Assange writes.

[rubato]

"You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion." -Assange-


For those who missed it. A powerful moral statement.

yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

If Mr Assange were convicted, on appeal he could claim that he is a journalist afforded free speech protections under the US constitution - and would have a strong defence, some legal experts say.

"Leaks of classified information to the press have only rarely been punished as crimes, and we are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it," wrote Jennifer Elsea, a legal researcher for the US Congress, in a report obtained by the BBC.

Apart from the Espionage Act, another statute criminalises the taking of government secrets through unauthorised access to a computer, but prosecutors would have to show Mr Assange had a hand in obtaining the documents from the government.

And a law that punishes the theft of government records or property has never been used to prosecute recipients of the information, Ms Elsea wrote.

"There appears to be no statute that generally proscribes the acquisition or publication of diplomatic cables," she added.

Mr Assange's lawyers could also argue in court that the Espionage Act does not apply to foreign nationals acting outside of US territory.

But even getting Mr Assange to the US would prove troublesome, according to Jacques Semmelman, a New York lawyer and authority on extradition law.

Espionage is seen as a political crime, and political offences are not subject to extradition under the US-UK, US-Sweden and UK-Sweden treaties, Mr Semmelman said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11952817

[Mr. Duality]

So has the situation in Kenya improved? I doubt it.

Kenya had for a long time been a one-party dictatorship in fact if not in name. The uprisings that occurred in the wake of revelations of corruption, including irregularities in the 2007 elections, created the impetus for a power-sharing agreement between the two main contenders for presidency (with the incumbent president retaining that office while his main challenger was given the newly created position of prime minister). Did that miraculously create utopia? Of course not, but it loosened the stranglehold on power which had for too long been held by the same political faction.

Here's what the CIA world Factbook says:
"After some early progress in rooting out corruption and encouraging donor support, the KIBAKI government was rocked by high-level graft scandals in 2005 and 2006. In 2006, the World Bank and IMF delayed loans pending action by the government on corruption. The international financial institutions and donors have since resumed lending, despite little action on the government's part to deal with corruption. Post-election violence in early 2008, coupled with the effects of the global financial crisis on remittance and exports, reduced estimated GDP growth to 2% or lower in 2008 and 2009."
From https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/ke.html

It appears to me that very little has changed.

Actually I haven't really made up my mind regarding Wikileaks. Truth is generally a good thing, but some things are better left unsaid. The Kiriwina of New Guinea have a word for it-
Mokita: truth everybody knows but nobody speaks; the unspoken truths of certain social situations that everyone knows about but nobody talks about directly. The Kiriwina have a phrase, "biga peula" (literally "hard words") to refer to direct references to unspoken truths. Biga peula can lead to violent death.

I don't think Assange has as much common sense as God gave to turtles.

[Big RR]

And Orwell called it doublespeak/doublethink.

[Mr. Duality]

The Kiriwina of New Guinea have a word for it-
Mokita: truth everybody knows but nobody speaks; the unspoken truths of certain social situations that everyone knows about but nobody talks about directly. The Kiriwina have a phrase, "biga peula" (literally "hard words") to refer to direct references to unspoken truths. Biga peula can lead to violent death.

Credit to "They Have a Word For It" by Howard Rheingold.

[loCAtek]

OK, anyone who so devoutly believes in transparency: post your email passwords and online banking info HERE/NOW.

It won't be abused, we just want judge your honesty; honest! You can trust the whole wide world to believe and act in your best interests; honest! Just like in the real world! Com'on!

[Scooter]

When I become a public figure accountable to the people for my words/actions, I'll be happy to.

This wasn't correspondence between Gladys Goldfine from Utica, NY and Esther Himmelfarb of Boca Raton, FL that was being published, was it?

[loCAtek]

Which was why it was classified, duh.

[Scooter]

Just because something has been arbitrarily deemed "classified" doesn't mean it does not deserve scrutiny.

I'm sure Clinton wishes he had classified the nature of the stains on Monica's blue dress. Wouldn't have automatically made it a matter of national security, would it?

[Econoline]

And just because something has been arbitrarily deemed "classified" doesn't mean it does deserve scrutiny.

Who decides?

Personally, I don't feel comfortable letting Mr. Assange make the call: I don't trust his judgement, and I don't trust his motives.

[Scooter]

I'm sure a lot of people said the same about Daniel Ellsberg in his day. As I recall, there were extraordinary efforts made to attempt to discredit him as well.

[Mr. Duality]

And Orwell called it doublespeak/doublethink.

Doublespeak is kind of almost getting there, doublethink is not.

Courtesy of Merriam-Webster:

Definition of DOUBLETHINK
: a simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas.

Definition of DOUBLESPEAK
: language used to deceive usually through concealment or misrepresentation of truth; also : gobbledygook.

Doublespeak is much closer to biqa viseki, the use of metaphors as disguised speech. An example is the old story of the birds and the bees as a metaphor when talking to your children about sex.

The use of "veiled references" can serve to protect people from conflict, embarrassment and other secondary consequences of truth-telling. They can also be used to convey different levels of meaning to different members of the same audience, so that friends or initiates will understand the hidden allusions of the words, whereas strangers or the uninitiated will miss them.

[Mr. Duality]

Personally, I don't feel comfortable letting Mr. Assange make the call: I don't trust his judgement, and I don't trust his motives.

You are not the only one. Some former Wikileaks members have split off to form their own whistleblowing site.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/ger ... 12,00.html

"A group of former members of WikiLeaks is planning to launch its own whistleblowing platform in mid-December, according to a German newspaper. The activists criticize WikiLeaks for concentrating too much on the US and want to take a broader approach.

Julian Assange is the public face of the whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks, and Sunday's publication of the leaked US diplomatic cables will have raised his profile even higher. In fact, the former hacker is now a leading candidate for Time magazine's "2010 Person of the Year."

But former members of the organization have criticized his supposedly autocratic leadership style. "I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, original coder, organizer, financier and all the rest. If you have a problem with me, piss off," Assange famously wrote to one internal critic."

[Mr. Duality]

It is you Steve!!

You know Steve would have included an annoyingly large bandwidth-eating photo. Assange is rather pretty in a pale James-Dean-esque sort of way. I'll bet you have a secret hard-on for him.

[Big RR]

OK, anyone who so devoutly believes in transparency: post your email passwords and online banking info HERE/NOW.

It won't be abused, we just want judge your honesty; honest! You can trust the whole wide world to believe and act in your best interests; honest! Just like in the real world! Com'on!

In a democracy I have a reason to know what the government I/we placed in power does in my name; no one here has such an interest in my e-mail or banking information. Indeed, it's because I cannot trust the government that I want to know this. I often have to give personal information if, e.g., I want to obtain credit for the same reason, because they do not know me well enough to trust me.

[Econoline]

I'm sure a lot of people said the same about Daniel Ellsberg in his day. As I recall, there were extraordinary efforts made to attempt to discredit him as well.

A fair comment, and one worth some consideration. But upon reflection I think there are enough differences between Assange and Ellsberg (background, motivation, temperament, methods)--and between the Pentagon Papers and the massive WikiLeaks data dumps--for me to come to different conclusions regarding the two situations.

[Lord Jim]

Econo, I know that you and I frequently disagree, but I wanted to take a moment to say that I believe you have interjected a lot of valuable, thoughtful perspective into this discussion.

[Gob]

"Econo, I know that you and I frequently disagree"

And the award for understatement of the year goes to.....

[liberty]

This is a response that I made to Bones on the other side.

“Well, Bones that is exactly the reason I wish to respond to you. You are not the name calling, foaming at the mouth non object type I try to avoid. Do let us talk objectively:

To me it is fairly clear that this Jane Fonda wanted to be is not interested in the freedom of the press. I think he is interested in his own self aggrandizement and is perfectly willing to aid the terrorist in the process. As I understand it, this AH ( try not to use such language) has revealed the names of individuals in Afghanistan that have been helpful to us. That is the equivalent of providing the Nazis with the names of the French resistance in WW 11.

He is not a US citizen so he can’t be charged with treason, but he is clearly an enemy of the USA. The government could deal with him in an extra legal fashion, but don’t worry it want happen, no guts.

I wonder how this has effected our ability to collect tactical intelligence in Afghanistan?

There might be away we can turn this to our advantage; if we could manage to slip into the report names of Afghanis that are in fact hostile towards us, but make it appear they are secretly working for us. The Taliban could do our work for us.”

[loCAtek]

And just because something has been arbitrarily deemed "classified" doesn't mean it does deserve scrutiny.

Who decides?

Personally, I don't feel comfortable letting Mr. Assange make the call: I don't trust his judgement, and I don't trust his motives.

Answer from Wiki:

Proper procedure for classifying U.S. government documents

To be properly classified, a classification authority (an individual charged by the U.S. government with the right and responsibility to properly determine the level of classification and the reason for classification) must determine the appropriate classification level, as well as the reason information is to be classified. A determination must be made as to how and when the document will be declassified, and the document marked accordingly. Executive Order 13526 describes the reasons and requirements for information to be classified and declassified (Part 1). Individual agencies within the government develop guidelines for what information is classified and at what level.

The former decision is original classification. A great majority of classified documents are created by derivative classification. For example, if one piece of information, taken from a secret document, is put into a document along with 100 pages of unclassified information, the document, as a whole, will be secret. Proper (but often ignored) rules stipulate that every paragraph will bear a classification marking of (U) for unclassified, (C) for confidential, (S) for secret, and (TS) for top secret. Therefore, in this example, only one paragraph will have the (S) marking. If the page containing that paragraph is double-sided, the page should be marked SECRET on top and bottom of both sides.[12]

Source


Interestingly on this page you also find;

Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI)

One of the 9/11 Commission findings was that "the government keeps too many secrets. To address this problem, the Commission recommended that '[t]he culture of agencies feeling they own the information they gathered at taxpayer expense must be replaced by a culture in which the agencies instead feel they have a duty . . . to repay the taxpayers' investment by making that information available.'"[8]

Follow the link [8] and you find this;

SECTION-BY-SECTION

Section 1. Short title

This section provides that the short title of the bill is the `Reducing Information Control Designations Act.'

Section 2. Purpose

This section provides that the purpose of the Act is to increase the sharing of information within the government and the availability of information to the public by standardizing and limiting the use of information control designations.

Section 3. Regulations relating to information control designations within the Federal Government

Subsection (a) requires that each federal agency reduce and minimize its use of information control designations on information that is not classified.

Subsection (b) requires the Archivist to promulgate regulations regarding the use of information control designations to address: standards for the use of the information control designations in a way that maximizes public access to information; the duration of the designations and a process for their removal; procedures for identifying and tracking designated information; provisions to minimize the use of information control designations and protect against their misuse; and methods to ensure that compliance protects national security and privacy rights.

This subsection also requires that the regulations issued by the Archivist require federal agencies to establish a process for individuals to challenge the use of information control designations and to receive incentives for successful challenges, to establish penalties for individuals who repeatedly fail to abide by these policies, and to establish procedures for the public to be able to challenge the use of information control designations.

These regulations should be established in a manner that maximizes public access to information and with the presumption that information should not be given these designations. This subsection requires the Archivist, in developing the regulations, to consult with relevant stakeholders.

Meaning the US government was/is in the process of constructively (and legally) doing what Assange was/is doing chaotically.