Happy Face

From the Obama White house transition agenda on whistleblowing. "Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled," Obama has brought more prosecutions against whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than any previous president and all presidents combined.

The crimes are the thousands of citizens already killed by airstrikes revealed in the leak. To argue we have to imprison the men who shine a light on that, in order to avoid the zero deaths so far, years down the line or the potential deaths that result from the imaginary national security risk is to accept doublethink in the most extreme.

Maybe try to restrict to people accused of a crime.

I don't think you do. The idea of America was to move away from a monarchy, all men were created equally and are judged by the same laws. Claiming that WikiLeaks does not merely receive and publish classified information, but rather actively seeks it and helps the leakers, is the DOJ’s attempt to distinguish it from “traditional” journalism. In theory this would mean “the government would not have to confront awkward questions about why it is not also prosecuting traditional news organizations or investigative journalists who also disclose information the government says should be kept secret — including The New York Times.” But this distinction is totally illusory. Very rarely do investigative journalists merely act as passive recipients of classified information; secret government programs aren’t typically reported because leaks just suddenly show up one day in the email box of a passive reporter. Journalists virtually always take affirmative steps to encourage its dissemination. They try to cajole leakers to turn over documents to verify their claims and consent to their publication. They call other sources to obtain confirmation and elaboration in the form of further leaks and documents. Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau described how they granted anonymity to “nearly a dozen current and former officials” to induce them to reveal information about Bush’s NSA eavesdropping program. Dana Priest contacted numerous ”U.S. and foreign officials” to reveal the details of the CIA’s “black site” program. Both stories won Pulitzer Prizes and entailed numerous, active steps to cajole sources to reveal classified information for publication. http://www.salon.com/2010/12/16/wikileaks_21/singleton/

Mrs took me there on my Birthday. Got a free cocktail with glitter and a candle Gorgeous mushroom soup starter thing. Canny Chrorizo & Chicken chilli thing for main. Loads of cocktails. It's canny for a chain. A cut above Nandos and that without being great..

Went for a Red Hot World Buffet in Manchester. By god that's good buffeting. If you're a buffet snob, give it a try. There's ones in Leeds and Other places too. Needs to come to Newcastle.

That's reason enough to grant asylum though, no? If we're pretty sure that Assange will suffer cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment at the hands of a foreign power, before he even gets charged with anything.

"We have yet to see any harm come to anyone in Afghanistan that we can directly tie to exposure in the WikiLeaks documents," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell "I've heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates

No, I'm saying anyone leaking classified information should be put on trial for doing so. That includes Manning, the President and Panetta. They should have the right to justify themselves in court and be judged accordingly. Unfortunately the US don't have a system of justice that works like that at the moment, in the US if you're a nobody you're jailed indefinitley without charge, tortured, pronounced guilty by the president or killed. If you're in government or high ranking in the military, nothing is done. Assange has leaked nothing, he's only revelaed the details that were leaked to him. As many Newspaper editors have done for decades without retribution.

cruel, inhuman and degrading

Has Bradley Manning had fair treatment?

Nothing leaked has shown to have caused any intelligence related harm to anyone working in the services or otherwise. Not sure why you are worried bout the non juicy stuff that was leaked. Nor have the US charged Assange or Wikileaks with any sort of crime....because it would HAVE to apply equally to the NYT, WSJ etc and there'd be uproar. Obama and his cohorts constantly brag about their drone program which they use to kill Americans, but that is so highly classified that courts aren't allowed to judge on it's legality. It is just as much against the law for them to leak those details to the press, but that's not how it's implemented. The powerful are allowed to leak details that empower them. Average Joe's that reveal government wrongdoing are subjected to the worst of US justice.

Reasonable justice? He helped reveal war crimes. Reasonable justice would be the other way around in that the war criminals would be prosecuted. In this world of "balanced" coverage we live in, I think your equating two sides who are not equal. The greatest value of a free press is in revealing the wrong doing of powerful elites. The press are on the side of the people, the government will abuse the people to retain and expand their power. You're cheering for the wrong side....because he's a twat.

Utterly incredulous that people are happy to cheer on the US government bullying an amazing institution like Wikileaks into irrelevance....purely because Assange is a bit of a funny looking, funny talking, Aussie tit.

Can't imagine Ben arfa being a cock. Not in his nature.

Not since Milner was sold

Yep, Gram. Do a search on "Milner" with him as the poster, it's unerring. http://www.toontastic.net/board/user/1364-gram/ "Milner is just a spotty pleb who needs benching" "we are stuck with shite like James Milner" "I don't rate Milner. However, its fucking frightening that so many are including him in the side despite his complete shitness this season" "better off saving your ire for those patently not good enough for regular first team football like James Milner. If we got our money back on him I'd be over the moon." "I'd happily drop Milner to keep Smith on the right" "Milner is adequate, I doubt if he will play for England." "Milner has little or no chance of ever making it at the top level." "Would any of the top four covet Milner? Not a cat in hells chance. He struggles at U21 level. " etc.

Is this worth reading from Page 1?

You think if he went willingly he'd get a full and fair trial in the US? EDIT:....assuming they actually got as far as charging him with anything.

It was aimed at Gram btw Leazes and Fish

Perhaps Bill Keller or Alan Rusbridger should be classified as terrorists and rendered for torture too. Do you prefer a closed shop press fearful of US reprisals when using a whistleblower, only daring to reprint government claims?

If one asks current or former WikiLeaks associates what their greatest fear is, almost none cites prosecution by their own country. Most trust their own nation's justice system to recognize that they have committed no crime. The primary fear is being turned over to the US. That is the crucial context for understanding Julian Assange's 16-month fight to avoid extradition to Sweden, a fight that led him to seek asylum, Tuesday, in the London Embassy of Ecuador. The evidence that the US seeks to prosecute and extradite Assange is substantial. There is no question that the Obama justice department has convened an active grand jury to investigate whether WikiLeaks violated the draconian Espionage Act of 1917. Key senators from President Obama's party, including Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, have publicly called for his prosecution under that statute. A leaked email from the security firm Stratfor – hardly a dispositive source, but still probative – indicated that a sealed indictment has already been obtained against him. Prominent American figures in both parties have demanded Assange's lifelong imprisonment, called him a terrorist, and even advocated his assassination. For several reasons, Assange has long feared that the US would be able to coerce Sweden into handing him over far more easily than if he were in Britain. For one, smaller countries such as Sweden are generally more susceptible to American pressure and bullying. For another, that country has a disturbing history of lawlessly handing over suspects to the US. A 2006 UN ruling found Sweden in violation of the global ban on torture for helping the CIA render two suspected terrorists to Egypt, where they were brutally tortured (both individuals, asylum-seekers in Sweden, were ultimately found to be innocent of any connection to terrorism and received a monetary settlement from the Swedish government). Perhaps most disturbingly of all, Swedish law permits extreme levels of secrecy in judicial proceedings and oppressive pre-trial conditions, enabling any Swedish-US transactions concerning Assange to be conducted beyond public scrutiny. Ironically, even the US State Department condemned Sweden's "restrictive conditions for prisoners held in pretrial custody", including severe restrictions on their communications with the outside world. Assange's fear of ending up in the clutches of the US is plainly rational and well-grounded. One need only look at the treatment over the last decade of foreign nationals accused of harming American national security to know that's true; such individuals are still routinely imprisoned for lengthy periods without any charges or due process. Or consider the treatment of Bradley Manning, accused of leaking to WikiLeaks: a formal UN investigation found that his pre-trial conditions of severe solitary confinement were "cruel, inhuman and degrading", and he now faces capital charges of aiding al-Qaida. The Obama administration's unprecedented obsession with persecuting whistleblowers and preventing transparency – what even generally supportive, liberal magazines call "Obama's war on whistleblowers" – makes those concerns all the more valid. No responsible person should have formed a judgment one way or the other as to whether Assange is guilty of anything in Sweden. He has not even been charged, let alone tried or convicted, of sexual assault, and he is entitled to a presumption of innocence. The accusations made against him are serious ones, and deserve to be taken seriously and accorded a fair and legal resolution. But the WikiLeaks founder, like everyone else, is fully entitled to invoke all of his legal rights, and it's profoundly reckless and irresponsible to suggest, as some have, that he has done anything wrong by doing so. Seeking asylum on the grounds of claimed human rights violations is a longstanding and well-recognized right in international law. It is unseemly, at best, to insist that he forego his rights in order to herd him as quickly as possible to Sweden. Assange is not a fugitive and has not fled. Everyone knows where he is. If Ecuador rejects his asylum request, he will be right back in the hands of British authorities, who will presumably extradite him to Sweden without delay. At every step of the process, he has adhered to, rather than violated, the rule of law. His asylum request of yesterday is no exception. Julian Assange has sparked intense personal animosity, especially in media circles – a revealing irony, given that he has helped to bring about more transparency and generated more newsworthy scoops than all media outlets combined over the last several years. That animosity often leads media commentators to toss aside their professed beliefs and principles out of an eagerness to see him shamed or punished. But ego clashes and media personality conflicts are pitifully trivial when weighed against what is at stake in this case: both for Assange personally and for the greater cause of transparency. If he's guilty of any crimes in Sweden, he should be held to account. But until then, he has every right to invoke the legal protections available to everyone else. Even more so, as a foreign national accused of harming US national security, he has every reason to want to avoid ending up in the travesty known as the American judicial system. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/20/julian-assange-right-asylum

IIRC a few learned posters on here always thought he was utter gash at NUFC.

Having watched Milner at Newcastle all those years did anyone expect a great deal more of him? Our big players have performed. Rusty Rooney Played 1 Scored 1, Captain Stevey G played 3 4 assists, Joe Hart conceded 2 and neither particularly his fault also 2 clean sheets, Ashley Cole...champion, Lescott scored 1 and been solid. Young has disappointed. Outside of that you have some good players, but hardly anyone that would complain about being on the Newcastle bench. They've performed to their ability too. The team performances and the results have exceeded what I ever expected of this squad.

People are starting to piss me off. Before a ball was kicked we were Shit and no-one would be surprised if we didn't score a point. Now we've effectively used what little talent we have to win the group without losing a game, and people complain we're shit because we haven't won every game in style. Contrary twats.