The path to Tyranny

Ah, may I remind you that the person who stole the secret data was an American committing treason by exposing state department secrets to the world.  The wiki folks assisted with that treason.  If we can get our hands on them they will be arrested and jailed for a very long time.  People can not just go and steal secret government stuff and publish it.  It is terrible.  It is a terrible thing.  Nothing good will come from it - only bad.

I've been finding it almost hilariously absurd the cries of "off with his (Assange's) head!" coming from various officials and media pundits, as Gonzalo Lira pointed out in this latest article.  When a sovereign power like Russia or China makes off with sensitive information the authorities generally focus on capturing the actual spy (if possible) and preventing future occurences, but you don't see them threatening legal action against those governments.  They generally recognize "hey, we f***ed up, this particular cat is out of the bag, and we just have to deal with the fallout and tighten up the leak and make sure it doesn't happen again".  But with wikileaks.... the level of whining we are seeing from US officials and media about this is beyond description.  "Something has to be done!" they shout.  Um, yeah, you charge the individual(s) who actually did the stealing or unauthorized disclosure and you review and fix/mitigate whatever weaknesses in your security infrastructure allowed this to happen.  You don't throw a hissy fit and without any legal basis pursue the end recipient like a criminal merely because they are inconvenient.  If you listen to some of them they essentially say "well this has to be against the law somehow, isn't it?", like they just haven't looked hard enough yet and simply being a huge pain in the ass must be a crime in and of itself.  Doesn't necessarily mean that the pains in the ass (wikileaks) have the moral high ground, but two wrongs don't make a right either.  McCarthyism does seem an appropriate comparison to all this nonsense.

I'm sure though they'll make all their punitive actions kosher by making a new unconstitutional law or, perhaps more likely, just officially slap the terrorist label on them.  The latter saves them time from having to think up legal excuses for imprisonment. 

(dang, am I even old enough to be this cynical? feh...)

- Nickbert

Late breaking news, Julian Assange to escape tonight...

ASSANGE TO ESCAPE FROM POLICE AT THE TOP OF SOME STAIRS

POLICE today said they expected Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to attempt an escape, probably at the top of a long flight of stairs.

Always the best place to start escaping

Following Mr Assange's arrest, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson confirmed there would be nothing they could do if he broke free but then accidentally tripped and hit every step on the way down.

Stephenson said Mr Assange would be held for questioning at a central London police station but due to a problem with the central heating they would have to keep moving him between floors.

He added: "Unfortunately the lifts are going to be broken the entire time he is custody."

He said: "I wish Mr Assange was not going to break his neck later this afternoon, but there is nothing my officers can do to stop him.

"They will shout something like 'hey you' or 'stop escaping' but he will be too quick for them.

"Also he will have forgotten to tie his shoelaces."

Sir Paul dismissed claims that the arrest was political but admitted international warrants were controversial and that it would have been more efficient to use the British system of pretending Mr Assange is a Brazilian electrician.

Meanwhile governments across the world were celebrating Mr Assange's arrest and imminent escape, stressing that history proves if you focus all your efforts on stopping one man then the thing you don't like will just go away.