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Federal employees and contractors—including the Dept of Homeland Security!—have been ordered to stay away from the WikiLeaks’ site and from documents made available by WikiLeaks. This prohibition includes the home use of newspapers and personal computers. The U.S. Army, the FBI, and the Justice Department are threatening to prosecute WikiLeaks for “encouraging the theft of government property.”
The feds have teams of lawyers on the lookout for a pretext to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange under the Espionage Act. The government has not shown a similar interest in prosecuting the scores of right-wing bloggers who have publicly called for his murder.
The Obama administration has asked (intimidated?) Britain, Germany, Australia, and other countries to find ways to prosecute WikiLeaks and its founder.
The Library of Congress has blocked access to WikiLeaks on its computers.
The feds have threatened to prosecute newspapers and websites that have published or posted documents made available by WikiLeaks.
The U.S. State Department has warned Columbia University that diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks are “still considered classified,” and that knowledge of them would “call into question students’ ability to deal with confidential information” should they apply for a job with that agency. (How would the government know that a private citizen had accessed such documents?)
Private people and entities that the U.S. government might have influenced in its war on WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks’ founder is on bail in Sweden after being charged with raping two women. Because there is no better way to discredit an organization than by charging its founder with sex crimes, and because the U.S. government appears to be doing all it can, short of murder, to destroy WikiLeaks, a scenario in which private citizens were paid to make false accusations appears conceivable.
Moneybookers and Paypal, sites that handled donations to WikiLeaks, have ended their affiliation with WikiLeaks.
Visa and Mastercard have stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks.
Amazon.com has cancelled its web-hosting contract with WikiLeaks.
Several of the above companies violated their contracts with their users and with Wikileaks when they cancelled their services.
However much you dislike WikiLeaks, please remember that it has never been charged with any crime (it is a felony to steal government documents, not to print them), and that the government’s many threats of prosecution of WikiLeaks, its founder, and those who reproduced material that WikiLeaks provided; as well as its attempt to encourage other nations to prosecute WikiLeaks or its founder can best be understood as harassment. Even if the feds can’t throw anyone in jail, they can discredit them or break them financially, and if they are willing to destroy one law-abiding person or entity today, is it unrealistic to worry they might go after another tomorrow?
Support WikiLeaks. Support it against the tyranny of the U.S. government and its lackeys. Support it if for no other reason than that the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Support it because no government that uses its vast resources to destroy a law-abiding person or organization is ever your friend. http://213.251.145.96/
20 comments:
The information should have been better-protected in the first place.
Dumb people think it is all CIA stuff, when none of it is.
The initiating act has been lost in the subsequent conniptions:
Gay soldier Bradley*Manning age 23, was demoted out of spite, for his activism re DADT repeal. Out of revenge spite, he published on WikiLks, information he had access to.
He is probably having the most evil time in the slammer poor guy.
I have a slightly different opinion in that my child is serving in the U.S. Army and any intel that puts our soldiers in danger should be verboten.
I agree with you Snow....this man has not been charged with anything except a condom breaking during sex, I do think he is being set up. I have been following this story and personally I haven't read anything that has harmed any country except a few personal feelings have been hurt. Unless something more intense is released I can't understand why the US is so upset.....am I missing something?
Oh by the way Assange is under house arrest on friend's farm just outside of London, he is fighting being sent back home....:-)Hugs
Ann O'Dyne said: "Dumb people think it is all CIA stuff, when none of it is."
The leaks that have everyone in a uproar were man-in-the-field reports to the U.S. State Department. These leaks harmed no one but they embarrassed the hell out of the State Department because they contained candid assessments of foreign leaders strengths and weaknesses. If they even might have put our national security at risk, you would think the State Dept would have answered WikiLeaks request for information about which ones were too dangerous to release, but the State Dept ignored that request.
Nitwit said: "... any intel that puts our soldiers in danger should be verboten."
If you concluded that a certain person lied to you more often that not, would you not demand evidence that what he or she was telling you was the truth in regard to future statements? This is how I feel about government claims about national security. Remember, we have now spent ten years fighting two asinine wars; AND that our government can--without a court order--now demand that our public library turn over a list of the freaking books we've read; AND that we can now be charged with an act of terrorism and sent to prison for decades if we so much as chain ourselves to a logging company's gate during an environmentalist demonstration. These and scores of other things were necessary, we were told, to protect us from boogie men. Do YOU feel any safer? I know I don't. I know I actually feel LESS safe due to the idiocy of my own government. Not only do many more people all over the world want to destroy us; we are now less free at home. So, when I hear that soldiers' lives were put at risk by WikiLeaks, I want to see the documents. Have YOU seen them? If you have, I would ask that you point me to a source where I can find them, because I don't know of ANY such documents, and I very much doubt that they exist.
Bernie, the last I heard, Assange was released on bond in Sweden where he is staying.
Bernie said: "I can't understand why the US is so upset....."
All it takes here in the U.S. for the conservatives to become absolutely hysterical and favor the complete appeal of all civil liberties; the permanent imposition of martial law in every city and town; the speedy execution of anyone who ever whispered a critical word about GW Bush (after they've been tortured to determine the whereabouts of bin Laden); and the immediate firing of every nuclear missile we possess at every other country in the world as well as any U.S. state identified as liberal; is for anyone anywhere to whisper that they heard it from their third cousin's sister's drunk and retarded brother-in-law that space aliens told him that our national security might be in a microscopic degree of jeopardy. In other words, we've become a nation of cringing cowards to whom freedom means nothing. Sad to say, we have lots and lots of bombs, and this leaves me in fear that some nutcase like Sarah Palin just might become our next president. After all, look at all the trouble our last president was able to get us into without half trying. As weak as Obama appears to be, he doesn't appear to be an out-and-out frothing at the mouth lunatic.
If my kid was in the army, I'd want every scrap of information published so that we would know they were actually doing some good. Their lives are in danger because of the lies of the government, not the revelations of Wikileaks
The US government is mad because the leaks showed them up to be horrendous liars. So far they have not caused the death of anyone and may in the long run save some lives if they can galvanize people to action.
http://australianpolitics.com/2010/12/16/statement-on-wikileaks-by-thomas-blanton-national-security-archive-director.html
Regarding the third paragraph in your post, we have freedom of speech in this country. What we don't have is freedom of access to private property (that's called stealing) or classified information (that's called espionage).
Regarding your comment, "if we so much as chain ourselves to a logging company's gate during an environmentalist demonstration," how Oregonian it all sounds!
Regarding your comment, "from their third cousin's sister's drunk and retarded brother-in-law," our current politically correctness climate requires that you say "allegedly inebriated" and "mentally challenged" and I also believe that a third cousin's sister is also a third cousin.
Yours for accuracy in media,
rhymeswithplague
Rhymes said: " "if we so much as chain ourselves to a logging company's gate during an environmentalist demonstration," how Oregonian it all sounds!"
Treehuggers are the reason Oregon still has old growth and Georgia doesn't. Your point is valid though. If I lived in Georgia, I might have had protesters chaining themselves to the gate of the The School of the Americas (aka "School for Dictators", "School of Assassins", and "Nursery of Death Squads") where students come from the countries with the worst human rights records, and we teach them better ways to oppress their own people. We do this to enhance our own national security, of course. We are, at heart, an evil country, I believe.
The whole thing is plain damn stupid on so many levels. Common sense has left the building.
I agree with you, Snowbrush, and largely for the reasons you've mentioned. Our government is bullying the rest of the world into silence and hiding important information from us - those who need to know what's really going on so that our vote might have a hope of meaning something again.
I understand the fear that some leaked info might harm our troops but I think us flying blind and allowing reckless tyrants to torture and murder others is far more dangerous to our troops and to ourselves.
America has fallen prey to a deadly disease of apathy and ignorance. The medicine (leaked info) is very bitter and it's going to burn going down. Nonetheless, we must take it if we have any hope of getting well again.
Fodder said: "If my kid was in the army... Their lives are in danger because of the lies of the government, not the revelations of Wikileaks."
YES! Why aren't these people who are calling for the murder of Assange calling for the murder of that George Bush, who got us into these needless wars or for Obama who implied that he would get us out of them, yet two years into his presidency, we're still there and will be for years to come. (Well, for one thing, anyone who called for the murder of a U.S. president would be in the bowels of Colorado's Supermax by now, whereas calling for the murder of Assange appears to be better than okay.) The blood of hundreds of thousands is on Bush's hands, and our great grandchildren will still be paying for his mistakes. Now, Obama continues to throw away money and lives.
Rhymes said: "a third cousin's sister is also a third cousin."
I appreciate you pointing out my error, Rhymes. The sister in question is a step-sister three times removed due to a failed marriage between a Bedouin and an Israeli.
Kay said: "Common sense has left the building."
I hope you're referring to the government and not me!
Skepticat said: "I understand the fear that some leaked info might harm our troops..."
But that hasn't happened. I think that, perhaps, talk radio magnifies people's fears. I used to listen to some of those guys, and I can tell you from my own experience if that's all you listen to for hours on end, day after day, you just naturally buy into their lies. That's why Hannity says (I guess he still says it): "Three hours a day is all I ask." Sure, you listen to Hannity for three hours a day and to Limbaugh and/or O'Reilly for three more, and you'll start believing that toilet paper is a liberal plot.
Hi Snowbrush, Annie here, I just saw your comment on my art blog you made a couple months ago about pets dieing, I agree I have cried harder for most of my animals then people and I think it is because they are like my children.
As for Wikileaks, I am all for it and it's founder, and I do not believe he raped those women! They have put no one in danger except those that have things to hide.
Go Wikileaks! xoxo
But what if toilet paper IS a liberal plot...
Rhymes said: "But what if toilet paper IS a liberal plot..."
My sweet friend, walk away from the radio. Do it now. ....Well, what if you're right, though. It would be just like the government to put tiny little sensors in toilet paper that would detect the presence of tofu in one's diet, and transmit that information to the CIA, the FBI, and Eddie Bauer. I
You know, Rhymes, I miss Southern accents. I miss a lot of other things about the South too, yet I can't imagine ever living there again. I would like to visit again though someday, and I would hope that we could meet. I would even go to church with you.
Annie, I am amazed that only two people (if I remember correctly) have sided with the government. I so often anticipate people becoming mad at my ideas only to be surprised when most of them agree. Of course, it's entirely possible that people who disagree simply don't comment. Even so, it's so good to not feel alone with what I had thought would be unpopular, even hated, opinions.
I'm speechless! We do have a welcome mat at our front door, however, and you and Peggy would be very welcome! In the interest of full disclosure, we have a filth-free home as well as a filth-free blog, so let us know when you're coming and we will stock extra Lifebuoy soap for the occasion. (Note to others: Snow will know what I'm talking about.)
Seriously, are you just saying you would go to church with me because the likelihood of visiting is remote? For the record, we attend a Methodist church that has a woman pastor, so there is no chance that your Church of Christ relatives will have any inkling that you're in the neighborhood.
I would go to church with you too if you went to one. Guess we will just have to "hang out" together instead.
I don't remember who said this but it feels true to me..."we need to be far more afraid of the man who wants to take away our freedoms than the one who wants to bomb us.' Blogs are being monitored and removed by government agencies if they have any sort of anti-war comment or suggestion that America is not exactly the country we like to think it is...same with Face Book pages...coming down...It is scary. Freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest are things of the past. The world is watching US...the people of this nation, to see if we are going to wake up...I wonder...Thanks for the timely post...Happy New Year...
I think the general thought here is that it should not have been so easy for that soldier to get the information out in the first place.
In regards to Amazon, Visa, and Mastercard...It may be the only way to make them think twice before publishing documents and communications that are obviously stolen. There are some things that should just be common sense and trying to enrage other countries against the U.S. is not a good thing. Loss of money is the only thing some people understand.
As fas prosecuting Assange, it is a ridiculous proposition because we do have the First Amendment which gives them the right to publish the materials they are given. I don't believe any one has the ability or the basis for charging him with anything. After all, if Larry Flynt can be our poster boy for the First Amendment rights, then he can publish anything he wants.
I say if you have a problem with leaks then by Depends.. Happy New Year Snow.
I feel for crazed nitwit with a child fighting overseas. does he/she remember the Pentagon papers scandal that revealed five presidents covered up the truth and that was basically they were 'there to save face'?
Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of brave children, and who would argue that an 18 to 20 year old is really grown up, were dying so they would not have to admit what became known anyway, that the Vietnam war wsa a mistake, had nothoing to do with halting the spread of Communism and everything to do with being re-elected?
We had our own dick herds here, backing them up. Same in Iraq.
Go Julian!
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