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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.
So apparently The Washington Post presents a clear and present danger to public freedom and the accountability of government and industry.
They could only publish it if they were getting the acceptable, authorized leaks which told them so.
"Lost time is not found again."
I love that an organization is a danger because it reveals coverups and secrets to ordinary citizens.
"But Pojut, our enemies will use this information against us!"
Well then maybe we shouldn't be doing it in the first place. Doy.
Living With a Nerd
Sounds to me more like the United States is the clear and present danger. Particularly when they claim an authority and yet admit a conflict with international law.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This wasn't the Washington Post saying this, it was a columnist who writes a weekly column for the Post. Saying that the Post says this is like attributing George Will's tirades to the Post. The Post publishes opeds from all over the political spectrum that may or may not reflect the editorial stance of the Post. Thiessen is a right-winger from the American Enterprise Institute. If you want to get pissed at someone, get pissed at the AEI, not the Post.
No sig? Sigh...
...but Marc Thiessen is downright scary. Secret indictments. Grabbing foreign citizens in other countries against local laws and extradition treaties. Are you kidding, Marc? Want to bring back the Alien and Sedition Acts while you're at it?
I'm not sure that a regime where stuff like this happens is really worth protecting in the name of "national security".
... to the mainstream media who are more interested in printing out press releases than going out and finding news.
haven't you seen star wars? if you strike him down, he will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Dude, Julian Assange is not a Jedi. He won't come back as a ghost after death to advise Luke. If you strike him down, he'll be dead.
And, sure, martyrs can have a power to move opinion that living people lack, but I'm not convinced this is one of those situations.
The clear and present danger doesn't come from *talking* about the actions of the American government, but from the actions themselves.
Newspapers didn't aid the Northern Vietnamese when they published the Pentagon Papers, but instead the Government and Military hurt the America with their secretive and malicious actions in Southeast Asia.
Just the same, releasing more information about the military actions in Afghanistan (especially after taking all possible precautions to prevent harm before release) does not cause injury to the US. It's the actions the US is ashamed to talk about that cause the harm.
Eh, my guess is that if it really is an "insurance" file, then someone involved in whatever department the files pertain to has already received the key, decrypted it, and knows exactly what it is. After all, if you really want to blackmail someone, you don't benefit from keeping the information secret from the person you're trying to blackmail. "I have 1.4GB of very sensitive information but I won't tell you what it is" isn't going to be particularly persuasive when you're trying to stop someone from coming after you. On the other hand, "I have 1.4GB of very sensitive information, it's already on thousands or millions of people's computers, and here's the key so you can see what it really is" carries an awful lot of weight if it's really something you don't want people to see. And the beauty of posting it in encrypted form is that if whoever holds this particular insurance policy decides to call it into effect, the US government has to prevent not the dissemination of a 1.4GB file (which would be nigh-well impossible anyways) but a 256 bit key, and we've all seen how well trying to stop people from sharing a single hexadecimal string worked out for the HD-DVD folks ;) Of course, there's also the danger that the public could get together and crack your key with distributed computing, and then you lose your leverage...
This is neither about putting the cat back into the bag nor about preventing future leaks. This is about responding by doing something , regardless of whether or not that something that must be done is justified, legal, pragmatic, ethical, or effective.
Reacting has become the solitary goal of politicians...to take some kind of action when their constituents feel threatened, regardless of whether that action is appropriate, or if there even exists any action whatsoever is appropriate.
Cases in point:
The TSA
The War on Terrorism
Warrantless Wiretapping
The War on Drugs
MADD
Felony Time for Personal Drug Use
Religion
The Pledge of Allegiance
The Witchhunt to Determine Who Killed Michael Jackson
Laws Banning Assisted Suicide
Censorship of (insert media here)
Laws Against Flag Burning
The RIAA
The MPAA
etc.
etc.
etc.
It's a tragedy of this fully-padded, 100% sterilized, risk-free, instant-gratification, 24/7-connected dreamworld that we are increasingly inhabiting that there has to be an immediate cure for every evil. People no longer accept that sometimes the best action is no action at all.
Thiessen didn't just work for Bush, Helms and Rumsfeld. He was spokesman for and senior policy advisor to Helms, when the ancient and decrepit Helms was in charge of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 1995-2001. He moved with Rumsfeld to the top of the Pentagon as his chief speechwriter 2001-2004, then to Bush's speechwriting team, becoming its chief in 2008.
He's "a well regarded pundit and speechwriter in Conservative circles" in that he was among the people most responsible for starting the Iraq War (as they'd planned through the 1990s), for ignoring the threats from the Qaeda in Afghanistan (because they cared only about invading Iraq), for running both wars as epic catastrophes while attacking everyone questioning them as a "clear and present danger" to America's security.
The Washington Post publishes columns by Thiessen because his radical rightwing warmonger faction is the Post's board's favorite tiny sliver of Americans. Who always get whatever they want, especially wars.
--
make install -not war
Two of the most recent wiki leaks (Collateral damage and Afghan War diary) are examples of not strategic information but examples of information that shows that the wrong things are done in the wrong places and in the wrong way.
One of those tells us that the strategic efforts of the USA in the war were wrong in many ways; the other tells us that civilians were killed by a psycho that was imploring to kill civilians.
I don’t see how this can be of any use to an “enemy” if this is just a report of things your enemy knows but you don't.
As long as bad people exist, you will always need to keep certain information secured
As long as bad people exist, you will always need to know what your government is doing in your name. Any solution to any problem which amounts to "trust the government to do the right thing" is wrong.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
But only CORRECTLY classified works. 99% of the classified works are incorrectly marked classified to hide malfeasance or just plain incompetency.
See, for example, ACTA.
How would you respond if Wikileaks put up your credit card information, bank account numbers, social security number and all your known residences and acquaintances?
Yeah, but that's not what they're doing, is it? Wikileaks isn't actually doing anything that our journalists wouldn't be doing, if they had the integrity to do their damned jobs.
I really need to write a check to Wikileaks. And EFF. And ACLU. This liberty thing could get expensive, what with us having to fund the fight against the people who we elected to uphold it, who are also using our money.
There's one reason why this is a poor method of insurance. Suppose there's somebody out there with an even bigger axe to grind than Assange, who will stop at nothing to get the contents of this "insurance" file released. With over six billion people in the world, and a substantial number of them having a beef with the U.S., it's not beyond the realms of possibility.
The implication here is that if something happens to Assange, then the key gets released. So, it logically follows that if you want the key to be released.......
(For my own safety, I have no interest in the contents of that file. And while I personally think Julian Assange is a self-righteous ass, I don't wish physical harm on him or any of the other people involved with Wikileaks.)
Do any of you young folk remember a man by the name of Daniel Ellsberg? If not, please take a little bit of your time and look up a movie called "The Most Dangerous Man in America". For more information please visit the Internet Movie Database at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1319726/.
Daniel Ellisberg was the man who leaked what has become known as "The Pentagon Papers". He was the first man to be charged under the Espionage Act, with results that the administration did not intend. He never spent a minute in jail. The documentary of his actions came out last year (2009).
Here is a little breakdown of the story:
"The Most Dangerous Man in America" is the story of what happens when a former Pentagon insider, armed only with his conscience, steadfast determination, and a file cabinet full of classified documents, decides to challenge an "Imperial" Presidency-answerable to neither Congress, the press, nor the people-in order to help end the Vietnam War. In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg shook America to its foundations when he smuggled a top-secret Pentagon study to the New York Times that showed how five Presidents consistently lied to the American people about the Vietnam War that was killing millions and tearing America apart. President Nixon's National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger called Ellsberg "the most dangerous man in America," who "had to be stopped at all costs." But Ellsberg wasn't stopped. Facing 115 years in prison on espionage and conspiracy charges, he fought back. Ensuing events surrounding the so-called Pentagon Papers led directly to Watergate and the downfall of President Nixon, and hastened the end of the Vietnam War. Ellsberg's relentless telling of truth to power, which exposed the secret deeds of an "Imperial Presidency," inspired Americans of all walks of life to forever question the previously-unchallenged pronouncements of its leaders. "The Most Dangerous Man in America" tells the inside story, for the first time on film, of this pivotal event that changed history and transformed our nation's political discourse. It is told largely by the players of that dramatic episode-Ellsberg, his colleagues, family and critics; Pentagon Papers authors and government officials; Vietnam veterans and anti-war activists; Watergate principals, attorneys and the journalists who both covered the story and were an integral part of it; and finally-through White House audiotapes-President Nixon and his inner circle of advisors.
Documentary is available at Megavideo: http://www.megavideo.com/?d=6VI4M5CC
Posting AC because I've done 7 missions with MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders).
Your posts contains elements that are both right and wrong. MSF left Afghanistan when five of our expats were murdered. MSF can only work in the areas we do (in conflict areas, where no one else goes except the ICRC) only because we are both neutral and impartial and if this fact is understood and respected by all parties. Clearly, a targeted attack is sign that this understanding is no longer respected.
Regarding the refusal to evacuate. No one likes doing it. I've done it several times and it feels like shit. You are abandoning the people you were there to help as well as your national staff counterparts while you tuck tail and leave. There's no way around this. OTOH, if the situation's come to the point where death is highly probably, you waited too long to evac. The moment an expat or multiple MSF expats are intentionally killed, that's it for operations in that country. Game's over and no one's coming back for a while. The major players usually understand this and our white t-shirts and white Landcruisers are pretty good protection. If it turns out it was by accident or a rogue action, then that has negative implications as well. In one country, we had an expat staffer killed. Eventually, the killers were found and as a show that their actions didn't represent any of the differing factions, they were executed and bodies dumped with an explanation. Those deaths are on us, too, because somebody wasn't careful enough and didn't see the signs.
One way or another, the evacuation order is the one order that cannot be refused or argued about. If you refuse, your contract is terminated on the spot. You're no longer MSF and you're on your own. Your refusal to evacuate will damage operations and hurt the people in the long run. This is made clear to you in training and prep. I know of no one who's refused an evacuation. I know of no one who knows of anyone who's ever refused an evacuation order. Oddly enough, I'm a former soldier so people expect me to be the most reticent to call an evacuation, whereas the reality is that I'm usually the first one to put the option on the table.
In the past decade, humanitarian aid's become highly politicized. As in, everyone talks of neutrality and impartiality but very few can actually walk the walk. How can they? They're all taking money from USAID ECHO or various UN agencies and that money usually comes with strings attached. Really? You're impartial? You're taking money from European nations that all belong to NATO and you say you're impartial? You work within the UN cluster system and may be traveling under ISAF (aka, the "bad guys" if you're Taliban) protection (which was established by the UN) and you say you're neutral? Really? REALLY?
MSF avoids this whole can of worms by only taking private donors and/or money with no strings attached. It gives us the freedom to actually be neutral and impartial. But here's the kicker. No one knows that, least of all, the guys who associate Americans and Europeans with NATO, ISAF, UNAMI and the US government and the US military.
"No really, we're different from all the other guys! Really!" You try that line and see if anyone with a hard-on against anyone not like them believes you. We are, but it's impossible to get that point across where it really matters.
That's not to shit on the other NGOs. They do good work, too. Some do it better than we do - the Oxfam guys really know their water and ACF does famine better than anyone else - but very few NGOs have the luxury of financial independence that we do. It sucks, but that's the way things have gone and for us, we no longer have the trust and access that we once did.
It also doesn't help that the military is involved in "humanitarianism" as well. Thanks.
Oh yeah, and these views are my own and don't necessarily represent the views of MSF, official or otherwise. Yeah.