Wikileaks. Any comments?

[Ziggurat]

Once he's in custody, the US goes after under some nebulous "national security" charge.

Except, of course, Assange clearly broke no US laws. The folks who leaked to him did, but there's nothing we can charge him with. That's obvious, the government knows it's obvious, and the courts would confirm how obvious it is if it ever got tested. Losing such a case (the only possible outcome) would do far more damage than leaving him alone.

And no, we could not hold him without trying him. Regardless of how willing you think the administration is to break the law, even Obama isn't so incompetent as to think the political calculus of such a move in this case is possibly worth the damage.

The US will take no legal action against him, regardless of what Sweden does.

It's plausible that the rape charges are bogus.

Indeed it is. False rape allegations can happen for a variety of reasons. But it's not plausible that these charges are being made because the US government wants to get him into Swedish custody so that they can then arrest him.

 

[brenn]

This is probably right, but only if you can find truth that fits your agenda. And that's Wikileaks ultimate defense here -- they put out the unredacted, unspun truth. That's a hard thing to argue against. I'll take the stance that the public is not used to having the truth available so plainly. We are more comfortable with, not just the facts, but the facts presented with a dose of "this is how you should think about the facts."

Given that you have taken the position that unverified documents from an anonymous source are, "the unredacted, unspun truth," I take it you came to this forum as one of the pro-woo crowd, rather than claiming to be a skeptic.

I am always surprised at the willingness of non-skeptical minds to jump to such conclusions, dependant on what they want to believe, rather than evidence.

 

[TraneWreck]

Except, of course, Assange clearly broke no US laws. The folks who leaked to him did, but there's nothing we can charge him with. That's obvious, the government knows it's obvious, and the courts would confirm how obvious it is if it ever got tested. Losing such a case (the only possible outcome) would do far more damage than leaving him alone.

And no, we could not hold him without trying him. Regardless of how willing you think the administration is to break the law, even Obama isn't so incompetent as to think the political calculus of such a move in this case is possibly worth the damage.

The US will take no legal action against him, regardless of what Sweden does.

I hope you're right. I have no reason to doubt Sweden. Once again, explanation is not advocacy.

Indeed it is. False rape allegations can happen for a variety of reasons. But it's not plausible that these charges are being made because the US government wants to get him into Swedish custody so that they can then arrest him.

They don't have to be "false." They can simply be lacking enough evidence to move forward with prosecution. That line is a fairly nebulous one and not difficult to fudge one way or another (we're talking about pressing charges, not convicting. The burden of proof is significantly lower).

 

[Ziggurat]

I hope you're right.

I know I'm right. It's obvious I'm right.

Now, if one is inclined towards the conspiratorial, what I said doesn't discount other possibilities. For example, the US could, in principle, have encouraged Sweden to press charges in order to harass him. I don't think we would do that (not just out of principle, but also because he's not worth it at this point), but it doesn't fly in the face of reason like the US arresting him would.

 

[TraneWreck]

I know I'm right. It's obvious I'm right.

Now, if one is inclined towards the conspiratorial, what I said doesn't discount other possibilities. For example, the US could, in principle, have encouraged Sweden to press charges in order to harass him. I don't think we would do that (not just out of principle, but also because he's not worth it at this point), but it doesn't fly in the face of reason like the US arresting him would.

That was an impressively obnoxious way to make a point that isn't really that different from what I said.

Once in custody Assange could be subpoenaed to reveal the source of the leaks or testify in the case of the private they caught.

I do enjoy that you act like it's ABSURD that nebulous national security charges would be used to detain someone when we've spent the last decade doing just that:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/05/11/journalists
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/22gitmo.html?_r=1&hpw
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7092435.ece

1998 TraneWreck would have considered people accusing the US government of that sort of behavior to be making farcical assertions that flied in the face of reason.

 

[dirtywick]

But Sweden arrested him, not the US.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Except, of course, Assange clearly broke no US laws. The folks who leaked to him did, but there's nothing we can charge him with. That's obvious, the government knows it's obvious, and the courts would confirm how obvious it is if it ever got tested. Losing such a case (the only possible outcome) would do far more damage than leaving him alone.

El-wrong-o-reno.

"It is the view of the Department of Defense that WikiLeaks obtained this material in circumstances that constitute a violation of United States law, and that as long as WikiLeaks holds this material, the violation of the law is ongoing," Defense Department General Counsel wrote to a WikiLeaks lawyer. Experts say that, under U.S. law, prosecutors could charge WikiLeaks as an accessory to a crime or with unlawfully taking possession of stolen property.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100....html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond

One expert told the Post that US authorities have already laid the groundwork for legal action against him, and that he could be liable under the Espionage Act. "I'm confident that the Justice Department is figuring out how to prosecute him," Jeffrey Smith, a former CIA general counsel, told the Post.

Smith noted that State Department general counsel Harold H. Koh had sent a letter to Assange on Saturday urging him not to release the cables, to return all classified material, and to destroy all classified records from WikiLeaks databases.
"That language is not only the right thing to do policy-wise but puts the government in a position to prosecute him," Smith said. Under the Espionage Act, anyone who has "unauthorized possession to information relating to the national defense" and has reason to believe it could harm the United States may be prosecuted if he publishes it or "willfully" retains it when the government has demanded its return, Smith said.
​

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terr...kiLeaks-founder-Julian-Assange-commit-a-crime

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Isnt wikileaks the one who spun that helicopter attack on a terrorist embedded reporter as some giant evil thing, by adding text and clipping up the video? If that was them, all claims of nonbias go out the window. If that wasn't them nevermind

There's a LOT wrong with this. The "terrorist embedded reporter" was a reporter from Al-Jazeera who was following civilians around for a "life in Iraq" kind of piece (that may be wrong, but he was following civilians). The video of his (and the group he was following) death was not spun in any way unless you watched the shortened version of the video, which you are referring to.

The unedited video (which was released at the same time) is some 30-40 minutes long. Out of respect for the viewer, the video was also released in a shortened form, which came with a plea to watch the unedited video. The video was not "spun" but rather focused on the crew of the helicopter exaggerating numbers of people spotted, blatantly lying about numbers of weapons (even if you assume that the camera they see was actually perceived as a weapon by them, there are at most 2 weapons), and furthermore blatantly lying about receiving small arms fire to receiver permission to fire.

Later in the video, it showed the same aircraft firing upon a van full of civilians, then firing upon another van (which had children in it) which stopped to assist it. It was just some guy trying to help the dying people.

I'm really intrigued to hear what the spin was. They never claimed nonbias, as many people in the thread have pointed out. They've basically outright said that they do not like governments across the world and are trying to bring their secrets out to harm them. What was the spin on that video? What was the incorrect claim? Who were the terrorists? Why was the video wrong?

 

[WildCat]

El-wrong-o-reno.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100....html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond



http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terr...kiLeaks-founder-Julian-Assange-commit-a-crime

Good luck with that, considering The New York Times v. United States.

Unless they can prove Assange was part of the actual theft, the General Counsel is SOL.

 

[WildCat]

There's a LOT wrong with this. The "terrorist embedded reporter" was a reporter from Al-Jazeera who was following civilians around for a "life in Iraq" kind of piece (that may be wrong, but he was following civilians).

Why were those "civilians" carrying assault rifles and at least one RPG7?

 

[TraneWreck]

But Sweden arrested him, not the US.

His current location is unknown, thus no one can do anything to him. Interpol is going after him for the rape charges.

Once in custody for that, anyone else seeking to deliver process will be able to do so.

 

[TraneWreck]

Why were those "civilians" carrying assault rifles and at least one RPG7?

They didn't. They had cameras that were mistaken for RPGs.

And carrying a gun in such a dangerous area is not unusual. If we killed everyone in Iraq with a rifle, we would have killed everyone in Iraq.

A crew member reported seeing "five to six individuals with AK-47s" and, believing that the entire group were Iraqi insurgents, requested authorization to engage.[5] After approval was granted one pilot, while maneuvering over his comrades in a humvee below, mistook the shadow cast on the ground by a zoom lens on the camera for an R.P.G.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike

Some claim it was an RPG. Here are two photos:

RPG--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArmyReport_ExhibitB.png

Camera--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArmyReport_ExhibitA.png

Of course, it's all sort of irrelevant as the order to fire was given before anyone claimed to see an RPG:

An article in The New Yorker criticised the "informal" legal investigation of the US Army for omitting the fact that permission to engage was given before the helicopter crews reported seeing an RPG.

Winning the hearts and minds.

 

[Checkmite]

Except, of course, Assange clearly broke no US laws. The folks who leaked to him did, but there's nothing we can charge him with. That's obvious, the government knows it's obvious, and the courts would confirm how obvious it is if it ever got tested.

Conspiracy to commit espionage? Assange knew the documents were classified, and he knew they were stolen. Knowing these things, he made a conscious choice to participate in their dissemination to unauthorized persons, thereby becoming an accomplice to espionage.

ETA: More specifically, Assange has committed offenses under a couple of sections of Title 18, Chapter 37 of the US Code. To wit:

TITLE 18--CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

PART I--CRIMES

CHAPTER 37--ESPIONAGE AND CENSORSHIP


Sec. 792. Harboring or concealing persons

Whoever harbors or conceals any person who he knows, or has
reasonable grounds to believe or suspect, has committed, or is about to
commit, an offense under sections 793 or 794 of this title, shall be
fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.


(snip)

Sec. 793. Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

(c) Whoever, for the purpose aforesaid, receives or obtains or
agrees or attempts to receive or obtain from any person, or from any
source whatever, any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch,
photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model,
instrument, appliance, or note, of anything connected with the national
defense, knowing or having reason to believe, at the time he receives or
obtains, or agrees or attempts to receive or obtain it, that it has been
or will be obtained, taken, made, or disposed of by any person contrary
to the provisions of this chapter; or

(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control
over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph,
photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument,
appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information
relating to the national defense which information the possessor has
reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to
the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers,
transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or
attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated,
delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive
it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer
or employee of the United States entitled to receive it; or

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or
control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch,
photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model,
instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national
defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed
from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of
his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2)
having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its
proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its
trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make
prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his
superior officer--
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten
years, or both.
(g) If two or more persons conspire to violate any of the foregoing
provisions of this section, and one or more of such persons do any act
to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such
conspiracy shall be subject to the punishment provided for the offense
which is the object of such conspiracy.

Pretty plainly, by 1) accepting the stolen documents from whomever leaked them and 2) concealing his/her identity, under US law Assange is considered a party to the actual theft itself and subject to the same penalties.

 

[GreNME]

Here are the most interesting things I learned from Wikileaks:

1) 99% of the things we spend enormous sums of money to keep secret don't need to be secret.
2) Our folks in the "know" don't know very much.
3) Espionage seems less effective than simple reasoning: Saudi Arabia would benefit from an American attack on their largest oil export competitor, I'm SHOCKED.

This whole security state we've been building up since WWII is useless, expensive, and nothing more than theater.

I can sympathize with this opinion. I'm still of two minds about the site, but I do find a great deal of the high-priced CYA we do that isn't even in the interest of the country (but instead for individuals from or representing the country) to be a waste.

His goal is to eliminate the ability of governments and corporations to effectively conspire in secret by making them paranoid. Thus, the cable leaks, which have no revelatory information, aren't leaked for their content, but to force changes in the operating procedure of the government.

I thought this was well understood. That's totally the impression I got from visiting the site and the few interviews I've seen with him.

-----

But back to his comments about the banks; what alarms me is the comment about "bringing down a couple of banks" or destroying financial institutions. It sounds like he's bragging - he's an megalomaniac reveling in his own perceived greatness. Problem is, he doesn't seem to care at all about the consequences. Has he really thought through what would actually happen if his leaks caused the collapse of "one or two" major US banks?

He's sounds to me like a reckless, egotistical little boy who doesn't have the least understanding of what he's actually doing or what the consequences could be for millions of people. hardly someone to admire. Perhaps someone to send to bed without any supper and ban from the internet for a month.

Well, I know it sounds trite and corny, but the line in "The Dark Knight" about dying a hero or living long enough to become the villain isn't far from accurate when dealing with human beings and their inevitable foibles. His growing more and more megalomaniacal could be the result of the paranoid, sequestered lifestyle he has to lead mixed with the reams of sensitive information he has control over. To paraphrase another semi-trite saying, power can have the ability to corrupt and knowledge (or information) definitely has power.

In short, I like the idea of a source that can put governments on the wire for not being transparent and meaning what they say (rather than saying one thing and doing another). Various fields of public service these days are now careers of their own instead of actual service to the public, and it would be nice if there were a way to hold more governments and agencies accountable to their public service purpose.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Let's cut to the chase. Does anyone think the disclosure of this information is a good thing?

 

[GreNME]

It doesn't appear to be a bad thing, but the options for what the site might be aren't binary. Things in real life are rarely black-and-white.

 

[Skeptic]

1) 99% of the things we spend enormous sums of money to keep secret don't need to be secret.
2) Our folks in the "know" don't know very much.
3) Espionage seems less effective than simple reasoning: Saudi Arabia would benefit from an American attack on their largest oil export competitor, I'm SHOCKED.

This is the kind of "learning" that is really just a rehashing of cliches that confirming one's biases.

Saudi Arabia -- and the rest of the Arab world, including, for instance, Jordan, that has practically no oil -- don't want a lunatic state to have nukes, and what is your conclusion? It's all an evil capitalistic conspiracy, they just want to "remove an oil exporter".

(So you think, in other words, that the same folks you claim inevitably become murderously violent in protest of the least "US involvement in the Middle East" would now want the USA to totally destroy another ME country just for monetary reasons.)

The leaks show that it's hard to predict what will happen in the world in the future? Well, espionage is useless, who needs it, they don't know anything.

(Of course this is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" claim: if the secret information reveals things that strongly contradict what is publicly known, it would "prove" to you that the evil government just uses secrecy to lie to people; the worldview seen in the secret document pretty much fits with what most people believed? Ah, so "intelligence is useless" and it's just a waste of money.)

I for one see a somewhat different conclusion. Contrary to what numerous people in this forum said, apparently Iran is considered a big threat by the rest of the world, and there isn't the slightest evidence the worries about Iran is due to the the "endless war propaganda for the benefit of the evil capitalists" or "USA used as puppet by evil zionists to get rid of enemies" sort of conspiracy the usual gang on this forum (as well as the likes of Chomsky, etc.) were claiming.

But more important than this is another point. I naturally didn't NEED Wikileaks to confirm it -- I reached this view from other sources long before Wikileaks. But I am NOT clamining that because it seems to me the results of leaked documents agree with my views then this somehow "proves" espionage work is useless and all official secrecy is just a cover for corruption. Helping spread of this sort of cliched "insight" is one of the downsides of wikileaks.

 

[Tapio]

Let's cut to the chase. Does anyone think the disclosure of this information is a good thing?

<raises hand>

But it's all still child's play. I'm advocating for a lot more. And "good" is something I see wayyy in the future, if we continue on the road to transparency. The road there will bring with it a helluva lot of "bad" things. I think it's worth the sacrifice.

 

[quixotecoyote]

<raises hand>

But it's all still child's play. I'm advocating for a lot more. And "good" is something I see wayyy in the future, if we continue on the road to transparency. The road there will bring with it a helluva lot of "bad" things. I think it's worth the sacrifice.

I wouldn't mind a government where every meeting is taped and transcribed, whether committees, office visits, or donor fundraisers.

I wouldn't mind a government where diplomatic cables are almost always public knowledge.

I wouldn't mind a government where the absolutely only information that wasn't completely transparent and accessible to citizens were wartime documents relating to current/impending troop movements/dispositions and similar immediate security concerns.

I'm with the right in that I don't trust the government, but I think they tend to try and destroy the helpful parts and keep the authoritarianism and corporate welfare state alive.

I'm with the left in that that I see the government as a series of expressions of the will of the citizens, in whole and in parts, but I can't decide if it's gutlessness or hypocrisy that keeps them from actually delivering on any of the hope and change that is often promised and never delivered.

I like representative democracy, but I don't feel like there's anyone in state or federal government right now that represents me or the interests of me and people like me.

I think it would help if we could shine a bright light on everything that happens in government. The citizens should know what America is saying, doing, planning, and who it's doing it with. Why? Because it's our country and we need more of a say in it than we're getting right now.

 

[Tapio]

Thanks q...