Julian Assange

Julian Assange has been arrested by British authorities. The WikiLeaks founder, who is responsible for the release of nearly 250,000 secret State Department cables, was arrested on two sex-related charges.

On December 1, Undersecretary of State William Burns appeared before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to brief members of Congress on Iran. He touted the effectiveness of the latest round of sanctions and then listed some “wider actions of the Iranian leadership” that cause concern.

A cable released by WikiLeaks that is available on the New York Times’s web site underscores the difficulties that both the Bush and Obama administrations have had in transferring war on terror detainees to Afghan custody.

As Bill Kristol was saying, "If Tea Party-inspired Americans—and freedom-loving hackers around the world—can act effectively in cyberspace against today’s threats to our liberties and well-being, and to the liberties and well-being of others—that’s something to be applauded."

Bill Kristol, with Mara Liasson and Charles Krauthammer, last night Fox News:

Yesterday, Secretary of State Clinton called the disclosure of the WikiLeaks documents "an attack on America's foreign policy interests." She and her colleagues in the Obama administration have proceeded, as they must, to try to limit the diplomatic damage, to reassure allies, to improve security procedures, and to launch criminal investigations.

Once upon a time I was a member of the policy planning staff at the Department of State, and had a security clearance. It was so long ago that I cannot now recall the level of security my clearance allowed, but it was suitably low. Like most people under such circumstances, I was curious about what would be revealed when I opened my first envelope marked Top Secret: Would I learn that the Czech defense attaché was having a torrid affair with Mary McGrory, or that the Bolivian army was massing on the Peruvian border?

Max Boot has an excellent post on the press, Julian Assange, and WikiLeaks:

The editors at Der Spiegel can’t contain themselves. Even before publication of the WikiLeaks documents, they’ve taken to their website to announce jubilantly that the leaking of these documents “is nothing short of a political meltdown for US foreign policy.”

Nonsense.

The world is once again anticipating a massive leak of classified documents by WikiLeaks. The U.S. State Department is so concerned that it has published a letter addressed to the head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and his attorney, arguing that publication of the documents will “risk the lives of countless innocent individuals,” “[p]lace at risk on-going military operations,” and “[p]lace at risk on-going cooperation between countries.”

WikiLeaks has posted a massive collection of classified documents pertaining to the war in Iraq on the web. As it did with a previous leak of documents concerning Afghanistan, it provided them in advance to the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel.