Darwin
Member
Assange was arrested on a Swedish warrant and jailed without bail on Tuesday.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/07/julian-assange-arrested-w_n_792956.html
On a side note: Jon Stewart satirized the whole incident with his usual aplomb on the Daily Show.
Revyloution
Member
Im really torn on Wiki leaks. My first reaction is a big fist pumping 'whohoo!' for the little guy who brings down nations. I think democracy can only work if we know what our government is doing in our name.
After I sits and thinks a bit, I realize that the world is a complex place. We need diplomats to smooth out the rough spots. For a diplomat to do his job, he needs to inspire confidence in his contacts. They need to know that they can speak 'off the record', and that discretion will be used. If they suspect that everything they say will be front page news tomorrow, I imagine that would put a chilling effect on anything they might disclose.
Then I remembered that 'Failure of Diplomacy' is also a euphemism for war.
I'm genuinely conflicted. How do you preserve the confidence of diplomats while remaining transparent to the citizenry?
burpy
Member
Nothing that has been revealed is particularly important, but the U.S. government´s reaction to it has been shocking. They seem to be doing their best impersonation of the Chinese Communist Party. The United States is completing its transformation from the global hero of countless ´80´s action films, to global villain. Whilst 4chan is going the other way.
Revyloution
Member
Good point Ursa. Things ebb and flow. Heck, even Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. I don't think we should view this as a sign that were headed towards a fascist dictatorship, I think we should view it as a sign that we need to call our representatives and let them know they will be out of a job if they try to squelch free speech.
Elemenope
Moderator
Nothing that has been revealed is particularly important, but the U.S. government´s reaction to it has been shocking. They seem to be doing their best impersonation of the Chinese Communist Party.
Keep in mind three things:
1. The cables so far have been redacted
2. The cables so far revealed are a tiny fraction of the total cable cache (and so there well may be something pretty bad in there)
3. If the US were acting anything like a totalitarian regime, Assange would be very, very dead right now.
It is unreasonable to expect a government to not defend its own interests, and the fact that Assange isn't dead speaks fairly highly of the comparative restraint of the US government in retaliating. This is not by any means to say that what the US has done (or allegedly done, in the case of the convenient sex crime charges) are right and proper, but just to say that it is a great deal more right and proper than the behavior of basically any other country in a similar situation. I doubt that Assange was naive of the risks he was incurring by doing what he did; that he did it anyway (and acted to protect himself afterward) speaks to some level of acknowledgment that this is a normalized response to such an act.
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Good point Ursa. Things ebb and flow. Heck, even Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus. I don't think we should view this as a sign that were headed towards a fascist dictatorship, I think we should view it as a sign that we need to call our representatives and let them know they will be out of a job if they try to squelch free speech.
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Lovely sentiment, but it clashes with political reality in America. My sense is that the majority of Americans are more than willing to trade freedom for perceived security, so libertarian threats to vote politicians out of office are not taken seriously.
It's actually pretty hard to read the level of libertarian (vs. vanilla conservative) foment in US politics these days. At some point, the "don't touch my junk" and "my country right or wrong" impulses are going to generate some epic, brain-breaking cognitive dissonance. Also, politician's sensitivities to those concerns ebbs and flows; sometimes they are responsive to complaints about such policies, and sometimes they aren't. It depends a great deal on surrounding conditions; if the press starts canonizing Assange, that will give them cover for supporting him. If they don't, no politician will stand next to him or his cause.
FO
Member
Elmenope, Assange is alive only because he's working hard to stay under the spotlight and Wikileaks is threatening to leak the unredacted versions of the cables (they use this to cover their asses).
Revyloution, withheld information leads to far more wars than failed diplomacy.
Also, having their cards exposed will give all leaders a better way to think about their actions and avoid doing stupid things.
Saudis pushing for attacking Iran while the US wants a peaceful solution...
This is a game changer, it gives a lot of credibility to the US and will force Iran to be less cocky, it brings US and Iran closer.
The way I see it, open politics are the good future I would like to see.
Darwin
Member
"This week, Senators Joe Lieberman and Dianne Feinstein... both invoked the 1917 Espionage Act and urged its use in going after Julian Assange."
This just gets weirder and weirder.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/post_1394_b_795001.html
Elemenope
Moderator
Elmenope, Assange is alive only because he's working hard to stay under the spotlight and Wikileaks is threatening to leak the unredacted versions of the cables (they use this to cover their asses).
That generally doesn't stop the regimes normally called "repressive". And in point of fact, if Assange were to drop dead today, given the sheer number of governments he's pissed off and/or embarrassed with the cable disclosures, it would be difficult to assign accurate blame; in essence, perfect cover. Some of those governments would have more to gain from having the unredacted documents in the wild than they would lose.
Also, having their cards exposed will give all leaders a better way to think about their actions and avoid doing stupid things.
If this were the rule during the Cuban missile crisis, the Earth would be a glowing glass marble today.
Elemenope
Moderator
On the other hand, Ron Paul joined his son Rand in denouncing the idiocy of attacking wikileaks. Sometimes I cannot help but love that guy.
Assange has what's known in intelligence circles as a "Security Blanket". That means he's got himself a whole bundle of really nasty secrets that no government in their right mind would ever want released - the sort of thing that would get powerful politicians, financiers and businessmen arrested, gaoled or executed. The principle is easy enough: He stashes it with an unknown number of third-parties around the globe in secure locations, and if he gets killed the blanket gets mass-mailed to media outlets, bloggers and peer-to-peer hosts.
Incidentally, these sex-crime charges? The BBC reported months ago that a judge had thrown them out of court as being baseless. Funny how that report seems to have vanished and he's being re-charged with the same crimes now, isn't it? Hmmmmmmm.
Elemenope
Moderator
Incidentally, these sex-crime charges? The BBC reported months ago that a judge had thrown them out of court as being baseless. Funny how that report seems to have vanished and he's being re-charged with the same crimes now, isn't it? Hmmmmmmm.
As I was saying to my significant other the other day, due to the timing of things, even if the charges were legitimate on their face everyone would assume (and has assumed) that they were the result of political pressure. What prosecutor in their right mind would choose right now, when their target is the main figure in an international political crisis, to try to refile them?
Assange has what's known in intelligence circles as a "Security Blanket". That means he's got himself a whole bundle of really nasty secrets that no government in their right mind would ever want released - the sort of thing that would get powerful politicians, financiers and businessmen arrested, gaoled or executed.
As I said above, that principle seems less than sound, since those governments/businessmen/powerful interests invariably have powerful opponents/enemies, many of which would be delighted to see what others seek to keep hidden. If an attack occurred that provoked a retaliation through the revelation of secrets, is it not possible that such an attack could be false-flagged from one of those entities with a decent probability of success?
I think it depends what was released and the degree of proof which could be attributed to it. What if a cable could be released which revealed an oil industry root of GWB's strange desire to invade Iraq with conclusive proof? Or that could lead to serving members of the government or even the former government being gaoled? Or showed that the government knows that global warming is likely going to kill billions but are ignoring it at the behest of commercial interests? Or showed a President to be guilty of some treason against the people? It's just not that easy.
I'm sure the decision of whether Assange lives or dies has been discussed in Vauxhall Cross in some depth (American inteligence operatives don't generally do field work in the UK, they get MI5 to do it for them - strangely they also get MI5 to do some field work in the USA that it would be illegal for the US government to carry out on its own soil); unltimately, his death is a risk and acheives nothing. It wouldn't stop the leaks - he's just a figurehead. Much more can be acheived by discrediting him and thereby discrediting the information which is (wrongly) attributed to him by the general public. Look at David Shayler - I thought for a long time that he was going to feel the sharp end of a syrette of ketamine before a ride in a sound-proof van, but it never happened - for the same reason it won't happen to Assange while he's on British soil. MI5 just aren't that stupid.
Incidentally, talking of pissing off rich and powerful people, does anybody apart from me remain to be convinced that Bernie Madoff's son's death was suicide?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11976801
$65,000,000,000 buys a lot of revenge...
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