Wikileaks
 

There's a lot of yelling, threats of arrest, a concentrated DDoS attack and suggestions that Wikileaks should be declared a terrorist organization emanating from the USofA these days. A lot of hooting and hollering.

Strikes me that they're all shooting at the messenger. Julian Assange didn't leak these documents; he published them. The real problem is a leaky diplomatic corps, isn't it? Further, I can't believe that that kid (an army private who's going to get hung out to dry) was the source of all that stuff -- too much of it is waaay above his pay grade.

The government is looking for a scapegoat.

Thehy got caught with their collective pants down, doing illegal stuff, now they are scrambling to CYA

Showing a confidential document to the public is likely a crime. Would you want someone to expose private stuff to each and everyone so they can spy?

The accusations are rather high, but it's still a crime IMO.

Is it a crime then for all the news media to be reporting it all in every gory detail?

Then "whistle blowing" is a crime?

Showing a person/entity has been doing illegal activity is a crime?

None of what's he's doing is a crime. What would the press do if the government mandated that everything is confidential. If it's confidential and you don't want someone to know then protect it. I personally support the founder of wikileak. Wow! He going to expose the banks next.

I sure hope this guys has some kind of security otherwise, he might end of dead. He's definitely a man of courage.

Beside, how does this jive with the first amendment? He's not a U.S. citizen but if they can punish him, then they can punish anyone of us.

Many of the docs were classified SECRET, No Foreign Dissemination. The definition of SECRET is "...information the unauthorized disclosure of which would result in serious harm to the United States of America."

Unauthorized disclosure of classified information is punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice as well as a host of other US laws that cover civilians. When a security clearance is granted to an individual, they are fully briefed on the laws and sign a statement that they understand the rules.

If found guilty, certainly the Private will be severely punished. He should be. Perhaps the docs were inappropriately classified, but the Private does not get to make that decision.

I don't see how the Wikileaks guy gets covered under any US law, but perhaps he is covered under the laws of the nation where he holds citizenship.

Access to SECRET docs is granted based on security clearance, not rank. It is not unusual for a Private to have access.... somebody had to print the docs, file them, deliver them, etc.

While interesting reading, I do not see how revealing the contents of the docs does anything but undermine US security and safety.

Julian's in trouble now:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...m_campaign=rss

I think this is just a charge to discredit him and anyone should see through this. This is a normal tactic used by the FBI and other government agencies in the past. The government may have put someone up to this so that the charges could be filed. I do believe Julian is in trouble, not because of this but because how he is trying to exercise his right of free speech. We need more people like him to stand up for their rights.

One by one we are losing our rights. It's the government jobs, not the public, to protect their confidential information. Why don't the government also go after the NY Times since they help to disseminate some of this information? The NY Times can protect themselves while Julian can not and that's the differences. The NY Times knew this information was confidential as well.

In terms of being undermined, the government wouldn't be undermined if they are doing right thing and seeking justice. Whenever illegal activities are disguised as justice, it should be exposed.

This (the short version): "Why The Wikileaks Document Release Is Key To A Functioning Democracy" in Techdirt this morning (quoting from a linked article in the Economist: "In defence of WikiLeaks"). Makes a good point, in my view.

Would you feel the same way if the leaked documents were detailed, technical information on missile defense, troop deployments, battle plans and such?

Hmmmm. Many good points in this thread. However,

1) Wikileaks is not a wiki, has nothing to do with wikis, and should not be called a wiki. This of course, is not a law and has no legal standing, but certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

2) Wired reports (as does the New Yorker) that Wikileaks got it's first batch of information from one of the founders who was an administrator of a Tor node. This, again, is not necessarily breaking a law, but it seems really really slimy to abuse an open-source network used for protecting ordinary folks' secrecy. Metaphorically, this is not David taking down Goliath, it's Cane stabbing Abel.

Trevor

@AEHurst:Of course not. The key issue so far is that the leaks I've read about (I haven't actually gone to Wikileaks for originals) have been at most, embarrassing. It's refreshing to read the unspun version of events. For all the hooting and hollering about putting troops in danger, nothing I've seen did so in my view. For the most part, they reveal what everyone knew in general anyway: international relations focus primarily on the self-interest of nations themselves. Not surprising.

Right, but then who gets to make the decision as to which is just embarrassing and which is protected for good cause?

Agree, it is interesting.

There are two things going on here. First, someone authorized to see them is leaking them and second, Assange is publishing them. The leaker is making that decision, although Assange may edit them as well. We'll probably never know.

See my post above discussing a Tor server admin (who will have access to everything exiting Tor at his or her Tor node) being one of the founders of Wikileaks, and taking some of the Tor node data. If that is the case at least some of the time with Wikileaks, then you can not take it as a given that someone who is authorized is leaking.

Trevor

He funnels information legally through neutral countries like Sweden, there is a whole interview with him on TED.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE...layer_embedded

Why is there any sensitive information passing through a Tor node? Tor's mandate is anonymity.

If the leaker was authorized access, then he/she broke the law.

If someone not authorized broke into a secure government server, then he/she broke the law. (I cannot imagine in my wildest dream that the State Dept maintained classified info on anything less than a secure network with high level encryption..... then again who knows.)

The part that puzzles me is since the US reportedly has a pretty sophisticated cyberwar capability, why haven't we just shut them down? The only answer I can come up with is the info leaked just really isn't that big a deal. If lives were at stake, would we not have acted?

The 3rd party folk who published the info seemed to have done a decent job of editing out potentially harmful information.... still it bothers me than any respectable news organization would publish anything that is potentially damaging to the US.... well, the US news organizations anyway.

It's interesting that Julian knows/knew Mudge and now they're sorta working against each other. I still remember the days of playing with Back Orrifice :) Ahhh...the good ol' days

This Forbes article is a good read.

TL;DR = Julian and Mudge ran in the same circles back in the day...now Mudge is working for DARPA on a project to stop information leaks...information leaks that Julian is publishing so famously right now.

Probably because the people sending the sensitive information across Tor didn't particularly care if third parties got it, too.

[Boldfacing is mine.]

Trevor

@Trevor; So some of the stuff appearing on Wikileaks was sent in the clear through a Tor node? Wow -- and they're calling Assange a criminal.

More from Techdirt "How The Response To Wikileaks Is Exactly What Assange Wants" -- Mike Masnick claims that the response to the Wikileaks that have appeared is playing directly into Assange's goals. A good read

Yes, it appears that criminals were sending the early Wikileaks information in the clear across Tor. So, in your opinion, is it acceptable to piggyback on the work done by criminals in stealing that information?

But this is again an indicator that not all the information presented by Wikileaks is leaked by someone who is authorized. At least some of it was stolen (and then basically stolen a second time by a Tor node administrator involved with Wikileaks).

By the way, I don't want to make it sound like I'm in any 'camp' with regards to Wikileaks, just that some of their actions (beginning with their very name) leave a very unpleasant taste in my mouth. I think many of the points made by you and others in this thread are excellent, and well deserving of consideration.

Trevor

Could someone remind me what Tor is?

Software and servers to give you Anonymity Online

Also, Wikipedia has an informative article on Tor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28...ity_network%29

Edit: And Wired has an article on some similar abuses of Tor which came out in 2007:
http://www.wired.com/politics/securi...urrentPage=all

Trevor

Mmm, onions. :)

I'm surprised that it's being abused like that.

Just a question… would SSH/SSL be safer for networking?

This thread is going off on a tangent. I'll try to answer your question, but let's not make this a discussion of anonymity and security.

ssh gives you a command-line encrypted connection to another computer that you have an account on. That's for another purpose entirely.

SSL is an end-to-end encryption protocol. It gives you some protection from someone on the general internet snooping the information that you are sending to a remote computer, but it does not provide any anonymity. In other words, someone can tell that you are connected over SSL from your IP address to another specific IP address, they just can't tell what information is going over that connection.

The real answer is to use both onion routing (like TOR) and end-to-end encryption like SSL. That way, you get anonymity and your data can't be read by someone on the 'net.

However, even that combination can be beaten, for example if the snooper has rooted the computer that you are connected to on the other end, or has rooted your computer. The data must be unencrypted on your end when you send it, and unencrypted on the other end for someone else to use it.

Trevor

I agree that there is no way a PFC could or should have access to these files.

Secondly, this is the equivalent of someone photographing the US while it is on the toilet.
Diplomats need to be able to send candid information about what they think of various other leaders. (He's a power-crazed drunk, etc.) This is what diplomacy is for.***
You can read archives of declassified stuff from the British Foreign Office that is witty, shocking, crude and incredibly blunt in its description of key players back to the 18th century.

I fear for a society when nothing is secret; when every rash word spoken in private may be brought out and used against you.

I don't think there is anything in these diplomatic communiques that is in "the public interest" -- unless you define public interest as cheap gossip.

*** When I was at school, we used to play a board game called "Diplomacy". Each player was a nation, and before all the army moves were announced, you would have a secret meeting with each player, in which you would promise an alliance, not to invade, etc, etc. Of course, what you actually did what often very different to what was promised.

Mike Huckabee, former candidate for Republican nomination for the Presidency and currently a talk show host on Fox is adding gas to the fire.

He is calling for the death sentence for the Private (presumably if he is found guilty) saying the Private's alleged act constitutes treason. He is technically correct, and we are at war.

I have wondered why the US haven't sent an open letter to Julien regarding the information leaks. Something about these lines:

Ok, that was just a fantasy, but…

At war with whom? Not the Iraqis. Not the Afghans.

I hope you don't mean at war "with terror". Ideas cannot be conquered by force.

Does the 3rd party now gets to decide what is confidential and classified? Did they ask the government before publishing any of this stuff. Did the government send the same letter to these 3rd party that they sent to Wikileaks?

Why are all the 3rd party folks given a free ride while the Wikileaks founder takikng all the heat? Something doesn't seem right about this.

They're beating on Assange because they can; they're leaving the press alone because of the first amendment.

Three thousand dead GIs in Iraq & Afghanistan, and many thousands more maimed. It is war to those fighting.

With North & South Korea in crisis, the Wikileaks reports are saying China would accept a unified North and South Korea and that North Korea is headed for imminent collapse. Could this assessment push North Korea into initiating a war and what would China really do (chance the leaked source is wrong, right)? Another Korean War and another 100,000 dead, even more if the North resorts to using nukes. And all because of Wikileaks stirring the pot with no more evidence than a leaked memo of one individual's assessment of the situation.

If the Private's action resulted in being a major cause of a war that resulted in massive loss of life, is that not treason?

Is this really responsible journalism? They are playing with fire.

Of course, Ambassadors and such report information and assessments back to the State Department. But their reports are only one source of intelligence out of many and their assessments are in no way the US Intelligence community's assessment.

I have to ask myself, what is the higher goal of wikileaks? What is the overall accomplishment?

Is it for the better good, the right of knowledge, or is it for some man's ego?

I think you have a valid point, it quite likely is Treason. But, I think the more important question is this: With two unpopular wars and the white house under siege, is it politically expedient for this to be Treason? I have this gut feeling that this question will have far more implications than deliberation over the technical definition of Treason.

I am sure the Patriot Act defines that action as treason. I did not verify this though, pure speculation.

I am content to allow the prosecutors and Courts Martial decide if this act reaches the level of treason. Regardless, the military has and will continue to prosecute individuals who divulge classified information.... and it doesn't matter who they divulge it to. In fact, a soldier will receive punishment under the UCMJ for inadvertently disclosing information or even simply failing to protect the information... i.e. walk out of the room with a classified document left on the soldier's desk..... whether the info was compromised or not.

Military takes protecting classified information very, very seriously.

Serious or not, I just heard on the news that the Registrar for Wikileaks.com, at the insistence (and threats) of Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Liberman, has withdrawn the site DNS. If you try to go there, you'll get the image below. Earlier this week, it was with pressure from Liberman that Amazon tossed Wikileaks off its cloud.

Shortly after that, Liberman persuaded a small ISP in Tacoma to take down a chart (not prepared by Wikileaks but by a newsman in England) showing the count distribution of leak documents by country concerned.

I don't know about you guys, but I think the Senator oversteps his mandate by a ton; ignores the first amendment, cancels contracts without a shread of due process.

I think free speech just took a bath in the USA and it's long past time for ICANN to move offshore. I'm glad my own domain is registered in Canada.

As Mike Masnick (Techdirt) puts it: "US Has Lost All Moral High Ground On Internet Censorship".


Further, doing that just makes the site more interesting; more folks who haven't looked to date will now. "The Inevitability of Wikileaks". See also "Russian Press And Pakistani Courts Apparently Have More Respect For Free Speech Than Joe Lieberman"

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has it right:

Wow! Adobe must be flinching at the 'closedness' of the Internet being censored. Seriously, I should have the right to post anything I want at anytime I want, if it's 'open' - stuff like the App Store is reasonably moderated.

This guy makes a good point: To Tell the Truth. Great subhead: "Maybe the government would earn more of our trust if it leveled with us more and invaded our privacy less."

Government employees are not to view wikileak documents
 

Now if this isn't losing some rights, then I don't know what is. This is just getting cracy. When it's in the public domain already what right does the government have in telling their employees what we can and cannot look at.

I'm getting sick of this kind of stuff.


http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/03/wik...ing/index.html

One of the lessons learnt in all this (at least I hope so) is that once something is "out there" it's "out there" to stay. It's not like the "old days" in which you could collect all the extant copies of a newspaper, for example. In a huge distributed network that the Internet is, it's virtually impossible to kill data while someone somewhere has a copy. I've read that this latest Wikileaks dump comprises approximately 2 Gigs of data in total, not all of which has yet appeared. Easy as pie to move around (a 4GB Sandisk thumb drive goes for about $5 nowadays). Further, I've read that before these leaks appeared on the web, Assange had them vetted (and somewhat redacted) by the Guardian (UK) and by the Associated Press, so we know they have copies (and you can bet, safe backups) of the originals.

It's not unlike music and movies. Once it's out there, it's out there. The offended parties can rant and rave all they want to -- it just encourages them.

I think that one of two major things will happen as a result of this Wikileaks stuff:

1. It will show to governments that the internet is free and that you can't stop people from doing stuff on it; and so attempts like those in Australia to forbid and censor will stop.

2. Governments will crack down and legislate to regulate and register as much of internet use as possible, so that there will become two internets: the approved one, and the shadowy underworld of dodgy-ness.

Let's not forget DARPA invented the Internet. So you would think that DARPA has control over it.

In essence, benwiggy is right. There is already a "shadowy underworld of dodgy-ness" in the form of encryptions, torrents, etc. and it will only grow. Google "wikileaks insurance torrent". Once something is a torrent, it's everywhere.

I like this bit from Reuters: "Analysis: WikiLeaks stirs debate on info revolution":

As the article puts it rather succinctly: "The first infowar is now engaged".

But this is the part that disgusts me:

Less responsible political figures are calling for his assassination!

Reporters Sans Frontieres are quoted as saying:

First amendment, anyone? Is the New York Times next?

Right, and DARPA is under the US Dept of Defense. Moral of this story is, "No good deed goes unpunished."

Personally, I am completely confused as to why some think this is a censorship issue or a free speech issue. The man is publishing stolen information world wide. What about the rights of the individual who was robbed?

Remember the guy who hacked in and stole some of Sarah Palin's emails? Prosecuted, convicted and punished. Why is this different? Are you drawing a distinction between theft and theft by receiving?

Criminal and terrorist (given the latest publications) seems an apt description to me.

Say what you want, publish what you want.... just don't steal if first.

You are forgetting that Assange didn't steal the documents or hack into any computers to get them. They were sent to him by the private. That misguided young man is in custody and will, no doubt pay heavily having made the mistake of what's left of his life. If you think Assange should be punished then quite a few web sites, Associated Press, Reuters, and national newspapers should be as well. They all published them.

Yes I think they are guilty. If the damaging published docs came out of my post office box instead of the State Department's computer file, I would be suing them and begging for criminal prosecution.

If someone steals a lawn mower from your yard and gives it to somebody else, does the mower now belong to that somebody else? And if the 3rd person accepted the mower with full knowledge that it was stolen, is he not guilty of a crime.....Theft by Receiving? Why are electronic communications different?

From Wikipedia:

Should the NYT have been prosecuted?

You said:

Because the information content of documents are not physical objects. If I take a lawnmower from you, you don't have a lawnmower any more and I have one that isn't mine. If I reveal the contents of a document, all other copies still exist; there has been no loss of property. If you read a newspaper, that news is still available to all others who have the newspaper.

One difference I see is that some of these documents were assigned a security classification by proper authority stating unauthorized disclosure would result in serious harm to the nation. Take national security out of the equation, and I could partially agree with you.

We are not, however, talking only about a little embarrassment to people in authority. Publishing a "classified" document that lists critical targets that if attacked could bring the US and Canada to their knees IS a national security issue/threat. And we do not know what else is to come.

The mower was probably a bad analogy... instead let's assume some risque pictures of my wife were stolen (course these would have to be 40+ year old pictures) off my home computer and ended up published on the internet. Does the press have the right to post these if they know in advance the pictures were stolen? I don't think so.... I think I/we have suffered a loss even though we still have the original pictures.

But, I suspect, not unknown by those you'd rather not have know. As I understand it, these files, which came to Wikileaks some time ago, were vetted by members of the the Guardian editorial staff and by members of the Associated Press before any were released. According to Assange, his own people also either redacted or removed some documents as well where agents or soldiers would be put at risk. I guess what I'm saying is that the major impact is embarrassment, not danger to the USA.

About 50 years ago now, I had a top level security clearance in Canada to work on a sub-chasing hydrofoil boat and some of the gear it would carry at a Naval Research Establishment. Canada was building one with fixed ladder foils and the US was building one on the West coast (Seattle, I think) with controlled surface-piercing foils. Ultimately, the two programs were canceled after prototypes were built, but some of the gear we developed (and won't describe) ended up being used in both the US and Canada. Before the full-scale boat was built, however, and while it was still classified as far as I was concerned, an artist's rendering of it appeared in the papers, released by the Minister of Defense.

During that time years ago, I read hundreds of classified documents and examined hundreds of classified plans, engineering drawings, and circuit diagrams. About 80% of them were obvious and shouldn't have been classified and 20% actually deserved their classification. Among those that shouldn't have been, many of them would have been embarrassing -- things like commentary on the the Seattle effort and its politics.

Years later, I had a brief US security clearance while I worked (as a consultant) on something for the US Army out of Fort Belvoir in Virginia while I was a faculty member at MIT. Again, it was just engineering. I couldn't see why the work was classified.

1) I assume your wife won't read the 40+ remark....

2) Of course you'd have suffered a huge invasion of privacy, I agree entirely. Does the press have the right to publish them -- possibly. Suppose your wife was running for public office. Do the voters have the right to know that she once posed nude in the privacy of your home? Obviously not. But suppose the pix were taken at a beach or nudist colony or as she streaked a college football game. Then maybe to probably. It depends on circumstances in a complex way what the press should or shouldn't publish.

Evan Hansen, the Editor-in-Chief of Wired.com has weighed in on my side: "Why WikiLeaks is Good for America"

If someone stole risque pictures of your wife and published them on the internet, then the media would probably consult with the FCC on this matter. They probably wouldn't post them because they don't make it a practice of publishing the names of victims. I guess that they have figured out that this is something ethical that they shouldn't do. However, they do have the right to post them if they are not in violation of the FCC rules. Of course, the real criminal is the person who stole them and posted them on the internet, not the messenger.

There was a case a while back with similar circumstances. Remember the baby who was swung around by a man - and the video went viral. The media CBS,ABC,NBC put this on the air off the internet but the person who republished it on the internet was prosecuted -charges were later dropped. It was a clear violation of FCC rules because they are not supposed to show child abuse and they did. The person who put it on the internet is the only one charged.

I think the government is treading in dangerous waters if they start going after people who simply possess confidential documents. The private is the one who distributed the information and this is where punishment should be dealt out. The government needs to ensure that there information stays confidential and out of the wrong hands. Obviously, they need to give this more thought.

What does the government do the next time someone sends out confidential information across many sites and sources-several 100 or so? Can they really stop this? And would anyone who receives it be liable? Let's face it, we are in the age of citizen journalism and boy is it fascinating!

Ok this is slightly off-topic but just on the topic of receiving stolen goods: When my sister's house was broken into and robbed the thief sold the stolen goods to a local pawn shop. My sister spotted her things in the pawn shop and they identified the thief to the police. However when it came to getting her things back she actually had to buy them from the pawn shop which I found outrageous. I can see that if they had to hand her stuff over they would be out of pocket and this would be a disincentive to cooperate with police but still that stinks.

I feel sorry for your sister. That's outrageous indeed. I wish they would order payback from the thief instead.

.
I do wonder if any of the Wikilieaks is disinformation.
Can’t help but keep that option open in my own mind.
.

I can agree the military/State Dept can and does over classify documents. I can agree the best solution is tighten up security and avoid future leaks, though I am not sure how we could ever achieve 100 percent prevention. Of course, the private who allegedly stole the documents should be prosecuted.

It is common practice in the military to classify an entire document if it contains even one line of classified information. It's either that or publish two documents and force the user to flip back and forth between docs that can never be filed together. Flipping back and forth is cumbersome and confusing for a technician doing, for instance, maintenance on a nuclear weapon system.

@Nova: I, too, carried a top secret clearance for more than 20 years. Two points: (1) The spies assuming a fact is far different from having that fact confirmed in detail by an official document.... best to leave an element of doubt. (2) The Guardian and other publishers do not have the authority to determine what is classified and what is not. Neither do they have the whole picture and sometimes a group of seemingly insignificant information when assembled as a whole becomes classified. Redacting names and places is a responsible action, but may be insufficient.

Morally and ethically, publishers should not be publishing information that can undermine national defense and put lives at risk.

In this instance, the victim of the theft was the US State Department, a victim that is not going to get a lot of sympathy from anybody. When the victim becomes an individual who is not a public figure, where is the protection for the individual? Are they fair game simply because the documents/images stolen from them are entertaining?

.
Entertaining? Hardly!
In my opinion the most shocking thing about the US Wikilieaks documents is how poorly written they are.
.

I've been defending Assange from prosecution in this thread because I'm a very strong believer in free speech and an open Internet even when it is occasionally abused. There is an overwhelming tendency among governments today to shoot the messenger by any means, fair or foul, usually in the name of "security". That is not to say, however, that I think Assange is a good guy; on the contrary, I regard his publication of this material as both egotistical (i.e., he knows what's best) and irresponsible (how can he possibly know what bits and pieces might, in fact, be dangerous).

Take the national defense issue out of what Assange is doing and my concerns pretty much go away. But I continue to think/hope/pray that as these situations develop into policy, the individual is not left to the mercy of "everything is fair game, private or not, stolen or not." I don't think that was ever the intent of free speech or censorship and would represent a loss of individual rights.

@Artic: Alas, our diplomats are likely US educated, and they are politically appointed. What can I say?:)

Now here's a joke: U.S. to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011

Here's what Julian Assange has to say for himself in the Australian: Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths

I love the bit about Sarah Palin saying he should be "hunted down like Osama bin Laden". If that's the case then he is pretty safe given their ineptitude on that task.

This is exactly what free speech is about. The person delivering the message doesn't have to be reasonable and responsible. We don't get to choose what is fair game and what is not fair game. The founding fathers were wise in granting free speech regardless of their intellect and class or whether it violates national security or not. Free Speech is there to arouse suspicious in our government and to KEEP THEM HONEST.

It strikes me as odd that the government tries to suppress free speech and other liberties in the guise of national security. Just recently, they went after the preacher in Florida because he was going to burn Koran's on Sept 11. They said that if he burns them, it would pose a threat to national security. They even went as far as creating death threat letters to keep him from practicing free speech. In the end, he back down, the government won and it's just another example of how they are trying to take our liberties away from us with this over used excuse of national security.

It's becoming quite clear to me that this country doesn't practice what it preaches and what is written in the constitution by our founding fathers.

I kind of disagreed with what this preacher tried to do. I'd feel offended, myself, if someone burnt up a pile of Bibles. Free speech, yes; offending speech, very.

Plus, TJ's actions seemingly disagree with what God is preaching, that of love. I'd feel unloved if someone burnt the Bible; why should the Muslims feel loved by God if someone burns the Koran?

And, from past experience, we know how dangerous fanatic Muslims can be.

So I feel unloved when radical idiots burn the American flag, when proclaimed atheists demand "Christ" be taken out of Christmas, creches removed from public places, Christmas season be renamed "Holiday Season," any reference to God be removed from all schools, sports events, etc. The list is endless. And the Christians, through all of this, protest mildly and b**ch about it but nothing happens. But because Muslims have established that they are dangerous fanatics and will blow up stuff and kill people, they are given deference in all such matters. In other words, throw a hissy fit and kill people if you don't get your way and everyone backs off. Doesn't sound much like free speech to me. Sounds like rule by nut cases.

I think this is going too far offtopic. Reel it in, please.

Back on topic, my own belief is that the US has gotten its head on backwards with respect to free speech. The original intention of free speech was as a political safeguard against tyranny - guaranteeing free speech is supposed to prevent the government from silencing criticism and opposition to its policies and practices. However, in modern practice it is primarily used to protect commercial interests (e.g. to protect the publication of pornography, scandal, and other profitable-but-skanky materials) and expressions of low-brow ideological positions (e.g. the right to call groups you dislike nasty names). Ever since the Bush administration, many forms of political free speech (the kinds that ensure the open exchange of political ideas or transparency in government) are now suppressed or denied. Possibly there are certain secrets that need to be protected in time of war - I can see that. But the government has now locked in an unsolvable, never-ending, undeclared war against a possibly imaginary terrorist foe - under those conditions national security is just a sham to do an end run around political freedom of speech, and the gov ought to lose any right to protection.

I personally think that Asange (like many political activists, regardless of side) is a bit of a self-centered, megalomaniac jerk, but I'm disgusted by the obvious political maneuvering that's being used to screw him to the wall.

I think GWB was a real turkey. His economic policy nearly collapsed the US economy and his foreign policy was a disaster. His pre-emptive war doctrine was a huge mistake.

Obama just caved on taxes at the same time his working group to address the deficit is recommending Draconian cuts to social programs. He is weak. I wish I had my vote back.

Republicans are greedy and the Democrats are no better.

There! I have free speech and it is uncensored.

Craig, can you delete that last post please? (just kidding... :D)

Seriously though - if you said anything that was meaningful, accurate, and an embarrassment to the government, you might find yourself on the no-fly list, or you might find your phone tapped, or you may suddenly get arrested for some minor thing (or find that some woman you slept with suddenly has a keen interest in prosecuting you for rape). I remember a case from a few years back where a photographer who took a video of police using excessive force woke up in the middle of the night to a SWAT team breaking down his door because - get this - he had an outstanding court appearance ticket for (I think) a traffic violation in a different county. The government currently has all sorts of way to make your life utterly miserable if you exercise free speech in ways it disapproves of. it's just an unpleasant road we're heading down as a nation.

Yeah, it happens. Been there. Petty bureaucrats that are sometimes out of control mostly, not that it doesn't happen at higher levels, too. In every case it is wrong. Frankly, I would fear their campaign staffs more than I would the government.... campaign staffs are better at it.

What disgusts me is that Paypal, Visa, and MasterCard have all cut Assange and Wikileaks off; almost certainly under pressure from State to do so. At a time when the US is rapidly losing its international clout and reputation in the rest of the world after their banks led the way to an international meltdown that is still reverberating, they're flailing around bullying Sweden into the Pirate Bay trials, having TSA close down (by confiscating their domain names) at least four web sites at the behest of Disney, pursuing Assange for trumped up charges, feeling people's boobs or balls in airports -- the list goes on. The only constitutional right that seems inviolate is the right to bear arms. It's out of control.

And the hackers strike back. The hackers vs. the government... and anyone who supports the government, apparently.


http://www.switched.com/2010/12/08/a...own-wikileaks/

When the US, thought to be responsible for the DDos of Wikileaks, started that war, they didn't know what they were getting into. You can bet now that TSA will come up with something horrible as a response, not that they're likely to win against a bevy of angry hackers -- it'll just be a PITA for the rest of us.

Freedom of speech is like sudo. ;)

Seriously, you have the power to do virtually anything with free speech. You can do good stuff (sudo chmod +x), or bad stuff (sudo chmod -x), or neutral stuff. If free speech is truly what it sounds like, you have the power to delete everyone's data, and you have the power to make everyone's data public. You also have the power to keep yourself quiet, or make good changes (sysadmin).

Just found this article on Reuters. WikiLeaks!

I don't understand what the TSA has to do with WikiLeaks. Can you explain? Are you confusing Amazon's claim that WikiLeaks was in violation of their Terms of Service Agreement? The TSA is the Transportation Security Administration, and although they've been in the news a bunch lately for their 'frisking' practices, I don't know of any connection between them and WikiLeaks.

Trevor

I was taught in school that if all our rights were taken away except one, then which one would you keep? The answer was free speech. The argument went that you can gain all your rights back with just this one right. Now I'm not so sure anymore. I would take the right to bear arms because maybe this is what we'll need to regain all of our rights or at least the ones we want.

It has been said that the next revolution will not be televised. Is this the revolution that they were talking about? This was my earlier point about leaks, hacks and stuff starting to get out of control. The government may be doing itself more harm than good to national security by pursuing this with such avenges.

We are so caught up in this war on terror that we're losing out on rebuilding infrastructure of road, bridges, rail road which are sorely needed in this country. The country appears to be moving away from democracy and capitalism.

On NPR, the NY Times is now under the gun trying to defend why it released Wikileaks documents.

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/08/131884...es?ft=1&f=1004

I was conflating TSA with Homeland Security. Sorry.

See: Who Needs COICA when Homeland Security Gets to Seize Domain Names

Referring to this: U.S. seizes sites linked to copyright infringement

Bear in mind that these seizures were on suspicion of infringement, not proof and that the takedown was announced at Disney. Where does it say this has anything to do with Homeland Security?

If you're at the point where you are fighting for your freedom, the last thing you need to worry about is whether the government allows you to have a weapon.

I find the reasoning behind the 2nd amendment hysterical. The idea that American democracy is such a fragile little flower, which will fall into tyranny but for the presence of an armed electorate, is an anachronistic ideal from the late 18th century, when all of Europe was discussing the philosophy of liberty, and despots abounded.

I await with interest the attempt by any armed militia to wrest control from the US Government.

Is "free speech" a right…

…or a privilege?

eh, don't diss the second amendment that much: it was very appropriate to its time. The context in Europe was that (outside of actual war zones), only the aristocracy and military officers had access to weapons, and they had pretty much of a free pass to use them on regular people since law was applied differently to the different classes. The second amendment (along with the section against quartering soldiers and the convention against deploying them on US soil) was designed to tip the balance away from the aristocracy in favor of commoners. Obviously it doesn't apply in the same way today (average people would need access to military-grade weapons to be effective, but that would have tremendously bad side effects - who wants to see a domestic dispute where the family had access to a tank? - but it had a meaningful place in the 17th century.

Renault: if free speech is a privilege... shut up. :rolleyes::p;)

TW supporting the 2nd amendment. Wow! Glad to see you moving to the red neck side of the debate.:)

lol - don't mistake a historical appreciation for blanket endorsement. If I were to actually support the second amendment in modern times it would be along the lines of turning the National Guard into a fully equipped volunteer militia, detaching it from the federal government entirely, and then banning the sale of handguns and other small arms to the general public unless they've gone through military service. that is more in line with the intentions of the constitution. If some redneck wants to shoot moose out of a helicopter, let her spend a couple of years as a volunteer soldier so she learns a little discipline and a little respect for the weapon first.

Uncompromising opposition to any interference at any level for any reason on First Amendment Rights. At the same time, completely comfortable with massive interference on Second Amendment Rights. Hmmmm.

@tw
I'd go one step further... mandatory military service for all citizens, male and female. Certainly anyone seeking public office should be required to have military service, even the President. Citizen soldiers are the final safeguard against the military attacking US citizens.

Well, here I go again, drifting off-topic!
aehurst " Citizen soldiers are the final safeguard against the military attacking US citizens." This is exactly why the context of the Second Amendment continues to be up-front in the news. A disarmed citizenry is a helpless citizenry. As we say out here in "redneck country:" "Better to have a loaded weapon and never need it than to need a loaded weapon and not have it."

You misinterpret my intent.... I own 3 rifles, 2 shotguns, 3 handguns and I have a concealed carry permit. The red neck reference alluded to another thread last year on gun control where it was implied that only red necks have guns... and they also have Dodge Ram 1500s parked in the drive way (which I do:)).

My intended point was why is most everybody on this forum so intent on defending any limit whatsoever on freedom of speech/press, but most all support killing the right to bear arms. That's an inconsistent liberal view.... at least to us red necks.

The New York Times has an interesting article on free speech: Hackers Give Web Companies a Test of Free Speech {I think registration is required, but they don't hassle you}

In particular I quote these two paragraphs:

Good points. As a member of this forum, for example, my speech is mildly curtailed by the rules I've agreed to in order to be granted access to it, and if I overstep these, CraigArco or ArticStones will stomp on the thread.

The point is a good one. We all communicate on the Internet via channels that belong to a private corporation and free speech applies to the actual transmission of our message, but if our intention is to reach the general public we need a place to post (and host) our remarks, so our communications are ultimately subject to whatever rules they maintain in their terms of service for the site. It's been thus for a long time too -- newspapers are not required to publish your letters to the editor and quite definitely will refuse to do so if you bad mouth one of their major advertisers. So you have the right to express your opinion as per free speech, but you do not have the right to have a site owner post it.

There are limits on all freedoms, in all countries, and they are mostly necessary. Whenever people live together, they trade rights and responsibilities. (Rousseau's Social Contract.)

I accept that I am not free to rob, murder, slander; and I expect others to afford me the same deal. I put money into the kitty for general use by the community as a whole (taxes); and I expect the right to benefit from that (sewerage, refuse collection, police, street lighting, schools), even if I don't actually use it all to the same degree as I chipped in.

Here in the UK, when people talk of their "rights", they usually mean what they can demand from the state. Very few speak of their responsibilities that they owe to society at large. You can't have one without the other.

But as I pointed out and tw affirmed: No one is going to take on the US military to stamp out tyranny, so the whole notion of the 2nd amendment is out-dated. But it would be great sport to watch (from a distance).

I agree, and I am also a gun owner myself. Not much of a hunter, more of a target shooter, and well I gotta be prepared for when the zombies rise right? :D

Freedoms do not come with out their limits and with out perhaps some messiness. Freedom isn't absolute and it also isn't clean and dandy. It reminds me of the phrase, "My freedom stops where yours begins.."

I am not really fond of authoritarian governments where the citizen gets micro managed for really no good reason. Does the 1st Amendment cover the act of leaking government documents? Do the people have a right to know? It would be a really interesting argument to bring to the Supreme Court.

Where does security and 1A come into play, and what about privacy? If we the citizens are subjected to all the privacy violations our government does, shouldn't the government be subjected to it as well? FBI as of recent isn't doing very well with their wire tapping and tracking devices. Some illegal activity going on, and they don't handle those situations well. Who is accountable for that?

I am totally against censorship too, so really part of me wants to really support wikileaks. On the other hand, my logic tells me that there are some egos at play here and that wikielaks may not accomplish what people think it will. If wikileaks wants to release information responsibly and professionally (to add credit to the validity of what they release) I think they need to build cases, investigate an blow the whistle with conclusive evidence.

I think certain materials they released did nothing but smear mud on people's names and throw back some progress already being made. I mean is it not hypocritical of them to take the moral high road of freedom of information as a human right, but then do things to hurt progress? Sounds like someone wants to boost an ego to me.

The reference I am talking about is the one where some political leaders and ambassadors were joking around about alcohol consumption, or so they claim. Over in the middle east alcohol is illegal, and things like this fuel the fundamentalist Islamic groups to gain support as their government is not following the Sharia. Given the state of affairs over there, things like that really should just be left alone. It doesn't help anything and it wasn't a big deal to leak that to everyone.

aehurst
"...You misinterpret my intent.... I own 3 rifles, 2 shotguns, 3 handguns and I have a concealed carry permit. The red neck reference alluded to another thread last year on gun control where it was implied that only red necks have guns... and they also have Dodge Ram 1500s parked in the drive way (which I do)."
Sounds like my house! W :>)

tlarkin
".....I am totally against censorship too, so really part of me wants to really support wikileaks..."
That's the position I find myself. In my innocent youth I would have thought differently. Then I believed (naively, as it turns out,) that my government and our elected representatives had noble intentions with the best interest of America and it's citizens foremost in everything it did. "God Bless America," "Across the Fruited Plain, etc." I believed the patriotic posters of WWII. But I find myself more cynical these days, perhaps because of the internet. And, perhaps because of my cynicism, I suspect Wikileaks might all be a planned move by those who would wish to essentially control and/or shut down the Internet as we know it and will use this event to justify doing just that. That's the dilemma!

benwiggy
" ...No one is going to take on the US military to stamp out tyranny, so the whole notion of the 2nd amendment is out-dated..."
The first statement is pretty much true, but if it comes to that all is lost anyway. But that doesn't validate the second statement.
The 2nd Amendment is not outdated. It's as valid as ever. In a Supreme Court ruling District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the
court ruled that the "Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm,unconnected to service in a militia; and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home." Defense within the home is what most gun-owners are about. There are also many who just plain enjoy owning a weapon and target-shooting at target ranges. (For us country folk, the "target range" is usually a gully away from the house.) We remember the oft-quoted statement: "When seconds count, police are only minutes away." Except maybe within some extreme groups, a war against against our own government isn't something we are too concerned about.

Yeah, it would be. That question was already brought to the Supreme Court back in 1971 in New York Times Co. v. United States (and here is the Wikipedia entry about it).

Trevor

Thanks for the link, but I should have been more specific. Post Patriot Act America is what I was referring to. I wonder if leaking such information would be seen as treason.

You should take a look at the Pentagon_Papers which were leaked and exposed during the vietnam war and all the information was classified. The NY Times choose to publish the documents irregardless of the sensitivity. This is indeed protected by free speech and it means that the government can be scrutinized for what they are doing. Recall that the Vietnam war was bloody and a lot of American lives were lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

The Supreme Court ruled that the US failed to meet its burden of proof for prior restraint. They did not rule that anybody can publish classified documents nor that they could not be subject to criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act if they did.

I haven't seen anything on Wikileaks I think would rise to the espionage level, but then I haven't seen all 250,000 documents.

More WikiLeaks: WikiLeaks backers threaten more cyber attacks