Pentagon Seeking Out Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange 628
a user writes "The Pentagon is desperately seeking the 'cooperation' of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in order to stop him from releasing over 250,000 pages of confidential foreign policy documents. The documents were allegedly provided to Assange by Bradley Manning, the same solider who leaked a video showing a US Army helicopter killing unarmed civilians and international press correspondents."
Re:As they should be. (Score:5, Interesting)
Good thing he's not a United States citizen then, or else he might be violating his social contract.
Love the guardian (Score:1, Interesting)
Julian Assange is painted as a real life Jason Bourne; not so much. I hope, if Julian has these papers, he can get them released. The world of secrets is so yesterday, and the Pentagon/NatSecure pretending this is a security issue would be a joke if they hadn't murdered so many people already. Does the Pentagon really think it is a secret that they are woefully foolish, bigoted, and misanthropic? Really, what else do these contain when `all the presidents men' are willing to roll over on active spies for vindictiveness.
Rock on Julian; forcing what these lunatics say and think into the public sphere is a service to all, and will help change the world for the better.
This started over 12 hours ago (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:As they should be. (Score:2, Interesting)
Nope, that sounds more like the definition of spying. Giving the intelligence to the enemy, or to the general public doesn't matter. For all we know, he's been trading valuable information, and publishing embarrassing information. I don't honestly believe that, but I'm sure if he "cooperates", it will be used at his trial, assuming he gets one. Otherwise, we'll hear about a tragic boating accident in which he didn't make it. You have to watch the buildup of gas fumes in the engine compartment, a boat can just explode without any notice.
Re:This started over 12 hours ago (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a different point of view (Score:2, Interesting)
According to the Wikipedia (and consistent with the media reports):
Manning reportedly said that the diplomatic documents expose "almost criminal political back dealings" and that they explain "how the first world exploits the third, in detail"
Probably this is the same sort of thing that U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler [wikipedia.org] recognized about the military and political black-ops in the early twentieth century. What's new is old.
It's also interesting that Bradley Manning wasn't given an award for pointing out corruption in government, seeing as how congress enacted whistle-blower protection [wikipedia.org] for people who expose corruption in government.
Seems like the military wants to have it's cake and eat it too. Too bad for Manning and the military.
From the article:
Although it is likely that WikiLeaks has broken US laws in de-encrypting the video from Baghdad and publishing secret documents, the tone of an American official who spoke to the Daily Beast sounded more desperate than threatening. "We'd like to know where he is; we'd like his cooperation in this," the official said.
I'm certain that if they get their hands on Lassange, that they would quickly arrest him. There is nothing more threatening to government security than publicity about government corruption.
If in fact the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military (Barrik Obama) is indeed not Right Wing like so many Republicans claim (they say he is a "socialist" and a "liberal") then Obama would make sure that Bradley Manning is given a Presidential Pardon and that any embarrassing and illegal conduct conducted by the military and diplomatic core be brought out into the public (through his proclaimed government "transparency" initiative) and any unethical or illegal acts be punished accordingly.
Somehow I'm thinking that isn't going to happen, because Obama is just a different shade of neoconservative than his predecessor. My two cents anyway. Moderate with moderation!
Wikileaks doesn't possess these documents (Score:3, Interesting)
according to WikiLeaks' twitter feed [twitter.com]: "Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect."
Would Wikileaks have a reason to lie and withhold these messages, if the US govt. has the capability to find out if Manning sent them to Wikileaks? Maybe he leaked them, but to someone else, and it was simply assumed to have been to Wikileaks?
Re:Give him a Nobel Prize (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree 100%
What are we afraid of? our own actions? Well then we certainly shouldn't be hiding them. We should be rethinking them.. but first we must know the truth.
Release it all.
The government has screwed over our own people for many years now. Time for a little pay back.
Re:As they should be. (Score:3, Interesting)
You could say some information should be kept secret ( like military strategies , etc ... ) , but if they can be leaked , they will be leaked , and the chances are it's going to be leaked not to the general public , but to someone with less then good intentions.
That is also an interesting point. If it's on wikileaks, everybody knows its public knowledge and plans can be changed accordingly.
I still think that wikileaks has a bit of a duty to try to filter out stuff that's obviously going to get someone killed if it's publicly known.
Is it really that hard? (Score:2, Interesting)
"# Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:37:12 wikileaks: Super panel tonight in Vegas with Julian Assange, Valerie Plame & Scott Risen | IRE10 bit.ly/dwcjxI"
Wow, is it really that hard to find him? He tweets his location pretty regularly...
I hope he gets a gun and exercises his 2nd amendment right. If there was ever something I think it applied to, I would imagine this is it.
Re:As they should be. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:As they should be. (Score:3, Interesting)
More people die each year from car accidents in the US then every terrorist act combined yet were not spending hundreds of billions of dollars coming up with scientific ways to prevent that, and it could be done easily. Instead we spend hundreds of billions of dollars coming up with scientific ways to better kill. People are already dying - release the documents.
Re:Wikileaks doesn't possess these documents (Score:4, Interesting)
BULLSHIT! (Score:1, Interesting)
Only lives that are "on the line" should the information be leaked are those of the guilty parties.
Military has complete knowledge of the contents of those papers. They should, cause they wrote them.
Ergo, not a single troopers or civilians life (on any side of the conflict) should be lost due to the leaking of the information - as the military already knows how to prevent that.
Move the assets, change the codes and call-signs, plug the holes and reinforce the barriers.
And please don't start how that costs money, as that is the one thing military obviously has no problem with at the moment.
Only "lives on the line" IRL are the ones that military and intelligence heads will "silence" in order to cover their asses.
Re:Give him a Nobel Prize (Score:5, Interesting)
That may be the only way to wake Americans up. If the world gets pissed at us because abused our privilege as one of the worlds most prosperous countries, and abdicated our authority to corrupt politicians as we drank Starbucks and watched American Idol, we will simply be getting what we deserve. The citizens of the US needs a wake up call before those assholes in Washington destroy this country.
Re:As they should be. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the issue is WTF the US Army is doing down there. Not how they fight the war but that there is a war in first place considering it's one that has been started on lies and done nothing but waste money and further destabilize the region.
Re:We promise we won't hurt you. (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>According to the Daily Breast
Now THAT'S my kind of newspaper. ;-) I think the Wikileaks founder should ignore the Pentagon. The leaking of video showing soldiers killing reporters, children, and other innocents is exactly what this country needs to erase the myth that government is "good" for us. Or that leaders can be trusted. Fucking bastards. They promised to end this damn war years ago, and yet here we are. The only way it will end is if, like Vietnam, we turn public opinion against the war and the government.
Keep up the good work Mr. Manning.
Re:Give him a Nobel Prize (Score:3, Interesting)
Releasing this classified information could result in people being embarrassed. Big deal, right? It could result in international relations degrading or outright collapsing. Big deal, right? It could result in operatives being uncovered. Big deal, right? It could result in operatives being killed. Big deal, right? It could result in soldiers and civilians being killed. Big deal, right?
Right. It is a big deal. Just because this one person with a cavalier attitude towards security and classified information thought his "information wants to be free" attitude was more important than the military's "this information needs to be kept from outside eyes because it's important" does NOT mean it's is right to release the information to the public. I'm going to trust the brain trust of those behind the documents a HELL of a lot more than I'm going to trust the judgment of one man who broke laws to steal information.
I know I'll get modded down hard for this. I really don't give a fuck. If this information does get posted to wikileaks, there will be bad consequences and, if those bad consequences include 1 person being killed than it is a big deal that the information has been leaked.
Wikileaks serves a valuable purpose and I hope it is able to continue for many years to come but it has to be balanced with good judgment and it is incredibly bad judgment to release this volume of classified information because you _know_ that revealing something in there will lead to something decidedly bad - something beyond someone just being embarrassed.
You may think he deserves a Nobel Prize - I think he deserves to be tried for treason.
Re:As they should be. (Score:3, Interesting)
People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences
No, they leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be consequences.
Whistle-blowers are not a protected class. If you work for an organization that is breaking the law (particularly if that organization is a government agency) and you blow the whistle on their illegal activities, you should fully expect to be fired. That's the reality of the situation.
And if by some miracle you're not fired, expect the whole affair to be whitewashed and swept under a rug, with no consequences to the people that broke the rules in the first place (it's incredible just how hard it can be to fire a bureaucrat).
By anonymously releasing the information, you can complain while still protecting yourself from recrimination, and simultaneously raise enough of a shit-storm to actually get something done about it for a change.
You seem to think WikiLeaks operates outside the fray of a "free and democratic society," but I contend it is actually a vital part of it.
Re:We promise we won't hurt you. (Score:2, Interesting)
Uhhhh - I didn't see the same video you saw. I saw an Apache firing on a group of armed men, located in an area from which our ground troops took fire.
I'm not looking to get into a pissing contest, since I like most of your posts here - but for those who haven't SEEN the video, there are two sides to the story. Whichever side you take on the story, you most definitely need to remember that old "fog of war" thing. Mistakes are made, in every war, and the video in question documents one of them.
Point of fact: there were weapons among the men on the ground who were killed. The camera that the reporter was carrying was mistaken for a rocket launcher. The reporter's fate was sealed when he aimed that thing in the direction of our troops on the ground. The men in the Apache believed that he was preparing to fire on American troops.
As for Manning - I have just about made up my mind that he is nothing but a push-button shitbird, and he should have been run out of the military a lot quicker. As much as I support Wikileaks, I simply cannot see that Manning had any good reason for leaking that particular video. All he cared about was damaging the military, out of spite.
Hacker Ethic (Score:3, Interesting)
The Hacker Ethic, as maintained by the CCC.
Access to computers - and anything which might teach you something about the way the world really works - should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!
All information should be free.
Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their acting, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.
Don't litter other people's data.
Make public data available, protect private data.
Re:Give him a Nobel Prize (Score:1, Interesting)
That would be all well and good if the people who we put in charge to oversee things actually bothered to answer to the public.
Unless you like your wiretaps without warrants.
Re:We promise we won't hurt you. (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, I see. This medals were given to you by the same corrupt government/military that sent you there to murder all that people in the first place, right?
You invade other countries, you still their resources, and then give them a bag of food, and you are suddenly a hero. You are nothing but scam. I know there is no god, but since you are in the military you probably believe it, therefore "I hope you rot in hell".
Re:Hacker Ethic (Score:2, Interesting)
In your opinion, what's the difference between public data and private data?