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Subscribe to RSSThe New York Times reports that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) pressured Tableau, a Seattle company that allows Web users to post charts, to remove several charts describing the release of WikiLeaks material. The company removed the charts on Thursday, following the lead of Amazon, which had taken down the WikiLeaks documents themselves.
The twist: The charts were not produced by WikiLeaks, but by a freelance journalist. And they contained no classified or secret material. The charts merely depicted how many times each country, or topic, was discussed in the cables.
In other words, the charts were journalism. (There's a vigorous debate whether or not the WikiLeaks releases themselves are journalism, as WikiLeaks casts them. These charts seem to be within anyone's definition.)
You can see a cached copy of one of the charts here.
Commentator Glenn Greenwald issues a take-down notice to Lieberman on Salon: "Those are the benign, purely legal documents that have now been removed from the Internet in response to Joe Lieberman's demands and implied threats. He's on some kind of warped mission where he's literally running around single-handedly dictating what political content can and cannot be on the Internet, issuing broad-based threats to 'all companies' that is causing suppression of political information."
Update: Amazon posted a note on Thursday saying it had not taken down the WikiLeaks documents because of Lieberman's plea, but because WikiLeaks was violating the terms of service.
There must be something the U.S. Really *doesn't want know* to go to all this afford to shut them down, what could it be? The BANK Info maybe? What ever happend to FREEDOM OF SPEECH ? If you Don't Want It Known,Don't Do It !
Joe L.is the first warmonger and Bush orphan to go to the Hague with Tony Blair in tow.
Any reasonable thinking adult knows that all governments are corrupt, if it takes something like Wikileaks to inform us of the level of the corruption, I'm all for it! I hope they get all the info out before the government takes them down.
Dare To Hope - so it's OK to publish the names of Afghani informants, putting them and their family’s life at risk. If only for this one thing, I truly hope Assange get’s shutdown, arrested, and found guilty and rots in some jail.
DaleP - We shouldn't have any Afghani informants, there should be no Afghanistan war. The US is viewed in a bad light by so many country's and it can't be for no reason. We should not be in Iraq. From what I have read already on Wikileaks the corruption runs both ways. If they are in fear of their life, I suggest they bring them home where they belong, and the other country's should do the same. If we would all keep our noses in our own country's business instead of trying to rule the world we would not be in the messes we are in. We have been arrogant and trying to tell other country's how to act and what they can or can not have, when we have everything we don't want them to have. Somehow that doesn't seem right to me. If you were the leader of one of those country's I believe it would piss you off too. I need to understand what we are doing and that requires proof. War in those countries is futile. We can't change them just like they can't change us. We need to take care of things in our country right now, take care of our people, spend that war money on digging us out of the hole we're in, bring our jobs back. We have too many problems here right now to be doing the crazy stuff this government is doing. Just my opinion.
Joe Lieberman is finally being exposed for the Fascist that he has "evolved" into...
The reason Lieberman and the resto of his cronies are trying to get wikileaks shut down has nothing to do with national security. It is because his hands are covered with the blood of U.S. servicemen, but his wallet is full.
We need a LeiberLeaks site. This turncoat still won't admit he's as far right as Mussolini. If his vote weren't needed... I'd rather lose a critical vote than have to give this guy a Senate seat, and I've been saying this for years. OK, I don't live where I could vote for him, anyway, but I've got McCain to not vote for.
Is Lieberman worried the banking release that's coming will reveal serious financial corruption on his part There is no other explanation I can think of that works. He shows all the signs of serious panic
Good old Senator Foghorn Leghorn squawks again. He'll even take a shot at some totally insignificant charts and graphs, and intimidate a website into dropping them. I DID vote against him, and would do it should he run again - I had no problem with his independent stance - but visibly supporting McCain was the last straw.
So I went to wikileaks.com and the site is down. Hmmm...
Try this one for Wikileaks: www.wikileaks.ch
Well, you should know that Joe is with us on everything except the war. And the economy. And health care. And this.
Here we have Joe Lieberman the whiner of the senate, showing just how useless he is. I sure hope the voters have a better choice of who represents them. He is a tool of the Israeli first movement and should go to Israel to spew his jackass comments there. Good riddance! Take your wife with you and don't come back.
Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury during the Reagan administration.
December 2, 2010
How the Government and Its Press Flacks Collude in Lies
What the Wiki-Saga Teaches Us
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The reaction to WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange tells us all we need to know about the total corruption of our “modern” world, which in fact is a throwback to the Dark Ages.
Some member of the United States government released to WikiLeaks the documents that are now controversial. The documents are controversial, because they are official US documents and show all too clearly that the US government is a duplicitous entity whose raison d’etre is to control every other government.
The media, not merely in the US but also throughout the English speaking world and Europe, has shown its hostility to WikiLeaks. The reason is obvious. WikiLeaks reveals truth, while the media covers up for the US government and its puppet states.
Why would anyone with a lick of sense read the media when they can read original material from WikiLeaks? The average american reporter and editor must be very angry that his/her own cowardice is so clearly exposed by Julian Assange. The american media is a whore, whereas the courageous blood of warriors runs through WikiLeaks’ veins.
Just as american politicians want Bradley Manning executed because he revealed crimes of the US government, they want Julian Assange executed. In the past few days the more notorious of the dumb@!$%#s that sit in the US Congress have denounced Assange as a “traitor to america.” What total ignorance. Assange is an Australian, not an american citizen. To be a traitor to america, one has to be of the nationality. An Australilian cannot be a traitor to america any more than an american can be a traitor to Australia. But don’t expect the morons who represent the lobbyists to know this much.
Mike Huckabee, the redneck baptist preacher who was governor of arkansas and, to
america’s already overwhelming shame, was third runner up to the Republican presidential nomination, has called for Assange’s execution. So here we have a “man of God” calling for the US government to murder an Australian citizen. And americans wonder why the rest of the world hates their guts.
The material leaked from the US government to WikiLeaks shows that the US government is an extremely disreputable gang of gangsters. The US government was able to get British prime minister Brown to “fix” the official Chilcot Investigation into how former prime minister Tony Blair manipulated and lied the British government into being mercenaries for the US invasion of Iraq. One of the “diplomatic” cables released has UK Defense Ministry official Jon Day promising the United States government that prime minister Brown’s government has “put measures in place to protect your interests.”
Other cables show the US government threatening Spanish prime minister Zapatero, ordering him to stop his criticisms of the Iraq war or else. I mean, really, how dare these foreign governments to think that they are sovereign.
Not only foreign governments are under the US thumb. So is Amazon.com. Joe Lieberman from Connecticut, who is Israel’s most influential senator in the US Senate, delivered sufficiently credible threats to Amazon to cause the company to oust WikiLeaks content from their hosting service.
So there you have it. On the one hand the US government and the prostitute american media declare that there is nothing new in the hundreds of thousands of documents, yet on the other hand both pull out all stops to shut down WikiLeaks and its founder. Obviously, despite the US government’s denials, the documents are extremely damaging. The documents show that the US government is not what it pretends to be.
Assange is in hiding. He fears CIA and Mossad assassination, and to add to his troubles the government of Sweden has changed its mind, perhaps as a result of american persuasion and money, about sex charges that the Swedish government had previously dismissed for lack of credibility....
...Obviously, Sweden has become another two-bit punk puppet government of the US.
The US government has got away with telling lies for so long that it no longer hesitates to lie in the most blatant way. WikiLeaks released a US classified document signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that explicitly orders US diplomats to spy on UN Security council officials and on the Secretary General of the United Nations. The cable is now in the public record. No one challenges its authenticity. Yet, today the Obama regime, precisely White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, declared that Hillary had never ordered or even asked US officials to spy on UN officials.
As Antiwar.com asked: Who do you believe, the printed word with Hillary’s signature or the White House?
Anyone who believes the US government about anything is the epitome of gullibility.
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts12022010.html
I agree with you whole heartedly. I am an American. Please don't conflate Americans with the oppressive government that is eroding our rights here. Most of us understand why other countries hate our government. From our perspective we are enraged yet silenced. The media is Orwellian and we do not control it. This latest public character assassination of Julian Assange is a threat and a warning by POWERFUL interests to all Americans to sit down and shut up and don't make any noise or this will happen to you. In truth it is a threat to all other countries and their peoples who seek to expose the truth. It is an attack on freedom of speach and of the press, among other things. Americans have become afraid. Fear is infectious and it is eating America from within. Yet we hope too along with much of the rest of the world.
I also WHOLE HEARTEDLY agree with you and I am also an American Born Citizen. Yet! I have not ordered DNA nor have I tortured anyone under the name of National Security. Let it be known that I do not condon these types of activities. I am a peace fairing human with a heart.
I've said numerous times that our Corporate Government Industrial Complex is full of criminals and warmongers.
I believe, that Bush and Cheney should be tried for War Crimes and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. They both stood to gain a lot of money from the wars they waged.
Thats right, Arch. My earlier comment was removed because I called Lieberman a PIG, and qustioned his duel citizendry to America and Israel. MSNBC is in the hip pocket of him, and people like him. Is what free speech is, to have your views censored by a a bul@!$%# so-called "News Outlet" like MSNBC? Lieberman sends people to war, and lives as if he's the Monarchy. Connecticut needs an ENEMA!!!
I have posted this already here before You guys should stop complaining because, one the health care we have now isnt as good as it was supposed to be. also the law has just been signed so give it some time. so if u want to say u have the right to choose tell that to ur congress men or state official. If you do not have insurance and need one You can find full medical coverage at the lowest price check http://ow.ly/3akSX .If you have health insurance and do not care about cost just be happy about it and believe me you are not going to loose anything!
I have never participated in a forum discussion where so many comments were arbitrarily deleted by the moderator. I think Joe L must have longer tentacles than we know.
Wikileaks must be real bad for Israel for Joe Lieb to get this involved...
I think this whole episode is disturbing...while I don't necessarily condone WikiLeaks actions, the fact is that at some level, we need a whistleblower to keep our governments honest. Now that the genie is out of the bottle, Joe Blow and associates are using anything in their arsenal to contain the spill. Their actions are futile here in the net age...anyone with a pc and the ability to use it will get the info.
And on a related topic...I have nothing but contempt for the hacker who tried to shut down Wikileaks. Such cowboy vigilantes act as judge, jury and executioner, and are just as heavy-handed as dictators and demagogues.
And just one final thought..."Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
To All that have had their comments deleted, Your comments were deleted because you were honorable enough to tell the truth, and as you know Joe and John know the the Truth hurts.
Joe and his fellow citizens of Israel ( with a token US citizenship as well) were a major force in convincing boy George to invade Iraq. With that success behind him, I bet Joe was working on sending us to Iran. Him and AIPAC. Of course he does not want Connecticut voters to know how parasitic he is.
Why is Joe Lieberman allowed to do this? This is gross censorship and I'm surprised at the companies that are complying. Why isn't he pressuring the NYT to stop covering the cables? This isn't democracy; it's fascism.