14 ms·

Wikileaks Must Be Stopped

61 points by jacoblyles 16y ago

petercooper 16y ago
I've been surprised recently how many worldly people have been cheering Wikileaks and think what they're doing is OK. This isn't a judgment on anyone - just surprise. I'm as big an infojunkie as anyone ;-) Is there significant support amongst the intelligentsia for nixing laws like the Espionage Act and Official Secrets Act that the government and military rely on?
- briandoll 16y ago
  "Is there significant support amongst the intelligentsia for nixing laws like the Espionage Act and Official Secrets Act that the government and military rely on?" It's not that there is widespread support for nixing those laws, but since the US government has been using those laws rather broadly (most notably during the invasion of Iraq), I'd say there is support for revising those laws. Laws that protect secrets are a sort of Schrödinger's cat, though, in that in order to decide if they are a secret, you have to know the secret. So all government declared secrets are both secrets and non-secrets at the same time. It will be a long time before the Iraq invasion documents are declassified, far too long from now to consider it ammo for those that want a more transparent government. I'm not defending Wikileaks nor their supporters necessarily, but I would guess that this is the link of thinking with exposing (some of) these documents. For some documents, clearly they are exposing things just to provoke people and draw media attention, for which they have been insanely successful.
- mbrubeck 16y ago
  Naming it "Wikileaks" was excellent for PR. People's first associations will be with efforts like Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, which have a significant amount of goodwill.
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I am struck by four things. 1) Wikileaks is really pissing people off. I don't mean the nicey, lets-go-protest-down-at-the-student-union kind of protest. I mean people who are not normally angry with anybody else in the world talking about throwing him in jail and/or killing him. Devil or Angel, that's a whole heap of pissing off he's accomplished. 2) Assange has more power than many 3-star generals, yet he's just some guy running a web service. That's awesome if you're Assange, but for the rest of us, we have to live with the world that results with whatever he decides to leak or not. 3) Anarchy is not the same as openness. Openness says I demand full insight into what my government is doing. If not me personally, then somebody I elected or appointed. Anarchy says any type of secret is bad and open air always beats secrets. Governments can't function without secrets -- even your local small town has to have secret meetings to discuss personnel issues and such. Wikileaks is, to my mind, opposed to this cornerstone of government. That's anarchy. 4) If Assange wants to play this game, he should think long and hard about where it's going to lead him. Right now he's having a field day because records are centralized and available electronically. But for every move there is a counter-move. I know if I were running a covert op anywhere in the world there's no freaking way I'd put anything on a computer anywhere. If he would rather have millions of little secrets offline and out of sight, that's what we're going to get. Which makes the entire intelligence community even harder to manage for those folks managing it. Is that better than what we have now? It's the exact opposite of what he says he wants. There's a certain amount of cocky self-promoting asshole about Assange. As much as I want the maximum amount of liberty, freedom, and openness, this isn't the way to make it happen.
- kiba 16y ago
  3) Anarchy is not the same as openness. Openness says I demand full insight into what my government is doing. If not me personally, then somebody I elected or appointed. Anarchy says any type of secret is bad and open air always beats secrets. Governments can't function without secrets -- even your local small town has to have secret meetings to discuss personnel issues and such. Wikileaks is, to my mind, opposed to this cornerstone. That's anarchy. Some crypto-anarchists and agorists would like to have a few words with you.
  - 16y ago
Synthetase 16y ago
"The Web site must be shut down and prevented from releasing more documents -- and its leadership brought to justice." The latter imperative might be achievable. The former is the height of delusion.
- patrickaljord 16y ago
  > The latter imperative might be achievable. It might be, but so might putting a replacement online a couple of days later.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    'The latter' would be 'leadership brought to justice'. Read carefully.
mahmud 16y ago
FWIW, this guy and his employer earn their living by foaming in the mouth "for America". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute
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- jquery 16y ago
  Maybe you could elaborate on what you mean by "foaming at the mouth"? I read the wikipedia article you linked to and nowhere was that mentioned.
  - mahmud 16y ago
    He is someone whose job is to find/conjure-up all sorts of enemies and threats facing the United States. His employing think-tank takes a political leaning that's so far to the right, that they see nothing in this world that isn't a "vital interest" or a "mortal enemy". They see the world through the lenses of a globalized Monroe Doctrine. They profit materially from pain they inflict upon people; either emotional pain in the fear they evoke in the American masses, or the real physical pain in others when they launch recreational wars. So, this hired-mouth can cry foul all he wants. Those old enough to exist before the Iraq invasion remember similar tunes. As for his opinion, it's nothing but an invoice line-item; commissioned by the Gun and Oil interests, draped in a flag and fig-leafed with God.
ShabbyDoo 16y ago
"The United States has the capability and the authority to monitor his communications and disrupt his operations." So, a member of the American Enterprise Institute is privy to the US Government's electronic spying capabilities? And, he's complaining about the release of intelligence-related secrets? I don't actually think he knows for sure that Wikileaks' communications are monitorable, but the statement is laughable.
- drhodes 16y ago
  It would turn into an encrypted Wack-a-mole, evolving the state of the art for information dissemination. The author clearly believes that the DoD has magic computers, or the equivalent of a digital nuke.
steveplace 16y ago
Yes, I will engage in a little ad hominem, only to give context to the author's surrounding beliefs: Marc A. Thiessen served as a speechwriter for United States President George W. Bush (2004-2009) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (2001-2004) The argument is very well laid out and I'm not qualified to mount a case against his claims; however, it does have a slight political tinge to it.
msredmond 16y ago
Commentary is really scary for his lack of understanding of the actual law that could be applied to this (whether or not you agree with what was done, there's a difference between that and what's legal/what's not). For a great breakdown of whether or not its legal, see http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/26/pentagon-papers-ii-on-wikileaks-and-the-first-amendment/ http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/26/pentagon-papers-ii-on-wi...
electromagnetic 16y ago
The thing that concerns me is how panicked governments seem to be over the release of documents and their reaction is insane (IE seemingly trying to block out all free speech and free right to publication, etc) that I can't help but wonder what they're not wanting to be leaked. Someone without secrets doesn't worry about things being leaked. What secrets do these governments have that are huge to the point that they seem to be wanting to violate their own laws to block this guy.
- amanfredi 16y ago
  You don't need privacy if you have nothing to hide, eh?
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    Not particularly no, it's a nice thing to have and it certainly helps as a private citizen, however this is generally confusing anonymity with privacy. I'm comfortable sharing things online because I'm anonymous, because I'd prefer people in my personal life not know about certain things. However I don't keep this information to myself for an illicit benefit, however people don't have a reasonable expectation or justification to know what I'm doing at 10pm on a wednesday night. My boss does have a reason to know what I'm doing at 10am on a Wednesday, in fact he showed up at my job site - didn't concern me, because I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't have been. However I have a reason and a reasonable expectation to know what my government officials are doing, or at least be able to appoint someone to supervise them. Yet I'm told 'tough shit' because my government for as far as I can see is embezzling my money to areas of government I have no legal rights to even have a trustworthy official even monitor them. Security Intelligence Services is watchdogged, but why aren't members of my parliament as closely watched as fucking spies! Spies have a lot to hide, and they have justification to hide it, my MP does not have a reason to hide things from me because they got my vote.
  - thewileyone 16y ago
    Well isn't that the same policy that governments are trying to impose through wiretapping our phones, emails, etc.?
vincentpants 16y ago
Wikileaks is the only place in the world where you can be a whistleblower without the threat of censorship or persecution. Sounds like two of the best things to happen to democracy in a long time.
- petercooper 16y ago
  .. until you're suspected of being the whistleblower, of course: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10529110 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10529110
  - fatguy 16y ago
    imho the government should step-in to prevent this prosecution, or this soldier should appeal on moral grounds. he was just exposing the wrongdoing of the military forces. the correct course of action would have been for the military personnel to release/punish the people that shot at the civilians (but that is not possible as the military writes these off as collateral damage). I am not too familiar with the us law system, but i hope i am making sense.
- tbrownaw 16y ago
  Meh, just go pick a wireless hotspot to upload it to any of the file-share sites and post links on 4chan/Fark/Reddit/etc. Or send it to Cryptome.
mr_eel 16y ago
"Its reason for existence is to obtain classified national security information and disseminate it as widely as possible -- including to the United States' enemies." That is _not_ their stated goal. They aim to expose and distribute material of interest to the public, not national security information in general. "These actions are likely a violation of the Espionage Act, and they arguably constitute material support for terrorism." Yes, 'likely' and 'arguably'. Except that it's difficult to see how the Espionage Act applies to a group outside of the US. Also material support for terrorism actually means supplying _materials_ i.e. money, weaponry or physical goods. Which they obviously are not doing. "On Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told ABC News that Assange had a "moral culpability" for the harm he has caused." Oh please. This is coming from people who have been involved in the direction of military actions that have needlessly killed civilians. They don't have the moral high-ground here. Additionally; I'd like to see this harm quantified in some way. Thus far there has been much talk about damage, but no evidence. I'm all for holding people to account, but these kinds of statements seem like FUD to me. "Assange is a non-U.S. citizen operating outside the territory of the United States. This means the government has a wide range of options for dealing with him. It can employ not only law enforcement but also intelligence and military assets to bring Assange to justice..." Well firstly, lets establish what law he has broken shall we? That is a rather extreme option, with it's own set of complications. This article is full of lots of tough talk, but blithely ignores the complications of international law and dipolmacy. It also fails to ask one simple question; does the Obama Admin. see it in their best interests to arrest Assange?
fleitz 16y ago
I mean pretty soon he'll start doing things like exposing secret tapes of the president ordering break ins. If that happens the WaPo will have to ask Bob Woodward to start doing journalism again. Wikileaks is the best thing to happen to freedom since the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI.
b-man 16y ago
I would like to see how this guy would react if it was an American citizen leaking information about random_enemy_country. Should the federal authorities of said country have the right to violate foreign soil?
- mkramlich 16y ago
  Exactly. The level of hypocrisy is astounding. It is well-known that the US has been spying on other countries for a long time. There is a track record of involving citizens of foreign countries to engage in acts which are considered treasonous by their own countries standards and, if they had been our own citizen, treason in our own as well. What the US calls "treason" against itself would just be called "smart intelligence gathering" by the other country.
  - rmc 16y ago
    It is well-known that all countries has been spying on other countries for a long time. The USA is not special here. Just about all countries spy on each other and have done for millenia.
mixmax 16y ago
As a European this comments really pisses me off "In other words, we do not need permission to apprehend Assange or his co-conspirators anywhere in the world." The political hatred the US has gotten from around the world stems largely from the idea that the US can do whatever it pleases wherever it pleases. Also "The United States has the capability and the authority to monitor his communications and disrupt his operations. " Julian Assange is a good hacker, he made the first free portscanner (precursor to Nmap), co-invented Rubberhose deniable encryption and wrote the Usenet caching software NNTPCache. I highly doubt the United States is monitoring his activity.
- isamuel 16y ago
  Yeah, the idea that the U.S. should blow apart its international alliances to apprehend someone whose activities are protected under American law is slightly insane. Then again, the author has a history of such things.
  - adin 16y ago
    I hope not. Unfortunately the US doesn't have the best "track record" for respecting other countries laws. Off the top of my head the "extraordinary rendition" program and the SWIFT data records comes to mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition_by_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition_by_the_... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/20/AR2005052001605.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05... http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-ban-cia-rendition http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-tortur... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/15/swift_processing_halt/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/15/swift_processing_hal...
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agentultra 16y ago
I'm far more threatened by Mr. Thiessen's implication that surveillance should be the sole domain of government than I am of Assange's attempts to thwart such secrecy. Governments should not have unchecked powers of surveillance. We all know the myriad ways that can go wrong. Somebody has to be watching these people and that's just what WL is doing. Don't trust anyone to have your best interests at heart.
baddox 16y ago
I laughed when the author cited a US law claiming the United States' ability (specifically the FBI) to legally violate international law. That's like me citing my own personal law that says I may legally violate state laws and burglarize any house I want to.
- die_sekte 16y ago
  There's a US law about invading an international court to free US citizens. There are a bunch of reasons why the US is hated by quite a few people, most of which boil down to: (a) many US presidents are war criminals (b) the US is a very big "western" nation that likes to start wars (c) the US doesn't play nice with international standards and organizations.
- caf 16y ago
  More specifically, it'd be like the Russians citing a Russian law that allowed them to go in to the US and arrest Marc A. Thiessen.
- mattdonahoe 16y ago
  The US has decided that it is ok with the FBI breaking international law. It's like your parents being ok with you breaking the rules at your friend's house, or town curfew.
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  Yeah, me too. The point is that states sometimes need to do these dirty things, but they shouldn't try to make retarded legal arguments to justify them. Yeah, it's illegal. Okay, so use your special forces and shut up already. Actually, I believe my exact words were "It's like saying that the Sovereign of Sovereignia can ass-rape anyone he chooses, because there's a Sovereignian piece of paper that says it's okay."
itistoday 16y ago
Wikileaks, like Wikipedia, is one of the healthiest things to come out of the internet. The service it provides to the United States and the rest of the world is invaluable. The only group I see threatened here is that great "military-industrial complex," and that's fine by me.
beloch 16y ago
I work in cryptography. This field has taught me something rather applicable here: It is far better to know your secrets are in the hands of your enemy than it is to not know when they are in the hands of your enemy. If your secret stuff is released on Wikileaks, you know about it. You can take steps. e.g. Evacuate your informants before the Taliban whack 'em. If the Taliban get their hands on a list of CIA informants, without the CIA knowing, those guys would be screwed. As it stands they've got a fighting chance. Wikileaks or sites like it are now a fact of life. If the CIA disappears Assange into some banana-republic torture-hole or simply assassinates him, his fate would most likely be leaked to Wikileaks successor. The cat is now out of the bag. The U.S.'s only real option here, aside from investigating how that data was leaked in the first place, is to attempt to improve their ability to cope with leaks when they do happen. Time often makes all the difference, so they would be well served by developing a relationship with Assange. e.g. "You give us a 48-hour heads up when you leak something from us and we'll forgo atomizing your brains with precision guided explosives." It's not like Assange would have a choice if presented with such a deal. However embarrassing his assassination might be for the U.S., it will ensure that the next Wikileaks plays ball.
DjDarkman 16y ago
Assange is a hero to democracy, the government dirty secrets must be uncovered! Those informants aided the war, they aided civilian slaughter that many US troops did for fun, so I guess if they get killed, they had it coming. The war is [supposably] over, why does the US need to have so many secrets? Are they embarrassed that their army is full of sadistic murderers? These short sighted people that write articles like this eat propaganda.
damoncali 16y ago
I get the sense he thinks this a big political game. (after all, war is just the imposition of political policy via force). Having spent some time with the folks he is pissing off, I don't think it's an understatement to say that he may just get himself killed.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  That will be the ultimate proof of whether he's truly a threat to any powerful interests. If he suddenly disappears or has an accident one day, that will likely be the other shoe dropping.
gloob 16y ago
I find it bizarre that so many people suddenly care so much about the lives of a couple hundred civilians in Afghanistan. Between the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed, and nary a tear was shed by a reporter anywhere, but suddenly God knows how many people are out for this fellow's blood. The world's a funny place.
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  Informant > Civilian. To those people at least.
- fuzz579 16y ago
  I think that the old adage "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic" is quite applicable here.
- pradocchia 16y ago
  > but suddenly God knows how many people are out for this fellow's blood. It's propaganda, in aggregate. The stated rationales don't matter. All that matters is that the idea gets lodged in the public mind, that Wikileaks is a legitimate threat, an enemy of the state, a rogue organization. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It doesn't matter, so long as enough people believe it. Why I don't know. What's the next play? When I heard the term "cyber warfare" in the past, I wouldn't have thought of this, but here we are.
takeshee 16y ago
Interesting Op-Ed, but I think it's criticism is misplaced. Wikileaks in this case is a provider, much like YouTube. Although their intended goal is to bring to light embarrassing and/or immoral actions by governments, they have no contractual obligation to the United States. Holding them accountable for information provided by 3rd parties seems a stretch at best, and if successfully prosecuted, all news media should be wary. The op-ed's criticism should really be placed on the provider of these documents, and those that decided he could be trusted with a security clearance. He had a contractual agreement with the government, was informed of the consequences of breaking his oath, broke it, and should be prepared for the consequences. The government knows the best way to prevent future cases like this: prosecute the leaker to the fullest extent they can. If the leaker is executed as a traitor, everyone with clearance during war-time will carefully consider breaking their oaths knowing that it will cost them their lives. Harassing and intimidating publishers will have little to no effect on future leaks, and is probably a waste of the governments time to pursue.
Chirag 16y ago
Knowing is always better than not knowing.
- Ardit20 16y ago
  Perhaps. That we do not know.
binspace 16y ago
Wow, that article had government propaganda written all over it. Now I'm really glad somebody is standing up and exposing some questionable secrets. America should be a government for the people by the people. I'm sorry, but hiding murders of children is not for the people.
adrianwaj 16y ago
I hope Wikileaks can leak things about "Palestine" regarding where and who are benefiting from all its aid - not that anyone will care that much. Is there a disproportionate focus on the USA? China's another country that could use some leakage.
mkramlich 16y ago
That article was so full of double standards it was hilarious. Many of the things he accused WikiLeaks of doing, the US military is also doing, and often more directly and at a higher level of magnitude. Also, at the end I noted the author works for AEI. Not surprising.
jokull 16y ago
First of all, why were 91,000 documents secret? I wouldn't really know, but isn't that something like half of all the significant events in the war so far? Doesn't that make this whole operation kind of veiled from the public eye? THIS is what Wikileaks is exposing; the fact that routine events in this war are being kept secret for no apparent reason, not just a few justified occurrences where secrecy is necessary. It should be the burdon of the governing bodies to justify making something a secret, but from these documents it looks like they're slapping a "confidential" sticker on every other file just for the heck of it.
tlerce 16y ago
Bizarre how he so broadly paints the world with America's laws.
elblanco 16y ago
What I think everybody has lost site of is that Afghanistan, pre 9-11, was a country that facilitated an environment that allowed people who would normally be local village thugs to turn into James Bond villains that rammed airliners into buildings on the other side of the planet killing thousands of civilians drinking their morning lattes. The Afghan war was most certainly not a war of colonial aggression or some bullshit diversionary war in the wrong country and nobody has floated any realistic options other than occupying the country as way to prevent more buildings from being knocked down. It's not even entirely clear that even that minimal goal has been accomplished. The point of all this wasn't to spread Democracy to the oppressed people of Afghanistan and give them clean water and schools. It was to eradicate an environment that facilitates and encourages people to plan and execute complex operations intent on killing us as part of an insane world domination plan to bring forth a new Caliphate on this Earth in order to establish a particularly hard-line version of Islam on humanity. It just so turns out that our best estimate of what will stop the festering insane world domination cancer that grows there is a nice dose of Democracy, schools and economic growth. Perhaps that's wrong and misguided, but I have yet to hear of a plan that doesn't include "better government and stronger economy" that has any chance of working. And you can't have those things without some semblance of security. And you can't have security against people who want to establish a global Caliphate through a plan of killing and terrorizing civilian populations without killing a few of those assholes in return. I mean, what's the alternative? Go door to door and politely pass out flyers asking them nicely to stop having aspirations of killing the infidel to cleanse the world? I wonder how long the Peace Corps would last amongst people who's idea of a reasoned response to "let's drill a well for the village" is to cut their head off with a dull knife and send a video of the decapitation to their family. I'm not sure I really understand how to have a productive debate concerning this issue with people who think that the proper response to 9-11 should have been a shrug of the shoulders and enhanced sanctions. I don't think anybody wants us to be at war there -- the ass end of the Earth. It's not like we're getting any material benefit from it -- quite the contrary in fact. But I objectively think that anybody who holds naive ideals that you can execute an invasion, conduct security operations, stabilization initiatives and nation building in such an inhospitable, economically hopeless part of the world and not end up with dead civilians is a moron. And I most certainly haven't heard of a reasonable plan that would exclude such unfortunate casualties. Cries for NATO to get out are never followed by a plan for what to do after that that would prevent the social and economic degeneration of the country into what we had to deal with in the late 90's and early 2000s. To be perfectly honest, nobody really cares if Afghanistan soft crashes into a fractured state of tribal warlords who kill far more civilians than any occupation force could ever hope to do. Afghanistan will never be an advanced industrialized society. What we all care about is if they soft crash back into a regime that supports complex and grandiose terror operations outside their borders. And due to woeful mismanagement the entire conflict, it's not clear where they'd land, but it's not likely to be a peaceful agrarian society.
Groxx 16y ago
Is it just me, or is The Washington Post getting worse?
tzm 16y ago
The reaction to WL seems to be driven more by fear and a lack of control. I question whether the blowback from leaks is greater than the unintended consequences and misguided efforts of military action as a whole. This issue is the result of what you could consider a natural process as access to information becomes more efficient. Just an observation.
Ardit20 16y ago
I am not American, so I do not know this author, but wow, this guy is evil! From Wikileaks, I mean Wikipedia: Marc A. Thiessen (born 1967) served as a speechwriter for United States President George W. Bush (2004–2009) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (2001–2004). He is the author of the 2010 New York Times bestselling book, Courting Disaster. "Thiessen's first book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack" - I think the title is probably all you need to know about him and the book. "...a former military interrogator, and author of How to Break a Terrorist, characterizes Thiessen's book as "a literary defense of war criminals" "...many Catholic thinkers strongly disagree with Thiessen's assertion in the book that waterboarding is permitted by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church." Emphasis Added "Thiessen's promotional tour for Courting Disaster included a confrontational interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour and an interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show" Man if he is shouting at John Stewart, you know the guy is evil. He is all that I and am sure most Americans by their univocal rejection of the last government despise. He stands for all that made the last decade so dark. He is the f* criminal. Now as to the article. I am amazed. Override International Law? What on earth! What is he somewhat superior than everyone else? Does he think the US is so great that it can afford to pick a fight with freaking Europe? Or is International Law applicable only to others, or is law for that matter applicable only to others? Man this guy is not only Evil, but an enemy of the people. If the Devil did exist and took the form of man, it would resemble him like a mirror image.
rrc 16y ago
Whether it's terrorism or leaks, neocons - like this author - appear to frequently endorse head cutting as an effective method of battling hydras.
openfly 16y ago
The guy who wrote this is a raving lunatic. Most of what he said was blatantly inaccurate or completely fabricated.

61 points by jacoblyles 16y ago

I've been surprised recently how many worldly people have been cheering Wikileaks and think what they're doing is OK. This isn't a judgment on anyone - just surprise. I'm as big an infojunkie as anyone ;-) Is there significant support amongst the intelligentsia for nixing laws like the Espionage Act and Official Secrets Act that the government and military rely on?

briandoll 16y ago
"Is there significant support amongst the intelligentsia for nixing laws like the Espionage Act and Official Secrets Act that the government and military rely on?" It's not that there is widespread support for nixing those laws, but since the US government has been using those laws rather broadly (most notably during the invasion of Iraq), I'd say there is support for revising those laws. Laws that protect secrets are a sort of Schrödinger's cat, though, in that in order to decide if they are a secret, you have to know the secret. So all government declared secrets are both secrets and non-secrets at the same time. It will be a long time before the Iraq invasion documents are declassified, far too long from now to consider it ammo for those that want a more transparent government. I'm not defending Wikileaks nor their supporters necessarily, but I would guess that this is the link of thinking with exposing (some of) these documents. For some documents, clearly they are exposing things just to provoke people and draw media attention, for which they have been insanely successful.
mbrubeck 16y ago
Naming it "Wikileaks" was excellent for PR. People's first associations will be with efforts like Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, which have a significant amount of goodwill.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

I am struck by four things. 1) Wikileaks is really pissing people off. I don't mean the nicey, lets-go-protest-down-at-the-student-union kind of protest. I mean people who are not normally angry with anybody else in the world talking about throwing him in jail and/or killing him. Devil or Angel, that's a whole heap of pissing off he's accomplished. 2) Assange has more power than many 3-star generals, yet he's just some guy running a web service. That's awesome if you're Assange, but for the rest of us, we have to live with the world that results with whatever he decides to leak or not. 3) Anarchy is not the same as openness. Openness says I demand full insight into what my government is doing. If not me personally, then somebody I elected or appointed. Anarchy says any type of secret is bad and open air always beats secrets. Governments can't function without secrets -- even your local small town has to have secret meetings to discuss personnel issues and such. Wikileaks is, to my mind, opposed to this cornerstone of government. That's anarchy. 4) If Assange wants to play this game, he should think long and hard about where it's going to lead him. Right now he's having a field day because records are centralized and available electronically. But for every move there is a counter-move. I know if I were running a covert op anywhere in the world there's no freaking way I'd put anything on a computer anywhere. If he would rather have millions of little secrets offline and out of sight, that's what we're going to get. Which makes the entire intelligence community even harder to manage for those folks managing it. Is that better than what we have now? It's the exact opposite of what he says he wants. There's a certain amount of cocky self-promoting asshole about Assange. As much as I want the maximum amount of liberty, freedom, and openness, this isn't the way to make it happen.

kiba 16y ago
3) Anarchy is not the same as openness. Openness says I demand full insight into what my government is doing. If not me personally, then somebody I elected or appointed. Anarchy says any type of secret is bad and open air always beats secrets. Governments can't function without secrets -- even your local small town has to have secret meetings to discuss personnel issues and such. Wikileaks is, to my mind, opposed to this cornerstone. That's anarchy. Some crypto-anarchists and agorists would like to have a few words with you.
- 16y ago

Synthetase 16y ago

"The Web site must be shut down and prevented from releasing more documents -- and its leadership brought to justice." The latter imperative might be achievable. The former is the height of delusion.

patrickaljord 16y ago
> The latter imperative might be achievable. It might be, but so might putting a replacement online a couple of days later.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  'The latter' would be 'leadership brought to justice'. Read carefully.

mahmud 16y ago

FWIW, this guy and his employer earn their living by foaming in the mouth "for America". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute

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jquery 16y ago
Maybe you could elaborate on what you mean by "foaming at the mouth"? I read the wikipedia article you linked to and nowhere was that mentioned.
- mahmud 16y ago
  He is someone whose job is to find/conjure-up all sorts of enemies and threats facing the United States. His employing think-tank takes a political leaning that's so far to the right, that they see nothing in this world that isn't a "vital interest" or a "mortal enemy". They see the world through the lenses of a globalized Monroe Doctrine. They profit materially from pain they inflict upon people; either emotional pain in the fear they evoke in the American masses, or the real physical pain in others when they launch recreational wars. So, this hired-mouth can cry foul all he wants. Those old enough to exist before the Iraq invasion remember similar tunes. As for his opinion, it's nothing but an invoice line-item; commissioned by the Gun and Oil interests, draped in a flag and fig-leafed with God.

ShabbyDoo 16y ago

"The United States has the capability and the authority to monitor his communications and disrupt his operations." So, a member of the American Enterprise Institute is privy to the US Government's electronic spying capabilities? And, he's complaining about the release of intelligence-related secrets? I don't actually think he knows for sure that Wikileaks' communications are monitorable, but the statement is laughable.

drhodes 16y ago
It would turn into an encrypted Wack-a-mole, evolving the state of the art for information dissemination. The author clearly believes that the DoD has magic computers, or the equivalent of a digital nuke.

steveplace 16y ago

Yes, I will engage in a little ad hominem, only to give context to the author's surrounding beliefs: Marc A. Thiessen served as a speechwriter for United States President George W. Bush (2004-2009) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (2001-2004) The argument is very well laid out and I'm not qualified to mount a case against his claims; however, it does have a slight political tinge to it.

msredmond 16y ago

Commentary is really scary for his lack of understanding of the actual law that could be applied to this (whether or not you agree with what was done, there's a difference between that and what's legal/what's not). For a great breakdown of whether or not its legal, see http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/26/pentagon-papers-ii-on-wikileaks-and-the-first-amendment/ http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/26/pentagon-papers-ii-on-wi...

electromagnetic 16y ago

The thing that concerns me is how panicked governments seem to be over the release of documents and their reaction is insane (IE seemingly trying to block out all free speech and free right to publication, etc) that I can't help but wonder what they're not wanting to be leaked. Someone without secrets doesn't worry about things being leaked. What secrets do these governments have that are huge to the point that they seem to be wanting to violate their own laws to block this guy.

amanfredi 16y ago
You don't need privacy if you have nothing to hide, eh?
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  Not particularly no, it's a nice thing to have and it certainly helps as a private citizen, however this is generally confusing anonymity with privacy. I'm comfortable sharing things online because I'm anonymous, because I'd prefer people in my personal life not know about certain things. However I don't keep this information to myself for an illicit benefit, however people don't have a reasonable expectation or justification to know what I'm doing at 10pm on a wednesday night. My boss does have a reason to know what I'm doing at 10am on a Wednesday, in fact he showed up at my job site - didn't concern me, because I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't have been. However I have a reason and a reasonable expectation to know what my government officials are doing, or at least be able to appoint someone to supervise them. Yet I'm told 'tough shit' because my government for as far as I can see is embezzling my money to areas of government I have no legal rights to even have a trustworthy official even monitor them. Security Intelligence Services is watchdogged, but why aren't members of my parliament as closely watched as fucking spies! Spies have a lot to hide, and they have justification to hide it, my MP does not have a reason to hide things from me because they got my vote.
- thewileyone 16y ago
  Well isn't that the same policy that governments are trying to impose through wiretapping our phones, emails, etc.?

vincentpants 16y ago

Wikileaks is the only place in the world where you can be a whistleblower without the threat of censorship or persecution. Sounds like two of the best things to happen to democracy in a long time.

petercooper 16y ago
.. until you're suspected of being the whistleblower, of course: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10529110 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10529110
- fatguy 16y ago
  imho the government should step-in to prevent this prosecution, or this soldier should appeal on moral grounds. he was just exposing the wrongdoing of the military forces. the correct course of action would have been for the military personnel to release/punish the people that shot at the civilians (but that is not possible as the military writes these off as collateral damage). I am not too familiar with the us law system, but i hope i am making sense.
tbrownaw 16y ago
Meh, just go pick a wireless hotspot to upload it to any of the file-share sites and post links on 4chan/Fark/Reddit/etc. Or send it to Cryptome.

mr_eel 16y ago

"Its reason for existence is to obtain classified national security information and disseminate it as widely as possible -- including to the United States' enemies." That is _not_ their stated goal. They aim to expose and distribute material of interest to the public, not national security information in general. "These actions are likely a violation of the Espionage Act, and they arguably constitute material support for terrorism." Yes, 'likely' and 'arguably'. Except that it's difficult to see how the Espionage Act applies to a group outside of the US. Also material support for terrorism actually means supplying _materials_ i.e. money, weaponry or physical goods. Which they obviously are not doing. "On Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told ABC News that Assange had a "moral culpability" for the harm he has caused." Oh please. This is coming from people who have been involved in the direction of military actions that have needlessly killed civilians. They don't have the moral high-ground here. Additionally; I'd like to see this harm quantified in some way. Thus far there has been much talk about damage, but no evidence. I'm all for holding people to account, but these kinds of statements seem like FUD to me. "Assange is a non-U.S. citizen operating outside the territory of the United States. This means the government has a wide range of options for dealing with him. It can employ not only law enforcement but also intelligence and military assets to bring Assange to justice..." Well firstly, lets establish what law he has broken shall we? That is a rather extreme option, with it's own set of complications. This article is full of lots of tough talk, but blithely ignores the complications of international law and dipolmacy. It also fails to ask one simple question; does the Obama Admin. see it in their best interests to arrest Assange?

fleitz 16y ago

I mean pretty soon he'll start doing things like exposing secret tapes of the president ordering break ins. If that happens the WaPo will have to ask Bob Woodward to start doing journalism again. Wikileaks is the best thing to happen to freedom since the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI.

b-man 16y ago

I would like to see how this guy would react if it was an American citizen leaking information about random_enemy_country. Should the federal authorities of said country have the right to violate foreign soil?

mkramlich 16y ago
Exactly. The level of hypocrisy is astounding. It is well-known that the US has been spying on other countries for a long time. There is a track record of involving citizens of foreign countries to engage in acts which are considered treasonous by their own countries standards and, if they had been our own citizen, treason in our own as well. What the US calls "treason" against itself would just be called "smart intelligence gathering" by the other country.
- rmc 16y ago
  It is well-known that all countries has been spying on other countries for a long time. The USA is not special here. Just about all countries spy on each other and have done for millenia.

mixmax 16y ago

As a European this comments really pisses me off "In other words, we do not need permission to apprehend Assange or his co-conspirators anywhere in the world." The political hatred the US has gotten from around the world stems largely from the idea that the US can do whatever it pleases wherever it pleases. Also "The United States has the capability and the authority to monitor his communications and disrupt his operations. " Julian Assange is a good hacker, he made the first free portscanner (precursor to Nmap), co-invented Rubberhose deniable encryption and wrote the Usenet caching software NNTPCache. I highly doubt the United States is monitoring his activity.

isamuel 16y ago
Yeah, the idea that the U.S. should blow apart its international alliances to apprehend someone whose activities are protected under American law is slightly insane. Then again, the author has a history of such things.
- adin 16y ago
  I hope not. Unfortunately the US doesn't have the best "track record" for respecting other countries laws. Off the top of my head the "extraordinary rendition" program and the SWIFT data records comes to mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition_by_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition_by_the_... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/20/AR2005052001605.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05... http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-torture-ban-cia-rendition http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/11/09/sweden-violated-tortur... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/15/swift_processing_halt/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/15/swift_processing_hal...

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agentultra 16y ago

I'm far more threatened by Mr. Thiessen's implication that surveillance should be the sole domain of government than I am of Assange's attempts to thwart such secrecy. Governments should not have unchecked powers of surveillance. We all know the myriad ways that can go wrong. Somebody has to be watching these people and that's just what WL is doing. Don't trust anyone to have your best interests at heart.

baddox 16y ago

I laughed when the author cited a US law claiming the United States' ability (specifically the FBI) to legally violate international law. That's like me citing my own personal law that says I may legally violate state laws and burglarize any house I want to.

die_sekte 16y ago
There's a US law about invading an international court to free US citizens. There are a bunch of reasons why the US is hated by quite a few people, most of which boil down to: (a) many US presidents are war criminals (b) the US is a very big "western" nation that likes to start wars (c) the US doesn't play nice with international standards and organizations.
caf 16y ago
More specifically, it'd be like the Russians citing a Russian law that allowed them to go in to the US and arrest Marc A. Thiessen.
mattdonahoe 16y ago
The US has decided that it is ok with the FBI breaking international law. It's like your parents being ok with you breaking the rules at your friend's house, or town curfew.
JabavuAdams 16y ago
Yeah, me too. The point is that states sometimes need to do these dirty things, but they shouldn't try to make retarded legal arguments to justify them. Yeah, it's illegal. Okay, so use your special forces and shut up already. Actually, I believe my exact words were "It's like saying that the Sovereign of Sovereignia can ass-rape anyone he chooses, because there's a Sovereignian piece of paper that says it's okay."

itistoday 16y ago

Wikileaks, like Wikipedia, is one of the healthiest things to come out of the internet. The service it provides to the United States and the rest of the world is invaluable. The only group I see threatened here is that great "military-industrial complex," and that's fine by me.

beloch 16y ago

I work in cryptography. This field has taught me something rather applicable here: It is far better to know your secrets are in the hands of your enemy than it is to not know when they are in the hands of your enemy. If your secret stuff is released on Wikileaks, you know about it. You can take steps. e.g. Evacuate your informants before the Taliban whack 'em. If the Taliban get their hands on a list of CIA informants, without the CIA knowing, those guys would be screwed. As it stands they've got a fighting chance. Wikileaks or sites like it are now a fact of life. If the CIA disappears Assange into some banana-republic torture-hole or simply assassinates him, his fate would most likely be leaked to Wikileaks successor. The cat is now out of the bag. The U.S.'s only real option here, aside from investigating how that data was leaked in the first place, is to attempt to improve their ability to cope with leaks when they do happen. Time often makes all the difference, so they would be well served by developing a relationship with Assange. e.g. "You give us a 48-hour heads up when you leak something from us and we'll forgo atomizing your brains with precision guided explosives." It's not like Assange would have a choice if presented with such a deal. However embarrassing his assassination might be for the U.S., it will ensure that the next Wikileaks plays ball.

DjDarkman 16y ago

Assange is a hero to democracy, the government dirty secrets must be uncovered! Those informants aided the war, they aided civilian slaughter that many US troops did for fun, so I guess if they get killed, they had it coming. The war is [supposably] over, why does the US need to have so many secrets? Are they embarrassed that their army is full of sadistic murderers? These short sighted people that write articles like this eat propaganda.

damoncali 16y ago

I get the sense he thinks this a big political game. (after all, war is just the imposition of political policy via force). Having spent some time with the folks he is pissing off, I don't think it's an understatement to say that he may just get himself killed.

mkramlich 16y ago
That will be the ultimate proof of whether he's truly a threat to any powerful interests. If he suddenly disappears or has an accident one day, that will likely be the other shoe dropping.

gloob 16y ago

I find it bizarre that so many people suddenly care so much about the lives of a couple hundred civilians in Afghanistan. Between the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed, and nary a tear was shed by a reporter anywhere, but suddenly God knows how many people are out for this fellow's blood. The world's a funny place.

SkyMarshal 16y ago
Informant > Civilian. To those people at least.
fuzz579 16y ago
I think that the old adage "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic" is quite applicable here.
pradocchia 16y ago
> but suddenly God knows how many people are out for this fellow's blood. It's propaganda, in aggregate. The stated rationales don't matter. All that matters is that the idea gets lodged in the public mind, that Wikileaks is a legitimate threat, an enemy of the state, a rogue organization. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It doesn't matter, so long as enough people believe it. Why I don't know. What's the next play? When I heard the term "cyber warfare" in the past, I wouldn't have thought of this, but here we are.

takeshee 16y ago

Interesting Op-Ed, but I think it's criticism is misplaced. Wikileaks in this case is a provider, much like YouTube. Although their intended goal is to bring to light embarrassing and/or immoral actions by governments, they have no contractual obligation to the United States. Holding them accountable for information provided by 3rd parties seems a stretch at best, and if successfully prosecuted, all news media should be wary. The op-ed's criticism should really be placed on the provider of these documents, and those that decided he could be trusted with a security clearance. He had a contractual agreement with the government, was informed of the consequences of breaking his oath, broke it, and should be prepared for the consequences. The government knows the best way to prevent future cases like this: prosecute the leaker to the fullest extent they can. If the leaker is executed as a traitor, everyone with clearance during war-time will carefully consider breaking their oaths knowing that it will cost them their lives. Harassing and intimidating publishers will have little to no effect on future leaks, and is probably a waste of the governments time to pursue.

Chirag 16y ago

Knowing is always better than not knowing.

Ardit20 16y ago
Perhaps. That we do not know.

binspace 16y ago

Wow, that article had government propaganda written all over it. Now I'm really glad somebody is standing up and exposing some questionable secrets. America should be a government for the people by the people. I'm sorry, but hiding murders of children is not for the people.

adrianwaj 16y ago

I hope Wikileaks can leak things about "Palestine" regarding where and who are benefiting from all its aid - not that anyone will care that much. Is there a disproportionate focus on the USA? China's another country that could use some leakage.

mkramlich 16y ago

That article was so full of double standards it was hilarious. Many of the things he accused WikiLeaks of doing, the US military is also doing, and often more directly and at a higher level of magnitude. Also, at the end I noted the author works for AEI. Not surprising.

jokull 16y ago

First of all, why were 91,000 documents secret? I wouldn't really know, but isn't that something like half of all the significant events in the war so far? Doesn't that make this whole operation kind of veiled from the public eye? THIS is what Wikileaks is exposing; the fact that routine events in this war are being kept secret for no apparent reason, not just a few justified occurrences where secrecy is necessary. It should be the burdon of the governing bodies to justify making something a secret, but from these documents it looks like they're slapping a "confidential" sticker on every other file just for the heck of it.

tlerce 16y ago

Bizarre how he so broadly paints the world with America's laws.

elblanco 16y ago

What I think everybody has lost site of is that Afghanistan, pre 9-11, was a country that facilitated an environment that allowed people who would normally be local village thugs to turn into James Bond villains that rammed airliners into buildings on the other side of the planet killing thousands of civilians drinking their morning lattes. The Afghan war was most certainly not a war of colonial aggression or some bullshit diversionary war in the wrong country and nobody has floated any realistic options other than occupying the country as way to prevent more buildings from being knocked down. It's not even entirely clear that even that minimal goal has been accomplished. The point of all this wasn't to spread Democracy to the oppressed people of Afghanistan and give them clean water and schools. It was to eradicate an environment that facilitates and encourages people to plan and execute complex operations intent on killing us as part of an insane world domination plan to bring forth a new Caliphate on this Earth in order to establish a particularly hard-line version of Islam on humanity. It just so turns out that our best estimate of what will stop the festering insane world domination cancer that grows there is a nice dose of Democracy, schools and economic growth. Perhaps that's wrong and misguided, but I have yet to hear of a plan that doesn't include "better government and stronger economy" that has any chance of working. And you can't have those things without some semblance of security. And you can't have security against people who want to establish a global Caliphate through a plan of killing and terrorizing civilian populations without killing a few of those assholes in return. I mean, what's the alternative? Go door to door and politely pass out flyers asking them nicely to stop having aspirations of killing the infidel to cleanse the world? I wonder how long the Peace Corps would last amongst people who's idea of a reasoned response to "let's drill a well for the village" is to cut their head off with a dull knife and send a video of the decapitation to their family. I'm not sure I really understand how to have a productive debate concerning this issue with people who think that the proper response to 9-11 should have been a shrug of the shoulders and enhanced sanctions. I don't think anybody wants us to be at war there -- the ass end of the Earth. It's not like we're getting any material benefit from it -- quite the contrary in fact. But I objectively think that anybody who holds naive ideals that you can execute an invasion, conduct security operations, stabilization initiatives and nation building in such an inhospitable, economically hopeless part of the world and not end up with dead civilians is a moron. And I most certainly haven't heard of a reasonable plan that would exclude such unfortunate casualties. Cries for NATO to get out are never followed by a plan for what to do after that that would prevent the social and economic degeneration of the country into what we had to deal with in the late 90's and early 2000s. To be perfectly honest, nobody really cares if Afghanistan soft crashes into a fractured state of tribal warlords who kill far more civilians than any occupation force could ever hope to do. Afghanistan will never be an advanced industrialized society. What we all care about is if they soft crash back into a regime that supports complex and grandiose terror operations outside their borders. And due to woeful mismanagement the entire conflict, it's not clear where they'd land, but it's not likely to be a peaceful agrarian society.

Groxx 16y ago

Is it just me, or is The Washington Post getting worse?

tzm 16y ago

The reaction to WL seems to be driven more by fear and a lack of control. I question whether the blowback from leaks is greater than the unintended consequences and misguided efforts of military action as a whole. This issue is the result of what you could consider a natural process as access to information becomes more efficient. Just an observation.

Ardit20 16y ago

I am not American, so I do not know this author, but wow, this guy is evil! From Wikileaks, I mean Wikipedia: Marc A. Thiessen (born 1967) served as a speechwriter for United States President George W. Bush (2004–2009) and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (2001–2004). He is the author of the 2010 New York Times bestselling book, Courting Disaster. "Thiessen's first book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack" - I think the title is probably all you need to know about him and the book. "...a former military interrogator, and author of How to Break a Terrorist, characterizes Thiessen's book as "a literary defense of war criminals" "...many Catholic thinkers strongly disagree with Thiessen's assertion in the book that waterboarding is permitted by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church." Emphasis Added "Thiessen's promotional tour for Courting Disaster included a confrontational interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour and an interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show" Man if he is shouting at John Stewart, you know the guy is evil. He is all that I and am sure most Americans by their univocal rejection of the last government despise. He stands for all that made the last decade so dark. He is the f* criminal. Now as to the article. I am amazed. Override International Law? What on earth! What is he somewhat superior than everyone else? Does he think the US is so great that it can afford to pick a fight with freaking Europe? Or is International Law applicable only to others, or is law for that matter applicable only to others? Man this guy is not only Evil, but an enemy of the people. If the Devil did exist and took the form of man, it would resemble him like a mirror image.

rrc 16y ago

Whether it's terrorism or leaks, neocons - like this author - appear to frequently endorse head cutting as an effective method of battling hydras.

openfly 16y ago

The guy who wrote this is a raving lunatic. Most of what he said was blatantly inaccurate or completely fabricated.