You know what's really sad? I met a programmer the other day who works in a related field, and he categorically states he never wants to meet or correspond with Jake. He couldn't deal with the level of harassment that Jake is getting.<p>And it is straight up harassment.
WTF is an Army officer doing intergating an American civilian at the airport? They have no jurisdiction or authority off base. Military activity in a civilian context should sacre the shit out of everyone.
I highly recommend the film "Trumbo", about the Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted for refusing to say whether or not he was, or ever had been, a member of the communist party.<p>It is extremely relevant to all of this discussion, including the question of whether one should sacrifice the wellbeing and safety of one's family in order to promote a cause that's somewhat secondary to them.<p>Lots of people lied under oath, or turned other people in in order to protect their families, because they didn't want to "risk it". But Trumbo and several others stood up for their right to free speech and paid dearly for it.
It's simply disgusting, how the government can simply harass people without bringing any cases against them, preventing them from defending themselves.
Deterring future whistleblowers (as mentioned below) is why the Bradley Manning has essentially become a political prisoner who is being held in solitary confinement. It is why, as the article mentions, the DOJ issued a subpoena to Twitter for the personal info of 600,000 supporters. Fear. Fear is why Rep. Peter King talks about "labeling" WikiLeaks a "foreign terrorist organization".<p>This article made me angry, but also sad, as I believe if we allow the government (in many cases we already have) to use tools like the Patriot Act as a kind of umbrella document to provide cover to go after normal American citizens - academia, free-speech advocates, journalists, hackers working on Tor - we allow an extremely dangerous precedent to be set that will likely lead to all kinds of future abuses of civil rights of people who simply want things like transparency in government. (I mean the real kind, not the kind you promise to implement when you are running for office).<p>Anyway, Glen Greenwald gave an excellent talk on WikiLeaks and Why They Matter (55:00 minutes mark of video) He speaks eloquently on this very issue. <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/09/wikileaks/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/09...</a>
I'm flying back through Texas in a few hours from Serbia.<p>I wonder if this article or any of the others will change the way that Customs and the rest of the Federal Government treat me?<p>I'm guessing "no" - care to take any bets?
"Land of the free , home of the brave" but the government prefer to defend freedom of speech in other countries not in USA. It's the same song in almost all the western countries, we talk about democracy and human rights , but we support dictatorships all over the world, and forget about rights when we want.
This sounds like the sort of harassment that would happen to people in dodgy countries with poor human rights records. And the truth is, America isn't a democracy under the rule of law, it's a nasty vicious oligarchy that denies human rights to its citizens while hypocritically lecturing other countries on those rights.
This is likely to be unpopular. Here goes.<p>Is it possible that Jacob is calling others "cowardly" because he wants to prove how brave he is?<p>Taking a leadership role in a movement of moral prescience is at once commendable, laudable but also dangerous, onerous. I really appreciate what Jacob is doing by putting his face to the Wikileaks organization. It is something that I personally would not want to do.<p>Wikileaks' stated goal is to "...be of assistance to people of all regions who wish to reveal unethical behaviour in their governments and corporations." In this, Jacob is succeeding. He is assuredly revealing this behavior through personal sacrifice. Part one is complete. Rejoice. Step two will be about knowledge. Now it is up to supporters of this cause to spread that information as far and as wide as possible. We've already seen the power of knowledge in this first quarter of 2011. A reality that wikileaks, twitter, the internet and the freedom of information has wrought.<p>Instead of spreading this message, Jacob seems to sprinkle a bit of guilt and self aggrandizing. Maybe I am speaking out of turn because the only interaction with Jacob I have is seen in here in this thread. However, let's take a step back from our Jacob- and self-imposed guilt and execute the next stage.<p>Edit: By all means we should empathize with Jacob and try to understand his sacrifice. We do not, however, all have to be martyrs in order to be Good(tm).
<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/pfcmanning/" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/site/pfcmanning/</a><p>An open letter to President Obama on retaliation against whistleblowers.
And this is why I just won't visit the USA anymore.<p>Don't get me wrong, I love the principles your country was founded upon, but somehow you turned into testicle grabbing sociopaths.
Interesting side note:<p>Did you know the law or precedent being cited that allows customs to seize computers, cell phones, etc can be circumvented by just fed-ex'ing the device across the border?<p>Now tell me, if I know this than why cannot a suspect of illegal activities such as a Mobster, credit card phisher, etc do it? They already do it folks..
What does the US Government gain by doing this? It's not obvious to me that the deterring of similar opinions being voiced really outweight the current and future negative publicity.<p>It would be interesting to hear inside stories about what kind of conversations are going on on how to best handle Wikileaks. Perhaps via Wikileaks itself?<p>Also, I'm very grateful that people like ioerror exists. Stay strong and best of luck.
Julian Assange urges people to take a "scientific" approach to media reports, and to ask to see the primary documents. Well, allow me to be "scientific" with regards to all these reports about Jacob Appelbaum's customs&border issues right now: has Appelbaum ever published his correspondence with the DHS? His FOIA requests? Denial letters he has received from government agencies, the DHS, the TSA, CBP, ICE? The answer is no, no and no. There is no way to verify "scientifically" any of his statements. All we have are Appelbaum's claims on Twitter that "I was told by the G-man that Obama himself has a problem with me"... seriously, how can someone who claims to be a hacker believe such a statement, straight from the mouth of a government goon, cos hey, we all know the G-men never ever lie or exaggerate in order to intimidate, right? Still, no documentation whatsoever, no correspondence between Appelbaum and the DHS. Again, think what you will about Obama allegedly having a personal problem with Appelbaum, this is just not adding up for me.
How many reading this article, and are disgusted by these clearly unconstitutional actions, are still living in the USA? How many of you are paying taxes to the very government that is using this money to fund this harassment, among other illegal activities?<p>You're providing material support to a terrorist organization! (presuming some number of harassed people are terrorized by the harassment.)<p>What are you doing to compensate for this material support? Are you going to stop it, withdraw your support? Or are you going to expend energy to compensate for the aiding these oppressors?<p>This is a rhetorical question. I've my own answer, and I hope you have yours.
If you haven't seen this: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9xrO2Ch4Co" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9xrO2Ch4Co</a><p>Its a great docu about wikileaks.
I haven't heard a decent argument on how Wikileaks <i>isn't</i> a terrorist organization, and why the principal members aren't enemy combatants.<p>The scattershot releases show that the goal is to hurt the US, not to affect change. There was real legitimate news in the releases so far- hidden in mounds of classified information that had no news value beyond exposing sources, risking lives, and slinging mud at the State Department.<p>There's HUGE value in an organization like Wikileaks, as shown in Tunisia.<p>Wikileaks itself, though, has shown that it is blatantly anti-American, risking the lives of our allies and sources. I really, really hope that one of the splinter groups takes off, with a bit more respect for the human cost of these kind of releases.