> Wikileaks isn't a terrorist organization, and why the principal members aren't enemy combatants. Well, they aren't operating with the intent to cause terror

> Wikileaks isn't a terrorist organization, and why the principal members aren't enemy combatants. Well, they aren't operating with the intent to cause terror in enemy civilians. Further, an enemy combatant is usually considered to be someone armed on the field of combat. I believe there is a very technical legal definition of an enemy combatant. They - Wikileaks - are pursuing anti-US goals, however. That is not illegal. It should be expected, however, that the US will retaliate in various fashions, because the interests of the US dictate that anti-US interests be diminished. I am not certain in the least of the facts of Jacob Appelbaum's case. Certainly, if he was definitively operating against the US government in a terrorist fashion, he would deny it. But if he was an honest man, he would also deny that he was operating against the US government. After spending an amount of my time in the last few months reading about the USSR's beginnings and the fall of the Tsar, I can assure him that he is living in a very nice country where dissidents don't simply get shot out without a trial. Being stuck in a holding cell is quite gentle comparatively. Which does not make it perfectly upright either, nontheless. There is a higher problem here. The conventions of warfare since 1812 or so describe nation-states at war with each other, including how to deal with prisoners and manage trials. However, today we do not have significant nation-state actors in active war with each other, we have un-uniformed[1] militias operating against nation-states. I do not know of any serious attempt in international circles to define the non-nation-state actors in legal categories. This has led to the Guantanemo Bay problem. A terrorist is neither a civilian nor a military officer, but current law - to the best of my knowledge - does not handle that. Nor does current law - to the best of my knowledge - handle the 'info-war' legal categories well. What are the legal details on publishing sensitive or classified material in time of peace, if you are not constrained to silence by your duties? I don't know that that's ever been seriously treated in the US. So how should the laws of a country handle someone who appears to be acting as the ambassador for an anti-country interest? That's the real question. [1] At least in the narrow eyes of the law, uniforms matter, according to a former US Army officer I know.