A day after Amazon was forced to block Wikileaks, the site is again offline in an alleged campaign by the United States to prevent the public from seeing the whistleblower material. This includes a disclosure, discussed last night on Countdown, that the Obama Administration has been misleading the public and actually moved to force Spain to drop its prosecution of American officials for war crimes and torture.
This is the third time that the public has found itself cut off from Wikileaks material. The question is whether the United States is attacking carriers — in this case, Everydns, which cut off Wikileaks at 3am GMT on Friday (10PM EST Thursday). Everydns complained that it did so to prevent its other 500,000 customers of being affected by the intense cyber attacks targeted at WikiLeaks. Wikileaks accuses the United States of the attacks.
An anonymous source has come forward to claim “credit” for cutting off public access to the material. Calling himself “Jester” and a “hackitvist for good,” the individual claims to be a former soldier. It is not clear if such a claim is to be believed or accepted at face value. Here you have someone bragging that he is serving “the good” by preventing other citizens from reading these disclosures on the alleged misconduct of their government. The claim will certainly not end speculation that the widespread problems are being directed or assisted by the government. Moreover, it would be interesting if any of these companies go to court to seek information on this individual as we have seen in recent cases where anonymous individuals have been forced into the open in litigation. It is also curious why the United States government is not using its oft-cited cyber units to find an individual who is allegedly causing such property damage and shutting down parts of the Internet.
The question is, if the allegation is true as many expects assume, what authority does the United States have in conducting dangerous attacks on private companies and endangering thousands of other sites? If the President can order such attacks without legal authority, the government could engage in an obvious form of restraint on free speech — targeting critics and whistleblowers. It would be the equivalent of stopping newspapers from publishing.
The disclosures from Wikileaks have been embarrassing for both Republican and Democrats in Congress — who have joined in calling for prosecution. The disclosures, once again, show the public has been intentionally misled on major policies and that Congress has continued to exercise no oversight in these areas. These disclosures constitute the most extensive record ever produced of how our government routinely misleads the public and engages in activities that conflict with our stated policies and values. It is an indictment of our political system — perhaps the greatest in history. It has led many to question whether our democracy is based a carefully constructed illusion of half-facts and outright lies — routinely denying citizens the true facts in major policy areas. The impression left by these documents is that we have a two-party monopoly that treats citizens as uneducated dolts who should be fed comforting and misleading information while the real actions of our government are confined to the power elite. On issues like torture, Obama has clearly misled the public in his blocking of any investigation into our torture program. He was first challenged before he actually took office when Bush officials revealed that (while campaigning against torture) he secretly promised Bush officials that no one would be prosecuted. We now know that, while claiming to be studying the issue, his Administration was threatening allies if they tried to enforce international law. Putting aside the merits of covering up for war crimes, the Wikileaks disclosure is the latest example of how our leaders now show little restraint in knowingly misleading the public like children who have little ability to understand or need to know the true facts behind U.S. policy. It is the modern version of bread-and-circus politics used by Roman emperors. This is a view that appears shared by leaders in both parties.
The result is that both Congress and the White House are embarrassed and eager to prevent public review of this material. However, there is little discussion of the legality of such cyber attacks directed against a whistleblower and claimed journalist.
What is equally striking is the relative mild reaction of mainstream media. If the New York Times had revealed the Obama Administration’s secret efforts to pressure the Spanish courts to drop its prosecution, it would have been viewed as a major investigative breakthrough. However, there is a discernible hostility in some coverage of Wikileaks and a reluctance to accept the site as either a whistleblowing or journalistic enterprise.
Source: Guardian
Jonathan Turley
“Justice
isdenied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.Apologies to Dr. King. A lack of coffee and surplus of righteous anger caused me to give the good doctor an extra verb, but the song remains the same.
I’m beginning to fear for any of the critics, including the dear Professor. I fear the real lashing out has barely appeared yet.
When Assange mentioned he planned early 2011 leaks on the banks, my first thought was “if that doesn’t get him killed nothing will”.
It is the statement that Obama has clearly misled the public vis a vis what he was promoting during his campaign that is most upsetting.
We are fortunate that Mr. Turley has been making this story available on Countdown. These abuses of power should not go away until we are all happy with the outcomes.
The truth will set you free unless people keep listening to what Senator LIEberman is telling them. When did LIEberman become King and have the authority to tell people to shut down free speech???? To continue Buddha’s theme, “The whole world is watching”!
I occurs to me that the agencies and governments that are messing with Julian Assange may be forgetting that “Insurance” file. There is no telling how many people around the world have that encrypted 1.38 Gigabyte file sitting on their hard drives waiting for the magic code that will decode the thing.
Mr. Assange is anything but a naive man who will leave himself unprotected. If those in high government offices are really smart, he would be the most protected human being on the planet.
But with regard to government ministers being smart, I am reminded of what Queen Victoria had to say when M’Naghten was acquitted: “Anyone who tries to kill a government minister cannot possibly be insane.”
Culhealth, no they indeed will not. Supplies will simply “run out.” Gas, food, toilet paper… Just like that. With no warning. From the perspective of most. When the cigarettes go, well, they’d better have the FEMA camps up before that is all I will say.
There exists no rational accounting of the weaponry our Humble Citizenry has stockpiled in the 230-odd year history of this social experiment. Flung far and wide, our military cannot possibly persist blanket martial law across such a huge landmass without continued armed resistance.
All it would take is some trials. Now, many of them. But trials are fairly easy to organize, and it is not too late if begun now.
Will the GOP House stand up? Let me don my Laughing Robes for that one…
The snowball is yet near the top of the hill, and gaining speed.
Culheath,
That’s always been one of my favorites. This one seems topical too…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4mfCMvEy8U&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]
To be honest, there’s a good third of his music that you can segue to pretty easily here.
As I am sure most of the readers here know, WikiLeaks has moved to a new server and has a new domain name. According to Talking Points Memo, this is where they moved to. This looks like a truly serious computer lab.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn8pz1HLYp8
I agree with culheath that it does not get much more serious than this. And keep in mind that so far,only a few hundred of the thousands of diplomatic cables have been released.
Gyges: Thanx for that Mingus…one I somehow missed, I thought I knew all of his works, even the Joni Mitchell renditions.
I’m ready. Unfortunately many, many people will not be.
culheath,
Unfortunately, it does and it will.
It doesn’t get anymore serious than this does it?
For no particular reason other than an alternate title for the piece is “Meditations as to how to get some wire cutters before someone else gets some guns to us.’
Mingus introduced the song saying ‘This next composition was written when Eric Dolphy told me there was something similar to the concentration camps down South, [. . .] where they separated [. . .] the green from the red, or something like that; and the only difference between the electric barbed wire is that they don’t have gas chambers and hot stoves to cook us in yet. So I wrote a piece called Meditations as to how to get some wire cutters before someone else gets some guns to us.’ Off-mike, he can be heard saying to fellow musicians: ‘They’re gonna burn us; they’ll try.’
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOd4TlP7MP8&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]
Which, if you believe in the rule of law, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution means that all you students should post as many links and comments to Facebook and Twitter as your hands can type.
Type until your fingers bleed.
Justice demands it.
“Justice is denied anywhere diminishes justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Anon Nurse, well it’s nice to see them close the barn doors now that the horses have bolted. What other senses shall they ban? NO MORE SWEET TASTE. May give you ideas. And stop smelling stuff you shouldn’t be. And touch? Well, our in-bred puritanism took care of THAT years ago.
Any govt which asks its citizens to avoid information needs to be tossed out YESTERDAY.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/3/headlines#8
State Dept. Bars Staffers from WikiLeaks, Warns Students
The U.S. State Department has imposed an order barring employees from reading the leaked WikiLeaks cables. State Department staffers have been told not to read cables because they were classified and subject to security clearances. The State Department’s WikiLeaks censorship has even been extended to university students. An email to students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs says: “The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. [The State Department] recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.”
BIL, egads…
Trouble is, there is no lovely Pond separating us any longer. We have to fight from within. The real power will emerge from the connected youth.
But in time?
Meanwhile, billboards, please, across the country with each highlighted line.
BIL,
Isn’t that document written by some kind of terrorist organization? I’ve already reported you to DHS and believe this site should immediately be taken down for aiding terrorism. Expect the call from Joe the Great any time now.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.The history of the present [President of the United States] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden [Congress] to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish [their Constitutional and human rights, rights] inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He [and Congress have effectively] dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
. . .
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these [states]:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For [effectively] suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
[The President] has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
______
Dear Assholes in Washington,
Any of that ring a bell?
James in LA wrote:
“More leaks, please. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.”
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Yes, and yes.
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Jill,
Thanks for the information about Tableau software.
Over the past few years, I’ve become painfully aware of what your comment highlights. Many businesses and ordinary citizens will do almost anything these days, if asked to do so by the government and/or those with power, especially if these entities are offering perks for doing so…
We need to repeal the Patriot Act. We need to know more about the various lists being kept by the government, including law enforcement — lists that contain the names of many good and law-abiding citizens whose rights are being violated in sadistic and obscene ways…