[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'I') wouldn't get too excited over the capabilities of these terrorists. I suspect 911 was a one off and was setup with technical help from disaffected Soviets rather than a solo effort by these moon worshippers from Saudi. I suspect most ex-Soviets including the disaffected, have since moved on.

There has been ample time for the moon worshippers to demonstrate their ability in the interim and the best we have had are IRA magnitude attacks in the West. Bombs in orifices and between the toes...yeah. World changing.

I wouldn't call bombing and terrorising your home territories into the Stone Age as any demonstration of aptitude. Extreme stupidity, yes. The hallmarks of an able foe, no. So I am pretty sanguine about these leaks. They're intriguing but hardly earth shaking.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'I') wouldn't get too excited over the capabilities of these terrorists. I suspect 911 was a one off and was setup with technical help from disaffected Soviets rather than a solo effort by these moon worshippers from Saudi. I suspect most ex-Soviets including the disaffected, have since moved on.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'I') wouldn't get too excited over the capabilities of these terrorists. I suspect 911 was a one off and was setup with technical help from disaffected Soviets rather than a solo effort by these moon worshippers from Saudi. I suspect most ex-Soviets including the disaffected, have since moved on.

[evgeny]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'I') wouldn't get too excited over the capabilities of these terrorists. I suspect 911 was a one off and was setup with technical help from disaffected Soviets rather than a solo effort by these moon worshippers from Saudi. I suspect most ex-Soviets including the disaffected, have since moved on.

There has been ample time for the moon worshippers to demonstrate their ability in the interim and the best we have had are IRA magnitude attacks in the West. Bombs in orifices and between the toes...yeah. World changing.

I wouldn't call bombing and terrorising your home territories into the Stone Age as any demonstration of aptitude. Extreme stupidity, yes. The hallmarks of an able foe, no. So I am pretty sanguine about these leaks. They're intriguing but hardly earth shaking.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '1') The Saudis who masterminded the whole affair simply do not have the wherewithal to plan such an attack whereas there were, in much of the 1990's, a significant number of Soviets smarting from the losing the Cold War and with the skills to act as advisers to the Saudis, who are, as always, generous benefactors.

[davep]

As you may have heard, a group of hackers have been attacking Mastercard et al because they stopped people donating to Wikileaks.

This site shows how they use a voluntary botnet client using the hivemind http://sativawarrior.blogspot.com/

For research only, kids!

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', '
')
I guess the truth will come out when the perps are given a fair trial under the great non-duplicitous American Justice System .

The Arab elites are just stooges kept in power by US protectors and Brit and other colonialists before them. When the US leaves they will join the cronies of other deposed US puppets in Florida.
They are no more duplicitous than any Quisling, it's not the kind of job that attracts honest, upright folks.

[Keith_McClary]

rekrowyalp writes at Slashdot:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')rom the press release: "The United States is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day event in 2011. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information." Oh the irony.

[Denny]

The biggest surprise in all of this, to me, is the fact that a lowly armed forces private could access all these secrets. Either the "secrets" are just a facade, or else, I am even more concerned that well trained and ingenious infiltrators from China, Pakistan, you name it, could dig through the deepest secrets of the U.S. State department. Or maybe all kinds of other departments.

That is the real issue. To think that the world's superpower could get its face tarnished like a teenager spilling stuff best left unsaid on a facebook page.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'T')he biggest surprise in all of this, to me, is the fact that a lowly armed forces private could access all these secrets. Either the "secrets" are just a facade, or else, I am even more concerned that well trained and ingenious infiltrators from China, Pakistan, you name it, could dig through the deepest secrets of the U.S. State department. Or maybe all kinds of other departments.

That is the real issue. To think that the world's superpower could get its face tarnished like a teenager spilling stuff best left unsaid on a facebook page.

[Fiddlerdave]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'T')he biggest surprise in all of this, to me, is the fact that a lowly armed forces private could access all these secrets. Either the "secrets" are just a facade, or else, I am even more concerned that well trained and ingenious infiltrators from China, Pakistan, you name it, could dig through the deepest secrets of the U.S. State department. Or maybe all kinds of other departments.

That is the real issue. To think that the world's superpower could get its face tarnished like a teenager spilling stuff best left unsaid on a facebook page

....snip....

What surprises me is that he was able to do bulk downloads.

You would think users would be able to pull up a few docs at a time on their screens, any more would get flagged by the system.

[Timo]

The US is now preparing a spying indictment on Assange, claiming that he's damaged national security by revealing state secrets. Two responses to this: 1) How is the revelation of state secrets any different from the outing of Valerie Plame, and why are people suddenly so concerned about the damage to national security, but weren't concerned in the least when the revelation of Plame stopped a critical nuclear containment program? And 2) this indictment puts at rink our First Amendment in very serious jeopardy as this will spread far beyond Wikileaks and to the very freedoms enjoyed by media across the globe. OK, 3 responses: 3) I'm certainly not blaming Assange. I credit him for revealing the truth about the real world we all live in. However, that revelation might end up the world as we know it. If our 1st Amendment is found to be flexible, that's the first domino, followed quickly by all the rest of the Amendments in our constitution. Throw in the debt, created by Wall Street and the banking system we've created, the truth about how things got so bad (credit Wikileaks), and our entire capitalistic system could be in jeopardy. Throw in people's rage and fears about all of this, and things could get out of control very quickly.

Writing this post above, i realized i used the word "revelation" in reference to "the end of the world as we know it." This was purely a coincidence, and is in no way a biblical reference, although that coincidence is remarkable. Isn't it?

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')ttorney Daniel Klau, a First Amendment expert, particularly on press protections, takes issue with U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman’s suggestion the New York Times should be investigated for printing stories based on documents released by WikiLeaks.

“I certainly believe that WikiLeaks has violated the Espionage Act, but then what about the news organizations — including The Times — that accepted it and distributed it? To me, The New York Times has committed at least an act of bad citizenship, and whether they have committed a crime, I think that bears a very intensive inquiry by the Justice Department,” Lieberman, I-Conn., said on Fox News.

[SeaGypsy]

This looks like being the downfall of the PM; Julia Gillard and possibly the AG.
The Ag has since pulled his head right in; while Gillard looks like a prejudicial idiot and isn't saying anything.
Assange didn't break any laws.
These nincompoops should have known better than to mouth off in support of the beleaguered USG without doing some homework.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Federal Government is struggling to justify its initial response to the WikiLeaks controversy.

Last week Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the placement of classified documents on WikiLeaks was an illegal act.

Today Attorney-General Robert McClelland was asked if the website's founder, Julian Assange, had broken any laws.

He would not say if he agreed with Ms Gillard's remarks.

"It's specifically not my job to comment on or allege any person has been involved in criminal conduct," he said.

"I am not the attorney-general for the United States of America. I have seen, however, reported, he who is a highly competitive lawyer in his own right is, has requested that the issue of criminality be investigated."

Shadow attorney-general George Brandis says Ms Gillard, Mr McClelland and Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor have all given different views on Mr Assange's conduct.

"At best, an extremely injudicious and clumsy way to deal with what they consider to be a criminal matter," Mr Brandis said.

Rob Oakeshott has joined fellow independent MP Andrew Wilkie in cautioning Ms Gillard on her response to the WikiLeaks affair.

Mr Oakeshott says Mr Assange deserves the presumption of innocence.

"I would hope from here on in they would focus on helping an Australian citizen in trouble before the law in another country," he said.

"I would hope they would focus on the presumption of innocence for all Australian citizens, including Julian Assange."

[dissident]

The trend since 911 has been to erode our rights and this does not apply to America alone, it applies to Canada and other western nations. Here we have another pretext to take us to a brave new world.

The smear job on Assange is atrocious and transparent. The Swedish prosecutor's office is a pathetic banana republic joke.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t is, in fact, the precise opposite of what its apologists claim it to be: with its unilateral programme of revealing confidential information, which it boasts is unstoppable and accountable to no one, it is profoundly anti-democratic.

[Fiddlerdave]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n its self-contradictory maintenance of its own untraceable operations, it effectively declares itself to be the only agency in the world that is entitled to secrecy. Its insistence that it is somehow a voice of open and transparent “freedom of expression” is simply absurd: there is no issue here of any individual or group openly expressing an opinion that would otherwise have been suppressed.

[Cloud9]

I am always troubled by those that would protect me by keeping me ignorant.

[rangerone314]

The rich and powerful know they can only continue to leech the Middle Class into poverty by making sure they have all the mechanisms in place for a police state to handle the eventual "peasant revolts" that will occur from the group of people formerly known as the "middle class".

Those technologies and laws being applied to terrorists (who are responsible for much less death than most large corporations) will be turned around an applied to ordinary Americans. We are the frog being gradually boiled in the pot with naked body scanners and pat downs of old ladies, not to spare the feelings of people profiled as likely terrorists, but to ensure that ordinary people get used to living in a police state so we won't fight it en masse when in is fully in place.

I assume we will still be able to "vote" but for the same Demopublican party, otherwise known as the Money Party... your money and their party (not that voting, other than a few "social morality" issues to distract us, will accomplish any less then than it does now).

[rangerone314]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'I') am always troubled by those that would protect me by keeping me ignorant.