Showing posts with label Wikileaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wikileaks. Show all posts

Thursday, December 30, 2010

A First Sentence for Julian Assange

And no, I'm not talking about his criminal prosecution. Apparently he's suffering from writer's block:
Julian started working on his book today. Anyone have any good suggestions for the first sentence?
Why am I reminded of a Peanuts cartoon (and thus, indirectly, of Edward George Bulwer-Lytton)... "It was a dark and stormy night".

Still, I would like to help out. The first idea that comes to mind,
When it comes to protecting sensitive areas, in both cases more obvious in retrospect, the governments of the world and I have something in common: A need for better prophylactic measures.
No?

Friday, December 10, 2010

Don't You Go Peeking At My Dirty Underwear....

This cartoon by Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press hits on something - how our government will happily ignore the rights and privacy of ordinary citizens, despite having a complete absence of evidence that its new privacy-invasive policies will do anything to improve security, but pretty much blows a gasket when it's our political leaders who might be embarrassed.

I find it interesting that, despite the furor over the Wikileaks disclosures relating to the military's activity in Iraq, the U.S. government did not come down on him full bore, nor did they assign a team of government lawyers to scour the statute books looking for a way to criminally charge Assange, until it was the State Department and, by extension, the political leadership of the nation that was being embarrassed. From a legal perspective, why are leaks of low-level State Department memoranda worse than leaks of military documents and video?

The people making these choices on our behalf are the same individuals who, of course, don't have to go through regular airport security - and whose wealthy supporters don't go through anything approaching a frisk or body scan even when they go to events where the President is present.


How does it feel to be one of the little people?

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Carte Blanche for Assange?

A waggish suggestion for Julian Assange:
If I were Assange right now, I would be out committing every possible crime I could, because who would believe the authorities?

"Assange ran into a Chuck E. Cheese and punched out all the automatons? Shyeah right. Yeah, that timing's not coincidental."

"Assange ran into the Canadian embassy, took off his pants and scooted his butt up and down the carpets like a dog for twenty minutes? What-ever, CIA."

"Assange went into a drive-through twenty times and slapped the guy at the window every time he went through? Try again, CIA, try again."