Thursday, July 23, 2020

Youtube - Underrated Knowledge hub (part 2)

Youtube - WikiLeaks.org:

In my previous blog, gave what YouTube exposed me to Western Politics, Terrorism & its agenda behind it. Wanted to tell more about topics related to it. This time, a little interesting topic to many. It's about Digital surveillance & Youtube's role in a more sophisticated understanding of how powerful people hide behind technologies to manipulate society to their needs. Youtube has such treasures to understand how this surveillance world works or at least to expose the tip of their iceberg.

Wikileaks, Chelsea Manning aka Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden can be considered as key people to expose the dark secrets of the Western superpowers. My curiosity got triggered when I started to read about Edward Snowden in Indian news media. Also, occasionally WikiLeaks, which was making some controversial mentions on Espionage, Hacking, leaks, and so on. When started to search more about Snowden and Wikileaks, found that they were partners in crime. As usual, YouTube gave broader insight into both these phenomenons who were making news all over the world. Started to browse https://wikileaks.org/ and found many interesting articles. Many were shocking and some were, very strange. Leaking a confidential document can look evil, but the purpose or agenda behind it justifies the leaks altogether.

When I dug a little deeper into Youtube, found a couple of documentaries talking about people behind Wikileaks & how the system works. This brings in the Wikileaks founder Julian Assange & another personality Chelsea Manning into the picture. Whereas Chelsea Manning can be credited for making Wikileaks highly popular. Exposing the top-secret military documents & videos especially war crimes like the killings of unarmed journalists through drone,  Guantanamo Bay files, War logs & other similar files, Manning became the talk of the town for several media outlets. World media started to write seriously about articles questioning USA and Nato roles in those issues. Chelsea manning became a hero for many and reprobate for others. He was more an in Grey side of the issue. As per Law, his action is highly considered a crime - Espianoge. But as per morale, it was seen as a heroic effort in exposing Western nations vested interest in Gulf politics. Youtube highly helped me to understand, how Chelsea manning worked on these files, how he used his profile as an Intelligence/IT analyst for the military to expose the scam, how his action was projected by many around the world. More than reading it as News, watching it in a more detailed video presentation gives a deeper understanding of these issues. Unluckily she got arrested and faced Judiciary procedure for Espionage. Generally, espionage is done based on Loyalty to a rival nation due to several reasons - money, personal gain, or even for a life-threatening situation. But what Manning did solely to expose the SuperPowers, is more morally right but lawfully wrong. Surprisingly, Manning is a TransWoman. Chelsea Manning's original name was Bradley Manning. He was Woman in a Man's body. Later after a couple of suicide attempts, her Gender surgery claim was approved and she was transformed as TransWoman and she also got released from Prison in 2017, after Obama granted her commutation. She has become an Activist now. But his chapter in the US military is an unavoidable one. History will have her in its pages.

Snowden/Assange/Global surveillance:

With my brief view of Wikileaks & Chelsea manning, wanted to brief about  Julian Assange and his history. It's another interesting topic. Primarily Julian was a Hacker by profession. Hacking became an inspiration for Wikileaks.org. It was floated as an open-source activist website. Anyone can contribute to its content, provided you had legit evidence against an issue, you wanted to convey. It can use hackers' data, whistleblowers data, or through any other way. WikiLeaks will review them and upload the most significant ones. Generally, they don't see much bias in their upload, but not all documents are uploaded due to their technical limitation, as it runs on donations more than a well-funded website. Chelsea manning provided them with millions of leaked documents. But only the most critical ones were uploaded. Such is the scenario. Before Chelsea Manning, Wikileaks was providing many leaked cables on their website. They were also acting as sources for many media channels through their secret networks. The people used in their articles never exposed their source.  Youtube has many documentaries on this stuff which was an eye-opener for me. Showed me how a part of journalists work in exposing the biggest scams through such networks and the way these leak cables work.

Post Manning in 2010, Wikileaks became very popular. The founder of Wikileaks became a wanted man. Especially by countries affected by the leaks where at large. The USA is the biggest victim of Wikileaks, so it used its diplomatic power to corner Assange and his network. He was living in Sweden. He faced survival challenges. He was forced out of Sweden through a false rape claim. Post-Edward Snowden issue, which we will discuss soon, he was the target man for many. He faced death threats and his family was also involved in it. But, contrary to the challenges faced by Assange, in 2012 he got help from the Ecuadorian government. He was granted asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Under UN diplomatic law, the British government cannot raid the Ecuadorian embassy without Ecuador's government approval. Julian Assange with this helping hand was safe in the embassy. The embassy provided an Internet connection and limited facility for him to carry his activist duty. Ecuador being a communist nation, found an act of perfect revenge to create a nuisance to Western capitalist superpowers. YouTube Interviews of Assange will give the biggest glimpse of his lifestyle in the embassy, sacrifices he made to keep up his organization alive. The USA and its allies had a thorn in their flesh after Assange survived their onslaught. But after several years of struggle in the Ecuador embassy, in 2019 Western lobby found loopholes to arrest Jullian Assange based on his fake rape claim in Sweden. The twist was, the Ecuadorian government turned against Julian after the regime change in their country.

The above brief history of Assange is all documented as documentaries and interviews on YouTube. Much interesting that anyone who watches the content will get addicted to them. The composure of Julian Assange will inspire us. He is a shy speaker but his speeches will be a game-changer on our perception towards superpowers.

Later on, another game changer arrives in the name of Edward Snowden. Adding more dimension to Wikileaks. Snowden's story is another fairy tale. Still out as a political refugee in Russia, his story of becoming global fame was very interesting. YouTube again opened my eyes to what happened. Was able to watch his detailed interviews and why, what motivated him to expose the voyeurism of the US Government.  Snowden exposed the biggest scandal on its Public by its own government. He was getting the attention of global media like Manning and Assange. The US had a very nasty situation of its own citizens turning against them. Leaving Assange, who is not US citizen, but its ally Australian citizen, the trio became a headache for the Western superpowers. When Chelsea Manning brought the US armed forced out the darker side, Snowden exposed the US corporate giants to shame. Google, Apple & others were trying to distance themselves from Snowden controversy. Snowden became a celebrity when he exposed the unethical network of Government with US corporate giants. Public Internet, Mobile technology was used to spy on its own citizens.

Post 9/11 terrorist attack in the US soil, helped the government to frame a series of policies to enhance National security such that similar attacks never reoccur. But from my POV, the 9/11 attack is more than a Terrorist attack. I think it was allowed to happen solely to benefit a certain section of the political spectrum to strengthen the hands-on Gulf politics and War against their rival nations. For me, their own government compromised their security to allow the attack to progress on its own citizens. Can sound like imagination but several conspiracy theory points that way. Post 9/11 global perception on Rebel organizations against a Government, was tagged as a terrorist group. It gave unlimited power for the USA and its alliance to strike deal with many governments. USA arms sale triggered to its peak, Military bases grew, diplomatic co-operation turned military co-operation. Especially in Gulf countries, this happened. With this going on, 9/11 triggered another scenario of timebomb ticking among its own public network. 9/11 exposed much weakness with the attacks carried by people who were staying in the US for quite some time. This triggering Government to monitor its own public system. This is where Edward Snowden comes into the picture. Post-2001, the USA government has started to monitor its own citizens. Intenet was their primary monitoring domain. With Mobile technology growing more, government agencies started to track the same. The government strikes secret deals with corporates that are holding huge customer data with them. As per Snowden, smartphones are programmed in such a way that the CIA can track anyone, anywhere. He exposed a series of documents via WikiLeaks in 2013. Snowden was part of CIA from 2006, not that his urge to turn as a whistleblower happened only in 2013. Adding a twist to Snowden's history, he tried to expose this voyeur activity of the CIA in 2008. But Obama's political campaign on USA political stand on Gulf turned Snowden's intention away. Even with Obama, USA policy never changed. So, finally, Snowden turned to WikiLeaks. Adding to Obama's term, he faced several internal turbulence in Congress during his two terms as USA president. Obama had the right intention to bring a series of changes into the system on which Congress worked. He wanted Gun control policy, counter Pharma and Health care lobby, also a significant role to downplay American's involvement in  Iraq, Afghanistan. ISIS was giving a big headache to the USA. But he was unable to overcome the corrupt congress through his powers. Lobby turned his allies into enemies. Yes, the USA is the mother of lobbying. Their Internal political system is corrupt as many nations around the world. They threatened his existence as the USA president. YouTube has some documentaries explaining Obama's struggle to survive as a president. Especially his second term was a painful one as to survive he has to make a compromise on his stand in several issues, which he wanted to change. We can understand, why Snowden had that perception on Obama might be the right man he wished for. George Bush Jr and his predecessors did all the wrong things when they served as presidents. Bush vs Oil is another big topic.  Bush gave the nation into Obama's hands with the economic slump, bad reputation in Iraq, and Afghanistan (failure to bring the stable government in those nations, ISIS, Taliban were constantly giving nuisance to them, heavy toll on its soldiers and so on). The USA was in more in the last stage of domination.  Obama being ambitious could never recover from the slump that his ex-presidents left him with. Rubbing salt to the wound,  sadly all the above espionage activities we were discussing happened in his regime. Also, surprisingly, Obama was the one who gave pardon to Chelsea Manning as well. YouTube can help to understand why Obama was trying to be a common man's president rather than a powerful one. But Edward Snowden was not in the same scenario as Chelsea Manning. Obama was under severe pressure to avoid the embarrassment that Snowden brought to his nation. Snowden was turned into a fugitive for the US. He is now a wanted man. He had to seek asylum to avoid arrest. His escape is another interesting story. While the US has several rivals around the globe, Snowden knocked on the door of the USA's biggest & powerful rival - the Russian Federation. Vladimir Putin can be called the Invincible of Russia. A powerful man of Russia helped Snowden gain asylum. At the beginning of asylum, Snowden had limited resources to survive, Putin confidence of Snowden grew as he was committed and never gave up his fight against his home nation. Now Snowden is permanent political refugee, escaping USA hands on his freedom, he survives economically by presenting lectures on technology spying, privacy override, so on. Snowden and Putin have given interviews on how Snowden - Russia's relationship worked. Putin's political sarcasm will be at its best.

Chelsea, Edward, Julian can be legally wrong in their activities. It is highly obvious that they can be punished in any legal system of the world. But on humanitarian grounds, they are saviors and warriors of Peace. They helped to save our privacy, gave more freedom to fight against a powerful system, helped to break the illusion that governments can override its citizens in any form especially in a democratic nation. Wikileaks helped to create people revolution in many countries following a few leaks on their respective governments especially corruption. It created many ripple effects around the world. Adding to this, WikiLeaks and India had many funny instances too. Wikileaks still survives thought Julian was arrested in a controversial situation. His fellow warriors are taking Wikileaks to the next level.

My knowledge I gained from the above points is owed to YouTube. If you are content hungry, YouTube can be the biggest source of inspiration. Books, Media articles too can give you immense perspective on these happenings, but YouTube is easier and effective. You can understand both sides of an event within a short timeline. That's an added advantage of using YouTube.

In coming blogs, would like to talk about David Headley & Mumbai's terrorist attack, LTTE, and more.

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(To be Continued..)

Have given some sample video links as below. Observed few documentaries have been removed from YouTube for unknown reasons. Still managed to find some videos where my learning happens. Please enjoy.


Julian Assange Videos:












Chelsea Manning Videos:









Snowden videos:




Putin and Snowden Interview:







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