Wikileaks
 

I've just been reading old posts on this one. Isn't it interesting that Julian Assange having offended/embarrassed many in high places should be charged with the one crime most likely to cause people to hate him; sexual child abuse? You'd think that of all people he would know how unlikely it would be for anything he did in private remaining private. Heaven forfend that the powers that be have set him up:eek:

Having holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and been given political asylum, the U.K. government claims the right to send police into the Embassy to take him out by force. How f****** incompetent can the U.K. government get?

As to "The Home Of The Brave And Land Of The Free", why does the dissemination of "secret" things so offend you guys?

I think it's important to first discuss how material is determined to require a security classification to begin with. The classification 'secret' for example is defined as that information the disclosure of which could cause grave damage to the national security of the United States. There is a formal process in arriving at such a determination and the determination is only made by those with statutory authority to do so. Contrary to some popularly held views it is not something that is arrived at arbitrarily.

Why do I know this? For much of my 25 years in the Navy I worked closely with highly sensitive material of all classification levels involving both U.S. and NATO information. For 3 of those years I was responsible for all classified material up to and including Top Secret extant the Submarine Force, U. S. Atlantic Fleet.

That Julian Assange has decided that he is the self-appointed arbiter on that which is appropriately classified and that which is not is not only arrogant, presumptuous and inappropriate his behavior is damaging to the security interests of the United States and places at risk the lives of men and women in service to their country.

Any further questions on why I find Julian Assange's activities beyond offensive?

What he said. ^

Fair Enough
 

Fair enough. It still leaves a couple of things though. I accept that there's good reason to keep most official secrets secret, but certainly in the U.K. (and I would guess also in the U.S.A.) governments can piggy-back, add things to the list for their own convenience rather than in defense of the State. A high profile case here was Dr. David Kelly. Said to have committed suicide, if you're interested you can find details here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...vid-Kelly.html


An obvious anomaly was that although he was left-handed, it was his left wrist that was cut. Also although it's normal to hold a Coroner's Inquest after someone commits suicide (especially so if there are arguments as to whether or not he did commit suicide), no inquest was held.


Going back to Julian Assange, the question is still open as to why there was an attempt to vilify rather than discredit him; to pick holes in what he wrote.

On the general principle of "State Secrets", should Watergate have remained secret? Or Bill Clinton's private life. You could argue that Clinton's private life was private and not illegal. The problem was that the more he tried to keep it secret, the more open he was to blackmail.

Assange is a pompous little twit who simply has a glorified opinion of himsllef.

Such an act would be illegal under U.S. law. Classification of information comes under pretty tight scrutiny in this country. There is nothing at all casual about it.


Can't speak to that although I have no information indicating that the government of the U.S. was involved in any such activity.

Neither the Watergate fiasco nor the oral skills of Clinton's intern were ever classified under any U.S. statute. Denied or covered up perhaps but none of it was ever a matter national security.

Julian Assange played with fire and got burned. Releasing the information unfiltered or redacted more then likely ended up getting people killed. He might now see the error in his ways and is doing his best to avoid the wrath of the US.

As for the charges sure they could all be a ploy so the US can scoop him up. But also be true and needing to be prosecuted. If the charges are baseless does one not think it will be shown in any court case? Then who will have egg on their face?




Barney

Assange is not afraid to face the sex charge. What he wants is a guarantee from Sweden that he will not be extradited to USA.

Took information from the US military traitor and published it so the taliban could use it to kill people. I would consider him a war criminal and he should be treated as such and no less. That works for me.
It is good that he is imprisoned in that embassy at least, stuck in a room with a tv, a phone, and a computer to live out his life. Just like Bin Laden.


Carl

For crying out loud.....What government doesn't keep secrets?

Why is it so hard for people to understand that some, or maybe even most of the secrets are best kept secrets?

I'd even go so far as to say there are probably some secrets so nasty that they might cause an internal revolt, but were done for the greater good and, therefore, must be kept a secret. (Sometimes you must kill a few to save a million, anyone?)

Dave

BINGO!

Dave

I still don't see how or why it is illegal for a foreigner on foreign soil to release leaked classified material. I can see why Bradley Manning is in trouble. I cannot see why Assange has committed a prosecutable offense. Newspapers do it here every day of the week. In fact, the NYTimes printed a number of the leaks that Assange had acquired.

FWIW, Beej, I too had high level security clearances from DoD and DOE for over 30 years. There are lots of things that are classified that don't cross the requisite threshold out of laziness, concerns of embarrassment, or a desire of security types and classification speci@lists to retain their piece of the pie. A lot of ink has been spilled in years past over "overclassification" by our government and there's a lot of truth to it IMHO.

That said, Assange seems like a self-important prick. In and of itself, that's not a criminal offense (though rape is). Here in DC, self-important pricks are a dime a dozen.

At least Bin Laden didn't have to eat British take-out food!:D

I have noticed on the BBC the UK spokesperson has softened his tone.....probably realised that the initial response was really bad PR.

I can honestly say that I have never encountered anything that rose to the level you describe. I have seen things that I wasn't entirely clear about as to why they were classified at the level that they were but never anything that was classified but should not have been. In other words, I have seen material that I believed was overclassified, i.e., classified as Secret but really wasn't more than Confidential, but that was a matter of my opinion.

For those who don't know there's some pretty clear written guidance on how to determine the appropriate level of classification. One of my responsibilities was to assist decision makers in applying that criteria and in determining who the actual classification authority was. That's really kind of dry and technical and probably not of much interest here.

Here's what I say: when the grave damage to the security of the United States results from the disclosure of crimes committed by the government or people acting on its behalf, then damage away. Too often classification is used to conceal wrongdoing.

John

Wow!

John, I must reiterate, I've seen volumes of classified material and had custody of quite a bit of it. Some of the access restrictions to it were pretty tight. I have never seen anything that could be described in that fashion.

I've seen investigations into some pretty serious blunders but the reason for the classification wasn't the blunder; it was the activity in which they were engaged when the blunder occurred that required classification. That's a pretty important distinction.

Every aspect of Cheney's Energy Task Force meetings has been classified, even the list of attendees.

John

For the most part, I think your experience reflects mine at various agencies' locations outside of DC. Inside the beltway is another story altogether. It's often about avoiding embarrassment for mismanaged programs. For example, are you familiar with the overblown NSA espionage case against Thomas Drake. He witnessed grievous mismanagement of an expensive and ineffective program at NSA and reported it to the DoD IG for review. It was all about NSA covering their own tracks for having mismanaged their program.

The overthrow of the Mosaddeq government

The overthrow of the Allende government

The repeated assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, some of them utilizing the Mafia

The assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem

Abu Graib


John (my name, not a classified operation)

You mean to tell me that everything that comes out of DC isn't fully compliant with their own pontificated, bloviated, often ambiguous and unintelligible guidance??

Shocking!!!

Yeah, I recall the Drake case. Pretty much thought there was something beneath the surface we weren't privy to.

Regrettably (or perhaps not), John (if that's your real name) none of that ever crossed my desk.

Coming from the land of the zillion calorie burger................... Need I say more?

If my memory serves me right, I believe he did not want to go with a certain new program. :D

Something I just heard on TeeVee and just researched on the Google Machine was that none of Wiki's leaks were Top Secret. In fact, the stuff we're most pissed about (State Department cable leaks) were classified "Confidential," the third level from the top. US publications routinely publish leaks classified at this level. I think we should be much more concerned about the State Dept's ability to maintain its secrets, rather than someone who demonstrated the ease of accessing them.

I came to the same conclusion. The ability of a sovereign state, us, to reach out and pluck a citizen of another nation from his activities and compel him to answer to our notion of national security ls wrong. The leak needed to be stopped at the source and not villify the publisher after the fact. I think what the U.S. is doing casts quite a shadow over our beief in transparency and the idea of a free press. In fact, hiding information from the citizens ought be particularly diificult with onerous justification requirements for the government.

My principal issue with Julian Assange, apart from his self-appointed aribiter status as to what should and what should not be in the public domain, is his suborning of Bradley Manning to treason.

As a separate matter, I must say that I've re-read all of this thread and I cannot accept the notion that simply because some of us view the classification of an action or a process or an idea as an attempted cover up means that that is what it was. Has this happened? Of course. Does that view apply here? Yet to demonstrated in my opinion.

To your first point, that's what the press does on a regular basis (self-appointed arbiters).

To the second point, no one here suggested that the Manning's leaks were solely material that should not have been classified. The point being made was that a significant portion of all classified material is over-classified and subsequently available on a routine basis to too many without a need to know (e.g., Bradley Manning).

The puzzle to me is why the Swede govt cannot guarantee no extradition. Has such govt moved so far to right/closer to USA compared to previous govts.

If the US wants him and only plans on a jail sentence the would extradit him, it is only if they were to go for the death sentence that Sweden would not extradit him.

Then your principle objection is invalid. Manning voluntarily and anonymously posted his first information to Wikileaks. Wikileaks is set up in such a fashion that they are a totally passive recipient of the leaks. Otherwise, they would be vulnerable to conspiracy charges.

There is some speculation that Manning and Assange may have later developed a relationship through Wikileaks that resulted in further disclosures but even that would have necessarily been initiated by Manning.

John

We could threaten them with taking all Romey's money out of their banks. I bet that would get their attention. Back in the day, both these jerk offs would have been hung by now.

Sweden ain't Switzerland. Definitely no Romney money in the land of Absolut, beautiful Svenka flickas and a safety net that would gag any repub and a commensurate tax rate that would blow your mind Jay...:D

And even if it were Romney's is but a drop in the bucket of the Swiss bank account holders. I'm sure the Swiss would laugh at that threat (and equal sure Romney would never dare do such a thing)

Thanks for your perspective, John. Doesn't change my view of Assange, Manning or the issue but thanks.

And I believe in my original post I used the the word 'principal' as in main not 'principle' as in rule or belief.

Not a particularly big fan of that either. Assange however seems to be taking to a whole different level.

Actually at times I'm having difficulty understanding what folks are suggesting with respect to both Manning and Assange.

Manning was simply stupid and Assange is a pompous self important twit. Neither one is a criminal offense but apparently having unprotected sex is in Sweden - if you do the crime then you do the time.

Stupid Manning may be but what he did was indeed criminal.

And I realize that this is probably not a particularly popular position to take but we do have laws in this country on how sensitive material is to be classified, protected, disclosed and eventually declassified. There is a process. Flawed? Perhaps, but it is a process. Color me a reactionary ass-bound bureaucrat but I for one don't think it's a particularly good idea to simply yawn when some self-appointed declassification authority gets a wild hair across his or her ass and decides to disclose something that has been classified. Believe it or not, there is a process by which a classification level can be challenged. Oh, I know; can't wait for that. Would take too much time and the government would never respond, don't you know.

Sorry if that was a bit snarky.

I believe it should at least suggest a re-evaluation of the reasons behind those views. Assange didn't really suborn anything unless you believe Wikileaks' mere existence constitutes subornation of treason.

Thank you, as in how arch! :)

John

As a card carrying self-admitted reactionary ass-bound bureaucrat I never reevaluate my views (when I have any). If it ain't in the regs, it ain't real.

Call this presumption but I find it very difficult to believe that Manning wasn't influenced (perhaps even encouraged) to disclose what he did either directly or indirectly by Assange. I know; no demonstrated or documented direct link. The whole issue just annoys the shit out of me, John. Know what I mean?