Researcher detained at U.S. border, questioned about Wikileaks
LAS VEGAS--A security researcher involved with the Wikileaks Web site was detained by U.S. agents at the border for three hours and questioned about the controversial whistleblower project as he entered the country on Thursday to attend a hacker conference here, sources said Saturday.
He was also approached by two FBI agents at the Defcon conference after his presentation on Saturday afternoon about the Tor Project.
Jacob Appelbaum, a Seattle-based programmer for the online privacy protection project called Tor, arrived at the Newark, N.J., airport on a flight from Holland on Thursday morning when he was pulled aside by customs and border protection agents, who told him that he was randomly selected for a security search, according to the sources familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous.
Appelbaum, a U.S. citizen, was taken into a room and frisked, and his bag was searched. Receipts from his bag were photocopied, and his laptop was inspected, the sources said. Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and from the U.S. Army then told him that he was not under arrest but was being detained, the sources said. The officials asked questions about Wikileaks, asked for his opinions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could be found, but Appelbaum declined to comment without a lawyer present, according to the sources. Appelbaum was not permitted to make a phone call, the sources said.
After about three hours, Appelbaum was given his laptop back, but the agents kept his three mobile phones, sources said.
Asked for comment, Appelbaum declined to talk to CNET. However, he made reference to Defcon attendees about his phone getting seized. Following a question-and-answer session after his talk on the Tor Project, Appelbaum was asked by an attendee for his phone number. He replied, "that phone was seized."
Shortly thereafter, two casually dressed men identified themselves as FBI agents and asked to talk to him.
"We'd like to chat for a few minutes," one of the men said, adding, "we thought you might not want to." Appelbaum asked them if they were aware of "what happened to me," and one of them replied, "Yes, that's why we're here."
"I don't have anything to say," Appelbaum told them. One of the agents said they were interested in hearing about "rights being trampled" and said, "sometimes it's nice to have a conversation to flesh things out."
Marcia Hofmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was in the room and asked if the agents were at the event in an official capacity or for personal reasons. "A little of both," one of them said.
Appelbaum asked when his equipment would be returned, and one of the agents said, "We aren't involved in that; we have no idea," and walked away when Appelbaum declined to talk further.
The agents declined to identify themselves to CNET. They said they were attending the conference and declined to talk further.
Appelbaum is a hacker and security researcher who co-founded the Noisebridge hacker space in San Francisco's Mission District. He has also worked to bypass the security of "smart" parking meters, unearth flaws in Web security certificates, and discover a novel way to bypass hard-drive encryption.
At the Next HOPE hacker conference in New York in mid-July, Appelbaum filled in for Assange, the controversial figure who has become the public face of Wikileaks. Assange skipped his appearance at Next HOPE on the expectation that Homeland Security agents would be looking for him. After his own presentation at Next HOPE, Appelbaum made a hasty exit and hopped on a flight to Europe.
Jacob Appelbaum, Wikileaks contributor and Tor Project programmer, speaks at the Next HOPE hacker conference in mid-July.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET)While he was on stage at Next HOPE, Appelbaum urged the largely sympathetic audience to support Wikileaks by volunteering or by donating money, by addressing recent criticisms of the document-publishing Web site, and by boasting that Wikileaks remains uncensorable. "You can try to take us down...but you can't stop us," he said. He also challenged modern U.S. foreign policy and called for civil disobedience in the form of exposing heavily guarded secrets.
Appelbaum told the Next HOPE audience that though he's significantly involved in Wikileaks, he has no access to classified U.S. data that may have been sent to the site.
Wikileaks has been in the spotlight since it posted a video in April of a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in 2007. The video showed an Apache helicopter shooting at a group of people on the street and at a van that pulled up to rescue the injured. Several children were wounded, and two Reuters journalists, along with unarmed Iraqi civilians, were killed. The episode generated an outpouring of antimilitary sentiment.
The release of the video was tied to U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who was arrested in June at a military base near Baghdad. Hacker Adrian Lamo confirmed to CNET that he had informed U.S. officials that Manning had confessed to leaking the video and other materials.
About a week ago, Wikileaks released more than 75,000 confidential files related to the war in Afghanistan, prompting White House, National Security Agency, and other U.S. officials to condemn the site and launch an investigation.
The Afghan War Diary page on Wikileaks was recently updated to include a mystery file entitled "insurance." It's unclear what the file contains because it is encrypted.
(CNET's Declan McCullagh contributed to this report.)
Updated at 5:25 p.m. PDT with background on Wikileaks.
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor. 
Be strong Jake, you're doing a world of good.
If you truly think these documents show America being "evil"...go live with the Taliban for a while.
New Yorker piece [newyorker.com]commented on the leaked video and noted that
These pieces of missing information are not just inherent limitations in video. The producers themselves have chosen not to provide them. There appears to be a purpose to the omissions, which is underlined by the Orwell quote at the start, the prefatory explanation, the quotes and dedication at the end, even the way the helicopter crew?s cruel remarks are edited in a few places for effect. Although the producers identify the camera of the Reuters journalist who, along with his assistant, will be killed by Apache cannon fire, they don?t point to the AK-47 or the RPG launcher carried by other men with whom the journalists are walking in a group. Stripped of much context and weighted with commentary, this video is both an important document of the war, courageously leaked after the military had steadily refused to release it, and, in its way, a propaganda film
If you don't want the U.S. to descend into that realm, don't defend this FBI/SS guys. Nobody's gonna be intimidated by this creeps. It's good Obama reads CNET so he's aware of this stuff. I know he's being briefed at this moment of this PR fiasco.
That is the difference of being in US and China. In the US of A we are free and we have the right to question. The documents that have been released so far mainly point to wrong doings by partners of US and not US itself. I am proud of our soldiers and believe that the backend support to them is strong too. Sometime it is important to know how our "friends" are faring and we must be able to let the world know that these people are double-faced scums. [The Pakistanis] are sleeping with the enemy while pretending to support the US and just for what? The darn millions of tax payer money. So, do we not deserver to know where our hard earned money goes? Helping countries that support our enemies? ***. [CNET editors' note: Prohibited content deleted.]
In China (or most other oppressive regimes) he would vanish into a prison system for years without being heard from as friends and family try in vain to get him out.
Our system may not be prefect - but it is somewhat better than most.
There is a difference here. Listen to this guy's comments as well as Assange's. They both hate the U.S. and the military. They are not doing this for free speech, to help the U.S., or to expose problems with U.S. partners. They are doing it to hurt America for purely political reasons. Applebaum is, imo, a traitor if he is connected with this site and his own words at this conference damn him. He's a traitor who should face the consequences if it can be proven he is involved.
Do not blame on the tool, blame on the person that sent the documents!!! That person should be held accountable for all acts, not the tool.
To understand the "atrocities" it is useful to understand the situation. These journalists were among people who appeared to be insurgents armed with at least an RPG (dangerous to a helicopter) and an AK 47 (less dangerous but still belonging to an enemy combatant). Though camera and other journalist accouterments are visible, in the midst of an armed engagement, these things can be overlooked / misidentified in view of the greater threat of the RPG and other weapons.
Additionally, it may not be entirely unreasonable to consider the journalists to be insurgents themselves, out to film the result of their actions. It does not appear these journalists were carrying any sort of flags or other identifiers that would mark them as neutrals or target verboten.
The filmed deaths of Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh are graphic examples of what may occur after grabbing a camera walking around with men caring AK 47's and RPG's in this type of environment.
Additionally, its a good idea to leave the children at home as well.
As long as it's worse in China then we are OK then? Becareful you'll run out of countries that are worse soon.
The reality is the U.S. we once knew already doesn't exist, having been replaced by a state that doesn't care about right, and does care about protecting the state. And in essence, that is exactly like China.
I, for one, would like to see this country and its administration made accountable [among many others] for its atrocities. We complain that Wikileaks might put human lives at risk, yet we fail to account for the human lives we have already unjustly taken.
We manipulate the world and lives are forever changed for our selfish desires. We lie to our own people and hold illegal wars to place our stake in countries where we don't belong.
Wikileaks removes the blindfold from ignorant sheeple and gives the world a chance to see reality... might people actually be intelligent enough to interpret the material placed in front of them.
If you don't like the country move. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Things happen war is ugly.
The reason these documents are hidden is because people can't seem to take the truth that war is ugly. There is casualties and sometimes people die even by accident but that is just how it is. This is not coming from a conservative or a republican but a liberal democrat that realizes war is not pretty.
Sure, we can continue down the road of preemptive wars, secretive unsupervised agencies (and whole departments), bailing out corporations, and letting 45 million of our citizens go without healthcare, but that only leads one place. Failure. Slow and gradual, eventually fizzling out. Like every great world power before us, we can choose to look back on our past greatness and move forward, or we can try to flex our muscles and get bogged down fighting insurgent forces for no discernible goal, stoking domestic extremism, and maxing out our credit cards.
In layman's terms: Try thinking critically. Stop swallowing talk-show banter as fact. At your peril, and all of ours, disregard that we are a country in a fundamentally different position than we were just 50 years ago.
"If you don't like the country move. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Argument By Dismissal
you didn't say why he is was wrong
I suggest you two should read up on logical fallacies.
You do realize this is already happening, right? If you don't know, allow me to clue you in on the fact that there are many Americans who are preparing to leave the US. Our schools are in dire straights, 1% of the population is in jail at any point in time, the economy is dead for at least another 10 years, and the government is utterly incompetent to do anything about any of this.
Now if the Americans leaving were fast food workers, who cares? However, those who are leaving are the entrepreneurs. These are the people who could lift the economy out of the great "whatever" we are in right now. Canada is making a major play for American companies, as is France. Lets add to the fact that most new companies that are started (not as a tax shelter) are started outside of the US. Add on to that, the fact that any significant growth in the next decade is going to come in Asia, and well a lot of people are walking away from the US.
The USA is NOT a great country anymore. If you don't like hearing that, then go back to your "rah-rah! snooze stations". And yes, we will make sure your broke-ass door does not hit us, and the vast intellectual resources we possess, on the way out.
Enjoy being somone's *****!!
And your sources are where?
We will suppress dissent so that others may speak freely.
We will restrict your freedom in order to protect your freedom.
To put it succinctly, as George Orwell did in Nineteen Eighty-Four:
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
Reich Marshal Hermann Goering couldn't have said it better: "The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
Everyone here seems to forget why we are in Afghanistan: Because we were attacked without provocation, and thousands of our citizens were killed. What about those innocent lives that were lost?
i was sympathetic with Applebaum until I read that line. some crazed intelligence analyst gave them thousands and thousand of classified "but not really secret" documents, and they decided to release them publicly. fine, i can understand that logic. but encouraging people to expose actually classified intelligence? thats just irresponsible. im guessing this guy also applauds Google security researcher Tavis Ormundy for releasing the exploit for Windows XP before Microsoft had a chance to patch it. theyre all just nothing more than pathetic nobodies looking for their 15 minutes of fame.
Pwnie Awards seem to have snubbed Tavis Ormandy Windows Help Center vulnerability after criticism and campaigning by n3td3v Security and other members of the security industry, in that awarding Gaffi? or Ormandy would-be totally immoral and wrong.
n3td3v Security had challenged Pwnie judges to change their mind both privately by email and publicly on news groups, mailing lists, news article discussions, Twitter and on our blog days before award ceremony was due to take place at the Black Hat, Las Vegas, NV USA-based security conference, to avoid an Ormandy win on the basis of social responsibility.
Tavis Ormandy was behind the irresponsible disclosure in which he demanded Microsoft fix a critical flaw within 60 days, and because they didn't agree, Ormandy fully disclosed all technical details within 5 days to the public domain, leading to cyber attacks in the wild by hackers.
Ormandy was criticised by many industry experts as soon as the disclosure was made.
Instead, client-side bug winner went to Sami Koivu who wasn't originally a nomination, but seems to have been fast-tracked as a replacement to avoid Tavis Ormandy being the winner, and wasn't announced on the web site that he was even a contender until after the awards had taken place, this was very much a last minute action by Pwnie Awards.
Read More: http://n3td3v.blogspot.com/2010/07/pwnie-awards-2010-snub-tavis-ormandy.html
Is that worth exposing the horrors of war? Causing the deaths of hundreds or thousands of innocent people?
The Pentagon Papers aren't a fair comparison, because they related strictly to Americans, and the illegal snooping done by various government agencies on Americans.
There are ways to express the displeasure with the horrors of war, and the tragedies of the deaths of innocents, without adding to the body count.
They are young and want to challenge the "system", okay, but they don't understand the damage they may be causing.
If you have nothing to hide, it doesn't mean you are safe. Not since Bush changed things.
Well, at least things are a little better now.
After many decades of hateful foreign policy, it is the first time we are seeing some fresh air in Obama foreign policy. Not everything is good or perfect. But some are.
Though they are doing the correct thing now, imagine they had the correct thing long back by not supporting the Af-pak nexus. It took them a loss of 1000 lives to suddenly become all righteous and invade an already war-ravaged country. My heart goes out to the all foot soldiers who are paying the price for political and policy decisions.
In war, there are no winners or losers. There are only dead people. The sooner we realize the wold will be a better place.
While I agree in some instances (such as the current situation in Iraq,) tell that to someone in South Korea or Kuwait. Look up what the N. Koreans were doing in territory they held, or some of the actions of the VietCong against civilians. Or go back a little farther and look up "Nanking."
Wikileaks, IMHO, is behaving irresponsibly. Yes, civilians get killed in a war. That's been true for millenia. Yes, there are friendly fire incidents. Also true throughout human history. The difference now? The media - who also tend towards irresponsibility at times - and the immediate access to information for the general public to take (or misconstrue) however they want.
The US isn't perfect. Anyone who says it is is a fool. But by the same token, so is a blanket statement that "every war we've been in for the past 60 years has been wrong." We've made mistakes - sometimes in how we've handled a conflict (Vietnam, one big example of letting the media run the war,) or in not following through properly (our current situation in Afghanistan vs the Taliban - what would have happened if we'd helped rebuild after the Soviet pullout? Or kept the Iraqi military employed and helping to rebuild their own country - instead of letting loose several now-unemployed, armed and defeated people loose with no future? Is it any wonder that was a ripe recruiting ground for insurgency?)
But Wikileaks just releasing documents "because they're secret?" It's easy to count deaths directly by bullets and bombs. It's harder to measure the impact a document has in helping track down an informant, terrorizing a village in reprisal, or throwing boulders in the way of assistance and relationships between countries because an *opinion* in a classified document gets leaked.
1. They can be enemy civilians engaged in commerce that strengthens the enemy war effort. They may be subject to a certain level of violence and their physical environs may be targeted subject to certain restraints. They are generally protected from genocide and abuse, especially after surrender.
2. They may be neutrals trading with the enemy and subject to interdiction by blockade and possible violence if they attempt to resist or evade. While in territory controlled by the enemy they have no greater or special protection than the local civilians do, less if they associate deliberately with the government or armed forces of the enemy. This applies to Journalists and NGO agents who sometimes think that they deserve a special status.
3. Clergy, medical staff and neutral diplomats are entitled to special protection, and there are guidelines on how they should identify themselves.
4. They can be Lawful Combatants serving in the armed forces of the enemy while wearing a distinct uniform or device and subject to regular military discipline. They are entitled to Geneva Convention protections.
5. They can be unlawful combatants or pirates who are considered the common enemy of humanity (hostis humani generis) and who are not subject to the protections of the Geneva Convention.
They can be enemy agents who infiltrate to commit destruction (sabotage or terrorism) or to steal secrets (espionage) or foment rebellion (subversion.)
7. They can be citizens or subjects of one country giving aid to those the country is at war with. They are traitors. In the United States the crime of treason is defined in the Constitution.
The wikileaks project was openly designed to aid the forces that the United States is at war with. Persons who assisted the war effort are named and can be expected to be killed, as can their families. Further cooperation will be difficult to obtain and that will cost American lives and ensure either defeat or a longer and more brutal war. Mr Assange is not a US citizen. He therefor may be liable to charges of accessory to murder, for the Afghans whose live will be forfeit, and espionage.
Assange could be seized either through the assistance of a friendly government or by agents of the US, such as the DEA or CIA, who may be authorized to deliver him to US jurisdiction. Any complaint about how he gets placed in US custody would be a diplomatic matter between the two countries but would not be a barrier to prosecuting him once he found himself under US control. If DEA agents seize a drug dealer in Mexico and bring him over the border without getting the Mexican governments permission the arrest is still good.
Mr Applebaum is I believe a US citizen. US citizens are free to disagree with government policy. If they provide material assistance to a foreign person or organization that engages in Espionage they could not only be charged with that crime but also the additional crime of treason. Mr Applebaum's bland assurance that he had nothing to do with anything classified not withstanding I would expect the government to inspect him so thoroughly that every scintilla of information he could posses about wikileaks and Mr Assange and information networks is laid bare. He should be considering the real possibility of spending decades without the ability to access any means of electronic communications. If he is found to be complicit in this conspiracy then he should be denied even the possibility of accessing a telephone, let alone a computer. He could communicate with his lawyers using pen and ink.
The War Powers Act of 1973, Public Law 93-148, SEC. 5. (b):
Within sixty calendar days after a report is submitted or is required to be submitted pursuant to section 4(a)(1), whichever is earlier, the President shall terminate any use of United States Armed Forces with respect to which such report was submitted (or required to be submitted), unless the Congress (1) has declared war or has enacted a specific authorization for such use of United States Armed Forces, (2) has extended by law such sixty-day period, or (3) is physically unable to meet as a result of an armed attack upon the United States. Such sixty-day period shall be extended for not more than an additional thirty days if the President determines and certifies to the Congress in writing that unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces requires the continued use of such armed forces in the course of bringing about a prompt removal of such forces.
The War Powers Act differentiates between War and authorization to use military force. The Constitution neither provides the form for declaring war, nor a definition of war. If you were to look up 'state of war' in Webster's you'd find that it refers to a legal state created and ended by official declaration. The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (Pub.L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224, enacted September 18, 2001) is subject to Section 5 (b) of the War Powers Act which has no provision for Congress calling an end to an authorization which can expire as noted above. The authorization can be superceded by Congress declaring war.
It's probably safe to to say that the United States has authorized the use of War Powers. It doesn't appear Congress has declared war, which might explain why the economy is not on a war footing, nor has the draft been re-instituted. You could note various Federal laws with clauses providing more executive power during time of war. It might be interesting to see test of those when War Powers are invoked.
Mr. Assange cannot be a "traitor" to a nation he has no ties to!
Now, I really hate people like you, blind nationalists, you are not even able to think critically. You really want your agents to act like that outside the US? What if European, Asian, African or South American agents decide to do the same? We would love to drag George W. Bush in front of a court for crimes against humanity!
Let's face the fact that the US is waning, the future belongs to the BRIC nations. Do you really want China to act just like you suggested? They will be the most powerful nation soon enough.
In case you didn't notice the US is not the world police just a cowardly BULLY!
P.S. Your sadistic "wet dream" of torturing Mr. Appelbaum is already done for, if you read the article you would know he left for Europe.
IP Location: Stockholm, Sweden"... like thepiratebay.org.
One can not stop sharing of information like copyrighted games, music or in this case war diaries. World is transparent and it is good and/or bad depending on point of view.
You talk about targeting civilians who participate in commercial activities that supposedly strengthen the enemy war effort. Well, every civilian who works for a living is helping his or her country's economy in one way or another. By your definition, anyone who has a job in a country deemed hostile by your government should expect a good dose of violence for trying to survive.
You believe that clerics, medical workers and neutral diplomats are entitled to special protection, yet expressly deny the same treatment to journalists and NGO staff. Maybe you aren't aware that the clergy in many countries have been revealed as active participants and cheerleaders of mass atrocities. But I suppose clerical robes make the wearer holier than the average pleb. As for reporters and human rights observers, I can see why you have such disdain for them. When your troops have wiped out an entire village of unarmed civilians (a la My Lai), you probably wouldn't want that story to make the international press. The ensuing accusations of war crimes, declining troop morale, and domestic opposition to the conflict are collectively detrimental to any war effort. So, would that make journalists and NGO workers who don't sing to your tune legitimate targets in your book?
You claim that Assange could face charges of being an accessory to murder for exposing Afghan informants who may lose their lives as a result. All of a sudden, you seem to express so much concern for the ordinary Afghan when throughout your comment you show little regard for civilians in hostile territory. Wikileaks have already stated that they have held back 15,000 documents in order to review them and scrub any references to informants. As for the documents that have been released, no one has yet been able to identify a single informant whose life has been put in peril because of Wikileak's actions.
Assange is neither a citizen nor resident of the US. Hence, any calls for him to be arrested for espionage simply because he is in possession of secret US documents is ludicrous. If it were otherwise, countries around the world would be seeking the arrests of intelligence and high-ranking officials in every other nation - hostile or allied.
Your call for Assange to be extradited to the US is nothing more wishful. He has broken no law in Australia and thus cannot be arrested. All that his country's government can do is express its displeasure. To have US agents abduct him is tantamount to kidnap. That's a clear violation of international law. But judging from your statement regarding the seizure of alleged criminals from your neighbouring country without going through its legal channels, I doubt you care very much for international laws or protocols. I'm sure you'd love to bring back rendering, black sites and waterboarding. In the end, it's all about trumping other peoples' rights and sovereignty to further one's own interests, isn't it?
I don't strongly take to one side or the other regarding wikileaks, however I believe the reason that was placed in there is because during a full scale zero sum war between super powers attacks on an enemies manufacturing and industrial infrastructure is common and expected. Unfortunately when targetting the facilities in which war machines (ie. tanks, aircraft, naval vessels) ammunitions and weapons, civilians employed at those facilities become casualties of war.
I do not think anyone would argue that war is not ugly, and only few would argue that it is fair, however if you are employed at a facility making weapons designed to cause harm to another nation, you should realize that you are at risk. The same would be true of other nations attacking the US, our industrial and manufacturing facilities would also come under attack.
Furthermore (and I realize many will disagree with me), the US is one of few nations that attempt to reduce casualties. Last year when fire opened between Georgian and Russian armed forces much of the artillery rounds were sent into civilian residential districts, and one of Russia's first targets was a CIVILIAN airport in the capital of Georgia. Despite this, the "international community" said nothing.
"In my experience it's generally the iPhones that connect most easily," he said. "It's actually been the bane of my existence trying to keep the damned iPhones away."
It`s been known for many years GSM is insecure...iPhone being the worst !
And sorry, an Iphone is insecure? Yeah, right.. Android GSM is the same stuff.. Do not mix OS with Technology, you will fail miserably
Unfortunately, implicit to what you are saying is the necessity of building/reinforcing civil society in south-central Asia -- and paying for the necessary social workers, nurse practitioners, teachers, etc. IN THE NUMBERS THAT ARE SUFFICIENT to both build and stabilize the Afghan and Pakistani civil societies is anathema to Democrats (to say nothing of Republicans); and, of course, the same thing applies to expenditures for necessary public infrastructure: The Democratic (to say nothing of the Republican) leadership only GRUDGINGLY provides parsimonious expenditures for domestic needs -- foreign aid (for the most part) is provided for both public relations purposes and to reward politically connected corporations in the U.S. Improving the lives of 3rd world citizens has nothing to do with the mission of U.S. foreign aid.
Perhaps we should have left Hitler alone too?
War IS murder, but sometimes it's necessary when there are greater evils at hand.
Wether or not you like what the Taliban does, is none of your business, they are Afghanis, not US citizens, what they do within their borders is there own business, if the US stopped poking its nose into every corner of the world, trying to put a MacDonalds on every corner, and an Amoco gas station on the next, and turning everybody into good little consumers, then the world would be a far better place. Democracy is not for everybody, despite what you may think.
And of note, there is no evidence that Afghanistan or Iraq had anything at all to do with 9/11, I seem to remember that all the hijackers where saudi's, if so why have you not invaded Saudi Arabia?.
It appears that the US's two major "Allies" in the region, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, may not be all they seem to be.
Almost the entire country was in favor of entering Afghanistan in order to topple the Taliban.
The support was overwhelming.
Where there is much less support, is nation building the country for year after year, a decade later, still supporting these people.
Fighting terrorism is important, but as many have noted, the country has to remain fiscally strong, or we won't have the resources to keep up the fight. Even if you love power, you have to know that resources are a source of power.
We didn't have unlimited funds, we never did. We can't let blind desire, overcome financial sense.
China is hoping for 50 years of unbroken growth, and a decade or so thereafter to surpass the U.S. as the world's largest economy.
The U.S. cannot exert as much influence as the economy wanes. Taking down the Taliban, could have been done in a less costly way. Saving money gives us resources for future battles.
This whole plan - is moronic, and short sighted.
Okay so its okay that the Taliban has been consistently trying to bomb the US? But they live in another country so we are supposed to let them do what the hell they want? I'd hope you'd have the same mindset when one of your family members is used as a walking time bomb. They live in another country they can do what they want right?
it was a tough call though - disagree and therefore i'm 'hateful', or agree and become an extremist idiot whose moral compass is blindly obedient to government opinion...decisions, decisions..
I really hope your vision of America becomes reality, I would love to see America destroy itself in a brutal fascist regime like you suggest. Sure, there would be blood, but you can find ways of justifying it. I'm sure you can!
My suggestion is that you remove the right to vote, only veterans should have that privilege!
I'll be cheering from Europe!
As far as a trial, yes, a military tribunal, not a regular trial. That's how we deal with these things. But I can't imagine what kind of defense this scumbag could come up with that'd excuse his actions. What's he going to do, say "Oh, I thought it was just the latest Tom Clancy conspiracy theory novel called Classified"? But by all means, yes, lets give him a military tribunal so that when he's shot for the traitor he is, people like you can say the trial wasn't fair or whatever other lame excuses you'll come up with.
Those hackers sure are evil. But at least, unlike some who post here, they aren't complete and utter useless morons.
End of subject.
- by 0ri0n August 1, 2010 6:29 AM PDT
- They just need to host these hacker/blackhat conferences off U.S. soil - usually American companies (using US security) or homeland security just see it as an opportunity to snag some speaker.
- Like this Reply to this comment 1 person likes this comment
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- by n3td3v August 1, 2010 6:39 AM PDT
- "They just need to host these hacker/blackhat conferences off U.S. soil - usually American companies (using US security) or homeland security just see it as an opportunity to snag some speaker."
- Like this 2 people like this comment
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Showing 1 of 3 pages (131 Comments)These conferences bring in a ton of money, and if the local law enforcement doesn't want to recognize the value in exchange for amnesty, that money can go to another country - hell, host it in Haiti and help rebuild THEIR economy...I am sure you won't get their government looking to jeapardize an influx of funds for an opportunity to apprehend and interrogate the guests....
You do know the owner of Blackhat/Defcon is a member of the U.S Department of Homeland Security's Advisory Board?
Here's something I wrote a few years back:
Human Honeypot: reader comment from n3td3v
Posted on: August 1, 2006, 4:54 AM PDT
Story: Black Hat with a Vista twist
Its the 'manufactured' hackers who go to these 'talk to the police'
conferences, you know the ones who spent thousands on student loans to
become a hacker.
Any criminal hackers who go are just stupid and don't realise what
they are actually attending.
The U.S Security Services will have hidden cameras and befrienders in
place to grab as much information out of people as possible.
These conferences have just turned into a 'human honeypot' for the
intelligence services.
Good on the people who are brave enough to step into that 'human
honeypot', but the majority in the underground wouldn't go near these
conferences.