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Wikileaks is an enemy of the United States

This is just a topic of a lot of interest to me since there's not a clear line on "what does my political party say I should think about this" for people to base their opinions, so I've been reading every thread on the leaks that comes up.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Last I checked, Wikileaks wasn't a country
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I didn't say it was a country. Australia is a country.

it still doesn't follow that the U.S. has jurisdiction over everyone on the planet.
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I didn't say the US has jurisdiction on anybody outside the US, much less the whole planet.

And it certainly doesn't mean someone who publishes these documents is automatically an enemy of the U.S. and deserving of summary execution.
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In the first line of the post I made just five posts before the one you quoted I wrote that "I agree that "summary executions" is ridiculous hyperbole. The people who leaked the documents to Wikileaks are probably in violation of some secrecy law and should be prosecuted, not killed."

How on earth did you come to the conclusion that I support summary executions?!

JoeTheJuggler said:
Has anyone argued that position?
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Yes. Post 58. Thaiboxerken said he doesn't think any information should be secret. JihadJane may be advocating it in post 177. It's always difficult to tell what her position is, though. She may be being sarcastic. In post 201, Tony is "of the opinion that governments should be permitted to keep as few secrets as possible." It does seem he would not think that diplomats' assessments of our allies' character should be kept secret. Perhaps he'd clarify what he means by "as few secrets as possible".

So the guy who did the leaks would have been wise to send a copy of everything he gave to Asange to a Congressperson.
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Interesting!
Leif Roar said:
No, that is absolutely unthinkable. No country on (or off) earth will prosecute another country's laws.
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I specifically stated that Australia would be prosecuting Assuange for violation of Australia's laws. In the very post you quoted, I even bolded the word "Australia's" in the (apparently vain) hope that people would see I did not think Australia could prosecute a violation of American law. But Austalian law can make it acrime to leak documents classified by another country as a State secret, and I suspect that's exactly what Australia has done.

WildCat said:
I doubt America could prosecute Assange under American law... so how could Australia do it under American law?
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By passing a law that made it a crime to leak a document marked as confidential (or a state secret, or whatever terminology Australia uses) by another country. It would be done as a matter of international comity to ensure that other countries also prevent those under their jurisdiction from revealing documents that you've designated as classified (or state secrets, or whatever terminology used).
 
I just learned that Wikileaks, in its efforts to review the materials in question and cut out bits that might be dangerous to anyone, asked the State Department to help with that task, but they refused.
 
I think Assigne's claim he has no political agenda is pretty much blown to hell by his saying he will be leaking information about a Bank next.
I would not be suprised if the bank is a LOT more active about suing Assingne then the US government is.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
I just learned that Wikileaks, in its efforts to review the materials in question and cut out bits that might be dangerous to anyone, asked the State Department to help with that task, but they refused.
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And Wikileaks knew damn well they would refuse.
It is apparent the Hard Left has found a new saint in Wikileaks......
 
marksman said:
I didn't say it was a country. Australia is a country.
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Did I say you said that?

I didn't say the US has jurisdiction on anybody outside the US, much less the whole planet.
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Did I say you said that?


In the first line of the post I made just five posts before the one you quoted I wrote that "I agree that "summary executions" is ridiculous hyperbole. The people who leaked the documents to Wikileaks are probably in violation of some secrecy law and should be prosecuted, not killed."

How on earth did you come to the conclusion that I support summary executions?!
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How did you come to the conclusion that I think you support summary executions? The OP of this thread claims that Wikileaks and anyone else involved in leaking secret documents are enemies of the U.S. and by post #4 it was being suggested that their should be murdered.



Yes. Post 58. Thaiboxerken said he doesn't think any information should be secret. <snip> It does seem he would not think that diplomats' assessments of our allies' character should be kept secret. Perhaps he'd clarify what he means by "as few secrets as possible".
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Or maybe what he meant by "in essence". I find it hard to believe that anyone really thinks no information should be secret.

Even Wikileaks (with help from the newspapers they're working with) has been redacting portions of the documents that they think are best kept secret.
 
dudalb said:
And Wikileaks knew damn well they would refuse.
It is apparent the Hard Left has found a new saint in Wikileaks......
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I've just been arguing that this isn't the willy-nilly publication of huge un-edited documents with no regard for endangering lives. It doesn't follow that Assange is now a hero or a saint.

Again, I'm primarily arguing against the position that anyone who leaks or publishes secret documents is automatically a criminal and necessarily an enemy of the state [see the OP of this thread] (and certainly not someone who should be summarily executed!)

By the way, apparently Hillary Clinton--or someone relatively high up in the State Department-- has been violating treaties by engaging in espionage within the U.N. I find this to be more problematic than what Assange has done.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
So they suppose the diplomats were just spying on their own? Are they using the "few bad apples" argument?
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You do know we have spies, don't you? Are you against having spies, or do you think spies do everything nice and legal?
 
dudalb said:
I think Assigne's claim he has no political agenda is pretty much blown to hell by his saying he will be leaking information about a Bank next.
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I don't follow this logic. Perhaps you can parse this out.
 
dudalb said:
It is apparent the Hard Left has found a new saint in Wikileaks......
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Put Captain Confirmation Bias back in your pants. Just on these threads, I've seen praise (and criticism) from both sides of the aisle.

Though the calls for his assassination seem to be coming only from the hard right...
 
dudalb said:
I think Assigne's claim he has no political agenda is pretty much blown to hell by his saying he will be leaking information about a Bank next.
I would not be suprised if the bank is a LOT more active about suing Assingne then the US government is.
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I linked this in the other thread about Wikileaks, but it is essential reading if anyone wants to deal with Assange. I don't know whether his goals are "political," I think he likely has little regard for D's or R's which is why this is coming out under Obama's watch, but he has clear goals he's trying to achieve:

To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us, and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not. Firstly we must understand what aspect of government or neocorporatist behavior we wish to change or remove. Secondly we must develop a way of thinking about this behavior that is strong enough carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity. Finally must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling, and effective action.
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http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/201...iracy-“to-destroy-this-invisible-government”/

That's just the opening quote. I strongly recommend reading the whole thing. I don't agree with all of Assange's goals or arguments, but there is more to his work than just dumping documents.

As for the lawsuit, he's not the leaker. They can try to sue him, but they're going to run into some 1st amendment issues if they do it here.

JoeTheJuggler said:
I've just been arguing that this isn't the willy-nilly publication of huge un-edited documents with no regard for endangering lives. It doesn't follow that Assange is now a hero or a saint.
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Maybe someone linked this earlier, I haven't kept up with every post, but even the Pentagon admits no deaths resulted from the leaks:

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell has said previously that there was no evidence that anyone had been killed because of the leaks. Sunday, another Pentagon official told McClatchy that the military still has no evidence that the leaks have led to any deaths. The official didn't want to be named because of the issue's sensitivity.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/28/104404/officials-may-be-overstating-the.html#ixzz16ozXx3on
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Roadtoad said:
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.
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Ellsbergs situation was, to me different. As you note, the materials he released proved that those who we thought were lying about the war were lying about the war - and were not allowing our troops to do what they needed to to win it. Not remotely good - and very much different from the type of stuff that could pop out with the current wars (though I do wish we were more aggressive with more destructive materials - to reduce our losses and increase theirs. Or leave..

War has one purpose - end the ability of the opponent to harm us with the least loss of OUR lives possible.
 
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