A lot of his questions are easy to answer. But the main thing is that Assange knowingly received and released intellectual property that did not belong to him. He was a co-conspirator with the one who stole it. Not a first amendment issue, period. Once its published, and the newspapers reprint it, that is totally different.

Do the people deserve to know the truth? As much as possible without compromising security, yes. But that does not get Assange off the hook and it does not mean the Govt can’t go after him.

Hopefully this whole thing will be a lesson to everyone involved.

And BTW, the Iraq war was not based on a lie, it was based on bad intelligence. Lies are willful. Ron Paul is starting to sound like the liberal talking points instead of a libertarian.

Joe, wrong. To start off with, you can’t just rip apart someone’s post line by line and expect to get the full meaning of it all. The media does it all the time and gets it horribly wrong most of the time.

Since we are doing that, here’s one for you;

Knowingly received it? are you claiming that he knew the leak before it was leaked to him? Despite what you seem to believe, there is no current law against receiving classified documents.

Actually, there is a law against it. Check the Espionage Act of 1917:

? 798. Disclosure of classified information

(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or
(4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes?
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

If you would like to read it yourself: Cornell – Espionage Act

Wikipedia: Wikipedia – Espionage Act

Now having posted that, there are problems with this. Yes, WL distributed it. However, if you read paragraph 3, (i haven’t read the documents myself) my understanding is that this does NOT apply since they are not about the communication intelligence itself, but more about communications between people. I see “communication intelligence” as either spies or simply covert agents or practices thereof. Since WL did not post something to the effect of “Bob is a spy”, and they did not get the information by doing the act of “spying”, this does not apply.

I can’t say I am happy they came out, but it does not surprise me in the least about them. We Americans have known for a long time our government is corrupt, when we vote, we are given a small choice of who the elected officials can be. Yes we can write-in who we want, but as a vast majority of voters will only vote for whoever is on the ticket already, it’s kind of a moot point to do so. I usually pick the lesser of the “two” evils, or three as the case may be.

Yes, I am American. I cannot say I am happy with our government on many topics. But that is what makes our country great..or at least it is supposed to when it works. We are supposed to be able to express our opinions freely.

Peronsally, I think WL should have given the classified docs to the government and published the non-classified ones, but that’s me.

Sadly, Ron Paul makes a very simple error in his approach.

While Assange did not steal the documents, he was part of a conspiracy to steal and publish them. Conspiracy doesn’t require that everyone knows what everyone else is doing, only that they are working to a common goal. The person who actually copied / downloaded the documents would not have done so without an outlet for them. Mr Assange assured him of an outlet, and agreed to certain restrictions on their use. So his point #6 goes up in flames.

His other points are also very political, in the “have you stopped beating your wife yet?” vein. Example is #1. Yes, the American people deserve to know the truth. However, there is a fair balance between total disclosure and safety in the field. The government has to err on the side of caution, to avoid risking the people in the field. It would also be important to note that much of what has been released has come from the Bush Era, when Mr Paul’s party was ruling the roost. That is something else the self-righteous types tend to ignore.

His questions 5 and 8 are also loaded. There is no way to know the direct effects of Wikileaks actions, as people die in the field and it is hard to know who to attribute those deaths. Those deaths may not conveniently all come on the same day either, making it hard to figure out. If the US has troops in the field, in foreign countries, in combat action, then #8 is moot. It may not be “war” as in “world war”, but the troops are in action.

Mr Paul is a grandstander, a windbag. He only ever shows up where there is a chance to make some glory points, and not because he is going to change anything. Another useless politician worried more about his public posturing than his actual actions.

I wonder what it would look like if all of the text of all of his meetings, all of his phone call, and all of those of his staff came out? I am pretty sure he wouldn’t enjoy that at all.

While Assange did not steal the documents, he was part of a conspiracy to steal and publish them. Conspiracy doesn’t require that everyone knows what everyone else is doing, only that they are working to a common goal. The person who actually copied / downloaded the documents would not have done so without an outlet for them. Mr Assange assured him of an outlet, and agreed to certain restrictions on their use. So his point #6 goes up in flames.

What BS, here is conspiracy: (Blacks law dictionary)

An agreement between two or more persons to engage jointly in an unlawful or criminal act, or an act that is innocent in itself but becomes unlawful when done by the combination of actors.

You will have to show a direct agreement between Assange and the military private that ripped off the information, with the intent to do the crime before the theft of information took place. Also Assange is not on USA territory nor a citizen of the USA, and having a web site is not illegal.

People emailed or send Assange information that he willing reposted—that is not a conspiracy but rather Assange is acting as a reporter.

Government has to realize that with the net ?every one? becomes a reporter. Just as I am reporting to you the definition of conspiracy.

Do you think ABC would be hauled into court for reporting and reprinting information of Obama?s actions from an inside source? Hell no. Major New outlets are open to the public and advertise— ?send us your news stories? just as Assange did. That is not even close to being a conspiracy.

Obama and Hilary utterly failed to run a tight ship, now they are caught with their pants down and trying to do damage control. These political sluts love back room deals, then lie to the public how great they are doing as they fall on their face.

They have the person that ripped off the information in the first place, that did the actual crime, he is more than likely dead by now, he tripped and fell in his jail cell and died of a heart attack or chocked to death eating a French fry.

Thomas Paine said, all governments are evil, and when they go bad they are an abomination. You bet, shine a little light in the room and see what kind of roaches scamper for the shadows. But of course we knew that, Assange just proved it—AGAIN!

If Hilary really loved the USA, she would do the right thing and resign.

You want to know who the bad people are—-look for those that want to shut up Assange, as he did nothing wrong but report the facts and that is a hell-of-a lot better than the NYTs.

Don