On dealing with the leaky Wiki

Bill Keller, who appears to be the Executive Editor of the New York Times (and they call him Bill?--how the Gray Lady has changed!), is peddling an e-book about his semi-coup in obtaining the Wikileaks information dump for the NYT. You can read the gist of it in the magazine section this Sunday or online now.

It does not seem to occur to Mr Keller that Julian Assange's motive in dumping this stuff was to damage the standing of the United States in the world. (Or perhaps it does, and that suits Mr Keller just fine. What the hey? It's not his end of the boat that's leaking!) Even more despicable is the way that the Gray Lady, the Guardian, and Wikileaks have imperiled the lives and freedom of people around the world who trusted in the security of their dealings with the United States. Perhaps they'd like to see all those Afghan interpreters kidnapped and murdered. But what about Morgan Tsvangirai, the duly elected prime minister of Zimbabwe, who is likely to be tried and executed for treason because of Mr Assange, Mr Keller, and their various collaborators? Mr Assange dismisses such tragedies as "collateral damage." How does the New York Times justify them? Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Um, yes!

From the Australian newspaper:

Bjorn Hurtig, Mr Assange's Swedish lawyer, said he would lodge a formal complaint to the authorities and ask them to investigate how such sensitive police material leaked into the public domain. "It is with great concern that I hear about this because it puts Julian and his defence in a bad position," he told a colleague.

"I do not like the idea that Julian may be forced into a trial in the media. And I feel especially concerned that he will be presented with the evidence in his own language for the first time when reading the newspaper. I do not know who has given these documents to the media, but the purpose can only be one thing - trying to make Julian look bad."

So it goes in the world of Leaky Wikis. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

What goes around, comes around...

In an exquisite piece of retributive justice, London's Guardian newspaper has published the Swedish prosecutor's case against Julian Assange, the Leaky Wiki man who is now on mansion arrest in England. The report was--get ready for it!--leaked to the newspaper. And--funnier and funnier--Mr Assange, through his attorney, is calling for an investigation of the leak! Perhaps he and the U.S. State Department could save money by putting their cases in the hands of a single lawyer. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Making a list of who's naughty and nice

Julian Assange goes back into court today (right about now, in fact) to ask for release on bail of £200,000. This would enable him to spend Christmas in a nice English country home, albeit with an electronic bracelet, though in fact he would doubtless be heading for France in a fishing smack, like a latter-day Scarlet Pimpernel. Lots of luck extraditing him from France, where both sexual misconduct and espionage are considered more in the nature of parlor tricks than high crimes.

Meanwhile the U.S. seems to be scrambling for evidence sufficient to indict Mr. Assange for espionage, since it would be easier to extradite him from Britain than from Sweden for a couple of reasons. MSNBC has enlisted a panel of "experts" to assess the Leaky Wiki's odds if the U.S. does manage to lay hands on him, and the assessment is rather gloomy for Mr. Assange and his supporters.

Of course this all depends on whether he can be extradited. One of the obstacles, if he goes to Sweden to answer the charges of rape and molestation, is a rather funny one: Britain would only be loaning him to Sweden! He apparently can't be sent from there to the U.S. without British approval. (The other reason is more mundane: Britain has a fast-track extradition agreement with the U.S.; Sweden does not.) Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Information wants to be free!

And by golly we'll shut down the webite of any organization that thinks otherwise! Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

The WikiLeaker

I confess to a bit of schadenfreude in the case of Julian Assange, refused bail in London while he fights extradition to Sweden on charges of rape and molestation. Of course his fanboys will see the evil hand of the CIA behind all this. One could only hope! It's pleasant to think of Sweden, determinedly neutral for nearly two hundred years, suddenly revealed as a sleeper cell of the CIA!

It's tempting to think of Mr. Assange as another Osama bin Laden, bent on destroying the United States. In truth he more resembles  Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who sent letter bombs to people in order to draw attention to his crackpot ideas. Mr. Assange sends document bombs, again to draw attention to his crackpot notion about the Conspiracy that is America's place in the world. No doubt he will make our lives less comfortable, just as bin Laden and Kaczynski did--or if not less comfortable, then less efficient. (The Unabomber is the reason you must take a package to the post office if it weighs more than thirteen ounces, rather than leave it in your mailbox for the carrier, if the package has stamps on it.) Diplomats will be less honest than they already are; they'll miss more opportunities than they presently do. More static, more fog. It's hard to imagine, however, that a diplomatic corps forced to do business on the telephone is such a disaster as to threaten the nation's security.

In the meantime, Mr. Assange, enjoy your Christmas holiday in London Gaol. Do they have internet access? Blue skies! -- Dan Ford