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."

Comments

In Soviet Russia...

[bigspring]

... Wiki leaks you. I guess?

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Low Ranked Craig]

No. In Soviet Russia those who offend us ingest toxic radioactive metals

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[rainmouse]

'The Russianvs play by different rules'

All this outcry has done little except prove the exceedingly dubious moral fibre of very powerful elected political figures the world over. People who brag openly about transparency one day and murder to prevent it another day. I'm no longer convinced the Russian rules are really that different from our own.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[mcvos]

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.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[TheViciousOverWind]

It's somewhat sad that when China executes people who opposes the regime, the rest of the world cry "Murder!", but when someone releases information embarresing to them, the line is not as clear.

The way I see it. If the documents had been released by "real" journalists (what defines a real journalist anyway?) 10 at a time, there would be no talk about hanging said journalists. When thousands of documents is released at one time, we suddenly call for his head?

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[mrcaseyj]

The US better not kill Assange because then future leaks probably wouldn't be redacted and past leaks would probably be re-released unredacted. The names of confidential informants would be released directly into the open. Future leaks would still happen because this stuff wasn't leaked by Wikileaks, it was leaked by the army guy that stole them. He could have just emailed the documents to a thousand random email addresses and every newspaper in the world, including our enemies. He could have posted a torrent link on Slashdot and had it downloaded 10,000 times before the gov noticed it, by people here that have the expertise to distribute it reliably. Wikileaks is just publicizing and making convenient what would be out there anyway. The guy who actually leaked these things couldn't possibly have redacted them himself, and he couldn't have asked for help from the govt. So governments should encourage leaks to go through Wikileaks.

I don't know if Russia will kill him. He might be making himself hard to find.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[icebraining]

Also, we still don't know what the Insurance.aes256 file really contains. I'm pretty sure that if something happens to Assange, we'll get to know. It might be bluff, but it might not...

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[enrevanche]

These releases may help change the nature of government. They may help prevent or lessen future conflict.

So far absolutely no negative effects have yet been shown except as embarrassments to those engaging in dubious practices and policies.

The fact is that governments are often not acting for the good of all or a majority of their citizens but that of a small number of powerful elites.

In a way this is a very democratic action as it returns power in the form of information to the public for which these governments are technically the servants. It may allow them to make better choices in the future, It may make government officials act more responsibly because if they don't it may come back to haunt them.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[suzerain]

In my opinion, there's something conscious and subconscious going on here, with respect to the vitriolic calls for assassination, and so forth.

The conscious thing is simple: "we want to kill him because he released sensitive shit that's detrimental to us, either personally or strategically".

But I sense an unspoken outrage here, not so much at the content of the cables, but at the disruptive nature of what those in power see as a "flagrant violation of the rules". There have been countless examples of this throughout history...American revolutionaries employing guerrilla tactics against an enemy fighting an old-style war, to name but one.

Ultimately, I think the way this stuff goes down, in the old world, is that news outlets get ahold of a bunch of sensitive shit, and then they schedule lunch with the people on the ass-end of the offensive shit, and they say "look, do some stuff that helps us and we'll release A, B and C, but we'll gloss over D, E and F." And I think this happens largely because media are either for-profit concerns, or else funded by the governments. They can only go so far in exposing the truth.

Wikileaks, in the new world, has basically said "Fuck that. We're not going to play by the old rules. We're releasing all this stuff, but if you want you can help us redact some of it." They can only do that because they have little financial stake in the outcome of their actions. And I think that among the people used to the old system, this is an affront to the assumptions of people well-versed in these well-developed social and cultural mores. And furthermore, I think vast swaths of the public go along with the outrage simply because they really don't want to know "the truth". They'd rather accept some version of the truth that doesn't upset the apple cart, because they have more mundane concerns like putting their kids through school.

The lesson from all this, IMO, is that Wikileaks, basically, is the Internet (metaphorically because of what it represents). It's a game-changer. Since the mid-90's, when we saw this new communications medium emerge, this is what we all envisioned: information in control of the masses, citizen journalism, etc. and so on. It has finally emerged in the form of Wikileaks (and if they are destroyed, it will re-form under a different guise. The implication is this: the way the world works is going to change. This diplomatic cable leak will be remembered as a moment that the old-accepted rules started to be trampled on.

No matter what, it's going to be fascinating how it all shakes out. And, some people might die, lose their jobs, increase or decrease in terms of relevance. But ultimately life will go on. It always does.

One final comment related to the above poster: really, Wikileaks isn't leaking this information at all. The Guardian is. The New York Times is. Der Spiegel is. Le Monde is. Wikileaks just dumped the documents. But it's these news organizations that are making money off packaging all the supposedly damaging information into bite-sized chunks that the average consumer can digest. Yet, I haven't heard any calls for the assassination of the editor in chief of the New York Times.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Unkyjar]

They've knowingly accepted stolen property?

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[mrcaseyj]

I'm not suggesting the Russians would be stupid enough to assassinate when the US wouldn't, it's just that an un-redacted release of these secret US documents probably wouldn't reveal many, if any Russian confidential informants.

Russia killing wikileakers for releasing these sorts of things may be an effective deterrent to future wikileakers releasing Russian secrets because there is less need to stick your neck out to expose Russia since their tyranny is fairly open. On the other hand, leaking the bad deeds of the US could contribute significantly to convincing or enlightening those who support the US or its leaders.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[GameMaster]

Bull, even Holder had to choose his word wisely and talked about "filling the holes" in our present laws. The problem is that the "holes" he's talking about are there for a reason, it's called freedom of speech. Sure, they can go after the people that gave the documents to Wikileaks, assuming they can catch them, and those people have, most definitely, broken the law. However, Wikileaks is acting as a journalistic organization. You may not like their judgement (i.e. you may not agree with their politics) in what to publish or the quality of their attempts to redact sensitive information, but that doesn't make it a crime. You'll note, that the NY Times is helping Wikileaks release these documents and I believe I've heard that they are, also, helping to redact sensitive info from them. Where is all the political outcry to put a bullet in the heads of the Time's editorial staff? Hell, THEY'RE AMERICAN CITIZENS LIVING AND WORKING IN THE US! Holder could take a short car ride from DC to NYC and arrest them personally. He won't, because he knows that what their doing is legitimate expression of their freedom of speech rights as journalists and that they are a powerful enough organization to effectively defend themselves in court. Assange, on the other hand, is a much easier target to get away with smearing. THAT DOESN'T MAKE DOING SO RIGHT.

Of course, the other "holes" he's talking about are the fact that Assange is a foreign citizen who has been living in a non-extradition treaty country. Even if Holder and the rest of the government can rush absurd law changes into effect to cover their bruised egos it doesn't mean they have any legal jurisdiction over the man.

A side note to all of this, and one of the reasons I think they are going after him so hard to distract away from it, is that at least one of the documents he released may, actually, constitute evidence of Hillary Clinton commiting a serious federal crime. The understanding I've been given from some of the news reports is that, when we got together with the rest of the world to create the UN, we signed treaties that, explicitely, said diplomats assigned to the UN would never be used for espionage. IANAL, but my understanding is that according to US law (which I believe is, actually, in the body of the Constitution) when we sign a treaty with a foreign country(s) it become legally binding US law. If she really did, as the news reports have said, order UN diplomats to spy on foreign dignitaries (and, yes, only an idiot would think that telling them to steal credit card numbers is anything other than bald faced espionage) then that would seem to be an open-and-shut case of a crime being commited. I'm not saying this as a Republican/Conservative (in truth, while I'm not a huge fan of the Democrats, I tend to skew liberal in my beliefs and I HATE the Republican party). I'm pointing this out because, if it's true, I consider this kind of abuse of the law by a high ranking official a crime that should land them in Levenworth.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[SETIGuy]

US government documents can never be protected by copyright. They are all public domain. So that kind of kills the whole "property" portion of that argument.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Kazoo the Clown]

I think vast swaths of the public go along with the outrage simply because they really don't want to know "the truth".

An insightful post for the most part. But with this statement, I'd say instead that vast swaths of the public don't want to have to figure out what the truth is, don't know how or don't want to spend the time or are just plain incapable of reasoning through such a process, and so they've decided that their "team" has got a line on the truth (Reps or Dems or whatever), and so they'll just parrot whatever is being sold to them as "truth" by their team and just get behind them, "right or wrong." And of course, their "team" is feeding whatever sort of apologetics is necessary to advance their hidden agendas (which seems to be far too often, lining their pockets with corporate contributions). The problem with this whole system, is those that are ignorant of the truth are essentially providing/investing far too much power in these "teams" who's interests have little to do with any kind of "truth," and for that matter, aren't really all that interested in giving anything but lip service back to their peon fanbase...

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[budgenator]

Bradley Manning is acused of downloading the files over a secure military network and transferring them to his personal laptop and then uploading the files to an unnamed site everybody assumes is wikileaks. The downloads over the secure military net was surely logged, there was certainly forensicaly visable traces of the classified files left on his laptop and at least normal logging at the ISP Manning connected to would have how much data he uploaded; so it's really not that hard to connect those dots. All of this would have happened before the wikileaks submission process. When I was in the Army I had lost a classified document and for months the phones I talked on were tapped and I was followed everywhere I went, and they were blatant about it; I sure was glad when I found the document under the bottom drawer of the file cabinet inside the security vault!

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Xest]

"I can't help but cry bullshit to all of this WikiLeaks mess. I have difficulty believing the US government is unable to bring WikiLeaks down, either notoriously or covertly."

I think you'd be suprised, Assange has spoken briefly in the past of Australian intelligence sources giving him warnings, but interestingly right now he's in the UK and yet we've not followed through on the international arrest warrant for him.

I suspect he's actually got as much support amongst intelligence agencies as he has detractors. After the Lugovoi incident in London I'm sure MI5 would love nothing more than to prevent and capture a Russian assassin active on British territory.

Keep in mind that British foreign intelligence- MI6 had a list of their operatives leaked some years back, and the US was the first country to defend publication of the leak citing constitutional protections etc. and in that case there was equally a risk of lives in danger. This coupled with the fact Wikileaks may have contacts or information that even the security services haven't been able to acquire yet.

There's many reasons why Assage might well have just as many people in the security services on side as against him- if Wikileaks hasn't really done much serious to harm British interests, and if he has information that's important about say, Russian interests, and if he's the perfect honeypot for luring in foreign agents who may wish to spy on him or attempt assassination, then they may believe he is a rather valuable asset to keep around, at least for now.

We've had Russian assassinations on British soil, but then we never really believed the Russians were our friends in the first place. A US assassination on British soil? murder of someone on the sovereign land of their closest ally? Now that would be devastating for the US' position in the world, and would almost certainly do far more harm than any leaks have managed. The US (or Russia for that matter) getting rid of him might not be as easy as you think.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[MRe_nl]

"Under US law it's illegal to transfer classified documents to persons without a clearance for that information, which is exactly what wikileaks did".

No, that would be Bradley Manning. Wikileaks is not a US company, and has is not compelled to comply with ANY US law.

"It's pretty safe to assume every country has a such a law and that the law applies to non-citizens located both inside and outside the countries traditional boundaries".

You are mistaken. National laws cannot apply to non-citizens located outside a countries boundaries.

"Violating this law is what is popularly known as espionage or spying".

You cannot arrest a FSB researcher in Moskou for charges of spying on the USA. It doesn't work that way.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[non0score]

Unfortunately, that's an extremely short-sighted point of view. For the maximum dissemination of information, the long-term survivability of Wikileaks comes into play. So holding some cards close as a form of insurance while revealing others will maximize the chances of survival, and thus the amount of information released.

So?

[Vinegar Joe]

If you want to play James Bond, you better expect to get your hair mussed.

Re:So?

[Totenglocke]

Assange just needs to remember to only become shaken by their assassination attempts, not stirred.

Re:So?

[afidel]

What is the difference between wikileaks and the pentagon papers? Both used material that the government wanted to keep quite, was classified, and illegally leaked to the press. Yet one wins the Pulitzer and a generation later people are advocating for the others death?

Re:So?

[mcvos]

If you think Assange is a journalist, then by your logic the hospital janitor is a brain surgeon.

Not a great analogy there. If you want to compare a legitimate journalist to a brain surgeon, then Assange is a clandestine back street surgeon.

Re:So?

[clarkkent09]

I hear polonium-210 works better when its stirred into a drink rather than shaken

Re:So?

[gknoy]

Who did Assange get killed?

Re:So?

[Magada]

Ah but the radio chatter. The cold-blooded serial killer aspect of it all, made more blatant by the obvious technico-tactical superiority.

Assange

[Enderandrew]

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.

Re:Assange

[gestalt_n_pepper]

Assange is a distraction and knows it. Chasing him wastes law enforcement resources and he knows that too. Wikileaks, the organization goes on while idiots chase their tails by chasing him. Moreover, if Wikileaks goes away, 10 more Wikileak clones will arise.

Governments, apparently, never learned the lesson of Napster. When Napster went, other free music sites were created. When those went, distributed torrent sites were created. When torrent sites go, another as yet unknown solution will occur.

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. In a wired world, the only way to do that is to play it straight, not lie and do what you say you'll do. As of yet, no political organization or movement in the USA is up to that task. When they appear, I'm sure they will be regarded as dangerous radicals by the mainstream media.

Re:Assange

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the impression that Assange is a hypocrite and egotistical douche.

He's not though. From the interviews I've seen he seems reasonable enough and even made sure to remove names from the Iraq docs. People always say he's an ass but I've never seen anyone actually justify it.

Re:Assange

[Shikaku]

While that is an interesting way to commit suicide, still need a citation there.

Re:Assange

[melikamp]

When torrent sites go

Hahahahaha, everything you say is true. These clowns cannot even shut down http://thepiratebay.org/ after years and years of litigation and actually throwing individual people in jail. The media shitstorm around Wikileaks is getting more amusing every hour. Say what you want about Assange, but if his goal was to draw attention to factual info leaked into the wild by US government employees, then he succeeded beyond even his own wildest dreams.

Re:Assange

[grcumb]

I support transparency, but I get the impression that Assange is a hypocrite and egotistical douche.

He may be a douche, but he is emphatically not a hypocrite. He's written several essays about what motivates him and why he's chosen the tactics that he has. You may not agree with his reasoning, but to his credit, he has been nothing if not consistent in his behaviour.

Re:Assange

[BasilBrush]

Fucking two women during overlapping periods doesn't make you an ass, unless you promised them something more than a fuck.

Re:Assange

[jythie]

I find the redaction to be one of the more fascinating memes since wikileaks did in fact redact the documents (which is why they took months to post) with the assistance of the 4th estate.... I see it as another example neither the media nor the state department are being entirely honest regarding how much harm these leaks actually do, which has been pretty minimal outside PR.

Re:Assange

[Borland]

Information leaks in the USA can't be stopped, except by regaining the respect and trust of the American people.

I do not think there is a government in operation since three burly cavemen got together and beat the others of the tribe into line that had "the respect and trust" of the people. And the more educated, rich, and free a nation is, the more that suspicion is widespread. Come to think of it, I'd rather never have the government of the US gain the respect and trust of the people -- that means all divisions have been erased; all debate has ended. Possibly because people are just too poor, ill-educated, and scared to object.

The second thrust of your argument, that "almost nothing can be hidden anymore" hints at a future where it is impossible to hide nearly anything. That hints at a culture that seeks to expose everything, public or private. An informer society is bad; a society that thrills on voyeurism is even worse.

Be careful of the utopia you wish for.

Re:Assange

[interkin3tic]

I support transparency, but I get the impression that Assange is a hypocrite and egotistical douche.

I'd imagine if I were the target of an international smear campaign, I could be made to look like a hypocritical, egotistical douche too (as opposed to a hypocritical, SEMI-egotistical douche.)

My point is: don't let the character assassination distract you from what's ACTUALLY important, which is of course, not Assange's character.

Re:Assange

[grcumb]

Not to say Assange is not what he seems, but essays don't prove anything.

Perhaps not, but when these statements match perfectly with his actions, I'd say there's a pretty fucking good chance he is exactly what he seems.

Did you even read the essay before spouting this drivel?

(Mods: I don't normally feed the trolls, but this inane, insidious character assassination that substitutes for actual debate is just... wrong. Do your worst.)

Re:Assange

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Say what you want about Assange, but if his goal was to draw attention to factual info leaked into the wild by US government employees, then he succeeded beyond even his own wildest dreams.

Other than the narrow focus on the US government, that is precisely what his goal has been. He even said so about a year ago:

"At the moment, for example, we are sitting on 5GB from Bank of America, one of the executive's hard drives. Now how do we present that? It's a difficult problem. We could just dump it all into one giant Zip file, but we know for a fact that has limited impact. To have impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get something out of it."

---Bank Of America Sets Up Swat Team To Combat Wikileaks

Re:Assange

[RewriteQuran]

Wikileaks is a Whistle Blower.
Isn't Govt suppose to protect Whistle Blowers?

Opportunity Knocks

[Ensign_Expendable]

Any Slashdoters out there who sell Polonium detectors could make a fast sale.

Re:Opportunity Knocks

[Trent Hawkins]

nah, Russia never uses the same trick twice. So, let's make a spin on the wheel of assassination:

*click**click**click**click* Concentrated Neutron Deathray

*click**click*...*click*.....*click* hidden in a shoe

Tom Flanagan, Hilarious Idiot

[eldavojohn]

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.

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 ... or at least to the drone's family so the widow drone can send their little Predator to a nice drone school.

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."

Re:Tom Flanagan, Hilarious Idiot

[Red Flayer]

It got buried down below, but I already made a post explaining that Flanagan recanted. The recantment was reported in lots of places yesterday, I saw it on the late news here in the NY metro area.

Flanagan explained it away as a "glib" response that doesn't actually represent what he feels to be the best course of action.

But, of course, you fed the troll editorialization. Don't worry, we all do it sometimes.

I just wish that Timothy and the other editors would fact-check their editorializations before they get into hot water.

Re:Tom Flanagan, Hilarious Idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a poor joke in poor taste. He's already retracted all that, and even critics of the current Canadian government on the opposite side of the house have said that Flanagan was probably joking. He was stupid for putting it that way, of course, but he wasn't serious.

The thing is, some other people have suggested targeting him "like the Taliban" and are apparently serious.

Re:Tom Flanagan, Hilarious Idiot

[RJHelms]

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."

Former adviser. Media outside of Canada likes to leave that part out, I guess because it makes it seem like our government is reacting to WikiLeaks.

No one in Canada takes him seriously, he just goes on CBC and says outrageous things. It's pretty amusing that he was taken seriously internationally.

Re:Tom Flanagan, Hilarious Idiot

[SJ]

The problem with this is the first statement is usually what you really meant to say. You shoot it out in the heat of the moment when all your mental filters are distracted. Flanagan may now say that he doesn't advocate hunting down another human and murdering them, but the fact that he said it in the first place shows that the thought is prominent in his subconscious.

Motive?

[Shoten]

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.

Flanagan has recanted

[Red Flayer]

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.

Re:Flanagan has recanted

[compro01]

"Recanted" in this case most likely means "Harper threw a fit when he heard what I said, so I'm taking it back before I get blackballed". There's a reason why he's a former head of staff and a former adviser, i.e. he's a political loose cannon if let near a camera or microphone and not the type of person Harper wants anywhere near him, lest his chances of ever getting a majority be destroyed.

Re:Flanagan has recanted

[ultranova]

Yep sounds like Canada. You step over a line the party puts in the sand, they do everything to make you not part of their "image".

That is how political parties work in most of the world: the party is found on some core ideas, recruits people who share those ideas, and rejects those who don't. The US-style two-headed single party system is an aberration, to put it kindly.

And the truth shall set you free...?

[erroneus]

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.

subject goes here

[gTsiros]

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.

Re:subject goes here

[bcmm]

Note that it is US officials that are saying he's pissing off Russia. It's looking a little bit as if they might be preparing to play by those Russian rules and hope someone else gets the blame.

Easy Answer

[RazzleFrog]

Perhaps if governments stopped doing and saying such embarrassing things in written or recorded form this wouldn't be such an issue?

Re:Easy Answer

[Microlith]

But that would mean less power and money for them, and we can't have that. What gets me is how much the heads of other states are drooling over the prospect of the Russians assassinating people that work for Wikileaks. It's almost like they're too cowardly to take the next step into corruption that they so wish for, so are waiting for an already wholly corrupt government to do their dirty work for them.

Well getting rid of wikileaks is easy then

[gilbert644]

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.

The Irony of Wikileaks

[stoolpigeon]

I'm still processing this but I think Rubin makes some good points here.

Re:The Irony of Wikileaks

[nomadic]

Good editorial; I especially like this paragraph:"There’s another irony here, too. The Wikileaks document dump, unlike the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, shows that American private communication with foreign leaders by and large reflects the same sentiments offered by U.S. officials in public. There is no grand conspiracy, no grand hypocrisy to uncover and expose. The big hypocrisies here are not being perpetrated by Americans; they are being perpetrated by foreign governments, namely non-democratic ones."

No freedom of the Press?

[SirAstral]

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!

Re:No freedom of the Press?

[Maltheus]

So, what part of the constitution requires the press to register themselves?

Re:Truth? Let me tell you about TRUTH

[copponex]

This is the dumbest propaganda since Bristol crashed Dancing With The Stars.

The Constitution is founded upon the ideal that all men, regardless of rank or wealth, are equal in front of the eyes of the Law. That's what made it special. The fact that we expanded that to include all US Citizens, regardless of gender, land ownership, race, and religion is also special. The fact that we didn't resort to torture and extra-judicial murder in WWII was also special. That's why we were the Good Guys.

If you want some sort of yellow bellied compromise, that's okay too. Just realize the justification of murdering innocent people to preserve the State has been used by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and every other corrupt government dating back to the beginning of time. This includes the country we fought to gain our independence.

Power for it's own sake is nothing new.

Re:MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

[LWATCDR]

Wow...
Okay we all know the truth about Iraq but very few people want to admit it.
Here is what happened in Iraq.
Saddam Husain made an error. He faked a weapons of mass production program. He feared Iran more than the US. The facts are that Iraq had a chemical and a nuclear weapons program before the first Iraq war. That is an absolute fact.
Iraq didn't cooperate with the UN inspectors fully.
The US and other countries believed the lie that they where told. This is all documented but not very sexy. It is so much more fun to make the US into a great villan instead of saying that they and other nations messed up.

What I find so funny is that so many people will not place the blame of their own governments choices on their own government.
I bet right now a lot of people are saying that the US is making Sweden go after Assage. Or some other silliness.

yes

[unity100]

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.

Re:yes

[Enderandrew]

His refusal to wear a condom despite his sexual partners begging that he do precisely that, as he sleeps with multiple strangers in a short period of time is one reason I think he is a douche.

And while he wants to keep informants secret, as that location of his servers (to protect the information) he won't disclose how much money has been donated, how he spends the money, why he doesn't disclose all leaks given to him, etc.

And I've never watched a minute of Fox News. Please stop with the ad hominem attacks. I really get tired of the moment someone disagrees with another on Slashdot, they must be part of some Republican conspiracy of ignorant assholes.

Re:yes

[BasilBrush]

Wikileaks =/= Assange ...Again, see Polanski.

Again, note, Sweden =/= Switzerland. Apart from the first two letters of their names, they are very different countries.

I mean, Palin had more excuse for mixing up North Korea and South Korea. And she's a fucking idiot.

Re:yes

[RazorSharp]

Dude, you totally think that Sweden and Switzerland are the same country (the Roman Polanski quip exposed you). Get a clue.

Furthermore, Assange isn't against personal privacy. Believing in government/corporate transparency doesn't mean one believes in personal transparency.

And it's pretty obvious that Assange didn't 'rape' anyone in the American legal sense of the word. The Swedes are fem-nazis and they have fem-nazi laws. Of course, you wouldn't know that, b/c you think Sweden is Switzerland.

Re:Truth? Let me tell you about TRUTH

[Un pobre guey]

What a crock of shit. This is the sort of pretentious pseudo-patriotic rubbish that has supported dictatorial regimes since time immemorial. You either watched far too many hollywood action movies, believed the drivel you were fed at boot camp, or both.

Wikileaks isn't the culprit

[MobyDisk]

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.

Par for the Slashdot course

[spaanoft]

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.

Re:Truth? Let me tell you about TRUTH

[Totenglocke]

I'm going to assume from your comments that you're in the military. If so, then I have a cold, sad truth for you - you haven't done one goddamn thing to defend our freedom or the Constitution. In fact, you provide the muscle to the very people who take away our freedoms and piss on the Constitution. Despite the bullshit you're told in boot camp, you are NOT defending America or "serving your country". You are blindly serving the whims of corrupt politicians, without ever questioning to see if what they're telling you is the right thing to do or not. You are the very enemy you were told you were fighting against, because YOU are the threat the government uses to keep citizens cowed and following orders. Congratulations, you are a terrorist and you never had the good sense to realize it.

I'm well aware I'll probably get modded down since military worship is everywhere, but it doesn't matter. I'm not going to pretend like the armed thugs doing the ill will of corrupt politicians are somehow protecting us. The US Constitution specifically bans a standing army in a time of peace - makes you wonder why ever since WWII the US government has always found some bogus reason to perpetually be at war.

Foreign govrnments don't fear US media backlash.

[elucido]

That might protect Assange from the US government but it wont protect him from Russia.

Backup copy in the bunker

[Animats]

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."

Re:And the FSB will kill all of them.

[melikamp]

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.

Wrong AGAIN. People who leak are completely safe as long as they don't talk to Adrian Lamo (by the way, the best snitch name ever). Chasing down journalists does absolutely nothing to address the source of the leak and the inherent leakiness of ANYTHING that is digitized and accessible to a few thousand people. War Logs and Cables were Secret and were legally accessible by 2.8 million people. FSB could go ahead and kill everyone who ever wrote a word for El País (Spain), Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany), The Guardian (United Kingdom), The New York Times (United States), and Wikileaks (Earth), and the very next day more shit will be leaked by their own employees and publicised on Internet by Anonymous. Good luck tracking that guy.

The biggest assholes with the most crimes...

[countSudoku()]

are the ones who are protesting the loudest. Forced, premature FOIA is a bitch.

We are not like Russia.

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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.

Re:MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

[coolmanxx]

You would like to believe that the brightest military minds in the world were duped into invading Iraq?

Truly you are naive.

It sounds cliche but you really need to 'follow the money'.

I'm a contractor and though I don't work in Iraq or Afghanistan I have friends who have for many years. Their companies have made hundreds of millions (some have made billions), while they themselves have become minor millionaires. There is no accountability. The world is a small place, and DC is even smaller. If you know the right people you can get anything you want. No bid contracts anyone? The latest wikileaks confirm that Afghanistan is indeed a cesspool of corruption, though anyone who has been there knows that perfectly well.

No... the sad reality is that Iraq was invaded on the behest of a handful of very determined (and cynical) cabal of civil servants (all of which have ties to the arms industry I might add) who made the conscious decision that PAX AMERICA was worth the sacrafice. Control over the PRIZE of Iraq, the second largest oil producer on the planet was worth ANY price. Truth be damned.

Re:Truth? Let me tell you about TRUTH

[Securityemo]

I do not question the need for military secrecy and I have no hand in Wikileaks, but as a civilian I will certainly apply my own judgment to any information I come across. It's not a question of thankfullness. You may have insight into your chain of command and related "environment", but how on earth am I supposed to trust something so remote and complex? It basically boils down to the fact that knowing wether or not wikileaks is a good or bad thing depends on the effect of the released materials - either "true" safe whistleblowing (potentially very good) or some asshat deciding to release 50.000 documents as revenge on his superior officers (potentially very bad.) Thus, from my perspective, Wikileaks is a morally ambigious entity that can affect your life as a soldier in both good and bad ways. Besides, the primary responsibility lies on the person who leaked the material in the first place - it's not like wikileaks is some sort of commando hacker team stealing the data from under your nose. I am Swedish and thus not a citizen of the U.S., but given that the U.S. forces are the backbone and bulk of NATO forces...

Re:Truth? Let me tell you about TRUTH

[blair1q]

Wow. Did you ever fall asleep on the floor and get covered in Sharpie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/quotes?qt0470412

Re:Truth? Let me tell you about TRUTH

[OverlordQ]

This is the dumbest propaganda since Bristol crashed Dancing With The Stars.

Dont let the source of the quote get in the way of your frothing sentiments.

Wikileaks is not about the US

[joh]

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.

WHOOOSH

[F.Ultra]

GP post is from the "A Few Good Men" movie. Look it up, it does not mean what you think it means.

Re:Truth? Let me tell you about TRUTH

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh. I'm going to assume from your comments that you haven't seen the movie.

The context in the movie is that a military officer is offering excuses for giving the order -- an illegal order -- that resulted in the death of a soldier under his command. Exactly as you suggest, the speech sounds impressive but the rationale is deeply, deeply wrong. If you know the context, the point the original post is making by twisting that movie quote a little is pretty insightful.

The truth?

[muzicman]

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.

Re:Truth? Let me tell you about TRUTH

[Maltheus]

I'm surprised you got modded up. I can't even argue this way with my liberal friends without being branded a monster. If you've taken an oath to defend the constitution, and go off and fight unconstitutional wars, then your are a hypocrite with no honor. If you're killing far more civilians than terrorists, then you have no sense of morality or justice. If the killing of those civilians leads to more desperate terrorists, then you're a direct threat to my life and should be put in prison.

I'm told time and time again, that even if I disagree with the war, that I should continue to support the troops. I have been told this by people who think Bush should hang for war crimes. But we don't have a draft and adults are responsible for their own actions. Claiming they are just following orders is an excuse that doesn't fly post-Nuremberg. These wars have lasted long enough that any soldier who wanted out, could have easily gotten out. I have no sympathy for any soldier who has remained (although I don't think the OP has any particular sympathy either, just quoting a movie).

Re:MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

[Penguinisto]

"You would like to believe that the brightest military minds in the world were duped into invading Iraq?"

Erwin Rommel was arguably one of the most brilliant military strategists (and tacticians) of the entire 20th Century... and he still got duped by the Allies in Africa, and in France.

QED: It's not as if "the brightest military minds in the world" are infallible, especially if they unknowingly have bad datasets to work with.

Re:MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

[AfroTrance]

Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life'

Government 'sexed up' WMD report

Re:MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

[RazorSharp]

You really miss the point. It didn't even matter if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. So does Pakistan, but we're not invading them. Bush and his cronies repeatedly said not only that Iraq possessed WMDs, but also that they were an imminent threat to U.S. security. That's extremely naive to assume that a country our military could take over in a matter of weeks posed any serious threat to our national security. The Bush administration relied on American bigotry that wouldn't discern between the Muslims involved in the 9/11 terrorist plot and the Muslims who lived in Iraq and had nothing to do with it to sell that bogus war. And it incidentally made a lot of their friends very rich.

The claim that Iraq had WMDs may have been a "mistake" but the administrations insistence that, even if Iraq possessed these weapons, that they could possibly pose a threat to the U.S. is a flat out lie. The worst the Iraqi government could have done would be a large scale terrorist attack, and there's no indication that they had any interest in doing so because then they would have had like ten minutes before we bombed their entire country to a wasteland.

Not all conspiracy theories are absurd and related to aliens. As far as I'm concerned, there's more evidence to suggest that Julian Assange is the target of a conspiracy than there ever was evidence to suggest that Iraq ever posed a threat to U.S. security.

Re:Polanski

[kwbauer]

Sweden and Switzerland are two separate, non-bordering countries.

Yeah sure. LISTEN to the tape

[SmallFurryCreature]

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.

Re:In Soviet Russia scumbags rule

[tehcyder]

Well, surely as this time we know they've got WMDs we should liberate Russia and depose the tyrant Putin?