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Should Jullian Assange be tried for treason or something?

Should Jullian Assange be tried for treason or something?


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LizardofOz

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Julian Assange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He is the lead cheerleader for the douche bag squad. I know the guy isn't American but what the hell, can't we do something? As far as I am concerned after Bin Laden this guy should be FBI's most wanted. Information is power, and right now this guy is incredibly powerful, and not only does he act like an asshole about this, but his last name even starts with ass. You can't make this **** up. Just look at the guy though:

Julian_Assange_20091117_Copenhagen_1_cropped_to_shoulders.jpg


Don't you just want to beat him with a stick until your arm gets tired, and hand the stick over to the next guy in line?
 
aww diddums, free speech backfired. :2razz:

if you're gonna charge anyone, it should be the people who leak the info to wikileaks.
 
Julian Assange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He is the lead cheerleader for the douche bag squad. I know the guy isn't American but what the hell, can't we do something? As far as I am concerned after Bin Laden this guy should be FBI's most wanted. Information is power, and right now this guy is incredibly powerful, and not only does he act like an asshole about this, but his last name even starts with ass. You can't make this **** up. Just look at the guy though:

Julian_Assange_20091117_Copenhagen_1_cropped_to_shoulders.jpg


Don't you just want to beat him with a stick until your arm gets tired, and hand the stick over to the next guy in line?

I do not think highly of hackers nor the people who want to beat them with a stick..
But then secrecy and privacy can also be scary...
This character is just another walkin'/talkin' dude who I know NOTHING about, having read some opinions of those who pretend to know something.
 
Can't call it treason if he is not a US citizen. If he was a US citizen then yeah he would be a traitor for helping other traitors leak classified info,after all it takes two to tango. He is no better than someone who knowingly buys stolen goods. Hopefully that one soldier as well as any other US citizen who leaked info gets charged with treason and executed. I do not think Australia will extradite him to be tried in the US nor give us permission to send a drone to cap his ass so the next best thing is wait until he steps foot outside his country.
 
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Everyone knows that 99 percent of these "secrets" are classified because they're embarrassing, not because they endanger national security. Assange held back 15,000 of the documents and asked the White House to check the rest of them to see whether there was anything that would endanger anyone's life, so the government has no right to criticize him on those grounds.
 
Can't call it treason if he is not a US citizen. If he was a US citizen then yeah he would be a traitor for helping other traitors leak classified info,after all it takes two to tango. He is no better than someone who knowingly buys stolen goods. Hopefully that one soldier as well as any other US citizen who leaked info gets charged with treason and executed. I do not think Australia will extradite him to be tried in the US nor give us permission to send a drone to cap his ass so the next best thing is wait until he steps foot outside his country.

It is nice to know you support killing whistleblowers who in the worse times will be one of our only defenses against a corrupt and authoritarian government, which in essence makes your position more radical than the Chinese commies you despise so much.
 
@spud and Winston: The people that leaked have been found to my understanding. This guy has the power not to leak and leak more documents. When told that he would be compromising contacts with Afghanistan he said that he could care less and sacrifices had to be made.

There are similar whistle blower groups out there that have even tried to covince him to not publish the documents because these are helping the enemy for propaganda and advancement purposes. I really can't believe anyone could say that it's ok this guy is doing this.
 
@spud and Winston: The people that leaked have been found to my understanding. This guy has the power not to leak and leak more documents. When told that he would be compromising contacts with Afghanistan he said that he could care less and sacrifices had to be made.

There are similar whistle blower groups out there that have even tried to covince him to not publish the documents because these are helping the enemy for propaganda and advancement purposes. I really can't believe anyone could say that it's ok this guy is doing this.

I didn't see where he said he didn't care about compromising contacts. Not saying it isn't true, but I'd like to see it.

The fact that something may be good PR for the enemy doesn't make it treason. If it were so, any war protest could be characterized as treason.
 
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Obviously not treason, but if there is a criminal act they can pin on the guy (I am not a prosecutor, but there must be something) then go for it. The leaking of these documents has potentially not only put the lives of soldiers at risk, but also those of Afghan civilians who have aided the effort in the country.
 
Not treason, but the guy is certainly a propagandist asshole. I'll never understand why so many people are so eager to see our security undermined.


Everyone knows that 99 percent of these "secrets" are classified because they're embarrassing, not because they endanger national security.

Do you have anything to support this, or is it just an assumption?
 
I don't think he's trying to undermine our security. He's just trying to help people get informed opinions about the war.

That's a load of garbage. His goal is to get the US to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan by embarrassing the country and painting our actions in the most negative light imaginable. He's a propagandist who doesn't care about the impact of his actions beyond his own goals.


So because Daniel Ellsburg says it, it means it must be true?

Moreover, he engages in some terrible logical reasoning in order to arrive at that point:

I would confidently make the judgment that very little, less than one percent, one percent perhaps, can honestly be said to endanger national security. That’s distinct [from the percentage that could cause] embarrassment—very serious embarrassment, [if people] realize that we are aware of highly murderous and corrupt operations by people and that we are supporting them. It is very seriously embarrassing.

I think a better judgment would be to look over the 260,000 cables and exclude those which on their surface are dangerous. If the choice is between putting none of them out, as the State Department would like, and putting all of them out, I definitely feel our national security would be improved if they were put out.

In the diplomatic and political context, "very serious embarrassment" is directly related to national security. Anything that seriously harms the country's ability to conduct diplomatic operations harms our national security, regardless of how much people like Assange or Ellsburg justify it to themselves.
 
That's a load of garbage. His goal is to get the US to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan by embarrassing the country and painting our actions in the most negative light imaginable. He's a propagandist who doesn't care about the impact of his actions beyond his own goals.

A lot of people want us to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and they have the right to work for that goal. It doesn't make them a threat to national security at all. It just makes them a threat to some people's pet national security policies.

RightinNYC; said:
So because Daniel Ellsburg says it, it means it must be true?

Moreover, he engages in some terrible logical reasoning in order to arrive at that point:



In the diplomatic and political context, "very serious embarrassment" is directly related to national security. Anything that seriously harms the country's ability to conduct diplomatic operations harms our national security, regardless of how much people like Assange or Ellsburg justify it to themselves.

It doesn't harm our ability to conduct diplomatic operations. It could undermine public support for the war, but only because it's telling us something most of the world already knows.
 
A lot of people want us to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and they have the right to work for that goal. It doesn't make them a threat to national security at all. It just makes them a threat to some people's pet national security policies.

Working to get us to withdraw does not make someone a threat to national security.
Doing everything possible to publish classified information in order to harm US aims does make someone a threat to national security.

It doesn't harm our ability to conduct diplomatic operations. It could undermine public support for the war, but only because it's telling us something most of the world already knows.

How on earth does it not harm our ability to conduct diplomatic operations? Secrecy is pretty much the most important part of diplomacy - that's why we have it. If you can't ensure that your communications will remain secret, you can't really communicate.
 
Working to get us to withdraw does not make someone a threat to national security.
Doing everything possible to publish classified information in order to harm US aims does make someone a threat to national security.



How on earth does it not harm our ability to conduct diplomatic operations? Secrecy is pretty much the most important part of diplomacy - that's why we have it. If you can't ensure that your communications will remain secret, you can't really communicate.

I don't see how it harms American aims for us to know we're supporting a corrupt, incompetent regime...unless our specific aim is to keep supporting a corrupt, incompetent regime. If what we're doing embarrasses diplomatic relationships, fine. Let them be embarrassed publicly so they can stop embarrassing us in secret.
 
I don't see how it harms American aims for us to know we're supporting a corrupt, incompetent regime...unless our specific aim is to keep supporting a corrupt, incompetent regime. If what we're doing embarrasses diplomatic relationships, fine. Let them be embarrassed publicly so they can stop embarrassing us in secret.

Do you think it would be a good idea for the government to make all diplomatic communications completely public?
 
Do you think it would be a good idea for the government to make all diplomatic communications completely public?

No. I think they should have agreed to vet these before they were released.
 
To be fair, I dont care if they guy talks about our screw ups or the fact that we may paint our soldiers as modern day rambos when that could be further from the case. my main concern is the information the guy has that can be used by the enemies and the fact that he said he doesnt care that it will be out there.
 
To be fair, I dont care if they guy talks about our screw ups or the fact that we may paint our soldiers as modern day rambos when that could be further from the case. my main concern is the information the guy has that can be used by the enemies and the fact that he said he doesnt care that it will be out there.

If he doesn't care, why did he delay in order to review and hold back 15,000 documents? The fact is that he would have given the White House access to all the documents if they'd wanted them. Instead they made a political decision that the benefit of being able to trash Assange in the media was greater than any damage that might result from releasing the documents unchecked. That should say something about how much of a security risk they really are.
 
It's free speech mate. You either support it or you dont. Which is it?

Well then, this guy reserves the right to do whatever the hell he wants with the information, the best the US can do is punish those who leaked it to him severely and stop taking the piss out of the freedom of information act, like hiding civilian deaths, which is just downright wrong. It serves the US right. On the other hand, the information which will disrupt operations and risk the lives of soldiers will just need to be re-evaluated.
 
Ha I like how you bring up the option "You either like free speech or you don't......even if there is a chance it could **** up **** further in Afghanistan"
 
Ha I like how you bring up the option "You either like free speech or you don't......even if there is a chance it could **** up **** further in Afghanistan"

OK lets crush all dissent and lock up this wikileaks guy until we finish up in Afghanistan.
Free speech has its consequences, you need to know that.
 
Usually leaking sensitive government information does too.
 
Usually leaking sensitive government information does too.

Then there just going to have to change there plans, aren't they?
I dont know why only the top officials do not have exclusive access to this information but something is clearly fundamentally wrong with the security here.
 
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Not treason, but the guy is certainly a propagandist asshole. I'll never understand why so many people are so eager to see our security undermined.

There's your key. Your 'our' doesn't include him. He has nothing invested in US military concerns, nor, as an Australian, should he be expected to have.
 
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