US certain that WikiLeaks is part of Putin’s propaganda machine

Assange’s US hate has got the better of him

Remember the days when Wikileaks did decent work and provided a valid channel for whistleblowers? Well it looks like those days have long gone and the outfit has become a tool of Tsar Putin’s propaganda machine.

In the good-old days, Wikileaks actually was impartial and careful. Sure it tended to expose US atrocities but that was because there were more of them.

But now there is mounting evidence that the Russian government is supplying WikiLeaks with hacked emails as part of a plan to game the US election and put an oligarch friendly candidate into the White House.

While the allegations are coming from the Clinton campaign they are also being made by security companies and government officials.

One US official told CNN that the methods of the disclosures suggest Moscow is at least providing the information or is possibly directly responsible for the leaks. US intelligence officials are still investigating the degree of connection between Russia and WikiLeaks but they remain confident that Russia is behind the leaks themselves.

The Director of National Intelligence, which represents 19 US intelligence agencies including the Department of Homeland Security leveled unambiguous charges against Russia.

Meanwhile Wikileaks, or the Russians have been tipping off the Trump campaign. Roger Stone, a long-time adviser to Republican nominee Donald Trump, clearly had advance knowledge of the recent hack and publication of his emails on WikiLeaks. Of course he denied it.

Trump has called on Moscow to hack into Clinton's computers, downplayed criticism of Putin's authoritarian tendencies, tried to suggest that Russia hasn't hacked US systems and promoted foreign policy positions that jibe more closely with Moscow's than Washington's. He's relied on aides with ties to Russia and most recently, quoted and fake Russian news reports to raise questions about Clinton.

But in accepting the Russian emails, Assange has placed his organisation in a tricky place. Some of the emails are damaging to Clinton and should be looked at, but because the source is Russia, we cannot be certain if the emails are edited, taken out of context or even forged.

We are certain that a hack of the Republican servers would reveal similar emails, and if the Trump campaign server was turned over it would produce some pure comedy gold. Had WikiLeaks provided these, it would be seen as an effective tool for public information and there would have been no complaints.

Yet the fact that Assange has been unable to source this sort of material means that the Russians are not give it to him or would cut off his headline-grabbing Clinton emails gravy train. Assange might not care; he has made it pretty clear that he regards Clinton as responsible for him being locked up in the embassy – something which is his own fault. However, as a long-term policy decision that hamstrings Wikileaks and weakens the information that is presented on the site. It makes him entirely dependent on state run spying operations and propaganda efforts.

The Russians failed last week to deliver the goods on Clinton and had to publish it themselves. The information was pure Putin propaganda. At least Assange had the good sense not to release that. But it is increasingly difficult to tell what is true and what is not on WikiLeaks.

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