Publishing Classified Information

[marharth]

If a terrorist can get on a big jet, I am sure they can also get on the internet...

 

To plan a terrorist attack all you need is google -.o

 

No one needs classified documents to plan a terrorist attack, saying that is just stupid.

 

Terrorists would attack something that most of the world already knows about. The entire point of terrorism is to make people afraid. If you attack a nickel mine who gives a ****?

 

Terrorists want to attack locations that Americans know and love, not a random nickel mine.

 

Now let me ask this, how are we fighting a war on terror, if we use terrorism as a excuse to be afraid of things? How are we fighting a war on terror if we use terrorism as a good reason to arrest or kill people? How are we fighting a war on terror when we use terrorism as a excuse to take away peoples rights?

 

If we really are fighting a war on terrorism, we lost when we started it...

 

I say we stop trying to find reasons to arrest assange, and just forget about it.

 

Even if he does leak super secret information, who cares? If we improved our national defense and weren't fighting in pointless wars overseas we wouldn't have to worry about terrorists getting information.

[Aurielius]

 

Now let me ask this, how are we fighting a war on terror, if we use terrorism as a excuse to be afraid of things? How are we fighting a war on terror if we use terrorism as a good reason to arrest or kill people? How are we fighting a war on terror when we use terrorism as a excuse to take away peoples rights?

 

If we really are fighting a war on terrorism, we lost when we started it...

 

I say we stop trying to find reasons to arrest assange, and just forget about it.

 

Even if he does leak super secret information, who cares? If we improved our national defense and weren't fighting in pointless wars overseas we wouldn't have to worry about terrorists getting information.

 

Just out of polite curiosity have you forgotten 9/11? War needs only one side to be commenced, it's not something that both sides have to agree upon. If you cannot fathom the reasons for state secrets or the necessity of protecting them then the OP is correct in that some of us are too fixed in their belief structure to be persuaded by any form of reason.

Edited December 13, 2010 by Aurielius

[marharth]

 

Now let me ask this, how are we fighting a war on terror, if we use terrorism as a excuse to be afraid of things? How are we fighting a war on terror if we use terrorism as a good reason to arrest or kill people? How are we fighting a war on terror when we use terrorism as a excuse to take away peoples rights?

 

If we really are fighting a war on terrorism, we lost when we started it...

 

I say we stop trying to find reasons to arrest assange, and just forget about it.

 

Even if he does leak super secret information, who cares? If we improved our national defense and weren't fighting in pointless wars overseas we wouldn't have to worry about terrorists getting information.

 

Just out of polite curiosity have you forgotten 9/11? War needs only one side to be commenced, it's not something that both sides have to agree upon. If you cannot fathom the reasons for state secrets or the necessity of protecting them then the OP is correct in that some of us are too fixed in their belief structure to be persuaded by any form of reason.

 

So we have a terrorist attack and now everyone is afraid of them? That's doing what they want...

 

If you are talking about my comment on the war...

 

9/11 was done by Al Qeuda, which is a group that was mainly in Saudi Arabia. So we attack Iran and Afghanistan... Makes sense doesn't it?

 

If we had good national defense, we wouldn't need to worry about terrorists hi-jacking a plane and crashing it.

 

By good national defense, I don't mean do pointless airport checks... How about you make it so you can't get into the pilot cabin?

 

And about 9/11... What sense does it make to start a war over 3,000 deaths, then go out and end up killing three times that number? Who is the bigger terrorist group when US soldiers kill 6,000 innocent people?

 

Starting a war over 9/11 has helped no one but military contractors. We are not winning the war and we never will. We are losing the war just by fighting in it, why doesn't anyone see that?

 

This all relates to wikileaks, without them we wouldn't even know about the bigger terrorist group out there that everyone supports.

 

And Espionage is not when you PUBLISH secret/classified info, its when you steal it...

 

The only person who can be charged with anything is the person who leaked it in the first place, and that's someone inside of the military, not wikileaks.

 

This topic really needs to be closed though :P

Edited December 13, 2010 by marharth

[Aurielius]

 

And Espionage is not when you PUBLISH secret/classified info, its when you steal it...

 

 

Where do you get your legal information from, thin air ? Because it is evident that you do not even bother to do research on the Internet on topics you propound upon. Publishing is disclosure under the terms of the act.

 

 

"The Espionage Act was passed by Congress in 1917 after the United States entered the First World War. It prescribed a $10,000 fine and 20 years' imprisonment for interfering with the recruiting of troops or the disclosure of information dealing with national defense." Over the next few months around 900 went to prison under the Espionage Act.` ~ West Law

Edited December 13, 2010 by Aurielius

[ginnyfizz]

And the latest Wikileaks offering could be explosive, unfortunately, quite literally. Discussions between US diplomats and MI5 and the Northern Ireland police about two certain Northern Irish gentlemen who have pasts that they don't really care to talk about. Believe me, that situation is a potential powder keg.

 

As for the list of sites, please don't try and say that

 

These sorts of sites

 

and the listing thereof, doesn't give terrorists ideas.

[marharth]

 

And Espionage is not when you PUBLISH secret/classified info, its when you steal it...

 

 

Where do you get your legal information from, thin air ? Because it is evident that you do not even bother to do research on the Internet on topics you propound upon. Publishing is disclosure under the terms of the act.

 

 

"The Espionage Act was passed by Congress in 1917 after the United States entered the First World War. It prescribed a $10,000 fine and 20 years' imprisonment for interfering with the recruiting of troops or the disclosure of information dealing with national defense." Over the next few months around 900 went to prison under the Espionage Act.` ~ West Law

He did not disclose it -.-

 

He published it after someone else disclosed it. That is completely different things.

 

A private in the military stole the information and sent it to Assange, he then put up the documents on his site.

 

The documents were already disclosed at the point in which the solider stole them.

 

If Assange is prosecuted, New York Times, Washington Post, and a lot of other media companies will also have to be prosecuted.

 

What I don't think people get is that he did not do anything but publish it after it was already leaked, he did the exact same thing that NYT, and the Washing Post did.

 

If it does cause issues, it is not wikileaks fault. It is the person in OUR military who leaked it.

Edited December 13, 2010 by marharth

[phoneyLogic]

9/11 was done by Al Qeuda, which is a group that was mainly in Saudi Arabia. So we attack Iran and Afghanistan... Makes sense doesn't it?

 

If we had good national defense, we wouldn't need to worry about terrorists hi-jacking a plane and crashing it.

 

By good national defense, I don't mean do pointless airport checks... How about you make it so you can't get into the pilot cabin?

 

And about 9/11... What sense does it make to start a war over 3,000 deaths, then go out and end up killing three times that number? Who is the bigger terrorist group when US soldiers kill 6,000 innocent people?

Good point.

 

If it does cause issues, it is not wikileaks fault. It is the person in OUR military who leaked it.

Another one :thumbsup:

[HappyHerring]

OMG!!! So like for sure over all these generations these like terrorists (envision here a rising inflection in my voice) these like so stupid terrorists have been blowing up, torturing and maiming people only where and when there is American interest????

 

Whilst I am no poodle of the U.S.but also no hater of the U.S. I must say that this debate is verging on the american parochial. I am from another country which suffered from the generalised sympathy of americans for Irish terrorist violence - I am Welsh and so am not an automatic lover of the English by the way. Noraid meant death. I say this as a roman catholic, so please do not label me as a religous bigot or little British nationalist. Terrorism did not begin in beirut against marines, Oklahoma against the U.S. state or even against the U.K., it is simply a way in which determined vicious people will try to get they're way.

 

So far as nickel mines or so on are concerned we need to consider that what terrorists desire is a spectacular effect. Those of us who patronisingly say everything is dependent upon a desire for oil, try going through the '70s again. A basic resource can be used as a weapon. 1,2 or 3 sites of processing or extracting of particular minerals or the production of items such as processors do have a knockon. View the results of China becoming the exclusive extractor of certain rare earths, Africa as a source of valuable minerals to botth China and the world economy. So like OMG!! In a globalised world which depends on just-in-time delivery our economies are so robust!!

 

Maybe I am getting as off subject as others here but this is a world issue.

[GetOutOfBox]

It depends on what the classified information contains. Take the recent Wikileaks release of classified information about the war in Afghanistan. I found that totally immature and pathetic, since the information jeapordized international relations, the lives of soldiers fighting there, and the reports really contained nothing signifigantly important for the public to need to know. If the leak contained information revealing some huge government conspiracy, something that was covered up for "greedy" reasons (i.e a perpetual power source was invented, but since it threatened the oil industry the government made the inventor "disappear" locked the prototype away in some gov warehouse). The information in the recent Wikileaks leak was not released to the public for several legitimate reasons:

 

1. The information jeapordized international relations

2. It contained important information relating to US stance and plans for the future in Afghanistan that could potentially threaten the lives of soldiers if it fell into the hands of Al-Quaeda.

 

Basically, if the government hid the information for an illegitamate and greedy reason, than yes, I think it should be released. If the government hid the information for the sake of national security and relations, than it seems pretty clear to me that it should stay hidden.

 

It all comes down to the fact that many people seem to have this idea that their country's entire government is out to get them and is composed of hundreds of psychopaths whose only goal is to make money. It doesn't occur to them that there may be legitimate reasons not to advertise military positions and incidents to all those who'd like to hear.

 

I personally dislike Julian Assange, he seems to get off to leaking important military secrets without considering the negative repurcussions on the very people he claims to be representing. Yes, technically he didn't leak the information, the guy in the military who sent it to him did. But it basically comes down to the fact that he knew it was classified and that it had not been cleared for release. He was an accomplice to the guy who gave him the information.

 

Even worse is that Anonymous took it upon themselves to take down Mastercard, paypal, and Visa simply because they cooperated with the law and closed his accounts with them. In fact, at least in Paypals case, he filled out fake personal information for the accounts registration, meaning that he broke their TOS anyways.

 

The only thing I must say in his favor is its kind of funny how instead of just straight up arresting him with charges of violating the laws laid out in the Espionage Act, soon after the first leak suddenly a warrant is put out for his arrest for rape charges. LOL totally not a smear campaign.

Edited December 14, 2010 by GetOutOfBox

[JimboUK]

And the latest Wikileaks offering could be explosive, unfortunately, quite literally. Discussions between US diplomats and MI5 and the Northern Ireland police about two certain Northern Irish gentlemen who have pasts that they don't really care to talk about. Believe me, that situation is a potential powder keg.

 

As for the list of sites, please don't try and say that

 

These sorts of sites

 

and the listing thereof, doesn't give terrorists ideas.

 

Once again there's nothing there we didn't know or suspect, so far I've not seen anything in these leaks that would surprise anyone who follows current affairs.