U.S. officials deny they are urging technical takedown of WikiLeaks

[avaistheone1]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) -- U.S. officials at the Pentagon and State Department denied Friday knowing of any efforts to take down the WikiLeaks website or asking companies to do so.

The site's efforts to publish 250,000 diplomatic cables has been hampered by denial-of-service attacks, ejection from its server host and cancellation of its name by its American domain name provider. Each time WikiLeaks has worked out other arrangements to bring the site back online.

In written answers to readers' questions posted on the website of the British newspaper The Guardian, WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange alleged "abusive elements of the United States government" were behind the site's technical problems.

A State Department spokesman disputed that the U.S. government was involved.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/03/wikileaks.takedown/

---

Yeah right.

[bemildred]

1. Typical non-denial denial.

"Gosh, we don't know anything about that!" (Hint: that would be classified, so we would be breaking the law if we told you anyway.)

[saigon68]

9. Nothing to see here

[EFerrari]

16. The spokesman is PJ so it's probably an outright lie.

"I am not aware of any conversations by the United States government with either any internet host here or any government over there at this point," said spokesman P.J. Crowley.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kelvin Mace]

2. I never believe anyting

until it has been officially denied.

[EFerrari]

17. It's sort of sad to see the number of people in this administration lining up

to lie to the public. This guy Crowley, Gregg Morrell in the Pentagon, Gibbs, Clinton.

And lest anyone think I'm exaggerating, Crowley famously said the Iraqis had command and control of Iraq so if we sent prisoners to them for torture, it wasn't our fault. Morrell was the one that said Scahill's story about Special Forces in Pakistan was "conspiratorial", and of course, Clinton said that Wikileaks is not exposing wrongdoing. Gibbs said he doesn't know why anyone listens to Julian Assange.

It's painful to watch any more. I wish they would just be quiet.

[Uncle Joe]

3. Yep, it's probably the Haitians.

Thanks for the thread, avaisthehone

[frylock]

4. i can't to read that they were after the next document dump

[pnwmom]

5. Even if they were behind this, they would have the right.

If your emails were being printed on the Internet without your permission, you'd be trying to stop it.

The Assange idea that every conversation, every letter, every email that a public person is connected with must be open to the public is nonsense.

[No Elephants]

8. No, they don't have the right. The info is now widely publicized. Besides,

now public info that government generated is not analogous to the emails of a private citizen.

In any event, even "if" they are behind it, they have no right to lie about being behind it.

[pnwmom]

20. Doesn't matter how "widely publicized" it has been. They still

have right to prevent further dissemination.

And the government has every right to keep its confidential information out of the hands of its enemies. There's no way to make every cable accessible to every US citizen without also making them accessible to those who wish to do us harm. This is one reason why we elect representatives to carry out governmental business. If we don't trust what they're doing, we can vote them out of office.

And we don't know that they're lying. Although it wouldn't bother me a bit if they were.

[Downwinder]

26. So, when are they going to attack The Guardian or NYT?

[EFerrari]

18. No. Hacking is not legal. Furthermore, it's an attack on the media.

Did you cheer when the Chinese did it, too?

[pnwmom]

21. LOL. Assange is a hacker himself. He cut his eye-teeth on hacking

and no one here was complaining about that.

If the US govt. wants to hack the hackers, that's fine with me. The Chinese wasn't attacking hackers; they were attacking Google and other servers.

[EFerrari]

22. Um, Assange's background is well known.

And hacking is still ILLEGAL when your government does it. And yes, just as your government is attacking Wikileaks now, the Chinese was attacking the media.

It's amazing what kind of pretzels people will contort into to defend illegal government behavior. Simply amazing.

[pnwmom]

23. What US law would our government be breaking if they were

(and we don't know they are) doing something to attack the Swiss server that is being used by Wikileaks? Wikileaks, an organization founded by a self-proclaimed anarchist who is trying to attack the U.S. and other democracies?

Since you capitalized the word ILLEGAL I assume you have some law in mind.

[EFerrari]

25. Since when is it legal for our government to attack private citizens

or businesses?

You have GOT to be kidding.

And how is Wikileaks "attacking" the United States by revealing that your government protects torturers and military coups and has sent troops into Pakistan?

There are people here that I assume would still be defending illegal acts by the government out of the windows of the trains hauling them off to detention camps. Simply amazing.

[Pavulon]

27. Since we exploded people all over pakistan and killed the president of south vietnam.

dont be childish.

[mbperrin]

30. I pay them, I pay for their emails, I pay for the consequences of their

actions. I have very right to see what my taxes have bought and paid for. There are no "private" conversations when you're on the public dole.

Hell, even private employers warn that anything employees put on their company email belongs to the company, and the senders/receivers have no expectation of privacy.

Yes, I do have the right. Perhaps these words will refresh your memory:

"to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"


Those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These murdering, lying bastards work for me, and I have every right to know everything they do in my name and using my money.


Otherwise, the national anthem might as well start with "Bahhh, baaahhh, bahhh, bahh, baah, baaaah."

[NeoConsSuck]

6. This is the greatest line of BS:

The Pentagon's top spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said earlier this week that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates does not want to use the Pentagon's online resources to go after WikiLeaks because the impact of the documents being published is not severe enough to warrant it.
---------------------

You have American politicians calling for the execution of Assange, government employees being warned they'll be fired if they browse to Wikileaks, and this douchebag Gates expects us to believe his line of shit.

[No Elephants]

7. I take those U.S. officials at their word.

:rofl:

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Sigh. That's the problem wiith getting caught with a whopper of secrets

Nobody will believe you from that point on.

[tavalon]

11. Liars

[tavalon]

12. nonsense

"I am not aware of any conversations by the United States government with either any internet host here or any government over there at this point," said spokesman P.J. Crowley.

[drm604]

13. Isn't Joe Lieberman part of the U.S. government?

A State Department spokesman disputed that the U.S. government was involved.

[rug]

14. The internal memos behind this lie shall be leaked promptly.

[Odin2005]

15. everything the government says should be assumed to be a lie.

[NutmegYankee]

24. Everything?

U.S. Government: Global Warming Is Real, Serious http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/06/16/u-s-government-global-warming-is-real-serious/

Whew, Thanks. I was getting concerned about that.

[sarcasmo]

19. More like Bank of America urging the government to destroy Wikileaks.

[panzerfaust]

28. But ... But ... if what our Gov says is the Great Danger from WL - then why are they NOT??

Rather than punish people for having published the leaks, perhaps it would be better to punish those whose actions are what make the leaks embarrassing?

Right.

[Bragi]

31. There you go. Case closed. /nt

[defendandprotect]

32. k/r