• US has pressured Britain, Germany, Australia, to charge WikiLeaks editor with espionage
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[highlight]The Obama administration has asked Britain, Germany, Australia, and other allies to consider criminal charges against Julian Assange for his Afghan war leaks. [/highlight] [url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-10/a-western-crackdown-on-wikileaks/]Source[/url] [release]The Obama administration is pressing Britain, Germany, Australia, and other allied Western governments to consider opening criminal investigations of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and to severely limit his nomadic travels across international borders, American officials say. Officials tell The Daily Beast that the U.S. effort reflects a growing belief that WikiLeaks and organizations like it threaten grave damage to American national security, as well as a growing suspicion in Washington that Assange has damaged his own standing with foreign governments and organizations that might otherwise be sympathetic to his anti-censorship cause. American officials confirmed last month that the Justice Department was weighing a range of criminal charges against Assange and others as a result of the massive leaking of classified U.S. military reports from the war in Afghanistan, including potential violations of the Espionage Act by Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst in Iraq accused of providing the documents to WikiLeaks. Now, the officials say, they want other foreign governments to consider the same sorts of criminal charges. “It’s not just our troops that are put in jeopardy by this leaking,” said an American diplomatic official who is involved in responding to the aftermath of the release of more than 70,000 Afghanistan war logs—and WikiLeaks’ threat to reveal 15,000 more of the classified reports. “It’s U.K. troops, it’s German troops, it’s Australian troops—all of the NATO troops and foreign forces working together in Afghanistan,” he said. Their governments, he said, should follow the lead of the Justice Department and “review whether the actions of WikiLeaks could constitute crimes under their own national-security laws.” Last month, a prominent pro-military group in Australia suggested that Assange may have violated Australian law through the release of the Afghan war logs, given the threat the leak may have posed to the lives of Australian troops serving in the NATO-led force. The Obama administration was heartened by the call this week by Amnesty International and four other human-rights groups for WikiLeaks to be far more careful in editing classified material from the war in Afghanistan to be sure that its public release does not endanger innocent Afghans who may be identified in the documents. The initial document dump by WikiLeaks last month is reported to have disclosed the names of hundreds of Afghan civilians who have cooperated with NATO forces; the Taliban has threatened to hunt down the civilians named in the documents, a threat that human-rights organizations say WikiLeaks should take seriously. “It’s amazing how Assange has overplayed his hand,” a Defense Department official marveled. “Now, he’s alienating the sort of people who you’d normally think would be his biggest supporters.” The joint letter by the five groups, first revealed by The Wall Street Journal, was met by a tart response from Assange, who communicates with the outside world largely through the social-networking Internet tool Twitter. He appeared to suggest that news organizations and human-rights groups, notably Amnesty International, should help him underwrite his cost of the editing and release of more of the Afghan war documents—but that they were instead refusing to provide assistance. “Pentagon wants to bankrupt us by refusing to assist review,” he tweeted on Monday, referring to the effort by WikiLeaks to convince the Defense Department to join in reviewing the additional 15,000 documents to remove the names of Afghan civilians and others who might be placed in danger by its release. “Media won’t take responsibility. Amnesty won’t. What to do?” In a separate posting on Twitter, Assange estimated the cost of the “harm minimization review”—a reference, apparently, to the effort to edit the 15,000 documents to remove informants’ names—at $700,000. It was not clear how he arrived at that figure. The Australian-born Assange travels constantly and is said to have no real home, living instead in the homes of friends and supporters around the world. He was reported as recently as last week to be in the U.K., although he has spent significant time this year in Australia, Iceland, and the U.S. He has said he is postponing future travel to the U.S. because of fear that he faces legal sanctions here. Through diplomatic and military channels, the Obama administration is hoping to convince Britain, Germany, and Australia, among other allied governments that Assange should not be welcome on their shores, either, given the danger that his group poses to their troops stationed in Afghanistan, American officials say. They say severe limitations on Assange’s travels might serve as a useful warning to his followers that their own freedom is now at risk. A prominent American volunteer for WikiLeaks reported last month that he was subjected to hours of questioning and had his laptop and cellphones seized by American border agents on returning to the U.S. from Europe late last month. An American military official tells The Daily Beast that Washington may also want to closely review its relations with Iceland in the wake of the release of the Afghan war logs. Assange and his followers have been successful in pressing the government of Iceland, in the wake of the collapse of the country’s banking system, to reinvent itself as a haven for free speech, creating a potential home for WikiLeaks and other organizations that may violate the laws of the U.S. and other nations through the release of classified documents. [/release]
This is why i dislike America, just feels like they force the world to do what they want :(
Hey Britain had their turn, let America copy...
Well it's true.
I don't know anymore.
Ergh fuck off government, this shit needs to be sent to the public instead of bottling it up. Wikileaks is my god for the internet filter leak. Fuck I love you <3
Wait wait wait. Why the fuck don't THEY charge him, he committed espionage against them not us, Obama can get fucked for all I care right now.
[QUOTE=bravehat;23961969]Wait wait wait. Why the fuck don't THEY charge him, he committed espionage against them not us, Obama can get fucked for all I care right now.[/QUOTE] Perhaps it's because the US, Britain and Germany are in a military alliance in a state of war - and leaking info on one ally could be roughly considered espionage against all the others.
They don't have access to him :buddy:
[QUOTE=ohadje;23962049]Perhaps it's because the US, Britain and Germany are in a military alliance in a state of war - and leaking info on one ally could be roughly considered espionage against all the others.[/QUOTE] Either way still a fucking stupid idea considering that assange has a Dead Hand in effect.
lol whats australia going to do? ban wikileaks?
I get what you're thinking, but I can't blame the U.S for wanting to stop it, as they are leaking things related to them. I don't think the U.S should have anything to hide, but I can't change history.
Again, governments need their secrets, if you know of those secrets, don't go spewing them out where millions of people can read it.
US is like that kid who keeps cheating in tests and everything else, and when you tell everyone about it he goes crying to his friends and tries to round up a mob so you'd be too afraid to show up at school the next day
Fuck off US (the government, that is). I agree to an extent that wikileaks should be held accountable for some of it's actions, but that should left for each country to decide. It pisses me of when the US treats it's allies like they are it's bitches.
[QUOTE=CounterTunes;23961929]Ergh fuck off government, this shit needs to be sent to the public instead of bottling it up. Wikileaks is my god for the internet filter leak. Fuck I love you <3[/QUOTE] Fuck you're a delusional moron <3
I don't know anymore. Although I guess this means that the Insurance.256 password is going to be released soon enough.
[QUOTE=imadaman;23961845] [release]The initial document dump by WikiLeaks last month is reported to have disclosed the names of hundreds of Afghan civilians who have cooperated with NATO forces; the Taliban has threatened to hunt down the civilians named in the documents, a threat that human-rights organizations say WikiLeaks should take seriously.[/release][/QUOTE] Not cool man.
I hope they charge him with espionage.
kill Wikileaks. NOW
[QUOTE=bravehat;23962118]Either way still a fucking stupid idea considering that assange has a Dead Hand in effect.[/QUOTE] He probably has nothing but a bluff. Who would leak a 1.4gb file to Wikileaks at the exact moment that they are under threat?
[QUOTE=Ragy;23962403]I hope they charge him with espionage.[/QUOTE] Wouldn't it technically be treason?
Wikileaks server is in Sweden, Sweden is Pirate Country. Good luck taking down that server.
[QUOTE=Carbon Knight;23962432]He probably has nothing but a bluff. Who would leak a 1.4gb file to Wikileaks at the exact moment that they are under threat?[/QUOTE] It could be but do you think the US is gonna take that risk? And I dunno fuck, maybe he thought "some day I'm gonna get shafted, I should hold back something massive to keep my ass alive" If I was him I sure as fuck would have.
[QUOTE=FPChris;23962444]Wikileaks server is in Sweden, Sweden is Pirate Country. Good luck taking down that server.[/QUOTE] It's easy. Just do what the MPAA did, bribe a judge.
Fuck I'm going to laugh when some 10 year old mashes keys randomly and cracks the 256-bit code.
[QUOTE=David29;23962439]Wouldn't it technically be treason?[/QUOTE] Damn it, treason is only against your own country, so no. Even australia can't really charge him with treason, he released info against the US not them. It may have affected australia in a roundabout way, but it's not direct treason. I keep seeing the word misused and it's getting annoying :colbert:
[QUOTE=FPChris;23962444]Wikileaks server is in Sweden, Sweden is Pirate Country. Good luck taking down that server.[/QUOTE] I actually read something about how Sweden could take down his servers if they wanted to, based on something about the legal management of a server. Since he's hiding or something, that goes against their laws.
In my opinion, this stuff shouldn't be leaked during a war. After a war, when it can't cause any harm, than it should be leaked, but during, when it can cause the death of many people, it should be kept secret.
Uh, if I remember correctly, Assange just collects stuff he gets sent and posts them on Wikileaks. He does it to protect people who want to tell the public about something but don't want to get arrested.
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