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US Military Designates Julian Assange an "Enemy of State"
First time accepted submitter Cute and Cuddly writes in with some new Julian Assange news. "The U.S. military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States — the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency. Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with 'communicating with the enemy.'"
Can drone-strike him, with impunity, then?
America. It just keeps getting more like a bad Harlan Ellison story.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
We seem to like waging war on vaporous enemies don't we?
"The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’.
And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208307/Americas-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-killing-49-people-known-terrorist-Pakistan.html
The constitution places the power to declare war and issue letters of marque with the congress, not the executive. It's up to the congress to tell the military who's an enemy, not the other way around.
Whoever has taken it upon themselves to do this has libeled Assange.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
For a country that prides itself on freedom of speech - they like to tell people to shut up.
Stories like this are really starting to worry me. Our country is rapidly losing civil rights, not to mention disregarding international laws regarding things like drone strikes in other countries.
after Obama yesterday's utopian freedom of speech speech at the UN.
That's not their job, is it? Wouldn't this be up to Congress, the courts, the State Department?
I guess its official. We are being run by a military junta.
Have gnu, will travel.
It appears that this might be designed to prevent further leaks by military personnel.
Ftom TFA:
Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.
They may never go after Assange. But the next Brad Manning may find him/herself swinging from the gallows.
Have gnu, will travel.
.. in a way.
Now that the US has designated this status, it gives many more countries the freedom to protect him. It gives him official 'political' refugee status in way more places.
Of course - it also paints a big target on his head, but everything has a down side.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
When what you're talking about is things businesses and governments wish to keep secret, there is no such thing as free speech. You pay for it in blood.
Were I Assange, I'd be far more worried about a bullet in my head or a mickey in my drink than a legit arrest.
Am I insinuating that a government or business would kill over information they wish to keep secret for legitimate reasons, or otherwise?
Hell yes, I am.
I'm sure there are many secrets that should remain so -- but buried in that pile are atrocities and behind-the-scene dealings that impact people like you and I in the worst ways -- and those are the dirty bits of laundry that need to get out.
Frankly, I still think the Internet is nothing but television magnified by 1000, with all the lolcatz and pr0n and myface and spacebook and all that -- but the ability to shed light on nasty, shady dealings -- that's what I had hoped the Internet would be able to do.
We need more of this. We need to know more about what businesses and governments do in secret to line their pockets by picking ours. The mainstream media can't quite be trusted to do so, I feel they're in the payroll of government and business -- so the last resort is.. this.
But, who vets this kind of leaks? Who can assure the reader that it isn't misinformation? Wow, paranoids are right, I think!
Still, there's a little place in my heart that tells me.. we really don't want to know. I think it could be that revolting, that repulsive.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
The United States was embarrassed by WikiLeaks, and they are looking to "fix" that. The problem is, they can't take any of it back. This is all reactionary, and not real rational. If anything, they need to review how/why Bradley Manning had access to the State Department cables, since it doesn't make sense Manning would have had that access in the first place (just because people have a security clearance doesn't mean they have a need-to-know- and the information system should enforce that). They need to put blocks in place to prevent future problems.
The US can't change the past this early- they need to wait a long time to spin this (probably a couple generations). Punishing WikiLeaks won't accomplish much in this case, because the next time a leak happens another proxy will be used. They are trying to punish Assange, as they punished Manning, to deter future "leak" hosts. It won't work- while the US can control the military personnel and their actions, they can't change the rest of the world.
The US is acting like a child- "I told Timmy a secret, and he told Jeff, and Jeff told the rest of the school. I'm no longer going to be Timmy's friend, and I'll tell the teacher to suspend Jeff. That way, the school will know not to tell my secrets." It doesn't work- everyone knows, and you can't wipe the world's memory with legislation or prison.
TWICE. Never though I'd be a terrorist supporter so soon. I'm so fucking proud of myself.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
He already is.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
There has to be a reason we pick fights that we can't win. War on drugs, War on poverty, war on terrorism, ...
It has been almost 100 years since the start of the War on Drugs.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I'm not surprised. Assange released a bunch of classified military documents - at a time when two wars were going on. Now, a lot of people might disagree with those wars and would, therefore, agree with Assange releasing the information. Assange, himself, has said it was his mission to end the wars - presumably, he meant that the release of classified US documents would damage the war effort so badly that the US would withdraw.
Although, I have to wonder what our response would be if this was the early 1940s, the US was fighting Germany and Japan, and a character named 'Assange' released a bunch of documents relating to the US war effort. Would this be the same thing? Would we label Assange a hero or a traitor if he was degrading the US war effort against enemies which we all hate? I wouldn't be surprised at all if a 1940s-era Assange released this information (he talks about how he'll release anything), and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the US labelled him an enemy of the state, either. I would hope that people's outrage over this didn't seem to hinge on whether or not you agree or disagree with the US war.
How are things in Russia?
You can't complain.
What's the biggest problem with Russia?
You can't complain.
It just means now that US government employees and military personnel who leak information to him would be committing a crime.
air force's Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst based in Britain who allegedly expressed support for WikiLeaks and attended pro-Assange demonstrations in London. ... The suspected offence was "communicating with the enemy, 104-D", an article in the US Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibits military personnel from "communicating, corresponding or holding intercourse with the enemy".
Or, you know, any military personnel that expresses support for Assange (according to TFA).The analyst in question wasn't charged, but it seems that he did lose his access to classified information. But why let facts get in your way.
You are a bit too patriotic in this, but the love for your military is clouding your judgement slightly. Assange is not responsible for the leak. The responsible for the leak are, firstly, the unknown people who designed and implemented a system that could allow a rogue American to amass and leak this information, and, secondly, the person who actually leaked it.
Assange has nothing to do with either the group who built the system and the policies that allowed the leak, nor is he the person who actually released the data.
Hence, the troubles the US is giving him are as illegal as they are immoral. Or vice versa.
Also, imagine what treatment by the US would get someone who leaked Soviet secrets during the Cold War. Someone who would, you know, steal Soviet property and take it to Japan or something.
If you look up stuff on the Internet or watch mainstream media and choose to remember the stories then you get a pretty clear picture of "Blood for Oil" and "Too big to fail" stories. You balance that out with candidates saying money for influence and the massive disproportion in wealth in the US and it paints a grim picture.
A few people with a disgusting amount of money make decisions that impact the rest of the world and none of them are elected.
The bad part is that we know all this already and no doubt when troops hit the ground in Iran, Somalia, etc, we will continue to rage on the Internet while ours sons go and kill someone else's sons......Wikileaks rocks but unless we are using the information at our disposal for change then what's the point?
China can out number us 10 to 1, but without the ability to project power with a blue water navy and air superiority, who cares? Give them all the guns in the world and if they are still limited to Eastern Asia it is basically meaningless. China will not invade Japan, because the US will get involved. They also will not invade Taiwan for the same reason. This is also why the US will not get involved in the Chinese occupation of Tibet.The tech edge isn't the only edge, they have a LOT of tech. China might be pouring money into its military, but they are probably decades behind the US in military tech and infrastructure and the US isn't standing still. As demonstrated in Kuwait and Iraq, superior numbers and dated tech do not win wars. Besides, China isn't interested in engaging in forign adventures, they have a HUGE population they need to keep happy. China has a tradition of violent insurrections overthrowing governments, and they are quite happy pretending to be 'communists' with a growing, rich middle class.
Also, nobody is scared of the US nuclear arsenal, because the US has made it abundantly clear that it is a deterrent tool. If you want to fight the US, you can do so without fear of nuclear retaliation, provided you don't engage in NBC warfare against them. Simply put, the political fallout over using nukes as anything other than a retaliation weapon would be catastrophic. As powerful as the US is, it cannot act against the will of the rest of the world.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Perhaps you left out Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, and Philippines with no special love for China in Indonesia either.