How Wikileaks Keeps Its 100% Accuracy Record 92


When I resigned as Ambassador to blow the whistle on UK/US complicity in torture and extraordinary rendition, I had a number of official documents I wished to leak to prove my story. They were offered to WikiLeaks through two friends, Andrew and Jonathan. WikiLeaks declined to publish them because they could not 100% verify them.

Their reasons were firstly that they were suspicious of me and whether I was a plant; British ambassadors are not given to resigning on principle. Secondly a few of the copies were my own original drafts of diplomatic communications I had sent, not the document as it printed out at the other end.

That is how scrupulous they are. I can vouch for the fact that their record for 100% accuracy is no fluke, it is safeguarded by extreme caution and careful checking.

In the end we launched the documents through mass blogger action on the web, on hundreds of independent sites simultaneously. You can still see them all for example on William Bowles excellent blog, and they are worth a read, even a decade on. I think over that decade I persuaded WikiLeaks I am genuine too!


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92 thoughts on “How Wikileaks Keeps Its 100% Accuracy Record

    • Njegos

      This sounds like one of those pathetic parrot squawks from the “I Hate Putin” zombies.

      • Martinned

        If, after 2016, you still don’t see that Wikileaks has become a Kremlin propaganda tool, I really don’t know what to tell you.

        (And if you think it’s OK for the Russians to influence American elections in this way, I also really don’t know what to tell you.)

        • Njegos

          Enough rubbish. Explain in precise detail how the Russians influenced the elections. I want hard evidence, eg. vote tampering, bribery, voter suppression etc. Get cracking.

          • Habbabkuk

            Who are you to demand anything? Start answering legitimate question put to you by others first.

          • George

            Habbabkuk: “Who are you to demand anything? Start answering legitimate question put to you by others first.”

            Classic reversal of the burden of proof. This burden lies with those who made the original claim (i.e. Russian interference of American election). And still we wait.

        • James Forrestal

          So which item, or items, published by Wikileaks are you claiming is false? Or are you admittng the truth of everything that they have published, and just blabbering because your feelings were hurt in some way?

  • writerman

    Which is why the media’s actions on this Trump nonsense is so outrageous and shameful. This marks a new low point for the Guardian too. The Trump campaing reminds me of the way Assange was treated, only it’s been cubed. I’m really pessimistic. I think we seemed to have lurched into a kind of totalitarian/liberal dictatorship that allows no dissent in the mainstream media, only a token. Trump seems to be our last and best hope of avoiding conflict with Russia, which means war. Only Russia isn’t Iraq, Syria, or Libya. I’ve got relations in Russia and they are all, and everyone they know is in agreement, are facing war, an attack from the Americans and Nato. People are prepared psychologically for war. Those with military connections are even more convinced. The moral of the military is incredibly high, as they believe they have a sacred duty to defend the motherland from attack from the west once more. They are being re-equiped with new weapons at an incredibly rate and new motorized guards regiments organized, trained and perpared. If Trump is toppled or crushed, this’ll be interpreted by most Russians as a clear sign that the west wants and is getting ready to attack Russia, which means that everyone moves towards a ‘hair-trigger’ response and stance, and when one is talking about a country with Russia’s history and a couple of thousand nuclear warheads, is incredibly dangerous. So, let’s hope Trump survives.

    • Jo

      Re the Guardian, from Polly today we have: “Trump revealed his presidential dream to me in 1988. Now the nightmare begins.” And from Andrei Soldatov we have: “The leaked Trump-Russia dossier rings frighteningly true.”

    • Njegos

      Writerman –

      This is why I was relieved at the defeat of Horrible Hillary. People are scared of what Trump might do but there is nothing more frightening than a warmongering politician who is incapable or learning from her (others’) errors. Hillary’s solution to every knotty foreign policy problem was more threats, more sanctions, more bombs, more intervention. I reckon we barely dodged catastrophe on Election Night last November but the next 4 years will be the mother of all battles to prevent the New Cold Warriors from reasserting full influence. As you say, there are a lot of knives out for Trump already. The establishment wants revenge but if successful, we could be pushed over the edge into the nuclear abyss.

    • K Crosby

      In the 1980s, I heard that Bela Lugosi was undead but now I see that Luke Harding is too.

  • Courtenay Barnett

    Craig,

    So – having stuck your neck out this far for so long – what next do you think that the establishment has in store for you and/or your family?
    Or – is retaliation not the way they work?

    Courtenay

  • John Goss

    I can’t think of any media outlet with such an outstanding record. Most cock-up from time to time, even the good alternative outlets. MSm cocks-up every day.

    We should all show our gratitude to Wikileaks. We should all show our gratitude Julian Assange and all the other whistleblowers who have often put their personal liberties at risk to give us the truth we otherwise would be unlikely to know.

  • Zebedee

    “In the end we launched the documents through mass blogger action on the web,”

    Didn’t “WE” do well, but nowadays Craig deletes one’s comment because they might upset the newcomers, oh,,,such as Habba, and RoS, and the other eminences???

    • Zebeddee

      And not a hint of nasty Scottish Nationalism back then; just brothers and sisters fighting against the imperial war machine; oh how we were deceived.

    • Habbabkuk

      Zebedee

      I take considerable exception to you describing me as a member of the Egregiousness of Eminences.

      The “Eminences” are (most of) the score or so of regular “commenters” who sing vociferously and on an almost gaily basis from broadly the same songsheet (West and US bad, everyone else good, etc) on a select number of themes. Membership of the “Egregiousness of Eminences varies over time – some fall out of sight, others lose their status by virtue of having redeemed themselves by rediscovering rationality and common sense, candidate members get promoted to full membership, new ones appear out of nowhere – and the list I once had the honour of submitting for the edification of new readers is therefore in some need of updating.

      I and a small number of other posters who allow themselves to disagree with various spoutings of the Eminences – we must limit ourselves to the most egregiousness and tiresome of these, for they are legion) – represent, in the eyes of the Egregiousness, the fascist-racist-secret services- establishment- globalist- Zi***st -Bilderberger -Rothschild -freemason- evil Tendency (the description may vary, depending sans doute on what the accusing Eminences has had for breakfast).

      Hope that helps and welcome to the blog.

          • George

            Since you are assuming that descriptions must vary with breakfasts, I was musing on how a dithyramb as entertaining as the one you penned must surely be the product of a substantial morning feast ā€“ a full English no doubt. Certainly not one of those meagre continental efforts.

  • Sharp Ears

    There is spam on your Twitter Craig unless you are advertising Dr Oetker cake toppings and some film actors.

  • lwtc247

    That is how scrupulous they _Were_.
    No guarantee the ‘extreme caution’ they showed to you was consistent or that it is in operation today.

    • bevin

      Do you have any evidence that they are any less careful today?
      Or that their treatment of Craig’s documents was unusually scrupulous?

      • lwtc247

        “Do you have any evidence that they are any less careful today?” – No; Do you have any evidence that they are?
        It’s Craig who suggests enhanced caution (my words not his) because of diplomatic status.

  • Anon1

    The desperate media attempts to discredit Trump have reached fever pitch. They are making it up as they go along now. As each fake news story is discredited, they invent a new one. It is quite wonderful to watch the liberal media thrashing about in its death throes.

    • fred

      But Trump chose post truth politics. He chose the right to stand there and say things that just weren’t true in his campaign. He chose to cast doubt on the validity of the election process, say Obama wasn’t born in America, he would send Hillary Clinton to jail, build a wall, evict millions of immigrants…

      He chose the rules he wanted to play by so he can’t complain now when he gets some of his own medicine.

          • Njegos

            So the POTUS engages in post-truth politics makes it ok for the media to engage in post-evidence journalism. Is that what you are saying? I thought the media was supposed to “speak truth to power”, not to wage rumour campaigns or applaud any old trash spouted by washed-up proven liars like James Clapper.

          • fred

            The media just reports. When Trump engaged in his post truth politics it was the media that reported what he said. If an ex British diplomat or the CIA or a democrat engages in post truth politics the media reports it.

          • Njegos

            Except you and I both know that the media doesn’t “just report”. It sets agendas and right now it is busy promoting “intelligence” gossip (ie. totally unsubstantiated allegations against Trump) than investigating the very real scandal of Israel embassy officials actually subverting a western democracy (ie. Shai Masot and the UK).

            That is why everyone is losing respect for the MSM. It is crap.

          • fred

            But people only complain when the media is saying what they don’t want to hear and post truth politics works because people are happy to believe what they want to believe whether it’s true or not. People are happy to live in a fantasy world so long as it’s a fantasy they like.

            The Alt Right weren’t complaining when the media reported what Trump said, they only complain then the media reports something they don’t want to hear.

          • Njegos

            I am not a spokesman for the Alt Right or any other group. I merely point out that the media is destroying its credibility all on its very own by giving prominence and credence to allegations of Russian subversion while almost completely ignoring documented Israeli subversion. How one blames that sort of post-evidence hypocrisy on Trump is beyond me.

          • Njegos

            No. He said nothing about Russian subversion which remains totally unproved. He only referred to Russian hacking. However, Israeli subversion of UK democracy has been filmed and documented.

          • Njegos

            Yes, the Israeli subversion appeared briefly in a few papers and then totally vanished from sight whereas the media bangs on endlessly about unproven Russian subversion. Kind of gives the game away, doesn’t it?

          • Njegos

            Feel free to prove me wrong. Who is carrying the Israeli subversion story right now? Why is no one pursuing it aside from al Jazeera?

          • fred

            Everyone seems to be talking about the weather right now. Papers print what people want to read that’s how they sell papers. What you find important other people don’t.

          • Njegos

            Type “Shai Masot” and “BBC”. Last news was 5 days ago.

            Then try “New York Times”. Last news was 4 days ago. Same with the Washington Post.

            It is already a dead story. Ah, our trusted Western media………

          • Njegos

            “What you find important other people don’t”.

            But hang on – “subversion of democracy” is on every major media outlet’s lips yet they nearly all lose interest when the Israelis are caught subverting democracy.

            How do you square that circle?

          • fred

            Yes, most people just aren’t all that interested in it. Nothing has changed since then, nothing new to report, no developments. If the papers just print the same thing every day nobody reads them, nobody pays for old news.

          • Njegos

            You have no way of knowing what “most people are interested in”. The media are arch-manipulators who are perfectly capable of generating interest in a story. It all depends how one frames the issue. In any event, we know for sure that the Western media have no interest in the extent of the very real Israel subversion of democracy because they are completely ignoring the story. The unanswered question is why do they choose to ignore it.

            Good evening to you.

          • Habbabkuk

            This mini-discussion is like Schoolmen arguing.

            The only thing anyone needs to say in response to puzzled cries of anguish like this:

            “It is already a dead story. Ah, our trusted Western mediaā€¦ā€¦ā€¦”

            is:

            “That’s because it was and is a storm in a teacup”.

            ________________

            Curious also the sudden concern of Njegos for the Western democracy whose existence he usually denies šŸ™‚

          • Njegos

            Please don’t take this the wrong way Blabblahkuk but I have never considered you to be anything but a highly uninteresting troll which is why I never respond to your childish provocations. Good day to you.

          • Habbabkuk

            Apologies for doubting that you believed in the existence of Western democracy, Njegos.

            As for you not usually responding, well…..I really don’t care to be honest.

            The aim is to make the sensible reader pause for thought for a brief moment when he/she reads your spoutings and the spoutings of others like you. Your feelings about that are as uninteresting as they are superfluous.

      • Loony

        So Trump chose post truth politics and said things that weren’t true.

        He cast doubt on the validity of the election process. Indeed he did, along with pretty much everyone else, some of whom are still casting doubt on an almost daily basis. I seem to recall that in a land far away from the US some are casting doubt on the validity of the Scottish independence referendum.

        I have no idea where Obama was born and neither, I suspect, have you

        Trump opined on sending Clinton to jail. What is post truth about that? There is ample evidence to suggest that she has a case to answer. Any ordinary Joe implicated in as many crimes as her would certainly be facing the courts.

        Trump said he will build a wall. Well he is still saying it. This is a policy goal – there is nothing post truth about setting out policies.

        Trump said he would evict (sic) millions of immigrants. He actually said he would deport potentially millions of illegal immigrants. Note the key word illegal. An unfortunate omission for a post dealing with “post truth politics”

        • lysias

          I have no doubt Obama was really born in the State of Hawaii. Birtherism was a distraction, used to divert attention from the real truth about Obama: that he was a creation of the CIA, and to discredit those who brought that real truth up.

  • writerman

    Trump isn’t a politician. He’s primarily a businessman and a tv star. Unlike normal politicians who’ve been trained for decades to lie with style and convincingly, Trump makes glaring mistakes. Obama and Clinton are both lawyers and incredibly skilled liars. Obama especially. He manages to use empty cliches with such gravitas that it’s almost commical. His incredible conceit and arrogance. And the liberals and leftists swallow his lies without question. Obama is an amazing and frightening creation, a piece of political fiction made flesh. In reality he is the exact opposite of his iconic public image, the exact opposite of everything he appears to be, and this hoax would have been impossible without the media selling Obama so effectively. But it broke down after eight wasted years, eight years of pretty speeches and close to no real action to improve the lives of tens of milions of ordinary Americans, especially, and this is both tragic and ironic, the awful state of Black America under Obama, where things have actually gone backwards and Black share of national wealth has actually fallen and the wealth gap has grown. Amazing, under a Black president they are poorer and even more of them are banged up in prison system than ever before.

    • bevin

      And not just in Black America, things have got worse for all working class (formerly known as middle class) Americans.
      As to the ‘post truth ‘ idea is it being suggested, not by you but by Fred, that before Trump politicians all told the truth? In fact Trump was no more given to lying than his democratic opponent who admitted in one of those secret speeches to Goldman Sachs, that what she said in public and what she intended to do were two very different things. Does anyone imagine, for example, that she would not have accepted the TPP and the TTIP if Congress had passed them?
      Then there were the incredible shakedowns by the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State, the unconvincing excuses for the private email server and the lost 30,000 emails.
      the great thing about Trump is that he has got the Democratic leadership talking about opposing which is amazing after 25 years of going along with anything the Pentagon or the banks wanted. They are even talking of Resistance!!

      • lysias

        U.S. life expectancy went down last year, 2016. It went down markedly for white Americans without college degrees. Main causes: drug addiction, alcohol, suicide.

  • RobG

    More from Hobo Ahle, and the attempt to normalise homelessness and complete lack of healthcare.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKhf_XarJmE

    This is all CIA rollocks.

    How people swallow this crap is beyond belief (everyone who’s homeless is, by nature, political, but ‘Hobo Ahle’ is completely apolitical and just loves living in her vehicle).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fI7zm7RXHs

    This has everything to do with Mr Assange, who has been MIA since last October.

    What to believe..?

      • RobG

        After being incommunicado for months, why would Assange give two interviews to a complete rat like Hannity?

        It was purely for the American audience.

        I will repeat again what Wikileaks released in the run-up to last November’s presidential election…

        http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/

        This isn’t ‘fake news’ ;it’s all verified as being authentic.

        The Wikileaks releases of the Podesta e-mails stopped in early October (just weeks before the presidential election). There was supposed to be a Wikileaks third release that never happened. This was at the same time that Assange’s internet was cut off, and all sorts of other weird things took place.

        You really don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what’s going on here.

        • Itsy

          I don’t know why he would give interviews to Hannity. But it seems he did. Otherwise, where did that video of an interview come from and what is it?

          “You really donā€™t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out whatā€™s going on here.”

          Well I’m a bit thick and very slow. So please do tell. I’ll go and get a cup of coffee.

        • Old Mark

          You really donā€™t need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out whatā€™s going on here.

          Yes Rob – Assange’s internet access was cut off contemporaneously with the release of the Podesta emails probably as a signal from the Equadoreans that they were disgruntled over actions by Assange’s organisation that had the effect of improving Trump’s presidential hopes and damaging Hillary’s hopes. Trump’s promise to build a wall on the border, and deport around 2 million illegals who’ve committed other offences while in the US, would affect Equadorean migrants as much as those from any other country. Assange’s Equadorean hosts are almost certainly more disappointed with the US election outcome that Assange is himself.

          • Itsy

            RobG has run away, has he? or, at least, he’s avoiding this page tonight. I’ll check the next post, on Tristram Hunt, to see if he’s made an appearance there.

    • K Crosby

      Thanks for that; how could Pauline Nevill-Jones get such a cushy job for being nearly as thick as Wark? Oh, I’ve answered my own question. ;o))

  • xAnonx

    The hate campaign against Trump is a mix of paranoia, racism red-scare and pure fakery on behalf of so called journalists, I am amazed that the MSM could question why some people no longer trust them, hubris much?

    • fred

      Trump is a Republican, I am against Republicanism. Trump is a Capitalist, I oppose Capitalism. Trump is a Globalist I oppose Globalism. Trump is a Zionist and I oppose Zionism, Trump is a racist I oppose racism. Trump is a sexist I oppose sexism. Trump is a global warming denier and I believe the world needs to do more to combat global warming.

      There are some who will forget their principles and support an arsehole I’m not one of them.

      • Njegos

        The usual totally meaningless remark.

        Meanwhile isn’t it interesting how it never crossed the minds of our MSM bloodhounds that the “intelligence” against Trump could be a Ukrainian false flag operation. Remember the case of the sordid PropOrNot website? They labelled some of the best alternative news websites as Kremlin mouthpieces yet admitted that their own staff included “Ukrainian-Americans”.

  • Arthur Lepic

    Okay Craig, good point for defending Wikileaks, but does it mean that WE (Voltaire Network), who got in touch with you, met you personally (hmm.. a pub in London? Rings you a bell?), invited you to a prestigious – albeit not covered by MSM – conference in Brussels where many reliable whistleblowers met, and THEN published your Uzbek papers, are not reliable?

    OK, I was just wearing the devil’s hat for a second, but the logic implied here is somehow intriguing.

    Anyway, again I support you for your great work and courage. Hope we meet again sometimes!

  • Jeff Kaye

    While I agree 99% with what you write about Wikileaks, the Deep State attacks on Trump, the perfidy ofmthenUs and U.K. governments on torture and war in general, your comment that Wikileaks is 100% accurate is not correct. That doesn’t mean they are bad, just capable of error like anyone else. In general they do a superlative job. The one place they messed up was on their analysis and presentation of their Oct. 2012 “Detainee Policies” release. The job was hurried and poorly vetted and analyzed. I wrote up an analysis of the release back at the time, the only person to actually do that and really look at what was released. See https://shadowproof.com/2013/02/25/serious-questions-about-wikileaks-release-of-purported-guantanamo-sop/

    I wrote: “Sadly ā€“ since a good deal of reporters, myself included, have come to rely on the accuracy of what Wikileaks has posted over the years ā€“ an examination of the Camp Delta 2002 SOP raises serious reasons as to whether it is a reliable document. At best it is a very corrupted draft of an authentic document. At worst, it is a sloppy forgery.

    “In addition, there are further questions about other documents released as part of ā€œThe Detainee Policies,ā€ as well questions as to whether Wikileaks personnel understood the material they were releasing. In the past, Wikileaks has used the resources of major media like the New York Times, the UK Guardian, El Pais, etc., and independent authoritative analysts, like Andy Worthington, for outside analytic assistance.

    “Wikileaks has been under significant economic and legal pressure from the US government and its corporate and other governmental allies, and it is no secret that the organization operates under serious constraints as a result. According to the organization, ‘An extrajudicial blockade imposed by VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Bank of America, and Western Union that is designed to destroy WikiLeaks has been in place since December 2010.’

    “Whatever Wikileaks has accomplished in other document releases and analysis, the failure to accurately report or vet the ā€œDetainee Policiesā€ documents, by either Wikileaks or the world press and blogging community, calls into dire question the accuracy of a good deal of what passes for reporting by media outlets and commentators.”

    What was wrong with the release? A bit of that for interested readers:

    “The ‘2002’ Camp Delta SOP does not look like other DoD documents of this type. It has no markings regarding its classification status, for instance. The formatting is often erratic, with whole paragraphs published with centered rather than justified or left aligned text. There is a good deal of missing, mispaginated, and misordered text. A number of pages begin with text that does not follow logically from the preceding page.

    “Thereā€™s no doubt we are not looking at the SOP itself, even if we were to grant it was a genuine document. The Wikileaks document is not presented in the discrete pages of an actual document, but as a long running text document, as if from a word processor, with headings within the text indicating what page number out of 48 supposed pages a given block of text represents.

    “In addition, the page headers do not appear at the top or bottom of actual pages, but are interspersed within the text. The text itself does not go beyond ‘Page 47 of 48.’ The Wikileaks description of the document itself at the home page for the ā€œDetention Poliiciesā€ states that the document has 33 pages.”

    Bottom line, and my reason for posting this. There is every reason to support Julian Assange and Wikileaks, but seltting up an overly idealized view, esp one that comes at the price of historical truth, is it helpful to
    the cause. There is nothing wrong in saying Wikileaks has a near perfect record of accuracy that compares very favorably with – and much better than – that of the legacy press. Truth is your friend. Hyperbole is not.

    • äŗŗč€…ä»ä¹Ÿ

      Does delusional paranoia constitute a potentially fatal health risk? I certainly hope not, or this blog might be deprived of many valuable contributors.

      The link above leads to an article which describes Rich as a “possible Wikileaks source” before claiming categorically he “was a key component of the leaks revealing damaging information about Crooked Hillary and the Democratic party.” These two statements are contradictory in their level of certainty.

      • George

        The discrepancy may be due to the obviously risky matter of being a source for WikiLeaks. You would therefore expect Assange to be wary about alluding to his sources. Of course internet blogs can afford to be as reckless as they want.

        • äŗŗč€…ä»ä¹Ÿ

          I actually very much liked MJ’s response to the exact same statement I made on “Speaking Engagements.”

          My response is predicated on the assumption that “source” and “key component of the leaks” are synonymous, which they obviously are not. I do not believe the author of the article linked above has any specific intel to verify their claim, but my objection to what I previously viewed as contradictory statements has already been sufficiently repudiated.

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