Pentagon Manhunt - DoD Trying To Locate Wikileaks Founder

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/must-read/pentagon-manhunt

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June 12th, 2010 11:35 AM

Pentagon Manhunt

By Philip Shenon / Daily Beast

(This story has been updated to reflect new developments on Assange's whereabouts, including the cancelation of a scheduled appearance in Las Vegas.)

Pentagon investigators are trying to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security, government officials tell The Daily Beast.
The officials acknowledge that even if they found the website founder, Julian Assange, it is not clear what they could do to block publication of the cables on Wikileaks, which is nominally based on a server in Sweden and bills itself as a champion of whistleblowers.

American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait.

And given the contents of the cables, the feds have good reason to be concerned.

As The Daily Beast reported June 8, Manning, while posted in Iraq, apparently had special access to cables prepared by diplomats and State Department officials throughout the Middle East, regarding the workings of Arab governments and their leaders, according to an American diplomat. The cables, which date back over several years, went out over interagency computer networks available to the Army and contained information related to American diplomatic and intelligence efforts in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, the diplomat said.

American officials would not discuss the methods being used to find Assange, nor would they say if they had information to suggest where he is now. "We'd like to know where he is; we'd like his cooperation in this," one U.S. official said of Assange.

- snip -

Wikileaks has not replied directly to email messages from The Daily Beast. However, in cryptic messages he sent this week via Twitter, Wikileaks referred to an earlier Daily Beast article on the investigation of Manning and said that it “looks like we’re about to be attacked by everything the U.S. has.”

- snip -

This morning, a new Wikileaks tweet went out: "Any signs of unacceptable behavior by the Pentagon or its agents towards this press will be viewed dimly."

American officials were unwilling to say what would happen if Assange is tracked down, although they suggested they would have many more legal options available to them if he were still somewhere in the United States.

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Democracies that fear their citizens are the democracies that function the best. I for one support those who would shine the light of truth on whatever actions are being committed in our name.



Q3JR4.

Neither our government nor our Corporate Masters fear the masses. Why should they?

We outnumber them. There are 350 million people in the U.S.A., take away a percentage for those in the military and police forces and imagine the number of people that are left.

I'd agree that most of us are too stupid to see what's in front of us, but if it ever came to it and we started to really see the man behind the curtain, I don't think they could stop us.

Q3JR4.

but somehow I bet they catch this guy. Funny how that works out.

Everyone just forgot about Osama Bin Laden. Even Fox forgot about him. I remember a comedian who had just turned 50 saying he wished someone would have sent OBL's name to AARP as he was convinced they could find anyone once they turned 50.

I hope they don't catch this guy. I don't see how the Pentagon has the right to go after a reporter especially since he isn't even a U.S. citizen.

Bad for business.

Now that it is perfectly 'okay' to assassinate 'people of interest' I wonder if they will just snuff him out now and feel okay about it.

Especially when he was doing your bidding all along. Wrap your mind around that one. (Osama, not Julian)

Assange is not stupid. He has diversified and seeded the information he has and the government knows it. Killing Assange will trigger exactly what they don't want. And not killing Assange will still trigger what they don't want.

Yes, they can. They actually have been doing it all along but they've gotten the executive order now. President Bush is an amazingly ballsy President and he's taking liberties with our liberties as well as wiping his ass with our Constitution.


(Just so I don't get 10 replies stating that I wrote President Bush instead of President Obama, just think about it for a minute. Let it marinate)

Obama is a "constitutional scholar". This couldn't be happening on his watch.

but he still seems to be using it as expensive toilet paper, just like his predecessor.

that all of that studying was looking for loopholes. (apologies to Mort Sahl)

NCIS? LOL

First Ammendment? Don't think so.

If the CIA is after him, he's already dead. They wouldn't advertise this way. Yeah, Assange is a big thorn in their side but this little bit reeks.

...for human consumption.

They think they can define who Assange is and what he's got. Our government
is just the good guys, trying to prevent state secrets from being released. Which,
of course, would jeapordize national security and the safety of all US citizens.

They've got to define Assange as the evildoer, and themselves as the good
guys.

We have an non-American individual who has ill-gotten classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security and some don't want him caught? Why would you want to protect someone like this? I would seem to me that we should all want this guy caught, post haste. Is there something you guys know that I don't?

And committing illegal and unconstitutional acts, and classifying things that don't need to be classified.

as far as I know wikileaks isn't in the business of simply publishing classified info for the sake of it. They do it for a purpose.

Godspeed and stay safe!

Should be the FBI doing the hunting, but then they'd have to swear out for a warrant.

I believe that there should be transparency in nearly everything, with the exception of information that could hurt our national security; for example, something like, information regarding the identies and whereabouts of intelligence officers, etc.

How do we know for sure that this is isn't actually sensitive information that can affect national security? Do we know what's in these docs?

There was nothing of national intelligence value on the video of the helicopter pilot blowing up children in the van which cam to help the Reuters journalist whch the pilot had just killed(for no reason). They only classified it to keep from being embarassed. Killing inocent people should be prosecuted but since it our military we cover it up. God Bless America??? Doubtful when we act like this.

With hundreds posting, "no I'm Julian" etc.,

What do DU'ers think of this idea.

notion. Maybe sometime when more people will be awake & see it.

Let's wait and see, shall we, to find out what is really going on before we go off half-cocked and just assume this guy is another Daniel Ellsburg. Believe me, I don't trust our government any more than some of you but I also don't assume everything they say is automatically a lie.

They are the ones who tell us not to look behind the curtain and just believe us be cause we said so. that's who "THEY" are. This guy wants to wait and see what they say? Please! It's so predictable what "THEY" are going to say his remark is actually insulting.

Have they looked for Wikipants in Gitmo yet?

Sheehan was a reporter at the New York Times to whom Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, just as Julian Assange is the person reporting the leaked information.

Manhunt(and kill) the people shining a light on their operations...but don't bring down companies like BP and Haliburton.

exposing it. Yup, sounds very "democratic" to me.

they don't want people finding out what we are really up to in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else for that matter.

Hissyspit's blog - I'm wondering if data that involves other (repeat - other) leaders and their countries is fair game. It's a first thought. I know I can't judge before the release, if it comes. We shouldn't place any personal stuff out there about other leaders. Intelligence gathering the way its been done by us from Hoover to the mafia to cia/dia/state dept to Atwater/Rove/Stone types is down and filthy personal stuff.

If possible, I would prefer that only our own take the hit if it involves personal stuff.

If it's at a level of military and economic and not personal, it could be different.

If it explains some of the massacres we have led and thefts of our country, its people, and our rights, then I can't protest.

If it involves the corporations even knowing they are multi-national at the level and the ways they are the governing us and all our governmental departments - it should be exposed.