I really fail to see how companies distancing themselves from wikileaks is so horrible. By all means I hope they have info on Bank of America, but Amazon and Paypal? What'd they do besides protect their employees and owners best interests?
The problem is that it's obvious that the United States government pushed for it. In the case of Amazon, we know it because they said so. In the case of PayPal, it's probably the same. It's the US government putting pressure on a company to silence someone. It's maybe not a clear infringement of the first, but it surely breaks the spirit of it. It's disgusting.
What is so surprising? The United States has not gone after the various news organizations that have analyzed and published the leaks.
So go after the guy who leaked it, the guy who broke the law. Julian Assange has not broken any law publishing said documents, none of the other news outlets that has published it has broken any law either, and unless the first ammendment is just something that doesn't matter anymore, there's little the US government can do to make what he's done illegal either.
There is a huge difference between freedom of the press and leaking confidential documents.
Yeah. But that's a question of protection of sources. Few nations legislate on it, except Sweden, funily enough. In Sweden, it's illegal for a journalist to reveal his source if the source doesn't want his name known. It's in the constitution.
However, that's one issue. Mr. Assange hasn't leaked any documents, he's publishing them through a website, this is journalism and the illegality of the leak itself does not make the publishing of said papers illegal. The guy who leaked them has broken federal US law, no one breaks federal US law by publishing it, and as Assange is not in the US at present, he could not be prosecuted for it either. If someone tries to prosecute him for publishing said documents, he's got a very real claim of political asylum. And funily enough, he'd probably get such asylum in Sweden (or the United States if he'd released cables from Iran). The US is actually a good place to start, as he can't be prosecuted for his journalism there. He can be held in contempt of congress, though, if he doesn't reveal his source. And then he'd break the Swedish constitution, I guess. Funny how things turn out, isn't it?
people are going to spin this WikiLeaks thing however it helps their argument. there are a reason sectrets are kept. no matter your view im sure we can all understand this.
Sure. But it's just not relevant to the basic question of wether or not Wikileaks has broken the law. They haven't. And personally, I'm quite disgusted at how senior government officials in civilized nations has asked for him to be "taken out", with or without those exact words. Oh, and some dick in the Aussie government has done it as well, but that government is anything but civilized. Didn't the foreign minister of Australia say that "Assange must understand that he must follow the laws of other nations"?
Sure, Assange might have broken the law in Saudi Arabia. Because the law in Saudi Arabia is anything the royal family decides it to be. But he hasn't broken the law in the US. And even if he had, it would be completely irrelevant as he isn't in the United States, but in Sweden (or for that matter the UK), and I fail to see how a member of the Australian government can say that one of his citizens has to follow the laws of other nations without puking over the assembled press, disgusted by what he said.
This is a no brainer. Someone broke the law. It wasn't Assange. Conservative dicks and arrogant government official dicks should keep their trappers closed and stop talking like they were Lloyd George, for heaven's sake.
Great timing! 
