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Ron Paul Defends WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange
Third Age ^ | December 3, 2010

Posted on 12/04/2010 7:07:52 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is defending WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's release of thousands of classified diplomatic cables.

In an interview with Fox Business Thursday, Paul went against the opinions of many of his Republican colleagues, asserting that Assange should be given the same protections as the media.

"In a free society we're supposed to know the truth," Paul said. "In a society where truth becomes treason, then we're in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it."

“This whole notion that Assange, who's an Australian, that we want to prosecute him for treason. I mean, aren't they jumping to a wild conclusion?” he added. “This is media, isn't it? I mean, why don't we prosecute The New York Times or anybody that releases this?"

Earlier this week, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Justice Department is investigating Assange's case to determine whether he can be charged with a crime for leaking the secret documents.

Arkansas Goveror Mike Huckabee went so far as to say Tuesday that Assange should be tried for treason and face the death penalty if proven guilty.

Most U.S. politicians claim that the leaked cables will damage relations with U.S. allies.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Politics/Elections; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: 111th; 911truthers; apaulling; assange; bradleymanning; climategate; congress; fraudpaul; fulltimeapologists; globalwarminghoax; julianassange; losertarian; patbuchanan; paultardation; ronpaul; skinheadsonfr; texas; traitorronpaul; wikigate; wikileaks
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To: central_va

We need to go after the corrupt US government and Banksters that Julian Assange has done us the favor of exposing. I totally agree with Ron Paul.

All of the information Assange leaked out on his website just verifies what we all suspected anyway. Who was shocked to find out that NK sold nuclear material to Iran? Nobody thats who. Who didn’t know the Saudi’s wanted an attack on Iran? And On and on and on.

Message to Huckabuck: Assanage is not a US citizen he can’t be tried for treason.

You folks better be a lot more worried about the shadow government and the unelected beauracrcy that are currently taking our freedoms and installing a marxist regime right under our noses than one international information broker who is publishing the truth on his website.

Wake up before its too late.


41 posted on 12/04/2010 7:33:49 AM PST by Georgia Girl 2
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To: Don'tMessWithTexas
Anyone who would publish the invasion plans of Europe is not “telling the truth,”

Whose invasion plans were published? What has been published is stuff like how we used your tax dollars to pay off third world dicatators to sign up to global warming.

42 posted on 12/04/2010 7:34:22 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: jd777
It’s odd that people focus only on Assange - Who gave him the documents?

You're right, he's what, Australian? Why should we expect any non-American to be bound by American laws outside America? I've got no particular beef with Assange, other than he is playing a dangerous game releasing information that may endanger our people. If I were in his shoes I think discretion and common decency would lead me to not release that information.

Now, who-ever it is that released the information to him, they ought to be hung. Literally and publicly.

43 posted on 12/04/2010 7:34:26 AM PST by ThunderSleeps (Stop obama now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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To: central_va
"The little fagot who gave the info should be shot. "

Step A - get the actual leaker for treason.

Step B - Roll some heads of those above him, all the way to Zer0.

44 posted on 12/04/2010 7:34:32 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
The idea that there should be no closely held zone of communication in government is absurd. What then of executive privilege, lawyer-client communications? Woodrow Wilson once advocated this kind of nakedness in his "open covenents, openly arived at." That never happened of course, because diplomacy is not a good faith discourse among friends. Paul here displays aberrant mentation and the impaired judgment that causes ordinary commonsense people to shun him politically.
45 posted on 12/04/2010 7:35:17 AM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Paladin2

That will not go over well here!

The painful truth is that it is probably best it happened this way. The US had a huge whole in its security that without a doubt had been compromised by foreign governments. This info was in the hands of our enemies - it just was not known.

As you say, the people who should be charged with treason are the individuals who provided the data and especially those responsible for designing the security of the system.

However, I don’t expect many people here agree with us.


46 posted on 12/04/2010 7:37:32 AM PST by al_again2010
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To: MetaThought
You gotta admit that these cables didn’t actually damage National Security much

Heck... exposing the TRUTH about the Saudi funding of Al qaeda might actually IMPROVE our national security.

47 posted on 12/04/2010 7:38:20 AM PST by SomeCallMeTim
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

He is certifiable.


48 posted on 12/04/2010 7:38:20 AM PST by Ann Archy (Abortion......the Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: oldbrowser
In a competitive "survival of the fittest" world does it make sense to reveal all of your thoughts and knowledge?

In a competitive world where you are a democracy and there are facts that your government leaders are stumblebums, does not your survival require knowing those facst so that the People who control the government can take corrective action.

We are not talking about publishing the security codes for the communications for our troops in Afghanastan. We are talking about information like the decision to resolve the palestinian question BEFORE we deal with the Iran nuke problem. like the former is going to happen in God's lifetime.

49 posted on 12/04/2010 7:38:28 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

In the end, all we’re witnessing is the deconstruction of the Western Democracies...which by their very virtue of the deficits required to run them, are becoming as much of an anachronism to the world as the European Monarchs were 100 years ago.


50 posted on 12/04/2010 7:40:46 AM PST by mo
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To: LS
You can’t. But you can assassinate him for being a threat to national security. There. Problem solved.

And you'd support Obama's administration being able to decide who should be assassinated as a threat to national security?

I suppose you'd be saying that anybody that exposes a government operation of killing people for political reasons (masked in the needs of national security) should be shot too, if they decide that it's in the best interest of the government for people not to find out about it.

51 posted on 12/04/2010 7:42:28 AM PST by Wissa (Gone Galt)
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To: Alberta's Child

He is a jackass.

But I do think the correct order would be 1. Determine whether classified information was accessed illegally, 2. Determine whether it was communicated illegally, 3. Gather evidence, 4. Find those who are most likely behind it, 5. Accuse, 6. Try, 7. If guilty, punish, if not guilty, release.

The Internet is not a license to break national law.


52 posted on 12/04/2010 7:43:19 AM PST by Ghost of Philip Marlowe (Prepare for survival.)
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To: oldbrowser
Would you play in a poker game where you are revealing your cards and everybody else is hiding theirs?

How about a Chess game where you have a Grand Master making all the moves on one side and you have the combined talents of 300,000,000 free citizens analyzing his moves and making suggestions as to the countermoves on the other side.

The strength of our Democracy is not our ability to execute things in secret but rather our ability to count on a free citizenry individual and collectively to stand up to the plate and do the right things on their own account with their own situational awareness. Free information is the strength of a democratic society, not its weakness.

Again, let me say, there is information that is genuinely classified because harm to the government will result. And then there is all the stuff that is marked classified because it is administratively convenient to do so, but which actually is not.

53 posted on 12/04/2010 7:44:16 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: macquire

It seems impossible to make a rational argument against an irrational position. Without principles to govern society and common sense born of bad experience paul’s logic is almost unassailable isn’t it? Doesn’t free speech mean that anyone has the right to say anything they want to say? Shouldn’t you or anyone else be free to just simply speak their mind at any time on any subject? Try this at work with your boss, with a client, at home with your wife or with the 300 pound gorilla a the local bar and grill... let me know how that works out for you. Consequences for word and deed have bearing on the limit of free speech.


54 posted on 12/04/2010 7:46:48 AM PST by Sequoyah101 (Half of the population is below average)
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To: eyeamok

Do you suppose he could leak out a bunch of emails from bank execs joking about their plans to steal money from everyone they could...and their political pets would do nothing?

People who don’t already realize that has happened already never will. You do make a good point. The big uproar on this guy revved up when he started talking about mega banks.


55 posted on 12/04/2010 7:47:14 AM PST by Chunga85 ("Foreclosure Fraud", TARP, "Mortgage Crisis", Bailout)
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To: Ghost of Philip Marlowe
1. Determine whether classified information was accessed illegally

Step one should be, determine which information was, in fact, classified. Information is not classified because some classification bureaucrat marked it classified (yes that administrative step is important, but not a final determination), but whether its release will potentially damage national security.

The fundamental problem in prosecution, in many of these cases, is the necessary step of demonstrating that harm to national security could follow the release of the information.

56 posted on 12/04/2010 7:49:11 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: mo

It seems likely that most of America’s secrets have already been stolen by other powers and super-powers, so it’s a real pity that the door will be bolted before the world can get a similar degree of insight into the workings of nations that may use this information against the west with no risk of their own secrets being revealed.

In other words, I keen to eventually see a whole lot of Chinese, Russian and middle-eastern communiqué.


57 posted on 12/04/2010 7:54:50 AM PST by 49parallel
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To: LS
LS, now you're getting to the right solution.

1) Manning - firing squad.
2) Assange- 20 yrs for espionage
3) tighten up and lock down the access to information

We need adult patriots back in charge of our national security. This whole problem can be solved if we have the spine to act.

58 posted on 12/04/2010 7:54:52 AM PST by libertymaker
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Free speech is one matter, but it ends when that speech puts human lives in jeopary.
Assange, the creeps who supplies him with the data, and everyone working for WikiLeaks should be jailed. It is their intent to destroy the United States.


59 posted on 12/04/2010 7:55:19 AM PST by BuffaloJack (The Recession is officially over. We are now into Obama's Depression.)
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To: 70th Division
Look PFCs do more then cut grass and march around in circles. I have seen plenty of PFC clerks & junior assistant system administrators who had extraordinary access to classified material. They were the humans in the IT beast that did the grunt work to keep it running. They are not decision makers regarding the data or it's meaning they just keep the lights blinking. (But looks like the data center he worked also had incredibly lax security procedures!) The problem is we are in a age where NO social pathology renders one unfit for high security clearances. Radical unthinking egalitarianism trumps all.
There used to be something called “life style unsuitability” that would block granting such access apparently that category no longer exists or security officials don't feel like fighting the bureaucratic battles to invoke it. The person requesting such access would be quietly assigned another job. Notice how the fact that Manning is a gay dram queen gets left out of the discussion. (Gay drama queen there is a redundant statement!)
60 posted on 12/04/2010 7:55:45 AM PST by Reily
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