Julian Assange, the Australian-born founder of WikiLeaks, a site that publishes and comments on leaked documents alleging government and corporate misconduct, has been in the news this week after WikiLeaks began disseminating over 250,000 leaked United States embassy cables dating from 1966 to February of this year, and it’s being speculated that U.S. authorities have already issued an arrest warrant for Assange as a result.
Discuss…
Good topic!
If the rape allegations aren’t true I don’t dislike this guy. I’m assuming what he did (leaking confidential documents) is against the law which is why they are all after him??
He has a warrant against him from Interpol due to an alleged sex crime, not for publishing the leaked documents. Though I’m sure there are a lot of people in the U.S. government would like to have his hide on their wall.
Clearly, we need to help clear Interpol’s blotter.
WikiLeaks doesn’t leak anything; it publishes and distributes leaks, which is not (yet) a crime. The documents they’re distributing describe crimes, and the denial-of-service attacks against WL’s servers are crimes, but strangely we don’t have senators and pundits getting exercised about that.
Of course Congress and the White House aren’t upset about the DOS attacks against WikiLeaks; after all, WikiLeaks is airing all the government’s dirty laundry.
Ultimately, the folks who may pay the stiffest price are those who leaked the materials, if the government ever figures out who those individuals are.
Yup. Contradictions: heightened.
I havent had time to really read too much of it, but this is interesting. It shows that when the repubs(esp mcconnell) say that obama never worked with them, that he is lying!
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-obama-quashed-torture-investigation
Then there is also this: Ron Paul seems to like wikileaks.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/ron-paul-what-wikileaks/?utm_source=Raw+Story+Daily+Update&utm_campaign=f16aa919a2-Dec412_4_2010&utm_medium=email
This is the many reasons I like Ron Paul. Unlike most Republicans in power, he’s principled, intelligent, and even if I don’t agree with him constantly with a lot of aspects? (mostly social aspects.) But the point is I can trust him to do what he believes is best for our country and not what is best for himself and certain interests. I also agree with him auditing the federal reserve.
Sadly this is a huge reason why I’m saddened at both the loss of Russ Feingold and Alan Grayson. They also had a similar position on this. Thank god we still have Bernie Sanders on that issues but I don’t think it matters since it’s only two senators out of a hundred. (Not that it mattered before of course, but it’s even less heard now.)
He’s also hilarious.
I don’t think Assange has violated any US laws as he is not a US Citizen and he is not operating in the US. If somebody knows otherwise, let me know.
The law breakers MAY be the ones who provided Assange the information. They have to be US citizens OR on US soil when the documents were purloined. IF, a big IF, Manning took the documents then he may be guilty of treason, or not. He did not turn the documents over to a foreign government or a representative of a foreign government. What makes Manning different than a lobbyist who shares industry knowledge with a foreign buyer? Manning is more likley to be charged with theft of government property.
This is the best that I can make of this situation at the moment. I am open to other thoughts.
While I don’t support what he’s doing I do think the reaction is telling. Something I feared since the far right wave (not just Republican) that swept the nation after 9/11 has happened.
Someone who is inconvenient has been called a terrorist. Couple this with calls that terrorists do not deserve due process (Who exactly has the right to deem them terrorists without due process in the first place?) and coupled with the fact that a disturbing number of people do not think human rights apply to anyone who is not a USA citizen and you see a troubling picture.
This man being called a terrorist is something that should chill any freedom loving citizen of this country to the bone. Terrorism is a disgusting crime, and to abuse the word to target anyone who is inconvenient to the government or politically is something very worrying.