[Oakley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'T')hose sites deserve to be blocked.

They aren't serious news. They have no business being indexed by google news. I guess maybe Russia Today will have to pick up the slack on google news tinfoil.

[deMolay]

What, 250,000 classified documents were released during the Cold War? Can't remember seeing that in the news. What thousands of classified war documents were released during the coldwar, can't remember seeing that in the news. Conclusion the Democrats including Obama and Billary Clinton are worse than the Keystone Cops. Bungling Incompetant Village Idiots. And they are getting a free pass. The US State Department will become Pariah's Internationally and no one will tell them anything. Oh maybe this is part of Obama's International Outreach and make nice with the Moslem countries. He is an Idiot and an Incompetant Unqualified Complete and Total Failure. The sooner that Americans start telling him that and admitting to each other that their who was educated for free because of his background, who never held an actual job, and has lived almost his whole life succoured by the State as a Diversity Welfare Bum is a Total and Huge Waste of Skin the better off you all will be, your experiment has failed. Dump the loser and all his fellow roaders. Admit your mistake and move on. And just for the record, John McCain is a maggot as well. He would have been just as bad a choice.

[mos6507]

Wikileaks is the equivalent of Michael Richards' racist standup act. It's a byproduct of the 21st century information age. If Wikileaks is stopped, the information will filter out through some other channel.

The one good thing that will come of this is to help shine a light on the mythical "back room deals" that populates so many tinfoil fantasies. It's that uncertainty of not being able to follow people in power around 24/7 that causes the paranoid to think they are poisoning our water or some other hokum. The wikileaks stories stop far short of confirming Alex Jones "endgame" narratives, adding up to something little more than embarrassing gossip rather than some illuminati pulling all the strings. In that respect, it's a good thing. I get the sense that Wikileaks is desperately looking for bombshells but only is able to deliver firecrackers suitable for TMZ.

[Revi]

I take it you don't like Obama much Demolay.

I think it's a look inside what is really going on.

The fact that the Saudi king Abdullah was exhorting us to take Iran out is pretty interesting.

There are probably all sorts of other things going on that we are not privy to.

[Niagara]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Niagara', 'I')t looks like a major bank is being targeted,

http://www.cnbc.com/id/40431905
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')While the leaked diplomatic cables published this week by Wikileaks have been roiling the global political scene, bank executives should be on guard. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange just announced that he has a trove of documents revealing unethical behavior at one of the largest banks in the US.

[drgoodword]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deMolay', 'T')he US State Department will become Pariah's Internationally and no one will tell them anything.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '[')b]The one good thing that will come of this is to help shine a light on the mythical "back room deals" that populates so many tinfoil fantasies.

[Sixstrings]

First this:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Wikileaks Loses Website

And an update from Reuters: "Amazon.com ceases hosting services for WikiLeaks website -Senator Lieberman" and "DHS says Amazon has agreed to stop hosting WikiLeaks." Game Over

It seems the days of Wikileaks are over. The Associated Press reports that the website appears to have lost its host. The question now is who will be the next Wikileaks.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/wikileaks-loses-website

[gollum]

I see wikileaks as a positive thing, and thank goodness the US government doesen't control the internet. I guess they should have kept better control of their sensitive documents.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gollum', 'I') see wikileaks as a positive thing, and thank goodness the US government doesen't control the internet. I guess they should have kept better control of their sensitive documents.

[eXpat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gollum', 'I') see wikileaks as a positive thing, and thank goodness the US government doesen't control the internet. I guess they should have kept better control of their sensitive documents.

[The_Toecutter]

Assange is a hero; I hope he is never found, and that a large barrage of people falsely claim to harbor him so as to exhaust the governments' resources expended to find him.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'T')he one good thing that will come of this is to help shine a light on the mythical "back room deals" that populates so many tinfoil fantasies. It's that uncertainty of not being able to follow people in power around 24/7 that causes the paranoid to think they are poisoning our water or some other hokum.

[The_Toecutter]

The amount of information so far decoded when compared to the amount of information that remains still encrypted and in assange's possession is so small, that an accurate statement to the effects that it all will have on our society cannot yet be made.

Give it time. Getting all of the information released could take years. The elite of our society are starting to squirm with only a small fraction of it so far released.

[Crazy_Dad]

I wish JA all the best. The charges against him are highly suspect indeed. The best we can do at the moment to help him is download his insurace file.

From Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, 1596:

LAUNCELOT: Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of
the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his
own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of
your son: give me your blessing: truth will come
to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son
may, but at the length truth will out.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Crazy_Dad', 'I') wish JA all the best. The charges against him are highly suspect indeed. The best we can do at the moment to help him is download his insurace file.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')img]http://mjcdn.motherjones.com/preset_12/bush-obama_300x200.jpg[/img]
Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe

In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. An April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-obama-quashed-torture-investigation

[Sixstrings]

Looks like Assange is in the UK. Scotland Yard knows where he is, they're apparently waiting for orders to arrest him:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')espite accusations that Julian Assange is on the run, The Independent has learnt that Scotland Yard has known his whereabouts for more than a month but has yet to receive official instructions to arrest him. Police forces around the globe have been asked to arrest the enigmatic Wikileaks founder, who is wanted in Sweden to answer a series of sexual allegations against him.

(snip)

Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has received the so-called "red notice" – an international arrest warrant – but has so far refused to authorise the arrest of Mr Assange, who is thought to be in South-east England. Until it does, police forces cannot act.

The delay is said to be a technical one, with sources suggesting Soca needed clarifications about the European Arrest Warrant issued by Swedish prosecutors for Mr Assange, a fast-track system for arresting suspects within the EU.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wikileaks-chief-what-will-he-do-next-2148813.html

[mattduke]

I'm surprised at the disgust for Obama in the comments, and this on Mother Jones!

[Crazy_Dad]

http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/whe ... -go-along/

Message from JA's lawyer. It's an obvious frame up in my opinion.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ssange lawyer speaks
by Melbourne barrister James D. Catlin

Apparently having consensual s-x in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for r-pe. That is the basis for a reinstitution of r-pe charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity.

Sweden’s Public Prosecutor’s Office was embarrassed in August this year when it leaked to the media that it was seeking to arrest Assange for r-pe, then on the same day withdrew the arrest warrant because in its own words there was “no evidence”. The damage to Assange’s reputation is incalculable. More than three quarters of internet references to his name refer to r-pe. Now, three months on and three prosecutors later, the Swedes seem to be clear on their basis to proceed. Consensual s-x that started out with a condom ended up without one, ergo, the s-x was not consensual.

For three months Assange had been waiting in vain to hear whether media statements by and for the two female “victims” that there was no fear or violence were going to be embellished so the charges might be carried forward due to greater seriousness. Such statements would stop a r-pe charge in any Western country dead in its tracks. R-pe is a crime of violence, duress or deception. You can r-pe someone by deluding them into thinking you are someone else or by drugging them or by reason of their young age but essentially it’s a crime of violence.

The women here are near to and over 30 and have international experience, some of it working in Swedish government embassies. There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for.

That further evidence hasn’t been confected to make the charges less absurd does Sweden no credit because it has no choice in the matter. The phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilén boasting of their respective conquests after the “crimes”.

In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange’s honour at her flat after the “crime” and tweeted to her followers that she is with the “the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!”. Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Niether Wilén’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of r-pe.

But then neither Arden nor Wilén complained to the police but rather “sought advice”, a technique in Sweden enabling citizens to avoid just punishment for making false complaints. They sought advice together, having collaborated and irrevocably tainted each other’s evidence beforehand. Their SMS texts to each other show a plan to contact the Swedish newspaper Expressen beforehand in order to maximise the damage to Assange. They belong to the same political group and attended a public lecture given by Assange and organised by them. You can see Wilén on the YouTube video of the event even now.

Of course, their celebrity lawyer Claes Borgström was questioned as to how the women themselves could be essentially contradicting the legal characterisation of Swedish prosecutors; a crime of non-consent by consent. Borgström’s answer is emblematic of how divorced from reality this matter is. “They (the women) are not jurists”. You need a law degree to know whether you have been r-ped or not in Sweden. In the context of such double think, the question of how the Swedish authorities propose to deal with victims who neither saw themselves as such nor acted as such is easily answered: You’re not a Swedish lawyer so you wouldn’t understand anyway. The consent of both women to s-x with Assange has been confirmed by prosecutors.

Proposed reforms of Swedish r-pe laws would introduce a test of whether the unequal power relations between the parties might void the sincerely expressed consent of one party. In this case, presumably, the politically active Ardin, with experience fielding gender equity complaints as a gender equity officer at Uppsala University, had her will suborned by Assange’s celebrity. The prosecutor coming as she does from a prosecution “Development Unit” could achieve this broadening of the law during Assange’s trial so he can be convicted of a crime that didn’t exist at the time he allegedly committed it. She would need to. There is no precedent for it. The Swedes are making it up as they go along.

A great deal more damning evidence is yet to be revealed about what passes for legal process in Sweden, such as Assange’s lawyers having not received a single official document until November 18, 2010 (and then in Swedish language contrary to European Law) and having to learn about the status of investigations through prosecution media announcements but make no mistake: it is not Julian Assange that is on trial here but Sweden and its reputation as a modern and model country with rules of law.

*James D. Catlin is a Melbourne barrister who acted for Julian Assange in London during October.

[papa moose]

Thanks CrazyDad, that was very informative.

Let me get this straight:
1) He started out doing what they wanted (sex with condom)
2) He ended up doing something they hadn't wanted (sex without a condom)
3) She then bragged to all her friends about the first activity (sex + condom)
4) She then went to cops but _didn't_ "accuse" him of the second activity (sex - condom)
5) So the prosecutors have charged him for the second activity (sex - condom)
6) But becuase of her third activity (bragging) they don't have a hope of winning the case
7) SOOOo the hot shot prosecutor is going to make up a new law during the case to make the first activity (sex + condom) illegal, due to the fact the guy was a "celebrity"; which was the whole reason for (1.) and (3.) occurring?

Makes sense to me!