Wikileaks

[time]

US tries to find charges to lay against Wikileaks founder

I'm still not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand I had serious reservations about releasing information that could compromise international relations etc, but on the other hand I'm kind of happy that the veil is being lifted on some of the rampant fascism in the world today.

I guess that means it's not a black and white issue - who woulda thunk it?

Assange has probably attracted way too much publicity to be quietly eliminated, so for the last few months the push has been on to find something to charge him with. Does anyone else have a problem with the concept of the US government trawling law books because it doesn't happen to like what this guy's doing? That's not law enforcement as I understand it.

In any case, he's not a US citizen and the 'crime' - whatever they may decide it is - was not committed by him on US soil. I realize it may come as a shock to some people in government (and the judiciary), but the US does not have jurisdiction over the other 5.7 billion people on the planet.

Whatever happens, Julian Assange has guaranteed his place in the history books. Rightly or wrongly, people will be taught about his exploits for decades.

 

[Mercutio]

I really don't think that the things Assange is doing are going to be good for his health. It might not happen immediately, but I don't think these stunts are compatible with a peaceful, long life.

I really do think Wikileaks is doing something valuable. In the past it has hosted not just government documents but corporate information of the sort that generally is not revealed to the public.

The fact is that governments claim to be operating in the best interests of their citizens, but here, to a certain degree, we're allowed to see how the sausage is made. It's not pretty and some of it really does run counter to public rhetoric. Of course, we all assume that's how things are, but there's a difference between assuming and actually seeing evidence.

 

[Bozo]

Some of the stuff he is releasing could put troops and US citizens abroad at great risk.
His ego trip should not endanger peoples lives.

 

[Mercutio]

I don't think it's an ego trip, Bozo. I think he's legitimately striving to create some greater transparency in the way that these enormous organizations that control our lives actually work.

 

[ddrueding]

I would release this info in a heartbeat, same with the past releases. Many governments lied to those they are supposed to represent about many things. That is more important than affects on the policy they were trying to implement while lying. I don't believe that these docs put significant numbers of people at significant risk, other than embarrassment.

 

[Handruin]

I'm really surprised the Department of Homeland security hasn't seized their domain name yet. This seems like a perfect solution for the government to slow them down.

 

[ddrueding]

I think Wikileaks shot that one down first by releasing all the docs to the press in multiple countries well in advance. I would imagine they have a few other domain names on standby as well.

 

[Mercutio]

Supposedly they have some kind of secret stash of devastating information they'll pull out if the US messes with their site in any serious fashion.

Assange isn't the only Wikileaks admin. He's primarily the public face of the group.

 

[timwhit]

I have yet to hear any report of anyone being killed as a result of previous leaks. I think that's just fear mongering at this point.

 

[Bozo]

I have yet to hear any report of anyone being killed as a result of previous leaks. I think that's just fear mongering at this point.

I hope you're right. But what we don't need is to piss off some extreamist group when they read what we had planned for them.

 

[Howell]

Diplomatic secrecy is indeed a double edged sword. With so many of the world's cultures having "saving face" as a diplomatic hurdle it no wonder we don't broadcast everything we do all the time.

 

[BingBangBop]

I'm sorry to disagree but I think what he is doing is terribly irresponsible. It is important to know what govt's and the military are doing in general but the details kill people, and create an environment of distrust preventing diplomacy from working. There really needs to be a built in time delay between an event and its details being released to the public. How long that time delay is situational but it is definitely longer than what is currently happening. Also, all documents still need to be redacted to eliminate the releasing of the names of currently active agents.

When you release hundreds of thousands of recent documents at one time it is inevitable that unacceptable details will be released even with the best of intentions and I don't believe that such intentions are occurring.

 

[Stereodude]

I'm more fascinated at how a single person in the Army was able to get their hands on all this data because it was pretty much just sitting out in the open on some servers that way too many people had access too and he had a CD-RW. :bstd:

 

[Stereodude]

I'm really surprised the Department of Homeland security hasn't seized their domain name yet. This seems like a perfect solution for the government to slow them down.

That's because the The Department of Security Theater is more interested in doing the bidding of Hollywood and the music industry than they are in trying to protect the "Homeland". If Wikileaks had leaked some music instead of state secrets the site would be shut down, have lost all their hosting and the domain, and he'd be in court with stacks of lawsuits.

 

[ddrueding]

When you release hundreds of thousands of recent documents at one time it is inevitable that unacceptable details will be released even with the best of intentions and I don't believe that such intentions are occurring.

The highest any of these docs was rated was secret, with the bulk being merely confidential. In government, people's shopping lists are confidential. If there was an active agent's name in there, someone really messed up.

 

[Gilbo]

I'm sorry to disagree but I think what he is doing is terribly irresponsible. It is important to know what govt's and the military are doing in general but the details kill people, and create an environment of distrust preventing diplomacy from working.

I don't think telling the truth can create "an environment of distrust.". That's self-contradictory by definition.

As for endangering the lives of a few informants, there's a case to be made that revealing this information will save far more lives than it harms. If it helps reign in rampant US militarism, it will save thousands of lives in the US and amongst its allies, not to mention hundreds of thousands throughout the world.


The US government frequently justifies privacy invading security measures with the "if you've got nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about" rhetoric. The irony of the present situation is physically palpable.

 

[Gilbo]

Also American conservatives have already emphatically demonstrated their belief that revealing in-field, operating intelligence agents publically is legally, and morally acceptable.

Sorry about the politics. I don't want to get into it too much but the hypocrisy, and outright insanity being spouted in the American media about this journalist is quite frankly absolutely comical. (I would like to expressly note that I don't feel that way about any of the comments posted here. Just saw a fake journalist on CNN interview a fake expert and ask questions a 10 year would have thought were weak...)

 

[Stereodude]

Spare me the Valerie Plame BS.

Although it is funny how the people outraged by the supposed outing of Ms. Plame are the ones publishing the Wikileak info. The same people who were given the information early and said it was their journalistic duty to publish it.

 

[BingBangBop]

I don't think telling the truth can create "an environment of distrust.". That's self-contradictory by definition.

There are lots of situations where telling the truth creates distrust. The classic one I can think of is trying to negotiate a diplomatic solution while at the same time supporting their enemies or doing something else hidden that is not liked by the party. Govt's rarely just depend upon diplomacy to solve a problem, there are almost always multiple irons in the fire. Find out what those other irons are and diplomacy rarely will have a chance because of the distrust that will be created. However, depending just on the diplomatic solution is a bad plan because that just plain doesn't always work.

 

[Stereodude]

C'mon, we all know the gov't has no business trying to deceive anyone. Spying is bad. Counterintelligence is bad. Misinformation is bad. Everything should be done out in the open. :bstd:

Frankly, I can't believe some of the clueless comments. There are actual bad guys and in the world and you won't defeat them by doing everything out in the open with 100% honestly.

 

[ddrueding]

Frankly, I can't believe some of the clueless comments. There are actual bad guys and in the world and you won't defeat them by doing everything out in the open with 100% honestly.

The number of "bad guys" out there is much, much smaller than those in power would have you believe, though their actions are creating more enemies daily. Their scare tactics are what allow them to make us sacrifice our freedoms and grant them even more power.

 

[BingBangBop]

The number of "bad guys" out there is much, much smaller than those in power would have you believe, though their actions are creating more enemies daily. Their scare tactics are what allow them to make us sacrifice our freedoms and grant them even more power.

Sorry, but the number of "bad guy's" are really related to a POV definition. If you look at the US POV then anyone with different POV and thereby agenda than us is a bad GUY. By that measure, almost everyone is a bad guy the only ones that aren't are puppets.

It gets only gets smaller when you take into account the tools and tactics that those groups use to accomplish their agenda. There is a whole spectrum of tools and as you go down the list they get worse and worse as those tools become more and more non-politically correct according to our POV.

Who's the bad guy?

When we supply weapons to Israel or when Iran supplies weapons to the Palestine?

Is Iran a bad guy just because they are trying to build nuclear weapons (They are not a signatory to the nuclear non proliferation treaty) or are all the other nations that have already built them?

Is North Korea a bad guy for selling missile tech to their friends or are we when we sell it to ours?

The international stage is filled with such hypocrisy. Good guy vs. bad guy is all POV

 

[ddrueding]

Sure, trying to identify everyone that might be described as "bad" is tricky. Here is my list of requirements before any kind of action is taken.

1. Wants to do harm to innocent others
2. Wants it badly enough to follow through
2. Has the means to do it
3. Said harm would be more significant than the collateral damage of trying to stop it

This narrows the group substantially. Even more so if we would stop killing people; regardless of what that person did, they have friends and family that we just moved to requirement 3, making the problem exponentially worse.

Edit: Of course, you could go on about how "innocent" is also part of the POV, but there is certainly a more clear understanding of "innocent" than "good".

 

[BingBangBop]

1. Wants to tax the poor and give tax credits to the rich (To grow the economy).
2. The congress has done it before and will do it again.
3. Can make the law and uses the IRS to enforce it.
4. More hungry children and families, more homeless, more working poor vs. some less rich people, annoyed political contributers, and some politicians that don't get re-elected (You can judge the greater harm)

Is Congress bad?

 

[ddrueding]

Sorry, too tired to play at the moment. More tomorrow.

 

[Stereodude]

1. Wants to tax the poor and give tax credits to the rich (To grow the economy).

That would explain why the bottom 40+% of wage earners don't pay federal income taxes and the top 5% of wage earners pay >60% of all federal income taxes right?

 

[Stereodude]

The number of "bad guys" out there is much, much smaller than those in power would have you believe, though their actions are creating more enemies daily. Their scare tactics are what allow them to make us sacrifice our freedoms and grant them even more power.

But you've already conceded my point. You agree that there are at least some bad guys out there so the number of them is irrelevant.

 

[Stereodude]

When we supply weapons to Israel or when Iran supplies weapons to the Palestine?

I love the willing suspension of disbelief some people live under. Yes, of course... Clearly Israel and it's Arab neighbor states who have attacked it at least 6 times are on equal footing. Israel is constantly making threats to wipe it's neighbors off the map. Israel is constantly blaming everything on it's neighbors. Yes definitely on equal footing and it's definitely all a matter of perspective. :erm:

I'll wait for your post explaining how Japan and Germany weren't bad actors in WWII and the events leading up to it as well and how that's all perspective, and how the people who died in the World Trade Center & the Pentagon on Sept. 11 2001 are equivalent to the 19 terrorists who worked together to fly planes into buildings and it's likewise just a matter of perspective on who's good and who's bad.

 

[BingBangBop]

I love the willing suspension of disbelief some people live under. Yes, of course... Clearly Israel and it's Arab neighbor states who have attacked it at least 6 times are on equal footing. Israel is constantly making threats to wipe it's neighbors off the map. Israel is constantly blaming everything on it's neighbors. Yes definitely on equal footing and it's definitely all a matter of perspective. :erm:

I'll wait for your post explaining how Japan and Germany weren't bad actors in WWII and the events leading up to it as well and how that's all perspective, and how the people who died in the World Trade Center & the Pentagon on Sept. 11 2001 are equivalent to the 19 terrorists who worked together to fly planes into buildings and it's likewise just a matter of perspective on who's good and who's bad.

I wouldn't dream of attempting of rationalizing the deaths there. Bad actions are clearly bad actions. That's not my point. Rather, I would merely point out some of the comparable stuff we've done and then labeled it as goodness and light to show the hypocrisy and the POV of it all.

It is like all the stuff the Christian religious zealots have done throughout history in the name of God. They rationalize it (like the crusades, or the burning of wiches, the inquisition, etc.) away as stuff done long ago. But the truth is that it is just below the surface, even today. Take the IRA bombings in Ireland, as an example. Is that really all that different than Muslim zelots bombing us?

 

[ddrueding]

But you've already conceded my point. You agree that there are at least some bad guys out there so the number of them is irrelevant.

Wait, what? No. Fuck the bad guys. Let them to whatever they want. On 9/11 it was still safer to fly than drive. Terrorists have never done enough damage to justify all the damage our government has done to us.

 

[Gilbo]

C'mon, we all know the gov't has no business trying to deceive anyone. Spying is bad. Counterintelligence is bad. Misinformation is bad. Everything should be done out in the open. :bstd:

Frankly, I can't believe some of the clueless comments. There are actual bad guys and in the world and you won't defeat them by doing everything out in the open with 100% honestly.

The vast majority of the bad guys are in your own government. Government attracts and tolerates: 1) incompetent people, 2) corrupt people. This is not a new thing. It was that way in the French Monarchy, in the Roman Empire, in Ancient Egypt, and in Babylon.

Right now police kill more innocent people in your country than terrorists do. Your government secures you against the most minimal threat you've ever faced and fails to secure you against disease, and your property against acts of God, or environmental disaster.

The vast majority of people, on this planet who are harmed, have their property harmed, or their loved ones harmed, experience this harm at the hands of their own government. It has been that way as long as history has been recorded.



Most Americans don't understand this, because you aren't taught even the basic essentials about your own government, how it works, why it is the way it is, and what it arose in response to.

Let me give you the coles notes version:
1) The goal of your founding fathers was to provide SECURITY for themselves, and their brethren, including their property. (Property rights were recognized as important for reasons I'm not going to go into, but they relate to security and the stability of society. Basically people who have shit, are less likely to do stupid shit because they have more to lose. If they can lose their stuff arbitrarily and capriciously, they are also more likely to do crazy shit.)

2) The greatest threat to the security of an individual is the government and its agents. Your forefathers experienced this at the hands of the British. Every culture with a history has endured this lesson repeatedly. REPEATEDLY.

3) To protect themselves from their newly founded government, your founding fathers designed it to be RESPONSIBLE. A responsible government is a more secure government, because abuses, while unpreventable, will be discontinued, eventually (so long as the government continues to be responsible).

4) The means they used to ensure responsibility was DEMOCRACY. Democracy was not an end, it was a consequence of the search for security via a responsible government. It was a simple, if not ideal solution to a hard problem. Security forces will eventually be corrupted. Systems of justice will be subverted. But, in the end, it can only get so crappy and dirty and corrupt if the final power rests, diffused, throughout the entire populace. Things should be fixable without revolution.

5) Governments avoid being responsible by keeping SECRETS. The responsibility breaks down, and the security of yourself and your property will break not long after...


Julian Assange has done a little to enable the POSSIBILITY FOR RESPONSIBILITY. He is one of the only American Freedom fighters left. A shame you're all so far gone you don't appreciate it.

Freedom IS security. Self-determination IS safety.

Transparency offers the opportunity for responsibility, and secrecy condones intellectual whorishness.


I'll leave you with a nice editorial on the morality of those in the media condemning Julian Assange.

 

[ddrueding]

Great post Gilbo. I now await the brief "oh yeah?" response.

 

[flagreen]

Great post Gilbo. I now await the brief "oh yeah?" response.

Oh yeah? Well my Dad can beat up your Dad! So there.

 

[mubs]

Great post Gilbo. I now await the brief "oh yeah?" response.

:rofl:

 

[ddrueding]

Oh yeah? Well my Dad can beat up your Dad! So there.

Thanks flagreen, that was a long wait

 

[Stereodude]

Gilbo, your rant is highly misplaced...

Leaking a bunch of stuff that belongs on the gossip pages or in tabloids is a waste of time. Do those "cables" need to be kept secret? Probably not. Do I need to know what the morons in the state department think of other world leaders? Nope. Does a bunch of leaked cables make the gov't more accountable? Absolutely not.

How about leaking useful information like where all the money the Federal Reserve printed went? We got some of that information yesterday, but there's still 800+ billion they're not revealing.

My point, that you totally missed, is there is a need for secrets within gov't. Do you think that if Wikileaks got their hands on schematics / forumulas to make nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons they should publish them? I sure don't. Why, because there are bad people who would use that information to kill innocent people. And, spare me the idea that "bad guys" is just a matter of perspective. A gun in the hands of a cop is not the same as as a gun in the hands of a criminal.

 

[flagreen]

Gilbo, your rant is highly misplaced...

Leaking a bunch of stuff that belongs on the gossip pages or in tabloids is a waste of time. Do those "cables" need to be kept secret? Probably not. Do I need to know what the morons in the state department think of other world leaders? Nope. Does a bunch of leaked cables make the gov't more accountable? Absolutely not.

I agree with you S-dude. Making interdepartmental correspondence public is not how one conducts a nation's diplomacy. In fact diplomacy is conducted between nations, not between employees of the State department. State department employees need to be frank and honest as to their beliefs, feelings and opinions with each other if they are to be efficient and effective in their work. And they cannot be any of those things if they must practice diplomacy among themselves. You should not have to read between the lines to know what your supervisor wants you to do, or what your co-workers are trying to say.

 

[ddrueding]

Heard an interesting one today, though I don't buy it.

That the leaks were intentional by the govt, in order to get the message across to Iran that nobody likes them, and that they better straighten up and fly right.

 

[Stereodude]

Heard an interesting one today, though I don't buy it.

That the leaks were intentional by the govt, in order to get the message across to Iran that nobody likes them, and that they better straighten up and fly right.

I don't know... It would be slightly plausible. That seems absolutely beyond any shadow of a doubt stupid enough to be the brainchild of the sorts of idiot who work in gov't. Like somehow a pile of leaked "cables" are going to make an impact on Iran. :bstd:

 

[ddrueding]

I think it was more about what Iran's neighbors had to say in those cables, letting Iran realize it is far more lonely than it thought.