Doin' the Gibney

'There's roughly infinity other reasons.'

Get It Try It

Soon to be found at Urban Dictionary:

Do the Fibney/do the Gibney - follow in the footsteps of former Academy Award winner, currently disgraced documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney and treat people to stale pabulum dictated by superiors without daring to do the real research

A year ago documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney and his crew knew nothing about WikiLeaks. A year later they still know nothing. But they're not letting on in their already lambasted documentary 'We Steal Secrets'.

Start with the title. This is supposed to be a movie about WikiLeaks, yet clever hatchet work results in the title 'We Steal Secrets' - and the justification? It's a quote from a former head of the CIA. What does that have to do with WikiLeaks? Nothing. But it's Gibney's excuse to slip through a dig and get a biscuit and a pat on the head.

John and Deborah at Cryptome have published a revealing exchange with Gibney producer Alexis Bloom. It's easy to see that already a year and a half ago, she was trying to suck up to and mislead the Cryptome duo. In fact, the level of 'suckupishness' can be enough to make a hardy reader gag. John and Deborah play along until Bloom lets one minor but hidden detail slip. After that it's lights out for Bloom.

But Bloom and Gibney continued undaunted. Although denied actual access to Julian Assange (for reasons pretty clearly understood by all by now) they play on the Assange card and follow up by tooting the horn of outed charlatan David Allen Green who's continually attempted to misrepresent the Assange case over protests by, amongst others, noted journalist Glenn Greenwald. Greenwald has repeatedly demanded Green redact his articles and correct the gross misrepresentations and Green simply doesn't respond.

And now we see the same crapola being foisted by Gibney in his documentary.

There's an inevitable conclusion in all such cases. Either Gibney is a tool of the system or he's a congenital idiot.

The truth however may be somewhere in between and be more nuanced.

Neither Gibney nor Bloom are frontline journalists. They're not of the same stuff as the Pilgers and Assanges. They don't risk life and limb to get the truth out. Much like Kate Capshaw's flawed husband, they'll wait first for the dust to settle before coming in to pre-opt history and truth to make a buck.

Whether they're approached and ultimately acquiesce to enquiries and pressures from the powers that be is rather moot. The entire approach stinks of sloppy research and gross cowardice.

Perhaps YouTube commenter SkidRowRadio sums it up best.

WTF is this guy on? the swedish situation is BLATANTLY being manipulated.. ok

1) William Hague's statement about illegal plans to storm embassy
2) 'Secret Grand Jury' held for last 2 years. supenas issued etc
3) abuse of EAW 2003 updates that kill due process
4) Anna Ardin ex anti castro activities & US embassy role
5) Sophia Wilen refuses to sign distorted witness statement, written with Ardin in the room (unprecedented)
6) They only went to compel him to get an STD test

thats just off the top

7) Sweden refusing to interview him in the UK, tho it is entirely legal and has precedent. They give no reason. THEY GIVE NO REASON.

even tho no criminal charges have even been brought, they only seek an interview. they have ignored previous and existing ways to conduct the interview on neutral ground, or even IN SWEDEN, so long as they give assurance they won't send him on to a 3rd nation, but they will not give this assurance. so FUCK YOU ALEX GIBNEY. seriously.

Comments on SkidRowRadio:

1) We don't need Hague's statements about the plans to storm the Ecuadorian embassy. We can rely on the whistleblower inside Hague's office who leaked the story to the media. SkidRowRadio points this out himself in further comments. Keep in mind that storming an embassy effectively and irrevocably undermines diplomatic relations worldwide for all countries. Now let the US claim Assange isn't driving them bat shit insane.

2) Those proceedings are real. Stratfor said the US already had a sealed indictment. The FBI have an ongoing file on Assange last weighed in at 42,135 pages. This for a target they repeatedly insist they're not really interested in.

As with Gibney himself, those who still don't see what's going on are either tools of the system or congenital idiots too.

3) Yes the EAW was abused. Assange was given a Red Notice for questioning but genocide suspect Gadaffi only got the lesser Orange Notice. And why issue one anyway? The plans to do this were known long in advance of the 18 November court hearing. One has to be thicker than a black hole to not see something is up. And why didn't Assange return to Sweden in early October 2010 as planned? Because a kind soul blew another whistle - on Marianne Ny. That she and the vulturous Swedish media were planning an ambush at ABF-huset and wanted Assange cuffed for the photographers waiting there. It was probably this single event - even though there were myriad strong indicators earlier - that made Julian Assange finally grasp the inevitable: 'the Swedes are in on it - they're out to get me, out to get WikiLeaks'.

4) Anna Ardin's activities in Cuba are certainly disquieting but they need not play a part in the story unless there's a convincing suggestion she's part of a plot to get rid of Assange.

5) Yes Sofia didn't sign her statement. Inspector Irmeli Krans instead suggested they abort the interrogation as Sofia had become so distraught when hearing Julian was being hunted on the streets of Stockholm for 'rape'. But she and Ardin were also interrogated again in the beginning of September after Marianne Ny reopened the case. What became of those attempts at interrogation isn't known, as the file sent by Björn Hurtig to Jennifer Robinson some two months later has no record of them.

6) This is blatantly false. It's been suggested many times. The full truth isn't known. But the officer on duty who met the two girls reported that 'initially rape was mentioned'. Whether this was Sofia's claim or whether it was Ardin pushing the right buttons as she's so good at - this isn't known. What is known is that the 'STD' story is the one Ardin fed to Assange's friends by telephone that afternoon - in particular to one journalist who later admitted Ardin was a very good liar.

7) This if nothing else should trigger the sirens and get the lights flashing. And it's not just that they don't do it, and it's not quite that they give no reason. True, 'no reason' is the official line today (again) but back in November 2010 it was Marianne Ny herself who told TIME that it was 'illegal' for her to send someone to the UK to interview Assange. Swedish papers reported on this the following day, but by later that day, all the articles had been scrubbed.

After that it was Carl Bildt who told Jennifer Robinson on Swedish soil that going to the UK was *against the Swedish constitution*. Which is quite the feat, as Sweden doesn't have a constitution. Swedes may often translate their 'grundlag' as 'constitution' to keep conversation simple, but whatever: it's not against any Swedish law. None.

Then it was a representative of Carl Bildt (again) who approached the morning daily SvD with the story of how interviewing Assange in the UK was 'illegal', this after Ecuador had made yet another appeal. An appeal that went completely ignored by Bildt's ministry and Reinfeldt's cabinet.

Enter one 'FigaroPravda' who then emails this Bildt representative to demand the exact legal code section and paragraph that specifically outlaws such procedure.

The Bildt hack writes back to Figaro almost immediately. 'SvD got the title wrong - it's not actually against the law at all - it's just not something we're considering at this time'.

Note that now one has a foreign ministry controlling a domestic judicial process.

But whatever: FigaroPravda's exchange brought things back to square one again. Sweden had now lied - outright lied:

It takes quite a lot of Kool-Aid to not realise it's a question of a clumsy small dog trying to do the bidding of the big dog, feeling a lot of pressure and panic, and getting it wrong every time.

What's really amazing is people swallow the bullshit.

Back to the trial of The Pirate Bay: more clumsy lapdog antics in the same vein. They're falling over themselves to please. For thanks to Cablegate, we now know this was all dictated by the US through their embassy in Stockholm. The entire programme. Point by point. And not just the trial itself - the Keystone Kops approach to confiscating everyone's data in the same data centre (and in some cases never returning any of it). You can almost smell the fear on them - the Swedish authorities are scared shitless of the US.

So no, it's not for 'no reason' that Sweden won't follow conventional law.

And we still haven't touched on how the UK Supreme Court pulled a cranky rabbit out of their collective backsides to argue that a prosecutor is in fact a 'judicial authority', something no one anywhere else will take sitting down.

And in the case of the disgraced Gibney and Bloom, it takes quite a lot of Kool-Aid to not realise they don't care about research, they rely on standard marketing instead of quality, they're in it for the money, and they'll mouth whatever opinions you want if you pay well enough or bark loud enough.

They'll probably be on Fox News by nightfall.

i might have to do a vid.. there's roughly infinity other reasons i could have mentioned. ha
 - SkidRowRadio

See Also
Justice4Assange.com
Assange Defence Fund
WikiLeaks: Support WikiLeaks
The Police Protocol (Translated)
Rixstep: JA/WL (Assange/WikiLeaks)
Rixstep: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed
Radsoft: Assange/WikiLeaks RSS Feed