One Mans Opinion 12/7/2010
By Dewaine Shoulders

WikiLeaks, Sarah Palin, Freedom of Speech and Espionage?

Let's start with something that Sarah Palin tweeted:"Someone making things up again? Keep seeing this quote attributed to me. Huh?"

Okay, now here's what prompted that ---

In an op-ed, Jullian Assange defended the WikiLeaks publication of the secret documents, but he also writes, "Sarah Palin says I should be 'hunted down like Osama bin Laden."

It's a quote attributed to Palin, but was taken way out of context that apparently has her up in arms.

In a November 29 Facebook posting, Sarah Palin blasted the Obama administration's handling of the matter. She also wrote, "Assange is not a 'journalist,' any more than the 'editor' of al Qaeda's new English-language magazine Inspire is a 'journalist.' He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?"

The quote: "Sarah Palin says I should be 'hunted down like Osama bin Laden" is a little over the top, but that's par for the course when it comes to all things Sarah Palin. Even Jullian Assange seems to have has Palin Derangement Syndrome.

Now onto the meat of the story.

Julian Assange was arrested in arrested in London today on sexual assault charges. He will likely be deported to Sweden and then from there he may be sent to Virgina. Espionage charges could be filed against him there.

Clearly Jullian Assange posted classified documents, and while that in itself is bad for our foreign policy, it does show that our government is totally whacked and needs a complete and thorough enema.

The real question I have is this: How did a PFC in the military gather all of those hundreds of thousands of documents without someone knowing about it and then passing them on to Assange and WikiLeaks? How could something like that happen?

The short answer: I bet it wasn't really like that.

Here's the way I see it - PFC Bradley Manning could not have stolen all of those secret cables and documents without inside help! Plain, simple and to the point! Someone had to have aided him... Or set him up to take the fall. No Private in any branch of the military has the Top Secret Clearance to so much as be near such documents, much less see them. Unless he can walk through walls and turn himself invisible, he could not have done these things unless someone, with the proper clearance, gathered the information and passed them onto him.

Conspiracy Theory? You betcha!

Unless someone inside the administration gathered those documents and then went to Manning to act as a go-between to get the information to Wikileaks, Manning would have to be a computer hacker extraordinaire
to pull this off.

The following was gathered from guardian.co.uk

The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, today hailed the person responsible for leaking the diplomatic cables as "an unparalleled hero" and suggested that his organisation had deliberately used servers in certain jurisdictions, such as Amazon's in the US, to test their commitment to freedom of speech.

In a live Q&A on guardian.co.uk, the Australian journalist highlighted the role alleged to have been played in the leaks by the soldier Bradley Manning.

"For the past four years one of our goals has been to lionise the source who take the real risks in nearly every journalistic disclosure and without whose efforts, journalists would be nothing," said Assange. "If indeed it is the case, as alleged by the Pentagon, that the young soldier – Bradley Manning – is behind some of our recent disclosures, then he is without doubt an unparalleled hero."

Hero or villain, Bradley Manning is a scapegoat. Someone else is responsible for the actual theft of the government documents, of that I have no doubt. The question is: Who?

Actually, there is another question: Why?

Honestly, with such an "OPEN" government as ours is supposed to be, I wouldn't put it past the government to do this and then use it for some political advantage... Like censorship of the Internet, talk radio, Fox News, and even people like myself, who use their First Amendment right to free speech for more than praising the government.

This smells like a set-up to me. Bradley Manning and Julian Assange are just pawns in this game of Chess. The players are somewhere in this administration, posturing things to their advantage, so when the time is right, they can shut down the Internet because it spreads anti-government rhetoric.

And just as the Reverend Al Sharpton is going before the FCC to try to shut-down Rush Limbaugh, someone is setting up the Internet to be taken over by the FCC, so that they can determine what can and can't be placed there.

We live in dangerous times, and I fear that sooner than we think, our rights will be taken from us in some "Emergency" and that once those rights are gone, they will never return.

Call me paranoid, call me totally delusional, but tell me that I'm not right when I question the people in charge in Washington! After nearly two years of the most open and honest administration in American History, I can say without a doubt, I don't believe anything these people tell me. They lie, and then lie to cover their lies.

That's the problem with power, once you have it, it's hard to let it go. And they have it, and something tells me that sooner or later, we'll be one emergency away from seeing them never letting it go

But that's just my opinion, I could be right!