I’m hoping to get a chance on my day off tomorrow to look through the leaked documents from Wikileaks about the Mexican drug war, but in the meantime this quote made me laugh:
Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, likened Assange to an al-Qaida propagandist and accused him, without offering any proof, of having “blood on his hands.”
“Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders?” she asked in a message posted on her Facebook page.
Probably because they want to catch him.
And if they do catch Assange, we might want to look through those cables on the Mexican drug war to understand why someone else from within Wikileaks will just assume his leadership role (or a different group of folks will open a competing website). That’s what happens when organizations exist out of popular demand for a service or product. Cutting off the head doesn’t kill it. It just causes it to grow a new head.
Like Napster!
@1
Interesting example, but it’s a little different. Illegal downloading of music still happens, but now that there’s a robust and relatively low-cost alternative, people have definitely switched to legal channels. The same shift won’t occur with Wikileaks, unless governments and corporations all decide to get really, really serious about backtracking on their tendency to keep everything secret.
So someone in the US government hands the Wikileak people, who aren’t US citizens and aren’t in the US, a bunch of documents and then they put them online for the world to see. The Wikileaks folks, didn’t steal them, didn’t pay anyone to steal them, what legal standing does the US government have to go after Wikileaks?
And next time around (and there will be a next time around) wont they just do this clandestinely?
Everyone’s got to have a scapegoat.
And Sister Psychopath is really that dumb.
“Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders?”
By all means. We must invade Iceland immediately.
For any trolls that think this isn’t a serious statement:
Probably because they want to catch him.
read this and this.
Bush did not want to capture Bin Laden @ Tora Bora or Zarqawi in Iraq prior to the Iraq invasion because they thought it would undercut their case for war.
The Wikileaks folks should end up in jail for this one. I support “illegally” obtaining and distributing (ie. leaking) documents to bring to light a crime or coverup that isn’t being exposed otherwise. Fine. Bit of vigilantism, but ok. But this was just being a harmful attention seeking douche who damaged the country for nothing. There wasn’t a specific crime or coverup he was trying to expose. There was no grand purpose. This is like the difference between someone hacking your personal email and making ALL of it public to expose you as a child molester (fair) or just to be mean because they don’t like you (bad). There was no over arching point to this. And exposing all of this sensitive diplomatic correspondence can REALLY fuck up negotiations and important work.
Again, if there was a major crime being uncovered, ok; but just dumping all of the private diplomatic correspondence to be pissy? The leaker and the Wikileaks folks should go to jail for this.
Hey, remember when al Qaeda pointed out that diplomats say a lot of dumb stuff and that countries want to spy on each other? Good times.
Na ga ha. Whoever STOLE he leaked material is criminaly liable. Someone who is given the materials and publishes them is not. Example: Daniel Ellsburg went to jail for taking the Pentagon Papers, the NY Times was totally clean for printing them.
In other news, Charlie Rangel, who was overwhelmingly re-elected in his district, now has to endure some brutal finger-wagging in the House for ethics violations. I am sure that he’s shaking in his Italian shoes.
@9 I would agree again IF this was done for an actual journalist reason (i.e. a story uncovering a crime or such). But just publishing on mass ALL of this correspondence just to drive up traffic on your site and make yourself more famous…no…jail. Sorry. Just putting shit on a web page doesn’t make you a journalist. Tired of that one.
So if I take sensitive and/or secret documents and provide them to other countries/public…and I do this
1. For money. Especially paid by another country. Then I’m a spy and it’s called espionage and I go to jail.
2. For uncovering a crime. Then I’m called a whistle blower and I just MIGHT be protected by law (though it’s complicated).
3. To make a statement, for hacker kicks, fun, etc. Then I’m just an asshole and it’s just a simple crime, and I go to jail. If I break into Apple, open up their secret emails and development files, and release those to the public, Apple will prosecute me. If I did that just for fun, or because I hate Apple, but not to expose a crime or show Steve Jobs plot to take over the world (I think he has one ;-) then that’s bad.
@12
And the name of that crime is?
3. Michael spews:
In my opinion…none.
@7 “the Wikileaks folks should go to jail for this”
Under what laws? Is the U.S. going to start enforcing Washington D.C. traffic laws in the Netherlands? Are we going to send aircraft carriers to do it? Since when does a foreign national living in a foreign country have to do what the U.S. government tells him to?
@7 (continued) Hey, if you don’t want to read it in a newspaper, don’t put it in an e-mail! Every first year law student knows that. Why don’t the people working in the upper echelons of our government know it?
@7 (continued, continued) As for who the leaker is, everyone knows who the leaker is, the leaker is always some underling in the government who thinks his bosses are trying to flim-flam the public.
@11 So you’re some kind of judge of what merits publication and what doesn’t? Are you appointing yourself editor? If not you, who?
See, this is the real question, who should be the gatekeeper? Government? Newspaper editors? Self-appointed website operators? Or maybe you?
The Nixon government certainly didn’t want us to see the Pentagon Papers. However, Ellsburg felt that what our government was up to is our business, and I agreed with him. Who are you to tell us what Wikileaks can or can’t leak? I want to know what clusterfuck the likes of Reagan, Bush, Cheney, etc., are hatching.
Don’t want your dirty laundry aired in the NY Times? Then don’t treat the secretary who types it for you like dirt under your feet.
@14 Geez, Cynical, you agree with me! How did that happen?
Well, Assange will be captured quickly, because he scares the shit out of every government on the planet. They’re more afraid of him than bin Laden.
@13 Really? How about treason? But you’re right, he can sure be fired and never given a gov clearance again, but the crime is always tricky on “releasing” documents…esp if you’re not a reporter and not doing this FOR any actual story/reason other than to be pissy.
I’m glad to know being a spy isn’t illegal anymore. WHEEE!!! We can take all the documents we want now and give them to the Russians or China (or just put them on a web site for them to read) and it’s ok! COOL…er…
@17 Right…and a “leaker” is COOL if they’re trying to show some illegal cover up or lie (Iraq War, ahem). But just dumping a file cabinet worth of random documents on the street just to be pissy…not cool.
Both Palin and Limbaugh are urging the swift capture and execution of Assange for crimes they neglect to specify. But they’ve got a bit of a jurisdiction problem.
What if a Russian dissident gave me a bunch of diplomatic cables he acquired from the Russian foreign office, and I published them on my website? Could Russia prosecute me for treason or violation of it’s secrecy laws? (Answer: No).
It’s not exactly a hypothetical point. Right now Nigeria is asking the U.S. to extradite former Vice President Dick Cheney for alleged conspiracy in a Halliburton plot to bribe Nigerian officials, while he was CEO of Halliburton. Whether Nigeria has jurisdiction over Cheney under Nigerian law might be an open question. But it’s hardly likely that the U.S. will agree to turn him over to the Nigerian justice system, as tempting as it might be.
I predict he’ll wind up dead under mysterious circumstances.
@22
Please note the question marks I used @13. Cyn got that I was asking a question, not making a statement.
@11
Wikileaks data is being vetted by the NYT and shows up in my morning paper.
@23: I would also note that they’re NOT calling for the immediate capture and execution of Pete Hoekstra, who decided to talk about classified information regarding a domestic terrorist in an open Congressional hearing, or Scooter Libby, who outed a covert CIA operative.
I’m waiting for the day they call for either of their deaths . . .
@27, Nor Dick Cheney who leaked the Nigeria/yellow cake story to Judith Miller who then, in turn, published it in the NY Times which then freed-up the Bush Administration to trumpet it in public since it was no longer classified.
The Shrub circle jerk.
He should get a medal or be even made a knight!
long live Julian.
i would be willing to put him up if he made his way over here….could see if any of the AWOL underground railroad is still up to.
maybe a career as an Ice Road Trucker in the Yukon is still possible.
I think the Wikileaks stuff will be good for us. A little sunlight shone on our government and its operations is a good thing. After all, the government is doing this shit overseas, and all of us are getting the blame/credit for what it does. Let’s find out why they hate us and want to kill us. Wikileaks is helping the American people in that regard.
One of the classic ways the “intelligence” community discredits its enemies is with some sort of sexual violation charge. That’s what’s going on with Assange and the Swedish affair. My guess is that our government pressured the Swedes to bring charges (that were previously dropped!) against Assange to discredit him. Standard operating procedure for the CIA and its minions.
Let’s see what Wikileaks produces in the future. My guess is that our government has been working us like a bunch of rubes for decades, doing nasty things in our name, and creating enemies for the US for centuries to come. After all, why do you need a big, world-wide military and intelligence community if you don’t have enemies? One the Soviets went away, we needed new enemies – enter Al Qaeda and the Islamo-terrorists.
Do you think it’s possible for us to extricate ourselves from this mess of our government’s creation?
“Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders?”
Is she suggesting that we bomb the UK?
i think the BoA stuff is what got the other nations to want to stop him…..
@34
I think you’re absolutely right. The efforts to shut down Wikileaks seemed to go into overdrive when it was revealed that a bank was a new target.
@34, 35…
…ya THINK???
It must be the latest talking point, Charles Krauthammer is saying the same stuff.
Btw, wikileaks.org seems to be permadown, but their IP address still works.
http://213.251.145.96/
mmmm. Cheney orders Addington to out a CIA spy, and then finds some sucker to take the hit for him, while everyone else involved goes free. Exactly how much jail time did Robert Novak get for the publication of that information (and yes Judith Miller did serve time for contempt, but for a completely different case, upon which she eventually caved)?
hopefully the CIA will catch up to the rapist assange and put a bullet in his temple….
as far as the other pricks who stole the info, they should get the noose around the neck treatment.
@40
MOT is that you? This guys sounds like MOT.
@41: I’d say he’s more like losty (after he gets his ass handed to him by Steve, etc.). Losty always got rude and pissy (after smarmy and vapid). He was such a pussy.
@41
Enough is the newest pseudonym of a commenter who is constantly changing names, but I’m pretty sure he/she/it is not MOT or lost.
“enough is enough” was formerly
– Charlie Rangel
– Queen Christine” I dont know where to go from here”
– Mythbusters
– why do liberals hate free speech?
– If you’re not Dutch, then you’re not much
When you realize that all of those pseudonyms are the same person and read through his comment history, you realize the full extent of how much stupidity a single person with far too much spare time can bring to these comment threads. It’s impressive.