Terminalcoffee discussion
Helping You To Know The News
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Should wikileaks stop releasing documents? Should the US have the power to tell them to stop?
That's a very tough question. I like that they are bringing attention to things that the mainstream, corporate media outlets cannot or will not, but if some of the leaked documents have resulted in the deaths of outed intelligence agents (as our government claims) then that is a cause for concern. It is very interesting that our government keeps politely asking Wikileaks to stop what they are doing. This is not how the US usually operates when it comes to the Internet. Wikileaks must have some stopgap measures in place to keep Homeland Security from simply seizing their domain. I was following a story on reddit earlier today about Wikileaks having been offline for most of the day today because of a denial of service attack. At this point it is still unclear if that was our government trying to be a bully, someone else trying to make us look like a bully (China, Russia), or just some 14yo jackass in his mom's basement.
Also, I find
I like the idea of WikiLeaks generally: a non-governmental, non-conventional media outlet committed to exposing information beneficial to citizens, more specifically the exposure of the calculated fallacy of public positions on given issues, especially those related to the deployment of American military personnel. OTOH, some releases, while interesting in their revelation of the gap between public pronouncements and private assessments, for instance private diplomatic conversations or the back channel passage of information, by and large only make the jobs of functionaries much more difficult while providing little that is terribly enlightening or useful. Though all in all I’d have to say there’s more for the public to gain than lose with WikiLeaks in operation, at times, it is going to be a headache for those in government doing some difficult and somewhat delicate work.Certainly, when it comes to matters pertaining to torture, human rights violations by the United States (or anybody else), or unjustifiable foreign policy actions of any sort, an organization such as WikiLeaks can be invaluable.
What WikiLeaks is doing is not only irresponsible, it's treasonous. Do we hate our government so much that we would support the release of classified documents that put so many people at risk and jeopardizes foreign relations with many countries? How anyone can ignore these considerations and support what WikiLeaks is doing is beyond me.
What Ken said! I'm also fascinated by Assange. I think Ecuador just invited him to live there. He is wanted in Switzerland on rape charges.
The new leaks are really just diplomatic gossip.
I find it difficult to see how treason would be applicable here since: a.) news organizations routinely get their information from sources acting against the wishes of their superiors in government, news organizations not directly obtaining the information but receiving it secondhand, and b.) WikiLeaks is not in the United States, nor is its operator an American citizen.I do believe a case can be made in given situations that information released may jeopardize lives or severely damage the national interest (as opposed to simply embarrassing an administration or administrations, or exposing a lie when the truth is owed to the American people) and therefore should not be released. But in this case, as Lori says, most of the information is common knowledge, though the gossipy nature of the communications is embarrassing.
My understanding is that WikiLeaks and the five news organizations it released the information to months ago spent a great deal of time redacting problematical sections, and put an enormous effort into certifying on a case by case basis that bits of information would not endanger lives or jeopardize vital operations. In fact, the information was offered to both the State and Defense departments for review for just that purpose.
Certainly the original source (Bradley Manning perhaps) or sources of the leak, who violated security policy by obtaining the information are vulnerable to prosecution.
In other news, did you hear that Rupert Murdoch (think FOX News) has been sending money to North Korea? Why does Rupert (and FOX) hate America?
What? What? No I hadn't known that!I guess, like Sarah Palin, he's gotten his Koreas mixed up?
Ken wrote: "I find it difficult to see how treason would be applicable here since: a.) news organizations routinely get their information from sources acting against the wishes of their superiors in governmen..."Perhaps treasonous was not the best word, but it is criminal and a potential violation of the Espionage Act. Even the Australian government is pursuing potential criminal charges against Assange. And from my understanding this information was not "common knowledge" and goes beyond embarrasing. Also, it's not the first time WikiLeaks has released classified information obtained unlawfully.
Yep.North Korean programmers wrote some cell phone applications for him.
He's also in bed with Al Waleed bin Talal.
Again, why does he hate America? And why isn't FOX News ALL OVER THIS?
The Espionage Act was designed to deter and prosecute those with immediate access to vital defense secrets, not to those who later obtain the information. Trying to apply it so broadly that it is applied to news organizations or others who receive information is highly problematical. Such attempts at prosecution have a terrible history, and the legal thicket it would be necessary to traverse in order to carry out such a prosecution in this case would be extremely forbidding and unlikely to succeed. So whatever the talk and whatever the threats, I doubt Julian Assange need fret too much over potential criminal jeopardy, other than for that infamous Swiss booty call.The information released was not highly classified files, but essentially a diplomatic cyber message board available to two to three million people through a State Department intranet. No effort was ever made by the government to censor any of that material or to redact it in any way. So we’re not talking about Kim Jong’s secret plan for a nuclear powered bus here.
It certainly has been common knowledge that Middle-eastern countries were frightened of a nuclear Iran, and wanted the US or Israel to take care of the problem for them; we all knew the US was worried about Pakistan’s enriched uranium, since we have publicly been worried about it since Pakistan went nuclear; it’s impossible to believe anyone in Yemen really believed that Yemen’s government was carrying out the drone attacks there. And frankly, I wasn’t even surprised to discover that Putin and Berlusconi are foppish dandies engaged in a heavy bromance.
lesson: 1) never put anything in writing that can come back and bite you in the ass. If it is embarrassing, keep it to a private,handwritten journal you keep in a locked safe. 2)a free press means a free press. As far as I can see this is mostly diplomatic gossip and peoples personal opinions about world leaders. If they were foolish enough to put it in writing where someone could hack into the information then they should learn a valuable lesson. DON'T. What were they thinking!
Does anyone remember "The Pentagon Papers"?
Assange says Hill needs to resign. And definitely read the comments, but can someone explain to me, as far as I can tell there's nothing dangerous in the leaks, more embarrassment. About the triviality of the almost gossip. Have I missed some information?http://gawker.com/5702733/julian-assa...
It’s essentially conjecture and impressions and recollections of encounters shared on a government network to which several million people retain access. There’s nothing remotely dangerous.
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Assange said Hillary needs to resign "if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up."
Sometimes the outrage over leaks is politically motivated. When Valerie Plame, the wife of someone very critical of the Bush administration, was outed as a CIA agent by Robert Novak, Karl Rove, and Richard Armitage, Republicans thought there was absolutely nothing wrong with outing a CIA agent. How much damage her outing did has never been publicly stated because it's classified.
The next Wikileaks document dump is supposedly big bank memoranda. Should be good.
Hey now this was buried in the most recent pile! WikiLeaks shows Netanyahu supports land swaps
JERUSALEM – A throwaway line in the mountain of Wikileaks memos may hold the key to a major riddle: Is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to go the distance for peace with the Palestinians?
more at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101130/a...
Hillary should resign for allowing such undiplomatic gossip at all within the foreign service. diplomats cannot afford to be undiplomatic.
The SIPRNet system used by government workers, including diplomatic staff to post information and opinions was not invented by Hillary Clinton, nor was the classification system for the material posted there. In fact, after 9-11, such wide sharing of information was ENCOURAGED in order to ensure that no pertinent security information was buried in a single department or government entity.
i'll be honest here. i hear all of you and i know people shouldn't say things they don't want published and this load was probably just government gossip and such but overall i really don't like the idea of wikileaks at all. something just does not seem right about it
Funny, I still expect diplomats who get paid for being diplomats to be, well, diplomatic. Otherwise,they should get a job as publicists for movie stars or something where they can freely express their private opinions; in the diplomatic corp where it behooves one to be extremely tactful so that the business of state can be conducted in a professional manner. If you don't have something good to say about someone don't say anything at all should be the motto of a diplomat. At least until they have left the foreign service and retired.
and we will afterwards as well probably after everyone gets over being grossly insulted. What are a few insults? Nothing extra foreign aid won't fix.
Kevin "El Liso Grande" wrote: "i'll be honest here. i hear all of you and i know people shouldn't say things they don't want published and this load was probably just government gossip and such but overall i really don't like th..."Thank you. It should not matter whether the information was just "embarassing" or not. It was unlawfully obtained. It was never meant to be disseminated to the public. That's what matters.
And a "free press" does not mean you have the unfettered right to publish unlawfully obtained classified documents. Even the Supreme Court in the "Pentagon Papers" case said that, which is why the New York Times and the Washington Post were allowed to be sued criminally (although the case ended in a mistrial).
If it was unlawfully obtained, then I would truly anticipate someone being arrested, and yet I never hear about that.
They were. Bradley Manning is sitting in military jail as we speak.
bradley manning is being held and awaiting charges for illegally transferring classified info to his personal computer among other things i believe
but what if you know the info was (or had to be) illegally obtained?
I would like everyone to know that if they leak anything from Terminal Coffee to the rest of the world I'm going to come to your house and set a bag of dog poop on fire on your front steps before I run away as fast as I can.I may even ring the doorbell first.
While you're at it, why don't you just stomp out the fire for me too!
Hahahaha diplomacy shouldn't gossip? Diplomacy IS gossip! People in the same workplace always gossip. It's what we do.
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And yet Peyton Manning still walks the streets.
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Girl, please.
Lobstergirl wrote: "And yet Peyton Manning still walks the streets.":)
BunWat wrote: "Not a simple question. That's why there are ethics boards that advise journalists, and books..."i personally think the wikileaks knows most of the info they get is not public domain and someone had to nick it from somewhere
good points bun. the ethics of this issue are hard for me because there are so many facets.
In the Pentagon Papers case the Supreme Court ruled against prior restraint, a landmark decision, and while Ellsberg and Russo were later prosecuted under the Espionage Act, the trial ending up a mistrial, for the New York Times there were no legal consequences. Again, the legal obstacles to prosecuting a news organization or media site for publication are highly problematical.In fact, even in the Pentagon Papers case there was a prevailing view that much of the information never should have been classified at all. The government engages in a great deal of over-classification. And the information released by WikiLeaks was not highly classified material.
Kevin "El Liso Grande" wrote: "BunWat wrote: "Not a simple question. That's why there are ethics boards that advise journalists, and books..."i personally think the wikileaks knows most of the info they get is not public doma..."
WikiLeaks is actually set up in such a way that information provided to them is provided anonymously. The idea was to avoid the issue of protection of sources on the part of the publisher. In the case of WikiLeaks, they would never know the true source (unless revealed elsewhere).
I agree there is a great deal of case by case judgment to be exercised in such releases, but it appears to me that WikiLeaks did sufficient due diligence in that regard.
i really appreciate your info on this issue as you def are informed but for me it is more of a "just doesn't seem right" gut feeling for me. that i know does not always make sense.
I like that in this day and age without good journalism there is a source that exposes the crap of our government. I guess that's from my demographics, coming into maturity with Watergate. At the same time, I'm also with Kevin on this - if it outs classified info that places people in danger. So far I haven't seen that.
Assange is now Interpol's #1 man.
i'd like to see some info from iran, china, syria, india...not just western countries.
This is a tricky one - it's in our interest to know what the people in power are doing in our name, but at the same time everyone has a responsibility not to put someone(s) in danger.As to should the US have the power to stop them - just don't get me started on the whole I thought the US was the land of the free with everyone having rights to say and think what they want - when was the last time that was true? 200 years ago?
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just read where paypal pulled wikileaks account. this was their major way of funding. i think paypal and amazon are trying to distance themselves from wikileaks to keep blowback away. no one is sure if this is entirely legal or not plus prob not a popular thing to be associated with currently
lesson #1: there are always consequences when you disturb the status quo or make waves as we used to say. Surely, he foresaw these consequences?
What do you think?