Of course, when Larry Klayman's column is read, most people will undoubtedly say, "That can't happen here." With all of the things going on that Larry discusses in this column, will you still be able to say, "what is there to worry about?"
And, we all know the reaction that the progressives had about the Tea Party movement. Tea partiers were criticized and called derogatory names by the leftists, with claims that tea partiers were potential domestic terrorists. Why all the leftists' lies about the tea party movement? Could it be because they are concerned that the "tipping point" could be reached soon with all of their tyrannical and socialist agenda being passed, like ObamaCare? Of the various signs of dark times to come that you will read about in this column, do you know if any of them will push this country over the edge and spark a violent revolt? Will you be prepared if it happens?
President Ronald Reagan used to say that the scariest words in the English language are: "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Two hundred or so years earlier, our Founding Fathers had essentially the same thoughts when they declared independence from the British Crown based on its refusal to take into account the grievances of the colonies and its peoples, and instead attempted to beat them into submission.
Today, as we observe the holidays and ready ourselves for a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the New Year, in the face of continued control of the Senate and White House by the Democrats and President Barack Obama, these words and thoughts ring louder than ever. Never before in the history of our sacred nation has the "State of the Union" been worse and indeed more hostile to the needs of the American people. And both Democrats and Republicans are responsible!
I have written in earlier columns that I sincerely believe that we have entered a new revolutionary period in American history. With each passing day, I become more convinced of it. And, regrettably, I believe that we are only a year of so from violent revolt if things do not radically change "on a dime."
Here are the signs of the violent revolution to come:
First, the economy continues in a tailspin, with unemployment increasing. Families do not have the financial means, even assuming they are able to bring home a salary, to pay for their children's higher education, buy a new car, much less put good wholesome food on the dinner table. Couple this with glacial growth in the economy, our dependence on foreign capital to keep the nation afloat and the continued real-estate crisis and the picture is more than bleak. And God forbid we have another large terrorist attack or an oil field or two in the Middle East blows up – the entire world economy could easily go down for the count. People get real upset when they do not have money; plain and simple. Just ask any employer who has missed or is late on a pay period for his employees. He or she is lucky not to be lynched. Our government has not only missed several pay periods, it is taxing the populace into submission and wasting these revenues on projects and graft that return nothing but more hardship.
I hope I won't get sued by Ann Coulter for excerpting several parts of her column. After all, she is an attorney. (Oh, wait, maybe I could claim that I am a journalist...) But anyway, Ann's column has so much good information in it, sharing it with you will hopefully provide some understanding as to what can be done about Julian Assange, (that is, if Eric Holder ever gets off his hind end), and why the 1st Amendment really is a non-issue in this case. Ann will explain why that is, and why being a "journalist" doesn't give a person immunity from the laws of the land.
First of all, I feel so much more confident that the TSA's nude photos of airline passengers will never be released now that I know the government couldn't even prevent half a million classified national security documents from being posted on WikiLeaks.
President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder will be getting around to WikiLeaks' proprietor, Julian Assange, just as soon as they figure out which law the New Black Panthers might have violated by standing outside a polling place with billy clubs.
These legal eagles are either giving the press a lot of disinformation about the WikiLeaks investigation or they are a couple Elmer Fudds who can't find their own butts without a map.
Since Holder apparently wasn't watching Fox News a few weeks ago, I'll repeat myself and save the taxpayers the cost of Holder's legal assistants having to pore through the federal criminal statutes starting with the A's.
Among the criminal laws apparently broken by Assange is 18 U.S.C. 793(e), which provides:
"Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, (etc. etc.) relating to the national defense, ... (which) the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates (etc. etc) the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same (etc) ...
"Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
As is evident, merely being in unauthorized possession of classified national security documents that could be used to harm this country and publishing those documents constitutes a felony.
There's no exception for albinos with webpages – or "journalists." Journalists are people, too!
And now, skipping down to the end of the column:
If Assange had unauthorized possession of any national defense document that he had reason to believe could be used to injure the United States, and he willfully communicated that to any person not entitled to receive it, Assange committed a felony, and it wouldn't matter if he were Lois Lane, my favorite reporter.
As I have noted previously, the only part of the criminal law that doesn't apply to reporters is the death penalty, at least since 2002, when the Supreme Court decided in Atkins v. Virginia that it's "cruel and unusual punishment" to execute the retarded.
Also, journalists can slander people at will. That ought to make them happy.
There are left-leaning people in the Media, Phil explains, that are calling Julian Assange and the "hacktivists" some kind of crusaders for free speech, as he wrote below:
The wide-eyed adoration of criminals and agitators by left-wing pundits and "journalists" around the world should not surprise us. Such left-wing socio-political functionaries adore anything that repudiates American exceptionalism or otherwise diminishes American power and influence. This is why, predictably, a host of left-leaning public figures – Michael Moore included – are so quick to hold up Assange as some kind of crusader for free speech ... rather than the simple agent of espionage he is by definition.
In reality, however, as Phil concludes, Assange is nothing but a terrorist, and his supporters are terrorist sympathizers.
In last week's Technocracy, I wrote about the WikiLeaks controversy. More specifically, I wrote about the ways intimidation of a website owner's support and infrastructure services – services paid for by the website in question – can silence or impede the expression of free speech. I made no real attempt to evaluate the activities of WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange, except to say that I consider Mr. Assange little better than a terrorist. Most of Mr. Assange's difficulties have, to this point, revolved around issues that were anything but an evaluation of whether he has committed a crime.
Recent news has made it easier to characterize WikiLeaks and Assange politically and socially. It has also underscored, starkly, the real war we fight in contemporary society. We fight this war regardless of our knowledge of it. We win or lose this war despite the widespread ignorance of it that often characterizes our governments, our allies and our citizenry.
In the summer of 2009, I first wrote of this war in "Why we need cyber-warriors now." In that column, I spoke of a "proxy war" even now "taking place behind the veil of modern technology." I will repeat now what I said then: Every minute of the day, external foes are mounting assaults on American infrastructure, civilian American assets and American military targets. Those enemies do this through the virtual world. Their foot soldiers are an army of disparate computer hackers, ranging from state-sponsored operatives to ordinary people in almost every nation on the planet:
The problems don't stop with the hostile governments of emerging military and technological threats like China. According to Popsci.com, it isn't just China's government that is attacking our cyber-infrastructure. It's also hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians. ... The FBI can do little to prosecute hackers in foreign countries, least of all hostile nations like China (whose government turns a blind eye to simple copyright infringements, must less wholesale cyber war). The hackers are also becoming harder to monitor and track through conventional means.
The problem is that "hackers" are no longer "hackers." Slowly, popular culture is perverting the image of the Internet criminal, transforming him or her into a noble figure of free speech, dissent and speaking truth to power. This imagery is fiction, if for no other reason than it is not now, nor has it ever been, a noble act of freedom of expression to harass, silence or harm commercially an entity whose lawful activity you dislike. Yet this is precisely what has happened – and "hackers" are now "hacktivists," presumed by wretched propagandists like Michael Moore to be committing acts of "patriotism" rather than propagating wanton electronic vandalism, fraud, intimidation and theft.
In her column this week, Barbara brings up the arrest of Julian Assange of WikiLeaks for alleged sex-crimes in Sweden, and how the door is still open for charges from the United States, though it would probably for espionage, rather than Treason as she mentioned in her column last week. However, the key word in this column is anarchy. As you will read in the excerpted portion below, Barbara mentions this about the similarities between Assange and the violence in London:
Both can bring down the establishment – which is exactly the point of anarchy. And it's exactly the goal of Julian Assange.
Hey, whether they get Julian Assange for treason or espionage, either crime can carry the death penalty, and Assange could still "face the ultimate punishment."
There are many who consider Wikileaks "the knight in shining armor," riding in on a white horse to save the world from the evils of modern civilization, politics as usual, government, politicians, big business, profits, capitalism, democracy and freedom.
So whether or not Assange faces other charges, he's opened the door to hackers worldwide who consider themselves saviors of the world from the evil corruption of life as usual.
On the other hand, some might call it anarchy.
That would be an apt description.
The only difference between the chaos caused by WikiLeaks' document dumps of classified documents and the violence in London by the so-called students allegedly protesting higher tuition is that the Brits are actually destroying and burning property.
Both involve destruction; it's just a matter of degree and type. Both can bring down the establishment – which is exactly the point of anarchy. And it's exactly the goal of Julian Assange. He knows what he's doing and has no intention of stopping because he's so narcissistic that he knows he's right.
But there's that little issue of espionage, and, like it or not, it appears that the U.S. Justice Department is about to pursue such charges against him. The Espionage Act would apply because such release of documents has put the security of the United States and all Americans at great risk. That he is an Australian citizen has nothing to do with it. Assange would have to stop the document release and return documents to the government. If he were to destroy them, he could face the death penalty.
While young hackers see themselves as heroes, they're playing with the very security of the free world. Julian Assange has unleashed a whirlwind of disaster in which the ultimate outcome isn't known. He needs to be charged and face the ultimate punishment.
Just in case you haven't yet, you need to read the two columns I have listed just below under RELATED COLUMNS. One of the things written by Klayman in the previous column, "WikiLeaks has done the world a service", is very relevant to this column and also the column by Diana West, which I will quote here:
And if Assange and WikiLeaks, who serve as media watchdogs in effect, are silenced by the "mullah in chief" Barack Hussein Obama, Czarina Hillary Clinton and the rest of their sympathetic establishment political hacks, who is next; Fox News?
And then, in this piece, Larry Klayman brings up the possibility that this is the beginning of something that chills me to the bone, given what Glenn Beck had discussed on his radio show yesterday (Dec. 10) morning:
While I prayed that it would not get to this, it is clear that we are already in the early stages of an eventual full-scale revolution. Will the government establishment pull back, start acting in the interests of ordinary Americans rather than just itself, and avert this potential disaster? While that is the question of the day, I am not hopeful from what I have seen recently from both political parties.
In watching Fox News in the last two days, I saw what Larry may have been seeing recently, which is a lot of what Glenn Beck had been discussing on that show I mentioned above. The following video is from several segments that was on Fox News on Thursday, Dec. 9:
This week marked a milestone in our nation's history – and the American people smell a rat. "Washington, D.C.," is not only rotten to the core, it is now clear to all that the government establishment wants to destroy us. The revolution has finally begun.
Last week's column was about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, the media watchdogs who released on the Internet over 250,000 pages of allegedly classified State Department documents exposing the rank deceit, corruption and stupidity in our foreign-policy establishment. Despite condemnation of Assange by even political commentators on the right – one incredibly calling for his assassination – conservative, libertarians and all of the other readers of my column responded in unison, agreeing that I am "right"; WikiLeaks did the world a service, and government threats to prosecute Assange are not only just another example of the establishment not liking to be exposed in the light of day but are also abhorrent.
However, the threats by Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Hussein Obama, himself, were just Round 1. This week, on what are likely to turn out to be trumped-up charges that Assange engaged in "unprotected sex" with two women who just happened to wander into his bed (no, this is regrettably not a Hollywood comedy), the Obama administration put Interpol up to arresting Assange in Great Britain – where he had been hiding – using Swedish law as the vehicle. He was taken into custody not because there was "probable cause" that he had committed any crime or even civil offense, but because he would not agree to questioning – which under American law, at least, he did not have to do thanks to our "Fifth Amendment" right against self incrimination. So the Obama administration put up British authorities to use Swedish law to arrest Assange using as a pretext his refusal to incriminate himself, since our legal system will not allow for this.
It is getting to feel a lot like Christmas, with Julian Assange being the Santa Claus bringing us the gift that won't stop giving. Diana writes:
WikiLeaks is exposing the way our government conducts "business." It is not a pretty process.
It seems that the released documents on WikiLeaks is telling us more about our government than Uncle Sam really wants us to know about. While WikiLeaks is damaging to our national security, and putting our troops deployed in the "overseas contingency" battlegrounds in danger, is an effort to shut down Julian Assange and his website, WikiLeaks, possibly more harmful to our freedom? Is it really that "dangerous" for U.S. citizens to know what our government has been doing in the name of "diplomacy"?
Then came WikiLeaks, Internet publisher of leaked information, prompting the question: What is more important – the information theft that potentially harms government power, or the knowledge contained therein that might salvage our national destiny?
Whether such information was originally "classified," the body politic should be electrified by the fact, as revealed by the leaked cables, that nations from Pakistan to Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia are regularly discussed as black holes of infinite corruption into which American money gushes, either through foreign aid or oil revenue, and unstaunched and unstaunchable sources of terror or terror-financing. If this were to get out – and guess what, it did – the foreign policy of at least the past two administrations, Democrat and Republican alike, would be unmasked as a colossal failure.
And maybe that's what behind the acute distress over WikiLeaks. Last week, I put it down to political embarrassment; this week, a new, more disturbing factor has emerged. The state power structure, the establishment more or less, believes itself to be threatened. Its fearful response has been quite startling. First, there were calls for WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange's execution; these have simmered down to calls for trial. Amazon and PayPal cut off service to the WikiLeaks website. Then, in a twist or kink perhaps beyond even Orwell's ken, Assange was arrested without bond this week on an Interpol warrant over very fishy-sounding charges about "unprotected" sex in Sweden – a country, we may now ironically note, of draconian laws governing sexual intercourse and no laws whatsoever governing violent Islamic no-go zones.
Things went completely "1984"-ish when the federal government weighed in, actually warning federal employees not to read the WikiLeaks materials – still "classified," after all. Creepier still, the Library of Congress followed suit, voluntarily blocking the WikiLeaks site from library computers. Now, universities are warning students not to post public comments about WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter – lest Big Brother takes note and holds a federal employment grudge.
Suddenly, it's not about secret information anymore, or diplomatic relations. It's about control. The atmosphere chills.
Phil writes about a subject that many people have had to deal with already. In fact, many of my conservative friends had been booted off such sites as digg.com one or more times for writing things that had "offended" somebody. Even I was suspended one time from digg.com, but was reinstated quickly for the fact that the person who complained about me had probably blatantly lied to digg.com's complaint department. But I had to write to the complaint department to ask why I was suspended. My theory was that it was a case where digg.com would suspend users first, and ask questions (investigate complaints) later, only when the suspended user requested it.
So, based on my own personal experience, I can assure you that Phil's point he makes in this column is completely valid. It can happen to just about anybody. It doesn't always take writing something that is considered highly controversial or that would offend the majority of people. It could just be that somebody doesn't like your opinion. That's not freedom of speech! And even though it doesn't mean that jackbooted thugs are going to come kick down your door, arrest you, and throw you in a gulag for what you write, it is still just as dangerous to our freedom of speech.
As a freelance writer, I publish articles on a variety of topics, including exposé pieces on noteworthy individuals' political and trade-specific claims. One such individual, angered by my truthful article, filed a complaint – not with my lawyer or with me, but with my Web hosting company. That company's legal team initially seemed inclined to dismiss the complaint as without merit – until they received four more complaints, simultaneously, in nearly identical language. My critic had solicited complaint letters from every registered member of my blog's feedback section, misrepresenting my website as a "hate site" and suggesting to my contacts that they complain to my host's legal department.
Overnight, I was forced to remove the "offending" material – which, in some cases, contained individual words the offended party didn't like – or face the termination of my account and the loss of my website. To lose years of work over something so foolish, without even the opportunity to present my case or defend myself, was disheartening. It also taught me a valuable lesson. Online, free speech isn't about the truth or about what you can back up. It is, instead, about whom you can threaten and whether you can bully them into folding.
Arguably malevolent front-page "news" organizations like WikiLeaks have learned this lesson. Individual conservative journalists like me have learned this lesson. You, too, must understand it. You have no true freedom of speech online. To fight for the truth is harder now than it ever was. The technology that gives us a voice and helps us reach an audience is itself vulnerable to lies, subject to intimidation and only as strong as the frightened legal functionaries whose job it is to protect your online services from imagined liability. Those people and those companies do not exist to protect you, nor do they care if you are in the right. They want only to stay out of trouble and to remain free of controversy.
That is the truth, even if no one wants to hear it.
The oil light is on, and the Democrats still don't seem to have a clue.
As Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and others have stated, Washington still does not get it. The Democrats still do not get it. They did not hear the very loud message of the election results. Stop ignoring the people!
It was a good analogy by Herman Cain to explain how you can know that you have some severe problems to deal with, but yet, your priorities have nothing to do with taking care of the problems facing this country. It seems that the Democrats are only happy when they do things to try to satisfy their leftist base. That is not good for the rest of us.
My first car as a teenager was an old car with a lot of problems, but at least it was functional. It had an oil leak, and I could not afford to get the leak fixed. It was cheaper for me to add oil occasionally to prevent the engine from totally locking up, or worse yet, catching fire.
The president, his administration and Congress are functionally leaking oil, and the American people are nervous about a total government shutdown, or worse yet, economic collapse. We are not too big to fail as some people seem to believe, and Uncle Sam does not have a "sugar daddy" to bail us out.
Leaking of classified information by WikiLeaks has compromised our national security, and has put our military warriors in and out of uniform at risk. We have yet to see definitive action by the administration to address the issue, even though we have seen and heard a lot of news stories that make us uncertain that the situation is under control.
Economic uncertainty continues to thwart economic growth while Congress and the administration continue to bicker over extending the existing tax rates. Extending all of the tax rates is the right thing to do for the economy, instead of playing class warfare once again to try to gain a political victory.
If Congress and the president do not act, then we will all see tax increases on Jan. 1, 2011. This would be a devastating blow to our economy. A sense of urgency by Washington does not seem to be a priority, as if they have the option to extend the 2010 calendar year. Thankfully, they do not.
You surely will have no doubt where Barbara stands on the issue of what to do with Julian Assange after you've read this column! In another column that I posted just before this one, WorldNetDaily.com reported that Julian Assange may have been selling classified documents. To whom, we do not know - yet - but that story definitely reinforces Barbara's argument that Julian Assange and Pfc. Bradley Manning should be tried for TREASON, and if found guilty, face a firing squad as traitors.
RELATED STORY: WikiLeaks sold classified intel, claims website's co-founder
UPDATE:
Watch the following video starting at 4:38. It supports Barbara's contention that "We've got to show some guts and stop being intimidated my international slime and homegrown cowardice and sleaze.":
Not fearing the guy with a laptop and $35 website is REALLY cheap spin
WikiLeaks. It sounds like a new video game – aimed at prepubescent males.
It sounds like a rip-off of Wikipedia – an Internet, do it yourself, history of everything, but without verification.
WikiLeaks isn't any of that. It's the intentional release online of hundreds of thousands of highly classified government and military documents.
The name is a play on words – but it's neither a game nor a joke.
The release of those secret documents has worldwide security ramifications. Government informants are in danger, sources of information are lost, the enemy knows many of our plans and intentions and diplomats have seen their most private comments and assessments splashed across front pages.
While some regard the document dumps as merely spitting in the eye of the United States government, diplomacy and the military, what Julian Assange has done through his now notorious website is betray the United States, our State Department, military and our allies across the world.
The most recent documents posted contained personal comments among world leaders about each other, many of which were catty and personally demeaning. Others revealed information and contacts between diplomats never intended to be public. Some were innocuous; others were critical.
What WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have done is treason, and that also applies to American Pfc. Bradley Manning who stole documents and provided them to Assange. He clearly sold out the military, our country and our allies.
A breaking story yesterday (Sunday, 12/05/10) on WorldNetDaily.com is sure to shake things up in the way WikiLeaks and Julian Assange will be covered by the news media and what the various pundits will have to say about Assange's motives for what he is doing to America and the diplomatic world.
Asked specifically whether he was charging WikiLeaks with selling classified information and documents, Young replied, "Yes."
Klein then asked, "When you were at WikiLeaks initially, was your impression they were trying to sell information?"
Young responded, "Well, it only came up in the topic of raising $5 million the first year. That was the first red flag that I heard about. I thought that they were actually a public interest group up until then, but as soon as I heard that, I know that they were a criminal organization."
One of the early members and co-founders of the tight-knit, secretive WikiLeaks operation charged today that the website and its co-founder, Julian Assange, sold intelligence information the site had obtained.
John Young
John Young, whose name was listed as the public face of WikiLeaks in the site's original domain registration, also alleged that the website is a lucrative business.
Young said he left the site in 2007 due to concerns over its finances and that WikiLeaks was engaged in the selling of documents.
Young was speaking today to WND senior reporter Aaron Klein on Klein's radio program on New York's WABC Radio.
"I think it is a money-making operation, no doubt," Young said of WikiLeaks.
"It follows the model of a number of other business intelligence operations. Selling intelligence information is a very lucrative field, and so they are following that model, usually cloaked in some kind of public benefit," he told Klein.
"But they are far from being the only one that does that," Young added. "It's a well-known business model.
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