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Dear Wikileaks: Leak the Bank Records NOW, Or Forever Hold Your Peace
Wikileaks head Julian Assange told
Forbes that the next leak will be regarding a major American bank. He
said that Wikileaks plans to release the documents early next year.
Assange told Computer World in October 2009:
"At
the moment, for example, we are sitting on 5GB from Bank of America,
one of the executive's hard drives," he said. "Now how do we present
that? It's a difficult problem. We could just dump it all into one giant
Zip file, but we know for a fact that has limited impact. To have
impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get
something out of it."
Indeed, speculation that the leak could be about Bank of America is going viral, being reported by CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, Huffington Post and elsewhere.
As Joe Weisenthal writes today: "Bank Of America Selling Accelerates, As Fears Spread That It's In The Wikileaks Crosshairs".
(Bank of America is the largest U.S. bank.)
But the Department of Justice has launched a criminal probe of Wiklileaks, Assange may face espionage charges, representative Peter King is asking that Wikileaks be designated a foreign terrorist organization like Al Qaeda, some have called for Assange's assassination (and see this), and Wikileaks' website is under attack by hackers. And Interpol has issued an arrest warrant for Assange on rape charges.
Unless
Wikileaks quickly moves up the release of the bank documents, it may be
shut down before it has the chance to organize them so that they are
easy to search.
Wikileaks could, of course, leak the raw documents now "into
one giant Zip file", and then - if it is still able to do so - leak the
organized version later.
Admittedly, if Wikileaks is really a "clever Psyops front", then the bank release might just be about unsavory - but perfectly legal - shenanigans. As John Young - the founder of long-time whistleblower website Cryptome - said recently:
“The
principal deficiency of Wikileaks is its lack of transparency about
its operators and funds, characteristics of spies and secret societies
up to no good and whose main purpose is to hide from public
accountability and conceal corruption and criminality.
Such
organizations always use a noble purpose and claim secrecy is needed
to protect supporters. In practice the secrecy protects the principal
beneficiaries, the operators and sources of funds, and supporters are
sacrificed to protect the continuation of the enterprise.
Wikileaks
has followed the lucrative model of the cult of national security, the
largest world’s secret enterprise, composed of selected elements of
governments, military, intelligence, NGOs, contractors, lobbyists and
supporters, identified by their clearance for access to classified
information.
But
the proof will be in the pudding ... if Wikileaks reveals information
showing criminal fraud by Bank of America, then they are heroes. If
not, they are something else.
»
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Thats right Wikileaks, dont say in 2 months youre going to break something, do it now!
i got no way to know, but my imagination informs me of some reasons that might validate julian assange's timing prerogatives
1) he may feel he needs more time to verify the source of the data
2) like a tabloid, he only commands so much attention in the media space. he may feel that important documents shouldn't all be dumped asap as their importance may be drowned out, and his timing is strategic for maximum impact of disclosure
3) he is under attack from many quarters (not only govt but even supposedly allied sites like zero hedge) and has to devote a lot of energy to counter measures
4) he has an agreement with the source not to release the info until later so that the whistleblower has the time to organise their affairs and bunker down
5) he has personal experiences that inform him that he is a legitimate assassination target, and that while he is courageous he is not totally stupid and wants to go about his business in a manner that will mitigate the jepoardy to his person
sheesh, you guys are so quick to teaer down a guy who fulfills such a very similar role to zero hedge
A seemingly obvious reponse is that Mr. Assange was under no requirement to divulge that he possessed information to be released in two months. All concerns, dotting of i's, crossing of t's could have been done in total obscurity. That said, since it has been divulged, I believe Wikileaks is best served releasing the information sooner rather than later. Otherwise, it may be interpreted as limelight seeking. The swifter the "truth" is revealed, the sooner it may be intelligently vetted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OriR9ctoUI (about :18 seconds in)
Who cares about BofA? Didn't their ex-CEO Lewis already settled with SEC?
Unless they have dirt on the squid or FRBNY/The Fed it's 2008-tiemframe news.
Last I heard is Cuomo wanted his head and Lewis threatened to drag in Paulson and Bernanke. That was the last I heard of it. Cuomo is not dumb, he certainly did not want those two on the stand.
Lewis may not be as connected as some of the other big boys, but he knows where plenty of bodies are buried.
Congratulations american tax payers, soon you'll be owners of another shitty bank... Bankowning biTchEz!
Hey man, we own cars, banks, insurance companies, hotels, and lots of other non-performing real estate. We own treasuries too! I am sure that taxpayers around the world have a piece of the action. It is one big cluster BEEP!
++ no shit. Get it on.
This should affect Monsanto's stock, since BlackRock, I believe, still owns the controlling block in Monsanto, and BofA -- through Merrill Lynch -- owns the controlling block of BlackRock?
Anyway, I hope to see the demise of BofA, few others (GS, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Blackstone Group, KKR, TPG, Carlyle Group, Citadel Asset Management) are more deserving.....