Posted on 12/08/2010 5:12:52 PM PST by Kaslin
Cyberwar: As the U.S. shows itself to be a pitiful, helpless giant against WikiLeaks' dissemination of its stolen secrets, the private sector has dealt some of the best blows against these crooks. There's a lesson somewhere.
The information age has turned a lot of rules on their heads, but it would be hard to find a better example than in the response to WikiLeaks, the secretive criminal syndicate devoted to publishing millions of stolen U.S. government documents.
Things aren't going well, now that its founder, Julian Assange, has been arrested in the U.K. on a rape, rather than an espionage, charge in Sweden. Wired Magazine, quoting WikiLeaks sources, reported that the organization, driven by its founder's cult of personality, is now in "chaos."
If one were to dissect what's going on, all roads seem to point to the private sector, not government, as responding most effectively.
First, it wasn't a government agency that blew WikiLeaks off its regular Internet site and over to its mirror sites — it was an anonymous hacker, going by the handle of "the Jester," who claims he's nothing more than a "patriot" who got busy.
Then Amazon.com, whose server hosted WikiLeaks, kicked the site off, pointing out that the organization was trafficking in stolen documents, a violation of its terms of service. Amazon steadfastly denied that political pressure forced its decision. Seems their main concern was liability — and a consumer boycott.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Notice they didn't hack the credit cards of Mitt, Huck, or any of the other usual suspects.
Sarah would not attract these unrelenting attacks if she were not already the de facto Commander In Chief of the patriotic right, and the ineluctable next president of the United States.
“He didn’t “steal intelligence documents.” Cpl. Manning, the disgruntled grunt did that.”
Yeah, you could defend fencing stolen cars with that excuse. Or maybe defend a website that traffics in copyright violations ... oh wait, they DID shut those down. hmmmm.
“Your trust in these government agencies is a bit excessive.”
Exactly. This is pure upper lip stuff. Internally, they are livid and shocked that internal docs got leaked.
If these wikileak bozos could only hack Obama’s BC, or the climategate emails, etc. but *nnnnoooo* they have to release confidential items that helps this man’s anti-american agenda of bringing the US down a notch.
“Rubber Leaks” is still in big business http://wikileaks.info/.
Hacking is a federal crime. You Remember when that poor kid figured out Sarah Palins’ password on her hotmail account? What did he get? 10 years?
This activity is news worthy and totally legal. During the Viet Nam War Daniel Elsburg STOLE!! the Pentagon papers that revealed tactical and strategic element of the military in a real war. Court ruled that the “publication” (that’s what Drudge or Wiki leaks does when they put something on the internet) by the New York Times (even though the argument was that it could cause the death of our troops) was 100% protected by the 1st amendment to the United States Constitution. Here Wiki leaks stole nothing. They received it and published but had they stolen it ,they could still publish it. So all you “book burners” and Stalinist pipe down.
This man failed to wear a condom during consensual sex!! He must be hung. (oops)
Why go after an out of office Governor Palin when Radar Ears aka Purple Lips was the one who could have prevented Ass-anges arrest? There was nothing Palin could do for or against the little Doogie Houser look alike.
>I don’t think they are going to go down easily as this article suggests. Seems more like wishful thinking or disinformation campaign to me.
Nail, hammer, head. This Wikileaks thing is basically about the inherently democratizing effect of technology and the withering away of top-down hierarchical data distribution and filtering. It’s a modern world, boys and girls, and independent sources of data axiomatically means independently operating humans, something tyrants and their bootlicks and lackeys are having less success at stomping out. The only danger Assange & Co. are causing to US foreign policy is embarrassment, and, last I heard, the causing of embarrassment is not a crime in democratic nations.
------------------(Congressional Research Service)Criminal Prohibitions on the Publication of
Classified Defense Information
Jennifer K. Elsea
Legislative Attorney
December 6, 2010[snip]Conclusion
[snip]
The Supreme Court has stated, however, that the question remains open whether the publication of unlawfully obtained information by the media can be punished consistent with the First Amendment. Thus, although unlawful acquisition of information might be subject to criminal prosecution with few First Amendment implications, the publication of that information remains protected. Whether the publication of national security information can be punished likely turns on the value of the information to the public weighed against the likelihood of identifiable harm to the national security, arguably a more difficult case for prosecutors to make.
[I don’t think they are going to go down easily as this article suggests]
“WikiLeaks Now Has Hundreds of Mirrors”
http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=wikileaks+mirrors
Do you really think anyone bought that story to begin with? It was common knowledge that US Special Ops was operating in Yemen. You wouldn't even have a clue where these creeps are, let alone the ability to blow them up out in the middle of nowhere if you don't have some feet on the ground to track them.
So far, all the leaks I have seen pretty much confirmed what I already knew, surmised or hoped was happening -- such as keeping tabs on the various UN scumbags infecting NYC.
This Wikileaks guy might think this stuff is hot, but honestly, so far for me it's been a big yawn. There hasn't been a leak to date that has even raised my eyebrows. We'll see what else he has I guess. ;~))
There are several things that folks forget here:
1. A jury trial. You have to find 12 jurors who will agree to convict. Even here on FR it is about an even split on whether Assange is guilty of anything. One juror holding out and it is a mistrial.
2. The prosecution would have to provide testimony as to what information caused actual harm to national security, and the defense gets to cross examine and provide rebuttal witnesses. There is little information I have seen that falls into that category and I think that the government would look ridiculous when it made its arguments.
3. The problem of overclassification. Even if some of the information is legitimately classified because it would do harm to national security, the huge volume of what we have seen so far is not. One of the real no no's in the classified world is mixing classified and unclassified information because it makes the protection of the classified information hard to protect. All the defense has to show is that much of the information was classified to avoid embarassment to the government, or for some other illegeitimate reason, and there goes the ball game.
I’m curious about the secret bank info Wikileaks has. Why don’t they reveal that information instead of trying to hack Palin’s website?
>>Questions ?
What constitutes a Republic?
All valid points.
Regarding overclassification-
I wonder how many jobs are produced by the bureaucratic process of manufacturing and protecting “secrets”?
Furthermore, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if some of those “secrets” aren’t manufactured merely for the purpose of producing jobs for manufacturing and protecting “secrets”... consistent with the self-serving nature of bureaucracy.
We have to have leadership and we have to have government and there is going to be corruption. That's life. Does he think we can get rid of the corrupt leaders and replace them with perfect ones? There are no perfect leaders! And there is no perfect government or perfect country. All this guy is doing is creating havoc. In the end he will not have accomplished anything productive at all. He is as destructive as he claims others are. I will enjoy seeing this self-righteous, holier than thou, meddling do-gooder get his comeuppance.
The “rape charge” is kinda wild. Both women claim consensual sex but now say they regret it. I am not defending the guy on his wikileaks, but the rape charges are odd.
Plus Assange is not a US citizen and doesn’t reside here, so I don’t think he’d get a civil jury trial in the US, if it ever came to that.
Wikileaks is not just posting info about the US.
If you read only US media, it would see that is the case, but it is not.
They appear to have the goods on a lot of world political leaders and transnational organizations.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.