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Wikileaks is an enemy of the United States

Just to toss this out for consideration: Was Daniel Ellsberg a traitor?

Ellsberg, while working for the Rand Corporation, passed the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. In 1971, this precipitated one of the most serious controversies regarding Freedom of the Press and the right of the Government to maintain a degree of confidentiality.

The problem for the Federal Government was what it was they wanted kept secret. There was already serious doubt regarding the Pueblo Incident, and there had long been other concerns over time regarding our involvement in Vietnam. By the time Ellsberg released the documents to the Times, it was becoming fairly obvious that Robert MacNamara and Lyndon Johnson had been lying to us for the better part of Johnson's tenure in the White House. The release of the Pentagon documents not only confirmed there was a credibility gap, but that thousands of Americans had lost their lives for little more than MacNamara's ego, and to pander to the hard-line anti-Communists inside and out of the Government.

Consider also the actions of Mark Felt, who we learned a while ago was Deep Throat, Woodward and Bernstein's source on Watergate. Would Felt be considered a traitor, and subject to trial for Treason? Under what I'm presuming are Toontown's criteria, both men would have been tried and executed.

Simply classifying documents because the Government doesn't want the information released ought to provoke alarm in most people. Why shouldn't this information be known, particularly since as citizens, we have every right to know what our government is up to, within certain limitations. I don't want military movements known, as I've said, until the action is over, and the enemy's been put down. Carter earned a degree of respect after the failure to rescue our people from Iran for being open about the failure, and how it happened, not to mention accepting (incomplete) responsibility.

It would seem to me that rather than forcing the average person to demonstrate why something should not be classified, it ought to be incumbent on the government to show why it should. Some things are genuine no-brainers, but some leave me cold.
 
Toontown said:
What does your question suggest?

I wasn't "suggesting" anything. I was commenting on the coincidence. I quipped that Roadtoad should seek a security clearance to satisfy his thirst for classified knowledge, and he just happened to have had one.

Don't worry your pretty little head about it. I'll take his word for it. A low level security clearance is not that rare. It is not a claim that requires proof. It doesn't violate Occam's razor.

I would have gotten one myself, but I was too honest. I admitted that I had once smoked pot when asked.
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Did the same thing. Kept me from anything higher than Secret. And even then, there was a fight to get it. (If I'd been smart, since a Secret clearance is required for the MOS I held, I'd have used that as a means to get out of the military, since it would have been a violation of my contract.

(Live and learn...)
 
deepatrax said:
A meeting could go many different ways...one possibility goes something like this:

"Mr. Assange, my name is John Doe and I have some very important U.S. documents you might be interested in, let's talk over coffee"

Assange and John Doe have coffee.

Two days later, after repeated efforts by the hotel staff to get any response from Assange in his hotel room, they enter to find him deceased. Autopsy results reveal nothing.
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I think that you have the CIA mixed up with the SVR. Under US Law the CIA has been out of the assassination game since 1975 after the Church and Pike Committees took them to peices. After Bush gave them the go ahead to kill or capture Al Qeada leaders in 2001 in a covert programme the fall out when it came to light was worse than that for the Waterboarding, and they didn't even get anyone.
 
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This thread reminds me of the TSA thread about expectations of privacy ... and illegal searches and seizures (without probable cause). Except the shoe is on the other foot, of course.

I mean, why should anyone (i.e., an airline passenger or a government) have anything to fear from this kind of treatment. Unless, of course, they have something to hide.

In other words, privacy works both ways--for governments and for individuals--respect both ... or neither.
 
Thunder said:
there is a legal way to get government documents, even classified ones from the USA. its called the Freedom of Information Act. it does wonders.
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Thunder said:
there are legal ways of getting classified info. Assange chose other routes.
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And if the US is anything like Australia then when you get the documents you would have to deal with the black highlighter.

Unabogie said:
Freedom isn't free?
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No, in fact it's slavery.

Thunder said:
possession of stolen classified documents is a crime.

I'm sure the release of stolen classified documents to unauthorized personnel, is also a crime.

Assange should be barred from entering any country that his releases harms.

the USA, UK, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc etc.
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So he shouldn't even be allowed to re-enter Australia if he leaves it?

deepatrax said:
yes, I do admit...I value the life of an American soldier over that of Julian Assange.
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Funny, I value the life of Julian Assange over that of an American soldier. :AUSTRALIA:
 
Sometimes, it is worth while to break the law, and even risk people's lives, to tell the truth. But -- so far, and assuming there is no big "bombshell" still waiting -- what had this leak shown? That Iran will only be stopped by force, if at all, and "soft diplomacy" with it is worthless? That the Islamists in Turkey, like Islamists everywhere, are violent thugs? That the actual views about certain world leaders the CIA or others have is less flattering than official pronouncements would have it? That's it?

Edited by kmortis: 
Stick to the topic, not the other posters


This is precisely what I see as morally wrong here. This publication puts people's lives at risk. And it clearly was done without any concern for their lives, and without any sort of information whose exposure remotely justifies risking their lives.
 
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deepatrax,

Question.

You argue that anyone who puts American lives at risk -- whether for legitimate reasons or not (ie. the Americans actually did something illegal or immoral) seems not to be relevant to your argument -- is an enemy of the U.S., and should be killed.

If you're going to use that argument, then we must apply the same principle to other countries, also; ie. if someone puts the lives of people in another country at risk, then the people responsible for that should be killed.

Thus...if it is revealed by Wikileaks that the U.S. has engaged in behavior that has put the lives of people in other countries at risk, then therefore those countries should react by trying to kill the Americans (political leaders, military leaders, etc.) who are responsible for that.

Would you agree?

Or is it your argument that only the U.S. has the right to kill people it perceives as a threat...but other countries do not?
 
thaiboxerken said:
In essence, I don't think ANY information should be secret from the public.
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So, the designs for nuclear bombs, how to produce chemical weapons, operating frequencies of unmanned aircraft carrying weapons, encryption keys, should all be public domain?
 
Skeptic said:
(the real reason, I suspect, for Parky/Thunder's "hang 'im high" attitude -- somehow I doubt he would be so vindictive if the leaks supported his pet "Israel is evil, Ahmadenijad is a great guy" views),
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Can you provide a link to him ever saying that? Or are you simply making a mockery of your username again?
 
Wolfman said:
deepatrax,

Question.

You argue that anyone who puts American lives at risk -- whether for legitimate reasons or not (ie. the Americans actually did something illegal or immoral) seems not to be relevant to your argument -- is an enemy of the U.S., and should be killed.
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What do we call the Bush administrations use of fraudulent evidence to justify the Iraq invasion?
 
I think everyone's missing the point of these things. They're funny. All these solemn governments pretending that diplomacy is some highbrow thing, and really they're all behaving like junior high kids passing notes. "OMG Angela's so cheap, and Vladimir is totally hooking up with Silvio!!". The entertainment potential of these things is huge. Someone should totally hire some actors and enact scenes based on these leaks--Hillary Clinton ordering people to try to get UN diplomats "internet passwords" (to what, I wonder? Yahoo mail accounts? Is the Chinese ambassador hooking up on Recon? Does the papal envoy Facebook, and does the US have an interest in screwing with his farm on Farmvile?); Qaddafi and his voluptuous blonde nurse, the Russians and their mafia (Lord, how they love their mafia!), and all the other stuff that everybody probably already guessed. Apart from the nurse I didn't read anything in the BBC article I didn't already either know or could have figured out if I were a diplomat myself. I mean, how much of a shock is it that Arab leaders want Iran out of the way? I think that revelation alone is fantastically good because that way when we do it, they can't tell their people "oh, those evil Americans are being anti-Muslim again, we certainly never wanted this even though it's to our advantage".

I say, let's not just expose these stupid little secrets, but make them into short films for our amusement and gleefully wallow in the antics of the idiots in charge of us.

At the very least, it's a pointed lesson on security. Why the hell are these people sending soooper-secret gossip that can be so easily intercepted and disseminated? In this day and age surely they can find a better way to communicate.
 
Skeptic said:
I fail to see how anybody is surprised by this. Perhaps some naive left-wing loonies shocked that the religion of peace is actually a religion of war
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It's positively amazing the way right-wing propaganda works. The whole "Religion of peace" thing was started by none other than George W. Bush, but somehow it has magically transformed into something that only "naive left-wing loonies" believe.
 
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Spot-on post, TragicMonkey

Democracy cannot function without transparency so what's the problem, brave Warriors of Democracy? Have you gone off democracy all of a sudden?
 
JihadJane said:
Spot-on post, TragicMonkey

Democracy cannot function without transparency so what's the problem, brave Warriors of Democracy? Have you gone off democracy all of a sudden?
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Since when did being a democracy entitle people to leak military information to our enemies? Besides, you don't even think America is a democracy. You're always going on about how it's a fascist dictatorship and stuff.
 
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