WikiLeaks

[tw]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Guantanamo. Secret Prisons. Extraordinary rendition. Patriot Act. Suspending Habeas Corpus. Abu Ghriad. Do any of these extremist approved actions form a pattern?

800 imprisoned in Guantanamo. Well over 600 were innocent. Sorry? Nope. They did not even get an apology. Extremism says that was (and is) acceptable. Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition either. Which continued into the 20th Century. No problem. We made the world safe for god – and his Patriots.

[TheMercenary]

[quote=OnyxCougar;711364 What happened to innocent until proven guilty?[/QUOTE]

That's not how it works in the military. He knew what he signed up for when he signed his paperwork to gain the security clearance. The documents are clear and the punishments are spelled out on paper. He would not be there if they did not have a rock solid case. Whistle Blower Acts do not apply.

[classicman]

Sorry Onyx - thats more or less just a myth created to keep the sheep in line...
This is totally different though, This is a military issue. They play by another set of rules than the rest of the population.

Oh and your linky - http://www.commondreams.org/about-us ...
We publish breaking news from a progressive perspective.

Yeh not that I don't think its wrong that he is in solitary, because I do, but me thinks that site it spinning things a bit as well.

[Uday]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

That's not how it works in the military. He knew what he signed up for when he signed his paperwork to gain the security clearance. The documents are clear and the punishments are spelled out on paper. He would not be there if they did not have a rock solid case. Whistle Blower Acts do not apply.

So no trial for Manning? He is just to rot in the cell forever?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Uday

So no trial for Manning? He is just to rot in the cell forever?

Oh no. He will get a military trial called a General Court-Martial. When they have concluded their investigation.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Uday

So no trial for Manning? He is just to rot in the cell forever?

The real criminals are the fools who decided to put all these secrets available to the most trusted one half million people. Without any way to monitor who was accessing what and why. Well, this was the George Jr administration. The same administration that decided White House lawyers must rewrite all science papers.

Anyone of one half million people could access anything they wanted on that database. In responsible organizations, a person accessing secrets without good reason was investigated. But those half million were clearly right wing conservatives - therefore could be trusted.

Therein lies the person(s) who should be prosecuted for exercising power without sufficient intelligence. But that means again, the battle of moderates verses extremists. The problem will be ignored. Extremists line up to defend their people rather than advance the nation.

Stupidity apparently is not limited there. Consistent rumors suggest that in the 2000, the Chinese obtained plans for all of America's nuclear weapons. While hyping myths of an invented Al Qaeda under everyone's bed, they ignored basic cyber security. Even drove out of office Richard Clark who was warning of that problem.

The real criminals simply said one half million people can be trusted with those secrets. No questions asked.

[TheMercenary]

Charges come to the surface. Manning may not see the light of day. Thank God.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030205207.html

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by tw

Guantanamo. Secret Prisons. Extraordinary rendition. Patriot Act. Suspending Habeas Corpus. Abu Ghriad. Do any of these extremist approved actions form a pattern?

Yeah. A pattern of winning a war with people who will never negotiate a settlement. If we're not practicing a war of extermination of this mindset, we are altogether stupid.

800 imprisoned in Guantanamo. Well over 600 were innocent. Sorry? Nope. They did not even get an apology.

Just who apologizes for taking POW's, that being de facto who's in Gitmo. Those who demand an apology for this want humanity to lose to violent, inhuman extremists. Tw, that is you, and that is why you out-suck a black hole, you non-musical pig who cannot sing.

Extremism says that was (and is) acceptable. Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition either.

Irrelevancy piled upon fascist sympathy. No wonder you are still single.

[monster]

WikiLeaks has no Osama Been Leaded pictures? FAIL

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

Stating you think someone should be killed, and actually plotting such a thing, are two very different things. Stating it is protected under the 1st Amendment. Not a hate crime. See Westboro Baptist Church as an example. Or the KKK. Sorry. Hate is ugly, but it's the other side of the free speech coin.

From:http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/freedom1.html

(There is a greater discussion of these issues at the link.

Exceptions established by the courts to the First Amendment protections include the following:

Defamation | Causing panic | Fighting words | Incitement to crime | Sedition | Obscenity
(1) Defamation: Defamation consists of a publication of a statement of alleged fact which is false and which harms the reputation of another person.
(1) Our right to freedom of expression is restricted when our expressions (whether a spoken slander or written libel) cause harm to the reputation of another person. The courts recognize that words can hurt us, for example, by harming our ability to earn a living (economic harm).

This exception to freedom of expression can be difficult to apply in practice. Defamation requires an allegation of a fact which is in fact false. In contrast, the expression of an opinion is not considered defamation.


(2) Causing panic: The classic example of speech which is not protected by the First Amendment, because it causes panic, is falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. (2) This is narrowly limited to situations in which a reasonable person would know that it was very likely that his or her speech would really cause harm to others. We can imagine works of art which might cause real panic among the audience, perhaps a contemporary version of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, which caused considerable panic when it first aired on the radio, and in turn was based on H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds.

(3) Fighting words: In the famous case of Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not protect "fighting words -- those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace." (315 U.S. 568, 572 [1942]) This famous exception is much discussed in recent decades, but rarely the basis for a decision upholding an abridgement of free speech.

This exception warrants scrutiny. Note that the harm involved is physical harm caused by someone else who was provoked by the speaker whose speech is being suppressed. The fact that someone else flies into a rage and causes physical harm results in justifying suppression of speech by another person!


(4) Incitement to crime: It is a crime to incite someone else to commit a crime, and such speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

If a budding rap group proposes to perform a work which includes the exhortation to "kill whitie" or "kill the cops" or "rape the babe," could that be incitement to a crime? Such records have been sold by commercial organizations, of course, yet there are no reported arrests of those artists or record companies for incitement to a crime. Should such rap lyrics be considered incitement to crime or is the causal relationship to any actual murders or rapes too tenuous?


(5) Sedition: Although not without controversy, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld statutes which prohibit the advocacy of unlawful conduct against the government or the violent overthrow of the government. As with prohibitions discussed earlier, the expressions in question are assessed according to the circumstances. Academic discussion of the theories of, say, Karl Marx presumably would not be prohibited under such a test, especially in this post-Soviet era. The theoretical consideration and even endorsement of these views could not remotely be considered to be reasonable expectations of the actual overthrow of the government. But it is possible that an artist might develop a project, perhaps guerrilla theater or an exhibit, that urged the destruction of the United States (the "Great Satan") by extremist religious groups. The likelihood of success by the latter group would seem as improbable as the likelihood of success by contemporary Marxists.


(6) Obscenity: In Miller v. California (413 U.S. 14 [1973]) the U.S. Supreme Court established a three-pronged test for obscenity prohibitions which would not violate the First Amendment:

(a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Although much debated, this standard remains the law of the land, and elements of this language have been included in both the authorizing legislation for the National Endowment for the Arts (20 U.S.C. 951 et seq.) and the Communications Decency Act (4) prohibiting "obscenity" and "indecency" on the Internet. The Communications Decency Act was struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 1997. The NEA legislation was been struck down as unconstitutional by lower courts but was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1998. (NEA v. Finley, No. 97-371, 1998)
One controversy over this exception to free speech is whether obscenity causes real harm sufficient to justify suppression of free speech. Does viewing obscenity make it more likely that a man will later commit rape, or other acts of violence against women, obviously real harm to another person? Does reading about war make it more likely that someone will start a war? Even if there is some evidence of such causal relationships, however tenuous or strong, is it sufficient to justify this exception to free speech? Alternatively, could the prohibition on obscenity be a reflection of moral values and societal standards which should more properly be handled in the private sector through moral education, not government censorship?

Another problem area is determining what counts as "obscenity". In Miller, the court tried to fashion a standard which could be adapted to different communities, so that what counts as obscenity in rural Mississippi might not count as obscenity in Atlanta or New York City. Is this fair? Do the people in those areas themselves agree on community standards? What is the "community" for art that is displayed on-line on the Internet?

Another controversy in the Miller standard is the exception for "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value." Who decides what counts as "serious"? If some people consider Penthouse or the National Enquirer to be serious literature, is it elitist to deny them this exception from censorship as "obscenity"? Given the controversies in contemporary art (found objects, performance art, and so forth), what counts as artistic value? Has the Court solved the problem of defining "obscenity" or only made it more complicated?

[Lamplighter]

Christian Science Monitor
James Bosworth
8/17/12

Assange asylum case ripples through Latin America

Ecuador's decision to grant asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
could have an impact on extradition cases throughout Latin America.

Ecuador has called for every acronym in the hemisphere (OAS, UNASUR, ALBA, UN, etc.)
to hold immediate meetings regarding the Julian Assange asylum case and the issue of its embassy in the UK.

Leaving aside the specifics of that case for a moment, one of the secondary consequences
of this event is that it could bring up questions about a whole host of other recent
high profile political asylum, embassy refuge, and extradition cases around the hemisphere
that have occasionally impacted bilateral relations.

[Several cases around the world are listed]<snip>

In every instance, you'll hear, "But this case is different because...."
Yes, yes, every asylum case is different. Yet, there are similarities.
In every case, one side claims there have been various crimes committed
that must be prosecuted while the other claims political persecution.
Balancing justice for crimes against potential abuse of power by governments is tough.
Sure, we all think we know it when we see it when it comes to asylum cases,
but many people disagree about the cases listed above and others.

[xoxoxoBruce]

.

[Lamplighter]

It's announced today that Pvt Bradley Manning is...

Guilty of 17 separate charges, Not Guilty of 2, and plead Guilty to 3.

The Biggy... Aiding the Enemy (maximum sentence: Life): NOT GUILTY

An Army judge finds Pfc. Bradley Manning not guilty of
aiding the enemy by disclosing secret U.S. government documents.

Military prosecutors had argued that the largest leak in U.S. history
had assisted al-Qaeda. But the judge, Col. Denise Lind, found Manning
guilty of most of the other charges.

The Washington Post has posted a breakdown of all the charges and the verdicts HERE.

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

It's announced today that Pvt Bradley Manning is...

... The Biggy... Aiding the Enemy (maximum sentence: Life): NOT GUILTY

An Army judge finds Pfc. Bradley Manning not guilty of
aiding the enemy by disclosing secret U.S. government documents.

...was found not guilty. That does not mean, say, or imply he is innocent.

... In a real world, not guilty does not mean innocent. ...

... Not guilty does not and never meant innocent. ...

[Lamplighter]

...was found not guilty. That does not mean, say, or imply he is innocent.

... In a real world, not guilty does not mean innocent. ...

... Not guilty does not and never meant innocent. ...

S,...
I don't think that quote mine, or in the link I posted.
But you've made it look as though it is.

Where does that quote come from ?