WiKi

[Terry]

By Colin Barr, Fortune senior writerNovember 30, 2010: 1:03 PM ET


NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- WikiLeaks' founder claims he has the goods that could take down a big U.S. bank. But there's little sign anyone believes him.

Julian Assange, the founder of the site that has gained notoriety by publishing secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents, said in an interview this week that the next WikiLeaks target is a major bank.

he didn't say which one, specifying only that it is "a big U.S. bank." Assange also didn't say just what sort of information he has that would be so damaging.

With Wall Street already up to its ears in scandal, market watchers reacted with a shrug.

"We already know the banks are grossly incompetent, can't manage risk and would be dead without taxpayer support," said Barry Ritholtz, a Wall Street money manager who rails on the bankers at his Big Picture blog. "What are we going to find in these leaks -- that free checking isn't really free?"

Like it or not, we shall soon find out. Assange said in an interview with Forbes that he plans to release "either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents" early next year.

The release, Assange said, will reveal "unethical behavior." He said he would stop short of calling the depicted actions criminal.

Assange said he seeks to provoke a full-scale investigation of the banks, along the lines of the probes that followed the collapse of energy trader Enron nine years ago.

"It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume," he said.

Wall Street, which is already the subject of numerous investigations and has a potentially massive problem in the form of rising scrutiny of its mishandling of mortgage documentation, did not exactly shudder at the news.

Stocks in the biggest U.S. financial firms, ranging from Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) to Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) and Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500), dropped 1% 2% in midday action Tuesday, on a day when stocks were generally lower and the European banking crisis was adding to worries about U.S. financials.

The biggest risk seems to stem from the prospect of another public black eye, along the lines of the hearings that Sen. Carl Levin, D., Mich., held in April.

It was at those hearings that Levin repeatedly questioned Goldman bankers about internal e-mails referring to a "sh---y deal" the firm had pushed on its clients.


But there's reason to doubt that documents showing more unethical behavior will have any effect, let alone bring down a bank.

The administration, after all, spent much of its first year in office trying to reassure the public and the markets that no big U.S. lenders would be allowed to fail.

That is why Congress pressured accounting standard setters to ease a rule governing how banks recognize losses, and why the administration carried through with the bank stress tests that allowed banks to cheaply raise more capital.

"Anyone who follows the banking industry knows these guys are essentially insolvent," said Ritholtz. "So we're not going to get surprised there."

The banks have paid the country back by shrinking their loan books in eight of the past nine quarters, while paying their top executives in a fashion that is, if it's possible, even more irresponsible than before the 2008 meltdown.

So what about the weapon Assange has used with some results in the military and diplomatic leaks, the acute embarrassment of the subjects? That doesn't seem likely to change the game for the banks.

It hasn't been a problem, for instance, through three years of revelations about banks pushing toxic derivatives on unsophisticated municipal treasurers and foreclosing on the wrong people.

"I'm not saying he doesn't have anything, but you have to wonder what else could really be exposed at this point," says Peter Cohan, a management consultant and author who teaches business strategy at Babson College. "I just wonder at what point people will tire of giving this guy all this free publicity."

8 million people burn their credit cards.  Good for them  ::D:

[Palehorse]

A mammoth cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the last three years, provides an unprecedented look at bargaining by embassies, candid views of foreign leaders and assessments of threats. The material was obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations in advance.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/statessecrets.html

The stupidity of this latest action undertaken by the WikiLeaks leadership group is ponderous!

I've just spent the hour and a half reading some of the "cables" the NYT chose to publish, and even with their own selected redactions I find them deeply disturbing and unacceptable! Publishing of this information is exposing the diplomatic employees of this country to unnecessary risk and danger, and is inflicting potential damage to US diplomacy that will far exceed the damage achieved by former POTUS Bush!

I cannot believe that a lowly intelligence employee would have access to such information, or be capable of exploiting a weakness in the software or system the USG uses to gather and store this information. There has to be a much larger maggot skulking around in the trash heap, and s/he and/or they must be identified and the leak remediated before anything more can be exposed.

I cannot help but be suspicious of the fact that there may be an effort underway to use these types of leaks as a means to discredit the current administration and its diplomatic initiatives.

Of particular note, some of you ought to read the following "cable" surrounding the security contingent of  Libyan Leader Muammar al-Qadhafi:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/28/world/20101128-cables-viewer.html?hp#report/cables-09TRIPOLI771

After reading it you really need to understand a few things; 1) Just what it takes surrounding the protection of a head of state when traveling out of the country, 2) Just how eccentric is al-Qadafi and is the world really ever going to be safe with an individual like this at the helm? 3) The level of information gathered surrounding such individuals in the world is now going to be severely impaired due to incidents like this one. Are you happy about it?

I am not questioning whether or not these initiatives are undertaken as a means to damage America, but rather to what end?

It is no state secret that the current administration is, and has made, international diplomacy a high priority. American diplomats are performing the work that they are expected to do in order to help repair the damages inflicted upon the reputation of this nation by the previous administrations penchant for heavy handed acts of attrition. To open the channels of diplomacy and to utilize the levers presented as a means toward achievement of diplomatic solutions for the worlds challenges, (of which there are presently a plethora of), is a centerpiece for the new initiatives of the nations policy on international diplomacy. To that end, President Obama and Sec of State Hillary Clinton have achieved great strides in rebuilding international relationships with our Global neighbors. Such things cannot be achieved without the type of confidential communications these individuals at wikileaks have made public.

The question then becomes who is supplying wikileaks with this access to said information and why?

When I take a big picture view of this whole thing, it becomes very challenging not to suspect that the insurgency initiatives being undertaken by political leadership toward the current administration, have sunk to an all time historic low!

Surely these individuals, whomever they are, would not put the national security of this nation at very high risk, as well as the lives of the individuals and families of this nations diplomatic corp at risk, in order to discredit the current administration!  :spooked: Sadly, I have very little hope that this is NOT the case! It has become that bad. . .  :spooked:

Due to this latest batch of wikileaks document releases, I now expect that many countries around the globe will begin initiating severe restrictions upon our diplomatic corp personnel, expulsions may very well take place, and in some cases perhaps even incarceration and execution as spies! Each one of us knows all too well the capability of some foreign leadership to utilize such an incident to inflict further pain upon this nation. (And by proxy upon the present administration).

Anyone who chooses to take these secret, confidential, and "eyes only" communications and utilize them as a tool with which to beat the current administration down, is clearly delusional and suffering from tunnel vision.  But they'll try I have no doubt. . .

(CNN) -- Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks' disclosure of a trove of classified U.S. documents, the Justice Department said Monday as the release of hundreds of thousands of papers left diplomats worldwide scrambling to respond.
"It is not saber-rattling," Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters in response to a question. "To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law, they will be held responsible."
Holder's announcement came as the Office of Management and Budget ordered federal agencies that handle classified information to establish a "security assessment team" to review their handling of procedures to keep classified information from improper disclosure.
The teams, to be composed of counterintelligence, security and information assurance experts, are to evaluate each agency's handling of classified information "to ensure that users do not have broader access than is necessary to do their jobs effectively, as well as implementation of restrictions on usage of, and removable media capabilities from, classified government computer networks."
U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is a prime suspect in previous leaks. Before October's release of information on Iraq, Manning was being held in Quantico, Virginia, charged with leaking video of an Iraq airstrike to WikiLeaks as well as removing classified information from military computers.
Among the initial revelations in the papers are allegations that:
-- Saudi King Abdullah urged the United States to attack Iran to halt its nuclear program, warning that if Tehran were to go nuclear, other countries in the region would, too.
-- The United States keeps bombers ready to strike al Qaeda targets in Yemen if "actionable intelligence becomes available."
WikiLeaks: Public has 'right to know' Ahmadinejad: Leaked info not valuable New leaks in 'public's interest' What is WikiLeaks?
-- The U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe predicted in July 2007 that President Robert Mugabe would soon be out of power, saying, "The End is Nigh." Mugabe remains president, although he is now in a power-sharing agreement with the former opposition.
The leaked papers also include what seems to be an order from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to American diplomats to engage in intelligence-gathering.
In the order, Clinton directs her envoys at embassies around the world to collect information ranging from basic biographical data on diplomats to their frequent flyer and credit card numbers, and even "biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats."
Typical biometric information can include fingerprints, signatures and iris recognition data.
The cable, signed 'CLINTON,' is classified S/NF -- or "Secret/No Foreign" -- and was sent to 33 U.S. embassies and the U.N. mission offices in New York, Vienna and Rome.
"Is it a natural part of diplomatic activity to have diplomats collecting biometric data?" WikiLeaks spokesman Hrafnsson asked Monday, calling it "a contravention of how diplomats are supposed to conduct business."
The State Department denied that its diplomats were spies.
"Contrary to some Wikileaks' reporting, our diplomats are diplomats. They are not intelligence assets," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Twitter.
He downplayed the cable's significance by writing in a separate tweet: "Diplomats collect information that shapes our policies and actions. Diplomats for all nations do the same thing."
At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice would neither confirm not deny the authenticity of the cable. "I'm not going to get into commenting on classified material or alleged classified material," she said.
Hrafnsson denied that Sunday's release of papers harms United States security.
"I don't believe anything in these cables are national security concerns," he said.
"If we are talking about strained relations or embarrassment, that does not fall into national security concerns," he said with a shrug.
"Secret" is not the highest level of classification, Hrafnsson pointed out. WikiLeaks has no top-secret documents, he said, adding that more than half are unclassified.
The British Foreign Office on Monday condemned the release of any classified documents.
"They can damage national security, are not in the national interest and, as the U.S. [has] said, may put lives at risk," the office said in a statement.
A spokesman for Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari weighed in with a statement about documents mentioning Zardari and Saudi King Abdullah, saying the "so-called leaks are no more than an attempt to create misperceptions between two important and brotherly Muslim countries."
The office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai downplayed the significance of the revelations.
"The things that have been said about President Karzai are not new. They've been alleged in the media in the past, and we are not surprised," a spokesman for Karzai said.
The New York Times and four European newspapers that had received the documents in advance began publishing excerpts Sunday.
Many of them detail conversations on sensitive issues between American officials and leaders in the Middle East, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Topics in the documents include pressure from U.S. allies in the Middle East for decisive action to neutralize Iran's nuclear program, conversations about military action against al Qaeda militants in Yemen, and Washington's efforts to have highly enriched uranium removed from a Pakistani research reactor.
"The cables show the U.S. spying on its allies and the U.N.; turning a blind eye to corruption and human-rights abuse in 'client states'; backroom deals with supposedly neutral countries; and lobbying for U.S. corporations," the site's editor-in-chief and spokesman, Julian Assange, said Sunday in a statement.
"I was surprised at [the] extent of the spying," WikiLeaks' Kristinn Hrafnsson said.
Over the coming weeks or months, WikiLeaks will release 251,288 cables written by U.S. diplomats between 1966 and February 2010, Hrafnsson said.
The secrets-busting website, which began publishing the trove of confidential U.S. government papers on Sunday, didn't expect the papers to reveal as much espionage as they apparently do, a spokesman said Monday.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/11/29/wikileaks/index.html?hpt=T1

[Palehorse]

(CNN) -- Interpol, at the request of a Swedish court looking into alleged sex crimes from earlier this year, has put WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on its most-wanted list.
The Stockholm Criminal Court two weeks ago issued an international arrest warrant for Assange on probable cause, saying he is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force in August incidents.
Sweden asked Interpol, the international police organization, to post a "Red Notice" after a judge approved a motion to bring him into custody.
The "Red Notice" is not an international arrest warrant. It an advisory and request, issued to 188 member countries "to assist the national police forces in identifying or locating those persons with a view to their arrest and extradition," according to Interpol.
The Swedish court ordered Assange, 39, formally arrested in his absence, which requires Swedish authorities anywhere in the world to detain Assange if they come across him. Sweden's director of prosecutions, Marianne Ny, had requested the arrest-in-absence.
"The background is that he has to be heard in this investigation and we haven't been able to get a hold of him to question him," Ny said at the time.
Assange faces five counts that appear related to two incidents, according to the request Ny filed with the court.. . .

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/11/30/sweden.interpol.assange/index.html?hpt=T1

Now there's a surprise! NOT! 

[Terry]

Now that's hard to believe, 'i' always heard that in Sweden anything goes as far as sex; that's why 'i've always wanted to go there  ::D:

[Terry]

10 Things I Wish WikiLeaks Would Release
Each morning, the world is greeted with new, fascinating, and potentially very dangerous disclosures on the WikiLeaks website. Abuzz with the possibility of what might be next and whose names might be exposed, politicos and plebeians alike are hooked.

You might be pondering the legitimacy of the organization. But I'm curious about something else. What about all the stuff that really needs to be leaked that we're never going to hear about?

I've gathered a few stories from various walks of life whose mysteries continue to befuddle me. If WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange got a hold of these cables, I'd most certainly support their dissemination.

Wouldn't it be nice if we knew the answers to:

1. The Lehman Brothers/Bear Stearns story
Why did the government save one of these investment banking icons and let the other fail? In one case, the government essentially threw its hands up and said it was unable and unwilling to step in and stop a bank from failing. In the other, roughly six months before, the U.S. government proved it could do a hell of a lot to stop a bank from failing, as it helped arrange Bear Stearns' sale to JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM). What exactly was the thinking, and why were our elected officials playing favorites here?

2. Lance Armstrong and steroids
Without a doubt, Lance Armstrong is a phenomenal athlete, and winning the Tour de France as he did seven consecutive times is simply remarkable. However, if the use of performance-enhancing drugs is as widespread as it appears to be in cycling, then how could he possibly be as successful as he was without them? It seems that just about every other cyclist was using the drugs, and yet his tests were clean. Did he use them? If so, why was he so much better at beating the tests than everyone else?

3. The other Madoffs
So far, only three people have pleaded guilty for the largest theft in American history. Only one of them (Bernard) appears to have actually started serving his sentence. I refuse to believe that Madoff's wife and sons, as well as numerous others close to him (some of whom are, indeed, being very slowly implicated in the fraud) didn't know about this criminal entity long before they "turned him in." Who else knew, and why aren't they in jail right now?

4. The mysterious disappearance of Crystal Pepsi
Crystal Pepsi was a pretty awesome idea that came in with as much thunder as it disappeared with anonymity. The drink didn't sell badly -- in fact, it did quite well. People generally liked it. Why did execs at PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) can it so quickly?

5. 'Rogue' trader Jerome Kerviel
Kerviel managed to lose a whopping $7 billion of Societe Generale's money in a matter of days in 2008. Management at the company claims the guy went rogue. Kerviel claims that management knew of his behind-the-scenes activities and was OK with it since he was making tons of money doing it. Given the lax amount of oversight typically aimed at profitable individuals at banks of all kinds, I actually kinda believe the guy. What really happened here?

6. Our continued dependence on foreign oil
I'm not really against the use of oil as an energy source. I am, however, absolutely against the empowerment of all sorts of unsavory individuals and nations as a result of our continued dependence on the stuff. Given the abundance of legitimate and increasingly economic alternatives, why haven't we made a lot more progress toward owning our own energy future?

7. The epic collapse of AOL
I can't think of another business that went from being so incredibly important to so incredibly irrelevant as quickly as AOL did. The company could have easily written its own ticket with just one or two savvy decisions back in the day. Pride, arrogance, myopia, and stupidity are just some of the words that I would use to describe this company's decision making. Why, AOL, why?

8. Mars and Steven Spielberg
If a budding star director with a few massive hits already under his belt eagerly asks if he can prominently feature your product in his new film, it's probably something you should green-light. Unfortunately, candymaker Mars said "no" to putting M&Ms in the 1982 blockbuster ET, and so Spielberg instead hit up Hershey's (NYSE: HSY) to use its Reese's Pieces. Sales of the peanut-butter delight subsequently exploded. Man, I would love to be a fly on the wall in that meeting. Mars, please explain to me how that was not a no-brainer?

9. The embarrassing lack of college football playoffs
When the president of the United States declares on national television that he is fed up with your system, it's time to consider a change. Yet, the BCS is still alive and well with its perverse and notorious calculus. A playoff system is looooong overdue. NCAA, what the hell are you thinking?

10. The Steve Jobs dismissal
Of all the business-related mysteries that confuse me, this one is pretty much the most confusing. The guy's personality is not all that endearing, but Steve Jobs is undoubtedly one of the most visionary and accomplished individuals in American corporate history. Even before Jobs invented the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPod, how could Apple's board (Nasdaq: AAPL) allow John Sculley to oust the guy? Why would you ever voluntarily get rid of your top talent?

So, there you have it -- 10 stories that I wish would be explained via WikiLeaks. Incidentally, we're just days away from a massive bundle of damning materials involving a major American bank, supposedly either Bank of America or Citigroup. No doubt it will be fascinating to see where that takes us. But what are yours? What mysteries of the world do you hope would be explained?
Com'on Paul 'U' ausy, tell "US" about these things!