[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by goldorak

It is not a textbook case of espionnage. First of all Assange personally didn't spy on the american government. He was not the one downloading the secret cables from sirpnet and burning them on his personal cds.
Secondly, it was Manning that spied (or stole pick the term that best suits the situation) on the government and then giving the cables to wikileak. He did that out of sense of justice as he himself said (He could just as easily have given them to the Washington Post or the New York Times or the LA Times etc...). He was not employed, or payed by wikileaks to provide that information so how can you possibily come to the conclusion that Assange has spied on the US government is simply mind boggling.

If you think so, then according to your definition it doesn't matter the organization, Wikileaks, Medecins sans Frontiere, Greenpeace, Newspapers, etc... anytime they are given "secrets" to publicly display they are in effect spying on the government. You are making them responsabile for a third party deeds.
Believe it or not its a very slippery slope that will bring you closer to a fascist state.
You're getting there more rapidly that you can imagine. Just take a look at the TSA.

Americans are like little kids, as Skybird justly wrote. Your idealism trumps everything. Your country has never had to deal with poltical diversity (and no democrats and republicans are more or less the same). Political diversity means having a comunist party, it means having a green party, it means having a whole range of political expression and that spectrum being represented at the government level. You simply don't have this plurality in the US, and you are the poorer for it. As a country you need to grow up, and shed a little bit of that idealism that is being used continously against you (the civil society) right now by your government. If you don't do something your praised constitution will be nothing but mere words on a sheet of paper. Ignored by everyone that counts.

Wikileaks has not been condemed, and according to the Rule of Law only the courts can determine wether Wikileaks has done something illegal. Seeing as Corporations such as Visa/Mastercard, Amazon, Paypal are taking arbitrarily the law in their own hands (under pressure from the executive branch of the US government) just shows that the US doens't want a critical free thinking press. You're right there with the kinds of Saudi Arabia, Quatar, Iran, Syria and a host of other nations.

Think about it, the next time you want to organise a meeting to defend the rights of journalists in oppressed regimes.

This little kid asks that you read post No. 140 before donning your boxing gloves, please.