WikiLeaks Hits A New Low, Starts Bullying Journalists

By
Darrell Lucus
-
Joy-Ann Reid with her staff (image from AM Joy's Facebook)
Joy-Ann Reid with her staff (image from AM Joy’s Facebook)

I haven’t thought too highly of WikiLeaks since learning that it found it acceptable to release unredacted Social Security numbers. Well, Julian Assange and friends have yet another strike against them. Seems that Assange wasn’t too keen on journalists probing the apparent links between WikiLeaks and the Kremlin.

On Saturday night, MSNBC weekend morning host Joy-Ann Reid tweeted that she planned to take a long, hard look at the ties between Assange, Moscow, and Donald Trump.

Two hours later, WikiLeaks fired off a chilling reply to Reid.

When Reid saw this on her phone the following afternoon, she responded with gravitas.

She linked to this stunned tweet from BBC News State Department correspondent Kim Ghattas.

This came before overwhelming technical evidence emerged that the leaked emails came from previous hacks by Russian hackers with close ties to the Kremlin. So on Monday night, she decided to troll WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks is trying to claim that it didn’t get the emails from the Kremlin.

Really, Julian? Care to tell us where they came from, rather than bully journalists who are trying to find out where they came from?

And if you do follow through on your apparent legal threat to Reid, you’re going to have to explain–under oath–why you found it acceptable to release those emails without bothering to redact the personally identifiable information they contained. Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, addresses, phone numbers, passport numbers, the lot.

So WikiLeaks has the guts to threaten journalists, but it doesn’t have the guts to apologize to the innocent people whose identities were endangered by this leak? Yeah, you’re a real man, Julian. You’re no different from Charles C. Johnson, a guy who thinks trying to doxx a woman who claimed to have been gang-raped and asking for help in “taking out” an activist are acts of legitimate journalism.

I’m a subversive by inclination. After all, I once infiltrated a borderline cultish hypercharismatic campus ministry during my days as a student at the University of North Carolina to get hard evidence of how they were deceiving people. I believe in shining the hot lights on injustice as much as anyone. But endangering someone’s privacy for the sake of transparency is wrong. And intimidating journalists who are trying to get to the bottom of your motivations is equally wrong.

So for that reason, I share with Liberal America my response to WikiLeaks on Monday night.

 

Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.

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