WikiLeaks Founder Gets Support in Rebuking U.S. on Whistle-Blowers(Ellsberg)

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/world/24london.html

Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks Web site, and Daniel Ellsberg, the former Pentagon analyst famed for leaking the Pentagon Papers, lashed out Saturday at the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, particularly Mr. Assange and others believed to be associated with the release of almost 400,000 secret documents on the Iraq war.

Mr. Assange also dismissed what he described as the Pentagon’s deliberately “nonchalant” reaction to his release of the Iraq documents on Friday. He said they “constituted the most comprehensive and detailed account of any war ever to have entered the public record.”

Mr. Assange, speaking at a news conference at a London hotel, was joined by Mr. Ellsberg, 79, who leaked a 1,000-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became known as the Pentagon Papers.

(snip)
Mr. Assange said he would soon be taking his case to the United Nations, but did not say what forum he would use. When asked, an associate of Mr. Assange’s said only that “the U.N. doesn’t mean New York,” suggesting that Mr. Assange might make his case at one of the United Nations agencies in Geneva.

[sabrina 1]

1. I am so glad to see Ellsberg support him.

I hope the public all over the world will do so also. Assange does seem to be supported by a majority of people around the globe. Our warmongering is hardly popular around the globe.

I hope when he goes to the U.N. that he is not alone. The war in Iraq is crime and the U.S. is compounding that crime by covering up for the war criminals.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Getting increasingly hard to reconcile respect for Dr. Ellsberg....

>>>>>>>>>Mr. Ellsberg, who said he had flown overnight from California to attend, described Mr. Assange admiringly as “the most dangerous man in the world” for challenging governments, particularly the United States. He said the WikiLeaks founder had been “pursued across three continents” by Western intelligence services and compared the Obama administration’s threat to prosecute Mr. Assange to his own treatment under President Richard M. Nixon.

Both men hit out at what they described as the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, which Mr. Ellsberg said put the United States on a path to the kind of repressive legal framework that Britain has under its broad Official Secrets Act. He said the criminal investigations under President Obama of three Americans accused of leaking government secrets represented a new low.

The three men he was referring to were Pfc. Bradley Manning, a former military intelligence analyst suspected of providing the documents on Afghanistan and Iraq to WikiLeaks; Thomas Drake, an official with the National Security Agency who was indicted this year; and Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, an F.B.I. linguist who pleaded guilty to leaking five classified documents in late 2009.

Mr. Ellsberg said the Pentagon’s demand that Mr. Assange “return” any classified materials in his possession was carefully couched in language similar to that used in the aftermath of the Pentagon Papers release, when he was threatened with criminal prosecution for espionage. “Secrecy,” Mr. Ellsberg said, “is essential to empire.”>>>>>>>>

.... with respect for the foreign policy of this administration.

Something's gotta give.

[Bitwit1234]

3. And when they lose the election I am really afraid

they will really get more and more violent. Look at what they did to Tom Daschele and Dan Rather and the Democratic newspaper editor. You can not tell me that some right wing nutso republican didn't send that anthrax. They wanted to KILL Democrats.

[Pavulon]

6. Assange is not an American and not in the US, he falls into the category of Diem or Gerry bull(nt)

[tavalon]

4. A long twisted road to the Hague for the Bush administration

Unfortunately, some of ours have blood on their hands too.

[Pavulon]

5. Will never happen and he is only dumping documents because we are not china or russia

people dropping dead from polonium at the hands of the CIA does not happen. KGB (or whats left of them) bet on it.

This makes it to next friday providing nothing crashes or blows up before then..

[tavalon]

7. You've said similar things before

I'm quite hoping you are wrong. It's been a long two years having to watch the Bush administration walking free, thumbing their war criminal noses at the world. Even if it probably won't happen, I want justice and occasionally I even dare to hope for it.