US Military Designates Julian Assange an "Enemy of State" 805
First time accepted submitter Cute and Cuddly writes in with some new Julian Assange news. "The U.S. military has designated Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as enemies of the United States — the same legal category as the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency. Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with 'communicating with the enemy.'"
Stay far away from him... (Score:5, Informative)
"The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’.
And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2208307/Americas-deadly-double-tap-drone-attacks-killing-49-people-known-terrorist-Pakistan.html
just fair (Score:1, Informative)
I designate US military an "Enemy of the world"
Re:Stay far away from him... (Score:4, Informative)
That's been fairly standard terrorist tactics for a while, actually.
Re:US Military? (Score:5, Informative)
That's a extreme far cry from designating anyone anything.
reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with "communicating with the enemy", a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.
The article claims (and that's TFA not the summary), that technically any military personnel communicating with Wikileaks/Assange may be charged with a crime that goes all the way to death as penalty. That does seem alarming.
Re:Association with him possibly treason? (Score:4, Informative)
no; guilt by association is not recognised in common law - the United States is, when all is said and done, a common law jurisdiction.
When the most used maxim in US judicial proceedings, whether military or civilian, is "Balance of Probabilities*" over "Beyond Reasonable Doubt", then it's time to start worrying. The UK is already there.
*Balance of Probabilities: based on the testimony of "experts", in an often biased proceeding, and where the decision is often already made before the "judge" even takes the Bench, a "finding of Fact" is made if the balance moves 1% over either way of the midline. A finding does not even need a witness to events; in fact, a witness is more often than not ignored by the *single "judge"* in favour of the State who pays him. The "judge" is also jury and executioner.
Re:Imagine that.. (Score:5, Informative)
How soon we forget: New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971)
The US Constitution is not a suicide pact (Score:2, Informative)
We are not required to give free speech to citizens of foreign nations who leak diplomatic confidential communiques and battle plans.
They are not calling assange an "enemy of the state". They are calling him an enemy of the United States. It doesnt mean
the US is going arrest him anymore than the US would arrest an Iranian military attache. It just means now that US government
employees and military personnel who leak information to him would be committing a crime.
Leaking information to legitimate journalists regarding specific wrongdoing is protected , whats not protected is wholesale information dumps
regardless of sensitivity of the information or any sort of legitimate public interest.
Re:The US Constitution is not a suicide pact (Score:5, Informative)
It just means now that US government employees and military personnel who leak information to him would be committing a crime.
air force's Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst based in Britain who allegedly expressed support for WikiLeaks and attended pro-Assange demonstrations in London. ... The suspected offence was "communicating with the enemy, 104-D", an article in the US Uniform Code of Military Justice that prohibits military personnel from "communicating, corresponding or holding intercourse with the enemy".
Or, you know, any military personnel that expresses support for Assange (according to TFA).The analyst in question wasn't charged, but it seems that he did lose his access to classified information. But why let facts get in your way.
Re:The US Constitution is not a suicide pact (Score:5, Informative)
You are a bit too patriotic in this, but the love for your military is clouding your judgement slightly. Assange is not responsible for the leak. The responsible for the leak are, firstly, the unknown people who designed and implemented a system that could allow a rogue American to amass and leak this information, and, secondly, the person who actually leaked it.
Assange has nothing to do with either the group who built the system and the policies that allowed the leak, nor is he the person who actually released the data.
Hence, the troubles the US is giving him are as illegal as they are immoral. Or vice versa.
Also, imagine what treatment by the US would get someone who leaked Soviet secrets during the Cold War. Someone who would, you know, steal Soviet property and take it to Japan or something.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So I suppose Obama (Score:2, Informative)
The TFA didn't say it - but the National Defense Authorization Act does say it. In fact, it also says the President can order the execution of said citizen without benefit of trial. Pull your head out of the sand, stop getting your news from the mainstream media, and start doing your homework so you can keep up with what's REALLY going on.
Re:Another one... (Score:5, Informative)
We're the only country in the world with a nuclear powered Navy.
Only if you don't count Russia, Great Britain, France, China, and India
Re:Stay far away from him... (Score:4, Informative)
US does not recognize the jurisdiction of International Court. So US would never submit Bush and Obama to Hague. Besides only countries recognized by the UN can start proceedings at the International Court. I dont think the Afghanistan/Iraq govt will want Bush/Obama prosecuted, so I dont expect anything at all to happen.
Re:Imagine that.. (Score:2, Informative)
Perhaps you should read more about that decision as there are two aspects of it, and most people stop paying attention after the first. The first part says the government can't stop publication of things like the Pentagon Papers. The second, neglected part, enables the government to attempt to prosecute the crimes associated with the publication, potentially including the publication itself. So far the government has generally declined prosecution after publication.
Re:So I suppose Obama (Score:5, Informative)
You mean as opposed to Henry Kissinger who also won a Nobel Peace Prize, while managing Nixon's assassination of Chilean President Salvador Allende, because he wasn't going to have a Socialist in the western hemisphere, even if the socialist was elected democratically. In its place we installed the Junta, who murdered, excuse me, disappeared over 3,000 people. Under the Freedom of Information Act, Whitehouse tapes [washingtonpost.com] now available clearly present Nixon and Kissinger discussing Chilean Assassination and CIA incompetence.
Just goes to show you what a Nobel Peace prize is worth.
Christopher Hitchens wrote a great book about the war crimes of Kissinger. This man is sub-scum level: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/CaseAgainst1_Hitchens.html [thirdworldtraveler.com]
China isn't a real military threat. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, nobody is scared of the US nuclear arsenal, because the US has made it abundantly clear that it is a deterrent tool. If you want to fight the US, you can do so without fear of nuclear retaliation, provided you don't engage in NBC warfare against them. Simply put, the political fallout over using nukes as anything other than a retaliation weapon would be catastrophic. As powerful as the US is, it cannot act against the will of the rest of the world.
Re:Stay far away from him... (Score:3, Informative)
oh, it far predates that.
Siege of Leningrad. Both sides (Nazi Germany and Russia) guilty of the same thing. The advantage the Russians had was the fact that the Nazis had to maintain long supply lines, while they could operate literally right under their feet. Disable the supply line (with mines and ambush), and drop the first responders. Once you've consolidated a position like that, it's hard to dislodge you, short an air strike - which the Nazis could little afford.
Re:imprisoned indefinitely without trial (Score:5, Informative)
I think he had a few 'trials', no?
Three to five, depending on whether you count a full hearing or just a review and then rejection - two in Sweden, three in the UK (the last in the UK being the supreme court). The ones in the UK were mainly about the extradition process, with the evidence only relatively minimally touched on. The ones in Sweden were specifically about the evidence, which stood up to review.
Also, from the sound of the article itself, its whole headline is hyperbole. They don't cite a single point in the FOI where they call Assange an enemy of state. They call an intelligence analysist attending a wikileaks rally and dealing with wikileaks supporters (of which we know Assange specifically was *not* there, since he was in the embassy) "communicating with the enemy, 104-D" because Wikileaks is ""anti-US and/or anti-military group" (which, all rhetoric aside, it most definitely is, and hardly even denies that anymore). However, the case was closed without laying charges, which could well mean that they don't think that claim would stand up in court. There's nothing at all in the article about "Assange being added to a list of enemies of state", despite the hyperbolic headline.
Asian countries aligned with China... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So I suppose Obama (Score:2, Informative)
Re:imprisoned indefinitely without trial (Score:4, Informative)
Strong USA Allies: Philippines, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea
Strong PRC Allies: Mongolia, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea
Loose or tense relationship to both PRC and USA: India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Brunei, Bangladesh, Papau New Guinea
Instead of taking an anti-China strategy, we need to do everything we need to do to woo India and Indonesia - the second and fourth largest countries in the world.
India is easy - they're practically British already, and our mutual business ties provide an easy inroad to strategic partnerships.
Indonesia? We have a sitting President who speaks Bahasa. Indonesia is the next sleeping giant and we squandered our opportunity to win Jakarta.
Re:imprisoned indefinitely without trial (Score:5, Informative)
Now it can be treason or consorting with the enemy if it goes to wikileaks. I see no problem with that.
The only ones who view Wikileaks as enemies of the state are the ones involved in illegal activities they're trying to cover up. So we're letting those who are government-sponsored criminals warp the legal system to unjustly punish, and even kill, those who might even be thinking of revealing their wrongdoing? Yeah, no problem with that, indeed...
Re:China isn't a real military threat. (Score:5, Informative)
Germany was initially only limited to their own immediate neighborhood in Europe back in World War 2, right? How did that work out last time?
Germany had been a world power into World War 1, and had regained much of their might by World War 2, including a blue water navy. China is still working their way there for the first time.
China has a huge population that needs more resources. And this being a small planet, your resources are eventually on the menu, whether you acknowledge that fact or not.
Do tell [washingtontimes.com].
I assure you, other countries have noticed China's rise, and its aspirations to hegemony, and are taking action.
Moscow plays on fears of China in global quest for naval bases [worldtribune.com]