US To Host World Press Freedom Day

rekrowyalp writes "From the press release: 'The United States is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day event in 2011. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.' Oh the irony."

Comments

wikileaks

[kimvette]

Is it safe to assume that Wikileaks isn't invited?

Re:wikileaks

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no, they're invited. All of them. In fact, it's an invitation they can't refuse...

Re:wikileaks

[Esteanil]

On a side note, I'd suggest we start organizing "Wikileaks fundraiser parties". Seeing as (nearly) all other ways of funding them has been blocked by the oh-so-press-friendly US govt. & friends, we'll simply need to collect the money the old-fashioned way and have organizers do the actual fund transfers. (Using Western Union or similar, I guess). Oh, and 'till these things get up and running, I just signed up for Flattr. Limited to $2 a month, but hey, every little helps.

Re:wikileaks

[kimvette]

Revealing the corruption in publicly owned businesses and in the government and seeing which politicians are bought and paid for by whom is responsible journalism. Want to keep people out of danger? Stop using war as a means to line your own pockets. It pleases me to no end that Wikileaks is delivering on the government transparency campaign promise Obama made and failed to keep.

Maybe future leaders will re-think their actions when they not only realize that future generations will consider them to be scumbags and tyrants, but there can be a very real and immediate danger to their own lives in the here and now.

Corruption is widespread and it needs to be revealed - names and all. It will serve as excellent deterrent in the future.

Re:wikileaks

[FooAtWFU]

Well, I for one think that there is a qualitative difference between arresting anyone saying "democracy is awesome" a la China (and boycotting the Nobel Peace Prize / threatening nations who send delegating), and arresting / wanting to arrest people for actually taking classified documents from your government offices and reproducing them online. One is about suppressing opinions the government doesn't like, and the other is about government transparency. I can appreciate the case for transparency, mind you! I just don't think it's such a big "OMG we're such hypocrites irony!!!!" sort of deal like it's trendy to think in these parts.

Re:wikileaks

[icebraining]

With the posting of 400,000 classified documents from the Iraq war, WikiLeaks has shown a much heavier hand redacting compared to its previous publication of documents.
(...)
"In this case we have taken an even more vigorous approach than we took in relation of the Afghan material, not because we believe that approach was particularly lacking [but] rather just to prevent those sort of distractions from the serious content by people who would like to try and distract from the message," Assange said.

An initial comparison of a few documents redacted by WikiLeaks to the same documents released by the Department of Defense shows that WikiLeaks removed more information from the documents than the Pentagon.

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-22/us/wikileaks.editing_1_wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-redacted-documents?_s=PM:US

Re:wikileaks

[should_be_linear]

Yes, in "Two minutes of hate" daily workshop.

Re:wikileaks

[Dystopian Rebel]

If the US oligarchy were really interested in democracy, US news companies wouldn't have betrayed US citizens during GW Bush's presidency and would have instead shown the courage of Wikileaks.

Another generation of US journalists had more courage:
http://www.ellsberg.net/archive/public-accuracy-press-release

In any case, the US's covert war against Wikileaks is its only alternative:
http://www.rferl.org/content/wikileaks_assange_secrecy_access_laws/2242761.html

Re:wikileaks

[miffo.swe]

Actually, most terrorist funds comes from US pals like Saudi Arabia and other nice dictatorships they support.

Re:wikileaks

[dkleinsc]

Or the New York Times, for that matter. Eric Holder's in the process of looking for ways to prosecute them for publishing what Wikileaks gave them.

Re:wikileaks

[tdelaney]

Exactly when did Julian Assange or anyone from WikiLeaks "... tak[e] classified documents from your government offices and reproduc[e] them online"?

They published documents they were given by someone else (the actual leaker, who is suspected to be Manning) - much like every news organisation has done with the cables as they've been released. Except the news organisations have been picking and choosing for greatest dramatic effect/"reader interest" i.e. publishing the cables that are most likely to have a destablising effect on world politics.

Re:wikileaks

[spun]

So arrest the people who took the documents. We have a law in this country specifically protecting the right to publish documents even if they were obtained illegally. Remember the Pentagon Papers? If it was legal to publish those, it is legal for Assange to publish the documents he received.

Uh, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions here. You do realize that Assange did not take any documents from government offices, right?

Re:wikileaks

[dgatwood]

The problem is, at what point do you draw the line between completely free journalism, and responsible journalism?

Easy. You don't. What part of "Congress shall pass no law... abridging... freedom of the press" is unclear? Besides, professional, responsible journalists went through this material and redacted anything they thought would put people at risk. This isn't about putting people at risk. It's about politicians and corporations getting embarrassed by having their dirty laundry aired for all to see. It falls very squarely on the legally acceptable side of the line. If you think you can show some piece of information that puts people at risk after dozens of journalists said that it doesn't, go for it. Otherwise, please stop believing everything that government mouthpieces tell you. They were lying before when they covered this stuff up. Why should we expect anything different from them now?

Re:wikileaks

[lennier1]

It's oversimplified, but still part of the whole madness:
They are in business with some Saudi businessmen who support and donate to terrorists on the other side. Therefore US money is used to buy weapons which in turn are used against US soldiers. In other words: They're basically fighting themselves.

Re:wikileaks

[b0r0din]

Needs to be revealed? Totally, where it exists. Deterrent? Hardly.

You seem to forget the invisible line of power and privilege that protects the elite from being sent to prison. GWB committed known felonies during his presidency. The CEO of Massey Energy negligently murdered a number of his employees. Madoff might have gotten caught, but neither his wife nor sons were convicted, and meanwhile Goldman Sachs is doing some incredibly unethical stuff that may or may not have helped to wreck our economy, and that whole institution gets off scott free for the price of some kabuki theatre in DC. Oh, but hey censure Charlie Rangel if it makes you feel better.

We have a good deal of press freedom here in the States, but unfortunately the mainstream media reports on the wrong news, everything now has to be yellow journalism (the wars of left vs. right, Fox vs. MSNBC, etc.) and people in our society are way too uneducated to be mad at the real injustices in the world, like the power our plutocratic overlords now wield. I doubt 10% of our nation knows what the Citizens United verdict was, but you know they're damn mad at the world about the fact that they have to pay taxes for art, because let's rag on a few billion and completely sidestep the trillions that is going to pay for blowing up brown people in the middle east.

Besides, IANAL, but some Internet-distributed leaked classified document probably doesn't hold up in any legal courtroom, so how is anyone going to be punished, exactly? No.

Deterrents don't exist in this country, because in order to deter someone from doing something illegal, you have to actually convict them. And you can't do that in our society anymore.

Re:wikileaks

[DrLang21]

How about intelligence agents who's names are mentioned in the docs

What about the opportunity the Pentagon was given to help redact those names yet was refused?

Re:wikileaks

[DrLang21]

So arrest the people who took the documents.

And we did.

Re:wikileaks

[spun]

So arrest the people who took the documents.

And we did.

One of them, anyhow. The one who took the original documents, not the diplomatic cables. But Julian Assange is specifically protected by the same American law that protected the New York Times in publishing the Pentagon Papers. There is simply no way we can arrest him.

Re:wikileaks

[gfreeman]

There is simply no way we can legally arrest him.

FTFY. Unfortunately the US has a bit of a slapdash reputation when it comes to interpreting international laws. Or their own Constitution, for that matter.

Re:wikileaks

[Solandri]

Revealing the corruption in publicly owned businesses and in the government and seeing which politicians are bought and paid for by whom is responsible journalism. [...]

Completely agreed.

Maybe future leaders will re-think their actions when they not only realize that future generations will consider them to be scumbags and tyrants, but there can be a very real and immediate danger to their own lives in the here and now.

Corruption is widespread and it needs to be revealed - names and all. It will serve as excellent deterrent in the future.

See, this is where I and probably others, have some issues with what Wikileaks is doing. Unlike many in the anti-US crowd, I've seen what a totalitarian government can do. A REAL totalitarian government, not the mostly-democratic but just-corrupt-enough-to-upset-the-idealists government the US has. Are you upset someone who publicly humiliated the U.S. government to the entire world is being jailed on trumped-up charges? How about being executed and your entire family sent to a labor camp because you talked to a neighbor wondering if your country's style of government could be improved.

Unfortunately, a good portion of the world still lives under such such governments. When you do something whose main purpose seems to be to embarrass the U.S. rather than actually expose corruption, what happens? The U.S. loses influence in the world. But who do you think gains influence? Sure some of the less-corrupt democracies do, except their openness means they're vulnerable to the same blind-eye type releases of secrets Wikileaks is conducting. No, the real winners here are totalitarian states which keep a tight lid on their secrets. They gain the most from a system which predominantly exposes the secrets of open societies. You seem to think exposing slight-to-moderate levels of corruption means it'll automatically be replaced by less corruption. It doesn't - it can be replaced by even worse corruption.

We're still fighting a war here. Not the war on terrorism, not a war against corruption. A war to free the remaining peoples of the world who live under totalitarianism (real totalitarianism). On that front, the U.S., the EU, Wikileaks, and people like you and me are on the same side. Yes rooting out corruption is good. And as your opening sentence says, journalism revealing such corruption is necessary. It allows the open society to excise the corruption, resulting in a stronger society. That's what makes an open society work better than a closed (totalitarian) society.

But to accomplish that requires a proper and controlled release of information pertaining to true corruption. The Wikileaks-style widescale release of everything an open government is keeping secret doesn't do that. In fact it does the opposite, by diminishing US influence and allowing the influence of totalitarian states to fill the void created. Yes a lot of things the US does is bad. But try to keep some perspective. Sometimes you have to make deals with a party you don't entirely agree with in order to combat a greater evil. Roosevelt and Churchill did that during WWII, allying with Stalin to defeat Hitler. Did that mean they supported Stalin and his system of government? No. But they kept things in perspective and did what needed to be done to insure the greater threat was wiped out first. Then they set about opposing Stalin.

Going through the leaked documents, finding instances of corruption or wrong-doing, and releasing them would be responsible journalism. Making a cursory review to filter out ones which might put lives at risk, then saying you don't have the resources to deal with the rest in more detail and releasing them en masse to the world is irresponsible journalism. If you don't have the resources to conduct such a review, give the docs to a news organization which does.

Re:wikileaks

[sconeu]

My first thought as well. Actually, it was "Julian Assange says, 'Hello'".

Re:wikileaks

[preflex]

What part of "Congress shall pass no law... abridging... freedom of the press" is unclear?

The redacted parts... of the... abridged... first amendment.

Re:wikileaks

[Mab_Mass]

What is driving your assumption that if the US looses influence, totalitarian governments will gain influence? To me, that isn't at all obvious.

Also, exactly how much corruption should we tolerate in order to keep working towards the greater good? Isn't it possible to oppose the creep of corruption in the more democratic societies while still striving to remove the totalitarian ones?

Let me also ask you this question - how many people in the world think that a society like, for example, North Korea represents a goal? (And I'm not talking about *other* dictators, I'm talking about the general population.)

Maybe I have a naive view of the world here, but it seems to me that you're giving corruption a free pass as long as worse places exist, which is a tough pill to swallow.

Re:wikileaks

[stubob]

On the Pentagon Papers, it's not very clear-cut that the press has unlimited right to publish classified documents. Yes, Times v Unites States was eventually ruled for the Times et. al., but the opinions of the justices were really divided.

The Espionage Act still criminalizes anyone

"Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, ... relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it."

So there is precedent in the Pentagon Papers case, but I'm not sure how it would be applied in a +400,000 document release such as this.

IANAL, BTW.

Re:wikileaks

[makomk]

Worse still - back when the IRA were active, a lot of their funding and support came from within the US, and the US government didn't really clamp down on it for political reasons. Even now, the US has refused to ratify their latest extradition treaty with the UK for fear it'll allow terrorists to be extradited.

For those of you in the US who got the expurgated version, the IRA were and are a thoroughly nasty bunch. Truck bombs in shopping malls and hotels, murdering civilians for being the wrong kind of Christian, demanding protection money from businesses "to fund Northern Irish independence" and kneecapping anyone who didn't pay up, that kind of thing. We're only just starting to find the corpses of people kidnapped from their homes on suspicion of snitching or other offences and never heard from again - and these were people who were on the same side as the IRA!

You may have heard that they gave warnings in advance of their bombs, but that wasn't from the kindness of their hearts. They actually did it to claim credit - if they didn't call in before the bomb detonated with enough information to identify it, some other group could claim responsibility.

(They also taught al-Qaeda and similar groups a lot of their skills. Apparently, many of the roadside IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan are based on IRA designs that they used against British troops during the Troubles.)

Re:wikileaks

[millennial]

But to accomplish that requires a proper and controlled release of information pertaining to true corruption. The Wikileaks-style widescale release of everything an open government is keeping secret doesn't do that.

Except... that didn't happen. You do realize they haven't released everything yet, right? Plenty of documents are being redacted.

Re:wikileaks

[Rossman]

Just because the US is embarrassed by this stuff doesn't mean Iran or North Korea are going to gain more power or influence anywhere in the world.

You said a lot of nice stuff there but it's all predicated on this largely incorrect presumption.

"If you don't have the resources to conduct such a review, give the docs to a news organization which does."

Um. They did this. They gave it to a bunch of news organizations. They also did not release all the cablegate files en-masse, un-redacted. Have you even been paying attention?

Re:wikileaks

[Eskarel]

Not to be pedantic but the other side were a thoroughly nasty bunch too. Not that you don't have a point of course, and to be honest I think a lot of the people in the US who funded the IRA knew full well what they were and just held the same beliefs. You know the old saying, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Re:wikileaks

[syousef]

Maybe future leaders will re-think their actions when they not only realize that future generations will consider them to be scumbags and tyrants, but there can be a very real and immediate danger to their own lives in the here and now.

Corruption is widespread and it needs to be revealed - names and all. It will serve as excellent deterrent in the future.

Yes, I'm sure that while rolling around on their bed literred with $100 bills, corrupt politiicians will feel horrible about what future generations might think of them if the truth gets out. Wake up man, you're living in a fantasy!

Re:wikileaks

[jyx]

Are you upset someone who publicly humiliated the U.S. government to the entire world is being jailed on trumped-up charges? How about being executed and your entire family sent to a labor camp because you talked to a neighbor wondering if your country's style of government could be improved.

What I'm upset about is the perception that the US government is heading down the path of your second scenario.

Already people are seriously *afraid* of vocally or financially supporting wikileaks for fear of unknown reprisals from the government - just read some of the /. post in wikileaks stories.

One of the released cables describes the kidnapping, extradition and detainment of a German citizen and the subsequent pressure exerted to keep it all under wraps.

Another points to 15,000 thousand additional, unreported casualties from the Iraq.

Unarmed journalists were killed by the US Military and the event was covered up.

(Unconfirmed?) Reports are coming in that US citizens are being threatened in relation to their future employment just for reading this material.

Real people are being kidnapped. Real people are DYING. Government sponsored oppression seems to have started.

This is scary shit, but so far it seems that because its happening to other people "its unfortunate, but acceptable".

As others have already stated:
1) If worlds news media was actually doing their job properly there would be no need for wikileaks - all the worthy stuff would be reported.
2) When the total number of innocent people's kill as a direct result of released gets even remotely close to 15000, then we will talk about responsibility.

PS: Can I repeat the bit about PEOPLE ARE DYING as a direct result of government actions. Don't you think that its right & proper for an informed and healthy democracy that the people are aware of how their elected representative are responsible for the loss of life? What should happen if the government would prefer not to to publicly provide this information?

Re:wikileaks

[drsmithy]

Going through the leaked documents, finding instances of corruption or wrong-doing, and releasing them would be responsible journalism. [...] If you don't have the resources to conduct such a review, give the docs to a news organization which does.

So far as I know, that's exactly what Wikileaks did.

Re:wikileaks

[Eskarel]

They seem to have some options under the espionage act, but from what there have been a bunch of subsequent Supreme Court decisions with regards to journalists which would make that a bit of questionable tactic. It's always possible that the current court could totally reinterpret the constitution and change all established precedent again, but given the Republicans are unlikely to upset their lord and master Rupert Murdoch by interfering too much with freedom of the press, and it'd be a fairly brave reinterpretation by the court, it's unlikely to stick.

The only option they really have in the end is crucifying Manning to try and discourage future leaks and I don't know, maybe restricting confidential documents further up the chain of command that recently busted down PFC's FFS. It might also be advisable for diplomats to keep evaluations which have personal attacks in them off the official record in future, as that's what has done most of the damage, at least as far as the cables go. Most of the rest of it wasn't exactly unknown even in to the general public, and certainly not to any of the governments involved. Not saying anyone is thrilled with the evidence being out in public, but none of it is really all that surprising.

Re:wikileaks

[Eskarel]

Just because someone else has a government who are a bigger bunch of bastards than ours doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing something about it our bunch of bastards. It's been made fairly clear over the last decade or so that, no matter how brutal and corrupt a world government might be, the people living under it don't want outside Anglo-European interference. There are plenty of brutal dictatorships the world would be better off without, but there's not a whole lot wikileaks can do about them. When you can make people who disagree with you disappear it doesn't really matter how many of your secrets are revealed. Your people already know and aren't going to say anything and the rest of the world can't do much.

Re:wikileaks

[darnok]

I've got a vision of Julian Assange, gagged, strapped to a trolley a la Silence Of The Lambs, being wheeled out in front of the assembled party goers, with a sign around his neck "Go ahead, tell the truth"...

Re:wikileaks

[IgnoramusMaximus]

We're still fighting a war here. Not the war on terrorism, not a war against corruption. A war to free the remaining peoples of the world who live under totalitarianism (real totalitarianism). On that front, the U.S., the EU, Wikileaks, and people like you and me are on the same side.

Right, Assange was the door gunner in that chopper in Nisour Square in Baghdad popping those corrupt runaway pedestrians and the rest of us were feeding him the ammo in that glorious "war against corruption" .... err, hold on ...

You know, as far as utter apologist bullshit goes, there's gotta be some prize for posts like yours. I mean you got everything: insinuations of phony camaraderie, attempts at false equivalence, appeals to ignore far larger, actually murderous crimes in the supposed effort to fight the inconvenient to your masters petty ones, pleas for "moderation" while you practice utter extremism in your own backyard, demands to maintain a veil of secrecy over crooked deals to protect them from the scrutiny of their supposed benefactors and so on. Also even my personal favourite: an attempt to hide behind obscure villains to hide your own, far greater, crimes - after all most of these "evil totalitarians" put together did not kill and maim as many people as the "oh not so bad at all" US had in the last decade alone in some, to put it mildly, rather dubious Imperial escapades. I wonder if all those corpses in graves around Falluja and all those kids somewhat prematurely introduced to anal intercourse in Abu Grahib share your opinion on that one...

My hat off to you Sir, and I sympathize with your loss of career options due to the fact that Dr. Goebbels is no longer hiring.

Re:wikileaks

[TheTurtlesMoves]

We have met the enemy and He is Us.

Re:wikileaks

[identity0]

We're still fighting a war here.
No, we are not, unless you mean 'war' as a metaphor for struggle.

A war to free the remaining peoples of the world who live under totalitarianism (real totalitarianism).
Again, no we are not. In fact we are trying to not have to fight North Korea at the moment.

On that front, the U.S., the EU, Wikileaks, and people like you and me are on the same side.
No, we are not. The U.S. is on the U.S. side and the E.U. is on the E.U. side, and Wikileaks is on the ideal of transparency side and you and me are not doing anything at all. While the U.S. and E.U. like to push for freedom in other countries, they are first and foremost looking out for their own interests, as that is the job of the respective governments. They are not charities or

Look, well before the cable leaks it was well known that the U.S. heavily supports some unfree regimes because we prefer them to other unfree regimes. We should not be pretending that the U.S. in on a crusade for freedom. Bush tried that in Iraq(I honestly think he was driven by right-wing idealism as much as cynical warmongering), and we saw how that turned out. So now we are back to backing unfree states like Egypt or Saudi Arabia as long as they keep regional stability. And we are concerned about Iran not because of their lack of freedom, but because of the instability and external danger they pose to the region.

I also do not see this leak as helping unfree regimes, since the fundamental fact of their unfreeness is not in dispute by most people. You can go look at the Press Freedom Index or Transparency International's site, and the bottom tier has not changed due to the leak.

Re:wikileaks

[DrBoumBoum]

If I rememeber well the closing words of Platoon where precisely in this line: "basically we were fighting ourselves". Again, America?

Re:Wikileaks

[Mindcontrolled]

Nope, they invited Kim Jong Il to that honour.

Re:wikileaks

[lennier1]

True, neither side of the conflict had a white vest, but in the end it was innocent civilians who had to suffer.

Re:wikileaks

[mcvos]

Well, I for one think that there is a qualitative difference between arresting anyone saying "democracy is awesome" a la China (and boycotting the Nobel Peace Prize / threatening nations who send delegating), and arresting / wanting to arrest people for actually taking classified documents from your government offices and reproducing them online. One is about suppressing opinions the government doesn't like, and the other is about government transparency. I can appreciate the case for transparency, mind you! I just don't think it's such a big "OMG we're such hypocrites irony!!!!" sort of deal like it's trendy to think in these parts.

Even so, with the US government's attempts to censor and prosecute Wikileaks, they're clearly not the world's greatest champions of free press at this moment, don't you think?

Re:wikileaks

[radio4fan]

(They also taught al-Qaeda and similar groups a lot of their skills. Apparently, many of the roadside IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan are based on IRA designs that they used against British troops during the Troubles.)

Kinda true, but according to Andy McNab the IRA-developed techniques were taught to the Mujahidin by the British Army when they were our 'allies' against the Russians. The British Army had learned the techniques in Northern Ireland.

Re:wikileaks

[mcvos]

How should I summarize your post?

* It could be worse
* We need to give up our ideals to protect them
* Fight fire with fire

Personally I think you're wrong. The US isn't losing influence because it's honest and free, it's losing influence because it's lying and corrupt. Its hypocrisy is what's hurting it. Partially because nobody believes them anymore, partially because the US loses the high ground, and partially because without its ideals, what's worth defending about the US?

The moment you give up your ideals, you've already lost. Influence for influence's sake is not something that inspires people. A little bit of totalitarianism isn't okay just because others happen to be worse. You're advocating a race to the bottom. I'll have no part in that.

Re:wikileaks

[Eskarel]

It always is.

Re:wikileaks

[chrb]

the US has refused to ratify their latest extradition treaty with the UK for fear it'll allow terrorists to be extradited.

If you're talking about the Extradition Act 2003, then the U.S. ratified it in 2006.

Re:wikileaks

[Deefburger]

https://sites.google.com/site/wilibeaks/

Re:wikileaks

[Grapplebeam]

I like how you assume it's okay for it to get worse if it means your point is right. You're begging the question, though, if we're world police or not. It's clear that no one listened to Eisenhower when he made his point abundantly clear that if we were to be a world leader, we must also build societies as friends of the smaller nations, not conquerors. Slippery slope arguments also only work if you don't point them out, say, "No, that won't happen!" then make an example of the worst possible outcome. We should expect better. This country is supposed to be #1, isn't it? Why not try acting like it.

Re:wikileaks

[wtfamidoinghere]

Well, you were going so well, but your last sentence really ruined it ....

Re:wikileaks

[tehcyder]

On a side note, I'd suggest we start organizing "Wikileaks fundraiser parties"

I wouldn't like to be on that list of donors when Sarah "Joe McCarthy" Palin gets into power.

Do you now, or have you ever, contributed funds to the (now outlawed as a terrorist organisation) Wikileaks?

Re:wikileaks

[tehcyder]

Not to be pedantic but the other side were a thoroughly nasty bunch too.

The "other side" in Northern Ireland were the British government/army.

The Protestant paramilitaries were essentially a bunch of gangsters exploiting the Troubles for their own financial ends, they had no real political point.

Re:wikileaks

[tehcyder]

No, the real winners here are totalitarian states which keep a tight lid on their secrets.

So if wikileaks didn't exist these totalitarian states would somehow magically transform themselves into perfect democracies?

Re:wikileaks

[makomk]

Ah, they finally got around to it? Wonderful, and all it took was a major political scandal around it here in the UK and the threat of the UK pulling out of its end of the deal.

Re:wikileaks

[mdielmann]

A REAL totalitarian government, not the mostly-democratic but just-corrupt-enough-to-upset-the-idealists government the US has.

You need to re-read history, friend. While military expansion helped fuel the empire for a long time, two things of interest happened near it's collapse.

First, corporations (moneyed merchants, guilds, etc. in those days) started buying protectionist laws to protect their industry. This reduced competition, hurt the economy, and had a negative impact on the vast majority of people.

Second, tax collection started being auctioned off, with tax rates set by the bidders, and profits being made by taking more off the top.

These two burdens pushed things over the edge. People were no longer able to live reasonably profitable lives, which leads to poverty, disregard for law, and general dissatisfaction with the government. At some point, the tipping point is reached and the whole thing collapses.

The states seem to no longer be passing laws that benefit the citizen, but benefit the corporation, the elite. that burden will be carried by all the citizens.

It seems unlikely that the states will follow the Roman model and contract out tax collection entirely, but economic collapse is one of the big things that kills empires. The states won't be the first, I doubt they'll be the last.

Re:wikileaks

[makomk]

Which other side - the Ulster Defence Association and similar loyalist militant organisations, the broader unionist movement they're a part of, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, or the British army? The history of the conflict in Northern Ireland is messy. In theory, you might expect all those organizations to be on the same side, and certainly the IRA claimed as much, but in practice it really didn't work that way.

The UDA, UVF and co were indeed basically as bad as the IRA, though, and still are. In fact, the two groups were incredibly similar in terms of tactics etc. It's just that I don't tend to encounter the idea that they "weren't so bad really" so much.

Re:wikileaks

[LordLucless]

TL;DR: The ends justifies the means.

Just continue supporting US protection of companies providing underage male prostitutes to their allies due to expediency.

Re:wikileaks

[Sergo1331]

What a load of bollocks.

I am from Russia and I follow many debates between the right and the left. That line about "diminishing country XXX influence in the world" is one of the most popular among "patriots" who insist that whatever the members of government are doing is right.

You see, you can't be half-honest, just as can't be half-pregnant. Although the politician's work is not to be righteous, they have to be kept responsible for dissolving people' trust into the political system. It is sad that they have to have a real threat of their scheming to be disclosed to keep some decency. Thinking that by keeping the public in the dark they win credibility is just pathetic.

Re:wikileaks

[Daedalon]

When you do something whose main purpose seems to be to embarrass the U.S. rather than actually expose corruption, what happens? The U.S. loses influence in the world. But who do you think gains influence? Sure some of the less-corrupt democracies do, except their openness means they're vulnerable to the same blind-eye type releases of secrets Wikileaks is conducting. No, the real winners here are totalitarian states which keep a tight lid on their secrets. They gain the most from a system which predominantly exposes the secrets of open societies.

It is my pleasure to point out the vast majority of the above to be false on many levels. Most of the claims has been debunked in so many Slashdot comments today, yesterday and before that you better go and read up. If I repeat it here, it doesn't serve anyone as you could instead just scroll a few posts in any direction and get the same answers there. Instead, I'll comment only a few more unique ways how the above quoted text is misinformend.

When U.S. corruption is exposed, other corrupted governments see that it can happen to them too. Either they clean up their act, or they hurt themselves by adding numerous procedures to avoid leaking that make their own life hard. I quote Assange:

in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance.

Open and just systems have a lot less need for ineffective secretive procedures, and thus for example doubling the security has a very small net effect. Unjust, corrupt systems rely heavily on secrecy, so to increase secrecy, a huge amount of extra expenses and ineffeciency need to be introduced. In short: Not only is it wrong to claim "their openness means they're vulnerable", it is completely the opposite of truth by Assange's logic, which has a lot of merit to it.

US has unsuccesfully tried to keep a tight lid about many of its secrets. Even before the recent lax policy, their secrets have been leaked often and intensively. Check out the cases of Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames for two examples and the "see also" sections for more. Any regime more totalitarian than the US has a similar risk running at all times of its operation.

The following could be applied for Russia or any other state you may want to imagine: If some piece of information or volumes of it gets everyone in the country enraged at their government, the government has a lot less means of staying in power than prior to that information leaking. You are correct for claiming that when governments, like China, suppress the information so that their citizens don't know what's going on don't suffer the same effect - but that is only until someone finds a way to leak information through the oppressive Great Firewall or other means employed.

This is more likely happen if any local activists in those countries receive support in form of information, training, resources, connections and any other form from outside. The less our government keeps us in the dark, the more we an concentrate on issues that exist without our government creating them first. Like issues with totalitarian regimes that we wish to do something about.

Prior to Wikileaks the US government had much success in fooling their citizens to think "Do we, the righteous US of A, have power abroad where someone is threatening us? No! Let's attack before they get us!" Now that it's harder for the government to spend more than

Re:wikileaks

[MidoriKid]

What part of "Congress shall pass no law... abridging... freedom of the press" is unclear?

The ellipses.

Doublethink

[UnCivil Liberty]

"Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them" - 1984

Re:Doublethink

[arcite]

Doublethink? More like a doubletake!

Re:Doublethink

[Anonymous Coward]

Julian Assange was arrested in London, by Interpol, for crimes committed in Sweden.

This makes the US guilty of doublespeak on this because... well, I guess they said some mean things, at one point?

Re:Doublethink

[commodore64_love]

"We have free press and free speech!" - President & Congress

"We must shutdown FOX News and MSNBC." - Congressman Kennedy. "They have no right to abuse our Public airwaves." - FCC. (Note: Cable channels are private airwaves across private cables.) "Citizens must have a license to publish on the internet." And on and on.

Irony and doublespeak indeed.

Re:Doublethink

[pitchpipe]

This, from the United States Ministry of Truth. We need to rename our country Oceania. Russia will be Eurasia, and Afghanistan will be Eastasia.

Re:Doublethink

[Steeltoe]

Julian Assange was arrested in London, by Interpol, for crimes committed in Sweden.
This makes the US guilty of doublespeak on this because... well, I guess they said some mean things, at one point?

Officially yes.

Unofficially, you know who is pulling all the strings. Or maybe we really don't..

Re:Doublethink

[icebraining]

No, Assange turned himself in, for suspicion of crimes which have nothing to do with Wikileaks or the Press.

US is guilty of doublespeak because they're hold a "Press Freedom Day" while at the same time trying to find a way to convict him for doing what a Free Press is supposed to do.

Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) urged U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to designate WikiLeaks a "foreign terrorist organization," saying it "posed a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States," and to prosecute founder Julian Assange for espionage.

"Free" indeed.

Re:Doublethink

[TheRaven64]

Will there be cucumber sandwiches?

Re:Doublethink

[Somewhat Delirious]

Provided courtesy of the State Dep.
May I also suggest the State Department follow their standard procedure, label it top secret and hold it behind closed doors?

Re:Doublethink

[makomk]

The right to free speech has never extended to outright defamation, and Fox News is so far into that territory it's not even funny anymore. If their continued existence wasn't in the interest of the rich and powerful, they'd have been shut down long ago...

Re:Doublethink

[dave420]

No, Assange was arrested by appointment by the Metropolitan Police, due to a warrant being issued by Interpol at the behest of Sweden. Interpol doesn't arrest anyone.

Re:Doublethink

[commodore64_love]

>>>The right to free speech has never extended to outright defamation

Please show me where in the Union or State Constitutions laws about free speech, where defamation is illegal? It isn't. Only if you can show that financial damage was caused can you sue somebody in *civic* court and recover the lost money, but "he hurt my feelings" or "he lied" is not cause to silence someone. Speech is protected upto and including death threats (see SCOTUS rulings from the turbulent 1960s).

Also FOX News (and MSNBC and CNBC and so on) is a private channel carried across private cables by a private company. The Union Congress and the FCC have zero authority to yank them off the air. I can not lay my hand on a single part of the Constitution which gives them said power. Now maybe at the State level those channels could be yanked, but not at the Union level.

Re:Doublethink

[gfreeman]

I'm not American, but even I know you are wrong. The right to free speech does not allow censorship in any shape or form. You are free to say what you like. What happens AFTER that is a different matter entirely, and nothing whatsoever to do with your right to free speech.

Re:Doublethink

[h4rm0ny]

Sorry, there were no cucumbers to be had. Not even for ready money.

I hear the US has stockpiled them for shoving of Assange's anus when they finally extradite him there.

Re:Doublethink

[cobrausn]

At the same time, you have Ron Paul (R-TX) saying we need more WikiLeaks.

Funny thing, government.

Re:Doublethink

[Golddess]

(see SCOTUS rulings from the turbulent 1960s)

I did, and this is what I found.

Question, why is it so hard for you to provide your own citations to back up your claims?

Re:Doublethink

[Danse]

I'm not American, but even I know you are wrong. The right to free speech does not allow censorship in any shape or form. You are free to say what you like. What happens AFTER that is a different matter entirely, and nothing whatsoever to do with your right to free speech.

Your definition is meaningless. It's like saying I'm free to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater even though I'll be arrested immediately afterward, in which case my speech was certainly not free.

Re:Doublethink

[gfreeman]

There are well known exceptions to the Free Speech rules - "Fire in a theater" is one of them, and universally accepted as punishable due to the mayhem that will no doubt ensue.

Stop splitting hairs. Nobody is stopping you from saying "Obama kills puppies", but if you can't back that statement up with fact then the defamation laws kick in, not the freedom of speech laws.

Re:Doublethink

[Grishnakh]

Ron Paul is one rogue Congressman out of around 500, with very, very little power of his own, and is constantly voting in opposition to 99.9% of Congress.

Eric Holder, however, is the Attorney General with the full backing of the President, and from the other comments from various politicians including Huckabee and others, we can assume most of the US government.

Anything Holder says has far more weight than anything Paul says. Which is too bad, since Holder is obviously on the side of ignoring the Constitution and working against freedom of speech and the press and in fact the actual rule of law, and Paul is not.

Re:Doublethink

[Danse]

There are well known exceptions to the Free Speech rules - "Fire in a theater" is one of them, and universally accepted as punishable due to the mayhem that will no doubt ensue.

Stop splitting hairs. Nobody is stopping you from saying "Obama kills puppies", but if you can't back that statement up with fact then the defamation laws kick in, not the freedom of speech laws.

How is defamation law not a freedom of speech law? How is being prosecuted for defamation different than being prosecuted for yelling fire in a theater? Both occur after the fact. Both punish you for your speech.

Re:Doublethink

[gfreeman]

Think of it as freedom to whirl your arms around. You're free to do that until you hit someone on the nose, at which point you're prosecuted for assault, not for whirling your arms around. You're free to whirl you arms as much as you want, the government will not stop you. Whirl away. But if you hit someone, you're done for assault.

Is that clear enough for you, or do you want a car analogy as well?

Re:Doublethink

[marcosdumay]

If Wikileaks made something clear was that it was Saudi Arabia on the strings.

Re:Doublethink

[Eskarel]

Wow, I guess even Ron Paul has to be right once in a while.

Re:Doublethink

[Danse]

Think of it as freedom to whirl your arms around. You're free to do that until you hit someone on the nose, at which point you're prosecuted for assault, not for whirling your arms around. You're free to whirl you arms as much as you want, the government will not stop you. Whirl away. But if you hit someone, you're done for assault.

Is that clear enough for you, or do you want a car analogy as well?

You've still failed to explain the difference you're trying to claim exists between the fire in a theater example and defamation. Let's focus on that instead of silly analogies.

Re:Doublethink

[thijsh]

Oh Eric Arthur Blair, great writer and prophet of the 20th century... All your predictions have come true one way or another. Your 'fiction' really was the prophecy of the 21st century. May you rest in peace never having to see the events that take place today...

Re:Doublethink

[commodore64_love]

Because my employer doesn't pay me to do half-an-hour of research digging-up old SCOTUS cases in which the justices ruled, "I'm going to kill you!" is protected speech (so long as the speaker is not carrying a weapon at the time). Nevertheless that case exists... it allowed several black civil rights leaders to be freed from prison (60s).

Re:Doublethink

[commodore64_love]

No the tea party is not an example of doublethink, since most tea partiers are simply libertarians or jeffersonians (pro constitutionally-limited government). "The purpose of a constitution is to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall be nullities."

That is a consistent philosophy from start to finish.

Re:Doublethink

[Golddess]

Nevertheless that case exists

Considering I have provided a citation in direct contradiction to your claim (speech is protected upto and including death threats), until you can prove your position, logically, we must conclude that you are lying.

Or do you consider "fighting words" to be even worse than death threats, and thus not worthy of being protected speech? While I would disagree, it would at least help better explain your position.

Re:Doublethink

[tibman]

Not that i think you are wrong.. but we have politians and "important" people saying stuff like that all the time. Usually it's personal opinion. Just like here on slashdot, everyone has a slightly different viewpoint. With so many mouths, how can we not be guilty of doublespeak? But is that a bad thing?

Re:Doublethink

[cobrausn]

You surely mean all the time. :)

Seriously, if congress were made up of people like Ron Paul, lobbyists wouldn't know what to do and our government would be the most transparent institution in the history of man. At least, I'd like to believe that. He seems to walk the walk.

Re:Doublethink

[Eskarel]

This is true, but on the other hand, the economy would have collapsed. It's good that he's honest, but it's bad that he's a loony.

Re:Doublethink

[gfreeman]

Be careful what you wish for. Removing ANY government interference regarding what can or cannot be said would result in Coke running ads saying that Pepsi has been proven to give you cancer or some other nonsense. People would be free to photoshop you into bestiality orgy pictures and post them all over the town where you live.

In truth, Coke and your hometowners are entirely free to do that right now - but the consequences of telling lies still hold, yet you seem to want protect people from any responsibility regarding what they say.

Re:Doublethink

[cobrausn]

This is true, but on the other hand, the economy would have collapsed. It's good that he's honest, but it's bad that he's a loony.

"Would" have collapsed? Easy to say, hard to prove. What's easy to prove is right now it's on government (taxpayer funded) life support after it started to collapse.

Gee.

[unity100]

Surely, that was staged as some kind of irony, or some kind of joke, right ? Because if otherwise, its even hard to start explaining what is wrong with this situation. There are SO many of them ...

Re:Gee.

[h4rm0ny]

I think they'll get everyone in one place and then: "Whoops, someone blew up the conference centre".

Of course we'll all know who was responsible... The news will tell us. ;)

HA HA HA

[dazedNconfuzed]

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Oh, that's funny. Let's see how much celebration of WikiLeaks there is.

("Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING." Well, sometimes it fits.)

The comedians are gonna have a field day

[Opportunist]

I SO have to watch the next Daily Show. Just to see if they have the balls to use this.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[BJ_Covert_Action]

That's a good point. Has the Daily Show or the Colbert Report been mentioning all the Wikileaks stuff lately? I haven't been watching them as of late.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, your hero Jon has been bashing Assange and wikileaks for disturbing the powers-that-be, because they have a "D" next to their name.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[nemasu]

I prefer Colbert personally, he's my hero.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[Opportunist]

Hero? It's just the only US comedy-news show that we get 'round here in Europe, that's all.

Got any alternatives to offer?

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[melikamp]

Glenn Beck Program, although laughable is not really the same as funny.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[Cerberus7]

Really? Jon called out Assange on being a bit of a deuche, but otherwise supports what Wikileaks is all about.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[ArcherB]

Glenn Beck Program, although laughable is not really the same as funny.

Actually, Glenn Beck is hilarious. Check out Moron Trivia as one example.

You should not judge the quality of comedy by the comedian's political beliefs. It really just makes you petty.

Finish this sequence... Million, Billion
Ravens: Trillion
Stu, Glenn, or Pat's Response: Yes, we can accept that. Or we could accept a billion and one.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[should_be_linear]

Sad to disappoint you, but DailyShow epically FAILED (as in shown ugly "patriot" face) when it comes to WikiLeaks.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[_xeno_]

Well, I know what he won't say about it:

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, or tits.

Thank you for protecting us from those horrible words, FCC! Despite the fact that as a cable channel, the decency regulations don't actually apply, so the only reason Comedy Central censors themselves is, well, momentum, I guess. Since they'll occasionally run stuff uncensored late at night.

Yay freedom of the press! The freedom to censor itself, I guess.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[LWATCDR]

Funny but that fact that you wonder if someone will use this show just how odd the crabbing is.
This is the freedom of speech version of first world angst.
If Assage was in a nation without freedom of the press like Iran, North Korea, China, Russia.... He wouldn't have been arrested at all.
He would just be dead.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[Schadrach]

That's actually a good point. Glenn Beck doesn't call himself a comedian despite some people getting confused and calling him one, Jon Stewart doesn't call himself a serious journalist despite people occasionally bashing him for not being such on occasion, and despite moments of seriousness (see his response to the South Park censorship prior to the "fuck yourself" song, or the big ending speech at the Rally to Restore Sanity).

Stewart is way left of center, but he's not in the "crazy" part of left of center. Beck is in the "crazy" part of the right. I've known more Republicans ashamed that Beck is associated with them than I have Democrats ashamed that Stewart is associated with them.

I still find it hilarious that Beck got offended over something being compared to Nazi Germany when, as Stewart was so quick to point out in his usual cheerful mockery, Beck himself does so all the time.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[h4rm0ny]

I just get a message from that saying I must allow Third Party Content in my FLASH player.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[ArcherB]

Actually, he calls himself a "rodeo clown". I assume because he tries to be funny and entertaining while doing something he considers dead serious and quite boring. Much like a rodeo clown's job is to entertain while being responsible for the safety of riders.

And... he has done what he called a "comedy tour". From Huffpo:

NEW YORK — Glenn Beck, Fox News Channel's latest sensation, is taking a comedy show on the road for six live performances over six days during the first week of June.

Beck calls his act a "poor man's Seinfeld" and intends to mix topical humor with his modern-day reimagining of Thomas Paine's 1776 pamphlet "Common Sense."

So, yeah, I guess he is also a comedian.

Also, Beck is not on the "crazy part of the right." I'd peg him as more on the "sane part of the Libertarians" (which does not negate your "crazy", BTW). I'd put him as far to the right as I'd put Penn Jillette to the left. Other than religious views, the two pretty much agree on everything. Beck's attitude toward political parties is the same as South Park's co-creator Matt Stone, "I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals."

Of course, YMMV as where people rate right-left depends on where they stand on the political spectrum. Everyone thinks they are middle of the road. Everyone more conservative than themselves is viewed as being "right-wing" and inverse for everyone on the left of them.

I know it's off topic. Just trying to educate. I'm certain you don't spend a whole lot time watching Beck on TV or listening to him on the radio. Granted, I don't much either, but I did spend a few years listening to his radio show when it was on while I sat in traffic.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[dbIII]

I've never seen much of Beck but the clips I have seen are most definitely "this is your brain on drugs" moments. You've obviously forgotten about him talking about how he has proof of some global illuminati style conspiracy "all on tape".

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[ArcherB]

I've never seen much of Beck but the clips I have seen are most definitely "this is your brain on drugs" moments. You've obviously forgotten about him talking about how he has proof of some global illuminati style conspiracy "all on tape".

I've never seen it. If you have a link, I'd appreciate you providing it. Actually, it's the first I've heard of it. Of course, I've seen that kind of crap from Alex Jones. Hell, he's even seen documents that prove it (and I'm sure he could type them up on the fly for you to)!

I've seen Glenn do some pretty far out there conspiracy stuff on a regular basis, but he's never said, "I've seen the tape". Everything I've seen him do, he's said, "Here is the clip. We'll run it for five minutes so that no one can say we take it out of context. View it for yourself. Don't take my word for it. Do your own research and make up your own mind." Actually, that's damn close to a quote when he was responding to criticism about his Anita Dunn. Of course, they accused him of taking the quote out of context anyway. You watch the clip and tell me it was taken out of context. And tell me what Beck says here that is not true or crazy.

Here, take a look at his piece on Van Jones. And, again, tell me what Beck says that is crazy or not true.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[dbIII]

Here you go, it got international coverage:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/23/glennbeck/
That certainly looks like brain damage from all that cocaine he was famous for doing to me.
If he replaces the clothes and doesn't shave for a few days I wouldn't be able to tell him from a mentally ill homeless guy.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[jez9999]

I always try and watch Bill Maher's Real Time online (and overtime on his website), though as far as I'm aware it's not syndicated over here. Shame because it's the most witty and sharp political commentary they US has, IMHO.

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[ArcherB]

Here you go, it got international coverage:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/23/glennbeck/
That certainly looks like brain damage from all that cocaine he was famous for doing to me.
If he replaces the clothes and doesn't shave for a few days I wouldn't be able to tell him from a mentally ill homeless guy.

Beck said, "I have the proof. I have them on tape saying these things." Um... yeah. If you had seen his show for the entire two weeks before this particular episode, you would have seen those videos of these people saying that they want to control every aspect of your life. For example, Van Jones was speaking about what he was supposed to do as Green Job Czar. He said that it was not just about hiring people to install solar panels. It was about what fuel goes into cars. It was about how much power people use. It was about removing toxic fuels for bombers to drop toxic bombs on poor brown people. In other words, it was about controlling every aspect from what kind of blender you use to stripping the military of needed fuel. Another example is the head of the EPA declaring CO2 a toxin. The EPA can make law without congress. So, if the EPA can regulate CO2, what in your life can the EPA NOT regulate? Beck showed about 10 minutes of video for each of the pictures on his blackboard.

So, this clip is not just Beck being crazy. This was the conclusion of a series that lasted about two weeks. In other words, you took him out of context and then accused him of being a homeless drug addict over the false information you linked to. I don't care how evil you think people like Beck are, I've never seen him do something so cheap and vile. So, if you think it's OK to do stuff like that, yet you claim to hate Beck because you say he does the same thing... I don't think that's why you dislike Beck. You hate him because you heard he's a conservative and you feel it's necessary to take him down. How dare someone have a view that is different than your own. All who disagree with you must be silenced!!!

Re:The comedians are gonna have a field day

[Grapplebeam]

Doesn't surprise me. The news corporations may have differing viewpoints, but in the end, they're always talking about issues that don't matter as a shell game. Stewart's speech in November just seemed to solidify his position as "Relax, everything is okay, don't question your government" guy, whereas Fox News is raving moon logic and CNN and MSNBC don't have any guts whatsoever to report on anything, and can have severe political correctness going on. When the best site for news on a current, relevant topic is 4chan, you know we're in trouble.

Is our government even paying attention to itself?

[Shadmere]

Sure, this is hilarious. But somehow I doubt they meant it to be so funny.

Concern over some governments' determination to restrict the free flow of information. That's rich.

Irony

[Voulnet]

Irony is: Hosting a World Press Freedom Day while censoring WikiLeaks and censoring websites from the entire world.

Re:Irony

[BeanThere]

Actually, apart from doing things like pressuring private companies like Amazon and PayPal to "voluntarily" kick Wikileaks off their systems, and making public statements musing that Mr Assange should be assassinated (all reprehensible, to be sure), has the US government actually done anything concrete to censor Wikileaks? Have they arrested or imprisoned anyone who downloaded the torrent? Have they issued ISPs with warrants to find out why downloaded the torrent? Have they forced any media organizations publishing information on the leaks into silence, or arrested or prosecuted any media organization that has published anything about the leaks? Have they made any format attempts to extradite Mr Assange? Has the US government done anything to forcibly silence discussion among the public on the leaks -- for example, shutting down blogs, or arresting blog owners? Have they forced media organizations to toe the official state position only? I'm curious, apart from vague allusions to "censoring websites from the entire world", what are you referring to exactly?

The types of activities I've mentioned, are the types of things that DO actually go on in the many countries outside the US that do practice censorship and control of speech, and I must say, I don't really see the US doing those things. Or perhaps you want to suggest that they are doing those things but that we don't know about them because the US has silenced anyone who talks about it. But I'm afraid I don't even see the climate of fear around discussion that that type of control usually generates in such countries that suppress freedom of speech; as far as I can tell, Americans seem to enjoy the liberty of being able to do and say whatever they want about their government very, very openly.

Re:Irony

[BeanThere]

(Apologies for not reading that on the preview, and correcting some of the crappy typos, "why downloaded" = "who downloaded"; "format attempts" = "formal attempts")

Re:Irony

[Voulnet]

It happens eventually, step by step. What I'm talking about in terms of WikiLeaks censorship is the US gov't preventing US Army as well as US gov't employees from accessing WikiLeaks.

As for censoring websites from the entire world, I meant by it seizing websites that reside in the .com domain and preventing access to it not just for US citizens, but also for everyone around the world who may want to access that domain name. A country blocking a .com domain (Note that I'm not talking about seizing the actual site, because it may be hosted in the US but blocking the domain name itself means even if the site was hosted outside of the US).

The ongoing trend does not bode well for the freedom of the internet, and the US gov't, unfortunately, has been showing us worrying signs of intentions to control the cyberspace.

The problem with saying "We are still able to do this and this" is that soon you may not be able to, and as a non US-citizen, I care about this because it will affect the entire internet, not just, say, US newspapers.

Re:Irony

[hedwards]

That's a definition of irony, yes, but I'm guessing that the intended use was to refer to it as incongruous with the actual actions of the US government as of late with respect to it's own press.

Which has been a problem for a while. I'm not sure that the relationship between the press and the government officials has ever been particularly good, but going back to the Clinton and Bush administrations it seemed to be particularly bad. Personally, I don't think that the whole controversy about the genetic materials on garments was a legitimate use of the press' time, considering all the other things that were going on. And certainly not an impeachable offense. Having the press keep it in the press undoubtedly contributed to that.

Re:Irony

[Hatta]

Actually, apart from doing things like pressuring private companies like Amazon and PayPal to "voluntarily" kick Wikileaks off their systems, and making public statements musing that Mr Assange should be assassinated (all reprehensible, to be sure), has the US government actually done anything concrete to censor Wikileaks?

Is that not enough? The first amendment says "congress shall make no law". What's so frightening is that the government has found a way to silence people without even running it by congress. The fact that the governments actions here aren't unconstitutional doesn't mean that they're OK, it means that the first amendment is insufficient to protect our freedom of speech. We need similar restrictions on the other branches of government.

I'm curious, apart from vague allusions to "censoring websites from the entire world", what are you referring to exactly?

Specifically, he is referring to this.

I don't really see the US doing those things. Or perhaps you want to suggest that they are doing those things but that we don't know about them because the US has silenced anyone who talks about it.

They DO do them, they are doing them, and you know about it. You even mentioned them in the first sentence of your post. Somehow in your mind they don't count. Whether the repression happens at the barrel of a gun, or with a nudge and a wink, it's still repression.

Re:Irony

[lennier1]

^^ I think my irony detector has reached critical mass.

Re:Irony

[BeanThere]

It happens eventually, step by step. What I'm talking about in terms of WikiLeaks censorship is the US gov't preventing US Army as well as US gov't employees from accessing WikiLeaks.

As far as I know, they just "asked" them not to. Voluntarily. Have they prosecuted or arrested anyone for doing so?

As for censoring websites from the entire world, I meant by it seizing websites that reside in the .com domain and preventing access to it not just for US citizens

Which .com domain have they seized and blocked access to? Sorry if I've missed something here.

The ongoing trend does not bode well for the freedom of the internet, and the US gov't, unfortunately, has been showing us worrying signs of intentions to control the cyberspace.

Yes, governments can, have always, and always will try to control anything and everything and suppress citizen rights. What I am saying is that in the case of Wikileaks, I don't think they have succeeded yet, whereas the statement "censoring websites from the entire world" suggests they have.

The problem with saying "We are still able to do this and this" is that soon you may not be able to, and as a non US-citizen, I care about this because it will affect the entire internet, not just, say, US newspapers.

That I agree with. The threat is ALWAYS there, and maintaining liberty will always be a constant tireless fight by people who care. But that doesn't mean we should let our emotions run away with us and make claims that on the face of it, when analyzed closely, aren't really true.

Re:Irony

[BeanThere]

Is that not enough?

I know what the first amendment says, and I know that lawmakers have pissed all over it for a long time, and will continue to piss on it for a long time. I'm not saying it's "OK" (where did I say that?), I'm saying that the claim that Wikileaks has been censored by the US government is, on the face of it, simply not even remotely true. It doesn't help the cause of liberty to make false, emotional hyperbolic claims.

it means that the first amendment is insufficient to protect our freedom of speech.

Of course it isn't. Your right to freedom of speech (like other liberties) will ALWAYS be under attack. Always, for as long as the US exists. That's why the founding fathers put the 2nd amendment in there. The 2nd amendment is there to protect the 1st.

But the reality is that things have not gotten as bad as the OP claimed.

Whether the repression happens at the barrel of a gun, or with a nudge and a wink, it's still repression

Trust me, there is a vast difference.

Re:Irony

[ocdscouter]

Despite appearances, it definitely wasn't an anemic post.

Re:Irony

[BeanThere]

Of course it isn't

Sorry to clarify, this was ambiguous: I meant "Of course the first amendment is insufficient". The first amendment is some words on a piece of paper, it's completely insufficient on its own.

I don't mean to imply the 2nd amendment is the only means to protect the 1st, of course. There are many other ways, that should be used *complementary* to the 1st.

But regardless, my main point is that in spite of what Voulnet implied, the US remains a beacon of free speech and other liberties to the rest of the world. This isn't just a tired old cliche, it's objectively true. No other government formally recognizes or is founded on these inalienable recognitions of liberty.

Re:Irony

[Voulnet]

As far as I know, they just "asked" them not to. Voluntarily. Have they prosecuted or arrested anyone for doing so?

Whether or not somebody has been prosecuted for it is as far as I know unknown as of yet, but a google search will show you many of the news about the military censor of WikiLeaks, amongst which is this.
A memo from the US Marines says this:USMC Personnel (Marines/Civilians/Contractors) are hereby cautioned and directed to NOT access the WIKILEAKS website from a personally owned, publically owned or US Government computer system. By willingly accessing the WIKILEAKS website for the purpose of viewing the posted classified material - these actions constitute the unauthorized processing, disclosure, viewing, and downloading of classified information onto an UNAUTHORIZED computer system not approved to store classified information. Meaning they have WILLINGLY committed a SECURITY VIOLATION.
Obviously committing a security violation as an employee of the US Marines is, well, not a laughing matter.

Which .com domain have they seized and blocked access to? Sorry if I've missed something here.

You might find more info here.

Yes, governments can, have always, and always will try to control anything and everything and suppress citizen rights. What I am saying is that in the case of Wikileaks, I don't think they have succeeded yet, whereas the statement "censoring websites from the entire world" suggests they have.

In fact I have, as a non-US citizen living outside of the US, have seen one of the results of this censor when trying to access one of the censored sites, getting a warning page with a FBI DVD-like warning. The problem with censoring the domain name itself is that the website can be hosted outside of the US, and yet they'd have power to censor it.

Re:Irony

[BeanThere]

Whether or not somebody has been prosecuted for it is as far as I know unknown as of yet, but a google search will show you many of the news about the military censor of WikiLeaks, amongst which is this.

I'm aware of this, and it does indeed appear to be a violation of fundamental liberties, though it strikes me as a little weak as far as enforcing this goes. Until mind-reading technology comes along, there is little they can do to stop anyone reading the Wikileaks documents.

Re:Irony

[Hatta]

I'm saying that the claim that Wikileaks has been censored by the US government is, on the face of it, simply not even remotely true.

But it is. Wikileaks.org would still be up if it weren't for the actions of the government. That they used political trickery instead of overt force doesn't make it not censorship. The fact that the government doesn't even have to resort to using force to get its way speaks very poorly of our free speech rights in the US. The only reason Wikileaks is still on the internet is because individuals from *other countries* are hosting it. This is a clear case of government censorship.

Re:Irony

[Voulnet]

I'm more worried about them insisting it is still confidential although it is available for the entire world. Will they, for example, prosecute an employee for accessing classified info if they find trails of WikiLeaks in his browser history?
One can hope that this is just a facade, and that people will not prosecuted for accessing info that is publicly available on the web.

Re:Irony

[moortak]

They seized about 80 domains, mostly related to counterfeit goods, with a few torrent related sites thrown in for good measure. The seizure was handled by ICE.

Re:Irony

[makomk]

They've seized and blocked access to a number of .com domains, but more relevantly they've seized and blocked access to wikileaks.org in the same way - .org and .com are controlled by the same US-based company.

Re:Irony

[nigelo]

Ferris, is that you?

Just a plot

[Brummund]

It is just a plot to get Assange to the US, probably. "Yeah, we got a nice room booked for you. All meals covered!"

Re:Just a plot

[glittermage]

You forgot to mention the complimentary escort services.

Re:Just a plot

[fishexe]

Not just Assange. There are others out there. Be proactive.

Definitely. Better to arrest them all before they leak documents, just in case. Why take chances?

Re:Just a plot

[miffo.swe]

He tried two of them and all he got was a rape accusation.

Re:Just a plot

[DeBaas]

And: in that hotel, sex without a condom is normal!

Soap is provided for as well, just need to pick it off the floor.

I imagine

[The Hatchet]

A "terrorist" attack on the event. All free press destroyed at once. Sadly.

Re:I imagine

[Haedrian]

Do not worry citizen! The US government will generiously fund its own newspaper - ensuring that the US will still get its news.

Re:I imagine

[Opportunist]

Who needs terrorists for that? We're the US of A, dammit, we need no help from nobody!

Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[elrous0]

Freedom is what we let you have until you piss us off. Then we'll trump up some charges and call you a rapist.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any evidence at all that these two women accusing Assange are part of a US government conspiracy?

Because so far, I've seen nothing solid on this. It's almost as if its taken as fact, like like the truthers and birthers like to do.

Please provide any links to show that the US is somehow involved in this criminal case.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[fishexe]

Do you have any evidence at all that these two women accusing Assange are part of a US government conspiracy?

They don't need to be in on the conspiracy for there to be one. Do you really believe, if they had made the exact same charges with the exact same evidence on some Joe schmoe that nobody had heard of, then dismissed the charges, then re-filed them after Joe schmoe left the country, and the charges aren't even rape, do you really believe Interpol would be involved? Even if the women are acting completely in earnest, the rest of the system sure isn't.

Please provide any links to show that the US is somehow involved in this criminal case.

The evidence is all circumstantial. We know the US and many other governments basically want Assange dead, and short of that want him out of commission. Having the public suspicious of him is a bonus. Interpol and the Swedish police have both been handling the case very strangely. Then the timing coincides so well between renewed police action and renewed leaking. When you put it all together, it still doesn't prove anything, but it's too sketchy not to be cause for legitimate skepticism.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[makubesu]

I think we're putting too much emphasis on the US here. Wikileaks is a threat to anyone in power, don't you think that the other 187 countries in Interpol have secrets to hide?

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[miffo.swe]

It would be funny if the only major news corp attending would be Fox.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[suv4x4]

Freedom is what we let you have until you piss us off. Then we'll trump up some charges and call you a rapist.

In US, when you get unlimited internet, it's unlimited until you hit the limit.

When you get FREE items, they're free until you see your credit card bill.

The low low prices are low only if you don't skip a comma on the rebate form.

It's very fitting that this would be also the country where freedom means "you're free to obey".

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[squiggleslash]

There's certainly something interesting going on.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/08/104911/one-of-wikileaks-founder-assanges.html

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[PitaBred]

Nothing "solid", but there's a lot more validity to it than the birther idiocy: http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2010/12/04/assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history-with-us-funded-anti-castro-groups-one-of-which-has-cia-ties/

The birther crap ignored the facts because it didn't fit the agenda. Given what facts are out there that we know about, the US/CIA tie to Assange's accuser isn't ruled out. That's the difference.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[PRMan]

The women both tweeted afterward that they were happy to have been with "a celebrity".

One woman has been tied as a family member to a US military officer in Afghanistan.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[IamTheRealMike]

There's no evidence the women are being run by the CIA or whatever. However, there's also no evidence their allegations are true - if there was Assange would not have been told there was no case to answer and allowed to leave the country.

Given the absolute vacuum of evidence in this case, people tend to rely on rules of thumb, estimates of probability and "common sense" judgements to guide them. Common sense says that if you're raped you don't hang out with the guy the next day and throw parties. Probability says it's remarkable that after 39 years of not being a rapist, suddenly within weeks of becoming public enemy number one for political reasons he has not one but two women going after him. And rules of thumb .... if you want to take a guy down, what accusation do you choose? Rape has the advantage that many people presume guilty until .... well until never, really.

Conspiracy? Maybe so, maybe no. Of course it doesn't matter how weak the accusation is if the point is simply to haul him back to Sweden, so he can be extradited to the states - where he will surely be killed either by the state or through a "oops, we failed to stop a vigilate, our bad" type incident.

Unfortunately if there's one thing the leaked cables have shown, it's that European politicians are easily pressured by the US Government to lie to their own people and ignore their own laws. That is why Assange is fighting - in theory, Swedens extradition rules are actually stronger than the UKs. In practice governments will clearly do anything they can to screw him.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[Mathinker]

Anyone else misread McClatchy as McCarthy?

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[fishexe]

I think we're putting too much emphasis on the US here. Wikileaks is a threat to anyone in power, don't you think that the other 187 countries in Interpol have secrets to hide?

Actually, I was going to put that very same point in my post as well but didn't want to get too long-winded. I do think there's a reasonable chance the US didn't do anything to get them to jump on him but somebody else did. I mean, Wikileaks has been ruffling feathers in a lot of countries for several years now.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Then we'll trump up some charges and call you a rapist.

"We"? So you're Swedish, then?

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[makomk]

The other 187 countries haven't publicly gone after Wikileaks in the same way as the US government has. More importantly, the US is apparently already in talks with Sweden to extradite him for espionage, and it has successfully put pressure on the Swedish government and justice system to prosecute people under questionable circumstances before.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[Unkyjar]

Well, I guess that depends on whether your hypothetical Joe Schmoe stays everywhere under assumed names, switches cellphones like shirts and instantly insults and publicly accuses the prosecutors of conspiracy and being lap dogs for the US.

The first two things kinda make them eye you with suspicion, the last one probably pissed them off. I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't more personal than conspiratorial.

I also think the timing isn't that bad, the lawyer for the girls appealed to a different prosecutor because they felt that comments from the first prosecutor indicated that they weren't being taken seriously, because they weren't.

Yes, I think it's insane how this has all blown up from them merely trying to find a legal way to force him to get an STD test. But I suspect that is as much a result from Julian's attacks on the motives of the Swedish prosecutors once the major news networks got wind of this and spread it all over the world, as it is from those prosecutors trying to make a name for themselves.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[Unkyjar]

So does that mean when the US doesn't extradite him you'll admit that there was no conspiracy?

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[fishexe]

I also think the timing isn't that bad, the lawyer for the girls appealed to a different prosecutor because they felt that comments from the first prosecutor indicated that they weren't being taken seriously, because they weren't.

Well, to be fair, if I were a prosecutor and some women came to me saying they voluntarily had sex with a man and regretted it later, and seeking to have him charged with some form of sexual assault for taking them up on their desire to have sex with him, I wouldn't take them very seriously either.

Re:Freedom of press...but watch what you say!

[Unkyjar]

I'm pretty sure they went to the police trying to find a way to force him to take an STD test. Probably because they both had unprotected sex with Julian and he refused to take one. I'm under the impression that the sexual assault charges were suggested as a round-a-bout attempt to force him to get tested.

No Hypocrisy...

[ameline]

No hypocrisy here, move on citizen.

Irony

[arcite]

This is.

Of course...

[curious.corn]

... this way the frontier police will have a good time patting down all these pinko communists flying to the US from all over the world.
It'll be like a lottery draw and the winner gets "invited for questioning" by Agent Smith wearing a blood stained butcher apron...

I don't feel like adding a smiley here...

Re:The ironing ...

[omnibit]

If you use some starch, the ironing will be crisp!

Re:It's a trap!

[Captain Splendid]

Your convictions won't be enough to repel an invitation of this magnitude!

They really outdid The Onion this time

[rrohbeck]

but I don't think they're aware of that.

Re:They really outdid The Onion this time

[dkleinsc]

"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize." - Tom Lehrer

Didn't China host this event last year?

[internetcommie]

I heard so, but my ISP wouldn't let me access the website...

Actually

[slapout]

Compared to somewhere like North Korea, the US looks pretty good.

Re:Actually

[Opportunist]

And compared to stoning beheading is pretty painless. Your point being?

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have beaten Monkey Island in no time.

Re:Actually

[BeanThere]

Actually when it comes to press freedom, the US still looks better than most countries. In fact, even after 230 years of the US example, I don't know of any other governments whose core founding and/or legal principles include the explicit recognition of the citizenry's inalienable right to freedom of speech, it seems to genuinely be something exceptional. Oh sure, many governments have begrudgingly given a nod to what they see as "granting" of similar rights (and in fact even that much is due to the positive influence of the US historically) - but saying "OK, we grant you freedom of speech" is actually fundamentally vastly different to inalienable rights, which are not considered granted, but exist independent of government and cannot morally be taken away. Sure, in practice lawmakers pee on the constitution with abandon, as lawmakers will do, but I'll take the US any day. Trying to block citizens' practice of liberties such as free speech is something all governments do anyway, but only one government in the world at least formally recognizes this as wrong (and gives the citizens other rights, such as the 2nd amendment, in order to enforce the 1st amendment).

I'm definitely not saying it's perfect, or that we shouldn't strive for better. On the contrary, we should continually strive for better. We have to.

Re:Actually

[sadness203]

Mediocrity should never be a standard upon which we build the foundation of our system.

Re:Actually

[Somewhat Delirious]

Looking "pretty good" in comparison to North Korea. Yeah, that's something to be proud of... America's standards appear to be dropping quicker than the barometer in the eye of a hurricane. (Or maybe I should say shit storm?).

Re:Actually

[hedwards]

That's true, however we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to a nation that's so far below our standards. We should be comparing ourselves to countries that could actually compete with us. Otherwise it's basically just a wanking contest.

Re:Actually

[dotwhynot]

Actually when it comes to press freedom, the US still looks better than most countries. In fact, even after 230 years of the US example, I don't know of any other governments whose core founding and/or legal principles include the explicit recognition of the citizenry's inalienable right to freedom of speech, it seems to genuinely be something exceptional. Oh sure, many governments have begrudgingly given a nod to what they see as "granting" of similar rights (and in fact even that much is due to the positive influence of the US historically) - but saying "OK, we grant you freedom of speech" is actually fundamentally vastly different to inalienable rights, which are not considered granted, but exist independent of government and cannot morally be taken away. Sure, in practice lawmakers pee on the constitution with abandon, as lawmakers will do, but I'll take the US any day. Trying to block citizens' practice of liberties such as free speech is something all governments do anyway, but only one government in the world at least formally recognizes this as wrong (and gives the citizens other rights, such as the 2nd amendment, in order to enforce the 1st amendment).

I'm definitely not saying it's perfect, or that we shouldn't strive for better. On the contrary, we should continually strive for better. We have to.

Press Freedom Index 2010: US at #20. With the Nordic countries, Netherlands and Switzerland at the top.

Re:Actually

[butchersong]

Still... most of those countries have what would be considered in the US strange laws regulating freedom of speech. After a quick perusal of Wikipedia: In Switzerland you have laws that fine people who take skeptical views on genocide (Turkish politician Perinçek was fined CHF 12,000) and in Netherlands you have that 'blasphemy' law (the arrest of cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot) that they are even talking of expanding. Maybe you are separating freedom of speech from freedom of the press. In the states this all falls under the same first amendment philosophy.

Re:Actually

[Somewhat Delirious]

"Press Freedom Index 2010 [rsf.org]: US at #20. With the Nordic countries, Netherlands and Switzerland at the top."

And remember, this was before the US response to the Wikileaks release. Guess they'll be dropping a few places...

Re:Actually

[BeanThere]

With the Nordic countries, Netherlands and Switzerland at the top.

You missed my point. It's subtle though. The word "inalienable" is the core point, it's not just a pretty word, it is central to the entire foundation of the US legal system. Re-read, digest, re-read. Yes, there are countries that currently ostensibly "happen to have" more press freedom. But that freedom is ephemeral and temporary; the Netherlands constitution for example explicitly allows formal law to limit the freedom of speech. This is in total contrast to the US which states "Congress shall make no law". Therefore laws limiting freedom of speech in the Netherlands are 'constitutional'. This means that it is inevitable that eventually lawmakers will gradually successfully be able to raise press restrictions without any final legal recourse to overturn. Laws limiting freedom of speech in the US are 'unconstitutional' on the face of it (even though many exist, they are in fact formally illegal). This is also why almost every other Western nation has been able to suppress the right to firearm ownership with nary a squeak from the populace. No government can legally or morally do that in the US, while for other countries, they can legally do it but not morally do it -- big difference, and this core difference makes the US example both special, and fragile and precious.

Re:Actually

[BeanThere]

Furthermore - legal freedom of speech is absolutely helpless against an assault by politicians, unless the recognized right to public firearm ownership is included, since this is in fact the 'final' protection against the oppression of such rights. Countries like the Netherlands do not recognize the inalienable right of the people to overthrow their own government, and to maintain the force necessary in order to do so, should their government become oppressive. Hence I say, their evident current freedom of speech has nothing holding it up. It can only be temporary. The founding fathers explicitly recognized the right of the people to overthrow their own government should it become bad, and said, 'without being able to arm themselves this is useless' so they threw in the recognized right to arm themselves in order to overthrow their own government --- that is truly precious.

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah blah blah. Yeah, you have an "inalienable" right to free speech, as long as you perform it in a designated "free speech zone", an atrocity no other western democracy have stomached so far. I guess the rest of us should take note.

Re:Actually

[Anonymous Coward]

Good sir, I think your sarcasmometer is broken. I also think you should read up on "free speech zones". Democracy is dying these days.

Re:Actually

[SourceFrog]

Blah blah blah. Yeah, you have an "inalienable" right to free speech, as long as you perform it in a designated "free speech zone", an atrocity no other western democracy have stomached so far. I guess the rest of us should take note.

You know there are organizations like the Institute for Justice that actively fight for the protection of free speech. They are small, and poorly funded. Perhaps if the average American spent half as much as they spend on things like video games and HD TVs, on funding the fight for liberty, you might be having more successes rolling back the encroachments on liberty. Or do you expect that liberty will happen all by itself with no effort.

Re:Actually

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

Your point is important, but irrelevant to this survey.

This survey asks specific questions such as "During this period, were there ... Journalists who had to have bodyguards or use security measures (such as wearing bullet-proof vests or using armour-plated vehicles) in the course of their work?". Answer yes and you move further down the list.

On another note, it's a worrying list "Press Freedom" list when Zimbabwe almost makes it out of the bottom third.

Re:Actually

[he-sk]

I'm not trying to be confrontational, but your post betrays a strong US bias and a belief in American exceptionalism.

FWIW, the first amendment does not state that freedom of speech is an inalienable right, and, in theory, it could be repealed by another amendment however unlikely that may be. But you're conflating the US constitution with the US declaration of independence, which, incidentally, has no legal force whatsoever.

Secondly, no modern democracy "grants" rights to its population. That is an American myth. For example, the German constitution begins by saying that human dignity is inalienable, that all state authority has to respect and protect it, and that human rights -- free speech being one of them -- develop organically from human dignity. This is much stronger language than anything you will find in the US constitution. Personally, I prefer the emphasis on human dignity and not on free speech, but then I am German and biased myself. (I did live in the US for a while though, but that was some time ago.)

Re:Actually

[netsharc]

I loved this quote from http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2010/11/americathe-grim-truth.html :

From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you've got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don't think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?

Yes it's free, and unfortunately it's too free that people can go on TV and blatantly lie to you with no punishment...

Re:Actually

[drsmithy]

This means that it is inevitable that eventually lawmakers will gradually successfully be able to raise press restrictions without any final legal recourse to overturn.?

No, it's not.

This is also why almost every other Western nation has been able to suppress the right to firearm ownership with nary a squeak from the populace.

Er, no, it's because every other Western nation's citizens thinks that deadly weapons should be a bit harder to get your hands on than a set of golf clubs.

Finally, note that there is nothing _technically_ preventing Constitutional Amendments being nullified by further Constitutional Amendments.

Re:Actually

[benwiggy]

The word "inalienable" is the core point, it's not just a pretty word, it is central to the entire foundation of the US legal system. "Congress shall make no law".

Yes, you have the "inalienable" right to free speech.

Unless you incite a crime.

Unless your words bring a "clear and present danger" to the US.

Unless you libel someone, in which case they will sue you, and you can't use the 1st amendment as a defence.

Unless you're a trrrrist.

Yes, you have inalienable rights. Except when you don't.

No government can legally or morally suppress the right to firearm ownership in the US, while for other countries, they can legally but not morally do it.

Again, except for all the instances when you can't, like carrying concealed weapons, fully automatic weapons, or owning a cruise missile.

Morally? That depends on your viewpoint. I live in a country where the people would find it morally objectionable for everyone to walk around with guns, and the government makes laws on that basis.

But the reasoning behind the 2nd amendment is woefully out of date. The idea that any militia is going to wrestle control away from the US government by force these days is laughable.

Re:Actually

[Synonymous Homonym]

Actually when it comes to press freedom, the US still looks better than most countries.

Well, it just below the top 10%. That is still better than most.

I don't know of any other governments

And there are many.

saying "OK, we grant you freedom of speech" is actually fundamentally vastly different to inalienable rights, which are not considered granted, but exist independent of government and cannot morally be taken away.

So you are saying that free speech existing despite government is better than free speech existing because of government.

Re:Actually

[BeanThere]

I'm not trying to be confrontational, but your post betrays a strong US bias and a belief in American exceptionalism.

If I'm "biased", it's because the FACTS are "biased". Nobody has ever been able to provide me one proper strong counter-example, and this is 230 years later the US example was created (during which Germany has done plenty things that were not exactly sound in terms of human liberties, I might add).

but then I am German and biased myself

And if the German legal foundation provides stronger liberties than the US, then tell me, why is it that the general public is not even so much as allowed to carry a firearm to protect their very own life and limb from attack? That a young woman walking through a dark park in the middle of the night is not even allowed the means to protect herself from a rapist or murderer? Thanks, but again, I'll take the US, because I want my daughter to be able to have the right to defend her own life.

FWIW, the first amendment does not state that freedom of speech is an inalienable right

So tell me, do you HONESTLY believe that when the founding fathers wrote "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights", that there weren't referring to any rights in particular, and that they were in fact just being poetic and thought that that "sounded cool"?

Re:Actually

[BeanThere]

Finally, note that there is nothing _technically_ preventing Constitutional Amendments being nullified by further Constitutional Amendments.

Of course. But this is true for ANY country, so how does that make the US worse? Law needs force to be enforced. And yet that's why the founding fathers thought the people should be armed. To protect themselves from a bad government! It even states so in the declaration of independence. The only thing that can act as a final barrier between a bad government and oppression, is a well-armed populace. The US government could TRY nullify the bill of rights, sure, but let me tell you, the people won't go down without a fight. Unlike your so-called "civilized" nations where the poor Jews were not allowed to arm themselves and had no means to prevent 6 million of their people being sent off to the slaughter.

Re:Actually

[BeanThere]

So again, you want to me to choose between a European nation, where the government can deny all my rights and I have zero recourse, or the US, where the government could try deny all my rights but at least I would have a fighting chance. Well I know which I'll pick.

Re:Actually

[mcvos]

And remember, this was before the US response to the Wikileaks release. Guess they'll be dropping a few places...

But so will Sweden.

Re:Actually

[mcvos]

So how come that freedom of speech in the US gets aliened all the time?

Re:Actually

[mcvos]

In fact, even after 230 years of the US example, I don't know of any other governments whose core founding and/or legal principles include the explicit recognition of the citizenry's inalienable right to freedom of speech,

That says more about your ignorance than about other countries. Lots of European countries have freedom of speech in their constitution. Not just that, they seem to be doing a better job of defending that freedom. (I'm particularly pleased with how many Dutch politicians have responded to Assange's prosecution. It's almost enough to give me confidence in my country again.)

Re:Actually

[Somewhat Delirious]

Everyone should drop as far as they deserve, including my own country of residence. This is about everyone's basic rights. I don't give a hoot who violates them, all that do should be held accountable indiscriminately.

Re:Actually

[mcvos]

Countries like the Netherlands do not recognize the inalienable right of the people to overthrow their own government, and to maintain the force necessary in order to do so, should their government become oppressive.

How about we make sure the government doesn't become oppressive in the first place? The US has done a lot more to crush revolution and rebellion than Netherland has.

And if these rights are so inalienable, why do they even need to be in the constitution at all? We used our free speech before there even were constitutions. We seceded from an oppressive government before anyone even considered "the people" to have any rights at all. What the fuck does the right to bear arms have to do with free speech? If they take your free speech, you get to shoot them? What if they take your weapons?

In the end, freedom only lives if it lives in the hearts of the people. And as far as I can tell, freedom of speech lives more in the hearts of the Dutch and in the hearts of Americans, who are only too happy to censor themselves and each other whenever the government wants something.

Re:Actually

[Dr.Syshalt]

You don't need an anti-free-speech law to cut someone off of the funds they need in order to exercise their rights. You don't need it to arrest a troublemaker for rape accusation (which basically means just "didn't do exactly what a woman said" today). In other words, laws are one thing. But their application, the day-to-day practice, is a completely different beast.

Re:Actually

[drsmithy]

Of course. But this is true for ANY country, so how does that make the US worse?

I didn't say it made it worse, I was pointing out that it makes it equivalent.

And yet that's why the founding fathers thought the people should be armed. To protect themselves from a bad government! It even states so in the declaration of independence.

No, it doesn't.

Unlike your so-called "civilized" nations where the poor Jews were not allowed to arm themselves and had no means to prevent 6 million of their people being sent off to the slaughter.

I sincerely doubt anyone would have called Germany at the height of the Holocaust "civilised". Take your straw man elsewhere.

So again, you want to me to choose between a European nation, where the government can deny all my rights and I have zero recourse, or the US, where the government could try deny all my rights but at least I would have a fighting chance. Well I know which I'll pick.

You have the same recourse in either situation.

Re:Actually

[wtfamidoinghere]

Well, go tell that to the air traffic controllers in Spain ... it was not tanks, I know, I know...

Re:Actually

[wtfamidoinghere]

Well, the great Founding Fathers could have ruled out laws of physics, such as gravity, for instance. Doesn't mean it will automatically cease to exist. Just because you have that concept on a piece of paper (which even some former president openly declared not much more worthy than a piece of toilet paper), doesn't automagically makes it real.

"Oh the irony"

[John Hasler]

Right. Obviously, it should be in Sweden.

WPFD on Facebook

[Anonymous Coward]

World Press Freedom Day "moved" (deleted and reposted) the original posting on Facebook and with it deleted all of the comments on it claiming: "We have temporarily stopped wall posts simply because the traffic we've received far exceeded what are able to see and respond to right now! We simply had the structure wrong and weren't ready for a wall with that much traffic, and once we have the logistics worked out, we look forward to continuing a robust discussion around press freedom ahead of World Press Freedom Day 2011!"

The logistics being a situation where they moderate (read: delete) posts,
regulating speech != free speech, disappointing behavior for an organization who celebrates (and very existence relies on) free speech

Let them have it here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/WPFD2011?v=app_2373072738
or join "World Press Freedom Day, what a joke" here: http://www.connect.connect.facebook.com/WPFD2011#!/pages/World-Press-Freedom-Day-2011-What-a-Joke/164635873577540?v=wall
or "Protest World Press Freedom Day-3 May" here: http://www.connect.connect.facebook.com/WPFD2011#!/pages/Protest-World-Press-Freedom-Day-3-May/128796330513944?v=wall

Re:WPFD on Facebook

[Opportunist]

World Press Freedom Day: Only possible if we have the resources to delete the free expression of people's opinion about it.

Ya know, if this wasn't so serious I would lie on the floor, panting and wheezing 'cause I couldn't stop laughing. Is it me or does this sound like something that fell out of Bizarro-World?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[internetcommie]

Concern over some OTHER governments' determination to restrict the free flow of information.

There. Fixed it for you.

this makes me sick

[cyber1kenobi]

I can't see, could someone please lift the wool from my eyes?!

Hypocrisy, thy name is Uncle Sam

[shoutingloudly]

Wrong dept. More like, "From the who-needs-online-freedom-when-we-have-Sen.-Lieberman dept." or the "these-are-not-the-censorship-droids-you're-looking-for dept."

Apparently it's now illegal to do things online with which Sen. Droopy Dog disagrees, but never you mind that. Our immigrations department has become a rogue IP cop, declaring themselves judge, jury, and online executioner to dozens of websites, but don't worry about that. Our Senate Judiciary Committee just unanimously voted to give the same process a slightly more legal sheen, disregarding an open letter from virtually every major figure in the history of the internet, and it's going to be tucked into an appropriations bill under the cover of night before the end of the year, but set that aside. The same committee and their House brethren are practically forcing ISPs to implement filtering, on penalty of repeal of the DMCA safe harbors, but look elsewhere.

Instead, let's talk about how little respect OTHER COUNTRIES have for press freedom. After all, none of those other countries are the freest, fairest, most just-est countries in history! That title is all ours, baby!

Better record than the US?

[butchersong]

Obviously everyone is going to be laying into the US over the recent wikileaks incidents but really how many countries can you name with better positions on freedom of speech?

Re:Better record than the US?

[DarKnyht]

Well, since we are talking about "Freedom of Press" and not "Freedom of Speech" your question doesn't really have much to add to the discussion.

However, the Freedom of the Press here in America is largely an illusion put up by the corporate and political interests in the country. We hear what they want us to hear or what they think will make them money. They paint the picture in a way that helps their side (insisting on calling it a tax cut for the wealthy when what will happen is a tax increase on the rates that have been in place for 10 years).

It is hard to have Freedom of Press and even Freedom of Speech when there are those that constantly attempt to redefine what words mean or just incorrectly use them in an attempt to misdirect, confuse, and mislead.

Re:Better record than the US?

[internetcommie]

Will Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland do? Just for starters?

Re:Better record than the US?

[makubesu]

80% of them? Try denying the holocaust in Germany and tell me how you enjoy your freedom of speech.

Re:Better record than the US?

[Opportunist]

Oh, it's no problem to speak. As long as nobody listens. Once you manage to make too many people listen and you say things the powers that are don't like, well, take a look at wikileaks to see what happens.

"Dumb" governments restrict the freedom of speech, disallowing you to say what you want. This isn't necessary. Not by a longshot. Say what you want. In 99% of the cases, you won't say anything the governing body would like to keep covered. Why? Because you don't know it. Duh. If you know it, you will probably not have the broadcasting power to cause a problem. If you do have the broadcasting power (i.e. if you're part of "the media"), you are usually concerned with making money more than with spreading information the government does not want to be spread. Now, who do you think gets all that cool smart bomb footage and gets invited to those interesting and by your viewers so well received public speeches and press statements from politicians? Those that report what the government likes or those who report what they don't?

Think about it for a moment, then continue.

So you have sensitive information and you don't have an "automatic" audience because they listen to you anyway? Who cares? Broadcast it. You'll get turned off on some technicality and the info vanishes into nothingness before it can reach critical mass. If that fails, a three steps plan follows:

1. Remove your reputation
2. Remove your assets
3. Remove your freedom

If the data is out and can't be contained, discredit the source. Call it fabrication, call it a disgruntled ex-employee, make the one spreading the information appear like a lunatic or someone who wants to hurt Uncle Sam (or whoever is the target), under no circumstances even talk about the information leaked, just assassinate the character of the person spreading the information. Nobody will talk about it anymore, everyone will dismiss it as fabricated because the one spreading the information had some ulterior motivation to spread it, he's not interested in the "truth", he's interested in hurting $target.

If this fails because for some odd reason the source is credible (first reason why Wikileaks should have been attacked way earlier, at least from the government's POV, is that now they actually do have some rather solid reputation for being credible. Don't worry, the US gov won't make that mistake again and let someone gain that much cred unsupervised), cut their money. Spreading information costs money. Defending against litigation costs money. Denying them this money means they cannot continue to spread the information and cannot defend against litigation, thus they have to cave in. So cut their access to money and carpet bomb them with law suits. Whether they hold up in court doesn't really matter, what matters is that they are kept busy and that they have to raise and spend money, which they now cannot.

If this cannot curb the leaking, arrest them. Find some technicality, fire up the counter propaganda and paint them as the villain of the century, put them in the vicinity of other criminals and lock them up. If they are part of an organization, do what you can to outlaw that organization or, preferably, outlaw any organization dealing in the same area. This takes care of information spreaders that do not work alone but in a group. Usually the group should dissolve now. If not, rinse and repeat.

You see, you do not have to limit the freedom of speech. You only have to take care that nobody can hear anything and listen when someone should say anything that actually counts.

Re:Better record than the US?

[Dutch Gun]

It's not actually that popular around here to stick up for the US. People will point to all the problems, stupid policies, bad decisions the government has made. But think about it... how far did someone have to go before the US government started reacting? Publishing illegally obtained classified documents from the military and state departments. Overall, considering that this is a pretty damn grey area, I think the US governments' response has been rather subdued.

Press members in the US, as far as I can tell, don't really have cause to fear for their safety or their freedom no matter what they're reporting, unless they actually break laws to obtain that information. Despite all the hand-wringing, our basic freedoms are still pretty well protected, especially when compared to a lot of places on earth where basic human rights don't mean squat.

Does that means we should stop trying to improve and better ourselves and our country? Of course not. But I think it's better to be honest in our discourse and discussions, and acknowledge the fact that overall, we have it pretty good. The ridiculous level of hyperbole I see in these discussions, I feel, tends to marginalize the valid points I see being made. I've seen some people making comparisons to North Korea, and no one calls them out on it. Seriously?

Re:Better record than the US?

[hedwards]

At the government level we tend to do well, mostly because we farm that work off to vigilantes and mobs. The government doesn't have to regulate speech because say something that the crowd doesn't like and they'll shun your ass.

Shunning is much more effective than a government block because you're not just cutting the access to a microphone, you're also cutting the audience as well. Making it hard or impossible for anybody to hear any valid point that you might make.

Re:Better record than the US?

[Hatta]

Publishing illegally obtained classified documents from the military and state departments. Overall, considering that this is a pretty damn grey area, I think the US governments' response has been rather subdued.

There is no grey area here. The government employee who conveyed the classified documents to civilians is guilty of a crime. Those civilians who published the information are not. It's pretty black and white.

Press members in the US, as far as I can tell, don't really have cause to fear for their safety or their freedom no matter what they're reporting, unless they actually break laws to obtain that information.

The US lacks a shield law and reporters do go to jail for protecting their sources.

I've seen some people making comparisons to North Korea, and no one calls them out on it. Seriously?

The US is not North Korea. But neither is Assange a terrorist. Which hyperbolic accusation gets repeated more often by "professional" journalists?

Re:Better record than the US?

[PRMan]

Like Prop 8 in California is a "vote against gay marriage", when in reality it is a Constitutional Amendment defining marriage. It doesn't even discuss equality in any way.

My favorite part is now judges are reviewing it to see if it's "Constitutional". IT'S A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, so I would have to say, "Yes."

Re:Better record than the US?

[Belial6]

Prop 8 doesn't discuss equality the way a proposition that defined "Person" as a white landowning male wouldn't be discussing equality. Defining what can and cannot legally be done based on gender is by definition a discussion of equality. Would you make the same statement if Prop 8 were to define marriage as a union between two individuals of the same race? It wasn't that long ago that interracial marriage wasn't legal either.

It is bizarre that the exact same arguments are used to argue for a ban on gay marriages that were used to argue for a ban on interracial marriage. What is even more amazing is that the pro gay marriage people don't point that out every chance they get.

As for the constitutional amendment part. First, if the law violates another part of the state constitution in an incompatible way, that I would guess would make it unconstitutional. They may need to specifically identify it as an exception to another section of the constitution. Of course, that would mean they would need to openly admit that it is discriminatory.

Of course, if the comment is in regards to judges reviewing it to see of it is FEDERALLY unconstitutional, then you are confused. The state constitution and the federal constitution are two different sets of laws. Dropping the adjective that tells you which set of laws your looking at doesn't make them the same.

Re:Better record than the US?

[Call Me Black Cloud]

At least we don't have any journalists in jail: http://www.wpfc.org/map.php

Re:Better record than the US?

[demonbug]

Will Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland do? Just for starters?

Sure... as soon as Reporters Without Borders is able to put up some information on how they score the countries. Oh, sure, they show what the questionnaire they sent out was, they say how many points each questions is worth, but they don't actually show how each Nation got the score it did. If you look at their "country files", they don't even offer any information on most of the top scorers (well, bottom scorers, I guess).

You'd think a group dedicated to a free and transparent press would at least give the background on their ratings for people interested. But I guess it is enough "freedom and transparency" to assume they know what they are doing, assume they received an adequate number of responses from their anonymous sources to be valid, and to assume that their reported scores aren't biased by different expectations in each of the nations they sent questionnaires to.

Again, I'm not saying their rankings are wrong... they do point out some valid problems in the U.S., for example, which definitely keeps it out of the running for the top spot... but they really don't do a very good job of supporting their rankings in any meaningful way. They are essentially saying, "Trust us. We are Reporters Without Borders... we must be telling the truth."

Re:Better record than the US?

[jrumney]

Why bother putting them in jail? "We bomb locations with precision, and we pay attention to locations where journalists are present."

Re:Better record than the US?

[Eskarel]

Freedom of the press is pretty well protected, but given that Rupert Murdoch bastard though he may be has financial interests in freedom of the press and seems to own the republican party, that's not really a surprise. The information is also not actually illegally obtained(at least not by wikileaks) it has certainly been illegally supplied, but that's a different side of the coin.

As for the government's reaction. It's not all that subdued and it's particularly stupid because they don't actually have any muscle to back it up. They've got not laws to get him with that wouldn't be overturned by the supreme court(even this one) and this is just making them look stupid.

Re:Better record than the US?

[weicco]

Funny thing. Finland's press exercise censorship of their own but I guess that doesn't drop positions on that list. There's some cases where Finnish press doesn't tell exactly the truth or at least the whole truth about things and in some cases they tell outright lies. You just have to know how to read our news. Usually combining facts from different media sources you get the whole picture.

So if this kind of censorship is taken in account Finland wouldn't be number one.

Re:Better record than the US?

[dargaud]

If the data is out and can't be contained, discredit the source. Call it fabrication, call it a disgruntled ex-employee, make the one spreading the information appear like a lunatic or someone who wants to hurt Uncle Sam (or whoever is the target), under no circumstances even talk about the information leaked, just assassinate the character of the person spreading the information.

It reminds me of the Michael Moore films, in particular the Bush one: the critics kept complaining about what a fat slob he was, about how his movie was biased because he was a commie, how his sources wern't identified, etc, but never did they comment the facts shown in the move. I did find this astounding at the time.

Re:Better record than the US?

[Opportunist]

It's not astounding, it's just good ol' distraction tactics. If there's a huge white elephant in the room and you can't get him out, flood the room with pink squirrels on crack. They won't cover up the elephant, but they make a lot more noise, are a lot more colorful and move a hell lot faster, and everyone will look at them instead of the elephant.

It's like a flamewar, when you're out of comebacks, start picking at your opponents grammar.

Re:What's next?

[Haedrian]

Or an American president winning a nobel peace prize?

Oh wait...

Re:What's next?

[mbuimbui]

Microsoft hosting OS security day?

http://mswindowscr.org/photos/20100323/exif/picture615.aspx

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[ArcherB]

Sure, this is hilarious. But somehow I doubt they meant it to be so funny.

Concern over some governments' determination to restrict the free flow of information. That's rich.

To be fair, governments need secrets. Not everything should be public. Now I know that you may say that if a government doesn't want an action to be made public then they shouldn't do it. But sometimes, there is a legitimate need for secrecy. For example, when a diplomat sends a wire back to Washington saying that he does not believe the diplomat from N. Korea is being entirely truthful concerning the welfare of the N. Korean citizens, that information should not be made public. It could irreparably harm negotiations that could prove beneficial to the peoples of both countries. The path that a convoy full of medical supplies and food for refuges against a warlords wishes would be another example. This is a bit different than a diplomat calling the leader of Esbonia a stinky-fart fat-head.

Some things are legitimately kept secret for a reason. Others, not so much. Wikileaks doesn't concern itself with the difference.

You don't understand!!!

[marcosdumay]

They are aware that comedians are the last one telling the truth to the US public, and plan to bankrupt them all by a thread of elaborated government decisions that will take their public's atention away!!!!!

P.S. Gee, all that text and I couldn't get ride of that last comma... When reading it, don't take a breath, that would not reflect the intented message.

Re:You don't understand!!!

[hedwards]

Historically that's been the case. The court Jester was often the only one that was able to break bad news to the king without being executed. Didn't always work.

People tend to be less prone to violence and anger when they're laughing. Brain chemistry being what it is. Plus it's really hard to hurt somebody when you're laughing co hard you can barely breathe.

State Dept Jokes

[Amorymeltzer]

The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.

Seriously, how much do you have to be paid to be able to write that with a straight face? I can't imagine anyone who has even seen a newspaper in the last few weeks taking that seriously.

Tell them how you really feel

[cf18]

You may leave your feedback on their facebook page:

http://www.connect.connect.facebook.com/WPFD2011

But be polite or your post may be censored...

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Rei]

He's already in custody; he turned himself in in the UK.

I guess that's what happens when you get INTERPOL set upon you for the crime of having consensual sex with groupies without a condom. Groupies who remained supportive after their sexual trysts until they found out that he was sleeping around. Because that's the sort of stuff INTERPOL is there for, right? Certainly politics didn't play a role in THAT warrant...

Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[Quiet_Desperation]

I'd be happy if the local media here in California would ask a follow up question once in a while.

All I want is this:

STATE POLITICIAN: This bill will fix global warming, solve hunger and make tasty donuts fall from the skies like kisses from kittens!
REPORTER: How, exactly?
STATE POLITICIAN: Thanks and good nigh- eh, what?
REPORTER: How does the bill do that? What sequence of events did you and the other legislators envision after the bill is enacted?
STATE POLITICIAN: (deer in headlights gaze) Uh, well, blah blah blah bullcrap blah symbolism blah feelgood blah TheChildren blah, er, 9/11.
REPORTER: Isn't that a pile of bullshit?
STATE POLITICIAN: Hey, what happened to impartiality?
REPORTER: It wasn't working out very well.

What I want is Spider Jerusalem going after some of these scumbags. Wikileaks is all well and good, but I want these people confronted in their speeches by someone other than media insiders who just sit their dumbly nodding their heads at any crap a politician says. Fuck, every reporter is just a softball Larry King type these days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider_Jerusalem

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[Opportunist]

Most reporters don't deserve that name anymore. They're cue-card holders for politicians, mostly. But essentially, we're to blame.

As long as we listen to cue-card reporters, they will be the ones who get the interviews. Why? Because politicians prefer to be interviewed by cue-cards than by investigative reporters. Duh. And in turn, reporters will be what they have to be to get interview partners. If you're known as a badass inquisitor that kills kittens with his follow-up questions, no politician will come to you. So you have to be softer to them or you won't interview anyone.

Unless, of course, people ignore the cue-card propaganda shills and ONLY tune in to inquisitor-style reporters.

But as long as we don't give a shit and let them get away with cue card "interviews", we won't see anything else. If you want something, you have to tell them! When you hear a cue-card interview, just switch the channel. Call them and tell them that you couldn't listen to it anymore and now listen to some other network because at least there you get entertaining mindless chatter. Inform your politicians that you do not listen to cue-card stations and, if they want you to hear their statements, they have to choose reporters deserving that name.

Just ranting won't change it.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[frank_adrian314159]

... every reporter is just a softball Larry King type these days.

It started when reporters stopped worrying about what was factually true and started worrying about balance. News reporters are no longer allowed to question veracity. The most they can do is to find "someone with an opposing view" to interview. That they've given equal time to a liar makes no difference. That there may be more nuance than a dialectic interview can present doesn't matter. So the Rolodex parade keeps on going. Add to that the consolidation of major media and the (now) highly paid reporters who, if they lost their "access", would suffer greatly and you get the kind of bland, stupid reporting we get today.

Want good reporting? Start paying reporters less and let them call their subjects liars. Things would get better pretty quickly.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[NeutronCowboy]

Unfortunately, politicians have become outstanding at dodging even follow-up questions. I've listened to some interviews where the interviewer was actually calling the politician on their nonsense - only to find out that the politician was actually so good at dodging and weaving that no follow-up question had any traction. To the point that the politician blatantly said "That's just not true" when confronted with his bullshit.

You could try to nail them to the wall for their answers, but at that point you'd just spend your entire interview time going after one question and not getting anywhere.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[makomk]

Speaking of the state of the press... Apparently Saturday Night Live did a sketch "Wikileaks: TMZ" in which they compared Wikileaks to the online gossip site TMZ.com. Which may even have been funny - except for the fact that the entire reason Wikileaks exists is that unlike Wikileaks, much of our "real" press has effectively sunk to the level of TMZ.com already. The sketch is effectively pro-mainstream media propaganda in the guise of comedy. *sigh*

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[makomk]

Yeah. Supposedly Japan has gone even further down this path, to the point that all the major mainstream media organisations don't dare do any kind of investigative journalism for fear the government will cut off their access to spoon-fed stories.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[Opportunist]

Hey, as long as you don't get the solution we have: "Press aid". Yes, our papers get money from the state. All of them. Well, almost all of them. You see, there are certain requirements, you have to "need" that money. Funny enough, our biggest tabloid (which is mostly drivel and little substance and certainly unpolitical) is in a lot of need, while most political papers (depending on who's in power) are not.

Odd to watch, how the "need" swings whenever the ruling parties change.

Hey, we got free press! Our government doesn't outlaw papers.

It buys them.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[Quiet_Desperation]

Heh heh. Despite my picking on folks here over the Wikileaks issue, I actually like Wikileaks, and think we need more things along those lines for local issues.

If I knew how to do it, and how to get the VC dollars, I'd start a news site and hire nothing but aspiring reporters who want to dig up dirt on politicians. We would infest every single press conference we could and arm the reporters with a list of tough questions and potential followups (all presented in a lovely branching tree format on an iPad).

Remember what Couric did to Palin? That should have happened to *every* person running in that election. No favorites, no prisoners.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[he-sk]

I've seen those interviews too and I would wish that at this point the journalist would just call the politician a filthy liar and be done with it.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[jc79]

BBC Radio 4's Today programme is notorious for its take-no-bullshit interviewers, such as John Humphrys. Despite this, politicians of all levels, from the Prime Minister down, frequently appear on the programme to be questioned ("grilled") on their policies. This attitude extends even to the bosses of the BBC, who have been given very tough times on the programme by their own employees.

The independence of the BBC's journalists is recognised as exemplary, although it may not always be welcomed by politicians. The politicians know that to be taken seriously, they have to submit to serious questioning.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[jc79]

BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight famously asked Michael Howard the same question 12 times in a row.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[Opportunist]

That's great when it works. Just be glad you don't have any networks that willingly reduced themselves to cue-giving AND people who tune in to them and actually believe what they hear.

Re:Freeeedom, oh, wait, did that one

[Quiet_Desperation]

Oh, OK, never mind then. (facepalm)

Damn! Foiled by lack of invites!

Oh the irony: Joe Lieberman's SHIELD Act

[mlwmohawk]

http://pulse2.com/2010/12/03/senator-joe-lieberman-introduces-shield-act-to-make-classified-information-releases-illegal

Re:Oh the irony: Joe Lieberman's SHIELD Act

[Opportunist]

I have no idea how this would change anything. I'm not a US citizen. US laws do not apply to me, at least as long as I stay out of the US.

It might surprise Mr. Lieberman, but countries outside the US have their own laws. And just like the US probably don't give a crap whether some US paper releases secrets of the Iran, a lot of countries and their media don't give too much of a bowel movement about the US secrets.

Btw, where again was wikileaks registered? Maybe it's time to move?

Re:Oh the irony: Joe Lieberman's SHIELD Act

[mcvos]

Btw, where again was wikileaks registered? Maybe it's time to move?

They are already constantly on the move. At least the domain names are, because US-based DNS providers keep kicking them out.

Re:It's a trap!

[Nadaka]

No, but the prospect of his conviction might.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Wyatt Earp]

No it should be public. Secrets in international relationships had always been something the United States was against, from the XYZ Affair through Wilson's 14 Points, the United States was for transparency.

Now your example of aid convoys and warlords, thats not a diplomatic issue, thats a military issue, there is and always has been a good reason to keep those secret and operational security has never been frowned upon in the United States.

So as far as 2010, the big Wikileaks information dumps have been a military intelligence and operational security dump, that was bad. And now the diplomatic cables dump, not as bad.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[GooberToo]

One of the truly intelligent posts on the topic.

Re:The ironing ...

[compro01]

I dunno. It tastes kinda irony.

Press

[BlkRb0t]

Also known as ironing, the act of removing wrinkles from clothes.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Shadmere]

I agree with you. There are many legitimate reasons for a government to keep secrets. Wikileaks has been irresponsible in some of its releases.

However, they've also released a lot of stuff that was absolutely wrong of the US government to do in the first place. Regardless, it's the responsibility of the government to keeps its secrets safe. If they leak, then that's their fault. Not the fault of the organization who releases that leak. The US's absolutely insane response to Wikileaks is another matter altogether, one that flies in the face of any potential "free flow of information."

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[GooberToo]

Secrets in international relationships had always been something the United States was against

Which is probably why those types of secrets have not been kept from the public; save only those which affect the military and intelligence. Case in point, most everything which has been released, has already been widely known (well, widely reported - the lack of knowing underscores the stupidity of the average American) and for a very long time. The parts which were not previously known are the details which should not be made public. The later only serve intelligence and if released, to damage relationships or other diplomatic efforts.

The fact the submitter believes this is dripping with irony, only further underscores how stupid the masses truly are in matters such as these. But his stupidity, I'm sure, who stop others from falling in line with the broken group-think.

In Other News....

[Quantus347]

Vatican City will be hosting the Annual Gay Pride Extravaganza, and Steve Jobs will be hosting the Open Source The Future Gala.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[i_b_don]

There are times a government needs to keep secrets, however the US government has gone way overboard. Obama has done nothing to change that despite promises of a more open government, so I for one welcome the new openness that has come from wikileaks and will support efforts for it to continue. It has been a welcome breath of fresh air to see how OUR (the people's) government operates and to see the lies it has been shoveling back in the homeland.

I think it's much better to be too open than too secretive.... but then again, I believe it's better to keep our freedoms and be attacked by terrorists than become a police state and be "safe". I must be the crazy one.

Long live wikileaks.

d

At first I was disappointed with Jon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jon has been very quiet about this whole leak. He's mentioned it two or three times in a few minutes long clips but that's it. Even those have been mostly along the lines of "So? What's the big deal? Saudis would like us to invade Iran? Our diplomats spy on the UN? We knew that stuff already...". At first I was very disappointed with him but I've grown to the idea that he's right. It seems likely that this doesn't lead to anything significant. No heads fall. No diplomatic conflicts. Business as usual.

That said, it seems to have had one notable consequence: It tested the limits of freedom of speech in USA, in internet and in world as a whole. While no courts have sentenced anyone due to this, the global efforts to attack the Wikileaks seem to have been led by an US attorney general. The largest online service providers have stated "Shit. We won't touch this one with a 10' pole". High ranked official all around the world (US congressmen, high ranked Canadian bureaucrats, etc.) have called Assange terrorist that should be hunted down and executed... I would really like Jon to address that side more than he has done so far.

Re:At first I was disappointed with Jon...

[Stoutlimb]

One factual correction:

The Canadian who called for the execution of Assange is named Tom Flanagan. He was a top aide to Canada's prime minister Steven Harper many years ago, long before Harper became the prime minister. Currently he works as a political science professor at the University of Calgary. He often gives interviews to news agencies about his opinion, because he usually speaks his mind very freely without needing to think about who he upsets, because he hasn't had any political masters for quite some time. It's like calling a retired former aide to Obama while he was governor a "high ranking USA bureaucrat". No sane politician or bureaucrat in Canada would ever make such statements and still keep their job.

As a side note, the police now investigating Tom Flanagan for uttering death threats.

Re:wikileaks != press

[hondo77]

Would you please define "the press" for us? Thank you in advance.

World Press Freedom Day*

[Selfbain]

* For some definitions of "World", "Press" and "Freedom"

Re:World Press Freedom Day*

[shermo]

* For some definitions of "World"...

Ah yes, I assume only Canada and America will take part?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[kevinNCSU]

Your mistaking being for transparency when it comes to alliances pact and treaties, with transparency when it comes to everything a diplomat says to his boss. I don't think the US has ever been in favor of having diplomats and their diplomatic cases being searched and read by anyone and everyone so that everything they write has to be made for public consumption so as to not damage foreign relationships instead of quick and honest truth.

Re:wikileaks != press

[cdrnet]

Everything published by Wikileaks was redacted by "the press" (NYT etc). Hence yes, it is.

Re:wikileaks != press

[joh]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but WikiLeaks isn't "the press" is it?

I don't know any government that has told the media that they can publish whatever government secrets they want.

I'm not necessarily supporting nor disparaging the treatment of WikiLeaks. I'm attempting to say it's not fair to pretend that WikiLeaks does the same thing a given journalist does. Maybe they overlap at times, sure.

Furthermore, "the press" does not equal "the media." There's a lot of media that's not "the press."

What about Le Monde, El Pais, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and the Washington Post? They have all the leaked cables and they're publishing them. Where's the difference?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[hedwards]

Some things are legitimately kept secret for a reason. Others, not so much. Wikileaks doesn't concern itself with the difference.

Which is why Wikileaks offered to negotiate with the US government over redactions? To which the US government responded that they shouldn't have to negotiate that they wanted all of it to remain secret.

Keep in mind that it takes at least two to negotiate, and if one party flat out refuses you've got limited options. You can give in, release everything or do your best to handle it responsibly. The third case seems most closely related to what they've done.

rediff. There are probably better sources, but this is what I've seen elsewhere. Note the passage starting at the fourth paragraph.

"You have chosen to respond in a manner which leads me to conclude that the supposed risks are entirely fanciful and you are instead concerned to suppress evidence of human rights abuse and other criminal behaviour," Assange said.

We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained US government classified materials, Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser, State Department said in a letter to Jennifer Robinson, Attorney for Julian Assange, WikiLeaks.

This was in response to the communication from WikiLeaks a day earlier in which the whistle blower website informed the US about its intentions to publish classified US government documents.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Wyatt Earp]

Much of the "big" things, I knew or had read as being rumored. My grad degree is in Middle Eastern military history so I keep up on whats going on geopolitically, so most of Wikileaks dump hasn't been a shock.

The fact that all these cables were only Top Secret or Classified really shows how much over secrecy the United States does and how unimportant these documents really are.

Best one I've read so far were the notes of a meeting with the British Embassy and Prince Andrew.

Nominate Assange to the World Press Freedom Prize

[hansg]

Someone should nominate Assange to UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2011

Imagine if he would have to get parol from a US prison to attend?

/Hans

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Anonymous Coward]

Compare and contrast:
Obama does nothing and gets a Nobel Peace Prize
Assange champions truth and gets an arrest warrant.

Re:wikileaks != press

[vux984]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but WikiLeaks isn't "the press" is it?

It qualifies by any reasonable definition of press I've ever heard.

I don't know any government that has told the media that they can publish whatever government secrets they want.

If Fox News or CNN or the New York Times got a hold of a bunch of newsworthy diplomatic cables between Pakistan and Iran do you really think they'd keep them under wraps because the Pakistan and/or Iran government consider them secret? Of course not.

How is wikileaks any different, being a foreign organization releasing information about the states?
And at the end of the day, even Fox/CNN/NYT are reporting on the wikileaks leaks. How do you feel about that?

I'm attempting to say it's not fair to pretend that WikiLeaks does the same thing a given journalist does. Maybe they overlap at times, sure.

Please expand on this.

Re:wikileaks != press

[Somewhat Delirious]

Well apparently the new definition of the press is "a lapdog that uncritically reports whatever the US would prefer people to believe". Good! Nothing to see here, move on please.

Re:Don't buy it

[capo_dei_capi]

I don't see your point. It's not like WikiLeaks invented anything, they just published government documents, and in the light of repeated calls by US officials to have WikiLeaks and Assange in particular silenced, the sentence

At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.

is indeed quite ironic.

Re:Don't buy it

[Somewhat Delirious]

"You are not obligated to treat the truth as fact."

There, fixed it for you.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[melikamp]

Some things are legitimately kept secret for a reason. Others, not so much. Wikileaks doesn't concern itself with the difference.

Why should they? Things they get are not secret, by any sensible definition of the word. The cables, for example, were legally accessible to some 2.8 million people, and certainly have been leaked many times and long before Wikileaks got its copy.

Irony overload.

[miffo.swe]

I expect the next winter olympics being held in Brazil, summer olympics in Himalaya, human rights conventions in China and Iran holding the next talks about non profileration of nuclear weapons and technology.

Seriously, the US has lost its shine. Proper response would have been "fuck no, thats not the american way!" and letting some higher ups get kicked sideways to some cushy government job.

Instead they try to kill the messenger and ignore the huge pile of stinking US foreign policy. "The terrorists hate our freeeeedoooommm" No, they hate your foreign policy that kills them and their families.

Well, at least we can still say...

[fishexe]

...that the US is a marginally better place to hold a Press Freedom Day than Red China.

Re:Well, at least we can still say...

[mcvos]

It's quite a bit better than marginally, but this announcement could not have had a more ironic timing. And the US dropping a few places on the world press freedom list wouldn't look too great either.

But let's be honest: the US is still pretty good when it comes to free press. But they're not topping the list.

Re:Well, at least we can still say...

[fishexe]

It's quite a bit better than marginally, but this announcement could not have had a more ironic timing. And the US dropping a few places on the world press freedom list wouldn't look too great either.

Having traveled to China multiple times and read their newspapers I have to say I completely agree with you. Saying we're only "marginally" better was totally inaccurate but a lot more fun.

But let's be honest: the US is still pretty good when it comes to free press. But they're not topping the list.

Fair enough.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Antisyzygy]

Its rather ironic to hold an international "Freedom day" when you are actively trying to find ways to silence and incarcerate journalists.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Wyatt Earp]

A diplomatic case or bag is different than what Manning got ahold of.

If the United States was really trying to keep this crap secret, why were hundreds of thousands of files accessible to a Private First Class assigned to an infantry division stationed in Iraq?

I'm still in favor of transparency for diplomacy.

Look at 1990, right before Iraq attacked Kuwait, Saddam hinted very heavily to the US Ambassador that they were going to attack and they might even keep going into Saudi Arabia and Saddam took an American lack of reaction as a tact "OK". Had that interaction been in the open and a public US government reaction been made, well then hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved and hundreds of billions of dollars would have not been wastes.

Julain Assange is keynote speaker

[digitaldc]

Assange will be broadcasting his speech about the freedom of the press and expression from prison block 14 by a smuggled-in cell phone.

LOL

[Captain Hook]

This is the first Slashdot headline that actually made me laugh out loud,.

Sure sure

[SmallFurryCreature]

And if the government has a reason to have someone locked up, that should be a secret to. After all, if you knew, it might endanger the state. Therefor I declare now that ArcherB is now an enemy of the state, the reason is secret but you can trust me, so kill him at the first opportunity. ArcherB, fully believing that others do not have to explain their actions agrees fully with this. If he does not allow himself to be killed he just proves he is an enemy of the state.

That government needs secrets is a bullshit argument only used by those who wish to life in la-la land. Without full knowledge about the state and its business, how can the voter choose what to vote for? No, the actuall nuclear codes are not at risk, but how can the voter choose wether nukes are handled safe enough if he doesn't know the safety procedures. Which ARE known in quite some detail.

The current cable leaks show how the US officials elected by the voters are TRULY behaving, not what they say in public speeches. So now the voters of the USA can base their next vote on this info instead of lies.

He who says that governments need secrets says the voter has to be lied to.

Only a willing slave, the uncle Tom's of the world say this.

Re:Sure sure

[dgatwood]

No, just as the government is erring too much on the side of paranoia, you're erring too much on the side of transparency. Governments do need some secrets. The names and identities of covert operatives in the field, for example, fall into that category (unless you believe that those folks should not exist, which is a different issue entirely). The names and identities of undercover police officers similarly qualify. These are long term secrets, and to the extent that information is released that potentially identifies those people, such a leak represents real harm to national security.

This is not, however, the norm. The vast majority of information is classified not because it puts anyone at risk, but because the government is unwilling to commit the time, effort, and expense necessary to go through the material and determine what is what, and is unwilling to accept the liability if it releases something that it shouldn't have released.

This is truly a baffling story from a media law perspective. Normally, the free press is fighting to prevent prior restraint over publication by the government. WikiLeaks actually invited prior restraint and the government refused. They were given the opportunity to comment, correct, or redact any information they deemed necessary, and they explicitly rejected that opportunity. That's definitely not typical. When this reaches the Supreme Court (and it probably will before it's over), this will make for a very fascinating case that has tremendous potential for setting interesting precedent.

In my personal view, by refusing to help redact the information, the government tacitly disclaimed any interest in the determination of national security risk, and tacitly agreed to accept the judgement of WikiLeaks. They, in turn, left it to the judgement of the mainstream press, who determined that the information wasn't secret and didn't need to be held back. Now the government is crying because they didn't have the foresight to get off their lazy butts and review the information prior to publication, and it contains information that casts them in a bad light. I would say that's too freaking bad. They should have taken the opportunity to redact the content when it was handed to them on a silver platter. At this point, they should no longer have the right to charge him with anything related to the leak.

Re:Sure sure

[mcvos]

No, just as the government is erring too much on the side of paranoia, you're erring too much on the side of transparency. Governments do need some secrets.

Government needs secrets, yes. But they should only be necessary, logical and therefore defensible secrets. Secrets will come out eventually, and if that would result in serious embarrassment, worsening relations, etc, then maybe you did the wrong thing in the first place. The sneakier and more deceptive you are, the more embarrassing the release of those secrets will be, and the bigger the need for transparency will be.

Be honest, and you'll have nothing to fear. Note that some of the leaked secrets did indeed expose politicians lying to their people. They shouldn't be doing that in the first place. If the occasional leak helps to prevent that, then I'm all for it.

Re:Sure sure

[dgatwood]

I tend to agree, to a large extent. A government by the people cannot function unless the people have at least some reasonable idea of what the government is doing. I would caution, though, that the logical extension of that is the famous line, "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide," which is patently false when applied to an individual except in very narrow circumstances where it intersects with the rights of other people.

Re:Sure sure

[mcvos]

I would caution, though, that the logical extension of that is the famous line, "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide," which is patently false when applied to an individual except in very narrow circumstances where it intersects with the rights of other people.

I agree with you there. Regular people are not accountable for all of their actions to the government, but the government is accountable to the people.

Make it happen!

[dazedNconfuzed]

The purpose of the Prize, supported by the Guillermo Cano Foundation, the Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation and JP/Politiken Newspapers LTD, is to honour a person, organization or institution that has made a notable contribution to the defence and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially if this involved risk.

Well, we know who most fits that description by far.
We'll need Assange's full/proper name, date/place of birth, nationality, address, and suitable brief biography (yes, most of that is known, but for formalities let's make sure proper, not popular, information is used) to fill in this form. I suggest lots of people submit the form, with "Candidate presented by" filled as "populous at large"; should not a large number of individuals all acting as interested-for-the-same-reason parties have their unanimous selection recognized as much as any formal organization, given the nature of the prize?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

I'm not taking sides on the rape thing yet. Let the women have their day in court. They claim they gave consent for sex with a condom, but that he broke or took the condom off, and would not stop when they asked him too. In most places, including the States, if a person gives consent and then withdraws it, there is no longer consent. As far as I know there is no "blue balls" clause letting you finish even if she says no halfway through.

Also, groupies? Really? You really want to go there, smearing the women with a derogatory name like that? Even if you had something to back up your claim that they are, it's just tasteless and crass. And yes, that is exactly the sort of thing that INTERPOL is there for, he is not in Sweden anymore. From what I understand, Sweden has rape laws that are very protective of the victim and categorize certain things as rape that we might not. It is their right as a sovereign nation to set their own laws.

Assange will not be extradited to the US. He will not be charged with a crime in the US, because he never committed a crime here, despite the worst wishes of many in the White House and our spineless media. Even if he were extradited, he would have to finish his trial in Sweden and serve any sentence there first. The Swedish prosecutor claims that it is common for rape cases in Sweden to be dropped and reopened (Cue the conspiracy theorists yelling, "They WOULD say that!")

But as I mentioned, I withhold judgment on this. It is entirely possible that Julian Assange is both a champion of transparency AND a rapist. I'm far more interested in the charges leveled by John Young of Cryptome, that he is a mercenary selling access to unredacted source documents to the highest bidder on the black market.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[nomadic]

I understand why they didn't want to negotiate; it gives him legitimacy. They see him as a smirking, college drop-out paranoid conspiracy theorist party boy who has materials he's not entitled to. They didn't feel like they should be forced to go to him with hat in hand and make requests for materials he's not supposed to have in the first place. It's kind of like if someone steals your car then tells you that if you can convince him to he'll work out a schedule of days where you can drive it too. It would be reasonable to tell the thief to go to hell, even if it results in you never seeing your car again. People in government are people too, with emotions and everything and they will sometimes make decisions based on those emotions.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[WiseWeasel]

I will agree that governments and their people are surely best served by a certain level of secrecy for their diplomats, but that doesn't mean that our government has a mandate to punish people from other countries with no obligation to the US for disseminating those secrets once they've been handed to them. Why should they care what secrets the US government would rather be kept hidden? They don't owe the US government a thing, and the US has no jurisdiction over them. This whole media attack on Wikileaks is simply to divert attention from the State Department's devastating lack of information security. There's no one to blame but ourselves.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[coinreturn]

If you were paying attention, the women DID NOT want to press charges. It was an overzealous prosecutor who forced the issue. Later, a lawyer ($$$$$$$$) convinced the women to press charges. Certainly, it is possible that he is a rapist, but it is surely suspicious considering how mad the USA is at him and their leverage around the world.

Wordpress Freedom Day

[KurtisKiesel]

Was I the only person who thought it said Wordpress?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Anonymous Coward]

But sometimes, there is a legitimate need for secrecy. For example, when a diplomat sends a wire back to Washington saying that he does not believe the diplomat from N. Korea is being entirely truthful concerning the welfare of the N. Korean citizens, that information should not be made public. It could irreparably harm negotiations that could prove beneficial to the peoples of both countries.

I see this claim frequently. The underlying premise, of course, is that negotiation can only be effective if it is based on deception. That we can only come to mutually beneficial agreement if we mutually obscure the desired benefit. With all the discussion going around about adult conversations, the assumption that you can only get what you want by lying seems exceptionally childish.

Not hurting the King of Lilluput's ego by bashing his body odor, or poor management style, on the internet is one thing, but to base diplomatic negotiations on falsehoods undermines even the "Trust but verify" model.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[GooberToo]

Which journalists?

Simply pushing stuff to the web is not the definition of a journalist. By your definition, EVERYONE who has access to pen/pencil and paper, and especially anyone with a blog, is a journalist. Total bullshit.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

If you were paying attention, the women DID NOT want to press charges. It was an overzealous prosecutor who forced the issue. Later, a lawyer ($$$$$$$$) convinced the women to press charges.

Certainly, it is possible that he is a rapist, but it is surely suspicious considering how mad the USA is at him and their leverage around the world.

What sources are you basing this on? Who was the prosecutor, and how did the prosecutor know that these women did not want to report a rape if the rape was never reported? How could a prosecutor force the issue and then a lawyer convince the women to press charges? Which was it? You accuse me of not paying attention, but then present a very muddled set of allegations.

Where?

[frist]

I don't want to hear about your problems, I want to hear your solutions. Would you mind suggesting 5 alternate locations that have greater freedom of the press/speech? Perhaps Iran - they are on the UN Commision for Women's Rights after all.

Re:Where?

[Opportunist]

Finnland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway... oh why bother cribbing, read for yourself.

Re:Where?

[JSBiff]

I'm not sure how much weight I'd give to that Press Freedom Index. As the Wiki page itself says, "Due to the nature of the survey's methodology based on individual perceptions, there are often wide contrasts in a country's ranking from year to year. (Emphasis added)"

I also noticed that in the rankings, The U.S. comes out ahead of such countries as France, Spain, Portugal, Canada, and South Korea.

The U.S. might not be completely perfect, but you know what, our freedom of the press is pretty strong, and I'd much rather be a reporter here in the U.S. than in about 2/3 of the rest of the nations of the world.

For those who immediately thought of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks upon reading the article headline, as I admit I did, I will also point out that it's not the U.S. who has put out a warrant for Assange, it's Sweden (though I'm sure people are convinced Sweden is just acting at the U.S.'s behest), and you know what? You can't entirely rule out the possibility that either A) he really did rape that woman, or B) politics has nothing to do with the case, and it's just an angry ex-lover looking for some revenge and 15 minutes of fame.

Re:Where?

[Opportunist]

Can I rule out that he raped these women? Yes. A woman who just got raped does not go on her twitter page and sing praises to her rapist. Her half-hearted attempts to delete those displays of affection just when she filed for rape charges don't really make her claims more credible either.

Can I rule out that politics has nothing to do with this case? Yes. A half-assed kinda-sorta accusation of rape (or not, or yes, or maybe, withdrawn, reestablished...) leads within hours of him leaving the country (after time and again offering to respond to accusations, which were withdrawn JUST until he went abroad) to an international search warrant. This is maybe the fastest international arrest warrant for a half-assed rape accusation without anything that could remotely be considered at least a clue (I don't even want to go as far and demand anything like proof).

There have been a few international incidents that COULD have been coincidence and not due to interference of the US that were allegedly, let's say, "inspired" by the US. But few have been THIS blatant.

Re:Where?

[MadMaverick9]

If the Netherlands had true free speech and free press, Geert Wilders wouldn't have to appear in court for simply telling the truth.
http://state-ethics.blogspot.com/2009/03/censoring-foreign-hosted-websites.html
http://www.stefankulk.nl/index.php/79/dutch-minister-of-justice-wants-to-keep-internet-filter-blacklist-a-secret/

It seems irrelevant where the site is hosted, since they are blocked at DNS level.

Re:wikileaks != press

[IICV]

If Fox News or CNN or the New York Times got a hold of a bunch of newsworthy diplomatic cables between Pakistan and Iran do you really think they'd keep them under wraps because the Pakistan and/or Iran government consider them secret? Of course not.

Actually, I bet you they would. I mean think about it: what is wikileaks? most people didn't even know about it until recently.

Now imagine that you've just walked away with gigabytes of diplomatic cables. What do you do, if you want to make them publically available? Do you offer them to some relatively unknown upstart without much of a history, or to a well known and respected news organization?

Honestly, I don't think it makes much sense to assume that Wikileaks is the only (or even the first) organization that has or was offered this data. They're probably just the first to have the balls to publish it.

US to host, (laughing hysterically) WHAT!

[Paracelcus]

Next year it'll be held in North Korea!

Re:wikileaks != press

[Opportunist]

I don't know any government that has told the media that they can publish whatever government secrets they want.

I don't know a country with a free press deserving that name where the government tells the media what they can publish. One of the key marks of a free press is exactly the absence of government influence.

Re:wikileaks != press

[spurioustruth]

Actually the New York Times did get a hold of some documents back during the Vietnam War. It ended up in the US Supreme Court (look up "Pentagon Papers").
Secrecy is necessary. There is no question of that. But then KEEP IT SECRET! After 9/11 when the government got slapped for not sharing intel, they responded by letting everybody and their uncle read this stuff. That's not the way to keep secrets.
Trying to wrap your head around what intel needs to be kept and who really needs to be able to see it is a huge task. One that has not been handled well.
For some other disucssions around this topic check out the Secrecy Blog ( http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ ).

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[PRMan]

Their tweets where they were bragging about doing it with a celebrity afterward?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[lga]

What's with the sudden rush of Slashdotters linking to the Daily Mail? Please don't even give them the traffic, never mind give credence to what they say!

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[GooberToo]

My understanding is that most of these are secret or classified. As security clearances go, those are pretty low and seem to appropriately reflect the need.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[IamTheRealMike]

What makes you think they'll have a day in court? No prosecutor in their right mind would take this to trial because it boils down to her word against his. She says "he pinned me down", he denies it = no case.

That's why everyone is up in arms about this. The case is incredibly, unbelievably flimsy. It's so incredibly stupid that the weaknesses of the case are the strongest evidence it's not actually a political event. Even if you accept that the things he's accused of are crimes, the chances of proving them beyond reasonable doubt are zero. It's a waste of the courts time.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[kevinNCSU]

A diplomatic case or bag is different than what Manning got ahold of.

Really, a diplomatic case carrying documents containing communications between ambassadors and their bosses not meant to be read by others is different than secure diplomatic cables of documents containing communication between ambassadors and their bosses not being meant to be read by others? How do you think this stuff was transferred before faster secure communications became available?

If the United States was really trying to keep this crap secret, why were hundreds of thousands of files accessible to a Private First Class assigned to an infantry division stationed in Iraq?

This argument is entirely off topic from the issue at hand which is whether all diplomatic communications SHOULD be transparent or not. It's like saying if you think getting robbed is wrong why did you trust the cleaning service that went through an extensive background check and swore an oath? Besides which, no one knows for sure if the diplomatic cable leak was related to Manning anyways.

Look at 1990, right before Iraq attacked Kuwait, Saddam hinted very heavily to the US Ambassador that they were going to attack and they might even keep going into Saudi Arabia and Saddam took an American lack of reaction as a tact "OK". Had that interaction been in the open and a public US government reaction been made, well then hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved and hundreds of billions of dollars would have not been wastes.

If true, this was a mistake by the ambassador not to pick up on it and react accordingly. In the world you imagine though, Saddam would know that regardless of our reaction any hint of war plans would be given to the public at large and therefore Kuwait and Saudi Arabia who would prepare defenses or possibly strike first. In such a case he'd be less likely to even mention it to our ambassador and we would have lost the chance to avert the war at all.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Antisyzygy]

A journalist collects and disseminates information about current events, people, trends, and issues. So you are not a journalist if you blog about your personal life or write a diary, but you are if you disseminate information on issues to the public through a webpage, magazines or newspaper.

Re:Nominate Assange to the World Press Freedom Pri

[Opportunist]

Imagine he doesn't.

Then have China ask how this is better than them not letting that Nobel Peace Prize winner out to accept it.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[ISoldat53]

Actually, I think it will be HIS day in court.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

If this had happened in America, you might have a point. But this happened in Sweden, which recently enacted some fairly strict and harsh anti-rape laws. Commentators quipped that when the laws passed, men would need to get specific consent in writing before having sex. Mr. Assange is not being treated any differently than anyone else in Sweden.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Where? You could link to the tweets, if they exist. From what I understand, the second woman did behave a bit like a groupie, but the first woman did not.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Mathinker]

> but then present a very muddled set of allegations

I think this is because the reality of the situation is being intentionally muddled, making it very hard to understand what is going on. Other reports say that Assange was brought before a judge in court, and the judge more or less threw out the case on the spot. Assange then asked for permission to leave the country and was granted it.

The perfect irony would be for the case to end up with a decision that he's guilty with extenuating circumstances, and the punishment is a term of public service --- and then the judge also rules that running Wikileaks qualifies as public service.

That would show all of the conspiracy theorists! (Well, not really of course, nothing can disprove a good conspiracy theory.)

Remaining problem: 'journalists'

[s-whs]

At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.

Actually, I'm not. The worst thing that is happening and has been happening for at least the last 20 years (probably much longer, but I haven't checked) is the non critical attitude of the media, in particular incompetent journalists who publish manipulative stories using the manipulative press releases from antisocial nutters and corporations (with their sociopath-type leaders and boards also consisting of such people). Actually, many of these press releases are just printed nearly verbatim which is at least as bad.

Any jourmalist and newspaper who publish a near verbatim press release from a corporation is helping that corporation doing their propaganda (ditto for politicians of course); all press releases should be analysed before being published and that analysis should accompany the press release. Analysed in an as neutral manner as possible, but it should *always* be critical.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[dgatwood]

No, it's not silly at all. The natural endgame of any system of government is absolute tyranny. The only things standing between this country and tyranny are the constitution and the citizens' willingness to rebel. If the government had its way, it would keep everything it does secret. That's why freedom-loving members of government had to force through sunshine laws, FOIA, E-FOIA, and so on. Without such laws, the public would be kept in the dark on nearly everything. That's just the way government works. In particular, the military, were it possible to do so, would allow no information disclosure whatsoever. The same goes for law enforcement, which is why we have public records laws that mandate journalist access to police blotters. Indeed, it is the very nature of any group in a position of power to conceal information to the maximum degree possible. Some might even call it basic human nature.

Such total secrecy, however, is contrary to the proper functioning of a free society, and as such, a government mandate to keep everything secret must be looked upon with suspicion and disdain. Anything less is a complete abrogation of the public's right to know what the government is doing, a complete abrogation of the right to a free press, and thus a complete abrogation of basic democratic principles. Such obscenity has no place in a free society.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[sumdumass]

We don't agree often so I think I should say "good job on putting this into a thoughtful and rational perspective".

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[MoonBuggy]

But as I mentioned, I withhold judgment on this. It is entirely possible that Julian Assange is both a champion of transparency AND a rapist.

Entirely agreed.

The Swedish prosecutor claims that it is common for rape cases in Sweden to be dropped and reopened (Cue the conspiracy theorists yelling, "They WOULD say that!")

Some hard data would be good, here - it definitely seems like there are oddities about how this case was handled, but since the vast majority of cases don't get anything like this intense scrutiny we don't know if they are, in fact, perfectly normal legal or bureaucratic quirks. I wonder what percentage of Swedish rape cases are dropped and re-opened, or how many international warrants are rejected by the UK and resubmitted, for instance.

I'm far more interested in the charges leveled by John Young of Cryptome, that he is a mercenary selling access to unredacted source documents to the highest bidder on the black market.

Interesting accusation, and it's the first I've heard of it. Any chance of a link?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[AshtangiMan]

If for a moment I decide that I agree with your premise (governments need secrets, along the lines of that which you gave the example) then I think there is another important premise which must accompany it, and that is governments that keep those secrets must also be diligent to ensure that those are the only secrets kept, so that the workings of the government are kept transparent. Of course that does not apply in this case, and the US government has not come close to that for a long time. In my mind this means there is no credibility and they have lost the trust that enables them to keep the first kind of secret.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[sumdumass]

Did this happen or are you guessing?

I'm asking because you answered in the form of a question and I don't know if you were suggesting it might have happened or it might be because that happened. I was never any good at Jeopardy anyways.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[sammyF70]

actually, he seems to be right if you believe Bild Zeitung (which is at the best of times slightly hazardous, as it's not exactly the most serious newspaper in Germany)

From the article, one of the women didn't want to press charges, and the second only went to the police because Assange was being a asshole (he didn't want to be tested for STDs after having have unprotected sex with both women) but both were apparently pressurized by their lawyer, Claes Borgström, into pressing charges for rape. Still from the Article, Borgström seems to be a complete dickhead, part-time media whore, part time feminist extremist (I don't have anything about emancipation, I actually support it wherever I can, but the dude tried apparently to push a "default culpability for men" law ... -.- )

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[c0lo]

That would show all of the conspiracy theorists! (Well, not really of course, nothing can disprove a good conspiracy theory.)

True scotsman argument? ;)

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[AshtangiMan]

I see how silly it is for the US government to brazenly act in an irresponsible manner an expect that by stamping things secret they will never be caught.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Thank you. It never ceases to amaze me how black and white most people's thinking is: "Julian is either a hero, or he isn't. There is no way he can be a hero in one respect, and a villain in another." Which is odd, because if we look at ourselves honestly, I think we'd have to agree we all have a bit of hero and a bit of villain in us.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[dgatwood]

Where have I heard that logic before? Oh, yeah. Those ridiculous MPAA commercials that say "You wouldn't steal a DVD. You wouldn't steal a car." Repeat after me: stealing a copy of information is not the same thing as stealing property.

No, a better analogy is that they saw your car parked, broke into the trunk, and discovered the three bodies you had hidden there. They contact you and ask which of those murders you don't want them to report to the police. Sure, you might tell them where to go, but you are hardly on the moral high ground. And that's the point.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Anonymous Coward]

Commentators quipped that when the laws passed, men would need to get specific consent in writing before having sex.

Yep. Thankfully my consent forms have a subtext:

"By signing this, you, the whorish cunt, agree to be penetrated in your vaginal orifice by my penis. Should you wish to withdraw consent at any time, you must fill out the 'Vaginal Orifice Penetration Consent Withdrawal' forms, in triplicate, then wait the standard 4-6 weeks for processing."

Here is a link to John Young's allegations

[spun]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/07/cryptome_on_wikileaks/

He claims he was asked to head wikileaks, but turned them down when he heard their fund-raising plans included pimping out the information to the highest bidder.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[dgatwood]

And even if they were actual secrets, the government was given the opportunity to defend the secrecy of that information by participating in the redaction process. They chose not to do so.

If you don't appear in court, the court typically grants summary judgment for the other party. I see no reason our government should not be held to the same standards.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[miffo.swe]

Thanks, coffee all over my screen!

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[jpmorgan]

Uh, no. Nothing of the sort. The US Ambassador told the Iraqis that the US would not stand for an invasion. The Iraqis tool his cool and unruffled demeanor to mean that it was just a bluff. They were wrong.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Somewhat Delirious]

"Obama does nothing and gets a Nobel Peace Prize."

Now, now, that's not entirely fair. He did something: http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/12/08/1827206/President-Obama-On-Mythbusters-Tonight

theoretical vs practical points: why USA lower?

[fantomas]

I think the poster highlighting USA as no.20 and other countries as higher was noting that in practical terms, rather than theoretical-legal terms, other countries have greater press freedoms (according to one organisation).

Why do you think that the USA, given it has apparently better legal grounding for greater press freedom, comes out with a worse record?

Re:theoretical vs practical points: why USA lower?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Why do you think that the USA, given it has apparently better legal grounding for greater press freedom, comes out with a worse record?

For one thing no legal system is perfect or instantaneous. The gov can get away with pulling illegal shit for years until a good enough case makes its way through the courts and appeals up to the scotus. In many cases the gov can just quit whatever they've been doing and the case goes away before the judicial system is able to establish a clear bright line restricting the gov, only to start in with a subtle variation and start the process all over again.

Re:theoretical vs practical points: why USA lower?

[mcvos]

That's the problem. In the US, only the law stands up for freedom, and the legal process for it is long and cumbersome. In Netherland, the people themselves stand up for freedom. The government doesn't get away with pulling shit. We don't shy away from breaking the law when justice demands it. In fact, several of our major national newspapers started during WW2 as illegal resistance newspapers. One of the most influential Dutch ISPs was started by hackers, and still fights for internet freedom.

Despite our small size, we already have dozens of Wikileaks mirrors, several of them hosted by public broadcasting corporations. How many does your country have? And how many are hosted by semi-government organisations?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Danse]

You're blaming INTERPOL? Really? Swedish police issued an arrest warrant, and forwarded it on to INTERPOL. Should INTERPOL ignore warrants they don't like? Or I guess what you're really saying is INTERPOL should ignore warrants you don't like.

Really? That's what you got from reading that comment? That he was blaming INTERPOL? I don't see anything in there blaming INTERPOL at all, but only the politics that lead to a warrant like that being sent to INTERPOL in the first place.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[coinreturn]

My allegations are NOT muddled. They are spelled out in much detail. My sources are a story on NPR and as another reply indicates, is sourced from a German paper (see his link). As to how a prosecutor can force the issue without the women pressing charges, IANAL, but that's the story according to the press. Before jumping all over me, google it, dipwad.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[h4rm0ny]

Absolutely! Interpol are just following orders.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[moortak]

What definition of journalist are you using that would cover other journalists, but not Wikileaks? They gather information, editorialize in their summaries, and disseminate that information.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Requia]

Which part was the US not supposed to know?

That military contractors (DynCorp specifically) in Afghanistan were involved with child prostitution, and that the state department helped cover it up?

That we were threatening to go to war with Iran out of pressure from oil rich countries?

Oh I know, we weren't supposed to know that the British inquiry into the Iraq war was ordered to protect US interests.

Yeah, other things that damage the US were released too, but to quote a judge "For when everything is classified, then nothing is classified, and the system becomes one to be disregarded by the cynical or the careless, and to be manipulated by those intent on self-protection or self-promotion."

sham

[akume325]

Press freedom day? What a sham. The US lost freedom of the press when corporations took over the news papers.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Requia]

A little over half were unclassified actually.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[shadowfaxcrx]

"As far as I know there is no "blue balls" clause letting you finish even if she says no halfway through."

You're right, but unless there are witnesses, it's her word against his, and considering she already recanted her testimony once, and threw a party for him the next day, I'd say this wasn't exactly a case of traumatic rape. If he's found guilty on this, it's going to get to the point where you record all your sexual escapades not for sexual thrills, but for liability protection. Otherwise, any time you have sex, you face a rape charge if the girl later decides she wants revenge for something and accuses you of not stopping when she claims she told you to.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[S.O.B.]

I think we'd have to agree we all have a bit of hero and a bit of villain in us.

And apparently when visiting Sweden it's best to keep your villain in your pants.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Sir_Dinky]

Now I know that you may say that if a government doesn't want an action to be made public then they shouldn't do it.

The government says this about it's population all the time; it's a little childish to shy away from holding them to the same standard. Maybe wikileaks should redact some information, like the exact route of care packages, if they don't already, but it's much better for the public to have a clear conscience about the mission objective.

Wikileaks doesn't concern itself with the difference.

And the average person doesn't concern themselves with the truth, or even caring about what happens in their name.

Nobel Physics Prize

[Roger W Moore]

Now, now, that's not entirely fair. He did something

Come on, not even the Norwegian government would award the Nobel peace prize for building an Archimedian death ray. This is his bid for the Nobel prize for physics or possibly the Ignoble prize for physics...maybe even both.

Re:Nobel Physics Prize

[Somewhat Delirious]

Well there might be some sense in awarding a person in possesion of a death ray a peace prize. Actually the reasoning behind that would not be all that different from the reasoning that went into giving him the Peace Prize in the first place...

Re:Nobel Physics Prize

[ulski]

The Norwegian goverment does not decide who is to receive the peace price. It is decided by the 5 members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The Norwegian Nobel Committee members are mostly former politicians and the people in the committee are selected by the goverment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Nobel_Committee

Re:Nobel Physics Prize

[Roger W Moore]

...and if you read the article you link to you'll see the line:

"Its five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament"

Hence the Norwegian government does decide, albeit indirectly, who gets the prize.

Re:Nobel Physics Prize

[ulski]

I thought I mentioned that in my post? they are elected for 6years - the goverment may change within that period

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

That was pretty much the general critique of Sweden's new anti-rape laws, yes.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Hurga]

More info about the accusations: http://radsoft.net/news/20101001,01.shtml

Doesn't look like the case has any merit unless Sweden has so batshit insane laws that no one should be extradited there.

Irony?

[Call Me Black Cloud]

This is irony...try to read any of the publications on the WPFC site: http://www.wpfc.org/index.php?q=publication_list

None of the links work, and "request by mail" gives "access denied."

"We have the freedom to distribute reports about freedom...but we don't". Maybe it's not irony, but it's amusing.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

In most places, including the States, if a person gives consent and then withdraws it, there is no longer consent. As far as I know there is no "blue balls" clause letting you finish even if she says no halfway through.

Lots of states in fact. Like North Carolina and Maryland. I'm not saying that such laws are morally right, but I do personally think that the level of protest required during coitus needs to be significantly higher than, "no means no" because the participants can't be expected to be fully in control of their faculties. Everything I've read about the two incidents indicates that neither women claim to have made any physical attempt to stop the act. Plus Assange is completely deaf in one ear and ~50% deaf in the other.

I'm far more interested in the charges leveled by John Young of Cryptome, that he is a mercenary selling access to unredacted source documents to the highest bidder on the black market.

Interesting but it sounds like an exaggeration, apparently this is what Young said:
"Well, it only came up in the topic of raising $5 million the first year.
That was the first red flag that I heard about. I thought that they were
actually a public interest group up until then, but as soon as I heard that,
I know that they were a criminal organisation."

To me, that sounds like wikileaks people were brainstorming at its inception and Young has extrapolated the worst possible result from it. Remember at the start wikileaks wasn't redacting anything - they even published their own list of donors. So the implication that they would publicly release redacted documents but privately sell them doesn't fit the circumstances.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[mcgrew]

Well, compared to the many somethings the previous President accomplished, a President doing nothing DESERVES a peace prize!

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Sweden has batshit insane anti-rape laws, yes.

Re:wikileaks != press

[Belial6]

I would guess that you would offer them to some relatively unknown upstart without MUCH of a history over the well known and respected news organization that you believed (correctly or not) would simply refuse to publish the documents, but might sell your identity to the authorities for an exclusive interview.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[dgatwood]

One would have thought detecting unusual access patterns to classified information would be the first thing you implement.

That would be the case if the information were actually classified by any real definition of the word. Typing the word "CLASSIFIED" on a message sent simultaneously to several million people does not make it so.

hosted in qatar last year

[ChoGGi]

so the U.S. hosting it next year sounds about right to me :)

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[hosecoat]

He's already in custody; he turned himself in in the UK.

I guess that's what happens when you get INTERPOL set upon you for the crime of having consensual sex with groupies without a condom. Groupies who remained supportive after their sexual trysts until they found out that he was sleeping around. Because that's the sort of stuff INTERPOL is there for, right? Certainly politics didn't play a role in THAT warrant...

consensual rape is a serious crime, even if the charges are dropped and then reinstated at a later time.

Wait, I guess "Less Serious Rape" isn't a serious crime.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Yes, that was the article I read. I'm glad you link to it, so hat people can read it and see that Young's accusations are a bit more than what you make them out to be. Also from the article:

In a posting to the nettime mailing list, Young added:

"The free stuff is meant [to] lure volunteers and promote high-profile public service, lipsticked with risk, with the enterprise funded by selling costly material sold on the black market of worldwide spying in the tradition of public benefit ops, ID, spies and ever more spies. No better customers for illicit information that [sic] those with depthless pockets.

"Soros and the Kochs have their lesser-known Internet promoters backing Wikileaks generously. And they expect good return on their investment, not just the freebies used to attract attention."

Writing last month, Young shared his disgust at Wikileaks' similar tactics to advertising-supported or state-supported media - which Young claims cannot be trusted by definition.

"Wikileaks lies as much as the media, indeed, exactly in the advertising format of the media. Its consumers like it for that very reason. It rides the wave of imaginary disgust with MSM and governments, but it has not modified the formula of braggardy and drama essential to capture eyeballs and through eyeballs, minds and hearts."

I'm exaggerating, am I?

Heh

[X.25]

Land of the brave, home of the free, as long as you think, same as me.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Somewhat Delirious]

"People in government are people too, with emotions and everything and they will sometimes make decisions based on those emotions."

Yes, decisions like lying systematically to the electorate, condoning torture, war crimes and illegal renditions, decisions like starting illegal wars, shooting people who have surrendered in cold blood, decisions luike intentionally misleading countries that trust you into assisting in your wars by providing them with false intelligence, pressuring countries into surpressing war crimes investigations, torturing prisoners, turning a blind eye to systematic and massive torture by your allies, supporting totalitarian regimes and power factions around the world, calling for people that have not been convicted of anything to be assasinated... should I continue?

The information that the leaks so far have confirmed or revealed give Wikileaks all the legitimacy it's ever needed, Anyone who has missed that point has an irreparably skewed world view.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[bug1]

Spun, you claim you havent made your mind up, and to have read the stories...

Your posts in this forum indicate otherwise, do some research and stop being a troll.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Anonymous Coward]

> Also, groupies? Really? You really want to go there, smearing the women with a derogatory name like that?

Well, it's not like anyone seems to mind calling the guy a rapist, you know.

Also, there were some tweets from them that could basically describe them as groupies, yes, where they said that they were so happy to meet this guy (and made no mention of regret for the night before). Tweets they deleted right around when the charges were filed.... I don't really see it as a "smear" though. What else do you call someone who chooses to have sex with a guy because he's famous? And their tweets proved that they were attracted by his fame.

Finally, the "black market" thing... well, as far as I know, he only sold access to the New York Times and several European papers. Hardly "black market" stuff.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Simply pushing stuff to the web is not the definition of a journalist. By your definition, EVERYONE who has access to pen/pencil and paper, and especially anyone with a blog, is a journalist. Total bullshit.

It used to be that simply owning and operating a printing press was enough to qualify as a member of the press.
All that's changed now is that you don't need to be rich to be a member of the press.
Seems like a fantastic improvement to me.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Somewhat Delirious]

I think your example is inaccurate:

A better analogy: A cop goes into the evidence locker in the police precinct, finds thousands upon thousands of dead civilian bodies riddled with police issue ammo and a group of colleagues torturing people, calls Wikileaks and says "I work for the police but this is not what I signed up for! I want the public to know about it!"

Good Show

[justinlee37]

That is by far the most insightful statement regarding the Wikileaks fiasco that I have read so far.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[MobyDisk]

I heard the same story on the radio yesterday and it is the papers. Check out the Google search. Here's some articles on it:

Here's The Guardian's article on it, from today. Here's another from The Independent

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[sammyF70]

indeed, and yet they are theoritically bound by law not to write lies (something not true for Wikipedia btw.), so, up to a point, their allegations should (hopefully) have some kind of veracity. I wouldn't trust Bild further than I can spit, but then, which newspaper can you trust anyway?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Grishnakh]

Look dumbass, if he "raped" them, why did they go out to breakfast with him the day after they had sex, and only bring up rape charges when he failed to put rings on their fingers?

One of the girls even wrote a blog post about how to get revenge on ex-lovers by filing false rape charges against them. She's mad because he slept with another girl instead of being her boyfriend.

Yes, "groupie" is exactly the right word for these stupid twats.

As for extradition to the US, what makes you think he won't be charged with a crime? It doesn't matter if he didn't commit a crime here, or if he even committed one at all. According to the US government, US law applies everywhere. One Congressperson even proposed making a new, retroactive law to charge him with if they couldn't find one on the books. There's absolutely nothing to stop the US from making up a "law" and charging him with it, and then executing him for "treason". The USA is just as corrupt as Mexico, and rule of law means nothing here.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Grishnakh]

Read the news. The prosecutor in the district where the "rape" happened declined to bring charges, because it was obvious these were just angry groupies trying to use the legal system to get revenge.

The new charges are being brought by a different prosecutor, in a totally different district that has absolutely nothing to do with the crime (it's in another part of the country), who acted after being told to by a Swedish politician who probably wants to cozy up to the US.

If I allegedly rape a woman in California, why would a prosecutor in Massachusetts try to bring a case against me after the DA in California declined to? That's exactly what happened here. The whole thing is a political ploy.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[john82]

Odd, I thought if she says it's non-consensual it doesn't matter what you think. It's non-consensual.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Grishnakh]

It's worse than that. For the first girl, after he allegedly raped her, she took him out to breakfast the next day and continued to see him for several days later, until he hooked up with the second groupie. What kind of girl takes a rapist out to breakfast the next morning?

It IS a political event though: some Swedish politician convinced a prosecutor in a district far away from where the alleged crime occurred to bring the charges. I don't know if the US is behind it; it could just be the Swedish politician trying to make a name for himself, or cozy up to the US, or whatever.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I didn't mean that you were exaggerating, I meant the Young's own words suggested that he was exaggerating.

His continuation about Soros and Koch sounded like pure conspiracy theory speculation based on his extrapolation of that original discussion.

The rest of what you quoted sounded like the same old complaints people have been making about wikileaks hyping the leaks. The thing is that over a year ago Assange explicitly said in an interview that just dumping a zip file of all leaks wasn't effective at drawing attention to the issues disclosed. Presumably all the hype in concert with early disclosure to big newspapers this year is the response to that problem.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Why am I a dumbass for raising questions? Sweden's laws are pretty harsh in regards to rape allegations, I'm not saying the laws are fair, I'm saying that he is not being treated any differently than anyone else in Sweden.

Links to her blog post? You seem to be repeating the information given out by Assange's lawyers.

You misunderstand my point about extradition. He broke no US laws. In fact, his actions are specifically protected by US laws. And the constitution says you can't make up laws and charge people after the fact. We still have some semblance of rule of law here.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[makomk]

Unfortunately, the new European arrest warrants mean that it doesn't matter how batshit insane their laws are or aren't...

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Where in those articles does it say the women blogged about doing it with a celebrity?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

No one is calling the guy a rapist. They are saying he has been accused of what is, under Swedish laws, technically rape or sexual harassment of some sort.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

That is not what I have read. Maybe you could point to a news source backing up your claims?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

No, I am not denying the possibility that Assange might be innocent. Please point out where you think I am doing that. I am saying, he might be innocent, he might not, and that is why there must be a trial.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Oh, well, yeah. John totally sounds like he is exaggerating. And I believe Assange has laid out some very good philosophical and practical reasons for hyping the leaks.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Grishnakh]

It doesn't matter. Journalists (or anyone else for that matter who doesn't have a US government-granted security clearance) doesn't need to be concerned with secrecy. If they get their hands on something (as long as they didn't commit the crime themselves), they're allowed to do what they want with it.

For instance, suppose some military officer has some Top Secret documents in his briefcase, but he's an idiot and doesn't zip it closed, and while in public some documents fall out into the street. Some person picks them up, sees what they are, and sends them to a journalist. The journalist publishes them. There was a crime committed here, but it was only by one person: the military officer, for screwing up. No one else committed a crime. The person entrusted with secrecy is the only one who is responsible if the secret gets out. The officer will be court-martialed, possibly jailed, and certainly lose his clearance and position, and that's it. The journalist probably won't ever be granted a clearance, but it's unlikely a journalist is going to make a career change like that anyway.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[bug1]

No, my posts do not indicate that I have made up my mind, or that I have not read any stories. Please, if you think my posts do indicate those things, point out where. You can't, because you are imagining things.

You stated above "I have read the stories. Yet again you accuse me of being uninformed, and call me a dipwad."

I also accuse you of being a troll.

Re:wikileaks != press

[vux984]

most people didn't even know about it until recently.

Meh, submitting to wikileaks is simply about getting it out there, not about wikileaks profile. The rest of the worlds media organizations knew about wikileaks, and would pick up the ball if Wikileaks put the information out there.

Now imagine that you've just walked away with gigabytes of diplomatic cables. What do you do, if you want to make them publically available? Do you offer them to some relatively unknown upstart without much of a history, or to a well known and respected news organization?

I honestly wouldn't know where to begin to leak something like that to CNN. WikiLeaks tells you you how.

Honestly, I don't think it makes much sense to assume that Wikileaks is the only (or even the first) organization that has or was offered this data. They're probably just the first to have the balls to publish it.

I disagree.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[index0]

So in your example given, if the secrets are not leaked: the citizens of N. Korea know this secret, the diplomats and officials of N. Korea know this secret, and the usa diplomat and officials know this secret. The only ones left out are the american citizens.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[dryeo]

The way I understand it is the woman went to the police to find out if there was any way to force Assange to take a STD test. This is how the prosecutor found out. Possibly in Sweden charges at this point are automatic or maybe at the prosecutors discretion whether the woman wants to or not. This is how it works in my country depending on the degree of the assault.
Really for this kind of offence rape is the wrong word with all its connotations of violent force. Unluckily English doesn't really have a better term though in my country there is just different degrees of sexual assault.

Interpol efficiency

[alexandre_ganso]

Interistingly, Interpol has this guy on their page for two years: Paulo Maluf.

On his twitter : twitter.com/paulosalimmaluf he not only talks about his whereabouts, but also gives a contact phone number!

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Locke2005]

It's not what he did, it's what he didn't do. Obama got a Nobel for _not_ being G.W. Bush.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Yes, I have read quite a few stories. You claimed that my posts indicated I hadn't read any stories, and that I had made up my mind. Show me where you see that, or shut up and stop making stupid accusations.

Spun, you claim you havent made your mind up, and to have read the stories...

Your posts in this forum indicate otherwise, do some research and stop being a troll.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[bug1]

You act like you havent read any of the stories because you are asking so many stupid questions that everyone knows the answers to, yet you are saying you've read up on it.

You say you havent made up your mind, but you question every defense of Assange, you dodnt even allow him the innocent until proven guilty right (he must go to trial because he might be guilty).

Clear you have made up your mind.

Youve made over 20 posts on the issue, its ok if people disagree with you, let it be.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Grishnakh]

Why am I a dumbass for raising questions? Sweden's laws are pretty harsh in regards to rape allegations

You're a dumbass for basically being a troll, when all this stuff is already reported on in articles everywhere.

I'm saying that he is not being treated any differently than anyone else in Sweden.

Yes, he is. As bad as their laws are, their own prosecutor declined to bring charges, because they were obviously baseless. It's another prosecutor, in a different district (than where the alleged crime occurred), who is bringing the charges. That's why the whole thing is obviously crap. As I said before, if I supposedly commit a crime in California, a Massachussets Attorney General isn't going to bring charges against me.

You misunderstand my point about extradition. He broke no US laws. In fact, his actions are specifically protected by US laws. And the constitution says you can't make up laws and charge people after the fact. We still have some semblance of rule of law here.

Tell that to all the people who spent years in Guantanamo.

If something is big enough, the USG will happily ignore rule of law. Heck, the USG (namely the CIA) has even engaged in acts of outright terrorism to accomplish its objectives. A few decades ago, they detonated a car bomb outside a mosque somewhere in the middle east, killing dozens of innocents. How is that "rule of law", or even any different from what our Islamist enemies engage in?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Grishnakh]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336291/Wikileaks-Julian-Assanges-2-night-stands-spark-worldwide-hunt.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[ladoga]

Links to her blog post? You seem to be repeating the information given out by Assange's lawyers.

http://annaardin.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/sjustegsmodell-for-laglig-hamnd/

20 years ago this might have made sense

[gstrickler]

Today, it makes about as much sense as North Korea hosting a conference on human rights. And, yes, I live in the Unfree States of America

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

No, I am asking people to provide proof to their allegations, and "Everyone knows" is not proof.

I've made a lot of posts because people like you keep fundamentally missing my point.

I don't know one way or the other whether Assange is guilty, and neither do you. That is why, under the rule of law, we have trials.

Why do you think I have made up my mind about Assange's guilt? Where do I state that I think he is guilty? All I am stating is that I believe a trial is called for to determine guilt. I've been pretty clear about that.

Finally, why do you think I am trolling, rather than stating an actual (if surprisingly controversial) belief?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Rei]

So, please describe to me how her showing up to specifically hit on him all day until he finally starts responding, then inviting him over and, condom or not, being so comfortable with him afterwards that she took him out for breakfast the next day and bought him is ticket -- sounds like rape to you. Was it the part where she only went to the police after learning that he had been sleeping around? Or the part where the only reason she went to the police was to force him to get an STD test?

And this is from *her* affidavit; we haven't even heard his side yet.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Rei]

There's no such thing as "consensual rape". That's a contradiction in terms. If it's consensual, it's not rape.

Nobel Peace Prize

[formfeed]

Obama does nothing and gets a Nobel Peace Prize Assange champions truth and gets an arrest warrant.

Not to worry, this time next year the US will call for a boycott of the Nobel Peace Prize, because it "goes to a convicted criminal" </cynicism>

Re:Nobel Peace Prize

[pablodiazgutierrez]

Doubtful, with Sweden being knee-deep in the folly against Assange.

Re:Nobel Peace Prize

[the_arrow]

The peace price is decided by Norway (whose capital Oslo, as a side note, is the worlds most expensive city to live in.)

Re:Nobel Peace Prize

[tehcyder]

The peace price is decided by Norway (whose capital Oslo, as a side note, is the worlds most expensive city to live in.)

So if your country is a war-mongering one, it will bring down the cost of living?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

I'm not being a troll by asking for people who raise allegations to back up those allegations with documentation. "It's common knowledge!" is not proof.

Getting Assange declared an enemy combatant would be very, very difficult. It would make a whole lot of people question the government, and would be completely counterproductive to US interests.

I will be so bold as to make a prediction that Assange will never be charged with a crime in the US. Feel free to point and laugh at me if I am proved wrong.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Do you not even read the stories you post as 'evidence?!?' That story DISPROVES your point. Allow me to quote the part that states the FIRST prosecutor decided to press charges:

The female interviewing officer, presumably because of allegations of a sabotaged condom in one case and a refusal to wear one in the second, concluded that both women were victims: that Jessica had been raped, and Sarah subject to sexual molestation.

It was Friday evening. A duty prosecuting attorney, Maria Kjellstrand, was called.

She agreed that Assange should be sought on suspicion of rape.

The following day, Sarah was questioned again, cementing the allegation of sexual misconduct against Assange. That evening, detectives tried to find him and searched Stockholm’s entertainment district — but to no avail.

I hope you have the good grace to admit you are wrong here, but I'm not holding my breath.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

I don't read Swedish, so I ran that through Google translate. Here is what it says:

Sjustegsmodell for legal revenge

January 19, 2010
a girl is about a guy who does not hold back on but that is another girl in his hand behind his back to the first, on a sofa

One reason for revenge

I've been thinking about some revenge over the last few days and came across a page which loosely translated is composed of the seven-point revenge instruction.

Step 1
Consider very carefully if you really must get revenge. It is almost always better to forgive than to revenge.

Step 2
Think about why you should take revenge. You do not just be clear about who to take revenge on, but also why. Revenge should never be directed against only one person, but also meet a certain action.

Step 3
The principle of proportionality. Remember that revenge will not only match the deed in size but also in nature. A good revenge is linked to what has been done against you. For example if you want revenge on someone who cheated or who dumped you, so should the punishment be something with the dating / sex / fidelity to do.

Step 4
Do a brainstorm on appropriate measures for the element of revenge you're after. To continue the example above, you can paja your victim's current relationship, fix so that his new partner is cheating or ensure that he gets a madman behind. Use your imagination!

Step 5
Figure out how you can get revenge systematically. Perhaps a series of letters and photographs that may be new to believe that you have seen more than just a big lie on a single occasion?

Step 6
Rank your systematic revenge schemes from low to high in terms of likely success of implementation, required input from you, and degree of satisfaction when you succeed. The ideal revenge is of course as high as possible in these bars, but can often be a greater effort of labor and capital provide safer output for the other two, much more important parameters.

Step 7
Get to work. And remember that your goal is, while you are operating, ensure that your victim may suffer the same way he made you suffer.

I think the important point here is that this appears to have been written in January. The affair with Assange did not happen until August. So this writing has nothing to do with Assange, directly, although it does appear to paint a picture of a woman all to happy to use the legal system to exact revenge against a guy who is sleeping with another woman.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Rei]

I've known many people who've been raped. *Actual* rape, not "Now that we're done, let me take you out for breakfast and not decide anything's wrong until I learn that you've been sleeping around" rape. We're talking a knife in one case, drugs in another, force in several, the implicit threat of force in others.

If any of them had even mentioned the possibility of INTERPOL getting involved, they would have been laughed at.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[GameMaster]

NPR reported basically the same story last night. Supposedly, they went to the police to try and force Assange to get a STD test but the first procesutor they talked to decided to press rape charges even though they didn't want to. Those sharges were thrown out by that procesutor's superior due to lack of evidence of a crime. Later, once the women had fallen in with the high profile lawyer and the Wikileaks issue had blown up in the press, the lawyer went to a higher level procecutor and convinced him/her to re-open the case.

Also, from what I understand, the initial warrent through Interpol wasn't even for arrest for a crime. They were only trying to bring him in for interrogation. He offered to meet them at an embassy (where, coincidentally, they wouldn't be able to hand him over to the US government or, if you're a little more susspicious of the Swedish police, break out the heat lamps and rubber hoses...) for questioning but they refused and demanded that he turn himself over to them.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[vux984]

What tweets?

These tweets for example:

http://radsoft.net/news/20101001,01.shtml

'Julian wants to go to a crayfish party, anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow? #fb'

'Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and hardly freezing with the world's coolest smartest people, it's amazing! #fb'

These were made the days immediately after she was "raped".
Is that how you act after a rape? Call it hanging out with the coolest people in the world?

To make matters even worse, she tried to remove them after the fact...

It's amazing what people take for proof and sources to base their snap judge and jury judgement on in this case.

Yes, that is scary. I agree with you there.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Grishnakh]

People are already questioning the government, but not enough to make a difference, and with our election system, it doesn't really matter.

Here's my prediction: Sarah Palin is going to be elected President in 2012 (don't laugh, just look at all the people who support her). She's already said she wants to have him pursued with the same fervor as we did Osama bin Laden, so even if this incident blows over, I can see her having him assassinated after she takes office.

Sound nuts? Sure, but our voters are complete idiots, as they've already demonstrated at the polls for over a decade now, and by being so enamored of twat Palin.

My second prediction, which kinda goes along with American voters being morons: the US is going to collapse by 2025. Here's a Slate article about it from two days ago:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/12/06/america_collapse_2025

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

Okay, let's forget this whole Assange thing for a moment and focus on things we can both believe in: Sarah Palin is a twat. The American public is dumber than a box of rocks. The US is heading for, at best, also-ran status.

However, I can not bring myself to believe that even a box of paint huffing, retarded rocks would vote for Sarah Palin.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Patch86]

Quoting from the article in The Independent that another poster linked to:

She was in regular contact with Mr Assange before his move to Sweden, helping to organise his appearances at lectures as well as agreeing to let him use her flat while he was in Stockholm.

They first met in person on the afternoon of 14 August, when she returned to her flat after a few days away from the capital. According to her testimony, which was leaked to the Swedish media, the pair went out for dinner and returned to the flat, where they had sex. At some point a condom broke, a fact that neither side denies, although the woman alleges that it was broken deliberately by Mr Assange.

Mr Assange's first accuser made no immediate attempt to contact the authorities. It was only when she was contacted by the second accuser four days later that the pair decided to go to the police.

Instead the first woman arranged a "crayfish party" – a traditional Swedish summer get-together – for the following evening in honour of the WikiLeaks founder in her flat. In an entry on the woman's Twitter account, which she later tried to erase, Mr Assange's first accuser described her joy at hosting a party for the world's most famous cyber activist. "Sitting outside nearly freezing with the world's coolest people," she wrote. "It's pretty amazing."

To sum up:
She had been a supporter of Wikileaks and Assange for some time.
They had consensual sex, during which the condom broke (how do you even "break a condom deliberately", anyhow? Those things are pretty durable, right up until they're not).
Aterwards, she threw a party, and tweeted about what a wonderful time she was having and how much she was enjoying the company of her alleged molester-er.
After finding out Assange had been knocking off another woman at the same time, she went to the police.

Although I'm reserving judgement (it's not like I was there), it doesn't exactly sound like a tale of criminal persecution to me.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Grishnakh]

Keep reading past the point you quoted.

By now, the authorities realised they had a high-profile case on their hands and legal papers were rushed to the weekend home of the chief prosecutor, who dismissed the rape charge.
She felt that what had occurred were no more than minor offences.

Between the chief prosecutor determining this case wasn't worth pursuing, to both girls going out to breakfast with him after the alleged rapes (and one throwing a party for him), to one of them being a public supporter of abusing the legal system for revenge against ex-lovers, this is all obviously a case of two stupid twat groupies regretting the consexual sex they had with a man who it should be pretty obvious isn't the type of man you marry and settle down with.

Earlier this year, Sarah is reported to have posted a telling entry on her website, which she has since removed. But a copy has been retrieved and widely circulated on the internet.

Entitled ‘7 Steps to Legal Revenge’, it explains how women can use courts to get their own back on unfaithful lovers.

Step 7 says: ‘Go to it and keep your goal in sight. Make sure your victim suffers just as you did.’ (The highlighting of text is Sarah’s own.)

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Grishnakh]

After seeing how many people bought her dumb books, to how much I see her in the media, to how often I see right-wingers supporting her on blogs and comment boards, I really think it's a good possibility she may be elected. Heaven help us all if that happens.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

It doesn't sound that way to me, either, really, but as I mentioned, Sweden's laws in the matter are a bit odd, at best. But the law is the law, and according to the law, Assange needs to be tried. Perhaps this trial will shed some light on the ridiculousness of Swedish laws. Perhaps they will be changed back. But for now, they are what they are and Mr. Assange is being treated no differently than anyone else in Sweden.

At the very worst, it sounds like he was an opportunistic horn dog who doesn't like to use condoms and doesn't take no for an answer when he is in the middle of coitus. Which is illegal in Sweden.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

If she is elected, I will take that as absolute proof that there is no God in Heaven to help us.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[nomadic]

"The information that the leaks so far have confirmed or revealed give Wikileaks all the legitimacy it's ever needed, Anyone who has missed that point has an irreparably skewed world view." Specifics? The leaks have turned out to reveal behavior that (gasp) really isn't especially egregious. I think the tinfoil hat crowd is a little upset about that.

What's next?

[alexo]

What's next? Afghanistan to host a Women's Rights convention?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[dgatwood]

Ah. You see, I interpreted your question to mean that it was silly to assume that it was reasonable to post anyway.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[WalksOnDirt]

Statutory rape? It's often consensual.

Freedom of expression is about all that's left

[element-o.p.]

Oh, the irony.

Indeed. I wonder how many delegates will by flying in through airport security to attend?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Nursie]

Villain?

Mine's a hero...

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[bronney]

Bazzinga!!

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Cimexus]

Also worth pointing out that he hasn't actually been formally charged with ~anything~. They just want him for questioning.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Coryoth]

There are times a government needs to keep secrets, however the US government has gone way overboard. Obama has done nothing to change that despite promises of a more open government, so I for one welcome the new openness that has come from wikileaks and will support efforts for it to continue.

It's quite possible that recent incidents with Wikileaks have gone a long way toward setting back openness and transparency in government. So far nothing classified Top Secret or above has been leaked. So now, anyone the least bit concerned about keeping information secret in government is just going to go for the higher levels of classification and associated compartmentalization. Far more information is going to be slapped with Top Secret and be much less widely read so people can play it safe. Honestly, after these leaks expect to see less information make it out to the public as government gets over-zealous with over classification.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[Rei]

Statutory literally means "pertaining to law". Aka, it's rape only in the eyes of the law, not in the conventional sense of the word.

You've got it completely wrong

[dbIII]

You've got it completely wrong. Remember how wikileaks won an award for exposing government abuses and murder in Kenya? Your problem is not with wikileaks or similar, but with how the material from them gets reported locally with nothing but news that is considered of local interest.
As for Roosevelt supporting Stalin, he certainly did, but the events at Yalta showed that Roosevelt did not have the faintest idea of the sort of person he was dealing with and did not believe the warnings the British (and hopefully his own intelligence) gave him. He didn't even think the USSR would stoop as low as to bug their conversations at Yalta (which a British diplomat proved was being done). The cold war really started when the US governent suddenly understood what sort of monster they were dealing with, felt betrayed and dealt with it by a sudden backlash. There is still little perspective as shown by Saddam comparing HIMSELF with Stalin but the US press not understanding and comparing him with Hitler instead.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[dbIII]

However back then Saddam knew that it was safe to attack at that time and nothing would be done until Daddy Bush finished his golf holiday. When it hadn't all blown over by then and the Saudis were still upset enought to make threats Bush had to act.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[ArsenneLupin]

There's no such thing as "consensual rape"

What about some SM plays?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[weicco]

You mean the government can't keep you safe and give information to the people (to the electorate) at the same time? If that's the case then there wouldn't be crimes in Finland at all!

I think everyone should read Frank Herbert's Chapterhouse: Dune and the discussions between Spider Queen and Lucilla about politics and democracy. There's a lot of truth in there if you compare it to a real world democratic state.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Somewhat Delirious]

Continued torture by US forces after Abu Graib, systematically turning a blind eye to large scale torture by Iraqi security forces, shooting of enemy fighters in cold blood after they surrendered, escalation of force incidents (read mostly roadblocks where someone didn't stop fast enough) killing many, many civilians, civilian deaths in secret US attacks in Yemen, spying on UN diplomats in contravention of treaties, lying about the true extent of civilian casualties...do I have to continue?

Are you going to seriously tell me you don't think those are especially egregious? Maybe you are the kind of person who likes to pull the wings of flies, put cats on fire and torture your neighbours son in the basement and you think that's pretty everyday behaviour as well?

And to be clear, I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories and if anyone is delusional here it should be pretty clear who that person is.

Re:wikileaks != press

[jc79]

Wikileaks did share the cables, pre-publication, with several well known and respected news organisations - Der Spiegel, The Guardian, The New York Times, etc. It is wrong to suggest that those publications would not have reported on the cables if they had been given them directly by the leaker.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[mcvos]

The first woman was no groupie, but she did throw him a party afterward and tweeted that she was hanging out with the coolest people in the world. Not something you're likely to say about someone who just raped you, I think.

Rather

[ThatsNotPudding]

Except the news organisations have been picking and choosing for greatest dramatic effect/"reader interest" i.e. publishing the cables that are most likely to have a destablising effect on world politics.

...and ignoring those cables that would be embarassing to their corporate owners and banker pals.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[drinkypoo]

Also, groupies? Really? You really want to go there, smearing the women with a derogatory name like that? Even if you had something to back up your claim that they are, it's just tasteless and crass.

I know we're all justifiably dismissive of the Daily Mail, but they have every incentive to summon up all their integrity when they report on this issue, and there is no evidence to the contrary; or if there is, I have not seen it. I do, however, invite it.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[drinkypoo]

At the very worst, it sounds like he was an opportunistic horn dog who doesn't like to use condoms and doesn't take no for an answer when he is in the middle of coitus.

Where do you get "doesn't take no for an answer"? We have no descriptions of the event beyond the account in the daily mail in which they have unprotected sex and she goes out and buys breakfast and makes jokes about the potential for pregnancy while they ate it by her own account. I don't care whether or not she's characterized as a "slut" or "groupie" since that has no bearing on her right to say no, I care about consent. Where do you get this thing about "in the middle of coitus"?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[drinkypoo]

You present this timeline:
Women do not want to press charges (so how does anyone know what happened?)

Woman A said afterwards that she had not wanted to press charges but had gone to support the younger woman, who wanted police advice on how to get Assange to take a medical test.

Overzealous prosecutor "forced the issue." (How? What "Issue" is being forced? How did the prosecutor know?)

Director of public prosecution Marianne Ny decided to reopen the case, saying new information had come in on Tuesday. "We went through all the case material again, including what came in, and that's when I made my decision," [to reopen the case] Ny told The Associated Press by phone. She declined to say what information she had received or whether Assange, who was questioned by investigators on Monday, would be arrested. An arrest warrant issued on 20 August was withdrawn within 24 hours.

Later, a lawyer convinced the women to press charges. (Wait, didn't you JUST claim the prosecutor did that? How did said lawyer know about the case if the women never pressed charges?)

No, the prosecutor reopened the case, regardless of the will of anyone else. It does appear that one woman at least very much wants Assange punished... but only well after the fact. At the time when the alleged sexual assault was occurring she was more than happy to be there and enjoying the Julian Assange Experience.

Here's the timeline as I understand it. "Julian Assange is being harassed for slighting the feelings of two groupies who worshipped him before and after the alleged rapes and he's being hunted for something that's definitely not rape and not even a crime yet." There is plenty of evidence all over the place including multiple admissions from both women, deleted tweets made by one woman gushing about how happy she was about being with Assange which presumably included fucking him, relevant deleted blog posts, et cetera. The only question is whether there is a political motivation behind this, or it was just an opportune time to harm Assange without any concern by these women over the cost to freedom.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[drinkypoo]

Just to be clear, those are the original charges, which were dropped. That "duty prosecuting attorney" "agreed that Assange should be sought on suspicion of rape", NOT that he should be prosecuted. Sought for suspicion == questioning, not necessarily going into court. Do you not even read the stories you post as 'evidence?!?'

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[drinkypoo]

Mr. Assange is not being treated any differently than anyone else in Sweden.

Right, clearly trumped-up charges which have been dropped are often opened again and result in an international manhunt.

This is your brain on drugs

[dbIII]

Every heard the story of the boy that cried wolf? You can send me a hundred links to something this cocaine ravaged idiot says and I'm not going bother taking the time to get verification from a more trustworthy source to see if he's telling the truth this time or not. It's much better listening to a trustworthy source in the first place instead of someone out to stir up trouble or shock to get more viewers interested and higher ratings. Let's watch the crazy man, isn't he funny! Well I'm not interested in watching mental illness as entertainment and if you thought the above clip was based on reality you have been badly conned.
"False information?" It's him saying that stuff, nobody faked it!

and then accused him of being a homeless drug addict over the false information you linked to.

I did nothing of the sort, try reading it again and you'll see it was a comparison. I was trying to say that what he is saying is the sort of thing you would expect from some poor mentally ill guy wandering the streets ranting.
The drug abuse that nearly killed him at one point is a very well known part of his history.
By the way, I don't give a shit what political team he cheers for since that's your problem. McCain would have been a better President than both Bushes and Reagan.

Re:This is your brain on drugs

[ArcherB]

Every heard the story of the boy that cried wolf?... Let's watch the crazy man, isn't he funny!

I remember thinking the same thing. "This Beck guy is a conspiracy theory nut!" I continued to listen because I love a good conspiracy theory. I love listening to Alex Jones, George Noory, various "truthers", "birthers", and those that think the Illuminati/Free Masons/Vandenbergs are going to/already have take over the world. But, as a conspiracy theory nut, Beck was the most entertaining. Unlike the others, I felt Beck believed what he was saying. I remember thinking he was nuts several years ago when he said that government was going to try take over the banks, major industry and our very health. What a loon! Here we are in 2010 and government has taken over the banks, the auto industry and health care.

Now, most conspiracy theories follow one of two lines. First is the Alex Jones approach. He'll take some obscure government memo concerning, say, TSA needing to be ready for (foreign) government operatives trying to take down planes, and claim he has proof via a government document that says our government wants to take down planes. The next kind of conspiracy theory is where they make long links to try to prove some obscure point. For example, politician X's gardener went to church with a guy whose sister was a radical central American revolutionary. "How dare Politician X have dealings with those who want to take over Latin America in order to spread communism here in America".

Beck is in the second group. Except rather than being a politicians gardener that knew someone, he shows video of people saying things that would shock most Americans and ties them directly to politician X. For example, Van Jones, who said he associates himself with radical revolutionaries and considers himself a communist was hand picked by Obama to be an adviser and Green Jobs Czar. Anita Jones, who said that her favorite political philosophers is Mao Zedong was Obama's communications director. This is not about some campaign staffer in Houston TX who hangs a Che poster. These are not loose affiliations. These are top level staffers to the President of the United States. Beck's point was to show who the people were that Obama was surrounding himself with as a reflection of Obama himself. If you take the time to see what Beck has to say about these people, and investigate for yourself who these people really are and what they stand for, you should be shocked. No one else was willing to look into these people and report who they are or what they had done in the past until Beck came along. I had never heard of Anita Dunn or Van Jones and never would have until Beck did his report on these two and many others (these were just the two that I saw).

McCain would have been a better President than both Bushes and Reagan.

OK, but do you think that McCain would have been a better president than Bill Clinton or Barack Obama? I mean, it doesn't say a lot if I say that Hillary Clinton would make a better president than Obama. What would say much more is if I felt that Hillary Clinton would make a better president than McCain... and I do.

Re:This is your brain on drugs

[dbIII]

when he said that government was going to try take over the banks, major industry and our very health.

So they have complete control of those do they? Of course they fucking don't. Setting rules is what governments DO. Even Nixon wanted to make changes to healthcare. You've fallen into the Nostradamus trap where something vague or general is said and since even a stopped clock is right twice a day it's going to happen sometime. You are being played as a fool.

Beck's point was to show who the people were that Obama was surrounding himself with as a reflection of Obama himself

He's a lawyer surrounded by many of the same, and that criticism had a far better example in Bush anyway.

OK, but do you think that McCain would have been a better president than Bill Clinton or Barack Obama?

I wanted to avoid the blind tribalism which would drag things off the point, which was really that the Republicans when they put their mind to it can do better than a playboy Prince that can't even explain to anyone why he sent their kids off to die in a war. Was it some crazy scheme to go down in history as a strong wartime President or what the hell was it? He's not saying the best anyone can come up with is blaming incompetent intelligence instead of him.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[tehcyder]

So are you saying the US secret services just couldn't get hold of an underaged agent in time?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[tehcyder]

Really for this kind of offence rape is the wrong word with all its connotations of violent force. Unluckily English doesn't really have a better term though in my country there is just different degrees of sexual assault.

Assault has connotations of violence too, surely?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[chrb]

Which journalists?

Simply pushing stuff to the web is not the definition of a journalist. By your definition, EVERYONE who has access to pen/pencil and paper, and especially anyone with a blog, is a journalist. Total bullshit.

That's the same argument made by the Chinese government...

... if you actually believe that bloggers recording a journal of events are not in fact journalists (which literally means "one who keeps a journal"), then tell me, how would you define "journalist"? Must a journalist have some government issued "journalist" ID card? Obtain a full-time income from their activities (which would, in fact, qualify some bloggers)? Does having another job disqualify you from being a journalist? Must you write for a government-approved newspaper or magazine? What?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[tehcyder]

However, I can not bring myself to believe that even a box of paint huffing, retarded rocks would vote for Sarah Palin.

*cough* George W Bush *cough*

He had a similar intellectual capacity (i.e. about the same as an annoying thirteen year old).

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[wtfamidoinghere]

That is why, under the rule of law, we have trials.

And, under a sane democratic lawful state, at least in criminal cases, we have "innocent until proven guilty".

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[GooberToo]

... if you actually believe that bloggers recording a journal of events are not in fact journalists

Its called an eye witness. There is long standing precedence to this, completely without regard for ignorant people who would like to suggestion otherwise. Again, by your definition, pretty much everyone is a journalist.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Grapplebeam]

Yes, he took an oath... "to protect the United States from threats, both foreign and domestic", right? Well, perhaps he thought that corruption was a threat, hmm?

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[tehcyder]

What's with the sudden rush of Slashdotters linking to the Daily Mail? Please don't even give them the traffic, never mind give credence to what they say!

It's the old propaganda technique whereby if you bombard people with enough extreme right wing ideas, it makes merely very right wing views seem more palatable.

People have clearly been emboldened to do this by the technique's success in the US, as proved by the fact that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party yahoos seem to be accepted as serious political figures.

With a new right wing government in the UK, their followers will be aiming to push the Daily Mail/Tory agenda as far as possible.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[tehcyder]

There's no such thing as "consensual rape"

What about some SM plays?

That's a nonsensical argument, masochists consent to being abused/hurt/"raped" or whatever other game they are playing

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[GooberToo]

The legal definition actually varies. According to some legal standards, he need also be employed - not self employed. As such, he's actually very much in a gray area over and above the typical gray area. The fact he claims to be a journalist, does some of the work of a journalist, but seemingly exists solely to disclose state secrets (which has many, many other negative legal associations), means its not nearly as cut and dry as you suggest.

Furthermore, even many journalists are on the record, before Wikileaks existed, as stating these types of people are not journalists.

So legally, its likely he's not a journalist. Many journalists are on the record stating people like him are not journalist.

Basically, chances are, he's not a journalists.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[skarphace]

Actually, I think it will be HIS day in court.

Actually, it will be THEIR day in court. (they both go to court, dude)

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[dryeo]

Not as strongly as rape. There is being verbally assaulted, being assaulted by a smell, as a couple of examples of non-violent forms of assault. I believe in some jurisdictions verbal assault can be a crime and even being assaulted by a smell may be cause for a tort in some circumstances.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[mcvos]

Which journalists?

Simply pushing stuff to the web is not the definition of a journalist. By your definition, EVERYONE who has access to pen/pencil and paper, and especially anyone with a blog, is a journalist. Total bullshit.

Why is that total bullshit? Do you need some sort of certification from the US government before you're a journalist? That would make the entire notion of free press meaningless.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Antisyzygy]

So if you do woodworking in your garage you aren't a woodworker, but if you do it on a factory floor you are?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[GooberToo]

As you're too lazy to read the rest of the threat, I'll make this short. The legal definition for "journalist" varies wildly. But by most accepted legal definitions, he is not a journalist. This is a fact that other countries and even LOTS of journalists have put forward before Wikileaks even existed.

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[spun]

That is why, under the rule of law, we have trials.

And, under a sane democratic lawful state, at least in criminal cases, we have "innocent until proven guilty".

And so he is. No one is saying otherwise.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[GooberToo]

You mean master craftsman or master carpenter. No, most people who work wood in their garage are neither. And most honest, sane, people will as much tell you this.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[mcvos]

What are those legal definitions, and by whom have they been accepted?

Honestly, I think anyone who dedicates his life to gathering and publishing news that he wasn't personally involved in, counts as a journalist.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[chrb]

Its called an eye witness.

No, that is a different thing. An eyewitness writes about events through firsthand experience. A journalist can do that to, but can also write about events as experienced and reported by others.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[Antisyzygy]

Ahh! But SOME people who work in their garage are master carpenters or craftsmen. Its just too ambiguous and is based on opinion. Its better to err on the side of caution in regard to constitutional rights, IMO, and protect the right of people to disseminate information. Granted, this is all a moot point because Assange isn't protected by our government to this right since he is not a US citizen. I applaud Wikileaks exposing of corruption when they actually publish stuff from banks/corrupt officials/insurance, but some things they do seem to color their agenda as more anti-US than actually beneficial to global society.

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[iainl]

No-one knows for sure that Manning is the Private First Class who leaked these. But we _are_ fairly sure that he was among the several million Americans who did have access to them if he chose to, which is the relevant part here, no?

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[wtfamidoinghere]

Wooah!!!! The dead bodies contact you, after receiving the info???? Yikes!

Re:Is our government even paying attention to itse

[GooberToo]

Ahh! But SOME people who work in their garage are master carpenters or craftsmen.

Vague? No. Its obvious they are a master of their craft.

I logged on just to say...

[novenator]

oh, the irony!

Re:Assange is the guest of honor

[hosecoat]

There's no such thing as "consensual rape". That's a contradiction in terms. If it's consensual, it's not rape.

sweden says it is