Posted on 11/29/2010 12:02:58 PM PST by lbryce
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says the U.S. government is not ruling out the possibility of taking legal action against online whistle-blower WikiLeaks.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says the administration is considering several steps following the release of more than a quarter million classified State Department documents. He says there is an ongoing criminal investigation into how the documents were made public.
Gibbs says President Barack Obama was briefed on the size and scope of the document leak by national security aides last week. Gibbs says it would be an understatement to say the president was "not pleased" to hear that the information would be released.
The weekend release of documents reflecting, in some cases, unflattering assessments of world leaders has caused embarrassment to the administration.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bristling over the unauthorized release of more than a quarter million classified State Department documents, the Obama White House on Monday ordered a government-wide review of how agencies safeguard sensitive information.
Soon after, Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters at the Justice Department that the administration would prosecute if violations of federal law are found in a criminal investigation of the incident.
The weekend release of documents reflecting, in some cases, unflattering assessments of world leaders has caused embarrassment to the administration. The director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, Jacob Lew, said in ordering the agency-wide assessment Monday that the disclosures are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Did ya hear?? They're Not Ruling Out Legal Action Against Wikileaks!!?? It's so bizarre it would be laughable if it weren't so tragic.
So what is it going to take for the administration to initiate legal action against Wikileaks like RIGHT NOW? Hell, it seems, will have to freeze over for that and by then O might encourage a change in temperature, the chill of Hell freezing over a welcome relief from where he's going to be.
They could probably have ruled out for sure a military tribunal.
The list, ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
I’m sorry, but in case you haven’t heard, the Justice Department is very, very busy going after Arizona right now. They’re a danger to the Republic, doncha know?
Assuming there is only one or two original leakers from within the Fed Government, why are one or two people allowed access to this quantity of classified/sensitive documents? How did they get such a “Need to KNOW†classification? My experience even required two-man zones for the really sensitive classification to prevent one person from going nuts.
Some wikiidiot will have all but one of thousands of charges dropped and will likely get supervised probation except...he is not subject to US law.
The perp must not have been a member of the 'New Black Panter Party'.
The crime is treason and the penalty should be the firing squad.
Even the French are laughing at us.
Real simple, we need to secure our data better, why the State Department ever used a military network is very strange and obviously wrong.
Begging didn’t work, apparently.
Funny...when it was the Bush administration...the MSM blamed Bush for wikileak revelations, ridiculing Bush for incompetence and such. Now the MSM doesnt point the finger at the Obama or say a peep about Ozero being incompetent.
Things are rarely as they seem, and this wikileaks thing looks more like a spook operation than anything else.
A 22 year old magically gets all this data to a convenient front man/outlet? I don’t buy it for a second.
This reminds me of an incident in Viet Nam 40 years ago. It happened in Qui Nhon. The perimeter of the local army base was jointly manned by American, Vietnamese and South Korean soldiers. One night in early spring, the VC infiltrated the base and blew up a lat of things. They had gotten by a post with the Vietnamese, Korean and American sentries all asleep. The next day a conference was called by the American commander to discuss the situation with the Allied commands. The American commander started out by saying that he was going to demote the American corporal to private. The Vietnamese commander stated that his man would be in jail for 90 days. When asked, the Korea commander simply stated that they shot their man that morning.
Julian Assange should be tried for treason.
The current administration won’t do anything though.
First, they would have to find someone in the US they can actually prosecute. Wikileaks is a world-wide organization, and I would expect anyone in the US would be keeping as far away as possible.
Second, they would have to find something that can be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, and that's a pretty high bar to meet.
Simply publicizing classified information is not a crime for anyone that doesn't have a US security clearance
WikiLeaks..Just providing the transparent government Obama promised.
These leaks are bad for America.
For that reason, I believe Obama is OK with them.
Why is this not out and out espionage with everyone in the chain of custody of these documents culpable?
To quote the emperor in Star Wars: “Wipe them out. Wipe them all out.”
What part of the that does not our elementary school-level president not understand?
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