Surprisingly
enough, the American military has designated Wikileaks and its founder
Julian Assange as military enemies. They claimed that Assange is now the
same as the Taliban or the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Actually, the officials haven’t just suddenly woken up to this – the rumors were coming from declassified American Air Force counter-intelligence papers. This means that military personnel who are noticed contacting with WikiLeaks or its supporters may face the risk of being accused of “communicating with the enemy”, which is a military crime punished with the death penalty.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Julian Assange is now available for a personal drone attack, it’s just that soldiers communicating to him will face big problems.
The documents in question were a record of a probe by the Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst from the United Kingdom. The latter was said to express support for the whistle-blowing service and participated in pro-Assange demonstrations in the capital. This investigation was trying to find out whether the individual with a top-secret security clearance and access to the American military’s Secret IP Router network, could disclose any secret data to WikiLeaks of its supporters, called an “anti-American or anti-military group”.
According to the documents, the suspected offence is classified as “communicating with the enemy”. At the time, the individual’s access to sensitive data was suspended. As for the investigators, they closed the case without laying charges, since the individual denied leaking any secret data.
The US Vice President Joe Biden claimed two years ago that Julian Assange can be labeled as a “high-tech terrorist”, and the American congressional leaders should have accused him of spying. In the meantime, Julian’s lawyer in the United States, Michael Ratner, confirmed that the designation of a whistle-blowing service as an “enemy” would have very serious implications for Assange if he were to be extradited to the United States. That’s assuming that he ever would be, because he definitely has not up until now. However, it would make things look bleak for American Army private Bradley Manning, charged with aiding Al-Qaeda by transferring data which, after being published by WikiLeaks, became available to everyone.
Actually, the officials haven’t just suddenly woken up to this – the rumors were coming from declassified American Air Force counter-intelligence papers. This means that military personnel who are noticed contacting with WikiLeaks or its supporters may face the risk of being accused of “communicating with the enemy”, which is a military crime punished with the death penalty.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Julian Assange is now available for a personal drone attack, it’s just that soldiers communicating to him will face big problems.
The documents in question were a record of a probe by the Office of Special Investigations into a cyber systems analyst from the United Kingdom. The latter was said to express support for the whistle-blowing service and participated in pro-Assange demonstrations in the capital. This investigation was trying to find out whether the individual with a top-secret security clearance and access to the American military’s Secret IP Router network, could disclose any secret data to WikiLeaks of its supporters, called an “anti-American or anti-military group”.
According to the documents, the suspected offence is classified as “communicating with the enemy”. At the time, the individual’s access to sensitive data was suspended. As for the investigators, they closed the case without laying charges, since the individual denied leaking any secret data.
The US Vice President Joe Biden claimed two years ago that Julian Assange can be labeled as a “high-tech terrorist”, and the American congressional leaders should have accused him of spying. In the meantime, Julian’s lawyer in the United States, Michael Ratner, confirmed that the designation of a whistle-blowing service as an “enemy” would have very serious implications for Assange if he were to be extradited to the United States. That’s assuming that he ever would be, because he definitely has not up until now. However, it would make things look bleak for American Army private Bradley Manning, charged with aiding Al-Qaeda by transferring data which, after being published by WikiLeaks, became available to everyone.
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