The whole Guantanamo thing is a total red herring being put out by his lawyer in an effort to taint any extradition hearings with the atmosphere of drama surrounding the vexing requirements to hold people like KSM somewhere. Assange - even if everything said about him were true and worse - isn't a terrorist combatant, caught in the field doing things like planning and executing attacks on US personnel overseas in a combat zone, etc. If he were to wind up arrested for espionage, and it happened in a country that has reciprocity along those lines, and if it even came to a trial in the US, he'd just wind up in the same sort of federal prison that holds other spies (we've prosecuted a handful of those over the years - it's not mysterious, and hasn't ever involved the sort of military tribunals that were considered the ultimate purpose of housing the bad guys we have at GITMO right there where they are).
The only thing we can say for sure is that there will be more surprises and unexpected players in this before it's done. Remember that it wasn't just US interests that Assange has damanged - he's caused trouble in diplomatic and intel relations between many nations, now. There are a lot of people who'd like to see is actions prosecuted. I'm in no rush - facts first.
Which means you cannot actually complain about Bush, right? Since there are no objective standards? Except you are complaining, which means you have standards, and a value system based upon them. And that means that, if Hugo Chavez is a better guy to you than Bush, that your values include supporting murder of political opponents, vast graft and corruption, support for murderous drug cartels, shutting down journalists who question your motives, capriciously seizing private property without due process or review, and of course (no doubt this is your favorite part), setting yourself up for rule by fiat. So, basically, you like totalitarian socialist thugs, and you're lecturing other people?
At which point, may I ask, Does the United States of America have juristiction over an Australian, living in the UK, whose website is hosted in Sweden?
You need to understand the difference between jurisdiction (which of course US law enforcement does not have in other countries) and treaty-based extradition agreements. If someone in Sweden killed a bunch of people and then fled to the US, you can imagine that Sweden would like to think that a request to arrest the person and return them to Sweden would be honored. And vice-versa. So, the two countries enter into a treaty that defines the ways in which they will (or won't) cooperate along those lines. Usually, one country will hold a judical hearing where the other country presents its case for extradition, and it is then honored, or not, based on whether it's in keeping with the treaty's rules of evidence, etc. Most western countries have one flavor or another of extradition treaty in place. The US does NOT have an extradition agreement with China.
I fail to see any difference that would indicate a greater or lesser degree of guilt.
Again, one part of the current investigation is over whether or not Wikileaks helped with the theft by providing special server space for Manning as he was stealing the documents. That's a completely separate consideration than the next part: are the people in possession of the docuements also doing something illegal?
A lot of that goes to intent, and conduct, in terms of whether it's the sort of thing that would turn into a prosecution of the NYT people who have their hands on the stolen material. Large news organizations come into posession of all sorts of stuff that they end up handling carefully, not publishing, and/or talking to the feds about. Both parties (the paper and the government) talk all the time, out of public view. Assange made sure that there was no way to pick up the pieces on this one, but he did that, not the newspapers.
As for the "Assange bashing," my shorthand references to that come from public statements by the people he's worked with at Wikileaks, and from those at The Guardian, who described their involvement with him as he tried to control how they published things. I brought it (the long term prospects of Wikileaks as an organization) in response to your discussion of it being taken down, etc. Former associates of his are already launching some other operation. I agree that douchebaggery isn't directly meaningful, legally. But it can be an interesting motivator when it comes to how much other people (like former co-workers) are willing to keep silent about internal political and operational stuff. I'm patient! We'll see how it all works out.
At what point does it become made available then? If Manning told 1 person all of the secrets, would he still be guilty?
The nature of that particular crime would depend on who that one person is.
If he had taken the CD and forgotten it in the back of a taxi, would he still be guilty?
Negligence is not always a crime. Certainly that's not the same as a deliberate act of espionage. Scenarios just like that have happened, and you can bet there was hell to pay in a disciplinary way, if no other.
He broke protocol as soon as he moved the files off the secured network. What HE does with the files, HE will be punished for.
Sure. That's the theory. But he's a messed-up sounding person. They might very well be willing to give him a plea bargain if he'll help them understand who he worked with in moving the stolen material, and how.
But if HE had sold them to a the Chinesse state run news agency instead, we wouldn't be going bonkers over arresting the board and shutting down the paper.
Because... we don't have jurisdiction in China. But you're making it sound like we've arrested some other board, and shut down some other paper. What makes you say that?
Likewise, if the NYT had published the leaks, we would not likely be seeing the CEO being locked up with a bail an order of magnitude larger than his net worth and limited to house arrest there after.
What are you talking about? Assange has been arrested by the British at the request of the Swedes, with whom they share reciprocal law enforcement policies. The Swedes want to talk to him about their investigation into two women's charges of sexual misconduct. He's having his movement restricted because the Swedes want him back, and they (the two countries) are still sorting out the circumstances of returning him there. Because he has a habit of traveling quietly, because he's secretive about his finances, etc., the British officials took the Swedish officials advice on dealing with him. He'll be in Sweden soon.
No, it is a matter of convenience. Wikileaks presents itself as a target that the US Federal government MAY be able to use to reduce the power of the press.
The US government has not yet filed any charges against him. They're still trying to figure out the particulars of what happened. It's possible that while Wikileaks worked with Manning, that it was someone else, not Assange, that did it.
If the feds go after Wikileaks, and we do not see an increase in scope and power of the federal government through legislative or presidence setting rulings, I would be truely amazed.
I'm not sure I follow you, here. This would not be the first time that espionage cases have been investigated and pursued. There's no new ground, here.
Because lets face it. Wikileaks could be shut down tomorrow, and before dawn Wednesday, it's contents would be reposted on servers around the world and a dozen more leak-clones would appear.
So? That doesn't change what happened. And we're waiting to find out what that was.
If the US is going to shut down Wikileaks, they're going to go for the power grab to shut out a whole lot more.
Such as what? And what makes you say that, specifically? Wikileaks isn't a US web site, it's not hosted in the US, and much of what they do (well, or used to do, before Assange turned away from his general leak-collecting mission and instead into a full-time US-bashing operation) is not illegal, per se. By all reports, the biggest threat to the continued success of Wikileaks is Assange himself - people who have worked there with him have been characterizing him and has handling of this episode as being a total power trip on his part, and they're tired of it.
Where he put them is inmaterial. That he removed them from the secured network in and of itself was the violation.
No, that was one violation. Making them available to people like North Korea and Iran is another violation. Multiple statutes at work,here.
So in what way can they do it and not break the law?
You're asking in what way you can have a guy in the Army hand you a quarter million sensitive documents, publish them, and not be breaking the law? Through the established whistle-blowing protection. But that presumes that you've looked at 250,000 and actually have a whistle to blow. Obviously, Manning wasn't nobly righting 250,000 wrongs, and doing what he swore to do (go up the chain of command with his findings of 250,000 cases of misconduct, or turn to the whistleblower protection agency if that was unworkable) - no, he was going for his max 15 minutes of internet fame, without a clue about what he was actually really getting himself into. Assange, on the other hand, knows exactly what he's doing, and he's banking on dodging extradition and on being slippery enough to avoid leaving enough evidence of cooperation with the document thief to miss out on the whole felony thing. In other words, he's not worried about doing it legally. He's just focused on not getting caught red handed. Not the same thing.
And for those that are currently doing it in the exact same way as Wikileaks (reposting leaked documents) why are they not liable as well?
Wikileaks isn't "reposting" them... they ARE the ones posting them. Manning didn't post them, Wikileaks did. They are the people making them available to the public. The are now loose in the public. A reporter who cites one of those documents - already seen running around online - obviously isn't likely to be pursued for that, just on practical terms. That horse has left Assange's barn. But you'll notice that the military is cautioning anyone who thinks they might want a career in a sensitive job that they should NOT go looking for and read the stolen stuff. Because they'd likely fail a polygraph test asking them if they've ever seen classified documents outside of their job's direct need for access to them.
The moment Manning took the docs out of the secured environment, they were available to the world.
How were they available to the world? By what means were you able to see them? Where did he put them that you (or North Korea, for example) could get to them? Did he transfer the files to his own web server, and the world just looked at them there? No. They weren't made available by him, they were made available through direct editorial action and decision by Assange. Nothing Manning did would have put those files (including, say, information about Iranian resistance supporters) in front of the government of Iran until Assange acted. Assange hasn't built some magic, indifferent robot that just sites there and relays stolen documents - he and/or his staff deliberately choose to be a part of turning a secret document into one that Iran can read. And he's happy to do so. He's said that he "owns" the documents (his word, not mine). He doesn't just imply control over them, he comes right out and explicitly says that's the case. It's very straight forward.
then no major media outlets will be willing to break the ice
Right, because doing so in the way Assange is doing it in this case is breaking the law. Journalists have no special protections from espionage prosecution. If they did, every country that wanted to spy and smuggle out stolen data would just have their spies work as journalists, and thus never be prosecuted. There's a reason that responsible media outlets don't always publish the stuff they come across: because it's often irresponsible and/or illegal, and they know it.
What's the difference between a state run news agency and an independent news agency that can be shut down and employees jailed for publishing information the government doesn't want them to?
The difference is that private people (some of whom happen to form news companies, or work as journalists, but that's irrelevent) can say whatever they want. Government new outlets say what their bosses tell them to. The private person's ability to say whatever they want, though, is limited by things like libel laws, and of course by laws protecting sensitive material.
If you don't like the fact that a government must be able to act without bad guys having information, or don't like how they act in the context of that unavoidable reality, then be persuasive and elect different people to the oversight committees that deal with the staffing and dollars involved. That's what checks and balances are for, and it's why we have regular elections. If somebody is doing something actually illegal, we have whistleblower laws and protections in place. Manning, of course, was in it for the drama and because he was unhappy with his career choice - and he didn't even attempt to avail himself of the protections available. Why? Because he wasn't doing anything that was worth protecting. He just sprewed the first quarter million sensitive documents he could get his hands on, without a thought to the consequences. He wasn't uncovering law breaking, and telling a journalist about it - he was grinding a personal axe, and knew that Assange would help, because he's also grinding one of his own.
No, a news organization that reports on material already available to the public is not the same as a news organization that acts to make the stolen documents available to the world in the first place. Surely you see the difference.
So anyone who has ever recieved stolen property is guilty of the original theft?
It depends on whether or not they know it's stolen, or had a hand in getting it stolen. They may not be the same thing. That's why "receiving stolen goods" is a crime of its own type (typically used against "fences" who are in the business of laundering such things, and know very well where it call comes from). If you're innocently duped into buying something stolen, you'll often lose the item you bought, and the money you spent on it if the police figure it all out. That doesn't mean you've "received stolen goods" in the criminal sense, just that you were also a victim.
In the case of the Wikileaks stuff, where Assange is in possession of documents that he knows are sensitive, stolen, and of use to enemies of the US (say, North Korea), spreading them around is a direct and simply identified felony, regardless of how he came by them. The espionage statute is very clear on that part. If you know you have them, know they're sensitive, and know they're useful to other nations, you're already breaking the law. If Assange made special arrangements for Manning to upload the huge pile he was stealing, then we're also talking about a different crime. That's what's being looked into.
I want to know when government officials are considering that I am worth investigating.
You do understand that we've been using grand juries to consider indictments for centuries, right?
Regardless: do you really think that we should be telling, say, an insurance fraud scam ring everything that's being done to prepare a case against them, giving them time to destroy evidence? Should the guys running a chain of meth labs be informed of everything that an undercover cop is doing to shut them down, just as courtesy? How about a child porn ring, all of which you're trying to shut down in one shot. Should you allow information about an impending mass arrest in multiple cities to be delivered to those people along the way, before you move to arrest them?
Yes, that's how they set things up, but the thing that's being investigated here is that this was such a huge dump (250,000+ files) that some special accommodation needed to be given. And that this was worked out in advance. And that makes a big, difference. So, we'll see.
providing a place that stolen things could be placed = complicity?
Providing a special place, on request, in order to help a specific person that you know to be stealing classified documents, for storage during the act of stealing them? Yes, complicity. That's the whole point here... that the guy Manning was blabbing to has said that Wikileaks did just that: work with Manning to facilitiate the theft. The point of the investigation (or, this part of it) is to see if that's true.
Considering this whole 'grand jury' process is going on in secret
Are you putting 'grand jury' in quotes because you don't think there is such a thing, or because you think it actually has a different name? A grand jury is actually called a grand jury, and there actually is such a thing. And the deliberations are secret because many times the grand jury actually decides NOT to indict someone, and this way the initial evidence or prosecutorial arguments put forth while trying to get an indictment aren't spread all over the place. Which is nice, if it turns out the grand jury doesn't find it even worth indicting you, right?
why should we be confident that there's a due process behind deciding whose IP addresses are being fished out of Twitter?
Because the validity of the evidence (and the means by which it was collected) will be evaluated during a trial and argued over by everyone involved... including by at least one appeals court, depending on how things turn out. A subpoena comes from a judge, not from a cop or prosecutor.
the whole point of Wikileaks is that you have a drop-box to leak documents, but it's clean hands from the other side
The implication, by the "hacker" that Manning was chatting with, is that Wikileaks may have worked directly with Manning to set up a place for him to dump the stolen documents. Essentially, helping him to steal them. The communcations surrounding the act of moving those quarter million stolen documents off of government systems and onto Assange's systems are what are in question here. If it turns out that there was coordination between them, that does indeed make a big difference.
Palin's using violent rhetoric, and the Dems are using common slang.
You're the one reaching. Democrats also use the phrase "take out," and use it in exactly the same way: as a metaphor, or to mean "take out from power." Are you deliberately ignoring the Democrat senate campaign ad that involved the candidate shooting an actual (not metaphorical) high powered rifle at the issue to which he was opposed? Pretending this sort of thing, which has gone on for all of human history, is new or is what caused an absolute loon who is obsessed with government mind control through the use of poor grammar... is ridiculous.
People like Palin are continually exhorting their followers to "reload"
Here's something fun for you to do: try Googling for DNC and lefty campaign press releases and talking points, and see how long it takes you to get tired of finding results that use the phrases like "we are targeting," "we have great ammo in...." "take out [politician's name]," "crush," and so on. Are you really thinking that only GOP politicians use combative metaphors while fighting for office, policies, and legislative action?
A lot of conservatives can't handle the fact that the GOP has been hate and fear mongering for a while
How were you describing the previous eight years of venom and hate out of KOS, MoveOn, etc? Have you ever actually read the seething, poisonous, hate-filled stuff that has been festering in places like that, or on the (late) Air America? If you can stand it, read some of it, sometime. On the "hate" front, what would you consider to be the GOP's most hateful policy? And which aspect of the previous presidential campaign, on the winning side, would you say was free of abject fear mongering over the prospect of their opponents gaining office?
groups who have been violently expressing their distaste of government for an extended period of time
Which groups have been committing acts of violence? Do you mean, say, SEIU thugs who beat up people at town hall meetings, that sort of thing? Or do you mean people who burn down housing developments, torch car dealerships, and attack medical research labs for using lab rats?
about the winking incitement to violence that has been broadcast since Obama was elected
As opposed to the direct incitement to violence, the store-smashing peace rallies, and the effigy burnings when Bush was in office? The "Bushitler" scream fests, the "revolution" talk, etc? No blathering from crazy lefties about The Man, administration criminals that should be shot, and the rest? Start Googling. If you've only noticed it since Obama was elected, it's because you're choosing to ignore the steady stream of it for years before hand.
Americans like guns, plain and simple, particularly hand guns and assault weapons
Really? What percentage of Americans like assault weapons, or own them? Your use of the plural form suggests that it is a majority. Please be specific.
were people cheering and giving each other high-5's when Vladimir Arutyunian threw a hand grenade at Shrub?
Why yes, yes they were. They same people who call him Bushitler, nice people like that. The sort of people who spent eight years burning him in effigy. The kind of people who did cheer when a crazy guy tried to kill Reagan, or when apocalyptic hippie Squeaky Fromme pointed a.45 at President Ford.
In short: everybody knows the purpose of guns is to kill people
I spent all morning today carrying a gun, with absolutely no thought to killing anyone. Rather, I killed about 15 birds, which are now in my freezer. I and one other person carrying a gun were shooting right next to a dozen other people, dogs, and horseback mounted people watching the proceedings. Nobody was scared, nobody felt threatened. Why? Because the guns weren't there to kill people, and despite being used, weren't used that way.
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Um, NOT how we do things here. See? You've got me all rattled.
Shhh. Your entirely reasonable comment is how we do things here.
The whole Guantanamo thing is a total red herring being put out by his lawyer in an effort to taint any extradition hearings with the atmosphere of drama surrounding the vexing requirements to hold people like KSM somewhere. Assange - even if everything said about him were true and worse - isn't a terrorist combatant, caught in the field doing things like planning and executing attacks on US personnel overseas in a combat zone, etc. If he were to wind up arrested for espionage, and it happened in a country that has reciprocity along those lines, and if it even came to a trial in the US, he'd just wind up in the same sort of federal prison that holds other spies (we've prosecuted a handful of those over the years - it's not mysterious, and hasn't ever involved the sort of military tribunals that were considered the ultimate purpose of housing the bad guys we have at GITMO right there where they are).
The only thing we can say for sure is that there will be more surprises and unexpected players in this before it's done. Remember that it wasn't just US interests that Assange has damanged - he's caused trouble in diplomatic and intel relations between many nations, now. There are a lot of people who'd like to see is actions prosecuted. I'm in no rush - facts first.
Everything is relative
Which means you cannot actually complain about Bush, right? Since there are no objective standards? Except you are complaining, which means you have standards, and a value system based upon them. And that means that, if Hugo Chavez is a better guy to you than Bush, that your values include supporting murder of political opponents, vast graft and corruption, support for murderous drug cartels, shutting down journalists who question your motives, capriciously seizing private property without due process or review, and of course (no doubt this is your favorite part), setting yourself up for rule by fiat. So, basically, you like totalitarian socialist thugs, and you're lecturing other people?
At which point, may I ask, Does the United States of America have juristiction over an Australian, living in the UK, whose website is hosted in Sweden?
You need to understand the difference between jurisdiction (which of course US law enforcement does not have in other countries) and treaty-based extradition agreements. If someone in Sweden killed a bunch of people and then fled to the US, you can imagine that Sweden would like to think that a request to arrest the person and return them to Sweden would be honored. And vice-versa. So, the two countries enter into a treaty that defines the ways in which they will (or won't) cooperate along those lines. Usually, one country will hold a judical hearing where the other country presents its case for extradition, and it is then honored, or not, based on whether it's in keeping with the treaty's rules of evidence, etc. Most western countries have one flavor or another of extradition treaty in place. The US does NOT have an extradition agreement with China.
I fail to see any difference that would indicate a greater or lesser degree of guilt.
Again, one part of the current investigation is over whether or not Wikileaks helped with the theft by providing special server space for Manning as he was stealing the documents. That's a completely separate consideration than the next part: are the people in possession of the docuements also doing something illegal?
A lot of that goes to intent, and conduct, in terms of whether it's the sort of thing that would turn into a prosecution of the NYT people who have their hands on the stolen material. Large news organizations come into posession of all sorts of stuff that they end up handling carefully, not publishing, and/or talking to the feds about. Both parties (the paper and the government) talk all the time, out of public view. Assange made sure that there was no way to pick up the pieces on this one, but he did that, not the newspapers.
As for the "Assange bashing," my shorthand references to that come from public statements by the people he's worked with at Wikileaks, and from those at The Guardian, who described their involvement with him as he tried to control how they published things. I brought it (the long term prospects of Wikileaks as an organization) in response to your discussion of it being taken down, etc. Former associates of his are already launching some other operation. I agree that douchebaggery isn't directly meaningful, legally. But it can be an interesting motivator when it comes to how much other people (like former co-workers) are willing to keep silent about internal political and operational stuff. I'm patient! We'll see how it all works out.
At what point does it become made available then? If Manning told 1 person all of the secrets, would he still be guilty?
... we don't have jurisdiction in China. But you're making it sound like we've arrested some other board, and shut down some other paper. What makes you say that?
The nature of that particular crime would depend on who that one person is.
If he had taken the CD and forgotten it in the back of a taxi, would he still be guilty?
Negligence is not always a crime. Certainly that's not the same as a deliberate act of espionage. Scenarios just like that have happened, and you can bet there was hell to pay in a disciplinary way, if no other.
He broke protocol as soon as he moved the files off the secured network. What HE does with the files, HE will be punished for.
Sure. That's the theory. But he's a messed-up sounding person. They might very well be willing to give him a plea bargain if he'll help them understand who he worked with in moving the stolen material, and how.
But if HE had sold them to a the Chinesse state run news agency instead, we wouldn't be going bonkers over arresting the board and shutting down the paper.
Because
Likewise, if the NYT had published the leaks, we would not likely be seeing the CEO being locked up with a bail an order of magnitude larger than his net worth and limited to house arrest there after.
What are you talking about? Assange has been arrested by the British at the request of the Swedes, with whom they share reciprocal law enforcement policies. The Swedes want to talk to him about their investigation into two women's charges of sexual misconduct. He's having his movement restricted because the Swedes want him back, and they (the two countries) are still sorting out the circumstances of returning him there. Because he has a habit of traveling quietly, because he's secretive about his finances, etc., the British officials took the Swedish officials advice on dealing with him. He'll be in Sweden soon.
No, it is a matter of convenience. Wikileaks presents itself as a target that the US Federal government MAY be able to use to reduce the power of the press.
The US government has not yet filed any charges against him. They're still trying to figure out the particulars of what happened. It's possible that while Wikileaks worked with Manning, that it was someone else, not Assange, that did it.
If the feds go after Wikileaks, and we do not see an increase in scope and power of the federal government through legislative or presidence setting rulings, I would be truely amazed.
I'm not sure I follow you, here. This would not be the first time that espionage cases have been investigated and pursued. There's no new ground, here.
Because lets face it. Wikileaks could be shut down tomorrow, and before dawn Wednesday, it's contents would be reposted on servers around the world and a dozen more leak-clones would appear.
So? That doesn't change what happened. And we're waiting to find out what that was.
If the US is going to shut down Wikileaks, they're going to go for the power grab to shut out a whole lot more.
Such as what? And what makes you say that, specifically? Wikileaks isn't a US web site, it's not hosted in the US, and much of what they do (well, or used to do, before Assange turned away from his general leak-collecting mission and instead into a full-time US-bashing operation) is not illegal, per se. By all reports, the biggest threat to the continued success of Wikileaks is Assange himself - people who have worked there with him have been characterizing him and has handling of this episode as being a total power trip on his part, and they're tired of it.
Where he put them is inmaterial. That he removed them from the secured network in and of itself was the violation.
... they ARE the ones posting them. Manning didn't post them, Wikileaks did. They are the people making them available to the public. The are now loose in the public. A reporter who cites one of those documents - already seen running around online - obviously isn't likely to be pursued for that, just on practical terms. That horse has left Assange's barn. But you'll notice that the military is cautioning anyone who thinks they might want a career in a sensitive job that they should NOT go looking for and read the stolen stuff. Because they'd likely fail a polygraph test asking them if they've ever seen classified documents outside of their job's direct need for access to them.
No, that was one violation. Making them available to people like North Korea and Iran is another violation. Multiple statutes at work,here.
So in what way can they do it and not break the law?
You're asking in what way you can have a guy in the Army hand you a quarter million sensitive documents, publish them, and not be breaking the law? Through the established whistle-blowing protection. But that presumes that you've looked at 250,000 and actually have a whistle to blow. Obviously, Manning wasn't nobly righting 250,000 wrongs, and doing what he swore to do (go up the chain of command with his findings of 250,000 cases of misconduct, or turn to the whistleblower protection agency if that was unworkable) - no, he was going for his max 15 minutes of internet fame, without a clue about what he was actually really getting himself into. Assange, on the other hand, knows exactly what he's doing, and he's banking on dodging extradition and on being slippery enough to avoid leaving enough evidence of cooperation with the document thief to miss out on the whole felony thing. In other words, he's not worried about doing it legally. He's just focused on not getting caught red handed. Not the same thing.
And for those that are currently doing it in the exact same way as Wikileaks (reposting leaked documents) why are they not liable as well?
Wikileaks isn't "reposting" them
The moment Manning took the docs out of the secured environment, they were available to the world.
How were they available to the world? By what means were you able to see them? Where did he put them that you (or North Korea, for example) could get to them? Did he transfer the files to his own web server, and the world just looked at them there? No. They weren't made available by him, they were made available through direct editorial action and decision by Assange. Nothing Manning did would have put those files (including, say, information about Iranian resistance supporters) in front of the government of Iran until Assange acted. Assange hasn't built some magic, indifferent robot that just sites there and relays stolen documents - he and/or his staff deliberately choose to be a part of turning a secret document into one that Iran can read. And he's happy to do so. He's said that he "owns" the documents (his word, not mine). He doesn't just imply control over them, he comes right out and explicitly says that's the case. It's very straight forward.
then no major media outlets will be willing to break the ice
Right, because doing so in the way Assange is doing it in this case is breaking the law. Journalists have no special protections from espionage prosecution. If they did, every country that wanted to spy and smuggle out stolen data would just have their spies work as journalists, and thus never be prosecuted. There's a reason that responsible media outlets don't always publish the stuff they come across: because it's often irresponsible and/or illegal, and they know it.
What's the difference between a state run news agency and an independent news agency that can be shut down and employees jailed for publishing information the government doesn't want them to?
The difference is that private people (some of whom happen to form news companies, or work as journalists, but that's irrelevent) can say whatever they want. Government new outlets say what their bosses tell them to. The private person's ability to say whatever they want, though, is limited by things like libel laws, and of course by laws protecting sensitive material.
If you don't like the fact that a government must be able to act without bad guys having information, or don't like how they act in the context of that unavoidable reality, then be persuasive and elect different people to the oversight committees that deal with the staffing and dollars involved. That's what checks and balances are for, and it's why we have regular elections. If somebody is doing something actually illegal, we have whistleblower laws and protections in place. Manning, of course, was in it for the drama and because he was unhappy with his career choice - and he didn't even attempt to avail himself of the protections available. Why? Because he wasn't doing anything that was worth protecting. He just sprewed the first quarter million sensitive documents he could get his hands on, without a thought to the consequences. He wasn't uncovering law breaking, and telling a journalist about it - he was grinding a personal axe, and knew that Assange would help, because he's also grinding one of his own.
No, a news organization that reports on material already available to the public is not the same as a news organization that acts to make the stolen documents available to the world in the first place. Surely you see the difference.
So anyone who has ever recieved stolen property is guilty of the original theft?
It depends on whether or not they know it's stolen, or had a hand in getting it stolen. They may not be the same thing. That's why "receiving stolen goods" is a crime of its own type (typically used against "fences" who are in the business of laundering such things, and know very well where it call comes from). If you're innocently duped into buying something stolen, you'll often lose the item you bought, and the money you spent on it if the police figure it all out. That doesn't mean you've "received stolen goods" in the criminal sense, just that you were also a victim.
In the case of the Wikileaks stuff, where Assange is in possession of documents that he knows are sensitive, stolen, and of use to enemies of the US (say, North Korea), spreading them around is a direct and simply identified felony, regardless of how he came by them. The espionage statute is very clear on that part. If you know you have them, know they're sensitive, and know they're useful to other nations, you're already breaking the law. If Assange made special arrangements for Manning to upload the huge pile he was stealing, then we're also talking about a different crime. That's what's being looked into.
I want to know when government officials are considering that I am worth investigating.
You do understand that we've been using grand juries to consider indictments for centuries, right?
Regardless: do you really think that we should be telling, say, an insurance fraud scam ring everything that's being done to prepare a case against them, giving them time to destroy evidence? Should the guys running a chain of meth labs be informed of everything that an undercover cop is doing to shut them down, just as courtesy? How about a child porn ring, all of which you're trying to shut down in one shot. Should you allow information about an impending mass arrest in multiple cities to be delivered to those people along the way, before you move to arrest them?
Yes, that's how they set things up, but the thing that's being investigated here is that this was such a huge dump (250,000+ files) that some special accommodation needed to be given. And that this was worked out in advance. And that makes a big, difference. So, we'll see.
providing a place that stolen things could be placed = complicity?
... that the guy Manning was blabbing to has said that Wikileaks did just that: work with Manning to facilitiate the theft. The point of the investigation (or, this part of it) is to see if that's true.
Providing a special place, on request, in order to help a specific person that you know to be stealing classified documents, for storage during the act of stealing them? Yes, complicity. That's the whole point here
Thank you for making my point.
Considering this whole 'grand jury' process is going on in secret
... including by at least one appeals court, depending on how things turn out. A subpoena comes from a judge, not from a cop or prosecutor.
Are you putting 'grand jury' in quotes because you don't think there is such a thing, or because you think it actually has a different name? A grand jury is actually called a grand jury, and there actually is such a thing. And the deliberations are secret because many times the grand jury actually decides NOT to indict someone, and this way the initial evidence or prosecutorial arguments put forth while trying to get an indictment aren't spread all over the place. Which is nice, if it turns out the grand jury doesn't find it even worth indicting you, right?
why should we be confident that there's a due process behind deciding whose IP addresses are being fished out of Twitter?
Because the validity of the evidence (and the means by which it was collected) will be evaluated during a trial and argued over by everyone involved
the whole point of Wikileaks is that you have a drop-box to leak documents, but it's clean hands from the other side
The implication, by the "hacker" that Manning was chatting with, is that Wikileaks may have worked directly with Manning to set up a place for him to dump the stolen documents. Essentially, helping him to steal them. The communcations surrounding the act of moving those quarter million stolen documents off of government systems and onto Assange's systems are what are in question here. If it turns out that there was coordination between them, that does indeed make a big difference.
Palin's using violent rhetoric, and the Dems are using common slang.
... is ridiculous.
You're the one reaching. Democrats also use the phrase "take out," and use it in exactly the same way: as a metaphor, or to mean "take out from power." Are you deliberately ignoring the Democrat senate campaign ad that involved the candidate shooting an actual (not metaphorical) high powered rifle at the issue to which he was opposed? Pretending this sort of thing, which has gone on for all of human history, is new or is what caused an absolute loon who is obsessed with government mind control through the use of poor grammar
do you really think those two examples are comparable?
I don't have a way to compare, because I can't think of any legitimate, significant public figures who are advocating violence against the government.
People like Palin are continually exhorting their followers to "reload"
Here's something fun for you to do: try Googling for DNC and lefty campaign press releases and talking points, and see how long it takes you to get tired of finding results that use the phrases like "we are targeting," "we have great ammo in...." "take out [politician's name]," "crush," and so on. Are you really thinking that only GOP politicians use combative metaphors while fighting for office, policies, and legislative action?
A lot of conservatives can't handle the fact that the GOP has been hate and fear mongering for a while
How were you describing the previous eight years of venom and hate out of KOS, MoveOn, etc? Have you ever actually read the seething, poisonous, hate-filled stuff that has been festering in places like that, or on the (late) Air America? If you can stand it, read some of it, sometime. On the "hate" front, what would you consider to be the GOP's most hateful policy? And which aspect of the previous presidential campaign, on the winning side, would you say was free of abject fear mongering over the prospect of their opponents gaining office?
groups who have been violently expressing their distaste of government for an extended period of time
Which groups have been committing acts of violence? Do you mean, say, SEIU thugs who beat up people at town hall meetings, that sort of thing? Or do you mean people who burn down housing developments, torch car dealerships, and attack medical research labs for using lab rats?
about the winking incitement to violence that has been broadcast since Obama was elected
As opposed to the direct incitement to violence, the store-smashing peace rallies, and the effigy burnings when Bush was in office? The "Bushitler" scream fests, the "revolution" talk, etc? No blathering from crazy lefties about The Man, administration criminals that should be shot, and the rest? Start Googling. If you've only noticed it since Obama was elected, it's because you're choosing to ignore the steady stream of it for years before hand.
Americans like guns, plain and simple, particularly hand guns and assault weapons
Really? What percentage of Americans like assault weapons, or own them? Your use of the plural form suggests that it is a majority. Please be specific.
were people cheering and giving each other high-5's when Vladimir Arutyunian threw a hand grenade at Shrub?
.45 at President Ford.
Why yes, yes they were. They same people who call him Bushitler, nice people like that. The sort of people who spent eight years burning him in effigy. The kind of people who did cheer when a crazy guy tried to kill Reagan, or when apocalyptic hippie Squeaky Fromme pointed a
So what you're saying is that countries that have more crime have more crime, and that it doesn't matter what tool is used.
In short: everybody knows the purpose of guns is to kill people
I spent all morning today carrying a gun, with absolutely no thought to killing anyone. Rather, I killed about 15 birds, which are now in my freezer. I and one other person carrying a gun were shooting right next to a dozen other people, dogs, and horseback mounted people watching the proceedings. Nobody was scared, nobody felt threatened. Why? Because the guns weren't there to kill people, and despite being used, weren't used that way.