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Assange was/is no threat to USA. USA just wants to crush him, a foreigner, because he embarrassed USA wonderfully.
I wasn't making a moral judgement about assassinations, just pointing out what types of things can happen for people who are a threat to a nation.
Assange was/is no threat to USA. USA just wants to crush him, a foreigner, because he embarrassed USA wonderfully.
He didn't steel the secrets, he just let them out when they were in his possession. He is as guilty of a person trafficking in stolen goods.
so, you'd be cool throwing journalists in jail for doing the same thing?
Jail can happen too.
Nah he's a hero. This world needs more accountability.
Were you ever in the military?
Some secrets are necessary.
Agreed, but our government tends to claim a lot more things as "secret" that don't need to be, only to protect their image.
if not for the good people of Ecuador, Assange would be rotting in a cell in Guantanamo getting a daily Sausage inserted up his rectum just like private manning. at the US taxpayers expense BTW
the US military will go to great lengths to illegaly jail and torure a guy who put up a few embarrassing links up.
Not that I've seen.
Some things that are seemingly harmless can be a piece to a puzzle that gives away important secrets if enough are put together.
Example please.
Is it illegal?
These secrets were effectively stolen.
Assange then effectively engaged in trafficking these stolen secrets.
Doesn't it depend on your perspective?
If I steel something, and you know it, and help do something with that stolen property... The law holds you accountable too, if you are caught.
Am I right?
How are secrets different than property in a court of law?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...tigation-enemyA US air force systems analyst who expressed support for WikiLeaks and accused leaker Bradley Manning triggered a formal military investigation last year to determine whether she herself had leaked any do ents to the group. Air Force investigative do ents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that the analyst was repeatedly interviewed about her contacts with and support for WikiLeaks - what investigators repeatedly refer to as the "anti-US or anti-military group" - as well as her support for the group's founder, Julian Assange.
The investigation was ultimately closed when they could find no evidence of unauthorized leaking, but what makes these do ents noteworthy is the possible crime cited by military officials as the one they were investigating: namely, "Communicating With the Enemy", under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
That is one of the most serious crimes a person can commit - it carries the penalty of death - and is committed when a person engages in "unauthorized communication, correspondence, or intercourse with the enemy". The military investigation form also requires investigators to identify the "victim" of the crime they are investigating, and here, they designated "society" as the victim:
How could leaking to WikiLeaks possibly cons ute the crime of "communicating with the enemy"? Who exactly is the "enemy"? There are two possible answers to that question, both quite disturbing.
The first possibility is the one suggested by today's Sydney Morning Herald article on these do ents (as well as by WikiLeaks itself): that the US military now formally characterizes WikiLeaks and Assange as an "enemy", the same designation it gives to groups such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban. This would not be the first time such sentiments were expressed by the US military: recall that one of the earliest leaks from the then-largely-unknown group was a secret report prepared back in 2008 by the US Army which, as the New York Times put it, included WikiLeaks on the Pentagon's "list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States". That Army do ent then plotted how to destroy the group.
But it's the second possibility that seems to me to be the far more likely one: namely, that the US government, as part of Obama's unprecedented war on whistleblowers, has now fully embraced the pernicious theory that any leaks of classified information can cons ute the crime of "aiding the enemy" or "communicating with the enemy" by virtue of the fact that, indirectly, "the enemy" will - like everyone else in the world - ultimately learn of what is disclosed.
sameIt seems clear that the US military now deems any leaks of classified information to cons ute the capital offense of "aiding the enemy" or "communicating with the enemy" even if no information is passed directly to the "enemy" and there is no intent to aid or communicate with them. Merely informing the public about classified government activities now cons utes this capital crime because it "indirectly" informs the enemy.
The implications of this theory are as obvious as they are disturbing. If someone can be charged with "aiding" or "communicating with the enemy" by virtue of leaking to WikiLeaks, then why wouldn't that same crime be committed by someone leaking classified information to any outlet: the New York Times, the Guardian, ABC News or anyone else? In other words, does this theory not inevitably and necessarily make all leaking of all classified information - whether to WikiLeaks or any media outlet - a capital offense: treason or a related crime?
sameIt is always worth underscoring that the New York Times has published far more government secrets than WikiLeaks ever has, and more importantly, has published far more sensitive secrets than WikiLeaks has (unlike WikiLeaks, which has never published anything that was designated "Top Secret", the New York Times has repeatedly done so: the Pentagon Papers, the Bush NSA wiretapping program, the SWIFT banking surveillance system, and the cyberwarfare program aimed at Iran were all "Top Secret" when the newspaper revealed them, as was the network of CIA secret prisons exposed by the Washington Post). There is simply no way to convert basic leaks to WikiLeaks into capital offenses - as the Obama administration is plainly doing - without sweeping up all leaks into that attack.
Of course, that outcome would almost certainly be a feature, not a bug, for Obama officials. This is, after all, the same administration that has prosecuted whistleblowers under espionage charges that threatened to send them to prison for life without any evidence of harm to national security, and has brought double the number of such prosecutions as all prior administrations combined. Converting all leaks into capital offenses would be perfectly consistent with the unprecedented secrecy fixation on the part of the Most Transparent Administration Ever™.
The irony from these developments is glaring. The real "enemies" of American "society" are not those who seek to inform the American people about the bad acts engaged in by their government in secret. As Democrats once recognized prior to the age of Obama - in the age of Daniel Ellsberg - people who do that are more aptly referred to as "heroes". The actual "enemies" are those who abuse secrecy powers to conceal government actions and to threaten with life imprisonment or even execution those who blow the whistle on high-level wrongdoing.
Well I am forbidden from looking at the Assange leaks, so I can't really help you there...
I'll look up some of Greenwald's columns talking about it and post them.
http://www.archives.gov/isoo/reports...ual-report.pdf
In this report, we see that original classification has gone down greatly from a few years ago, but derivative classification has shot up sharply under the Obama presidency. They say that part of it is due to electronic records and better accuracy, but given Obama's penchant for hunting down whistleblowers, I doubt that's the only reason.
The amount of pages being declassified has shrunk greatly also.
Here's another link from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (a great organization):
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/1...assifying-news
And if releasing secrets is so bad... I wonder why our gov't does it when it makes them look good?But while high-level White House officials continually leak Top Secret information to justify their covert actions and to combat criticism, Obama’s Justice Department is also engaged in an unprecedented campaign to prosecute lower-level whistleblowers that leak information to the press in the name of public interest. This is in contradiction of another pledge Obama made to protect and strengthen whistleblower protections during his 2008 campaign. His administration, in just two and a half years, has indicted fiveleakers under the Espionage Act. That’s more than every president since Richard Nixon—combined.
http://www.salon.com/2011/10/10/the_...aks/singleton/
The same thing happened with the bin Laden killing: the Obama administration has resisted efforts to declassify and disclose videos, do ents and photographs regarding the raid that killed him — requests motivated by the administration’s multiple inconsistent and ultimately false statements about what took place and lingering questions about what happened — but then oh-so-mysteriously showed little interest (i.e., none) in discovering and punishing those who orally fed The New Yorker supposed details of the raid that produced an uncritical hagiography of those, including the President, responsible for the bin Laden killing.
http://reason.com/blog/2012/10/02/pe...-are-not-enemiFrom this do ent, the reporter concluded that Assange was now an “enemy of the state.” I had some su ions, though. The analyst was not charged. Was this because an investigation showed that the analyst was not engaging in the communication alleged? Or was it because somebody determined that the charges weren’t valid because Assange and WikiLeaks aren’t actually “the enemy”?
So I did a thing that journalists do sometimes and called the Pentagon to ask. I didn’t actually expect anything to come of it, given our government’s current tendency to try to keep as many secrets as possible.
But Monday afternoon I got a call back from Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Jim Gregory. When flatly asked whether Assange or WikiLeaks had been classified by the military as “enemies of the state,” he said they had not.
Gregory admitted he hadn’t had the chance to look over all the do ents the Herald had received. But he was firm in his declaration that the military, at least, did not consider Assange or WikiLeaks an enemy.
Shouldn't Obama have sent a cruise missile after him by now since you conspiracy theorists claim he doesn't care about collateral damage?
nope.
How is anything I posted a "conspiracy theory"? Why not respond to the actual data/comments in my post?
I didn't direct that your way. Have a guilty conscience?
I find it funny though, that both Clinton and Obama love using cruise missiles and drones, yet so many people still hate the ones who actually put boots on the ground.
I was making a general statement, and maybe should have used blue for it.
My misunderstanding then. Anyways, I think that people don't mind cruise missiles and drones because we're not losing as many American lives that way. (There are definitely still some cons to those methods, but not getting American soldiers involved physically is a pro for drone warfare.)
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