Bright enough to be running circles around you since July. :D

didn't you say how derelect you were? U done.

Done? I haven't even gotten started, sport.

I laughed. thanx sport.

Guys!!!!

Aye, that was the gist ;) All the power to them, like they say, you don't mess with Texas :03:

Oh good.

Kill teams not withstanding and back to topic, I think it is pretty clear that very little will happen to Assange, despite a whole lot of tough talk from a whole lot of sources. Reasons and motives for this will be varied, but the end result will be quite mild relative to the amount of information leaked.

Unfortunate things.

He knows how to play the game, and he's got quite a few other players with him. Wikileaks is not one man.

Absolutely, and I think that is finally dawning on many of the powers that be. For good or ill, the genie is out of the bottle.

The latest from the Guardian feed:

Damn, I somehow missed this awesome article yesterday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ive-with-leaks

To steal a movie line: I think this guy just became my personal hero.

I know that this has been said by people before in this thread, and I know that we are going around in circles here, but it seems pretty clear-cut to me that there are two wrongs here. The US government is clearly decieving the American people, and at the same time Assange's acts amount to international espionage, albeit without the sanction of a sovereign government. This is where the clear-cut ends with me, as I am conflicted over which I am more outraged: The theft and dissemination of sensitive information, or the blatent deception by the US government contained within the documents.

I'm rather more disquieted by the reactions to this than its contents, a lot of it is, as some have said, things that we, the public, have suspected all along but the governments have not had the face to tell us, things like Afghanistan being an unwinnable quagmire, the Kharzai government being corrupt, although there have been some new and surprising statements, like the Arab alliance against Iran.

Obviously, this is going to have a knock-on effect, and it is having a knock-on effect, some diplomats are a bit more wary about dealing with the US now, and yes, it is a direct attack aimed at the US, because you'll note that wikileaks so far has leaked primarily US related documents, however whether this is because their primary source is American, or whether it is a hint towards the intentions of the people behind wikileaks. After all, there is a significant amount of dislike against America, as there is against any leading global superpower that has flexed its political, military and economic muscles, half the world hated the UK at one point, so it's the price you pay for the top slot.

However, there is a valid point as to whether Assange is a valid target, after all, he is the equivalent of a newspaper or news blogger which has had information given to them and who does not have any ties to the government. It is true free journalism, after all, if most UK newspapers got first dibs on this kind of information without any other sources appearing on the net or such, then they would go running to the government to ask them if it's alright to publish it, otherwise the government could give them severe trouble. On the internet, there is no such ties, no allegiances, wikileaks can release whatever it wants and there is nothing any government could do to stop them, it's like Anonymous, one could classify them as a terrorist organisation, but there's nothing that can be done to stop them unless you wish to turn the internet into a vision of 1984 which there has been a danger of being done for some time.

So, like the headline of the Guardian article says, You either have to live and adapt to the world of the internet, or shut the internet down.

It's not just the US government that's being exposed by this. I know you guys feel targeted, but these leaks actually expose many governments of illegal activities and lies (including mine).

Also, as has been stated many times by various lawyers, it is certainly not clear whether Assange's actions amount to espionage. The only people saying they do are politicians, not lawyers.