I don't know about others, but the reason why I am firmly on Wikileaks' side can be clearly seen in that video. The media are a bunch of pliant, spineless, brain-dead, PR sound bite regurgitating pussies. Think about it, when was the last time you saw a media figure really dig into someone powerful and call them out on their bullshit? Everything the powerful do and say is so scripted and carefully managed that it loses any connection to reality.
Well, Jon Stewart for one, when he isn't being just a stand-up, does tend to call out major journalistic and political figures for their inadequacies in this regard.
Well, true, but I've always read that as him not wanting to become the same sort of political lighting-rod that he hates. He was very careful to avoid any overt political associations for his rally, for instance.
PG pointed in that direction with his essay "The Submarine" and how PR firms have a total stranglehold on news media. With the huge consolidation in the media, and the main news sources all controlled by the same few companies, it makes sense why the big companies don't want to rock the boat.
Yeah, that video infuriated me. We had the host and 2 out of the 3 guests just harping on about how the guy is "anti-american". For basically doing the job they're supposed to be doing. And this was on MSNBC.
"You've played right into my hands, Lieberman. Mwahahahaha... " .. ok he didn't quite say that. But Assange did just claim in a Guardian Q&A that choosing Amazon was a deliberate ploy to test/highlight the deficits in US commitment to free speech.
Free speech is not a blanket protection that allows you to say anything you want at anytime. Whether or not what Wikileaks is doing falls under the protection of the 1st Amendment is something I would love to see the Supreme Court decide, but it isn't as simple as crying foul on free speech b/c Amazon disabled their account.
You're right, they're totally besides the point, because they apply to the whistleblower and not the media. It was generally assumed (until this week apparently) that it's always ok for the media to print things after they've been leaked. Nobody went after the NYT's hosting, for example.
Wikileaks did not commit espionage here, unless you're alleging that Julian Assange took those cables himself. The person that leaked the cables is liable for espionage (if the Pentagon can catch him or her). However, as the Supreme Court ruled in the Pentagon Papers case, the publishing organization has no prior restraint obligation. That is, the publisher doesn't have to hold back publication of something that's potentially damaging just because the government says so.
The Pentagon Papers case wasn't quite a free pass to publish anything you want, but more of a "government doesn't win by default" ruling. It doesn't mean the government can't win other cases involving other leaked info.
The Supreme Court has decided the WikiLeaks issue. It decided it when it ruled that the New York Times could publish the Pentagon Papers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers).
The Pentagon Papers did not give carte blanche to publishers, and they could still be brought up on charges under the Espionage Act.
> Times v. United States is generally considered a victory for an extensive reading of the First Amendment, but as the Supreme Court ruled on whether the government had made a successful case for prior restraint, its decision did not void the Espionage Act or give the press unlimited freedom to publish classified documents. A majority of the justices ruled that the government could still prosecute the Times and the Post for violating the Espionage Act by publishing the documents. Ellsberg and Russo were not acquitted of violating the Espionage Act; they were freed due to a mistrial from irregularities in the government's case.
(from your wiki link)
There needs to be a more defined separation between what we might think we want to be the legal line and what the line actually is.
There are also legitimate concerns over the protection of state secrets.
WikiLeaks and other whistleblowers form an important part of modern society, but we should also be wary of single-spigot fountains of information that come via unverifiable channels. After all, the leaking of false information to promote an agenda is a time-honored tradition of statecraft.
i feel like it's up to the state to protect their secrets. I mean really, they made this info available to 2 million people, and easily accessible from machines that I'm guessing had enabled usb ports, cd writers and email.
100% this info was already sold to all other countries.
Perhaps I should have said "protection of state secrets out of context".
My main concern isn't that these secrets are getting exposed, its that they are getting exposed in a way that is easily editorialized by whoever is distributing them. Ordinarily US citizens wouldn't have access to our country's diplomatic cables (even though other countries might) - now we do have them, yet we have absolutely no way of verifying that we've gotten the unadulterated whole of them. That is what concerns me.
Not meaning to be trite, but it's amazing how Al Gore's desire to move toward the right led him to select Lieberman as VP, and paved the way for the rise of one of the most backward politicians ever in US history.
Recall how influential Lieberman was in helping Bush sell the Iraq war, etc.
It is worth watching a documentary titled "The Power of Nightmares" which will give some insight into "why Iraq" and "why Israel." And the answers to "why Israel" will explain why the choice of Lieberman (who is frequently titled "the Senator for Israel") for Gore's running mate appeared to be the right choice at that time.
He also promised to take a principled stand against torture and to close Guantanomo, and restore due process; before being elected.
Since being elected, none of those things have happened, and he has come out in favour of assassinating US Citizens living abroad without any judicial process whatsoever (The Al-Awliki case).
So the failure of Obama to publicly condemn Lieberman's petty campaign of censorship and crude threats against Amazon is not at all surprising.
And then under his administration there was the trial of Omar Khadr. Khadr is a Canadian who was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan and brought to Guantanamo Bay, tortured and held until this year, when he was sentenced to 40 years in prison, because he apparently killed an American soldier, and because he confessed, even though the confession had been taken under the torture. They convicted a soldier for killing another soldier on the field of combat. And he was a child.
Bush was already under pressure from the Army to return to the previous standards, but Obama has not articulated a clear and government wide "no-torture" policy; nor has he brought the US into compliance with it's obligations under the Geneva Conventions.
And "trying to close Guantanamo"? Please. Do or do not, there is no try.
Guantanamo is in a half-state because Congress invoked NIMBY with the attempts to prosecute detainees in the US. No other country wants to take them in.
To be (slightly) fair, the assassination policy was created by the Bush administration and merely carried forwards (like so many Bush administration policies). Although I agree he's done zero to stop torture, and backpedaled on his "promises" to close Gitmo and end the war in Iraq.
Yes, disappointing to see this behavior from the government, and also from corporations like Amazon.
Perhaps most disappointing though is that much of the MSM coverage is focused on Wikileaks itself and not on the actual content of the cables. The NYT and other media outlets are doing their best to push the substantive issues, but that's not what is being discussed by our so-called leaders and politicians.
The cable leaks have highlighted - as if we didn't know it already - how reckless and out of touch many of our foreign officials and diplomats are. To name a few random acts: bargaining with Slovenia to take Guantanamo prisoners in exchange for a visit with President Obama; threatening Germany against investigating the unwarranted kidnapping (is any kidnapping warranted?) of one of its citizens by the CIA; collusion with British officials to illegally stock cluster bombs in the UK.
Perhaps if the mainstream media was focused on these issues, we may have a serious public debate about the quality and purpose of our state department and our foreign diplomats ... and maybe even improve them. Now that would be progress.
But no, that's just too difficult for the Senator Liebermans of the world to take on. Much easier for these politicians to beat their chests in disgust at Assange's actions. While that may be good for Lieberman in the short term - he gets his bully pulpit - we're all still left with the same crappy state department, and the same foreign officials in the same embassies still making the same out-of-touch recommendations that end up making the world a less safe place for all of us.
Where is the leadership? Where is the "change" that was promised two years ago? I want to see a commitment from Obama that he's going to look seriously at the issues raised by the cables, and fix our state department. Not holding my breath though.
OVH, one of WikiLeaks' French hosting providers, just had to deal with a similar "request" from the French government. Their response was, "it's not up to politicians or OVH to decide the site's closure".
Lieberman is not part of the administration. I haven't seen Obama trying to censor this, although he obviously would have prevented it if he could have. By definition he doesn't want classified information leaked.
I'm wondering the same thing. Liebermann probably knows too. It's all a big show right now. As the economist said in the past few days, things have changed. You can store on a USB key the equivalent of truck loads(Stevenson would be proud ;p) of documents. It's going to be harder and harder to keep this information secure.
I hope the Government accepts this and I think the current administration does. I wouldn't be surprised if they figure out a way to use it to their advantage.
In WW2 purposely leaked information was used to confuse the Germans about the location of the beach landing on D-Day.
I'm wondering the same thing. Liebermann probably knows too.
People say this a lot about politicians and I wonder how true it is. Lieberman in particular has never shown himself to be particularly smart. He mostly repeats the conventional "centrist" line and seems to contradict himself fairly regularly. I seem to remember that he drove the Gore campaign nuts in 2000 by spouting off whatever popped into his head.
Most politicians are not following a grand plan but are rather following a guideline of "What will Rush Limbaugh like?" (Conservatives) or "What will the editorial page of the Washington Post like?" (Centrists) or "What will my donors like?" (Pretty much everybody)
a) to whip up public outrage about the leak by declaring it an attack on US interests, US security and and endangering of the lives of US military and diplomatic personnel.
b) be seen by the public to be doing something about a), in an effort to convince them of their efficacy at protecting against enemies of the US.
c) in keeping the biggest new sites and the public occupied with a) and b), distract as much attention as possible from the contents of the cables.
If you look around the world, most governments are taking a similar strategy.
I think this is right. While it's amusing to note the apparent heterogeneity in responses from representatives of the state to the leaks (criminal! boring! dangerous! nothing new!), looked on as a strategy of noise generation to drown out the signal (i.e., revelations of criminal activity by the state), the approach is cohesive and effective, and it demonstrates unrestrained contempt for the American people.
