Daniel Ellsberg: Julian Assange is in danger & Deadman TOR services?

[Tyler Durden]

Are there deadman-type services yet behind the TOR cloud which would allow for
automatic release of data if someone doesn't check in on a regular basis (or
checks in with the "wrong" credentials?).

Am I wrong or has Wikileaks more or less already won?

Tim May is cackling in his grave (I hear he's set up a lounge chair in it).

-TD

> Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:45:52 -0500
> From: measl at mfn.org
> To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net
> Subject: Daniel Ellsberg: Julian Assange is in danger
>
>
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-11/daniel-ellsberg-wik
ileaks-julian-assange-in-danger/
>
> As feds hunt for Wikileaks. Julian Assange in hopes of preventing him
> from publishing diplomatic secrets, Samuel P. Jacobs talks with Pentagon
> Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg about why he should stay out of
> America.and why some things should be kept secret.
>
> Government officials tell The Daily Beast that they are searching for
> Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, whom they believe is in
> possession of State Department secrets leaked to him by an Army
> intelligence specialist now under arrest. As Assange, the Australian
> champion of whistleblowers cancelled a public appearance in Las Vegas
> Friday night, The Daily Beast talked with Daniel Ellsberg, the legendary
> leaker of the Pentagon Papers about Assange.s safety and what he would do
> if he were in possession of the State Department.s confidential traffic.
> Since standing trial for providing state secrets to newspapers.he was
> acquitted in 1973.Ellsberg has become an author and activist.
>
> The Daily Beast: Could the release of the diplomatic cables said to be in
> the possession of Wikileaks endanger national security?
>
> Daniel Ellsberg: Any serious risk to that national security is extremely
> low. There may be 260,000 diplomatic cables. It.s very hard to think of
> any of that which could be plausibly described as a national security
> risk. Will it embarrass diplomatic relationships? Sure, very likely.all to
> the good of our democratic functioning. The embarrassment would be our
> awareness that we are supporting and facilitating dictators and corrupt
> and murderous governments, and we are quite aware of their nature.
>
> An example would be surrounding a visit of Hamid Karzai to this
> country.where he is given a special audience with the president. We know
> that privately he is seen realistically. We know that because of the leak,
> which I think started out of this investigation. We know that because of
> the leak from Ambassador Eikenberry. He describes him as irredeemably
> corrupt, not an appropriate partner for a pacification program, and cannot
> change.
>
> They would regard this as very embarrassing, [since publicly they.ve been]
> saying, he is a perfectly suitable partner for pacification, working on
> corruption.Ha ha..Bullshit.
>
> Do you think Assange is in danger?
>
> I happen to have been the target of a White House hit squad myself. On May
> 3, 1972, a dozen CIA assets from the Bay of Pigs, Cuban imigris were
> brought up from Miami with orders to .incapacitate me totally.. I said to
> the prosecutor, .What does that mean? Kill me.. He said, .It means to
> incapacitate you totally. But you have to understand these guys never use
> the word .kill...
>
> Is the Obama White House anymore enlightened than Nixon.s?
>
> We.ve now been told by Dennis Blair, the late head of intelligence here,
> that President Obama has authorized the killing of American citizens
> overseas, who are suspected of involvement in terrorism. Assange is not
> American, so he doesn.t even have that constraint. I would think that he
> is in some danger. Granted, I would think that his notoriety now would
> provide him some degree of protection. You would think that would protect
> him, but you could have said the same thing about me. I was the number one
> defendant. I was on trail but they brought up people to beat me up.
>
> You believe he is in danger of bodily harm, then?
>
> Absolutely. On the same basis, I was..Obama is now proclaiming rights of
> life and death, being judge, jury, and executioner of Americans without
> due process. No president has ever claimed that and possibly no one since
> John the First.
>
> What advice would you give Assange?
>
> Stay out of the U.S. Otherwise, keep doing what he is doing. It.s pretty
> valuable.He is serving our democracy and serving our rule of law precisely
> by challenging the secrecy regulations, which are not laws in most cases,
> in this country.
>
> He is doing very good work for our democracy. If [the alleged leaker,
> Bradley Manning] has done what he is alleged to have done, I congratulate
> him. He has used his opportunities very well. He has upheld his oath of
> office to support the Constitution. It so happens that enlisted men also
> take an oath to obey the orders of superiors. Officers don.t make that
> oath, only to the Constitution. But sometimes the oath to the Constitution
> and oath to superiors are in conflict.
>
> Assange has taken the position that all information should be out there.
> Do you agree?
>
> He has talked about not holding anything back. I wouldn.t agree with that.
> Some judgments should be made. Frankly, I don.t know whether he would
> really act on that.
>
> In your opinion, not everything should be released.
>
> Yes, there are things that should be kept secret for some period of time.
> It.s a matter of time that it can be kept. To say that there are no such
> things is unrealistic and doesn.t stand up under much thought. [Assange]
> is taking a position there that on its face is not sustainable, but he
> might well not keep it. He.s obviously a very competent guy in many ways.
> I think his instincts are that most of this material deserves to be out.
> We are arguing over a very small fragment that doesn.t. He has not yet put
> out anything that hurt anybody.s national security.
>
> And what about these cables in particular?
>
> On the question of those 260,000 diplomatic cables, it is not my position
> that nothing in them could deserve to be secret, that nothing deserves to
> be secret. I don.t know. I haven.t read them. Having read a hell of a lot
> of diplomatic cables, I would confidently make the judgment that very
> little, less than one percent, one percent perhaps, can honestly be said
> to endanger national security. That.s distinct [from the percentage that
> could cause] embarrassment.very serious embarrassment, [if people] realize
> that we are aware of highly murderous and corrupt operations by people and
> that we are supporting them. It is very seriously embarrassing.
>
> I think a better judgment would be to look over the 260,000 cables and
> exclude those which on their surface are dangerous. If the choice is
> between putting none of them out, as the State Department would like, and
> putting all of them out, I definitely feel our national security would be
> improved if they were put out. Between those two choices, I would rather
> see them all of them out. It would help understand our own foreign policy
> and give us the chance to improve it democratically. I hope they are out,
> I hope we get to see them.
>
> Samuel P. Jacobs is a staff reporter at The Daily Beast. He has also
> written for The Boston Globe, The New York Observer, and The New Republic
> Online.
>
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>
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