DDoS Attack On Wikileaks Increasing

tetrahedrassface writes "According to the Twitter feed for Wikileaks, the attack on the controversial site is increasing and is now at 10 Gigabits per second. In light of the recent release of highly sensitive documents and calls by many lawmakers around the world to swiftly find, extradite, and try suspected rapist Julius Assange for breaches of national security, one nation, Ecuador, has offered asylum."

Comments

If you didn't do anything wrong,

[Ismellpoop]

then you have nothing to hide.
At least isn't that what the government tells us?

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[girlintraining]

At least isn't that what the government tells us?

The government also tells you to hide under your desk in the event of a nuclear attack.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[MightyYar]

At least isn't that what the government tells us?

Right, because you don't have any embarrassing secrets. You don't tell friends things in confidence.

Thanks to this leak (and to the idiotic flubbing of security in the first place), it will be at least a little bit harder for American diplomats to make friends who will tell them things in confidence.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[TheCarp]

And rightfully so!

Would you tell something "in confidence" to someone who you expected to write down a detailed report of your statements, and send them into a system to analysed and passed around? Anyone speaking to a diplomat and expecting confidence was naive from day one.

I might have some sympathy here if it wasn't for the fact that the same people who are bitching about privacy are the ones who would think nothing of the invasion of other peoples privacy for their own ends. Somehow spying is better when its public? Better when its the people who pretend to represent us?

Turnabout is fair play, and thats all that happened.

-Steve

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[Richard_at_work]

And rightfully so!

Would you tell something "in confidence" to someone who you expected to write down a detailed report of your statements, and send them into a system to analysed and passed around? Anyone speaking to a diplomat and expecting confidence was naive from day one.

So you would have no issues with your medical records being made public then?

There are plenty of reasons for diplomats to commit potentially inflammatory statements to paper and have them passed around - detailed foreign staffing reports on who they met, their personalities, comments made and perceptions drawn all help other diplomats to handle foreign contacts better and most certainly will contain information you would never, ever say to that persons face, despite it being 100% true.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[nomadic]

Anyone speaking to a diplomat and expecting confidence was naive from day one.

You're completely missing the point. When one diplomat tells another something, the expectation all around is that it will get written down and passed to the recipient's superiors. It is NOT expected that it will fall into the hands of someone like Assange who will release it to the world.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[Richard_at_work]

Yeah, good luck with that, its a ridiculous stance to take.

You have essentially just said that diplomats should not be making any full and frank assessments of foreign diplomats, countries or situations. Assessments that may aid others in their work, but may equally insult the subject, or cause the subject to legitimately show insult or withdraw cooperation if said assessment became public.

Take for example the revelation that China is growing weary of North Korea and could soon be in a position to cease supporting the countries government - that has the potential to seriously damage the current relationship between North Korea and China, causing North Korea to stop listening to Chinese suggestions or even back away from the negotiating table completely. In turn, China could make trade negotiations that much more difficult for American diplomats, because of the position they have been put in.

The revelation can be entirely true, but it can still cause severe problems on many sides.

Your stance of "that shouldn't have been kept secret" would have resulted in one of two scenarios - either the assessment from the front line diplomat doesn't get written because they don't want an international spat on their hands, thus analysts and diplomats further up the chain have less information to go on, and future negotiations are that much more difficult or alternatively the assessment gets written, becomes public knowledge and that diplomat gets expelled from China, or all further meetings are cancelled with that diplomat, and you have the aforementioned spat.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[mooingyak]

You underestimate my grammatical pedantry.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[iluvcapra]

I think the real problem with the "Nuclear Drill" concept isn't that they make you do rather flimsy things that aren't liable to save your life -- even though it might. The problem was that a lot of people in society, in government and out, were content to live with the fact of a future nuclear war, believed in it as a necessary and practical means of offense against aggression, and used "drills" to try to normalize the expectation in young people and convince everyone that a thermonuclear war was just a really bad air raid and was a practical form of warfare, and not what it really was: mass genocide.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[Wyatt Earp]

By that point in the war the Japanese government had outsourced most of the small arms, ammunition, explosive and tool production to homes.

Hiroshima was headquarters of the Fifth Division and the 2nd General Army Headquarters which was the command of all of southern Japan, in addition to being a communications center, storage depot and troop assembly area for 2nd General Army Headquarters.

So how exactly was it not a legitimate military target?

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[gfreeman]

However even if it doesn't it shows that Julian is a jackass who uses people for personal gain.

Even if he was married and cheating on his wife, he' still done no worse than many US politicians of the past decade. As a single guy, not in a relationship, I couldn't give a flying fuck who he sleeps with, and I scoff at any US politico who would make something of it.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[superdave80]

...but we intentionally aimed at civilians,...

I read through the section you linked to, and I saw nothing to back up your assertion. In fact, I found quite the opposite. Maybe you should read your own link:

Leaflets were dropped over cities before they were bombed, warning the people and urging them to escape the city.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[SETIGuy]

You're completely missing the point. When one diplomat tells another something, the expectation all around is that it will get written down and passed to the recipient's superiors. It is NOT expected that it will fall into the hands of someone like Assange who will release it to the world.

If these were Iranian diplomatic cables would you still have a problem with this release by WikiLeaks? If the answer is yes, congratulations, you're not a hypocrite!

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[fyngyrz]

It is NOT expected that it will fall into the hands of someone like Assange who will release it to the world.

Well, you know, when I wrote my emails, I didn't expect them to be read by the government. But they did it anyway. Since they violated my trust and privacy and the 4th amendment without any legitimate authorization, I'm for pulling their pants down around their ankles in public and laughing at their shrunken little parts. Respect is not given, it is earned. And the USG has not been earning in this regard, it has been spending.

So three cheers for Julian, and here's hoping for some real embarrassments in the cables. I mean, besides the ones already known, like the idiocy about trading Guantanamo prisoners for an audience with El Presidente.

Re:If you didn't do anything wrong,

[internewt]

There's a phrase that one should never stoop to the level of an idiot, because they will go on to beat you with experience. So I am going to try and resist saying something about wishing the foreign civilians that you and your family are to most of the world are killed by not your government or military. You wouldn't be concerned of course, because it is moral and justified.

Or is it that as long as it isn't your tribe being hurt, it is moral and justified?

Attacking civilians is not justifiable. And once you do justify it to yourself, it is easy to just declare a section of your society some kind of non-citizen and wage a war on them. I wonder if you can think of any events in history that might correspond with the kind of thing you are advocating?

Ut Oh!

[PORNorART]

/. is in trouble now for leaking the US's inability to conduct a succesful DDoS campaign.

Re:Ut Oh!

[Haedrian]

Rape?

Re:At least someone has balls (and common sense)

[grub]

His plane will have "engine trouble" on the way to Ecuador and crash. Just watch.

Re:At least someone has balls (and common sense)

[spazmonkey]

Wikileaks doesn't out anything anymore, unless its US intelligence. Haven't you noticed they pulled all private corporate leaks and European and other countries leaks? It's not a generic leaks site anymore or I would still support it. They are solely an anti-US espionage org now. They lost any credibility, and any respect, at that point. I say hang him.

I confirm the asylum offer.

[Ecuador]

He will be quite comfortable and safe in my mother's basement.

Personal Attacks & Defamation

[MBHkewl]

"suspected rapist Julius Assange"

Their attempt at discrediting the accuracy of the info by repeating the word "suspected rapist" is a bit of an old cliche, don't you think?

Also, does this still work, even with so much data available?

Re:Personal Attacks & Defamation

[elrous0]

I think possible dog molester MBHkewl is right. Much as I disagree with MBHkewl's alleged disgusting lifestyle, I think it's possible, just possible, that we're seeing an obvious case of character assassination here. And I urge readers to overlook the fact that MBHkewl purportedly rapes innocent puppies long enough to consider that he may have a point.

Re:Personal Attacks & Defamation

[hedwards]

He offered them the opportunity to question him before he left Sweden, and inquired as to whether or not he was free to leave the country. They allowed him to leave the country and avoid being questioned.

They have apparently subsequently changed their minds, and I can't blame him for fighting it. He made a good faith offer to come in for questioning, now they're wanting him to fly back on his own dime to do it. Something about this appears to be very, very wrong, beyond the initial charges looking like complete bunk. There is no ex post facto rape, either it was rape at the time or it isn't rape, you can't change your mind after the fact. Or at least you can't in civilized countries.

Re:At least someone has balls (and common sense)

[PseudonymousBraveguy]

Ecuador ranks a whooping 101 on the press freedom index, with an annually deteriorating index value. I'm not quite convinced it's the best country to exile to for people publishing inconveniant documents.

Re:At least someone has balls (and common sense)

[mysidia]

Assange is out of control. Wikileaks needs to oust him and go back to their original mission, of actually being a whistleblower, rather than just leaking things and hurting national and global security.

Julian Assange should go to jail for a very long time.

Pied Piper

[FuckingNickName]

What we've learnt about the US is that they privately criticise and occasionally seek intelligence on important figures, and they don't like their citizens being arrested. Moreover, several million people have US "secret" clearance, which means anyone foreign and relevant also had the information: the release was therefore benign.

In other shocking news, I sometimes mumble "idiot!" under my breath after leaving a meeting and double-check a CV. Don't get me wrong, it's a great laugh to see a few fragile egos insulted, but the most interesting thing to come from this in the West will be whatever law stops it happening again.

This leak was damaging to those who the US are currently LARTing, from the UK to Saudi Arabia; from a diplomatic PoV, the US government has come out pretty well while playing the perfect victim. It's almost like we're approaching a significant anniversary of another time it did that: now the fires need stoking from an information warfare angle.

If wikileaks is being DDoS'd, it certainly isn't the US government trying to put some genie back in a bottle.

Re:Pied Piper

[magus_melchior]

If anything, my reaction is akin to that of the "Bull in a China Shop" experiment on MythBusters. You hear that Wikileaks announces a big leak, they hype it up, you get all this anticipation, and when the actual results come out, they're... amusing, fascinating, but not "OMG national security crisis!!1!" (the smashing ceramics) material. The worst we've seen in the cables is that the US spies on the UN and other countries via diplomats, but that's hardly surprising given that they had no compunction against spying against its own citizens for about a decade now-- heck, I'm sure the CIA spied on everyone ever since they were created.

If the intended aim of the leak was to shame governments into greater transparency and openness, I have to say that this leak is doomed to failure. Nearly all diplomats are part negotiator, part politician-- and all politicians never liked to be embarrassed in public. What it will very likely do instead is really mess with relations that have been slowly rebuilt in recent years-- China and Russia come to mind, and don't get me started on how much this sets back the 6-party talks now that the DPRK is warming up their artillery. Now that the Arabs' desire to end Iran's nuclear ambitions is out in the open, I doubt they'll be as forthcoming as they were when the toner cartridge bomb plot was brought to our attention. The great irony of these is that it is not that the content of the leaks themselves were a national security risk if kept secret, but that in leaking the material and messing up trust relationships with countries we'd rather not turn into radioactive glass (MAD), the leaking can easily make endeavors toward peace an order of magnitude more difficult. Now North Korea and Iran can say, "How can we trust you, when you're going to let confidential deals out into the open?"

What's more, this leak tells governments not that they should open up and avoid criticism and ridicule, but that they should keep even more from the public in order to avoid pissing off allies and potential allies.

Assange should never have targeted the State Department-- if he wanted real dirt, he should have kept the focus on the CIA, and Justice and Defense Departments.

Re:At least someone has balls (and common sense)

[icebraining]

Jail for what? Guess what: US law doesn't apply worldwide! Incredible, I know!

Re:Gov't Sponsored DDoS

[copponex]

The US government has overthrown democratic governments, it's FBI has assassinated American civilians, the CIA is currently torturing someone to death in a secret prison somewhere in the world, and right now it has the right to extra-judiciously assassinate any person, even US citizens, that it believes to be involved in terrorism.

With these facts, I hardly think an orchestrated DDoS attack seems unlikely.

Re:At least someone has balls (and common sense)

[mark72005]

Worldwide intelligence services have more than enough information about him to move whenever they wanted.

If this was something they were considering, having him whacked, why wouldn't they have done it before this past leak which was the largest ever?

The reason he's still living is that he hasn't exposed anything embarrassing enough to Russia, or another country that doesn't have any problem getting their hands dirty.

Re:Wikileaks isn't a leaks aleaks site anymore

[spazmonkey]

Where did all the other leaks, private and government go then? Why did they pull even the old ones from their archives? Justify that.

He is rocking the boat that people are sitting in

[SmallFurryCreature]

People don't like people who rock the boat they are sitting in, especially if its edge is already close to the waterline. They tend to kick people overboard, even if they are the person trying to signal a rescuer.

Wikileaks is exposing not just the obvious criminal corruption, the stuff you claim on others, but the widespread moral apathy that is the US of A. You can see it from the murder video. 12 civilians clearly unarmed shot with the murderers expressing clear joy at their slaughter. The US reaction? Absolutely nothing. If any of these soldiers were ever to be brought before a war crimes tribunal, the US of A has invasion plans for The Netherlands to stop any international justice by whatever force required.

This is America, and it doesn't sit well to have this truth shoved in their face. They want to believe the US of A is the land of the free, defender of democracy, hero of the oppressed.

You have to remember that most countries have the same thing. The Netherlands and its war crimes in Indonesia. Recently the state refused to meet a survivor of a masacre the germans would have been proud off, because it was going to upset the murderers. Don't ask the british about their colonial behavior or say the treatment of Jews after WW2.

Wikileaks is kicking up the dirt in peoples eyes and the people don't like it one bit.

Easier to kill the messenger then deal with the message. Always has been true, always will be. Cue this message running a high change of instantly disappearing because a teabagger is upset and mods it down to never be seen again.

USCYBERCOM

[AhabTheArab]

I believe that if the US Government wanted to stop Wikileaks, they'd simply bomb the data centers. Electronic attacks like this are not what this government does; It's what its citizens do.

I beg to differ:

"USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes and conducts activities to: direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks; and prepare to, when directed, conduct full spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace and deny the same to our adversaries."

Looks like they're "denying the same to their adversaries" (maybe).

Re:USCYBERCOM

[JTsyo]

Until the next set of documents are leaked.

Re:Can't be The Jester then.

[multipartmixed]

Have you watched Saturday Night Live in the last ten years?

It is very rare for multiple jesters to be as effective in a group setting than a talented hack working alone.

Re:I think

[elrous0]

You mean that Assange *didn't* suddenly become a child molester and rapist exactly two weeks after releasing a cache of classified documents that embarrassed the most powerful country in the world? Are you implying those charges might be TRUMPED-UP as part of an attempt at character assassination?!?!? The hell you say!

Slashdotting

[Barryke]

The main site seems to work fine after
A) Worldwide mass interest
B) DDOS
C) slashdotting and other causes of sudden increase in traffic.

This should be featured on Discovery's "How do they do it." for sure. I'm peaked.

Re:Slashdotting

[barcarolle]

I think you mean, "[your interest is] piqued."

Julian Assanges cables leak put lives at risk.

[elucido]

Here is the Proof

3. (S) The Baku businessman is a UK-educated engineer from a
prominent Pre-Revolution Isfahan family, and formerly owned a
large factory in Iran. He is a former national fencing
champion of Iran. former President of the Iran Fencing
Association, and Vice-President of an Azerbaijan sports
association. He has been based in Baku for more than ten
years, working primarily as a sub-contractor to BP and the
Cape Industrial Services company. While his oil services
company includes an insulation division that may be in
competition with INSULTEC, source has provided "inside"
information on many other Iranian issues (including
comprehensive data on the status of new Iranian oil refinery
construction) that does not relate to his private interests
in any way.

4. (S) Note: A quick google check revealed several companies
with the name INSULTEC in the title - these may or not be
affiliated. Based on the information provided by source
(currently in Iran, where he frequently travels), one
possible candidate could be "INSULTEC Chitral Ltd." End
Note.
 

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/03/09BAKU179.html

You can thank Julian Assange for this.

Let's change "suspectted" to "alleged"

[Maxo-Texas]

Even in a normal case, that really is presuming guilt. In this case, where it looks like it isn't even a rape by classic measures, it's more dubious.

As far as I can tell, both ladies had voluntary sex and then later, based on additional facts, decided they were raped. As far as I can tell, no one has alleged Assange forcibly had sex with them while they were saying "no".

Re:Let's change "suspectted" to "alleged"

[Renraku]

That's because of the way the whole 'rape' thing works. You see, a lot of rapes don't start out as rape. Instead it's something like making out, maybe cuddling, etc. Then someone takes things too far and is just used to the other person sharing their passions or going along with it. Except this time, they aren't going along with it. They've decided that they don't want to go to third base, but things keep evolving. Either they're too weak/scared to say no, or they were forced to do it.

It's still rape.

Therein lies the problem. Anyone, at any time, can decide that a sexual encounter in the past was rape. All they have to do is say that sex happened and that they didn't want to do it at some point. Even if that point lies after the fact, it's still rape.

Get drunk at a party and sleep with someone nasty? Rape, of course. Want to have a better standing in the divorce? They raped you, and you're afraid for your children/pets/belongings. Get in a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend and want to be a vindictive ass? They raped you.

Of course, it generally only applies to women, since most men would be laughed out of the court room for saying they were raped by a woman. And if they woman conceived during that rape, the guy would still be responsible for paying child support payments, regardless of the circumstances of the rape. There is NO gender equality going on here.

Assanges leaks put intelligence sources at risk

[elucido]

How do you separate one from another? Really, how do you? And who should judge which is which?

And that is against the rules regardless of what side you are on. The rule is do not harm civilians.

He has lost all credibility with me. Wikileaks needs to remove Julian Assange or fork the project.

Re:Assanges leaks put intelligence sources at risk

[geegel]

That's just shifting the ambivalence towards another term, in this case "civilian"

Are informants civilians? Are diplomats?

Re:Assanges leaks put intelligence sources at risk

[Hatta]

The rule is do not harm civilians.

Why is Wikileaks held to this rule and not the US Government?

Re:Wikileaks isn't a leaks aleaks site anymore

[daveschroeder]

Are you serious?

...

The US is the "juiciest target" in the entire world?

Or are you one of those people who erroneously believes that the free and democratic nations of the world are actually the world's most egregious oppressors and abusers, and the US sits at the pinnacle of the abusers?

If you think the US is the "juiciest target", I wonder what you'd think if we saw the same level of leaks of communications from, say, Chinese corporations, the Chinese government, and Chinese "diplomatic" efforts...

At its launch, WikiLeaks said it was "founded by Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and start-up company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa", and that its "primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East". Instead, WikiLeaks publishes mostly classified information from democracies.

So now, nations like China and Russia have an advantage over the US in the conduct of their international affairs, intelligence, and defense. I can only imagine China's delight with each new release from WikiLeaks.

Steven Aftergood, a veteran crusader against excessive government secrecy and director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, notes, "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals." WikiLeaks doesn't care whether information it obtains is legitimately classified, nor whether it may cause grave harm if released. Indeed, the only thing exempt from this reckless behavior is WikiLeaks itself.

What is interesting to me is that many observers of this phenomenon in free and democratic societies seem to believe it is their own governments that are hiding the most egregious information, which deserves to be exposed via channels like WikiLeaks.

I would submit that individuals who live in the US and other Western nations who believe their governments are "oppressing" them have no idea what "oppression" is.

It's not a claim anymore it's a fact.

[elucido]

Just read this:

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/03/09BAKU179.html

Intelligence sources are being put at risk by these leaks. Julian Assange claims to care about civilians but he leaks documents that can get people killed? Why? To solve what?

The world is not made safer. Nothing in these cables are worth the loss of civilian life. These cables don't prevent a war with Iran or North Korea, they make war much more likely.

Forget Assange

[Raven_Stark]

If any heads should roll over the leaks, it should be those of the guy who stole the data and whatever dunce(s) allowed peons access to the data. Although, overall so far, I'm generally pleased with the leaks because they show that most of the world's leaders are fallible but basically rational human beings. For instance, it is good to see that most of the middle eastern leaders understand that Iranian leaders are nutjobs who cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. Same goes for China's recognition that Kim Jong Ill is off his rocker. I feel much better about the world in general now because so far the leaked info confirms my suspicion that the world's messes aren't as insurmountable as it sometimes seems.

That said, I am deeply embarrassed that the Pentagon is incompetent enough to have allowed the leak of things said in confidence. They are idiots who shouldn't be trusted with so much power.

Even more, I am embarrassed over the USA's strong-arming of Germany over the arrest of one of its citizens. World ***please*** don't take that kind of shit from us (the USA).

I really think it is high time for the USA to turn over the job of policing the world to a democratically elected world government. It is unfair for the US taxpayers to pay so much for world security and to get all of the blame when our leaders fuck up and holy fuck do they ever fuck up. More importantly, it is unfair to the world for the US to have so much say in how the world is run.

Re:At least someone has balls (and common sense)

[Gerzel]

It does if we label it "terrorism"!

It's a magical word that will NEVER EVER EVER backfire on US!

Re:Nobel Prize

[CraftyJack]

Yep, nothing spreads peace like discrediting diplomacy.

Re:Gov't Sponsored DDoS

[airfoobar]

Those things are widely-known facts. Ever heard of Guantanamo bay? Check the previous Wikileaks releases for torture accounts, which are now being investigated by the UN.

Post as AC? Are you really THAT afraid of your government?

Re:I'm sure I'm not alone when I say...

[jdizzle636]

Go Equador.

I'm pretty sure you are alone. Most people would spell it Ecuador.

The USA does not put intelligence sources at risk.

[elucido]

An intelligence source is 100% civilian and innocent. An enemy combatant such as a member of the Taliban or Al Qaeda gang member is not a civilian and not innocent. The US soldiers are at war with the foreign soldiers. It's expected that soldiers on both sides of a war are going to die.

Intelligence sources are not soldiers. They are people who have surrendered to the US government. They had the option to surrender to the Taliban, to Iran, but chose to surrender to the US Government. Whether it was because the US Government had the bigger better military or whether it's because they just hate Al Qaeda and the Taliban, they sided with the USA and the USA has a sacred trust to protect their identity at any cost.

Assange thinks he is more important than he is. Exposing intelligence sources is never acceptable. It's as bad as torture which we agree is not acceptable, or killing women and children. So if Assange gets an entire family killed off because of this leak, or several families are ruined, this is okay to you?

But if the USA bombs the wrong house by accident then it's not okay?

Re:Wikileaks isn't a leaks aleaks site anymore

[Zero__Kelvin]

So, to hear you tell it, letting the US citizens know what kind of underhanded behavior their government is engaging in is anti-US? I hate to break it to you bud, but you aren't one of US, you are one of them.

Re:Gov't Sponsored DDoS

[copponex]

FBI assassinating American citizens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

Deaths due to torture
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/06/30/accountability

Extra-judicial assassinations (not including daily drone bombings)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen.html

Of course, no one really knows what The Agency is doing right now. What is known is that the secret prisons still exist, and that the legal process of "extraordinary rendition", known to the rest of the world as kidnapping, still occurs. Our terrorism suspects are regularly flown to dictatorships like Egypt and tortured with our approval.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition_by_the_United_States

Only After Upgrading to the Cloud

[medv4380]

The first attack took down the servers and kept them down until wikileaks upgraded to Amazons Cloud hosting. I'm not sure if any hacker has ever taken down one of the behemoth cloud hosting networks so this should be a good test.

Re:At least someone has balls (and common sense)

[XxtraLarGe]

Has he broken any laws you can name...

Most likely the Espionage Act of 1917. Not judging the merits of the case, but that's what immediately comes to mind.

He's white.

[copponex]

If he were an Arab Muslim, he would already be dead if they had his location. This is because the largest enemy a government like the US has is it's own population, and the assassination of a white well-to-do activist would be far more alarming than another dead Arab.

They are using their diplomatic contacts to try to force him into hiding. If that doesn't work, you can bet they have plans to take him out with rendition or staging an accident. You can step on toes to a certain extent, but once you start getting in the way of business getting done, you can start counting you life down in hours.

Re:Wikileaks isn't a leaks aleaks site anymore

[davev2.0]

The U.S. is the juiciest target?
What about Russia and its corruption and political oppression?
Mexico and its corruption and drug cartels?
What about Ireland and its corporate tax giveaways? Why aren't they looking at how that continued?
How about the collapse of Ireland's banking system? Or, the collapse of Iceland economy?
What about human trafficking in China, mostly female North Korean sex workers.
Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries covering up physical and sexual abuse of foreign workers, including murder?
Sexual abuse of female workers in Chinese factories?
Tacit government approval of child sex workers and tourism in Thailand, Viet Nam, and Cambodia?

Yeah, you are right. The U.S. has all the juiciest stories. In fact, there are no other stories worth pursuing any where else.

Re:At least someone has balls (and common sense)

[Spad]

One might argue that doing anything overt to him would only reinforce the belief that the government(s) in question are actually scared of Wikileaks rather than just angry with them; the last thing they want to risk doing is martyring him.

the press freedom index is from the US Gov

[Voline]

Ecuador ranks a whooping 101 on the press freedom index, with an annually deteriorating index value. I'm not quite convinced it's the best country to exile to for people publishing inconveniant documents.

The compilers of that "press freedom index" is Reporters Without Borders. RWB are primarily funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct, sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party.

I would consider that the "US State Dept Press Freedom Index".

Re:Nobel Prize

[dskoll]

If two nations can't trust each other, then how on earth do you expect them to be at peace with each other?

This is a solved problem. You set up systems of checks and balances that don't require the nations to trust one another. They can verify what the other one is doing. In fact, if the only way nations could be at peace was for them to trust one another, there'd be war all around.

Re:Gov't Sponsored DDoS

[DavidTC]

Id be especially interested in the "currently torturing someone to death"... is that rhetoric, or should you be posting AC?

You really don't know about any of the examples?

Wow, our media has utterly failed us.

It is nauseating ....

[unity100]

the amount of filth continually being exposed about their government and its BETRAYAL to their country's values is increasing, yet, also the numbers of americans who are supporting their government is increasing, at least in slashdot.

i find it nauseating. how can someone support some party that has DECEIVED them, by betraying the founding ideals of their country in regard to freedom, liberty and basic human rights, and perpetrated innumerable filth behind the cover of secrecy with the 'national secrets' excuse ....

YET, some people can still stomach being deceived, lied, and bottomless filth committed in their name, AND come up supporting that !!!

HOW. WHY ?

Re:The true reason for this release

[Brannoncyll]

This is just Assange using wikileaks to attack a country he hates.

Clearly this is why the headline story on BBC news today is about China's thinking on North Korea, and the headline story in The Independent is about missiles in Iran, both of which are sourced from the Wikileaks cables and neither of which is remotely 'anti-US'. I'm sure there are numerous other examples. It seems that you are being deceived by the US government propaganda machine, which attempts to bias (US) public opinion against things it doesn't like by claiming that they are attacking the democratic beacon of justice and humanity, the great and powerful USA, land of the free etc etc.

Espionage Act of 1917

[melstav]

Since you didn't include a link to the text of the act in question, here is the text of the Espionage Act of 1917.

Section 1, paragraph (e) pretty clearly applies to the person who leaked all of the documents in question.

Section 1, paragraph (d) MIGHT have applied to Wikileaks... EXCEPT for the fact that they provided the State Department with copies of all of the documents that had been leaked, prior to publication.

What's more, not only are they redacting the documents prior to publication, they're redacting the documents EVEN MORE HEAVILY than the declassified versions being published by the Department of Defense.

So, yeah. Granted, IANAL, but I'd say that doesn't apply.

Godaddy domains down

[secondhand_Buddah]

The Godaddy registered Wikileaks domains (wikileaks.com wikileaks.net wikileaks.biz, wikileaks.mobi, wikileaks.us) are no longer pointing at anything meaninful - just Godaddy blurb pages. It seems that Godaddy has decided to stop serving DNS for Wikileaks

the true lessons to be learned

[Gary W. Longsine]

This batch of leaks is about as likely to wind up helping the United States more than hurting it, as it has exposed, for example, the deep hypocrisy of the Arab governments in the middle east. It does the United States very little good, so far as anyone can tell, from letting these governments publicly berate our every action in the region, while privately begging us to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. A little sunshine on that single issue might do enough good to entirely negate any other random embarrassments which occur.

I don't have a sense for whether or not Mr. Assange "hates" the United States. It is quite clear that he thinks governments keep too many secrets, and that he thinks operational transparency might lead to governments whose actions are more closely aligned with the interests of their populations. He seems pretty focused on western democratic nations, and this looks like an indication that perhaps he doesn't hate them. More like "tough love".

Re:Wikileaks isn't a leaks aleaks site anymore

[Un pobre guey]

Here they are.