Wikileaks Must Be Stopped

"Is there significant support amongst the intelligentsia for nixing laws like the Espionage Act and Official Secrets Act that the government and military rely on?"

It's not that there is widespread support for nixing those laws, but since the US government has been using those laws rather broadly (most notably during the invasion of Iraq), I'd say there is support for revising those laws.

Laws that protect secrets are a sort of Schrödinger's cat, though, in that in order to decide if they are a secret, you have to know the secret. So all government declared secrets are both secrets and non-secrets at the same time.

It will be a long time before the Iraq invasion documents are declassified, far too long from now to consider it ammo for those that want a more transparent government.

I'm not defending Wikileaks nor their supporters necessarily, but I would guess that this is the link of thinking with exposing (some of) these documents. For some documents, clearly they are exposing things just to provoke people and draw media attention, for which they have been insanely successful.

Commentary is really scary for his lack of understanding of the actual law that could be applied to this (whether or not you agree with what was done, there's a difference between that and what's legal/what's not). For a great breakdown of whether or not its legal, see http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/26/pentagon-papers-ii-on-wi...

>1) Wikileaks is really pissing people off

This is because what they're doing is effective. Ineffective things don't piss people off and trigger military disinfo campaigns. The author of the WPO blog article is an AEI member, a player in the neocon agenda: not some random pundit.

>2) Assange has more power than many 3-star generals

I'm fine with that. Assange isn't killing people. 3-star generals are.

>3) Anarchy is not the same as openness... Governments can't function without secrets

Government can function with much less secrecy than it currently does. WL is serving a public need in challenging a growing regime of secrecy that blossomed under Bush and that Obama has failed to reign in.

>4) If Assange wants to play this game, he should think long and hard about where it's going to lead him... If he would rather have millions of little secrets offline and out of sight, that's what we're going to get.

Opsec has a cost. The more expensive it is to keep the secrets needed to maintain questionable military practices, the less chance these practices will continue.

>There's a certain amount of cocky self-promoting asshole about Assange. As much as I want the maximum amount of liberty, freedom, and openness, this isn't the way to make it happen.

I'll take a self-promoter over a murderer any day.

"Its reason for existence is to obtain classified national security information and disseminate it as widely as possible -- including to the United States' enemies."

That is _not_ their stated goal. They aim to expose and distribute material of interest to the public, not national security information in general.

"These actions are likely a violation of the Espionage Act, and they arguably constitute material support for terrorism."

Yes, 'likely' and 'arguably'. Except that it's difficult to see how the Espionage Act applies to a group outside of the US. Also material support for terrorism actually means supplying _materials_ i.e. money, weaponry or physical goods. Which they obviously are not doing.

"On Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told ABC News that Assange had a "moral culpability" for the harm he has caused."

Oh please. This is coming from people who have been involved in the direction of military actions that have needlessly killed civilians. They don't have the moral high-ground here. Additionally; I'd like to see this harm quantified in some way. Thus far there has been much talk about damage, but no evidence.

I'm all for holding people to account, but these kinds of statements seem like FUD to me.

"Assange is a non-U.S. citizen operating outside the territory of the United States. This means the government has a wide range of options for dealing with him. It can employ not only law enforcement but also intelligence and military assets to bring Assange to justice..."

Well firstly, lets establish what law he has broken shall we? That is a rather extreme option, with it's own set of complications.

This article is full of lots of tough talk, but blithely ignores the complications of international law and dipolmacy. It also fails to ask one simple question; does the Obama Admin. see it in their best interests to arrest Assange?

    U.S. government and military, who have a track record of
    keeping horrifying, god-awful secrets regarding their own
    misconduct.

This is true. However Assande and Wikileaks have put over a hundred peoples lives directly in danger through their leaks as well as potentially thousands more. Which effectively puts them all the way on the other end of the spectrum. Your saying that putting 100's of peoples lives at risk in the interest of shining a light on Government secrets is acceptable. Are you sure that's what you mean to say?

Theres nothing wrong with pointing out that one way is just as bad as the status quo. Telling people they can't object without proposing a solution won't change the fact that your solution is still wrong.