what the risks are of him being in Sweden, but since the UK would have to give approval to his extradition to the US, I don't see as he would be at any more risk there than on the streets of London.

However, he doesn't feel safe on those until the statue of limitations has expired on what seem to be the very specious charges laid against him.

[craigt3365]

7 minutes ago, Class C said:

What about the UN panel ruling a few months ago that Mr Assange should be allowed to walk free and be compensated for his "deprivation of liberty" ?

While other legal authorities disagree.  It's lawyers "splitting hairs".  Very complex case arguing very minute details.  He'd be best to give himself in and see what happens. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/24/uk-seeks-review-un-julian-assange-arbitrary-detention

[Chicog]

26 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

While other legal authorities disagree.  It's lawyers "splitting hairs".  Very complex case arguing very minute details.  He'd be best to give himself in and see what happens. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/24/uk-seeks-review-un-julian-assange-arbitrary-detention

 

Why?

He can wait it out until the statue of limitations expires.

Let's face it, he has made himself available for interview by the Swedish police at all times, and they have made no effort to hear his side of the story at any time.

Which to me smells like they're up to no good.

 

 

 

[tifino]

 

 

wow! wiki must surely have an opening for Derryn Hinch to work for them

[Class C]

It appears someone tried to break into the Embassy of Ecuador last night.

 

Which leads to the question, why did the British authorities only arrive at the embassy 2+ hours after the incident took place?

 

One would have thought they could have been there within a few minutes at most.

 

"The Government of Ecuador regrets that, despite the enormous resources that the British government has undertaken to prevent Julian Assange leaving the Ecuadorian embassy, the authorities did not respond more quickly to this extremely serious attempt an unauthorized entry."

OFFICIAL COMUNIQUÉ

[JHolmesJr]

more covert ops against wikileaks…they are doing gods work here….shining the spotlight on all the dirt the big boys want swept under the carpet.

 

go julian!

[tifino]

2 minutes ago, Class C said:

It appears someone tried to break into the Embassy of Ecuador last night.

 

Which leads to the question, why did the British authorities only arrive at the embassy 2+ hours after the incident took place?

 

One would have thought they could have been there within a few minutes at most.

 

"The Government of Ecuador regrets that, despite the enormous resources that the British government has undertaken to prevent Julian Assange leaving the Ecuadorian embassy, the authorities did not respond more quickly to this extremely serious attempt an unauthorized entry."

OFFICIAL COMUNIQUÉ

 

probably all watching the Olympics Closing Ceremony

[Usernames]

3 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

more covert ops against wikileaks…they are doing gods work here….shining the spotlight on all the dirt the big boys want swept under the carpet.

 

go julian!

 

Remember, wikileaks used to be good.  But now that it's exposing Hillary Clinton and the DNC, it's a terror operation that must close down and its operator taken out and killed.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Usernames

[craigt3365]

4 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

more covert ops against wikileaks…they are doing gods work here….shining the spotlight on all the dirt the big boys want swept under the carpet.

 

go julian!

And destroying the lives of innocent people.  Great work!

[JHolmesJr]

4 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

And destroying the lives of innocent people.  Great work!

 

we have to view wikileaks through the prism of the greater good….boohoo if a gay saudi got rumbled…..he should move to pattaya or maybe hillary will take him in….. 

[halloween]

Americans get rather sensitive about having their dirty little secrets revealed. Don't expect tea and sympathy from an American journalist.

[Chicog]

22 minutes ago, Usernames said:

 

Remember, wikileaks used to be good.  But now that it's exposing Hillary Clinton and the DNC, it's a terror operation that must close down and its operator taken out and killed.

 

Oh don't talk such twaddle.

Bradley Manning got 35 years in stir in 2013.

That didn't involve either Clinton or the DNC.

 

The US wants him because they don't know what else Snowden has got and they want to try and stop Wikileaks releasing it.

 

Although I would think him getting jailed might trigger a little rush of blood to the wikileaks head....

 

[craigt3365]

28 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

 

we have to view wikileaks through the prism of the greater good….boohoo if a gay saudi got rumbled…..he should move to pattaya or maybe hillary will take him in….. 

Easy to say if your not one of the ruined lives.  And what good has really come from wikileaks?  Any changes for the better?

[craigt3365]

27 minutes ago, halloween said:

Americans get rather sensitive about having their dirty little secrets revealed. Don't expect tea and sympathy from an American journalist.

You obviously don't understand Americans.  Our country was founded on freedom of religion and freedom of speech.  But, we value our privacy.  I'm guessing whatever country you come from has dirty little secrets also???

[JHolmesJr]

9 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

Easy to say if your not one of the ruined lives.  And what good has really come from wikileaks?  Any changes for the better?

 

Not when the crooks are still allowed to be in power….but its a step for the better that the world now knows what exactly they get up to…makes it harder for them to maintain the veneer of their false honesty.

[Class C]

15 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

You obviously don't understand Americans.  Our country was founded on freedom of religion and freedom of speech.  But, we value our privacy.  I'm guessing whatever country you come from has dirty little secrets also???

 

If you value your privacy wouldn't it be appropriate to respect the privacy of others.

[craigt3365]

10 hours ago, JHolmesJr said:

 

Not when the crooks are still allowed to be in power….but its a step for the better that the world now knows what exactly they get up to…makes it harder for them to maintain the veneer of their false honesty.

Good point.  Sadly, Wikileaks exposed many secrets that had nothing to do with keeping those in power honest.  Exposing diplomatic cables isn't right.  No country in the world would like to have their classified cables made public.  For good reasons.

[craigt3365]

10 hours ago, Class C said:

 

If you value your privacy wouldn't it be appropriate to respect the privacy of others.

That's what this is all about.  Respecting the privacy of others.  Which Wikileaks didn't do.  Remember, this OP is about releasing private data for individuals.  Not governments or corporations.  Even then, not all government or corporate data should be made public.  From the OP:

Quote

 

"This has nothing to do with politics or corruption," said Dr. Nayef al-Fayez, a consultant in the Jordanian capital of Amman who confirmed that a brain cancer patient of his was among those whose details were published to the web. Dr. Adnan Salhab, a retired practitioner in Jordan who also had a patient named in the files, expressed anger when shown the document.

 

"This is illegal what has happened," he said in a telephone interview. "It is illegal!"

 

 

[Credo]

Wikileaks is little less than a group of data thieves.   They steal large troves of information and then dump them into the public domain.   There is virtually no vetting of information, nor any attempt to use the information in a manner that is constructive.   

 

Because I have written something in an email to someone does not make the statement a fact.   

[Rancid]

One thing the various Departments of Truth really hate is when actual truth comes out, as opposed to their fantasy mass media version. Whistle-blowers in most countries find their lives destroyed, probably why even more don't come out and reveal unpalatable truths about government, bureaucracies and companies.

 

Ironic how quickly the exposed perpetrators wrap themselves in the local flag, more often than not what they have been exposed at was for personal gain rather than national interest. Then the obedient masses are told to call for blood.

[xineohp]

16 hours ago, Kerryd said:

"Assange knows his days are numbered.

Ecuador isn't going to shelter him indefinitely.

He's really hoping that the statue of limitations on the rape charges in Sweden run out...

there is no "secret plot" by the Americans to have him arrested...

If the US had of wanted him they would have had a warrant out for his arrest...

He obviously doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself...

He was a criminal before he started WikiLeaks...

It's one thing to take off a condom during sex...".

 

 

One finds it staggering and intriguing that an individual such as yourself displays such an extensive knowledge of Assange and his personal and sexual habits.  You apparently also have a vast and inside knowledge of US foreign and justice policy.  May I suggest your talents are wasted on social media.........  

 

For those who possess English only as a second language the aforesaid is sarcasm.      

[craigt3365]

44 minutes ago, Rancid said:

One thing the various Departments of Truth really hate is when actual truth comes out, as opposed to their fantasy mass media version. Whistle-blowers in most countries find their lives destroyed, probably why even more don't come out and reveal unpalatable truths about government, bureaucracies and companies.

 

Ironic how quickly the exposed perpetrators wrap themselves in the local flag, more often than not what they have been exposed at was for personal gain rather than national interest. Then the obedient masses are told to call for blood.

The topic of this post is the exposure of people's private data.  And how it's hurt them.  You're missing the point.  This isn't about governments.

[HerbalEd]

21 hours ago, Kerryd said:

Assange knows his days are numbered. Ecuador isn't going to shelter him indefinitely. He's really hoping that the statue of limitations on the rape charges in Sweden run out before the everyone clues in to the rather obvious fact that there is no "secret plot" by the Americans to have him arrested and deported to the US. He made that whole crap story up to avoid facing the charges in Sweden.

If the US had of wanted him they would have had a warrant out for his arrest and could have requested extradition from the UK back when he was first being held in British jail (while waiting for an extradition hearing on those same rape charges). As well, the US could have asked Ecuador to extradite him to the US many times over the last few years, but hasn't (and yes, it would have made the news in big bold headlines).

 

He obviously doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself, as evidenced by these latest leaks. He was a criminal before he started WikiLeaks, and he has (allegedly) twice committed what Sweden considers to be rape. Too think that all he had to do to avoid those rape charges was submit to an HIV/AIDs test and it would have all gone away. Unless of course he knew he was HIV positive and that is the real reason why he's trying to avoid being sent to Sweden.

It's one thing to take off a condom during sex without telling your partner (who had demanded that a condom be used), or agreeing to only have protected sex and then waiting until she's asleep before having a go at her without protection (both of which can be considered rape under Swedish law). Doing so while knowing you are HIV positive takes it up a rather large notch. 

Just to be clear and accurate. There is no rape charge against Assange in Sweden, or any other place. He's wanted for questioning, but he has been "charged" with nothing.

[dick dasterdly]

5 hours ago, craigt3365 said:

The topic of this post is the exposure of people's private data.  And how it's hurt them.  You're missing the point.  This isn't about governments.

Good point, but I need to be convinced that Wikileaks can be bothered to expose information about ordinary people - and I assume private information about influential people is only released if there's serious hypocrisy involved?

 

Julian Assange and Wikileaks were a force for good, revealing the misinformation fed (or not revealed at all) to the public by the authorities and media.

 

Govts. etc. took this v badly, which is why Assange has had to take refuge in the Eduadorian Embassy for years - even though the initial rape allegations were withdrawn and reduced to possible charges that hold no ground in the UK.  Not to mention that Swedish lawyers/prosecutors could have interviewed him at any time in the Ecuador Embassy - but instead preferred to not bother, whilst still insisting that its an important case....

 

The behaviour of both the Brit. and Swedish authorities is appalling.  Its quite possible that Assange too behaved badly (refused to wear a condom etc.), but even if true - its been taken WAY too far to be a simple misconduct offence.

[craigt3365]

22 minutes ago, dick dasterdly said:

Good point, but I need to be convinced that Wikileaks can be bothered to expose information about ordinary people - and I assume private information about influential people is only released if there's serious hypocrisy involved?

 

Julian Assange and Wikileaks were a force for good, revealing the misinformation fed (or not revealed at all) to the public by the authorities and media.

 

Govts. etc. took this v badly, which is why Assange has had to take refuge in the Eduadorian Embassy for years - even though the initial rape allegations were withdrawn and reduced to possible charges that hold no ground in the UK.  Not to mention that Swedish lawyers/prosecutors could have interviewed him at any time in the Ecuador Embassy - but instead preferred to not bother, whilst still insisting that its an important case....

 

The behaviour of both the Brit. and Swedish authorities is appalling.  Its quite possible that Assange too behaved badly (refused to wear a condom etc.), but even if true - its been taken WAY too far to be a simple misconduct offence.

That's the topic of this OP.  Wikileaks release of people's private info.  Hardly influential people.  Even if so, everybody has a right to privacy.  As far as a force for the good, yes, there are some things wikileaks has done that's good.  But some are not so good. 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdogan-emails_b_11158792.html

Quote

Hours after this blog was published, national security blogger Michael Best, who uploaded Turkish citizens’ personal information databases that WikiLeaks promoted, came forward to say that doing so was a mistake after the site where he uploaded the information took it down. The files were removed due to privacy concerns, according to Best. WikiLeaks has not taken down its social media links to the now dead link. This update is continued under the article below.

..........

However, WikiLeaks also posted links on social media to its millions of followers via multiple channels to a set of leaked massive databases containing sensitive and private information of millions of ordinary people, including a special database of almost all adult women in Turkey.

I'm starting to debate whether this site is a force for the good....how'd you like your wife's private info put online?

[dick dasterdly]

Can you give me a link to where this private info. has been published on Wikileaks?

 

At the moment all I'm reading is an article that someone says he uploaded Turkish citizens private, personal information (presumably ordinary citizens?) to Wikileaks - who then published it?

 

None of this makes any sense to me if we're talking about ordinary Turkish people.  Why on earth would someone send it to Wikileaks, and why on earth would Wikileaks publish it?

[craigt3365]

1 hour ago, dick dasterdly said:

Can you give me a link to where this private info. has been published on Wikileaks?

 

At the moment all I'm reading is an article that someone says he uploaded Turkish citizens private, personal information (presumably ordinary citizens?) to Wikileaks - who then published it?

 

None of this makes any sense to me if we're talking about ordinary Turkish people.  Why on earth would someone send it to Wikileaks, and why on earth would Wikileaks publish it?

Google is your friend.  It's up there.  Just need to look.  And get educated.