RICK AND TIM GOT WIKILEAKS ALL WRONG!

Rick's faculties may be atrophying; or perhaps he is a hell of a selective reader. Being the international journalist that he is renowned for, it baffled me that Rick has not understood Wikileaks and "leaked cables".

RICK WAYNE: "BODY SLAMMED" WIKILEAKS CABLES

On RCI’s News Spin today, Rick and Tim conveniently downplayed the importance of Wikileaks Cables; Rick tried to convince Tim that the Cables are not authentic and should be handled with the highest level of caution. He  said categorically that he will never carry Wikileaks cables and encouraged Timothy to do the same. Was Rick using a scare tactic to dissuade the local press from reporting on the cables? And why? Was his pronouncement a 'calculus' designed to  extend the lease on the life of the King government or was it just a ludicrous aberration?

TIMOTHY POLEON: WILL NOT REPORT STORIES

BBC, CNN, FOX and every other major news corporation in the world gives coverage to Wikileaks stories because they know the information contained therein is authenticated and validated. In the regional press, Wikileaks information is carried in Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad, St. Vincent, etc. Rick’s argument is totally flawed and it looks like he is on mission to keep the Lucians in the dark about the proven “criminality” that circumscribes the King government!

Wikileaks has been a source of embarrassment to governments worldwide especially Britain and USA. The BBC reports that Wikileaks specializes in publishing "classified, censored or otherwise restricted material of political, diplomatic or ethical significance".

JULIAN ASSANGE

 
Earlier this year, Wikileaks released “a global list of infrastructure sites which the US considers critical for its national security interest” and that generated shockwaves through the British national security ministry to the point where national security adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, asked all government departments to review their computer security.

How does Wikileaks access mission-critical information? Mr Assange in a BBC interview explained that Wikileaks uses “advanced cryptographic techniques and legal techniques to protect sources."  He also revealed that Wikileaks provides an avenue to whistle-blowers and journalists who have been censored to get material out to the public. In fact, that may be the major source of Wikileaks information.

Although Mr Assange is a renowned computer hacker, the BBC suggests that a lot of the mission-critical, sensitive information he puts out there is not necessarily derived from hacking but first-hand from whistle-blowers and journalists who are prevented from publishing the material. Those journalists may well include journalists from the major networks like BBC, CNN, FOXNEWS etc.

Contrary to what Rick and Tim may want to believe, Wikileaks does not publish information haphazardly. It has “team of reviewers - volunteers from the mainstream press, journalists and Wikileaks staff – who decides what is published”. 

Hence in their News Spin discourse today, both Tim and Rick got Wikileaks all wrong!