Actually the whole WikiLeaks saga dwarfs our little tax compromise hissy fit by any objective standard of importance and interest.
1 - Stated a bit more strongly than I would, but yeah, I think the WikiLeaks stuff is huge. I share with Assange a view that the Ongoing Crisis has been made possible not so much by the cowardice and perfidy of our leaders, but by the fact that the flow of information is controlled by Malign Influences.
Or, to put it another way, I think the cowardice and perfidy of our leaders are in many ways attributable to the way information flows.
Ben is correct to consider the possibility that PJ Crowley is, in fact, enjoying himself. Here's what he wrote a few years back about national security:
And we have policies, including harsh interrogation techniques, detention without charge, government surveillance, and immigration that are inconsistent with our values and our long-term interest. All this in the name of something called the "war on terror."
Is Anonymous seriously going after Amazon for kicking Assange off of AWS?
Mainly, the most recent Wikileaks dump raise te question: "Why do we need a State Department?"
These revelations about the dispatches (mysteriously, still called "cables") from our men in Ottawa were particularly awesome. Based on our viewing of Canadian television, our crack diplomatic corps has concluded that many Canadians feel ambivalence about the United States!
I am pretty sure that I just watched one of the television series referenced by the article.
When reporters talk about attacks against wikileaks sites, is there some reason they never offer any detail on who might be coordinating them?
6 Taken as a whole, and adjusting for the fact that their job is to push some really stupid policies, the cables I've read show a quite competent and knowledgeable diplomatic corps.
OT, has anyone made it through the Anwar al-Awlaki decision yet? Holy crap, the administration's decision to order a targeted killing of a U.S. citizen is a "political question" that does not allow for judicial review?
11: Nice. I'll note that Wikileaks does potentially undermine one of the pillars of the Cult of Savviness.
10: NPR reported yesterday (I think it was) that the attacks appear to be coordinated if not completely controlled by a right-wing 'hacktivist' who had previously targeted jihadi websites. Apparently the same guy went after PayPal and the Swiss bank that held WikiLeaks accounts.
OT, has anyone made it through the Anwar al-Awlaki decision yet? Holy crap, the administration's decision to order a targeted killing of a U.S. citizen is a "political question" that does not allow for judicial review?
I tried, but it was just too depressing to take for 80 pages. OTOH, this is really not a surprise at all, much as I wish otherwise. This is precisely the sort of thing US Courts are most deferential about.
16: Thanks. I haven't been able to keep up with the story as closely in the past couple of days. Stupid deadlines.
I haven't made it all the way through, but it's notable that Judge Bates frames one of the issues as follows:
Can the Executive order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without first affording him any form of judicial process whatsoever, based on the mere assertion that he is a dangerous member of a terrorist organization?
While he contends that procedural deficiencies prevent him from reaching the "merits," it seems that the above is both a procedural and a merits question, and that he answers it in the affirmative.
16 We're turning Chi-a-nese, I really think so.
I just finished it. I think Judge Bates is on very firm ground on standing -- both next friend and third party. There's no indication at all that al Aulaqi wants to litigate his rights in a US court, and the father doesn't have an independently cognizable injury.
I don't agree that this is a political question, but then I also disagree with the whole raft of DC Circuit decisions Bates followed -- and I think he followed them. (Ie, I think the Circuit is going to say he did). So even if the DC Circuit wasn't an implacably hostile forum for war on terror suits, appeal would be a very steep climb.
I can imagine the Supreme Court taking cert so they can write a definitive opinion on third party standing. Maybe the Court will take this -- in 2012? -- to resolve the political question issue, in his favor, but that would be quite surprising.
(Surprising because it would require the conservative justices to actually believe in the principles they espouse, something for which there is no evidence at all).
You think? I thought the next friend discussion was convincing but the "no-injury-in-fact" discussion was insane.
I was a bit surprised that Salon named Richard Cohen the worst hack in punditry, but I am now realizing that my surprise may have been a result of the fact that I gave up on reading him a long time ago. This column, on Assange, rates with anything that Thomas Friedman has done on any subject.
You know, it's not just you guys. I'm just filled with love for all humanity.
Based on our viewing of Canadian television
And they were viewing political satire, which makes the "dispatches" sound all the more odd. That said, I had to laugh at the line about "paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty" (which is not without foundation...though the case of Omar Khadr really is outrageous).
You know I absolutely love the new commenter, but I'm a little surprised that he doesn't seem to talk like he does on TV.
29: Yep, this paragraph has it all.
One of the juvenile joys of being a journalist used to be knowing what others didn't - the vaunted story behind the story. "You newspapermen know everything," Claudette Colbert tells Fred MacMurray in "The Gilded Lily." No more. Now, everything sees the light of day and media organizations like Gawker, journalism's own little cesspool, pay for such scoops as pictures allegedly sent by Brett Favre to a young lady of his passing acquaintance. This is not what Jefferson had in mind when he championed freedom of the press.Yeah, he clearly had the current motherfucking US mainstream political media in mind. They truly are history's littlest monsters.
I think this is a profound insight. It's important to realize how much our vaunted tradition of whistleblowers and freedom of the press was the result of a careful power balance between the press and the government. See: how much of a water-carrying douchebag Woodward became after Deep Throat. See also: how the press and the government have basically united against Wikileaks. IOW, "those people" haven't earned the right to challenge the government.
Depressingly, with big corporations controlling the media, that balance seems out of whack with no relief in sight.
33: Hacktacular. I'm imagining a counterfactual history in which Jefferson suddenly has Richard Cohen in mind, and decides to abandon everything and move to France.
24 -- No injury to the father. No consent from the son, who is certainly capable of giving it.
Katherine!
36: it's the fact that the son could & hasn't consented that justifies the standing decision, but the "injury in fact" discussion implies that there'd be no standing even apart from that. What distinguishes this from the elephant case is that an elephant can't sue/consent & Al Awlaki could. (Yes, the Endangered Species Act allows citizen suits, but he's talking about constitutional rather than prudential grounds so that's not really relevant.) But there damn well is a real injury.
In general I oppose the use of standing doctrine to forbid *anyone* from suing on what clearly is a real legal controversy. Which is not actually operative for Al Awlaki, but is for whatever other citizens are on the list.
Skim-reading 38 has led me to the belief that the legal challenge to Obama's ability to assassinate US citizens overseas is based on some aspect of the Endangered Species Act. I am not going to go back and reread 38 more thoroughly because I like my version better.
Can a dead person sue for being killed? Obviously not. Does anyone besides him have standing? Why would they? OJ Simpson was the victim of a shakedown. The Goldmans should have reached a settlement under which they would get money and they wouldn't get murderous revenge on him, without the state being involved.
