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Wikileaks Founder Advised To Avoid American Gov't
eldavojohn writes "Media darling Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has been told by his lawyers to avoid the United States on the grounds that the US military would like to ask him a few questions about his source of the Collateral Murder video. Assange claims to be holding yet more video (of a US attack on a village that allegedly killed 140 civilians in May of 2009), as well as a quarter million sensitive cables relating to the current foreign war operations from the US State Department. Assange surfaced for the cameras in Brussels while speaking about the need for the freedom of information. Can he build a high enough profile to protect himself from danger?"
I lost all sympathy for him when I found out that he went on Colbert and admitted that Wikileaks went far beyond simply leaking the video and edited for "political impact." Don't believe me? Watch 3:00 to about 3:40.
Furthermore, I have no sympathy for Reuters' guys because Reuters has a history of being embarrassed in that region by having its "correspondents" not only embed themselves with guerrilla forces, but often hires people who are working both sides (ex: the egg on Reuters' face when it came out that its subcontractors in Lebanon were actually members of Hezbollah).
Iraq should have been attacked back in 1992 when it violated the peace agreements of the First Gulf War. That has nothing to do with 9/11. The Bush administration just used that to get the approval and justify things. The fact is that once Iraq kicked the inspectors out the first time, Iraq became fair game. The only reason the U.N. and Europe wasn't on board with renewing the hostilities was that most of continental Europe had signed oil contracts with Saddam for when the sanctions were lifted.
You really should go read a history book or something because the reason for the First Gulf War was that Iraq invaded Kuwait and the reason the U.S. got involved was because Kuwait asked us to and we had treaties with Kuwait.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Whistleblowers should suffer, at least a little. If there's no pain involved, then it changes from a self-sacrificing, possibly noble act, to crass political manuvering and meaningless, punkish rebellion. For instance, the leaker of the video. The video is probably a defensible leak, but a quarter of a million classified diplomatic messages? That's not a leak to expose a specific incident - that's a stunt to try and build up the biggest Wikileaks e-peen. And the Wikileaks founder? He's not a whistleblower - he's a publisher. With all the manipulations and story-building exercises of any other publisher.
I think that you are a little incorrect in your assertion that the leaked data has caused "no damage to national security." For example if you ignore locking up your house when you know that there are people out there willing and able to harm you and your family then that obviously damages the security of your house. Furthermore, since people like you have little sense of regarding patriotism for the USA I wonder how long it will be before you and others like you relegate this great country to a place where people cannot feel secure in their own homes. Patriotism is not allowing those who want to harm you to even get a foothold.
And what makes you think Obambi wants to change anything in the first place ? Surely he's had the chance to end numerous "controversial" programs already. Take the drone strikes. They've intensified.
You know ... it might even be ... *gasp* ... that there's a reason these programs exist.
But it doesn't matter that Wikileaks thinks it is ok, they aren't the ones who decide whether or not to prosecute people.
Excuse me, but WTF. It is not a matter of who has the right to play the king of the hill, it is a matter of who manages to play the king of the hill. This is planet earth, who the hell wants their asses to be ruled by governments and who the hell likes the fact that those that take your life hostage by means of 'government' keep secrets from you that might include... hmmmm... I don't know... the fact that they killed innocent people that didn't want to take part in the RL "let's kill each other" game?
In other words; PUT THAT IGNORENCE OF YOURS BACK INTO YOUR ASS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
It only matters that the US government told him not to do it, he agreed not to, then did it anyway knowing he was in violation of the law.
Oooooooooh Q_Q cry me a river.
Here be signatures
I thought about it and... yes.
Actually, I don't want this government to exist. I consider centralization of power to be far more scary than any alternatives. Frankly, I don't care if people are being murdered here by eachother, or in foriegn countries by our paid volunteer murder squads. Killing is killing as far as I am concerned, and I would as soon spit in the face of a returning US soldier as a so called terrorist, as far as I am concerned, very little difference to me.
I heard the statements of the Times Square failed bomber as to why he did it, and frankly, he sounded to me like any other soldier of any other army. Just as wrong as all of them. Every single soldier that has ever fought in a war where he isn't on the side of ending and occupation is, a war criminal in my eyes.
None of them has ever done a thing that I appreciate or condone, and every single one of them owes the rest of the world an apology for picking up arms for no good reason.
I see no reason to trust the organization that runs this killers with any respect or to give them any privacy. They deserve to have every secret that they try to keep disseminated far and wide.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
All agreements were null and void when the government ordered Manning to commit war crimes.
By ordering Manning to fake evidence against innocents they essentially required this, by international law and near-universal moral consensus.