WikiLeaks Founder Warns About More Dispatches

[bemildred]

I'm not putting this in LBN, but there are some interesting bits.

It occurs to me that if the entire archive was given to NYT, then the government knows what is in it, as in they know what Wikileaks has.


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His threat is not idle, because as of Monday night the group had released fewer than 1,000 of the quarter-million State Department cables it had obtained, reportedly from a low-ranking Army intelligence analyst.

So far, the group has moved cautiously. The whole archive was made available to five news organizations, including The New York Times. But WikiLeaks has posted only a few dozen cables on its own in addition to matching those made public by the news publications. According to the State Department’s count, 1,325 cables, or fewer than 1 percent of the total, have been made public by all parties to date.

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Justice Department prosecutors have been struggling to find a way to indict Mr. Assange since July, when WikiLeaks made public documents on the war in Afghanistan. But while it is clearly illegal for a government official with a security clearance to give a classified document to WikiLeaks, it is far from clear that it is illegal for the organization to make it public.

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Perhaps in a warning shot of sorts, WikiLeaks on Monday released a cable from early last year listing sites around the world — from hydroelectric dams in Canada to vaccine factories in Denmark — that are considered crucial to American national security.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/world/europe/07assange.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[Catherina]

1. I am not sure where the NYT got their cables. Assange didn't give it to them

he hates and distrusts the NYT; he said he'd never trust them again, ever. Allegedly the NYT got it from the Guardian but the Guardian's explanation seemed so flimsy that I got the feeling they were doing the NYT a professional courtesy by covering for them. I think the NYT got their copy of the cables, along with marching orders, from our government. Just a strong suspicion.

Also, Assange had sent the Obama administration all the cables so they could redact names if they wanted. Wikileaks got no response from the Administration.

[bemildred]

2. Maybe.

I'm just saying the government probably already knows exactly what's in the archive. And if we are to believe what we are told, so does the NYT, though as you say they are probably "cooperating". And so do the other papers that got copies. And they are all negotiating about what WE get to know.

[ingac70]

3. NYT got it from The Guardian n/t

[hlthe2b]

5. I read that NYT got theirs from the Guardian, with which he did share

[EFerrari]

4. It almost sounds as if Corporate McPravda is not going to publish

any more.

[sabrina 1]

6. If you have to struggle to indict a publisher, mayby you just don't

have a case.

This sounds like Obama has a team of lawyers, the way Bush did to twist the laws on torture, who are trying to twist the laws on 'espionage'. A ridiculous charge btw, to anyone with a few brain cells functioning.

How disappointing this administration is, and that is putting it mildly.

First we learn that OBama has been protecting Bush's torturers from prosecution, and now we learn he's trying to trump up charges against a news publisher to protect the Bush administration and now perhaps his own.

This is definitely not the change we had in mind. More bullying from the U.S. around the world. It is just heart-breaking to have been so betrayed.