This is bad business and will hurt the United States and many of our allies for years to come. Jullian Assange is not a US citizen and is an enemy of the United States and it’s citizens. He should be dealt with accordingly. PFC Bradley Manning is no less than a traitor to his nation. He should be Court Martialled and if found guilty, he should be executed.
Lives are going to be lost, not just Americans, but people who put their lives on the line for the US in places that have no concept of the Rule of Law. Those people and their families are at very real risk for torture and murder. These leaks put America and some of it’s allies at a grave disadvantage regarding diplomacy and national security. Every government has secrets, no matter how open a society it has. The US is no different than any other nation. The theft of these classified documents is an attack on our national security and the safety of our citizens.
I can’t put it any more delicately than that.
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Your comment on PFC Manning is spot on. When I was at Three Letter Intelligence Agency, there was no doubt in our minds what would happen to us if we disclosed classified info. They told us in no uncertain terms what the deal would be. Manning knew what would happen; now let him take the consequences like a man.
And OBTW, Manning isn’t the only one. Get (some of) the others. THAT will dry up WikiLeaks.
While I am all for government transparency, this latest round of leaks is really nothing more than some gossip mongering.
Julian Assange is doing what every first time inmate does… he;s picking a fight with the biggest guy in the yard. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. I tend to think it isn’t working with this round.
Actually it’s working quite well for him right now. He’s getting lots of publicity, he’s making President Feckless look, uh, feckless, and he seems to be getting away with it so far. I’m guessing that one of the intelligence agencies could find him if the President had the political will to order it. Our former allies won’t because as much as they professed to dislike George Bush, they knew they could count on him to stick to his word. Given the choice of being considered a cowboy or a clown, I’ll take cowboy every time.
This isn’t a matter of transparency, it’s a matter of national security. Every nation, no matter how open it’s society has information it needs to keep secret for it’s own safety and that of it’s citizens. Much of what is being leaked is sensitive information not just for it’s intrinsic value, but for the light it casts on the capabilities of the NSA, CIA, and other three letter agencies that engage in this stuff. Some of the intelligence analysts of our enemies (and allies) will be able to read some of the briefs and start to figure out exactly how we got that particular bit of information. That’s when people will start disappearing, never to be seen again.
The “capabilities” of the three-letter-agencies seem to be lacking tremendously if so-called “sensitive information” is apparantly overrated. You’re just trying to shoot the messenger. Wikileaks even wanted to talk with the US government before disclosing the information, but the government refused.
I think you miss the point. Wikileaks shouldn’t have the information, let alone discuss it with the government or anyone else. The soldier (and any others) who obtained it and passed it along committed treason, pure and simple.
It was reported that over 3.000.000 people had access to the published information. It wasn’t too secret to begin with. So much for “need to know only”. That’s a fundamental flaw in all three-letter-agency security policies.
BTW: The people who commited “collateral murder” weren’t even considered criminal before the wikileak-release either. If Wikileaks hadn’t come forward with the footage, people commited of murder would have gotten away with it.
My point: Practice some REAL security where required and remain blaimless of crimes. Don’t shoot any messengers, including the ones who leaked stuff like the CM-video.
The people who “committed” collateral murder were soldiers in a combat zone. The so called victims were more than likely illegal combatants. I think this statement tells us all we need to know about where your beliefs lie. Assange is waging a very real info war on the United States and other countries. Even if the US does nothing, some of those other countries aren’t so enlightened.
The real criminals are the ones who had access to the material, and released it to Assange. They had a security clearance, and violated it. What Assange is doing is no different than what any media outlet does, reporting a story. He is well within his right to free speech in releasing the documents that have come into his possession. Keep in mind that the memo declaring veterans to be “domestic extremists” was also classified as “for official use only.” Does that mean that the people who released it, and the media that reported it were guilty of treason?
It is the responsibility of the press in an open society to keep watch over what the government does in our names. This is the way that the voters are supposed to keep themselves informed. Assange is just exercising his rights under the First Amendment.
I think Assange’s role was more active than that. Remember that he is an experienced computer hacker and it’s entirely possible he helped the people who stole the information get to information that they were not authorized to see. FOUO is a lower classification than classified, secret, top secret, etc. Convincing or assisting other people to steal classified, secret, top secret documents so that you can publish them is far different than someone stealing them and giving them to you unsolicited. It seems that Assange solicited the theft of the documents so that he could release them. While the people who stole the documents may be guilty of treason, my guess is that Assange is guilty of espionage.