Government Censorship?
The US government is not censoring WikiLeaks by banning access to the information or telling employees not to access it, it is enforcing the law.
Just because something is published doesn’t de-classify it, and it is illegal to receive or transfer classified documents unless you are authorized to do so. If a government employee, especially someone with a clearance, accesses the WikiLeaks documents they are breaking the law.
I realize this is rather pointless, but there are a lot of pointless laws on the books, almost everything labeled as a “victimless crime” for a start, but they are the law, and government employees are expected to obey the laws, [unlike Congresscritters who have a habit of exempting themselves from a lot of laws, and ignoring a lot of others].
They have to maintain the fiction that that this stuff is secret if they have any hope of a legal case against WikiLeaks or Assange.
5 comments
So… they can’t read WikiLeaks. But they can threaten a foreign national not under U.S. jurisdiction, a man not charged with breaking U.S. law, with assassination. Indeed, it seems they are encouraged to do exactly that. Presumption of innocence is a fiction, isn’t it? But don’t worry; soon enough they’ll figure out what to charge him with.
Oh Steve, how innocent you are. They have no hope of a legal case against Assange or Wikileaks due to that whole 1st Amendment thingy. But don’t worry, they will charge him. Any prosecutor worth his salt could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, much less some scary lookin’ Aussie who, like, might be a rapist or somethin’. Not that Assange would ever end up in the United States if the U.S. got some 3rd party to extradict him. He’d really get charged then… the CIA’s black prisons are still open, y’know?
— Badtux the Snarky Penguin
Going after Assange is a waste of time and resources. The Pakistanis just outed the CIAs main agent in the tribal areas because of friction over what is going on along the AfPak border, and that was a real, dangerous leak of classified information that endangered a lot of lies.
I can’t believe the level of overreaction to the latest documents. The Indian foreign ministry has apparently decided to use the cables in their foreign service school, as examples of how to write a proper diplomatic cable. Several people have talked up the hope for book deals for some of the diplomats, as they write a hell of a lot better than a number of published authors.
When Bush’s DoJ dropped proceeding against the two AIPAC employees in the Franklin case, they screwed up any possibility of a real case going forward involving Assange. Assange is a figurehead, and WikiLeaks is a tiny organization. OpenLeaks, started by WikiLeaks alumni just opened its doors, so this will continue regardless.
This is more security kabuki, like TSA, that costs a lot of money and serves no purpose.
I really don’t think any of the current politicians in Europe want to get involved with the US on rendition again. The Hedgemony pretty much poisoned that well. As a non-EU country, the US is going to have to convince the politicians to approve this, and I don’t see that happening for domestic political reasons. The Europeans are frankly fed up with the US War on Terror. Frankly, until there is a major change, the US should forget about wasting money on bids for international events – it’s not going to happen.
This is more security kabuki, like TSA, that costs a lot of money and serves no purpose.
could be, but allow me to wax more cynical for a moment… with all the lefties now howling at sweden and the uk to ‘free julian!’ they’re not howling at obama for being a republican.
Misdirection is part of all theater and magic. It invokes “willing suspension of disbelief”, but a number of people on the Left have been in that state since the 2008 primary.