WikiLeaks 'a Clear and Present Danger,' Says WaPo

bedmison writes "In an op-ed in the Washington Post titled 'WikiLeaks must be stopped,' Marc A. Thiessen writes that 'WikiLeaks represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States,' and that the US has the authority to arrest its spokesman, Julian Assange, even if it has to contravene international law to do so. Thiessen also suggests that the new USCYBERCOM be unleashed to destroy WikiLeaks as an internet presence." Reader praps tips an interview with another WikiLeaks spokesman, Daniel Schmitt, who says they have no regrets about releasing the Afghanistan documents, and says WikiLeaks is "changing the game." Several other readers have pointed out that WikiLeaks posted a mysterious, encrypted "insurance" file on Thursday, which sent the media into a speculative frenzy over what it could possibly contain.

Comments

Re:What about the insurance file?

[NotBornYesterday]

And according to Assange, everything dangerous was redacted out of the Afghanistan documents

According to him. And of course, it is in-frickin'-conceiveable that he might inadvertently (or purposely) let slip something that he shouldn't. Are we really supposed to trust the methods and motives of the guy who took the Apache attack video and edited it into a piece of propaganda?

I'm in favor of freedom of the press, I'm glad Wikileaks exists, and I'm glad that Iceland took the step recently of declaring themselves a free-press safe haven. But this guys isn't a journalist in my eyes. He's obviously got an axe to grind, and has no compunctions about using/abusing his position to promote his agenda. That makes him untrustworthy.

Re:Afghan informers will be killed

[wytcld]

On further thought, follow the logic through. Mr. WikiLeaks exposed the names and locations of our sources of information about the Taliban, knowing (if he even thought about the fate of these human beings) many of them will be killed for exposing Taliban secrets. Therefore, his moral judgment is that it's okay to enable the killing of people who expose secrets. And he's someone who exposes secrets.

We should, if we are following a moral code like his own, help keep the US government continuously informed of this man's location. It is not, apparently, for us to decide if it's okay for him to be killed, since he has apparently decided that the killing of informants is not worth preventing. In the territory of the Third Reich, we should presume he would have similarly exposed Jews, without concerning himself with their fate. If not, perhaps Jewish lives are more sacred to him than Afghan lives?