US Military Classifies Wikileaks As 'Enemy Of The United States'
from the uh...-what? dept
Back when Wikileaks first released some State Department cables, creating quite the uproar among government officials, the Treasury Department was clear that it would not declare Wikileaks a terrorist organization or list Julian Assange as a "Specially Designated National" on the list, because it did not meet the proper criteria. However, a document from the Air Force, released under a Freedom of Information Act request, has revealed that Assange and Wikileaks have been declared "enemies of the US" in a specific investigation into a cyber systems analyst who dared to "express support for Wikileaks" and attended a pro-Wikileaks demonstration. By designating Wikileaks an enemy of the US, the military is effectively declaring that any contact with Wikileaks or its supporters could be deemed "communicating with the enemy" -- which can be punished severely (even death). For all sorts of reasons, this seems like a ridiculous and horrific overreaction. Even if you disagree with Wikileaks or how Assange goes about what he does, having the US government declare you an "enemy to the United States" for seeking to increase transparency seems both extreme and completely out of proportion with the reality of the situation.Meanwhile, Assange himself was able to address the UN via video, in which he lashed out at the hypocrisy of the US government, defending freedom of speech with one breath, while at the same time seeking to bring down Wikileaks.
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Filed Under: air force, enemy of the us, julian assange, us military
Companies: wikileaks
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If I'm understanding TFA correctly, the US military has declared Assange an "enemy of the state" for the purposes of deciding who you (as a member of the military) are allowed to talk to. That's it. They can't attack Assange on the basis of this ruling, they can only prosecute anyone who works for them and talks to him.
Everyone in the government probably has their own list of bad guys. There are many like it, but this one is theirs.
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Ahem,..
Last time I looked neutrinos were fermions. I expect it to be the same next time too.
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Funny world we live in when a "journalist" gets the same treatment as a terrorist whose actions directly led to the death of many people.
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'you cant handle the truth!'
must admit i am curious as to who is going to hold their hand up and take 'credit' for this classification of Wikileaks. it just goes to show the mentality of those in charge of what at least was, the greatest nation on the planet. something happens that deserves to be made public, after using the protection of whistle blowers as one of the original campaign subjects, then drastically penalizes those concerned when it happens. talk about taking the ball home 'cause you're better at the game than me! unbelievable really.
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Well, if the state is a nation of law, anyway...
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So it's coming via homing missile.
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Might as well start now
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If you use that provided by the far right in the U.S. then almost every western country in the world is socialist and/or communist.
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just pointing that out
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"Assange is an Egomaniac"
Where is the "reasonable" person who is doing as much for free speech as Assange has done?
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thatss not free speech anymore
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This sounds similar to those ads where you get "up to" whatever, and we all know those ads are total bullshit.
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[ Citation needed ]
Or, to make it more clear for you, do you have any proof? Because if you don't, then we probably won't believe you. I have yet to see any proof anywhere that he put anyone in direct danger.
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what do you think i'm going to cite, wikipedia?
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People are asking for citations because you have presented your opinion as fact. They want you to prove your statement to be true, if you believe it is, by providing links to evidence and data supporting your statement.
"Citation needed" is just the common term now for "proof or gtfo".
"what do you think i'm going to cite, wikipedia?"
No, but you could if you wanted to. As Wikipedia provides links to it's information, thus "citations" or "citation needed". And people can then click on said links to go back to the source for the information.
If you have relevant information, that is verified, you can present it. Doesn't have to be from Wikipedia, it can be from any credible and verified source.
However, the truth is you have no such citations because what you stated is false. Someone has already provided a link from a source much better than you which states there was no damage caused by the Wikileaks leaks. None whatsoever.
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Actually, it can be from any source, you will just look like a tool if you cite Fox News for instance. ;-)
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Umm, not according to the report done by the US military.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/18/wikileaks-disclosures-caused-no-damage-to-us-lawyer /
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Second and third paragraphs:
'A defense lawyer for US Army private Bradley Manning argued that his client took care to disclose files that would not harm US interests and subsequent government reports have shown no major �injury� was caused.
But prosecutors countered that the potential harm caused by the disclosures is irrelevant to the court-martial and that Manning committed a crime simply by leaking classified information without permission.'
The government itself isn't able to prove that the leaks caused any major harm(other than making some high ranking people look less than stellar), and so find themselves having to fall back to 'it doesn't matter, because the information was classified anyway'.
You can bet that if they had any verifiable proof of harm caused by the leaks they would be shouting it from the rooftops, as it would make their case a slam-dunk.
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Not a single death can be attributed to Wikileaks, Julian Assange Bradley Manning.
So yeah, your statement is unbelievably and completely false.
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They also "may have contributed" to fairies coming out my ass. Although many have dug, no one yet has presented any reasonable evidence supporting either of those that I'm aware of.
In a free and open society anything like Wikileaks would be condoned and supported. Let me explain the reasons why.
First Wikileaks simple allows a channel for people to anonymously release information at least somewhat protected from retribution. The press use to be the channel for allowing this thus the protections for a free press in the US constitution as a check on government for it keeping it free and open. Unfortunately technology is changing the nature of how information is distributed. The main stream media is no longer the primary and exclusive means of distributing information. Because of this disruption of the gatekeeper role the main stream media has held in the past they are pushing the government to pass laws to help them slow down and/or stop the disruptive process. This pretty much negates the "free press" as being free from government interference as intended by it's constitutional protections. Add to this that even given the protections of the free press provided by the constitution the government has always had at least some limited ability to control the press. Historically they exercised this control often (likely far more often than we are aware of). How justified they were in doing this is no doubt variable and arguable. I have no doubt in many cases there would be a strong case it was justified. I also have no doubt there would be strong arguments in many cases the suppression was bordering on criminal. With Wikileaks they lose all control whether justified or not. In a free and open society, in my mind at least, the occasional release of information that would have been justifiable suppressed is far out weighed (I'll support this more below) by the suppression of information that exposes at best government inefficiencies or at worse down right criminal behavior by the government.
Now there are occasions where the suppression of information may be justified. The case I'll make here is that if such information has made it way to Wikileaks most likely the people who could use this information for nefarious purposes already have access to it (unless of course the nefarious purpose is to expose questionable actions by the government). Those people are going to typically be far more motivated to gain access to the information. In a free and open society, although there may be a significant cost, the information leaking to Wikileaks exposes weaknesses in how information is protected. This should allow the government to fix these holes in their security. This also helps fix a governmental problem. Although, again, there may be a cost associated with this it may also allow fixing the security thus eliminating a continuing information leak or an even more costly leak later.
The big problem with the recent documents Wikileaks published isn't that they "may have contributed to the death of soldiers" but who the government was trying to prevent from seeing those documents. First, given the obscenely piss poor security protecting those documents the information was likely already available to those who could use it to "contributed to the death of soldiers". Now obviously I have no way of supporting that assertion other than by general assertions as to the ease of which the security measures were circumvented. I will assert though that the primary person the government was trying to prevent from seeing those documents wasn't people who could use it to "contributed to the death of soldiers" but to the general public who would see many of the questionable things our government was doing. The rather scary part, other than operational and functional secrets our military shouldn't be trying to hide anything it does. Nothing functional was exposed that I'm aware of and Wikileaks tried to redact any operational information that could have put anyone in danger. And they would have been able do this much more effectively if our supposed "free and open" government had cooperated with Wikileaks in the redaction rather than working to attack them any way they could get away with. Wikileaks didn't leak the information. They just published it. But it's much easier to attack the message than to fix the source of the message they brought.
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This is an obvious truism. What does it tell you about a society that calls the only journalist willing to mention the idea a terrorist? I'm telling ya man, scary times are ahead.
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This is an obvious truism. What does it tell you about a society that calls the only journalist willing to mention the idea a terrorist? I'm telling ya man, scary times are ahead.
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Torture
Indefinite Military Detention (without trial, or even accusation of a specific crime)
Summary Execution (via drone strike as already mentioned or by other means)
Gonna be some interesting times ahead. At this point I'm not sure if our children are really gonna understand all this, but after a few days in the freezer cell I'm sure they will understand.
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Enemy of the state? yes
I have spoken with people who were literally waiting for the order to terminate Assange. They know just how "harmless" Wikileaks really was. Thanks to Assange people helping the United States were "disappeared" and yes, they were killed.
Now as to the designation.
1) Assange is NOT a United States citizen.
2) Assange has never been in the United States to my knowledge.
3)The Wikileaks servers are not in the United States
4) Assange has NO rights under American law.
5) Because of his releases, he has actively aided and abetted enemies of the United States.
Long story short, he is considered an enemy agent or spy. He can be killed on sight if we so choose. (Won't happen with the current administration of course)
Those of you attempting to extend United States constitutional rights to those who aren't U.S. citizens and have never been in the United States totally misunderstand the nature of national sovereignty.
If Assange wants to avoid a visit from Mr. Hellfire, all he needs to do is go to any US embassy and turn himself in. Then he will have certain rights. (Lawyer, trial, etc)
As to the deliberate targeting of U.S. Citizens in foreign countries, according to some lawyers I've spoken with, the answer is "It depends."
In the cases of the two that I know of, (The names escape me), they have definitely committed treason as defined by the United States constitution. (Look it up) They took up arms against the United States Government and gave aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war.
They became legitimate targets in the same way the Confederate Soldiers were legitimate targets. They could have surrendered themselves and they would have been accorded all the rights of any U.S. citizen.
They didn't and paid the price of their decisions.
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Or batshit insane.
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...trolling it is then.
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*hears bang at door*
OH #-
communication terminated for national security reasons
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There I fixed it for you.
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interesting
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Enemy of WHICH state?
1. Assange is not a US citizen, but he does NOT live in the US. This is a worthless argument.
2. It's of no consequence.
4. Valid and relevant point.
4. Assange has no rights under US law? That's questionable as he's a non-combatant in a foreign country. The UN Charter of Human Rights applies (Right to Life, Justice etc). The jurisdictional issue is key!
5. He has the right to aid his own interests, he may oppose the US freely - without consequences! The US does not have the right to attack him or detain him abroad. Only if he chooses to visit the US, or can be extradited after having been charged with a [valid] crime (subject to conditions).
You seem to forget that Mr. Hellfire is AN ILLEGAL ALIEN in the UK, Sweden and Australia. You and the US would have NO RIGHTS under their laws to do anything! Did you forget this? It would be an act of WAR! Pakistan is an exception, not the rule.
Your national sovereignty, as you refer to, means nothing in a foreign jurisdiction. The key word being "national". He has plenty of rights as it stands, you can't take away rights you have no authority to grant him.
You obviously have no legal degree, and not enough knowledge of international law or human rights.
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Re: Enemy of WHICH state?
correct me, if I'm wrong...
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Re: Enemy of the state? yes
And?
Didn't the people involved understand the risks before taking such a position?
Then he will have certain rights. (Lawyer, trial, etc)
And yet - 1) Assange is NOT a United States citizen.
And as a 'US Citizen' my "rights" have been ignored/violated by Judicial officials. Had said official complain about my case being "too much work" and said official would not actually take the time to read the casefile - claimed the conditions for a Default Judgement were not met.
So, exactly, how is Assange to expect a fair and just trial when I can't get one over an under $5000 a deadbeat did not pay?
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"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." ?
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I hate our Government.Hope they get a real rude awakening this Century.
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Assange says he's an enemy
From what I recall, he is not saying that his job is to publish the information, but to achieve a destructive effect. So, when someone declares themselves to be my enemy, I think it prudent to take them at their word and not ignore it.
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If Assagne defines the US to be a evil empire and therefore its enemy, the US only need to convince Assagne that it is not a evil empire.
Not make im its enemy.
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The US made it "If a man says he's going to kill you, make him do it in self defense."
Or in this case, "If a man says you are an evil empire, give him a real reason to think so."
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You're the one making the claims here, you have to back them up.
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Hey Mike - M Lauer is the pseudo-name for the United States!
Best ask for a Q&A from the United States!
(Say United States - how's Obama working out? How did Bush II work out?)
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This is not to say that Assange isn't being persecuted. But internal memorandum informing personnel of severe consequences for communicating with a known agent of espionage is simply not the same thing as declaring them an enemy of the US.
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http://www.palestine-studies.org/journals.aspx?id=10022&jid=1&href=fulltext
Real ly sucks for this guy, he was tortured as well. Don't get me wrong, I think it's all crazy, just thought I'd mention a tidbit of info that you might find useful.
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Again, this says nothing about whether or not the military or politicians are or are not capable of horrible abuses of power in violation of law. All I'm saying is that branches of government can indeed have internal policies forbidding communication for those who it has effectively established non-disclosure-agreements with, and prosecute violations of those rules.
That is all I see here. I see no evidence that Assange has been officially declared a terrorist or enemy of the U.S. Whether or not Assange actually is being persecuted unjustifiably is a different matter entirely (and frankly that situation existed before).
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Perhaps not, but considering the history of the players involved here, that isn't very comforting if you are in Assange's shoes, now is it?
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I agree with Assange's words on free speech, as I do on Obama's. If I were in charge, I would not be persecuting Assange as he's being persecuted. He was the journalist/messenger, not the leaker.
However, Assange is a tremendously arrogant and hypocritical person. The US is hardly the most secretive nation on earth, not even close. Where are wikileaks pages from inside china's government about China's military buildup? Where are the wikileaks pages on China's abuse of it's own citizens and the systematic way it is done? Where are the pages on what is going on in Russia's government? Where's the leaking on improper elections and intimidation in Russia? Assange is deliberately targeting one of the most open nations on earth, you would have to ask him why he does this. He likely has no good answer. Certainly there are plenty of other nations with state secrets that constitute greater violations of human rights than the US has, but Assange is fixated on America.
Ask yourself why that is. Is it perhaps because Russia and China would actually spend money/effort to kill Julian to shut him up whereas the US would just try to imprison him? To me, that seems quite likely. He's a man operating like a spy agency, without the backing of any government, and he's somehow surprised with being hung out to dry by everyone? He's probably lucky someone in Russia didn't leak anything serious on his site, or he'd certainly have been disappeared by now.
Again, I would never persecute Assange. But if I were in charge, I would try to prevent him from ever getting secrets from my nation. If that meant telling everyone with clearances that they are forbidden from speaking to wikileaks, so be it.
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I paraphrase:
The New York Times willingly solicited whistleblowers from a company. This is no different from any other news agency in the world trying to recruit assets in a company it wishes to gain secret information from.
You miss one crucial bit: Public. So they would solicit "spies" for the public (which, by the way, includes you)?
I repeat here what would really work:
Fixing the problem would be minimizing the amount of people who have access to classified material. Since they tend to over-classify, nobody can work without that classified-access, so there's a huge amount of people who need that access.
The only rational course would be the declassify 90% of what gets classified right now, since it's not really important. And for the rest, you would not have to give 2 Million people access, but maybe only 50'000, so the chance of leaks would be very much lower.
But bureaucracies don't really work like that, since bureaucrats get power over other bureaucrats when classifying things. So everyone classifies and thus ever more people need access to that material...
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1 - he had the info. you can't release what you don't have. I am sure he would have if he could have (for his ego if nothing else).
2 - because the US Gov are Hypocrites!
(mostly #2)
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Semantics. In the same sentence he's a "known agent of espionage" but he's "not a terrorist". Yet the consequences of being either are the same for anyone that talk to him.
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No. You say "anyone" meaning anyone in the world, but that simply is not true. When you sign a non-disclosure agreement with an entity, they generally can ask you not to talk to certain people they are in competition with. Asking DOD personnel or those granted clearances not to talk to Assange or wikileaks personnel is simply not the same thing as you are talking about. You're exaggerating in a paranoid fashion.
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It's also funny that you claim I'm exaggerating yet I'm using your exact words. I don't think 'exaggerating ' means what you think it means.
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You need to be clear when you're making points, or you'll come off like the idiot you came off as.
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Second, yes following a rule my boss just added to not talk to someone who is pointing out how corrupt and unethical my boss is, is in fact a heinous violation likely many rights and certainly ethics.
The fact that talking to them could mean indefinite jail time (which would be against the law) and/or death in this circumstance only makes the 'heinous violation' that much more egregious.
But I don't really need to mention those facts because you resorted to name calling, which means you've run out of arguments and I win. Thanks!
Now that I've won, I'll end with the suggestion that maybe you need to be more open minded, because you are coming off as a close-minded idiot who doesn't seem to understand the topic under discussion.
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The fact that talking to them could mean indefinite jail time (which would be against the law) and/or death in this circumstance only makes the 'heinous violation' that much more egregious.
Did you agree to not discuss certain topics outside of work on pain of prosecution for violating federal laws when you took the job? If you agreed to such a thing, you should honor that agreement, shouldn't you? You should also expect consequences when you blow the whistle, and be willing to pay those consequences to enact positive change in the world. It's called civil disobedience for a reason, it's not "get-out-of-agreement-and-jailtime-because-ends-justify-means disobedience".
you resorted to name calling...
Actually no, I didn't call you anything. You read that in because you're just incapable of seeing anything in color. Black and white is fine if you want to be an extremist, but it wins you no points when dealing with reality. Enjoy your ignorance.
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when you try to do things like this to whistleblowers like this to shield yourself from facing the consequences of your actions then your just as much of a threat to people as you say the other guy is.
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Don't ask me though. I live in the US and a prerequisite for hosting/founding Wikileaks is that you DON'T live in the US.
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"The idea that leaking relevant and newsworthy information can get you classified as such has incredibly scary implications."
What he leaked was classified information which he knew was classified. This isnt about transparancy or freedom of speech. Anybody who has or gets access to classified information and leaks it is an enemy.
If your best friend told all of your secrets would you defend it as freedom of sppech or call it transparancy? No, he would become your enemy.
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Two, in your hypothetical, there is a deeper problem then releasing embarrassing documents. Those people got that idea for a reason and declaring war on everything and classifying everyone as enemies of the state won't fix that. If our government was doing what it should have been doing, people wouldn't think that of us.
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Secondly, you're going off on an insane hypothetical. Hey, Wally, what if tomorrow some guy you pissed off years ago decides to pump you full of lead when you leave your house? Are you going to stay in all day or maybe just go about your business? You don't know, he could be there, I bet you've pissed off people with your silliness.
See how that works?
There are tons of "unstable" regions around the world already. If they're unstable right now and as is, I doubt a little bit of mostly irrelevant information is going to make anything worse. Your hypothetical scenario notwithstanding.
People die every day though. When you start pouring your bleeding heart out for every single death happening right at this moment, I personally might care. But this [points at your comment] is just a bit much and just an attempt to further sling mud at Julian Assange and Wikileaks. The evidence is greatly against you. When government reports are out saying "no harm has been done, no deaths can be attributed" you've effectively lost the argument and only look foolish.
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That's a great hypothetical, but did it actually happen in this case? How about we concentrate on what info was actually released instead of making up stories to make things sound scarier than they actually are.
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Yes?
Wikileaks is about to release some documents!
CLASSIFY
EVERYTHING!
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And the basis for the classification was?
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Enemies
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Bring it up!
Wikileaks has oil?
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Re: Names!! (not just stick and stones)
This is not some "Oops! My bad".
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http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-calls-assange-enemy-of-state-20120927-26m7s .html
He was called an enemy indirectly during an investigation into an analyst for leaking information. The analyst was fired, no charges were laid. A couple prosecutors being creative with charges is not exactly what I'd call the U.S. government declaring someone an enemy of the state.
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Now, before you get in an uproar and further make a fool of yourself, let me explain why.
Those laws pertain to, and ONLY to, soldiers. Julian Assange is not a soldier of any country, as such he cannot violate the protocols and what have you addressed specifically in the Geneva Convention.
Also, he is NOT an enemy of the state. Your beliefs not withstanding. Putting information online is just that. Putting information online.
Also, that you try and conflate attacks on U.S. Embassies in the Middle East with Wikileaks and what Assange has published is a bit much. This topic has already been discussed and covered a ridiculous amount, but most of the attacks happening lately stem from that video that was on Youtube. NOT Wikileaks/Julian Assange.
Maybe you weren't aware of it, but a lot of countries don't like the United States. So just being an ambassador for the country while working out of a hostile country is dangerous, yet again you seem to overlook that fact to go on a further tirade and attempt to lay the danger Ambassadors and embassy staff face on a daily basis at the feet of Assange.
Sorry, but in this case you're very much in the wrong. Now, you're entitled to your opinion, but don't try and conflate issues or misrepresent what is actually in the Geneva Convention, because it only applies to A. countries who voluntarily agreed to abide by what is stated therein and B. soldiers serving on behalf of countries who voluntarily agreed to abide by the Geneva Convention. (Also, if memory serves me correctly, I believe the U.S. DID NOT actually agree to abide by the Geneva Convention. However, we do follow some of the things set out in it, but we did not actually agree to anything in it or sign it or whatnot. Which while seemingly a small difference is a difference nonetheless and one worth pointing out, should you try and bust that nonsense out again.)
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Nice credibility-killing conflation of two completely different events there Wally. Why use facts to make your point when you can just make stuff up!
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Kinda funny then, that the State Dept leaks that have caused all this trouble... were published *by the NYT* (and a few other newspapers) in conjunction with Wikileaks, with all of them redacting sensitive info.
In other words, your suggestion that the NYT would act differently is disproved by the fact that both acted the same, because they worked together.
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in some ways thats even more terrible. iran executes whistleblower? evil and demented. US does the same? national security issue.
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Nixon's shitlist
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Whikileaks
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Once you learn that, the rest is easy to deal with!
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Um - could you wave with your left hand please now? We want to be sure its you.
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Wow, 60's all over again
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julian assange the hero
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No, not united states, NEOCONS
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commit
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