Free Republic

Via Mediaite, the same bit jumped out at me as jumped out at Ace:Borger: “These things are pretty incendiary.” Paul: “That’s because of people like you.”Really? Only liberal/media types should find the newsletters offensive? He can’t mean that because he keeps saying that he disavows the content. I think he means that the newsletters are water under bridge which everyone rightly should, and would, never mention again if not for the media repeatedly bringing them up. Which is interesting for a few reasons. One: Every other candidate’s dirty laundry has been aired and re-aired over the past few months and...

Speaking at a campaign rally on October 28, Ron Paul offered another erratic speech on foreign policy and, disturbingly, referred to whistleblowers such as Wikileaks as “true patriots” and “political heroes.” In remarks against “government secrecy,” Paul suggested the following: What about giving immunity to the whistleblowers? They’re the ones who need immunity. We have a few brave souls, especially in the foreign policy area — it came up in Vietnam, it’s come up more recently, Wikileaks … technically yes, they’re breaking a rule, but what is the government doing? They’re breaking the law. If we have an American citizen...

This clip has been making the rounds last night and today, but it’s not new — it’s actually from a clip featured by Wikileaks, for obvious reasons, last January. Still, it’s not as if the parameters of the Bradley Manning case have changed significantly in the last eleven months, or at least not in any way that mitigates Manning’s alleged crimes. The enlisted soldier transmitted a vast trove of classified government communications, primarily diplomatic cables but also some internal military information, and sent it to Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks. Jazz Shaw has a good update on the case...

As homosexual Army soldier Bradley Manning’s treason trial continues at Fort Meade, Maryland, the support he has received from Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has been curiously ignored by the major media, now touting Paul as someone who could win the January 3 Iowa Republican Caucuses. Paul has called Manning, a crossdresser with acknowledged mental problems, a “hero” and “patriot” for stealing government secrets and providing them to WikiLeaks.

Iowa caucus voters pay close attention. Do you really want to vote for a man who would join with the son of executed Communist spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to declare the traitorous Bradley Manning a “hero” a “patriot” and a “whistle blower?” Paul, who switched parties from Libertarian to Republican because he knows he could never get elected wearing his true colors, declared Army soldier Bradley Manning, the person who purposely gave WikiLeaks thousands of sensitive secret documents about how America conducts war operations, a hero and a patriot! Robert Meeropol whose parents were fried in Sing Sing’s electric...

FORT MEADE, Md. -- Pfc. Bradley Manning went on trial Monday for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, including sensitive information prosecutors said fell into enemy hands. Manning, a 25-year-old former intelligence analyst from Oklahoma, has admitted to giving troves of information to WikiLeaks, but military prosecutors want to prove Manning he aided the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence. They said they will present evidence that former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden asked for and received information WikiLeaks published. "This is a case of about what happens when arrogance meets access to...

(photo with article) By recently admitting he was the source of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables and war logs regarding Afghanistan and Iraq, later published by WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning appears certain to be found guilty at a trial beginning Monday. But having denied the most serious charge of "aiding the enemy," chiefly al-Qaeda, the man accused of causing his country's worst ever security breach remains an enigma: a hero to his followers, an enemy of the state to others. The short, skinny, bespectacled US Army private has cut a confident figure in previous court appearances, exuding a quiet...

James C. Goodale, the so-called “father of reporters’ privilege” and the author of a new book called Fighting for the Press (CUNY Journalism Press, 255 pp., $20), was in his office at the Debevoise & Plimpton law firm, where he’s a partner, comparing Barack Obama to Richard M. Nixon. “Nixon and Agnew were like listening to a Fox News program all day long, every day,” he said. “In their eyes, the Eastern establishment press were against them and they were against it and they were going to destroy it as best they can.” But, he said, “Obama has all these...

IT for Oppression Whether it's Syria using Facebook to help identify and arrest dissidents or China using its "Great Firewall" to limit access to international news throughout the country, repressive regimes all over the world are using the Internet to more efficiently implement surveillance, censorship, propaganda, and control. They're getting really good at it, and the IT industry is helping. We're helping by creating business applications -- categories of applications, really -- that are being repurposed by oppressive governments for their own use: 1. What is called censorship when practiced by a government is content filtering when practiced by an...

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is accused of providing an enormous stash of classified government documents to WikiLeaks for publication, deserves a Nobel Peace Prize more than President Barack Obama, according to former Texas Rep. Ron Paul. “While President Obama was starting and expanding unconstitutional wars overseas, Bradley Manning, whose actions have caused exactly zero deaths, was shining light on the truth behind these wars,” the former Republican presidential contender told U.S. News. “It’s clear which individual has done more to promote peace.” Manning was nominated for the award in 2011, 2012 and again earlier this year. Obama won the...

Islamabad - Musharraf's admission that Pakistani leaders agreed to even a limited number of strikes counters their repeated criticism of a programme they long claimed the US was operating without their approval. Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf has admitted that his government had secretly signed off on US drone strikes. This is the first time a top past or present Pakistani official has admitted publicly to such a deal. Pakistani leaders long have openly challenged the drone program and insisted they had no part in it. However, Musharraf, during an interview in Islamabad, insisted Pakistan's government signed off on strikes...

WikiLeaks is to publish more than 1.7 million US diplomatic documents, Julian Assange says. Source: AAP WHISTLEBLOWING website WikiLeaks is to publish more than 1.7 million US diplomatic and intelligence documents from the 1970s, founder Julian Assange says. The website has collated a variety of records including cables, intelligence reports and congressional correspondence and is releasing them in a searchable form on Monday.Assange has carried out much of the work from his refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London and told the Press Association that the records highlighted the "vast range and scope" of US influence around the world.The Australian...

The raid on bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, netted more than the death of bin laden. SEAL teams members in the compound collected hard drives and other electronic media regarding al-Qaida activities and connections. During the analysis of that media, Intelligence analysts found that bin laden had files which were downloaded from WikiLeaks, that is, the information stolen by Pfc Manning was in the hands of al-Qaida. Apparently, Bradley Manning “knowingly gave intelligence to the enemy through indirect means”. Army prosecutors are planning to use one of the SEALs to testify at Manning’s court-martial. The evidence will show that...

Bradley Manning, the Army private arrested in the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges that could send him to prison for 20 years, saying he was trying to expose the American military’s “bloodlust” and disregard for human life in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military prosecutors said they plan to move forward with a court-martial on 12 remaining charges against him, including aiding the enemy, which carries a potential life sentence. … It was the first time Manning directly admitted leaking the material to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and detailed the frustrations that led him...

FORT MEADE, MD. An Army private charged in the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history offered guilty pleas Thursday to 10 of 22 charges against him and a military judge allowed the soldier to read a statement explaining his actions. Pfc. Bradley Manning gave a detailed explanation of his actions in a military courtroom Thursday as he entered guilty pleas to sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, in violation of military regulations but not in violation of federal espionage laws. Manning said he wanted Americans to know what was going on in...

Army Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who faces a possible life sentence for leaking classified U.S. diplomatic cables to anti-secrecy group Wikileaks, will attempt to plead guilty to lesser charges at a pre-trial hearing Thursday. ~snip~ Prosecutors said that Pfc. Manning’s partial pleas are not connected to any plea bargain and that they plan to bring him to trial in June, according to the NBC News report.

The body of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was not buried at sea, according to leaked emails of intelligence firm Stratfor, as revealed by WikiLeaks. Stratfor’s vice-president for intelligence, Fred Burton, believes the body was “bound for Dover, [Delaware] on [a] CIA plane” and then “onward to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda [Maryland],” an email says. The official version is that the body of Al-Qaeda’s top man, who was killed by a US raid in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, was buried at an undisclosed location at sea in a proper Muslim ceremony. "If body dumped at...

Egyptian authorities fearful of a monopoly on Nile waters received agreement from Khartoum to build an airbase in Sudan, to launch attacks on Ethiopian damming facilities, claims the anonymous media outlet; Wikileaks. Wikileaks has leaked files allegedly from the Texas-based global intelligence company, Stratfor, which quote an anonymous "high-level Egyptian source," claiming the Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon said in 2010 his nation would do anything to prevent the secession of South Sudan because of the political implications it will have for Egypt's access to the Nile. The Nile is vital in providing fresh water to the people and agricultural projects...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been called many things but he may soon become a business ethics course. Kathleen V. Willis of Indiana University-Purdue University, Columbus, is exploring the possibility of doing so. “Assange launched WikiLeaks in 2006 to challenge world hegemony,” Willis said at the 2013 annual meeting in Boston of the Modern Language Association. In order to do so, he “leaked military and diplomatic correspondence,” Willis noted. Willis admits that Assange’s own background makes him problematic but focuses her inquiry upon his enterprise. “Where is Assange’s ethical slippage?” Willis asked. “According to his own business ethics?” “Who is...

A US military judge ruled Wednesday that Bradley Manning’s motive for allegedly leaking a huge cache of secret files to WikiLeaks is no defense against the long list of charges he faces. Manning, an army private who was arrested in May 2010 while serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, faces trial in June for passing diplomatic cables and war logs to the anti-secrecy website run by Julian Assange. Manning’s lawyers had argued that evidence should be heard at trial about why the soldier chose to illicitly transmit the confidential documents to WikiLeaks, but the request was largely thrown out....