WikiLeaks strikes again -- U.S. diplomacy stripped naked

You really think someone hand picked 250 thousand transmissions?
If so, kudos to their perseverance I guess. That's a LOT of work.

It's enough to hand-pick which ones not to include.
 
Still it does not make it illegal to print it. I would even go as far as to state that it's the duty of a functioning free press to print this kind of things

In the UK it is illegal. If you have any document that is protectively marked (secret, restricted etc) which isn't rightfully yours then anything short of handing it in to the police leaves you liable for prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

That doesn't mean to say the press don't get hold of this sort of information and don't publish some of it in the public interest, but were Wikileaks based in the UK then every traceable member would be arrested.
 
In the UK it is illegal. If you have any document that is protectively marked (secret, restricted etc) which isn't rightfully yours then anything short of handing it in to the police leaves you liable for prosecution under the Official Secrets Act.

That doesn't mean to say the press don't get hold of this sort of information and don't publish some of it in the public interest, but were Wikileaks based in the UK then every traceable member would be arrested.

That's quite sad from a freedom of press standpoint.
 
That's quite sad from a freedom of press standpoint.

There is a legal defence of public interest, but that would only apply to the press such as The Guardian (who have been running plenty of Wikileaks material) rather than Wikileaks itself.
 
... my two cents on the issue of the leaked embassy reports (without reading the thread): I find this rather trivial. Who in his right state of mind would have tought that such things wouldn?t exist and that they wouldn?t all contain "nice" things about the people they are about. Every country does it. Do people really think that (for example) in Iran, there is not a bunch of sectret papers that say that the american goverment is full of tossers and wimps? That right now every other Goverment in the world is not letting out a sigh of relief that these aren?t their reports? I can garantee our goverment has such files too and they will also feature some not so nice words for other countries goverment.

On the part of the embassy reports (wich is not the whole leak! There is a lot more and that other stuff is much more importand - but the the media just loves this embassy-report bullshit because it?s not boring and includes name-calling), I have to say wikileaks has lost a lot of respect for me. The only purpose this has is to give washington the finger (and hawl in the publicity). This has no use, this is no secret and we don?t get to see the other side of the story (the same documents from other countries). That part of the leak should just have gone into the bin, if you ask me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TC
Sure in other countries Assange would have been thrown into prison after the helicopter video, but the beauty of a proper (western) democracy is that they still obey to their own laws.


Only when it is convenient for them. All Governments have a history of bending it when it suits them.
 
When it comes to my own two cents about WikiLeaks, I think that the idea behind it is quite ingenious, because people simply have a right to know most of the stuff they make public and the established media obviously have been more or less muted or successfully excluded from really explosive material in recent years.

I mean, come on guys, where has the investigative journalism gone? Didn't anyone notice, that hardly anything ever gets out anymore? Therefore I see WikiLeaks is in the tradition of Daniel Ellsberg, who made the Pentagon Papers public in 1971, which first brought a big scandal but a huge, positive impact in the end. I can only assume people simply forget or overlook, that WikiLeaks is just picking up an old idea from people like Ellsberg.

However, I agree with the press like DER SPIEGEL, that the material has to be sighted, sorted and journalistically reworked. Not everything can be let loose on the public. There are in fact informations that can endanger the lives of people and those shouldn't be published. It's the task of the established, independent media to make sure of that. After all, the established media still has the sensitive information in its hands and that can already be enough leverage to change things for the better.

And besides, if most respected newspapers and news magazines like The Guadian, The New York Times, Der SPIEGEL, El Pais and Le Monde all pull together on the same string, it can't be all wrong.

EDIT: Here is an English translation of this week's SPIEGEL cover story. It concentrates on Germany of course but might be interesting for foreigners in its detailed content.
 
Last edited:
I wonder how many of those who think this information shouldn't have been published are quite happy to have supported the PATRIOT Act.
 
I give this Assange bloke at the most four months before he conveniently goes missing in Joburg or accidentally brutally slits his own throat while shaving.
 
I just read he's been offered sanctuary in Ecuador :D
 
He has threatened to have some kind of "Dead Mans Switch". You can download an encrypted file from the usual places (about 2.5Gb worth, I believe) and in the event of him accidentally stabbing himself thirty two times, the key is released into the public domain.

But maybe the Powers That Be consider him to be a self-publicist and more trouble that it is worth to have him trip and fall down some stairs onto the pointy end of a railing.
 
Meh. When you start leaking foreign service reports you're getting awfully close to stepping on the CIA's toes. That under-secretary of inter-agricultural affairs representative to Turkmenistan probably isn't a kind man offering farming advice. And he can probably kill you. In thirty ways. With his pinky. Or so Jason Bourne would have us believe.

At the same time, the whole world would know what happened if Assange went missing. And it's not like the CIA has a sterling reputation to begin, offering them some leniency in the court of public opinion.
 
You're assuming the CIA is competent.

Fidel_Castro.jpg
 
I give this Assange bloke at the most four months before he conveniently goes missing in Joburg or accidentally brutally slits his own throat while shaving.

The CIA is known for taking people out. Rarely, but it's known to happen. However, they are not really known for taking out visible, public persons like Assange. That would give them too much bad press, and wouldn't really accomplish much as his job isn't too hard to do. It could be done by most students studying political science at most unis and colleges. At least those with B or better.

I don't buy kidnapping either. If it was the Israelis, on the other hand, or the French, I'd expect him to end up dead or in a court (either in France or Israel, obviously).

I guess if Assange had released a bunch of top secret Iranian documents, S?po (Swedish Security Police) would give him bodyguards in a jiffy, though. That said, he'd probably need them. Never know with the Iranians.
 
Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?
http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/9251635779866625

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and possible Republican presidential candidate provided a harsh assessment of what he believes to be an appropriate punishment for the source of the latest WikiLeaks transmission of U.S. embassy cables, saying that "anything less than execution is too kind a penalty."
"Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason," Huckabee said, according to a report from Florida Independent. "They've put American lives at risk."
Huckabee continued:
"They've put relationships that will take decades to rebuild at risk, and they knew full well that they were handling sensitive documents, they were entrusted and anyone who had access to that level of information was not only a person who understood what their rules were, but they also signed, under oath, a commitment that they would not violate it. They did. And I believe they have committed treason against this country, and any lives they endanger, they're personally responsible for and the blood is on their hands. And, in addition to their reckless irresponsibility, an act of criminal intent, I think the New York Times has shown an utter, reckless disregard for any responsible journalism by printing something that they know that they obtained in a way that is is not appropriate."​
Responses by other potential 2012 contenders, perhaps hoping to steel their foreign policy credentials in advance of a presidential campaign, have been similarly severe in their response to the latest WikiLeaks drop, though none have gone as far as to directly call for such a violent reaction.
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin took to Facebook Monday and urged the Obama administration to call for a manhunt on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that would be carried out with "the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
Rick Santorum, former Pennsylvania Senator and potential presidential contender, said Tuesday that Assange was guilty of "terrorism," and should be prosecuted as such.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/30/mike-huckabee-wikileaks-execution_n_789964.html
 
Interpol- Issues wanted notice for Julian Assange
Interpol Website said:
Present family name ASSANGE
Forename: JULIAN PAUL
Sex: MALE
Date of birth: 3 July 1971 (39 years old)
Place of birth: TOWNSVILLE, Australia
Language spoken: English
Nationality: Australia

Categories of Offences: SEX CRIMES
Arrest Warrant Issued by: INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC PROSECUTION OFFICE IN GOTHENBURG / Sweden

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION CONTACT
YOUR NATIONAL OR LOCAL POLICE

GENERAL SECRETARIAT OF INTERPOL



I just read he's been offered sanctuary in Ecuador :D

The BBC just showed this Interpol story on breaking news, they interviewed him a few days back on what looked like Skype and said he was in Jordan. (The country not Katie Price.:lol:)
 
Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?
Yes, Sarah, the legal argument for stopping the publishing of these documents is that they are ? 1961-2010 US Government. Err.. yeah. Let's wheel out the MILLENIUM ACT on their arses.

Meh. Wikileaks hasn't comitted treason. First of all, it's never treason to publish something given to you by others as news. The moment that is made illegal is the moment freedom of speech seeses to exist. Secondly, how the bloody hell can an AUSTRALIAN journalist commit treason against the United States of America? Treason is in its nature something which is committed against ones home country. The guy who leaked it, he's a traitor. Legally speaking, and probably morally speaking. I'm sure it can be likened to espionage.

But Assange is still not a traitor. No more than the journalist who publish the leaks in the Washington Post and the Boston Globe are traitors. So let's stop using that dirty word about anyone who hasn't themself breeched national security laws, okay?

/Rant
 
^^ I read he was still in the UK? oh well, seems like he's doing a good job of keeping himself hidden...

And did Sarah Palin make up a new word again there? ("treasonous", never heard it before...)
 
It's an.. err.. adverb? Help me out people, I don't even know Norwegian grammar, let alone English grammar.
 
Top