wikileaks: the diplomacy dump. - Page 3 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

SecretMethod70 · 12-02-2010, 06:14 AM

Assange would like to expose secrets from China and Russia as well, of course none of that matters if no one gives Wikileaks any data.

dogzilla: If Wikileaks HAD info on Al Qaeda, I'd wonder why they're not exposing it. Since there's no reason to think they do, why should I be upset about this.

ASU2003 · 12-02-2010, 08:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

Assange would like to expose secrets from China and Russia as well, of course none of that matters if no one gives Wikileaks any data.

dogzilla: If Wikileaks HAD info on Al Qaeda, I'd wonder why they're not exposing it. Since there's no reason to think they do, why should I be upset about this.

You should be upset because it will change foreign relations and foreign conflicts for years to come.

Anonymous Member · 12-02-2010, 08:51 AM

Cost-benefit analysis here doesn't quite work out. Now we know, or more importantly, Iran knows, that Saudi-Arabia was egging the U.S. on, to bomb Iran.

How does this help the general public make more informed decisions?

Frankly, I'm not seeing the redeeming value in this case. Cost = major damage to foreign relations, benefit = a more transparent government? What is likely to happen, is the government will institute stronger controls on their information--so in essence, the benefit is in reality, another cost.

Willravel · 12-02-2010, 12:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dogzilla

Where's the outrage that wikileaks hasn't published any of Al Queda's classified information?

What information? al Qaeda is incredibly decentralized. Most members of al Qaeda have never had contact with any central leadership (seriously, ask a solider).

Quote:

Originally Posted by dogzilla

Or are maybe the wikileaks people a bunch of cowards who are afraid something bad will happen to them if they do that?

Oh yeah, al Qaeda is much more scary than the most powerful and most technically advanced military in the history of our species that has a track record of kidnapping and torture.

You didn't answer my question before, dogzilla. In what way did Julian Assange break the law?

SecretMethod70 · 12-02-2010, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASU2003

You should be upset because it will change foreign relations and foreign conflicts for years to come.

I should be upset that WikiLeaks isn't releasing something they don't have because if they had it it would change foreign relations and foreign conflicts for years to come? This makes no sense.

dogzilla · 12-02-2010, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

What information? al Qaeda is incredibly decentralized. Most members of al Qaeda have never had contact with any central leadership (seriously, ask a solider).

I'm sure top level Al Queda has plans for their activities. I kind of doubt that they just happen to be driving around randomly looking for things to blow up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

Oh yeah, al Qaeda is much more scary than the most powerful and most technically advanced military in the history of our species that has a track record of kidnapping and torture.

Al Queda and the other terrorist groups have a history of being pretty vicious. You might read up about Daniel Pearl or some other people who have been kidnapped, tortured and killed by those groups. They make the US look like a bunch of pussycats.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

You didn't answer my question before, dogzilla. In what way did Julian Assange break the law?

[/quote]

Disclosing classified information. The Weekly World News has more credibility as a news outlet/media source than his wikileaks group does.

SecretMethod70 · 12-02-2010, 02:04 PM

This may shock you dogzilla, but disclosing classified information is not a crime unless you are someone who has a duty to protect said information (which would be anyone with express access to that information... which is not WikiLeaks).

Wes Mantooth · 12-02-2010, 02:22 PM

That's true, ultimately the responsibility for classified information falls at the feet of the folks who are supposed to be protecting it and they are really 100% at fault for the leak. You could charge somebody for breaking and entering, hacking, theft, espionage or whatever but those in charge of keeping the info secret needed to be more vigilant.

Although I do have to wonder if you can prosecute somebody for knowingly publishing classified information. It doesn't seem right that if I came across classified documents about nuclear launch codes I wouldn't be held to some responsibility if I posted them on the Internet.

ASU2003 · 12-02-2010, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SecretMethod70

I should be upset that WikiLeaks isn't releasing something they don't have because if they had it it would change foreign relations and foreign conflicts for years to come? This makes no sense.

No, they released American intel and it will effect the way foreign countries (both friendly and not) will deal with us. It also gives the bad ones insight into how we are gathering info on their weapons programs.

---------- Post added at 06:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:49 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wes Mantooth

Although I do have to wonder if you can prosecute somebody for knowingly publishing classified information. It doesn't seem right that if I came across classified documents about nuclear launch codes I wouldn't be held to some responsibility if I posted them on the Internet.

I think it would be a problem if a random person published them, but somebody else was able to use them to launch the ICBM and kill millions.

StanT · 12-02-2010, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wes Mantooth

Although I do have to wonder if you can prosecute somebody for knowingly publishing classified information. It doesn't seem right that if I came across classified documents about nuclear launch codes I wouldn't be held to some responsibility if I posted them on the Internet.

What exactly does a US government classification mean to an Australian guy with a server in Sweden? He has no reason to accommodate US law. If these were Chinese documents, we'd be snickering and making sarcastic jokes about the Chinese ... pretty much what the rest of the world is doing now.

It seems the US shut down a mirror on Amazon that was running in the US, that would seem to be the limit of what the government can do to Assange, personally.

mixedmedia · 12-02-2010, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StanT

What exactly does a US government classification mean to an Australian guy with a server in Sweden? He has no reason to accommodate US law. If these were Chinese documents, we'd be snickering and making sarcastic jokes about the Chinese ... pretty much what the rest of the world is doing now.

It seems the US shut down a mirror on Amazon that was running in the US, that would seem to be the limit of what the government can do to Assange, personally.

This is exactly what I was about to say. And for that matter, how many times have we been informed of leaked information from other countries on our own news programs and not batted an eye about it? Nor has the world come crashing to a halt.

I remain unconvinced of the dire nature of these leaks. In fact, most of what I has read has stated the exact opposite that none of this information was, indeed, critical or revelatory. What alarms people is the audacity of the action in concert with a fear of the unknown. But I will assert again that in a society where it becomes more and more apparent every year that we do not know what is real and what is not, the 'comfort of knowing' is an illusion.

Charlatan · 12-02-2010, 04:45 PM

Quite frankly, this is what our mainstream media should be doing. The fact that they aren't digging for this sort of information and sources is troubling.

I think the only reason the media grousing about this (if they are) is because they are jealous.

ASU2003 · 12-02-2010, 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

Quite frankly, this is what our mainstream media should be doing. The fact that they aren't digging for this sort of information and sources is troubling.

I think the only reason the media grousing about this (if they are) is because they are jealous.

I agree that the media focuses too much on polls, opinions, and rumors now. However, the media doesn't have the budget to create secret investigative units that could get access to places to find the truth. They are supposed to report on what has happened.

And when the media does create documentary films about issues they are seen as one sided or having an agenda.

dlish · 12-03-2010, 01:19 AM

update: wikileaks site closed down and authorities are closing in on Assange in the UK.

WikiLeaks offline after domain 'killed' | News.com.au

Sounds like a witch hunt to me. Authorities would rather see us blinded by their spin than see the truth of the matter.

Killing the truth at whatever cost is against everything democracy stands for. Today I am ashamed to be a part of the free world. Free my fucking ass.

SecretMethod70 · 12-03-2010, 01:28 AM

Something else worth noting: Those "rape" charges? They stem from a broken condom, and apparently in Sweden you can be charged for rape even when sex is consensual. Add to that one of his accusers wrote a treatise on how to take revenge against men.

'Sex by Surprise' at Heart of Julian Assange Criminal Probe

mixedmedia · 12-03-2010, 03:41 AM

Quote:

"It is quite wrong that we were afraid of him. He is not violent, and I do not feel threatened by him," she told the newspaper in an interview that did not identify her by name. "The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who had attitude problems with women."

lol, maybe we should have this law, too.

roachboy · 12-03-2010, 04:23 AM

Quote:

WikiLeaks website disconnected as US company withdraws support

The WikiLeaks.org web address is no longer functioning after an American internet company pulled the plug on the site.

While still accessible by typing in the domain number, people trying to access the site by typing WikiLeaks into a search engine or their browser will not be successful.

The US-based provider, EveryDNS.net, took the controversial site offline earlier today, claiming that the constant hacking attacks were so powerful that they were damaging its other customers.

It said it had become the "target of multiple distributed denial of service attacks" which threatened the stability of its structure.

The California-based company’s terms and conditions state that “members shall not interfere with another member’s use and enjoyment of the service”.

It hosts more than 500,000 sites around the world.

WikiLeaks confirmed the drop on its Twitter account, saying: “WikiLeaks.org domain killed by US everydns.net after claimed mass attacks.”

It was given 24 hours notice of the termination.

The site had been consistently attacked after exposing hundreds of thousands of classified US state documents.

Host servers have come under huge pressure by the US government to close it down.

But it is still available by typing in the IP address, which WikiLeaks has tweeted and which was immediately circulated by hundreds of users of the social networking site.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the development was an example of the “privatisation of state censorship” in the US and is a “serious problem”.

“These attacks will not stop our mission, but should be setting off alarm bells about the rule of law in the United States,” he warned, according to the Guardian.

WikiLeaks has released a file that it dubbed its “insurance policy”. The file is encrypted with a code that is so strong it is deemed impossible to break.

It is said to be planning to release a key that unlocks the files if anything happens to the site or its founder, Julian Assange.

The latest move follows Amazon’s decision to drop WikiLeaks from its servers following political pressure.

The company was originally hosting the site and giving it memory to share its database.

Its decision to drop the site earlier this week was praised by US Senator Joe Lieberman, who said it should “set the standard” for companies being used to distribute “illegally seized material”.

The site remains on the servers of a Swedish host, Bahnhof.

WikiLeaks website disconnected as US company withdraws support - Telegraph

the comment that accompanied this link: the privatization of censorship in the united states.

SecretMethod70 · 12-03-2010, 04:53 AM

I like how they chose to run an ominous looking picture of Assange in sunglasses.

mixedmedia · 12-03-2010, 05:05 AM

Apparently they are back up and running in Switzerland.

WikiLeaks Strikes Back and Moves to Switzerland - TIME NewsFeed

roachboy · 12-03-2010, 10:13 AM

so the transnational politico-financial oligarchy continues to ratchet up pressure on wikileaks, trying to "deal with" problems of incoherence and incompetence by shutting down the messenger who brings news of it

WikiLeaks: France adds to US pressure to ban website | Media | guardian.co.uk

earlier today, assange answered reader questions in quasi-realtime on the guardian's site. here's the playback:

Julian Assange answers your questions | World news | guardian.co.uk

there are a couple interesting statements, i think. the main one, which is not new, is:

Quote:

The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.

so speech is "free" in the states to the extent that it's politically irrelevant. this we know.

public speech is monopolized by corporate mediations, and so the space of public speech is mostly commodified. this we know. operations like wikileaks undermine that to some extent. and the push-back can be seen as an expression of financial concern more than anything else, concern over maintaining the monopolies of information distribution mediated by corporate interests over the "mainstream"....

public speech is managed. it is not free to the extent that access to the channels has a price. this is a model that is in some danger of falling apart in the print sector--in the one-dimensional infotainment streams that are television, things are pretty good for them. pretty pretty good. wikileaks makes television largely irrelevant. this is not a meme-show. it is at best the direct object in statements about something outside television. so it is a problem for television. no wonder fox et al have made assange into the bogeyman of the week.

corporate monopoly of information channels works symbiotically with state information controls. pigs in a blanket. the mainstream press is typically as critical of the state apparatus as the pastry is of the hot dog it's rolled around.

bad hot dog i am wrapped around. bad bad.

this symbiotic relation is significantly undermined by actions like wikileaks.
this threatens the established politics of information control, which is a matter of choking off access to channels.
the response---attempts to choke off access to channels.

of course, speech is free like a bat or badger so long as it's irrelevant.
without access to channels that distribute your speech, what you say is of no consequence at all.
no-one need take responsibility because it's all just about cash, man.
the absolute universalization of the commodity form. welcome to the world of neoliberal capitalism.
no-one has to take responsibility for anything.

and when something comes along that disrupts that illusion of universal market values and fake freedom that comes along with it, the oligarchy as one says:

off with his head!

and tells us we're better off sleeping. reality is scary. make it go away.

we're free like that. that's what the wikileaks theater shows us.

loquitur · 12-03-2010, 10:49 AM

I agree with these two blog observations. First, from the Economist:

Quote:

My gripe against Mr Assange is that he takes advantage of the protections of liberal democracies, but refuses to submit himself to them. If he wants to use the libel protections guaranteed by New York State, then he should live in New York, and commit himself to all of the safety and consequences of America's constitution. If he wants to use Sweden's whistleblower laws, then he should return to Sweden and let its justice system take its course. This, as we've written in the paper, is what distinguishes Mr Assange from Daniel Ellsberg. Mr Ellsberg did not flee America after releasing the Pentagon Papers; he stayed here and stood trial. Regardless of what you think about Mr Ellsberg's motives, he followed the basic tenets of civil disobedience: break a law, then publicly accept the consequences. Mr Assange just protects himself.

Julian Assange has created a legal structure that allows him to answer only to his own conscience. This is an extraordinarily clever hack of the world's legal systems. But it makes his pretense at moral authority a little hard to take seriously. And it also points toward a solution. If America feels threatened by WikiLeaks, then it should lean on its allies—Sweden, Iceland and Belgium—to strip the organisation of the protections it so carefully gathers as it shifts its information around the world. Mr Assange has suggested that he might be hounded all the way to Russia or Cuba. If he has to take all of his servers with him, it wil be harder for him to act so boldly.

Next, Megan McArdle at the Atlantic:

Quote:

Julian Assange seems to have fallen prey to what I call Supply-Sider's Disease, a little-known, yet surprising widespread psychiatric disorder in which people become convinced that things they very much want to do from strong moral convictions, must therefore have no downside. It is the political equivalent of believing that frozen yogurt and smoothies are calorie-free foods.

The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption.

Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.

Ah. This must be why Wikileaks has been getting so much material from the governments of China, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea, and why internal documents from Cargill are currently dominating their traffic. Ooops! That was a flash from an alternative universe where what Assange is saying isn't nonsense. In the real world, he got a bunch of government documents because the US, in its addlepated, well meaning way, dumped all of them on a network open to 3 million people where they could be seen by a disaffected 23-year old stupid enough to either believe he could get away with this, or not understand how long the years in jail might be.

I mean, it's certainly true that closed, secretive networks become less effective--but that doesn't mean they become less effective at the things we dislike them doing. Stalin remained exceptionally good at purges and liquidations all through World War II, and that didn't stop him from helping to win the war, and dominating half of Europe. It's just that it took more dead Russian boys to do it, because being secretive and purge-oriented kind of hampered the efficiency of the economy, leaving them a little short of key items like guns. But since Stalin was running a super-secretive, centrally controlled regime, that insight didn't really matter.

Similarly, forcing the US military and the state department to become more secretive might well hamper their effectiveness. But it seems most likely to hamper their effectiveness at things like nation-building and community outreach, where you need a broad, decentralized effort. I don't see why they'd be much less effective at launching drone attacks. To be sure, the drone attacks might kill a lot more innocent civilians. But no doubt Assange thinks this is all to the good because it heightens the contradictions or something.

It's also worth noting that the assumption that secretive organizations will necessarily be undermined by leaks is only even arguably true in a world where they can't expand their sphere of influence to control the propagation of those leaks. It will be clear to anyone who has ever visited China that we do not live in that universe. And of course, the US government has plenty of room to expand its power. And what truly worries me about Wikileaks is not the immediate damage that has been done by the release of this sort of information, but the fact that the latest drop has created an enormous, nearly unanimous backlash in the United States.

Most of the libertarians I know are ambivalent, for heaven's sake--if you can't get the libertarians united on actions that increase transparency, you've sure as hell lost the rest of the country. That's a ripe environment for new laws that reduce transparency. Maybe we'll be less effective--but we'll also be less free.

My point earlier about Assange's acting as a self-appointed avenger underscores both of these authors. Assange is a fine anarchist in tone and pronouncements, but he depends on the protection of laws and at the same time chooses his targets in a cowardly way. So he's both a hypocrite and a coward.

RB, I'm OK with civil disobedience, if the people doing it are actually assuming the responsibility that comes with it. The civil rights protesters were effective because they were willing to go to jail for what they did - and in fact going to jail highlighted the righteousness of their cause because, after all, it showed that the segregationists threw the people in jail for the crime of wanting to eat at a lunch counter. Assange is depending on the protection of western legal systems, not submitting himself to them. Big difference.

roachboy · 12-03-2010, 11:08 AM

well, i don't agree with anything you say about this, loquitor. i don't buy the libertarian/paranoid idea that assange has appointed himself anything. if you read what he actually says about the evolution of wikileaks, he emphasizes that for a long time they wanted there to be no face to the organization at all.

the vetting of the information that's released is at this point being done by a cadre of journalists in collaboration with wikileaks---i think they call it a form of investigative journalism. it doesn't matter particularly whether you like it or not---personally i think it's a good thing in the main, breaking up the secrecy that enables those in power to break the law, commit massive human rights violations and, in the case of iraq and the "war on terror" war crimes and not have to answer for it because they, cowards and hypocrites that they are, hide behind the illusion of patriotism or "national security" and a veil of secrecy from all accountability.

and now some of their cover's blown. boo fucking hoo.

and you've also got people like robert gates dismissing all this hullaballoo about the "endangering of security" blah blah blah.

here's a sane interpretation of all this authoritarian gnashing of teeth over the release. it's a little long and is better to read in the original because it's extensively linked. but i'll but it here anyway:

Quote:

Tuesday, Nov 30, 2010 06:31 ET
WikiLeaks reveals more than just government secrets
By Glenn Greenwald

*

WikiLeaks reveals more than just government secrets
Wikipedia/AP/Salon
Clockwise from lower left: Jonah Goldberg, Wolf Blitzer, Julian Assange, Bill Keller and Sarah Palin

(updated below - Update II)

The WikiLeaks disclosure has revealed not only numerous government secrets, but also the driving mentality of major factions in our political and media class. Simply put, there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to serving, protecting and venerating government authorities than the U.S. Indeed, I don't quite recall any entity producing as much bipartisan contempt across the American political spectrum as WikiLeaks has: as usual, for authoritarian minds, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon.

First we have the group demanding that Julian Assange be murdered without any charges, trial or due process. There was Sarah Palin on on Twitter illiterately accusing WikiLeaks -- a stateless group run by an Australian citizen -- of "treason"; she thereafter took to her Facebook page to object that Julian Assange was "not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders" (she also lied by stating that he has "blood on his hands": a claim which even the Pentagon admits is untrue). Townhall's John Hawkins has a column this morning entitled "5 Reasons The CIA Should Have Already Killed Julian Assange." That Assange should be treated as a "traitor" and murdered with no due process has been strongly suggested if not outright urged by the likes of Marc Thiessen, Seth Lipsky (with Jeffrey Goldberg posting Lipsky's column and also illiterately accusing Assange of "treason"), Jonah Goldberg, Rep. Pete King, and, today, The Wall Street Journal.

The way in which so many political commentators so routinely and casually call for the eradication of human beings without a shred of due process is nothing short of demented. Recall Palin/McCain adviser Michael Goldfarb's recent complaint that the CIA failed to kill Ahmed Ghailani when he was in custody, or Glenn Reynolds' morning demand -- in between sips of coffee -- that North Korea be destroyed with nuclear weapons ("I say nuke ‘em. And not with just a few bombs"). Without exception, all of these people cheered on the attack on Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of more than 100,000 innocent human beings, yet their thirst for slaughter is literally insatiable. After a decade's worth of American invasions, bombings, occupations, checkpoint shootings, drone attacks, assassinations and civilian slaughter, the notion that the U.S. Government can and should murder whomever it wants is more frequent and unrestrained than ever.

Those who demand that the U.S. Government take people's lives with no oversight or due process as though they're advocating changes in tax policy or mid-level personnel moves -- eradicate him!, they bellow from their seats in the Colosseum -- are just morally deranged barbarians. There's just no other accurate way to put it. These are usually the same people, of course, who brand themselves "pro-life" and Crusaders for the Sanctity of Human Life and/or who deride Islamic extremists for their disregard for human life. And the fact that this mindset is so widespread and mainstream is quite a reflection of how degraded America's political culture is. When WikiLeaks critics devote a fraction of their rage to this form of mainstream American thinking -- which, unlike anything WikiLeaks has done, has actually resulted in piles upon piles of corpses -- then their anti-WikiLeaks protestations should be taken more seriously, but not until then.

* * * * *

Then, with some exceptions, we have the group which -- so very revealingly -- is the angriest and most offended about the WikiLeaks disclosures: the American media, Our Watchdogs over the Powerful and Crusaders for Transparency. On CNN last night, Wolf Blitzer was beside himself with rage over the fact that the U.S. Government had failed to keep all these things secret from him:

Are they doing anything at all to make sure if some 23-year-old guy, allegedly, starts downloading hundreds of thousands of cables, hundreds of thousands of copies of sensitive information, that no one pays attention to that, no one in the security system of the United States government bothers to see someone is downloading all these millions -- literally millions of documents? . . . at this point, you know, it -- it's amazing to me that the U.S. government security system is so lax that someone could allegedly do this kind of damage just by simply pretending to be listening to a Lady Gaga C.D. and at the same time downloading all these kinds of documents.

Then -- like the Good Journalist he is -- Blitzer demanded assurances that the Government has taken the necessary steps to prevent him, the media generally and the citizenry from finding out any more secrets: "Do we know yet if they've [done] that fix? In other words, somebody right now who has top secret or secret security clearance can no longer download information onto a C.D. or a thumb drive? Has that been fixed already?" The central concern of Blitzer -- one of our nation's most honored "journalists" -- is making sure that nobody learns what the U.S. Government is up to.

Then there's the somewhat controversial claim that our major media stars are nothing more than Government spokespeople and major news outlets little more than glorified state-run media. Blitzer's CNN reporting provided the best illustration I've seen in awhile demonstrating how true that is. Shortly before bringing on David Gergen to rail against WikiLeaks' "contemptible behavior" (while, needless to say, not giving voice to any defenders of WikiLeaks), this is what was heard in the first several minutes of the CNN broadcast:

WOLF BLITZER, HOST: Brooke, thanks very much.

Happening now, a criminal investigation into the leak of U.S. diplomatic secrets. . . . The White House says it would be an understatement to say that President Obama is not pleased about these leaks. The Justice Department says a criminal investigation is ongoing and the State Department is leading attempts at international damage control right now.

Our foreign affairs correspondent, Jill Dougherty, is over at the State Department working the story for us.

And there's enormous potential damage for the United States in these -- in these leaks, Jill. I assume that's what officials there are telling you.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: They are, Wolf. They're pretty overt about it. It could be very, very damaging. . . . The Secretary slammed the release of the cables, calling it an attack.

CLINTON: This is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community. . . .

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Let me be very clear, this is not saber rattling.

DOUGHERTY: The U.S. attorney general is not ruling out going after the WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, even though he is not an American citizen.

HOLDER: To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law and who has put at risk the assets and the people that I have described, they will be held responsible.

That's CNN's journalism: uncritically passing on one government claim after the next -- without any contradiction, challenge, or scrutiny. Other than Blitzer's anger over the Government's failure to more effectively keep secrets from everyone, what would an overtly state-run media do differently? Absolutely nothing. It's just so revealing that the sole criticism of the Government allowed to be heard is that they haven't done enough to keep us all in the dark.

Then we have The New York Times, which was denied access to the documents by WikiLeaks this time but received them from The Guardian. That paper's Executive Editor, Bill Keller, appeared in a rather amazing BBC segment yesterday with Carne Ross, former British Ambassador to the U.N., who mocked and derided Keller for being guided by the U.S. Government's directions on what should and should not be published (video below):

KELLER: The charge the administration has made is directed at WikiLeaks: they've very carefully refrained from criticizing the press for the way we've handled this material . . . . We've redacted them to remove the names of confidential informants . . . and remove other material at the recommendation of the U.S. Government we were convinced could harm National Security . . .

HOST (incredulously): Just to be clear, Bill Keller, are you saying that you sort of go to the Government in advance and say: "What about this, that and the other, is it all right to do this and all right to do that," and you get clearance, then?

KELLER: We are serially taking all of the cables we intend to post on our website to the administration, asking for their advice. We haven't agreed with everything they suggested to us, but some of their recommendations we have agreed to: they convinced us that redacting certain information would be wise.

ROSS: One thing that Bill Keller just said makes me think that one shouldn't go to The New York Times for these telegrams -- one should go straight to the WikiLeaks site. It's extraordinary that the New York Times is clearing what it says about this with the U.S. Government, but that says a lot about the politics here, where Left and Right have lined up to attack WikiLeaks - some have called it a "terrorist organization."

It's one thing for the Government to shield its conduct from public disclosure, but it's another thing entirely for the U.S. media to be active participants in that concealment effort. As The Guardian's Simon Jenkins put it in a superb column that I can't recommend highly enough: "The job of the media is not to protect power from embarrassment. . . . Clearly, it is for governments, not journalists, to protect public secrets." But that's just it: the media does exactly what Jenkins says is not their job, which -- along with envy over WikiLeaks' superior access to confidential information -- is what accounts for so much media hostility toward that group. As the headline of John Kampfner's column in The Independent put it: "Wikileaks shows up our media for their docility at the feet of authority."

Most political journalists rely on their relationships with government officials and come to like them and both identify and empathize with them. By contrast, WikiLeaks is truly adversarial to those powerful factions in exactly the way that these media figures are not: hence, the widespread media hatred and contempt for what WikiLeaks does. Just look at how important it was for Bill Keller to emphasize that the Government is criticizing WikiLeaks but not The New York Times; having the Government pleased with his behavior is his metric for assessing how good his "journalism" is. If the Government is patting him on the head, then it's proof that he acted "responsibly." That servile-to-power mentality is what gets exposed by the contrast Wikileaks provides.

* * * * *

Then we have the Good Citizens who are furious that WikiLeaks has shown them what their Government is doing and, conversely, prevented the Government from keeping things from them. Joshua Foust -- who says "he’s spent the vast majority of his adult life doing defense and intelligence consulting for the U.S. government" -- has a private Twitter feed for various intelligence officials and reporters, behind which he's been bravely railing against WikiLeaks defenders (including me) and hysterically blaming WikiLeaks disclosures for everything from Chinese cyber warfare to the next terrorist attack. Plenty of other people are reciting anti-WikiLeaks condemnations from the same script.

It's hardly surprising that people like Foust who work for the Government and depend upon staying in its good graces are screeching all sorts of fear-mongering claims (he's apparently a DIA analyst under contract for Northrop Grumman, though he doesn't disclose that to his readers). That's what the Government, its enablers and royal court hangers-on do: you wind them up and they insist that any restraints on, or exposure of, the U.S. Government will help the Terrorists get us, and subject us to other scary dangers. But what's extraordinary is that these strident claims continue even after the U.S. Government's prior "blood-on-their-hands" warnings have been exposed as wildly exaggerated. As the pro-Obama, pro-National Security State New York Times Editorial Page put it today with great understatement: "The claim by [] Clinton that the leaks threaten national security seems exaggerated."

Before setting forth why these WikiLeaks disclosures produce vastly more good than harm, I'll state several caveats as clearly as I can. Unlike the prior leaks of war documents, there are reasonable concerns about this latest leak (most particularly that impeding diplomacy makes war more likely). Like all organizations, WikiLeaks has made mistakes in the past, including its failure to exercise enough care in redacting the names of Afghan informers. Moreover, some documents are legitimately classified, probably including some among the documents that were just disclosed.

Nonetheless, our government and political culture is so far toward the extreme pole of excessive, improper secrecy that that is clearly the far more significant threat. And few organizations besides WikiLeaks are doing anything to subvert that regime of secrecy, and none is close to its efficacy. It's staggering to watch anyone walk around acting as though the real threat is from excessive disclosures when the impenetrable, always-growing Wall of Secrecy is what has enabled virtually every abuse and transgression of the U.S. government over the last two decades at least.

In sum, I seriously question the judgment of anyone who -- in the face of the orgies of secrecy the U.S. Government enjoys and, more so, the abuses they have accomplished by operating behind it -- decides that the real threat is WikiLeaks for subverting that ability. That's why I said yesterday: one's reaction to WikiLeaks is largely shaped by whether or not one, on balance, supports what the U.S. has been covertly doing in the world by virtue of operating in the dark. I concur wholeheartedly with Digby's superb commentary on this point yesterday:

My personal feeling is that any allegedly democratic government that is so hubristic that it will lie blatantly to the entire world in order to invade a country it has long wanted to invade probably needs a self-correcting mechanism. There are times when it's necessary that the powerful be shown that there are checks on its behavior, particularly when the systems normally designed to do that are breaking down. Now is one of those times. . . . .As for the substance of the revelations, I don't know what the results will be. But in the world of diplomacy, embarrassment is meaningful and I'm not sure that it's a bad thing for all these people to be embarrassed right now. Puncturing a certain kind of self-importance --- especially national self-importance --- may be the most worthwhile thing they do. A little humility is long overdue.

The Economist's Democracy in America blog has an equally excellent analysis:

The careerists scattered about the world in America's intelligence agencies, military, and consular offices largely operate behind a veil of secrecy executing policy which is itself largely secret. American citizens mostly have no idea what they are doing, or whether what they are doing is working out well. The actually-existing structure and strategy of the American empire remains a near-total mystery to those who foot the bill and whose children fight its wars. And that is the way the elite of America's unelected permanent state, perhaps the most powerful class of people on Earth, like it.

As Scott Shane, the New York Times' national security reporter, puts it: "American taxpayers, American citizens pay for all these diplomatic operations overseas and you know, it is not a bad thing when Americans actually have a better understanding of those negotiations". Mr Shane goes on to suggest that "Perhaps if we had had more information on these secret internal deliberations of governments prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, we would have had a better understanding of the quality of the evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."

I'd say providing that information certainly would have been a socially worthy activity, even if it came as part of a more-or-less indiscriminate dump of illegally obtained documents. I'm glad to see that the quality of discussion over possible US efforts to stymie Iran's nuclear ambitions has already become more sophisticated and, well, better-informed due to the information provided by WikiLeaks.

If secrecy is necessary for national security and effective diplomacy, it is also inevitable that the prerogative of secrecy will be used to hide the misdeeds of the permanent state and its privileged agents. I suspect that there is no scheme of government oversight that will not eventually come under the indirect control of the generals, spies, and foreign-service officers it is meant to oversee. Organisations such as WikiLeaks, which are philosophically opposed to state secrecy and which operate as much as is possible outside the global nation-state system, may be the best we can hope for in the way of promoting the climate of transparency and accountability necessary for authentically liberal democracy.

The central goal of WikiLeaks is to prevent the world's most powerful factions -- including the sprawling, imperial U.S. Government -- from continuing to operate in the dark and without restraints. Most of the institutions which are supposed to perform that function -- beginning with the U.S. Congress and the American media -- not only fail to do so, but are active participants in maintaining the veil of secrecy. WikiLeaks, whatever its flaws, is one of the very few entities shining a vitally needed light on all of this. It's hardly surprising, then, that those factions -- and their hordes of spokespeople, followers and enablers -- see WikiLeaks as a force for evil. That's evidence of how much good they are doing.

* * * * *

Two related items: FAIR documents how severely and blatantly the New York Times reporting distorted some of these documents in order (as always) to demonize Iran and the "threat" it poses. And Assange, in an interview with Forbes, says that the next leak will target a major U.S. bank.

And here is the above-referenced BBC segment with Bill Keller:

UPDATE: Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked today about the WikiLeaks disclosures and he said this:

“Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets. . . .

“Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.’’

To recap: warnings about the dangers from WikiLeaks are "significantly overwrought" and the impact on foreign policy: "fairly modest." So it appears that the political class and its eager enablers in the media world and foreign policy community have -- as usual -- severely exaggerated national security threats in order to manipulate the public and its emotional reactions. Shocking, I know.

WikiLeaks reveals more than just government secrets - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

loquitur · 12-03-2010, 01:13 PM

Will respond when I can, but for now will just note that evaluating Assange is a separate issue from whether State behaves well or whether people were endangered by this particular data dump. A murderer is a murderer even if his victim is a lowlife.

roachboy · 12-03-2010, 01:26 PM

i don't think you can separate the registers without draining away the political content of the release itself. but if you do that, then you aren't talking about the release any more. you're talking about a fiction.

look forward to your response tho. i understand your position, btw. i just don't agree with it.

in reactionary land, things are getting nutty:

WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates | News | guardian.co.uk

if you go to this guardian blog that is tracking various aspects of the fallout from the leak, there are some quite disturbing developments....there's a good demolition of amazon's weak, stupid decision to throw wikileaks out based on an imaginary terms of service violation...and there's also some strange stuff happening...like an email ciruculating at columbia which warns people who are considering applying for a job with state away from looking at the wikileaks material....and a threat to all government employees to not look at them.

it's insanity. it really is.

ring · 12-03-2010, 01:51 PM

Yep. I've been hearing that for a time earlier today, Facebook was considering that alternate Wikileak site 'an abuse' & some folk had difficulty posting the link.

mixedmedia · 12-03-2010, 02:06 PM

maybe that explains my appearing and disappearing facebook posts this morning...

---------- Post added at 05:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:02 PM ----------

so it seems that in lieu of lynching Julian Assange they might start turning that punitive eye inward. perhaps they didn't imagine so much popular support would turn up right under their noses.

nice. another comforting thought that belies how 'hep to the jive' our government is, lol.

Willravel · 12-03-2010, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

Will...

Yes?

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

...respond when I can...

The drawbacks of being an auxiliary verb...

ASU2003 · 12-03-2010, 06:17 PM

The Pirate Bay - The world's most resilient bittorrent site

Once something is on the net, and the hackers want it, there is no taking it away without shutting down the ISPs. That would be an interesting move.

I got an e-mail saying not to view the site even on my personal computer at home...

hiredgun · 12-06-2010, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlatan

One must ask why none of these cables used encryption? Perhaps I am missing something.

Sorry if this was already answered. Certainly the data was encrypted in transmission, but it gets decrypted at the other end.. for good reason, because the point is that people with the right to access this data (like the source of this leak) need to be able to read it.

Encryption only helps keep outsiders away from your data. If an individual 'inside' your encryption scheme wants to leak the information, there are no straightforward technical ways to stop him.

roachboy · 12-06-2010, 02:13 PM

U.S. Diplomats Aren't Stupid After All - By Joshua Kucera | Foreign Policy

i quite like this article, which blows away much of the "endangerment" nonsense and replaces it with something closer to accuracy---that there's something actually good about the state dept releases, that alot of people think more of the diplomatic corps than they might have previously when most of what they were fed was talking-point based cream-of-wheat pablum....

can't have that, now can we?

mrmacq · 12-06-2010, 05:14 PM

ya know
the idea of circling the wagons
only comes when youre extremely concerned
hell
theres been mass extinctions
devoted to the cause
of
some not complying
----
and what is it hes accused of?
disseminating the truth
----
good god
what a charge
here in the lands of the supposed free

ASU2003 · 12-06-2010, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hiredgun

Sorry if this was already answered. Certainly the data was encrypted in transmission, but it gets decrypted at the other end.. for good reason, because the point is that people with the right to access this data (like the source of this leak) need to be able to read it.

Encryption only helps keep outsiders away from your data. If an individual 'inside' your encryption scheme wants to leak the information, there are no straightforward technical ways to stop him.

That sounds like a crappy encryption scheme which is exactly what our government is using.

There are plenty of straightforward technical ways to stop this from happening again. First, they should be using Linux (the NSA released a version a few years ago), second, they just need to create a "classified" user type that has the ability to open secret or top secret files.

An example of it done badly is DVDs which had the encryption hacked, but HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays proved harder. It could be done.

mrmacq · 12-06-2010, 06:20 PM

well
call me naive
but why all the secrecy in the first place?
our dips could pretty much figure out what your dips were thinking
the saudis
know their richest fund
(and ya dont like little mosque on the prarie)
still chucling on that one

the yanks fund in their own way
not like us little folk cant read
put two and two together
yet now its a huge deal?
holy crap
are they so out to lunch?

---------- Post added at 06:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:10 PM ----------

ah
one more thing

since when did we throw out

freedom to spread truth?

or even speak it?

have we sunk this low?

Cimarron29414 · 12-07-2010, 09:20 AM

mrmacq,

For the love of Pete, please don't discuss politics in Haiku. Please type like a normal person. Please.

YaWhateva · 12-07-2010, 10:22 AM

Julian Assange turned himself in. I don't like this at all.

Edit: He hasn't been charged with a crime apparently but its for questioning on his sexual assault charges.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe...ex.html?hpt=T1

silent_jay · 12-07-2010, 10:27 AM

roachboy · 12-07-2010, 10:47 AM

from the guardian blog:

Quote:

5.30pm: With perfect timing an email arrives from Philip Crowley at the state department:

The United States is pleased to announce that it will host Unesco's World Press Freedom Day event in 2011, from 1-3 May in Washington, DC.

Ironic? Read the next paragraph from the press release:

The theme for next year's commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and
innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.

Shameless. You really could not make it up.

WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates | News | guardian.co.uk

the press release:

U.S. to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011

mixedmedia · 12-07-2010, 11:37 AM

sheesh.

ring · 12-07-2010, 11:41 AM

This Kinda reminds me of hysterical McCarthyism & what happened to Wilhelm Reich.

Cimarron29414 · 12-07-2010, 01:15 PM

I think the man is a dickhead, but those charges against him are total bullshit. If he goes to jail on account of those hussies, it WILL be a miscarriage of justice.

12-02-2010, 06:14 AM	#81 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Assange would like to expose secrets from China and Russia as well, of course none of that matters if no one gives Wikileaks any data. dogzilla: If Wikileaks HAD info on Al Qaeda, I'd wonder why they're not exposing it. Since there's no reason to think they do, why should I be upset about this. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

12-02-2010, 02:04 PM	#87 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	This may shock you dogzilla, but disclosing classified information is not a crime unless you are someone who has a duty to protect said information (which would be anyone with express access to that information... which is not WikiLeaks). __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

12-02-2010, 02:22 PM	#88 (permalink)
Wes Mantooth Junkie Location: Tennessee	That's true, ultimately the responsibility for classified information falls at the feet of the folks who are supposed to be protecting it and they are really 100% at fault for the leak. You could charge somebody for breaking and entering, hacking, theft, espionage or whatever but those in charge of keeping the info secret needed to be more vigilant. Although I do have to wonder if you can prosecute somebody for knowingly publishing classified information. It doesn't seem right that if I came across classified documents about nuclear launch codes I wouldn't be held to some responsibility if I posted them on the Internet. __________________ “My god I must have missed it...its hell down here!”

12-02-2010, 04:45 PM	#92 (permalink)
Charlatan Getting it. Super Moderator Location: Lion City	Quite frankly, this is what our mainstream media should be doing. The fact that they aren't digging for this sort of information and sources is troubling. I think the only reason the media grousing about this (if they are) is because they are jealous. __________________ "My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars." - Old Man Luedecke

12-03-2010, 01:19 AM	#94 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	update: wikileaks site closed down and authorities are closing in on Assange in the UK. WikiLeaks offline after domain 'killed' \| News.com.au Sounds like a witch hunt to me. Authorities would rather see us blinded by their spin than see the truth of the matter. Killing the truth at whatever cost is against everything democracy stands for. Today I am ashamed to be a part of the free world. Free my fucking ass. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

12-02-2010, 08:51 AM	#83 (permalink)
Anonymous Member Addict	Cost-benefit analysis here doesn't quite work out. Now we know, or more importantly, Iran knows, that Saudi-Arabia was egging the U.S. on, to bomb Iran. How does this help the general public make more informed decisions? Frankly, I'm not seeing the redeeming value in this case. Cost = major damage to foreign relations, benefit = a more transparent government? What is likely to happen, is the government will institute stronger controls on their information--so in essence, the benefit is in reality, another cost.

12-03-2010, 01:28 AM	#95 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	Something else worth noting: Those "rape" charges? They stem from a broken condom, and apparently in Sweden you can be charged for rape even when sex is consensual. Add to that one of his accusers wrote a treatise on how to take revenge against men. 'Sex by Surprise' at Heart of Julian Assange Criminal Probe __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

12-03-2010, 04:53 AM	#98 (permalink)
SecretMethod70 Human Administrator Location: Chicago	I like how they chose to run an ominous looking picture of Assange in sunglasses. __________________ Le temps détruit tout "Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

12-03-2010, 05:05 AM	#99 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	Apparently they are back up and running in Switzerland. WikiLeaks Strikes Back and Moves to Switzerland - TIME NewsFeed __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

12-03-2010, 01:13 PM	#103 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Will respond when I can, but for now will just note that evaluating Assange is a separate issue from whether State behaves well or whether people were endangered by this particular data dump. A murderer is a murderer even if his victim is a lowlife.

12-03-2010, 01:26 PM	#104 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i don't think you can separate the registers without draining away the political content of the release itself. but if you do that, then you aren't talking about the release any more. you're talking about a fiction. look forward to your response tho. i understand your position, btw. i just don't agree with it. in reactionary land, things are getting nutty: WikiLeaks US embassy cables: live updates \| News \| guardian.co.uk if you go to this guardian blog that is tracking various aspects of the fallout from the leak, there are some quite disturbing developments....there's a good demolition of amazon's weak, stupid decision to throw wikileaks out based on an imaginary terms of service violation...and there's also some strange stuff happening...like an email ciruculating at columbia which warns people who are considering applying for a job with state away from looking at the wikileaks material....and a threat to all government employees to not look at them. it's insanity. it really is. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

12-03-2010, 01:51 PM	#105 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	Yep. I've been hearing that for a time earlier today, Facebook was considering that alternate Wikileak site 'an abuse' & some folk had difficulty posting the link.

12-03-2010, 02:06 PM	#106 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	maybe that explains my appearing and disappearing facebook posts this morning... ---------- Post added at 05:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:02 PM ---------- so it seems that in lieu of lynching Julian Assange they might start turning that punitive eye inward. perhaps they didn't imagine so much popular support would turn up right under their noses. nice. another comforting thought that belies how 'hep to the jive' our government is, lol. __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

12-03-2010, 06:17 PM	#108 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	The Pirate Bay - The world's most resilient bittorrent site Once something is on the net, and the hackers want it, there is no taking it away without shutting down the ISPs. That would be an interesting move. I got an e-mail saying not to view the site even on my personal computer at home...

12-06-2010, 02:13 PM	#110 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	U.S. Diplomats Aren't Stupid After All - By Joshua Kucera \| Foreign Policy i quite like this article, which blows away much of the "endangerment" nonsense and replaces it with something closer to accuracy---that there's something actually good about the state dept releases, that alot of people think more of the diplomatic corps than they might have previously when most of what they were fed was talking-point based cream-of-wheat pablum.... can't have that, now can we? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

12-06-2010, 05:14 PM	#111 (permalink)
mrmacq Upright Location: lotus land 3rd igloo on the right	ya know the idea of circling the wagons only comes when youre extremely concerned hell theres been mass extinctions devoted to the cause of some not complying ---- and what is it hes accused of? disseminating the truth ---- good god what a charge here in the lands of the supposed free __________________ never stop questioning,curiosity has its own rewards

12-06-2010, 06:20 PM	#113 (permalink)
mrmacq Upright Location: lotus land 3rd igloo on the right	well call me naive but why all the secrecy in the first place? our dips could pretty much figure out what your dips were thinking the saudis know their richest fund (and ya dont like little mosque on the prarie) still chucling on that one the yanks fund in their own way not like us little folk cant read put two and two together yet now its a huge deal? holy crap are they so out to lunch? ---------- Post added at 06:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:10 PM ---------- ah one more thing since when did we throw out freedom to spread truth? or even speak it? have we sunk this low? __________________ never stop questioning,curiosity has its own rewards

12-07-2010, 09:20 AM	#114 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	mrmacq, For the love of Pete, please don't discuss politics in Haiku. Please type like a normal person. Please. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

12-07-2010, 10:22 AM	#115 (permalink)
YaWhateva Friend Location: New Mexico	Julian Assange turned himself in. I don't like this at all. Edit: He hasn't been charged with a crime apparently but its for questioning on his sexual assault charges. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe...ex.html?hpt=T1 __________________ “If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly "This is my United States of Whateva!" Last edited by YaWhateva; 12-07-2010 at 10:24 AM..

12-07-2010, 10:27 AM	#116 (permalink)
silent_jay Her Jay Location: Ontario for now....	... Last edited by silent_jay; 02-10-2011 at 10:59 AM..

12-07-2010, 11:37 AM	#118 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	sheesh. __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

12-07-2010, 11:41 AM	#119 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	This Kinda reminds me of hysterical McCarthyism & what happened to Wilhelm Reich.

12-07-2010, 01:15 PM	#120 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	I think the man is a dickhead, but those charges against him are total bullshit. If he goes to jail on account of those hussies, it WILL be a miscarriage of justice. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."