classified material in the first place. Are we supposed to wait until
this creep releases classified material that is important to stop him?
The other problem is that what might not be of importance to the
Pentagon might be of paramount importance when added to what the enemy
already knows.
When I was in the service bck in the JFK days and working in the
intelligence area, we kept track of things like today there were 10
trucks passing on this road in Cuba, yesterday there were only 7, what
does this mean in the scope of things. Might be nothing, might mean
they were stepping up the transport of special goods to a secret
place. Intelligence like this led to our discovery of the missiles in
Cuba. Yet the intelligence might have meant nothing to the Cubans.
That is why the release of this info is important and must be stopped.
On 10/23/2010 01:58 PM, THE ANNOINTED ONE wrote:
> Bear,
>
> If you do nothing that needs to be hidden or that you are ashamed of
> there is no threat. The official Pentagon comment on the last release
> was that it contained nothing of importance. Just how is releasing
> "nothing of importance" (a seemingly small fact left out of your
> posted article) the act of a traitor??
>
> Further, US law, US tradition, US ideals and or anything else US
> applies only on US soil. Live with it.
>
> On Oct 23, 11:33 am, Bear Bear<thatbear...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> A surprisingly frank, for the times, look at the idiot behind Wikileaks.
>>
>> Personally I think the guy is a traitor. My lefty neighbour says he is not a
>> traitor as he leaked U.S. documents and he is an Aussie.
>> Well, the Australians have soldiers in this war too. And his actions have
>> endangered them. As well as my Canadian countrymen and friends serving in
>> Afghanistan.
>>
>> He is paranoid about the CIA. (time for the aluminum foil hat?) But, one of
>> these days he is going to leak the wrong file and insult the Taliban and
>> their friends in the west. Then he will see just what it is like to be on
>> the run. And will probably then want the U.S. or Britain to protect him.
>>
>> Bear
>>
>> WikiLeaks Founder on the Run, Chased by Turmoil By JOHN F.
>> BURNS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_f_b...>and
>> RAVI SOMAIYA Published:
>> October 23, 2010
>>
>> LONDON — Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. In a noisy Ethiopian
>> restaurant in London's rundown Paddington district, he pitches his voice
>> barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears.
>>
>> He demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted
>> cellphones and swaps his own as other men change shirts. He checks into
>> hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and
>> uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends.
>>
>> "By being determined to be on this path, and not to compromise, I've wound
>> up in an extraordinary situation," Mr. Assange said over lunch last Sunday,
>> when he arrived sporting a woolen beanie and a wispy stubble and trailing a
>> youthful entourage that included a filmmaker assigned to document any
>> unpleasant surprises.
>>
>> In his remarkable journey to notoriety, Mr. Assange, founder of the
>> WikiLeaks<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/w...>whistle-blowers'
>> Web site, sees the next few weeks as his most hazardous.
>> Now he is making his most brazen disclosure yet: 391,832 secret documents on
>> the Iraq war. He held a news conference in London on Saturday, saying that
>> the release "constituted the most comprehensive and detailed account of any
>> war ever to have entered the public record."
>>
>> Twelve weeks earlier, he posted on his organization's Web site some 77,000
>> classified Pentagon documents on the Afghan conflict.
>>
>> Much has changed since 2006, when Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian,
>> used years of computer hacking and what friends call a near genius I.Q. to
>> establish WikiLeaks, redefining whistle-blowing by gathering secrets in
>> bulk, storing them beyond the reach of governments and others determined to
>> retrieve them, then releasing them instantly, and globally.
>>
>> Now it is not just governments that denounce him: some of his own comrades
>> are abandoning him for what they see as erratic and imperious behavior, and
>> a nearly delusional grandeur unmatched by an awareness that the digital
>> secrets he reveals can have a price in flesh and blood.
>>
>> Several WikiLeaks colleagues say he alone decided to release the Afghan
>> documents without removing the names of Afghan intelligence sources
>> for NATO<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/n...>troops.
>> "We were very, very upset with that, and with the way he spoke about
>> it afterwards," said Birgitta Jonsdottir, a core WikiLeaks volunteer and a
>> member of Iceland's Parliament. "If he could just focus on the important
>> things he does, it would be better."
>>
>> He is also being investigated in connection with accusations of rape and
>> molestation involving two Swedish women. Mr. Assange denied the allegations,
>> saying the relations were consensual. But prosecutors in Sweden have yet to
>> formally approve charges or dismiss the case eight weeks after the
>> complaints against Mr. Assange were filed, damaging his quest for a secure
>> base for himself and WikiLeaks. Though he characterizes the claims as "a
>> smear campaign," the scandal has compounded the pressures of his cloaked
>> life.
>>
>> "When it comes to the point where you occasionally look forward to being in
>> prison on the basis that you might be able to spend a day reading a book,
>> the realization dawns that perhaps the situation has become a little more
>> stressful than you would like," he said over the London lunch.
>>
>> *Exposing Secrets*
>>
>> Mr. Assange has come a long way from an unsettled childhood in Australia as
>> a self-acknowledged social misfit who narrowly avoided prison after being
>> convicted on 25 charges of computer hacking in 1995. History is punctuated
>> by spies, defectors and others who revealed the most inflammatory secrets of
>> their age. Mr. Assange has become that figure for the Internet era, with as
>> yet unreckoned consequences for himself and for the keepers of the world's
>> secrets.
>>
>> "I've been waiting 40 years for someone to disclose information on a scale
>> that might really make a difference," said Daniel
>> Ellsberg<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/daniel_e...>,
>> who exposed a 1,000-page secret study of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became
>> known as the Pentagon Papers.
>>
>> Mr. Ellsberg said he saw kindred spirits in Mr. Assange and Pfc. Bradley
>> Manning<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/bradley_...>,
>> the 22-year-old former Army intelligence operative under detention in
>> Quantico, Va., suspected of leaking the Iraq and Afghan documents.
>>
>> "They were willing to go to prison for life, or be executed, to put out this
>> information," Mr. Ellsberg said.
>>
>> Underlying Mr. Assange's anxieties is deep uncertainty about what the United
>> States and its allies may do next. Pentagon and Justice department officials
>> have said they are weighing his actions under the 1917 Espionage Act. They
>> have demanded that Mr. Assange "return" all government documents in his
>> possession, undertake not to publish any new ones and not "solicit" further
>> American materials.
>>
>> Mr. Assange has responded by going on the run, but has found no refuge. Amid
>> the Afghan documents controversy, he flew to Sweden, seeking a residence
>> permit and protection under that country's broad press freedoms. His initial
>> welcome was euphoric.
>>
>> "They called me the James Bond of journalism," he recalled wryly. "It got me
>> a lot of fans, and some of them ended up causing me a bit of trouble."
>>
>> In late September, he left Stockholm for Berlin. A bag he checked on the
>> almost empty flight disappeared, with three encrypted laptops. It has not
>> resurfaced; Mr. Assange suspects it was intercepted. From Germany, he
>> traveled to London, wary at being detained on arrival. Iceland, a country
>> with generous press freedoms , has also lost its appeal, with Mr. Assange
>> concluding that its government is too easily influenced by Washington.
>>
>> He faces attack from within, too.
>>
>> After the Sweden scandal, strains within WikiLeaks reached a breaking point,
>> with some of Mr. Assange's closest collaborators publicly defecting. The New
>> York Times spoke with dozens of people who have worked with and supported
>> him in Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Britain and the United States. What emerged
>> was a picture of the founder of WikiLeaks as its prime innovator and
>> charismatic force but as someone whose growing celebrity has been matched by
>> an increasingly dictatorial, eccentric and capricious style.
>>
>> *Internal Turmoil*
>>
>> Effectively, as Mr. Assange pursues his fugitive's life, his leadership is
>> enforced over the Internet. Even remotely, his style is imperious. When
>> Herbert Snorrason, a 25-year-old political activist in Iceland, questioned
>> Mr. Assange's judgment over a number of issues in an online exchange last
>> month, Mr. Assange was uncompromising. "I don't like your tone," he said,
>> according to a transcript. "If it continues, you're out."
>>
>> Mr. Assange cast himself as indispensable. "I am the heart and soul of this
>> organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder,
>> organizer, financier, and all the rest," he said. "If you have a problem
>> with me," he told Mr. Snorrason, using an expletive, he should quit.
>>
>> In an interview about the exchange, Mr. Snorrason's conclusion was stark.
>> "He is not in his right mind," he said. In London, Mr. Assange was
>> dismissive of all those who have criticized him. "These are not
>> consequential people," he said.
>>
>> "About a dozen" disillusioned volunteers have left recently, said Smari
>> McCarthy, an Icelandic volunteer who has distanced himself in the recent
>> turmoil. In late summer, Mr. Assange suspended Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a
>> German who had been the WikiLeaks spokesman under the pseudonym Daniel
>> Schmitt, accusing him of unspecified "bad behavior." Many more activists,
>> Mr. McCarthy said, are likely to follow.
>>
>> Mr. Assange denied that any important volunteers had quit, apart from Mr.
>> Domscheit-Berg. But further defections could paralyze an organization that
>> Mr. Assange says has 40 core volunteers and about 800 mostly unpaid
>> followers to maintain a diffuse web of computer servers and to secure the
>> system against attack — to guard against the kind of infiltration that
>> WikiLeaks itself has used to generate its revelations.
>>
>> Mr. Assange's detractors also accuse him of pursuing a vendetta against the
>> United States. In London, Mr. Assange said America was an increasingly
>> militarized society and a threat to democracy. Moreover, he said, "we have
>> been attacked by the United States, so we are forced into a position where
>> we must defend ourselves."
>>
>> Even among those challenging Mr. Assange's leadership style, there is
>> recognition that the intricate computer and financial architecture WikiLeaks
>> uses to shield it against its enemies has depended on its founder. "He's
>> very unique and extremely capable," said Ms. Jonsdottir, the Icelandic
>> lawmaker.
>>
>> *A Rash of Scoops*
>>
>> Before posting the documents on Afghanistan and Iraq, WikiLeaks enjoyed a
>> string of coups.
>>
>> Supporters were thrilled when the organization posted documents on the
>> Guantánamo Bay detention operation, Sarah
>> Palin<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/sarah_pa...>'s
>> e-mail, reports of extrajudicial killings in Kenya and East Timor, the
>> membership rolls of the neo-Nazi British National Party and a combat video
>> showing American Apache helicopters in Baghdad in 2007 gunning down at least
>> 12 people, including two Reuters journalists.
>>
>> But now, WikiLeaks has been met with new doubts. Amnesty
>> International<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/a...>and
>> Reporters Without Borders have joined the Pentagon in criticizing the
>> organization for risking people's lives by publishing war logs identifying
>> Afghans working for the Americans or acting as informers.
>>
>> A Taliban<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/t/t...>spokesman
>> in Afghanistan using the pseudonym Zabiullah Mujahid said in a
>> telephone interview that the Taliban had formed a nine-member "commission"
>> after the Afghan documents were posted "to find about people who are
>> spying." He said the Taliban had a "wanted" list of 1,800 Afghans and was
>> comparing that with names WikiLeaks provided.
>>
>> "After the process is completed, our Taliban court will decide about such
>> people," he said.
>>
>> Mr. Assange defended posting unredacted documents, saying he balanced his
>> decision "with the knowledge of the tremendous good and prevention of harm
>> that is caused" by putting the information into the public domain. "There
>> are no easy choices on the table for this organization," he said.
>>
>> But if Mr. Assange is sustained by his sense of mission, faith is fading
>> among his fellow conspirators. His mood was caught vividly in an exchange on
>> Sept. 20 with another senior WikiLeaks figure. In an encrypted online chat,
>> a transcript of which was passed to The Times, Mr. Assange was dismissive of
>> his colleagues. He described them as "a confederacy of fools," and asked his
>> interlocutor, "Am I dealing with a complete retard?"
>>
>> In London, Mr. Assange was angered when asked about the rifts. He responded
>> testily to questions about WikiLeaks's opaque finances, Private Manning's
>> fate and WikiLeaks's apparent lack of accountability to anybody but himself,
>> calling the questions "cretinous," "facile" and reminiscent of
>> "kindergarten."
>>
>> Mr. Assange has been equivocal about Private Manning, talking in late summer
>> as though the soldier was unavoidable collateral damage, much like the
>> Afghans named as informers in the secret Pentagon documents.
>>
>> But in London, he took a more sympathetic view, describing Private Manning
>> as a "political prisoner" facing a jail term of up to 52 years, without
>> confirming that he was the source of the disclosed war logs. "We have a duty
>> to assist Mr. Manning and other people who are facing legal and other
>> consequences," Mr. Assange said.
>>
>> Mr. Assange's own fate seems as imperiled as Private Manning's. His British
>> visa will expire early next year. When he left the London restaurant at
>> twilight, heading into the shadows, he declined to say where he was going.
>> The man who has put some of the world's most powerful institutions on his
>> watch list was on the move again.
>>
>> Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, and Dexter Filkins from
>> Kabul, Afghanistan.
>>
>
--
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