The prosecutor has not asked to see Julian, never asked to interview him, and he hasn't been charged with anything. He's been told he's wanted for questioning, but he doesn't know the nature of the allegations against him."

Ahhh double-speak:  The prosecuter hasn't interviewed him, he just wants to interview him.

So this piece of work seeks out his wikileaks groupies bangs them without a condom (the reason he became a deadbeat dad in the first place) and then goes into hiding to avoid a $715 fine?  And his lawyer is complaining about a law in another country?

Frankly, I think the sex by surprise law isn't a bad thing; I know a lot of guys who conviently "break the condom" during sex.

But he's on the lam to avoid questioning in a misdemeanor involving a fine up to $715 dollars?  Fucking hillarious!

So much for the idea that he isn't an ego maniac.

Last edited by Emmeran (2010-12-04 09:38:43)

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

What, were you hiding under a rock during the long night of Reagan's drug war?

Nah, standing duty on on the Korean DMZ; what were you doing?  Are you prepared to have all of your secrets published, all of your emails, letters and rantings laid bare?  Exposing others secrets is frowned upon by every level of society.

Wikileaks was a great idea until he started reading his own press clippings; N.Korea has already reacted violently to these leaks and the balloons are starting to go up everywhere.

Assange want's to have his secrets and be safe but is happy to expose others to violence; don't you see the hypocrasy in that?  Our friends in Iraq and Afganistan are being hunted because of him but he's hiding from a misdemeanor sex charge and some imagined threats.

choad wrote:

Emmeran wrote:

Exposing others secrets is frowned upon by every level of society.

Horseshit. Gossip became our primary export once we gave away our industrial base, and the more sanctimonious the source, the better the price. Lies and gossip are our only currency, a currency backed by lies and gossip.

Again, I'm all for measured release of the information - Bradley will pay the price for his treason and the data really doesn't hurt us as an entity.  I am offended by Assange as a person and his idea that transparency is worth any price.  The major media has the same info but is cleansing the data before release to avoid putting people at risk; Assange is happy to put everyone at risk but himself.  Prototypical of the deadbeat dad that he is.

The concept of unfettered transparency only exists in societies which have not recently been at risk; the lack of external threat invites the populace to assume their own government are the enemy.  The fact remains that external threats to our society are very real and are ignored only by the foolish. 

Assange isn't one of us and frankly he hates the American's amoung our midst; he's stated as much himself.  Assange doesn't care who he hurts in his rush towards fame from hurting America.

Really, the guy plays condom games with groupies, WTF did you think he was?

Tall Paul wrote:

Sorry Em, but this is the kind of thing you're defending, and it has to stop.

Don't be obtuse, I've stated over and over again I support investigative reporting; but mindless dumping of intel is unacceptable.

So, you support blacklisting for anyone caught discussing the Wikileaks case or the material published? Take it a step further, what about blacklisting the children and associates of those found guilty of Attempting To Discuss? Your kids and mine, in fact.....

All I want is for the decisions made by elected and/or appointed representatives to conform to both the Constitution AND common sense.

Emmeran wrote:

......but for the most part they do what they were hired for and try their best to represent the interests of their populace

Don't try too hard to defend that one!

Last edited by Tall Paul (2010-12-05 03:33:12)

fnord wrote:

Our elected representatives do in fact do what they are hired to do.  If you have enough money, you can hire them to do your bidding as well!

Bingo!

Tall Paul wrote:

fnord wrote:

Our elected representatives do in fact do what they are hired to do.  If you have enough money, you can hire them to do your bidding as well!

Bingo!

Ahhh the joys of democracy; but look at it this way - it's the only form of government that allows all of it's citizens the equal opportunity to bribe their duly elected leaders.

Just because nobody is known to have died over this doesn't mean that it wasn't wrong and didn't put people at risk.

Assange is an asshat of the highest order.  He's not an investigative reporter, he's not blowing any whistles... he's doing it solely for his own aggrandization.  He's a narcissist.

This time, however, he managed to annoy some governments (like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Koreas) who have good, well-funded networks of people who sort out embarrasing little problems.  And you can bet the US or Canada won't be protecting this guy.

But if he really has balls, let's see him wikileak some classified Israeli documents and then vacation in Tel Aviv for a week.  If he does that, I'll at least be forced to admit he's got balls.

otherwise, he's just a one-nutted wonder looking for a bullet in the head, which some foreign government will be happy to oblige soon enough.

Tall Paul wrote:

give me a list of names of undercover agents who have been blown or shut the fuck up.

It's this sort of "bury your head in the sand" mentality that pisses me off about Assange and his supporters.  Everyone is so pissed off at the governments right now they just want to strike back and don't care who gets hurt in the process.

But this is the real world and people really do get killed, exposing information is a serious responsibility and requires serious diligence and forethought; throwing millions of docs into the wind isn't either.

peco wrote:

everyone thinks it's so funny because it's politicians being embarrassed.  I wonder how they'll feel when someone leaks their own secrets?

We're well past that, aren't we? Careful you don't piss off Mrs. Peco.

Very good article, it points out correctly that this leak while embarassing it's not dangerous; if Assange truly had something damning it would be out already.  I still condemn his methods and goals but he wasn't able to get to any serious data.

I know some people aren't aware of the security classifications so here is a little primer:

CONFIDENTIAL: Applied to information or material the unauthorized disclosure of which could be reasonably expected to cause damage to the national security.

SECRET: Applied to information or material the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.

TOP SECRET: Applied to information or material the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.

TOP SECRET/SCI:  Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (specialized programs, defines need to know)

TOP SECRET/HUMINT:  Human Intelligence (named sources, etc)

Several other specific sub categories exist, for example Nuclear Weapons have their own, but that's about it.  When reading you should assume national security and national reputation to be one and the same.

State Department Hilariously Announces World Press Freedom Day!

choad wrote:

It's not hard. It's not fucking possible.

I agree, Assange makes me vomit in my mouth everytime I think of him.  I love these fucking people and their ideas that only they deserve privacy and secrets; followed by their belief that they should be the ones who get to decide which of someone else information to expose.

But then again, I've got a personal vendetta about absentee & deadbeat fathers; the simple act of slinking from the responsibility of that magnitude tells you legions about the individual.  Thankfully Assange follows that up with other slime ball actions to prove what an egotistial turd he truly is.

The most pleasing aspect of this entire episode is that the information is effectively harmless; although the damage to international communications have the possibility of creating really nasty side effects.  But none of the wikileaks fucks care about that, which is why they aren't journalists, just dumpster divers.

Emmeran wrote:

Julian Assange wrote:

In his response published Wednesday in the daily The Australian, Assange calls organization the "underdog" and writes: "Prime Minister Gillard and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have not had a word of criticism for the other media organizations. That is because The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel are old and large, while WikiLeaks is as yet young and small."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/wor … 12,00.html

Thanks Julian, for unknowingly backing up my argument.  No one has condemned the large media because they have been thoughtful in their release of information; perhaps because they actually investigate information and publish with purpose rather than dumpster dive and release.  They are trying to report facts and you Julian are feeding your ego hoping to improve your standing with the groupies (which you have).

The curtain is falling on this show, mostly thanks to Assanges' own actions and words; I think the US's strategy of "let the asshole bury himself" has worked.

So, what, this guy sees himself as Drudge of the new millennium?

George Orr wrote:

Some sites have received federal court orders to cease any further online documentation...

However repugnant you find Assange to be, I can't see how you can find him more repugnant than this, and the other recent acts of some of our larger institutions, public and private.

Operation Payback Eh??  Are you sure it's Fed pressure or maybe Assange's promise to start posting stolen information from those very same companies? Can you tell me?

I find it curious that no one who's been ranting about the lives lost/put at risk by the leaks has bothered to come up with one single concrete example.

Please, give me one concrete example that no one has been put at risk, this show me the blood attitude only reveals that you will dismiss that info as contrived when it is provided.  Evangelists will never acknowledge truth.  History tells us that being cautious is very important and that payback does happen (see your above example of the attacks on MasterCard).  How many deaths are worth knowing what Clinton thinks of Merkel?  This is what separates journalists from dumpster divers.

Wikipedia on Secrecy:  "excessive revelation of information on individuals can conflict with virtues of privacy and confidentiality."  Ergo, messages written in confidence should only be exposed if they are concealing misdeeds; this is the difference between journalists and rabble rousers (popularly known as Bloggers).

So at the same time we decry the loss of privacy via the TSA we applaud others loss of privacy via wikileaks.  It's simply beautiful how closely these events occurred.

(I've not called for anyone to be hurt, I'll leave that to Palin)

opsec wrote:

Emmeran wrote:

(Well, at least all of them who have raised chidren).

Or believe in the lord. 

Your having raised children does not make you more objective.  It makes you less so.

Speaking of which, I was in a church last night for the first time in at least a decade; I think I'll wait another before I go again.

Scotty wrote:

George Orr wrote:

P.P.S.  And that reminds me:  When Valerie Plame was outed, that incident actually did expose people and put lives at risk.  Those of you who want to see Assange's brains go splat on no evidence--I don't recall any of you calling for Rove or Cheney to be put to splat when they did real damage.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm sorry, who was in danger from outing a desk jockey that created her importance out of thin air?

Glad to see you're wearing your double standard proudly, Scotty, and that as a back-cracker you have access to better sources than investigators, prosecutors and journalists.

phreddy wrote:

Meanwhile the City of Berserkly is planning to honor the little prick who started it all.

I'm sure that will be of great comfort to him as he spends the rest of his life on death row:

Uniform Code of Military Justice wrote:

Article 106a: (1) Any person subject to this chapter who, with intent or reason to believe that it is to be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation, communicates, delivers, or transmits, or attempts to communicate, deliver, or transmit, to any entity described in paragraph (2), either directly or indirectly, anything described in paragraph (3) shall be punished as a court-martial may direct, except that if the accused is found guilty of an offense that directly concerns (A) nuclear weaponry, military spacecraft or satellites, early warning systems, or other means of defense or retaliation against large scale attack, (B) war plans, (C) communications intelligence or cryptographic information, or (D) any other major weapons system or major element of defense strategy, the accused shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct.

Last edited by Emmeran (2010-12-09 12:45:55)

choad wrote:

Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

    Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?

    Number 3: Why is the hostility directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?

    Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?

    Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

    Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?

    Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

    Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?

    Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?

1. Yes
2. Flawed security policy (side note: he wasn't a private at the time and rank has nothing to do with access)
3. Because of the manner in which he is publishing it:  a) Without cleansing it  b) A little at a time to keep the attention on him  c) Without purpose  (most of this info is pointless and any half-professional journalist wouldn't bother with it)
4. Hard to say, this is less intel more standard reporting - most of this is from State Dept budget and not part of those Intel dollars.
5. Easy one:  Bush lying us into war - hands down (but really an off-topic question
6. Assange can only be found guilty of "recieving stolen goods", or something like that here; Australia may have something for him though.  (I don't think he should be arrested)
7. Could the real reason be that Assange has started to merrily threaten other nations and international organizations; let's face it - he even managed to piss off France (who couldn't give a fuck about what America wants).
8. No.  The problem here is the how and why of the releasing; this information was dumped to try and cause damage and to gain attention.  Investigative Journalism = Good, Information Terrorism = Bad.
9. It still is, but I'm still waiting to see a few issues of wrong in this case - even the Apache attack has been vindicated by the presence of rifles and RPG's. 

Bradley and Assange have both stated that they merely felt that no one (except apparently them) should have secrets, they are transparency evangelists and information terrorist.  However they both turned out to be great keepers of secrets themselves.

On the other hand the US comes out as having the same message in private as they have in public and looking pretty good, however our counter-parties look shifty and have a sudden intense hatred of one Julien Assange.

Aude wrote:

I completely support the principle behind Wikileaks.  In the future, I would love to see hundreds of sites like Wikileaks putting on public view that which originates from any entity that effects the rest of us.

Question is, who'd want such a thankless job? I launched a local site like that myself and drove the three worst malefactors out of public office. Their replacements were worse. Good to see you here, Aude.

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Emmeran wrote:

The point still remains is that the wikileaks dump wasn't about exposing wrong-doings; it's transparency evangelism and information terrorism.  The beauty is that there were no wrong doings to be exposed, which is kind of unbelievable.

Kind of.  So far, anyway.
Now it must be asked what everyone is so afraid of simply because someone has had the audacity to create a venue in which things previously considered to be none of your fucking business are now available to you.  Could it be that maybe there are people who desire secrecy mainly because they are really not working, as they would have you believe, for your best interests after all?
...

A well known law called the "Freedom of Information Act" makes all of this information available upon demand anyway bringing us back to the question of: What is the point of WikiLeaks anyway?

But does the so called "Freedom of Information Act" actually do that?  Evidently, it does not.

Dmtdust wrote:

" it's transparency evangelism and information terrorism."

This is on par with economic "terrorism".  Quit misusing the term.  You cheapen the discussion, again.

Oh come on Dusty, lets not forget to lump them in with the good Government's declared "domestic terrorists" bent on destroying Em's god given way of American life.




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I'm with Dusty on this aspect of it, Emm.  The term terrorism is already overused and misused. 

On the Freedom of Information Act, I have submitted a fairly large number of requests for clients and not once has the government come close to produced all that it should have.  You are left with no option but to pursue litigation, at substantial cost that likely cannot be recovered, especially since the Department of Justice is not subject to the kind of financial pressure to settle cases that private parties experience.