back to article Kissinger and tell: WikiLeaks scrapes 1.7m US diplomatic reports from the '70s

WikiLeaker-in-chief Julian Assange, who is languishing in self-imposed confinement in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, has kept himself busy by scraping more than one million documents from the US national archives. The latest collection of reports to be published on his news leaks website - some of which are labelled "NODIS …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Mostly harmless

    Oh well at least he hasn't published classified information this time. However if he wanted to do the world a favour he should man up to his responsibilities and go sort out the accusations in Sweden.

    1. Don Jefe
      Meh

      Re: Mostly harmless

      Yes. He is being most cowardly.

      If he truly was concerned about biased treatment (which I found highly unlikely before his hide in the embassy stunt) he could at least entertain us with madcap global adventures complete with 'Assange Sighted in Rangoon Escapes in Hang Glider' headlines. His hiding in a closet republishing public documents while begging for pocket money is no fun at all.

    2. Paul Renault

      Re: Mostly harmless

      From The Register, just a few days ago:

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/04/assange_extradition_unlikely/

      Justice Stefan Lindskog, a senior judge from Sweden’s supreme court, has told an Australian audience..

      ...snip, snip, snip,...

      [/That] his personal view,..., is that Assange has done good works.

      “At the end of the day Assange will be thought of as someone who made public certain pieces of information,” Lindskog says, adding that he feels many of Wikileaks’ leaks “were good for society and should not be punished.”

      “The good made by leakage of such information cannot be underestimated,” he says. “It should never be a crime to make known the crime of a state.”

      Me, I'm from the "You are what you do, not what you (or others) say you do" school... On the whole, IMHO, Assange's contributions have made the world a little better.

      Now, if we can just arrest Bush and Blair and drag them to the ICC...

      1. Naughtyhorse

        Re: Mostly harmless

        western leaders held accountable???

        over my dead body said thatch...

        so you never know :-D

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: Mostly harmless

          >western leaders held accountable???

          To be fair, one of the leaders convicted by the ICC was european = Admiral Doenitz

          So if you lose a war against the Americans you can expect justice

          1. NomNomNom

            Re: Mostly harmless

            To be fair I don't think he's being accused of a serious rape, just the light-hearted stuff Jimmy Saville got up to in the early days before he went a bit too far. On the other-hand wikileaks has not revealed anything that John Mcafee's spy network has already uncovered, so it's not like we need Assange anymore. We also have to bear in mind the credible intelligence that Julian Assange is capable of launching a political attack on the UK within 45 minutes. Perhaps we can just redefine the UK border such that on paper the Ecuador embassy is in international waters? Then the americans could go get him in a paper boat.

      2. Don Jefe
        Meh

        Re: Mostly harmless

        I agree completely. You are what you do. Wilileakes meh. No real impact other than a little embarrassment to a few people who are pretty embarrassing anyway.

        The mess in Sweden though, that's a much more real thing. He should face his accusers. His actions in refusing to do so are those of the worst sort of coward. Until he acts in an honorable manner in regards to how he is accused of treating real people (not countries or administrations) his subsequent actions cannot be viewed as honorable.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Mostly harmless

        And don't forget Barack 'I can kill anyone anywhere in the world without due process' Obama.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Mostly harmless

          "...And don't forget Barack 'I can kill anyone anywhere in the world without due process' Obama..."

          How dare you speak about Jesus like that!

        2. TeeCee Gold badge
          Meh

          Re: Mostly harmless

          You mean Barack "I've got a Nobel Peace Prize so yah, boo and sucks to you" Obama?

          1. perlcat
            Black Helicopters

            Re: Mostly harmless

            I notice that while he wants to bring US leaders "to justice", he only wants to bring certain ones to justice. I call BS. This is not justice. This is just politics.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Osama ran for seven years before they got him. Ol' Julian won't live in a hillside cave without a cell phone so I suspect before his anniversary, the Met will 'ave 'im.

    1. NomNomNom

      Uh he's still president dude so how exactly did they "got him"? He won the second election, although I believe due to the rules he won't be able to run again next time.

    2. nexsphil

      Osama ran for 7 years before they got him

      7 years indeed. Then conveniently shot in the face, and even more conveniently 'buried at sea' the next morning. Sorry, we're just not that stupid.

      1. Don Jefe
        WTF?

        Re: Osama ran for 7 years before they got him

        Are you seriously implying that bin Laden is not dead?

        1. hayseed

          Re: Osama ran for 7 years before they got him

          How could anyone tell, if he's decided to keep a low profile?

        2. Irony Deficient

          conclusion jumping

          Don Jefe, nexsphil could be implying that bin Laden is not dead; another possibility is that he could be implying that bin Laden died several years earlier — say, of kidney failure in late 2001 or early 2002. We’ll have to wait for his autoexegesis.

  3. Andrew Moore
    FAIL

    hmmm....

    This man is quickly becoming very irrelevant; I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't change his name to "Roger"

    1. jason 7
      Happy

      Re: hmmm....

      I enjoyed Channel 4 New's coverage of his Xmas speech from the Embassy balcony by basically taking the piss out of him.

      Most entertaining.

    2. Naughtyhorse

      Re: hmmm....

      he's totaly hatstand!

      excellent stuff

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Money

    Assange is also chasing cash from WikiLeaks fans who want to see his "public library of US diplomacy" expanded by asking them to donate money - in euros - to his cause.

    I guess the rich donors who got burnt when he skipped bail aren't willing to give this waste of oxygen more money so he is having to resort to the gullible public.

    1. Richard Neill

      Re: Money

      Remember... he *couldn't* have told the donors in advance of his plans to seek Asylum, or they would have been criminally culpable if they didn't prevent it. At least some of them think he did the right thing.,

    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Money

      Maybe the Ecuadoreans have got so p*ssed off they've started charging him rent.

  5. JimC
    Pirate

    Talk about desperate chases for press coverage

    Here I am bravely "leaking" public domain documents...

  6. That Steve Guy
    FAIL

    Old news

    All this talk of Wikileaks leaking more cables last week all led to this?

    Nobody cares about the 1970s now.

    1. harmjschoonhoven
      Happy

      Re: Old news

      Although (re)reading I.F. Stone's "The Hidden History of the Korean War" is very interesting.

    2. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Old news

      No one cares except for those who were on Capitol hill at the time.

      ....

      Opps. There are a good number of them still there.

      ...

      Cue calls for Assange to be tried for treason. Once a secret, always a secret. etc.

      1. JimC
        FAIL

        Re: Once a secret, always a secret.

        Well, no actually. In the UK we have the thirty year rule, in the US I understand they have 25, 50 and 75 year equivalents when various categories of secret document are declassified...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Old news

        > Cue calls for Assange to be tried for treason. Once a secret, always a secret. etc.

        All of these documents are already de-classified. They are all available to the public at the US national archives.

        The only thing Assange has done is copy them to wikileaks and make them searchable. It's no big deal.

  7. Jim Lewis

    Assange can be accused of many things and probably should.However, the 6 finger thing is just lazy slander as far as I can tell. Attack the issues not the man fer chrissakes!

  8. admiraljkb
    Black Helicopters

    I don't know how brave he really is. Meh, if eventually captured/extradited by the US, he'll be put on trial, *maybe*, and and spend a few years behind bars, *maybe*. Not like he could be dropped and "lost" into Gitmo, he's too public a figure. The Swedish domestic charges are probably much more of a legitimate concern. The rest of it is him trying to puff himself up for later book sales.

    I'd like to see him release some really good Russian or Chinese secret documents and see how long it is before he passes away of "natural causes". The Russians in particular have already shown how they deal with such things.

    I do take exception to him primarily releasing just US docs though. If he was equally releasing data on everyone in the interest of "information needs to be free", then it would look more like he was sincere about it if it was everyone's dirt. But I suspect he doesn't want an anonymous visit from the FSB while in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

  9. Mr Young
    Coat

    Go on - tell me then!

    Does he have a rent book? A stuntman for pizza delivery? Enquiring minds and etc...

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