Obama Wants Allies To Go After WikiLeaks

krou writes "Coming on the back of human rights groups criticizing WikiLeaks, American officials are saying that the Obama administration is pressuring allies such as Australia, Britain, and Germany to open criminal investigations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and to try limit his ability to travel. 'It's not just our troops that are put in jeopardy by this leaking. It's UK troops, it's German troops, it's Australian troops — all of the NATO troops and foreign forces working together in Afghanistan,' said one American diplomatic official, who added that other governments should 'review whether the actions of WikiLeaks could constitute crimes under their own national-security laws.'"

Comments

Re:How does

[Godskitchen]

From TFA:

"The initial document dump by WikiLeaks last month is reported to have disclosed the names of hundreds of Afghan civilians who have cooperated with NATO forces; the Taliban has threatened to hunt down the civilians named in the documents, a threat that human-rights organizations say WikiLeaks should take seriously."

Maybe not troops, but civilians were apparently endangered.

Re: And just who are these "officials"?

[Black Parrot]

Wow, who is being alienated?

There has been quite an outcry from various humanitarian organizations who think the documents were not redacted well enough to hide the identities of civilians who may now become targets of reprisals.

Re:How does

[valeo.de]

Don't forget Guantanamo Bay. Didn't he win the election in part thanks to those promises to shut that hellhole down?

Re:How does

[Moryath]

and no NEW states secrets policy is more stringent than anything that came before

Uhm... reality check.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/congress-considers-rules-for-invoking-state-secrets.ars

- That new state secrets policy that is WAY more stringent than anything before.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090313/1456154113.shtml

- The Obama admin claiming that the details of a copyright treaty are "state secrets."

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/02/10/obama

- Obama administration invoking "state secrets" FAR MORE OFTEN than the previous administration

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/foia-filtered

- Obama administration having political appointees vetting FOIA requests intended for the Dept of Homeland Security, and making decisions on what can be released on the basis of political expediency...

The question of no "new" Gitmos - Yes, but the one we have isn't anywhere close to shut down.
The question of "no new pointless, unwinnable wars have been started" - How many are we on the brink of still?

Re:Good, get the pencil neck

[FriendlyLurker]

While not necessarily directly harmful to the Allied forces, the leaks include the names of informants and those sympathetic to Allied forces.

To Shillnonymous and friends. Reality: Out of the thousands of records only three records contain a name of an "informant". One of which died and another was a pro-Taliban double agent. Not to mention that the White House also had the opportunity to redact names via the New Your Times contact, but declined to do so - they could not have cared less

All those news channels (and there are many - mostly US based) all all standing on very shaky moral ground, considering the news channels and their parrots talking about "thousands of Informants exposed" just happen to NOT talk about the murdered 20K+ civilians. What is more important - actual deaths or your self delusion/lies over thousands of imaginary Informants "and their families" dying.

Re:Wrong on all counts

[Space cowboy]

It's hard to read the above, so I'll just say that it was supposed to be semi-humorous, I don't really think electing people due to their safe-size is an important criteria, I didn't really expect 'informative' [sigh]

However...

• Bush couldn't read the words, even *with* the teleprompter.
• I've yet to see the use of a warship-sized banner in any of Obama's speeches..
• That money-grab is still (unbelievably) a better deal than was previously available. Sad but true.
• The shooting has to be a personal action to count, in this instance. Cheney has "shot" lots of people as well, if you count other-than-personally-doing-it statistics.
• The emphasis here was on 'man-sized', not on 'safe'. I'm reasonably sure the Oval Office uses safes, but maybe not 'man-sized' ones in his *office*
• Gitmo is still open, but people are at least being processed now. Starting an atrocity and stopping it are two completely different things.

So, only "wrong on all counts" if you have a sufficiently-twisted world-view...

Reply if you must, but this is the last comment from me on the subject, as I said, it was only supposed to be humorous, with one serious thing thrown in for each of them.

Simon

Re:Don't forget Red State Stupidity.

[Shakrai]

If it weren't for these fools living in the Red States, war wouldn't be considered acceptable. Most people in the civilized Blue States would not stand for money being wasted like that.

You are an idiot. Off the top of my head:

Wilson - Democrat - WW1
FDR - Democrat - WW2 (FDR went even further than most, he had the US Navy attacking German warships months before war was declared by Germany or authorized by the Congress)
Truman - Democrat - Korea
JFK/LBJ - Democrats - Vietnam

And those are just the major wars. Democrats have engaged in their share of police actions too.

Re: How does

[jbssm]

What do all of those countries have in common? No immigration whatsoever.

See, that's why we Europeans, call you Americans stupid. You are here, in the net, could easily check the fact before open your big mouth, but you choose to say just the shit you hear in Fox News. Some of these countries have in fact MORE immigration than the USA. 12% in Sweden against less than 10% of population in USA. So what about find another excuse?