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Moscow Has Eyes On WikiLeaks, Too
mark72005 writes "National-security officials say that the National Security Agency, the US government's eavesdropping agency, has already picked up tell-tale electronic evidence that WikiLeaks is under close surveillance by the Russian FSB, that country's domestic spy network, out of fear in Moscow that WikiLeaks is prepared to release damaging personal information about Kremlin leaders. 'We may not have been able to stop WikiLeaks so far, and it's been frustrating,' a US law-enforcement official tells The Daily Beast. 'The Russians play by different rules.'" Something tells me those rules might be in line with professor Tom Flanagan (an adviser to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper), who openly advocates assassinating Assange. Update: 12/03 00:56 GMT by S : Reader Red Flayer points out that Flanagan later recanted, saying, "It was a thoughtless, glib remark about a serious subject."
... Wiki leaks you. I guess?
If you want to play James Bond, you better expect to get your hair mussed.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I support transparency, but I get the impression that Assange is a hypocrite and egotistical douche. Assassinate him and you turn him into a hero/martyr. Given that his organization is still fairly secret, it could continue to run without him.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Any Slashdoters out there who sell Polonium detectors could make a fast sale.
Prof Tom Flanagan said Barack Obama should "put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something" to rid the world of Mr Assange.
"Put out a contract?" Yeah, then maybe he should chew on a cigar while hanging out of a suicide door on a car as he fires two tommy guns from either arm? And then maybe he should cut off a horse's head and put it in Manning's jail bed? I'm sure after that contract is transmitted out to Kessel, Boba Fett will freeze Assange and deliver him to Sarah Palin. "Put out a contract?" He's the leader of the United States, not a gangster -- although I'm sure there'll be comments asking for the difference of the two.
... or at least to the drone's family so the widow drone can send their little Predator to a nice drone school.
Yeah put out a contract for drones. Obama should offer one billion dollars to the first drone to kill Assange. Well, you'd have to offer it to the drone before it detonates itself while targeting Assange
And this guy's an adviser to the Canadian PM? What kind of advice does he provide? "Well, sir, I think you should grow wings and save the internet or at least threaten to break its kneecaps if it doesn't shape up."
My work here is dung.
That should read "a former adviser to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper", which is clearly stated in the linked article.
out of fear in Moscow that WikiLeaks is prepared to release damaging personal information about Kremlin leaders
I wonder what the basis for that assessment is. My assumption would be that they're more interested in seeing what gets disclosed to them, instead of having to wait for the information to be released like everyone else. If you take that a step farther, they can potentially figure out who is talking to them in the hopes of recruiting them (nicely or otherwise) as assets for their own "wiki", so to say. I'd actually have been surprised if the FSB hadn't been observing WikiLeaks far before now.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
That is why they have Insurance?
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Yeah. Blame Canada.
Let them be the new world's policeman
now that the US is broke (~$140,000 per home).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Yeah, just make the guy a martyr and piss off the entire hacking community into taking up his cause. Best thing all governments could do is just be ALOT more transparent, duh. Too much grief going on between us earthlings with our alien overlords on the way.
"To err is human, to mod Funny divine."
Summary is false. Flanagan does NOT currently openly advocate assassination of Assange. Flanagan recanted.
C'mon guys... I know it's too much to ask to have you guys fact-check the actual submissions... but you should seriously consider fact-checking your editorializations that succede them. Not only would it help ensure a better project, but would also help prevent getting your asses sued.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Clearly that doesn't fit the situation. But you know, we are told since childhood that being honest to others in your dealings and relations is the best policy. Meanwhile, our world leaders are constantly playing dirty, lying, cheating games at every turn.
Assange is hiding in Brazil.
Since the Russians are all over you already, would you care to leak info on something that has us very curious?
By now, he probably has people all over throwing stuff at him. Would be interesting to see some real secrets leaked!
if assange does anything that irritates russian intelligence (kgb fsb or whatever) the very next day he'll be an unfortunate victim of a very peculiar, uncommon and comically spectacular accident. russians aren't the half-assed weak-sauce fascists that the americans are.
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
Perhaps if governments stopped doing and saying such embarrassing things in written or recorded form this wouldn't be such an issue?
US has to have some sensitive embarrassing Russian intel so getting rid of wikileaks should be easy. Just upload it to wikileaks and have them publish and then just wait for wikileaks members to get sick from radiation poisoning.
I'm still processing this but I think Rubin makes some good points here.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Assange, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for the Constitution, and you curse the World Superpowers. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That the lies upon lies, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like terrorist, rendition, homeland security. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.
Assange: Did you order the cover-up?
The Man: I did the job I...
Assange: *Did you order the cover-up?*
The Man: *You're Goddamn right I did!*
~~~ There is no Wikileaks.
Las Vegas probably already is taking bets.
Wonder how long they give him?
Certain people with a lot to lose are certainly quietly planning, and not necessarily on damage control.
...it just likes to use Russia as a convenient distraction from its own CIA activities.
..a polonium-210 detector
Kill the messenger - problem solved.
Assange is an egotistical narcissist, blah blah - Russians will pull a Litvinenko on him - blah blah blah - and any other self-aggrandizing attention from US commentators can go here for the moment.
Point is that everyone should remember that Wikileaks will release documents on any government, corporation, or other entity of significant political, social and historical significance. The US is merely the brunt of the latest...oh yeah, and Flanagan retracted that which you didn't bother to point out.
Huh? The US military spends twice as much as their nearest rival.
The majority of your elected leaders are MILLIONAIRES who derive much of their support from the largest corporations in the world.
Iraq was based on a lie, and Afghanistan is quagmire.
The conspiracy is simply that powerful people in powerful positions (in turn supported by powerful corporations) are acting in their own self interest, and not that of the common citizen.
Do you want to die for that? Perpetuating a lie?
~~~ There is no Wikileaks.
I notice that a lot of people seems to conveniently forget their "Morals" when it's their neck on the chopping block. Julian has not mass murdered anyone yet he appears to be more hated than Saddam, Hitler, or Chavez right now.
Unless Julian himself did the work of taking these documents from officials by hacking or circumventing some security he should not be considered guilty of anything. The person's at fault are those that handed these documents over to him. They are the one's at fault.
I notice that our government officials are very good at making laws that "appear" to kosher with the constitution when they actually are NOT. Lets make it simple. If you don't like the first Amendment and its freedom of the press then you just make a law that says possession of "classified/government/secrect" information is illegal as heck. This way, you can maintain your image of supporting the Constitution while not having to fear it. You can classify the fact that they take a crap each morning as a security precaution and make it a capital offense if that information is given to the press!
Everyone has gone mad and we are feverishly giving our leaders far too much power!
see subject line.
Yours In Moscow,
Kilgore Trout
...to take whatever consequences that might come of his actions, well then, that's his perogative.
Will it really change anything?
Another day and the the US is busy with "extraordinary rendition" and the FSB just shoot people in public, the Taliban hack their heads off and Pakistan sells out everybody just to annoy India.
It's long been rumored that Putin has, shall we say, a taste for the younger set. I wonder if perhaps some of the as-yet-unleaked cables corroborate that?
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Someone, or something, is protecting wikileaks and all their team. you think they would come so far, if it wasnt so ? look at the previous shit they released :
http://mirror.infoboj.eu/
random corporation A somewhere would have taken them out, had they not been guarded in some way. look how many megacorps and countries they ticked off.
sorry moscow. there wont be any plane crashes this time.
Read radical news here
you get that impression from where ? fox news ?
dont get any impressions.
the only way he is alive, and there is wikileaks still, because he had done everything to put himself on the spotlight and keep people remembering him and wikileaks, so that assassinating him would be hard.
get a clue. really. get a clue.
Read radical news here
Just a note, people saying something negative about Assange doesn't automatically equal "troll" of course this is falling on deaf ears because on Slashdot, Digg and Reddit he's held up as a religious figure.
Why is the focus on Wikileaks and it's leader? This is a great case of shooting the messenger. Bradley Manning was the solider who stole the information. How he disseminated it is not the point. Granted: Wikileaks posted the information, but if Wikileaks didn't exist they would have just posted it elsewhere. Do you think that if a dozen newspapers suddenly got this information in the mail, they wouldn't have posted it? I doubt it. And are the owners of the newspapers who posted the information being targeted by the federal government? I haven't heard anything about that.
Stopping Julian Assange isn't going to solve the problem. Better idea: infiltrate Wikileaks and corrupt the information before it arrives. Let them post garbage. Ruin their reputation.
As usual with the Slashdot editorializing, it botches the facts.
Flanagan hasn't been an adviser to Stephen Harper for a long time, and the government was quick to distance itself from him.
Since The Memory Hole has gone, Wikileaks and others have taken up the banner with the latter becoming the most prominent. Still, there will be others. And others. And others.
Interestingly, a central repository of US diplomatic reporting was created after Sept 11 to share information. This replaced the very personalized and irregular territorial fifedoms that the diplomatic people used before. The idea was to widen and speed the spread of this content; however, once that starts, it makes it easy to have a single point of failure by allowing THREE MILLION PEOPLE to see these cables. A leak was almost inevitable if you get rid of compartmentalized data.
The FSB and NSA both know everyone associated with WIkileaks. If you've communicated directly with Julian Assange they know who and where you are.
For those of you who are thrilled with the government takeover of health insurance, remember that your medical information (possibly including full details of any payments) will be under a lower level of protection than these documents were. They will also be less protected than the FBI profiles were, yet Clinton was easily able to get thousands of those.
How much do you trust the government to protect your personal information?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Assange has balls.
I sent what follows, to http://www.theregister.co.uk/
As of yet they have not published it, perhaps they have left their cubicles?
Peter.
Go into your local computer store, checkout the PCs on sale, they will all be running Microsoft's closed source operating system, I was led to believe that monopolies were bad for the economy and illegal.
If Windows was such a brilliant operating system, why did the London Stock Exchange ditch it recently for Linux? (well advised, by their mates at the New York Stock Exchange)
Why don't Google, Facebook, Amazon and many other companies use Windows.
Our National Health system, Education system, Police service and local government have given Microsoft millions and millions of pounds, when a free and better operating system exits, the only reason I can think of is, that the people who run our country are corrupt.
When the government keep telling us we are massively in debt, what they really mean is, we have a massive balance of trade deficit.
One way to make quite large dent in this deficit is to stop paying the Windows tax.
The BBC could do an immense amount to promote open source, but it hardly mentions it, this suggests to me that the BBC is corrupt also.
The fact that the BBC made a program about Linux and it was shown abroad but not in the UK, is a dead give away.
What is now called chemistry, used to be called alchemy, this happened around the time of Issac Newton, a contemporary of Newton's was Robert Hooke and apparently they were enemies, after Newton's remarkable insights into physics, he turned his powerful intellect towards alchemy, here is the kicker, he kept his research a secret.
Hooke realised that Newton did this, because he wanted to be the only beneficiary.
Amongst others Hooke realised, that if alchemists published their results then other alchemists could build on their discoveries and the science of chemistry was born.
Why should computer science be any different?
OK I can hear all the programmers out there complaining, how do we get paid, this is like asking Astronomers Physicists Geologists Mathematicians, people in the armed sevices ETC. how they get paid, rather silly question, if you ask me.
Closed source software, only makes the people who issue the binaries richer, it makes most of the rest of us poorer.
I will give you an instance, last August I bought a 1 x NNB-831 Xplora 15.6" - AMD Athlon X2 TK42 Ati Graphics 2GB DDR2 250GB SATA HDD DVDRW from Novatech not paying the Windoze tax, saved me around £70, I put Ubuntu on it and have not looked back since.
All we need is an exec with Assange sized balls on the Beeb, and the UK could make a good sized hole in its balance of trade deficit.
Would not take much, just a few programs showing how easy Ubuntu is to install and use.
And if people think I only advocate Ubuntu, I actually run Mandriva on my PC.
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
Nothing stops the FSB from killing everyone associated with Julian Assange one by one. Nothing stops the US government from killing everyone associated with Julian Assange.
If they want to shut down Wikileaks they can and will. If 10 more pop up then those people will be tracked down and murdered until people get the picture that if you leak you die.
That might protect Assange from the US government but it wont protect him from Russia.
With cameras, computers and the internet, almost nothing can be hidden anymore. Information leaks in the USA can't be stopped, except by regaining the respect and trust of the American people.
By never recording anything the number of leaks will go down.
I actually think the whole Wikileaks thing is kinda funny. Whistleblowing is a necessary element of democracy and capitalism, and yet when someone can't hide their dirty laundry in time they get all pissed off. If they did their secret black ops cover ups, and document shredding parties a little better they probably wouldn't be in this mess.
Rumor has it Assange has Chinese bodyguards. Rumor has it China has given him 20 million. Who knows.
Wikileaks is actually hosted in a data center in an underground bunker in a Swedish mountain. That was a good move. They actually need that level of protection.
The data center operator, Bahnhof, is fully behind Wikileaks in this. "The company's data center is "a kind of metaphor" for Bahnhof's commitment to resist any sort of intrusion, physical or legal. We're proud to have clients like these," he says. The Internet should be an open source for freedom of speech, and the role of an ISP is to be a neutral technological tool of access, not an instrument for collecting information from customers."
Clearly that doesn't fit the situation. But you know, we are told since childhood that being honest to others in your dealings and relations is the best policy.
Wife: Honey, does this dress make me look fat?
Husband: No honey, now let's have sex.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Until not long ago hacker types were jailed for attacking sites, stealing information nobody cared for or pirating stuff. Nothing that would really matter though. Compared to
Now Julian Assange, who has all the marks of a textbook hacker hero (even if this has nothing to do with Wikileaks, but check his bio -- he was jailed for hacking, founded an ISP and contributed to quite a few Open Source projects) is *really* pissing off the mighty who are just used to do what the fuck they want.
I'm not sure what will come out of all this, but there is a good chance it will make history one way or another.
That he's now being sought because he has shagged two women in three days and wrecked the condomes he was using is not only absurd, it's stranger than fiction. This alone is something the typical nerdy type couldn't even dream of...
Strange days indeed.
are the ones who are protesting the loudest. Forced, premature FOIA is a bitch.
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
> I'm no longer convinced the Russian rules are really that different from our own.
Our government is not run by organized crime. Our government is run by commercial interests, through a system of legalized bribery. I am not exactly sure why, on a philisophical level, it makes a difference. But in practice, it does make a difference.
C'mon guys, I opened the comments to this story just to read the hilarious "In Soviet Russia..." joke and found none!!!
Honesty is good whether or not others respond in kind. It's good for you physically and emotionally. If you are honest, you don't have to worry about your dark secrets being exposed. It allows people to know who you are, so that they don't become you enemy later on when they figure out you're not who they thought you were. It allows you the freedom to be true to yourself so you can stop pretending to be someone else.
It's true that you won't be rich or have sex with the attractive women, or run for political office. But those things aren't really that great. People who have them seem just as miserable as everyone else.
If Wikileaks just happens to have information regarding Russia, of which US intelligence agencies were aware, the last thing those US agencies would do is report what they know to the press especially in light of the current US diplomatic crises. The US (or any other country for that matter) does not openly and voluntarily report details of ongoing intelligence operations.
This is the typical rubbish of someone who thinks Wikileaks aims at the US. It doesn't.
I'm pretty sure Rubin doesn't know that Assange won the 2009 Amnesty International Media Award for exposing extrajudicial assassinations in Kenya. And Rubin doesn't know this because he doesn't care the fuck for who is murdered by whom in Kenya. Instead he thinks that Wikileaks is evil and out to destroy the US because it exposes what some US diplomats think about Putin. What an ignorant self-important wanker.
GP post is from the "A Few Good Men" movie. Look it up, it does not mean what you think it means.
Hey. I just wanted to let you know that the reason we don't see anyone like Assange in countries that are still classed as being under Dictatorship or Tyranical Monarchy is because they lack an eager general populous with standard equal rules to embrace good behavior. In all my observatios, I've always seen a triplet pattern of when a country fails; foreign investors arrive in the form of Jewish aid, they import labor and liquidate investments to Muslims, and when the Muslims gain foothold we see Sikhs come in to eradicate Muslims. In many regards of Assange being useful, at this point he is doing more to destroy the corrupted governments rather than rebuild them; this kind of "activism" by Assange should have been liberaly applied throughout all the years rather than at the last moment when varying pressure could cause a collapse of the populous. While the corrupted governments would remain strong in such cultural collapse, and in power with even more motivation for broad exertions, all that would rise are Religious governments competing against one-another that could be far worse. The reality of Assange still being alive is proof that de-jure government agents hidden among corrupted government are filtering him these documents and somehow keeping him allive perhaps by reasoning a Con to their corrupted fellow-employees, but that only lasts long enough until you start seeing random government employees die of "natural causes."
It's really too late for Assange to turn-back. The corrupted governments have intentionally flooded their countries with foreign cultures pre-dominantly Muslims, yet the Sikhs have been counter-acting the Muslim flow because they too are more aggressive to persue the same agents of Islamic empires because the founding on Sikhism is stemmed from the most horrendous tortures and mutilations against Indians at the hands of Muslims. The lighthouse is practically lit by activist Sikhs showing where Muslims are spreading, but all the corrupted governments are intentionally spreading Muslims around as justification for a power grab and this all done at the hand of legislators that are predominantly Jewish. I'm unhappy to say it, because I know some good Jews and I mean good on how well behaved I've witnessed them being, but their investing and Liquidations to foreign cultures is causing these foreign cultures to be brought into the hosting country indefinitely. Why go on a Cruise to India, Middle-East, Africa, or China when a Jewish investor can sell manufacturing equipment or houses that would bring all these foreign principalities to your doorstop demanding participation or a religious "donation" for being in earshot of benefitting from their "services."
Jesus, the guy runs a semi-secure internet drop box for leaks. It's not like he leads a group of hackers breaking into government systems. The FSB just wants to get a jump on what he's going to release. Most likely to use it to their advantage.
The truth is that "the truth" has consequences. In this case posting 1000's of private documentation that contains information that people may use in a decision on whether or not to go to war is wrong . Would it have been right for Wikileaks to publish the fact that Prince Harry was in Afghanistan? No.
If they want people to know the truth I think that is great and I personally believe that people should search out the truth. However sometimes knowing the truth can, will, and has in the past cost lives.
Quick scenario: Wikileaks releases secret information that says that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia wants America to bomb Iran. Iran takes objection to this (quite rightfully) and instead of waiting for America to bomb them, they decide to test their first Atomic weapon on.... You guessed it, Saudi Arabia.
Now tell me; Is it right for Wikileaks to release all this information?
With great power comes great responsibility; Wikileaks are not being responsible. This could cost people their lives. Maybe even the people at Wikileaks. Not all countries will take this lying down.
Flame away.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flamebait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Anyone else find it strange that the only real info in WikiLeaks is that Iran is supposed to have nuclear weapons?
Doesn't seem it's quite useful to the US government who might want ot have a reason to attack Iran?
And no one finds it strange how ALL the media are quite happy leaking the stuff wikileaks gives them but still won't touch 911 with a polesitck?
I call it fishy!
1. Man annoys US (and others) Govt officials with wide spread publication.
2. Govt officials want man dead but know that should anything happen to him, the finger will be pointed at them.
3. Govt runs campaign to discredit man and vilify him(Arguably happpening)- Man goes into hiding.
4. Govt says "The big scary monster wants to kill him"
(future) 5. Govt takes man out, blames "big scary monster" Win, Win, Win. Man is no longer a problem and revenge is taken. Govt is "innocent" of murder. Govt is now able to discredit big scary monster stating: "Thats not how we would have handled it"
. .
be prepared to face some unusually ill-tempered sea-bass or possibly talapia.
Are ego and domain-specific ethics not a requirement for evoking change?
Somehow I think that the whole "insurance" file had the opposite effect - that they may have nothing in it.
Seriously, if I were Assange, and had some real 'oh shit this could shake civilization!' data, I wouldn't have to do anything public about it... I'd have taken a different tack:
* make sure it was distributed to compatriots, with instructions to post upon my untimely demise or imprisonment,
* as a good measure, set up a couple of anonymous hosted servers scripted to screen-scrape some random-but-popular page periodically for a certain comment, then auto-post the "insurance" if that phrase (or new entry) didn't appear after two attempts. For example, have the remote hosts parse a pre-made Slashdot journal for some unassuming phrase (or even just look for a new a new post younger than x number of days). You post a new journal entry every x number of days or so, and as long as you're still breathing, no sweat. For an added double-plus happytime bonus, you can have it look for a "duress phrase", and automatically publish its contents upon seeing the phrase.
* as stated elsewhere, quietly send a copy of the info to the FBI, Interpol, a few EU governments, the Russian government, etc. depending on what the data is and who it affects the most. Let them know that unless you remain happy, healthy, unimprisoned, and alive, that data will never get published.
Do that, and I'm very sure that governments everywhere would be more than happy to make sure you're still breathing, and will even make sure that you don't stray too far away from a computer.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You DO know Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein was trained by CIA and put in power, right?
US soldiers found no WMFDs. European countries, especially Norway, who was heading inspections, found no evidence of WMDs. They clamoured for peaceful solutions to the stubbornness of Mr. Hussein. Although they did get access, it was "never enough". Either the reasons were military or political, but such were the situation, and none of us know enough to judge that, none of us. Since this information is kept from us intentionally.
Now, why did USA attack Iraq despite outrage in the rest of the whole goddamn world?
Some months earlier Saddam Hussein had declared to change currency from dollar to euro, for oil exports. GWB of course went for the threat-route against "one of their boys" (Saddam). Saddam didn't comply. US demoted "their guy" (you can find the CIA-quote by googling my sig text. If you're too lazy, then fuck off, troll).
What is truly sad, is that people like you believe USA invaded Iraq because Iraq was not "cooperating fully". So naive, easily exploitable, like the rest of the sheep.
And yes, the ties between Sweden and USA is pretty obvious. There's Swedens new copyright laws, wiretapping on internet cables, and now warrants without arrests. More ties will probably be leaked pretty soon, only question is, who in Swedish leadership is really gaining from them?
So either you're a troll or a retard. Choose wisely, ignore or evolve.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
The US is looking in to espionage charges against Assanage. Now that might be 100% wishful thinking/bullshit on their part. However it also might be that they believe they can get evidence that he participated actively in the leaking. So if all that happened is this guy got the information, contacted Wikileaks and said "I have information for you," then Wikileaks should be in the clear. They didn't violate the law, Manning did. However if they took a more active role, well then maybe they did. Let's say Manning talked to Assanage about it first and said "Man I've got access to all this amazing intelligence, shit that would blow the public's mind," and Assanage said "Well give it to me! I'll open it up to the entire world, I'll let everyone know!" They then talk a bit and Assanage manages to convince him to ignore his oath and reveal the info. Well in that case Assanage might will be guilty of espionage After all that would be an active role in having the information leaked. Same deal as you can't tell someone to kill someone else and then say "But I didn't do anything, I just talked!"
Now of course that it 100% speculation. I've no idea how it went down. However it is a possibility. Wikileaks may be a completely neutral party, who just disseminated information they received. They also could be an active participant, that worked to get this particular information released to them, in which case they may have liability.
Who is it hiding now?
hint: It's not the Soviets....
..is demanding publicly that other people be "assassinated" not, of itself, a crime?
Professor Flanagan is hardly the only one who has been at this - high time a few of these chancers had a taste of their own medicine, see how funny they find it landing on Interpols Most Wanted. At the very least, threatening to prosecute might see a few of the publicity-mad drivel merchants at least thinking twice before demanding the execution of others.
Someone find a statute & go file - see how those **** like it ;-)
I'm personally sick of hearing about these death threats. It's a scare tactic that's aimed not only at Assange but at the general American public as well. All these organizations that have either threatened to kill or have eluded to killing Assange underestimate his intelligence. All Assange has to announce is that he has moved all of the leaked material to another system that is ready to share all this information automatically in the case that Assange does not click a button daily on the machine. As long as he is alive, he can continue to NOT share the information. In the case that he dies or is detained--the information gets automatically posted all over the Internet. In effect, Assange is worth more to them alive and well. Scotty, General Order 24...
"So don't get programmed by anybody but yourself" --Bill S. Preston, Esquire
So, suppose Assange gets assassinated, and some sure calling card of the assassin's country of origin was left there (say, a ticket stub originating in Washington DC). Do you think that the other people running wikileaks would actually start targetting that nation out of vengeance for their fallen comrade? I mean, if a country appears to have killed your colleague, why bother redacting any more names, or doing anything to help them? Further, any targetted leaks would only supplement whatever your intelligence assets were already piping to you. I mean, if we're going to start getting into spygames, it seems like having something wikileaks outright targeting your foe would be a feather in your cap.
Has anyone replying actually read the leaks, or just read stories about the leaks? I've spent the last two evenings reading cables and have been amazed and enthralled by the writing styles of some authors. I expected boring, dry, mundane reports with alot of TLA's (three letter acryonyms). To my surprise, each cable (so far) has been almost like a mini-novel. Also, I haven't found a "smoking gun". If anything, they reflect fairly morale values and are quick to point out where others are acting in a corrupt, unjust manner. Of course there is a constant tactical nature to all of the cables, but this is to be expected given the source. Overall, I think the USG may be over-reacting, especially given the values upon which it was founded. (Disclaimer, I've read about 1% of total content, so this viewpoint may change as more is released.)
He's a modern day Guevara. Becoming just as, if not more, controversial in both means and ends. With worldwide impact, not just within one continent.
They're not his comments. They are actually from the movie A Few Good Men and the point of the movie was to illustrate that people who spoke like that were a threat to freedom as much as anything else, I don't know whether the OP was trying to do that.
Our freedom is threatened by people that the military are not equipped to fight and the ignorant who are unwilling/unable to understand that the front line is everywhere. Wikileaks exposes the aggressors that pose a more potent threat than the military can deal with or even recognise. Those whose tactics make the population believe in a McFreedom that looks and tastes like a real meal but actually lacks nourishment and is inevitably unsatisfying. I fear for Mr Assange. To paraphrase, the difference between a citizen and a civilian is a citizen defends freedom by seeking the truth and recognising the danger.
I never realised that about the US Constitution, are you able to cite which portion so I can get more detail? That certainly casts the Military more in the light of maintaining it's complex rather than it's primary function.
Thinking remains the hardest work and though that's a interesting truth to uncover it won't matter to those that "Can't handle the truth". They'll simply go back to their Faux News and apathetic version of what freedom should be before parroting the mantra of rhetoric they have been programmed with.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Whether you like him or not usually has a lot to do with who writes your paycheque? ...with who you think is protecting you, when in reality no one really is.
N'est-ce pas?
If "The Russians play by different rules", then he is
Safe from assassinations, like the Americans tried with Castro
Safe from taken to an island, imprisoned without judicial oversight for a few years
Safe from kidnapping, flown to foreign countries and given a Spanish inquisition style interrogation
Safe from torture, in prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo bay
Safe from the white house making up some story and getting the "intelligence" agencies to rubber stamp it as true (... WMD in iraq)
all in all it's good news.
Sweden and Switzerland are two separate, non-bordering countries.
with wiki, russia leaks you? Because, in spite of what others believe here, USA DOES have a few scruples (though I do wonder about the 2 women). OTH, Putin has zero scruples and has no issue putting down a pest. Or pests if there are more than one.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There are degrees of immorality, and the Russian higher ups are near the top of that slime pile. The Russian people thought they had it nad under the Tzar. They did. Then along came Stalinm to one up the Tsar. Now, under the guise of "opening up Russia to the West", we have Gangsta Putin and his Russian mobsters running the country, and blatantly gaining a reputation for doing things "the Russian way". What we need is to stop kowtowing, and let the Russians know, under no uncertain terms, that there will be consequences for assassinating people in other countries. Why Putin isn't a pariah in most civilized nations is beyond me. He's a thug, plain and simple. Why don't we call him what he is? Frankly, I think that this Russian reputation for barbaric revenge is impacting the world press. Who has the guts to call Putin and his Russian cronies on their BS?
Oh, yeah, Tom Flanigan should be run out of office. Any public official who advocates assassination - even in the heat of passion - against anyone should be out on his/her ass, by policy fiat. Flanigan is a first calss scumbag, little better than Putin - a small time political hood. Apologies don't play when a politicians public words get played all over the world, giving implied approval to assassinating somebody for releasing information. I don't agree with everything that Assange has done (but I like a lot of it). I would love to see some dirt on Flanigan, and then see it spread far and wide. What an irresponsible, insincere jerk!
I think that Assange is relatively safe.
I mean, Wikileaks is such a convenient node to leak all sorts of "information" to that can't be published via official sources. Deniability regarding official stance and a carefully cultivated "rogue" image are priceless.
And by simply looking at the impression created about various entities in the leaks, Mossad and/or (some factions of) the CIA have been quite busy.
Flippant comments about assassination should be dealt with as harshly as discussions of bombs in an airport. It's a very thin line between jocularity and nervous jocularity, the kind where you really mean it.
When Reagan was shot I recall thinking "I sure wouldn't miss that old phony" in the emphatic terms of youth. As I got older, I realized that no matter how many people think these things (I'm sure I was far from alone), they're not for sharing out loud, in seriousness, in jest, or mock jest, nudge nudge.
We've seen where that leads on the issue of Obama's racial heritage.
With old Tom's statement, I put him firmly in the camp of Sarah Palin (who if I'm not mistaken, said basically the same thing): "Shoot the Messenger". It is my most basic wish, that neither Tom nor Sarah ever ever get any kind of political power. People like that include Pol Pot, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, the Taliban, and a large collection of others.
Mess with Putin, Putinjugend and The Russian Reich and you end up committing suicide by shooting yourself in the neck three times. Or the Chechen rebels will radiate you.
Exposing corrupt governments from Russia to the US! GO GO GO!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
What we need is to stop kowtowing, and let the Russians know, under no uncertain terms, that there will be consequences for assassinating people in other countries. Why Putin isn't a pariah in most civilized nations is beyond me. He's a thug, plain and simple. Why don't we call him what he is?
The problem with that is that Russia is too powerful. They're not North Korea. And with China's rise in power, we don't hear nearly as much about their human rights problems as we used to.
But a bigger problem for the EU at least, is that a lot of European countries depend on Russian gas and other resources.
And finally there's the fact that Russia has quite a bit of military power. Nuclear weapons and all that. You don't want to anger them too much. Hence all the kowtowing.
I fully agree that it's a gangster nation and we should be doing something about it, but I have no idea what.
Russia is willing to assassinate people quite openly just to set an example. Julian Assange is relatively safe from the US, because if the US wants to kill him, they'll want to do it either legally or secretly. Russia has very few of such qualms.
Of course now the Russians have given the Americans (and everyone else) the perfect opportunity to remove the "little problem" AND make Russia look bad too. I would not like to be Assange's shoes because I am pretty sure that if someone does hit him it will be in such a way that nobody is completely sure who did it.
LISTEN to the tape, this is NOT a case of wrong identification or a snap judgement made in the heat of battle. They shoot up clearly unarmed civilians in the act of evacuation wounded people and joke about it.
Any civilized country would have these soldiers in jail. The US does not. That is all you need to know about the US.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Then he can become a martyr, and create more change than his organization probably would've ever caused.
There is no -1 Disagree.
Wikileaks kicked out by EveryDNS. Do not resolv for me. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-knocked-off-net-dns-everydns they can be found here: http://46.59.1.2/ or go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks (right box) for last known IP. or new doman: wikileaks.ch
Another way to get to ip address websites.
NJO1
As PE says, Fight the power.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
You think diplomats should stop telling the truth to their superiors because that truth might be embarassing, or start a war, if it were to be publicly released?
Best Slashdot Co
'We may not have been able to stop WikiLeaks so far, and it's been frustrating,' a US law-enforcement official tells The Daily Beast. 'The Russians play by different rules.'"
Need to get around the pesky Constitutional restrictions and torture some foreign nationals or even your own citizens? How about those annoying blogs and "leaks" sites that so arrogantly exploit their First Amendment rights? No problem! Just outsource those awkward tasks to our partners in countries that don't suffer from draconian laws protecting the "freedoms" of the little people. Before you know it, you will have regained control of the distribution of information, ensuring once again that those whom you don't think "need to know", won't know. Now that's peace of mind.
Well, surely as this time we know they've got WMDs we should liberate Russia and depose the tyrant Putin?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Moreover, I suspect a goodly chunk of the Canadian voting public (mostly West of Ontario) don't think what he says is really that outrageous.
I'm an exception then. I'm from west of Banff actually and I think what he said was outrageous. Perhaps it's time to start manufacturing Julian Assange masks, kind of like the "Anonymous" masks at certain kinds of protests -- which incidentally also relate closely to part of Mr. Assange's past at suburbia in Australia -- and "My name is Julian" T-shirts.
And I'm not particularly proud to be a canuck these days on every front, either. Hey, at least we're surviving the current Great Recession in somewhat better health than so many other places.
cheers...ank
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
Look, I'm sorry about calling you a troll. Was a bit frustrated about how a whole country can be so duped, but ok, there's probably reasonable reasons for it once you dig more into it.
Planting massive facilities for creating WMDs is not that easy. Intelligence can be anything though, and then you just have to push the agenda hard enough. All the "hawks" needed was a go for military action, and then the country would be committed. It worked like a charm, literally. An entire country duped into believing it, while the rest of the world were condemning the whole agenda.
When GWB was on media arguing that he had intelligence for WMDs, then and there, I _knew_ he was lying. The inspectors were protesting. It was all part of a their (the "hawks'") plans from several years back of taking out GWB senior's arch enemy, Saddam, a former CIA plant. For whatever reasons, axis of evil or whatever christian bullshit and / or oil-dollars, GWB had decided in his alcoholic mind to go through with it no matter what, and he did. It's incredible what one leader can do to wreck damage to a once so great country.
Planting is something you see in movies. I don't believe whacko stories about shadow governments, illumnati or airplanes dumping millions of gallons of gas over us (ever heard of condensing?), or something like that.
In the real world, the covering up is pretty shallow and very high level. It just needs some nods and shrugs from your political peers, and of course you want to leave minimal tracks.
It does us more harm than good though, when politicians circumvent the democratic processes. It's like a dictatorship where a small elite controls the few, and it IS there, no matter how much you don't wanna believe it. But it's more real than those whacko stories, and it's eroding our democracies and ethical judgements.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/