Julian Assange Is A Hero: He Deserves Our Support

Most people in the world haven't figured it out yet, but we are at war right now. It is a totally new kind of war, and one of an historical nature. This war will be studied in the future no less intently than the American Revolution was, and will produce as much change one way or the other as that war did. What makes this war so interesting is it is being fought in cyberspace at this point, and not on the streets or in battlefields, though that may come before it is all over. I am referring to the online war that has begun between the supporters and the opponents of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks has been publishing documents that major governments and large international corporations and they decided to counterattack. The United States has issued ever more bellicose threats, including members of our government openly calling for the assassination of Assange. Our government has put major pressure on Pay-Pal, Visa, Mastercard and other businesses claiming that WikiLeaks is engaged in illegal activities causing all of them to sever ties. They also pressured Amazon.Com to stop hosting the WikiLeaks site. Of course this is a lie as WikiLeaks is clearly protected under the 1^st amendment's freedom of the press. The government tried the same tactic in the early 1970's when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to major newspapers. The courts then ruled that freedom of the press rules. It is not the messenger’s fault the government lost control of its information and they have every right to publish it. The US government has gotten so bad they have made it be known on college campuses that if it can be proved you have read the WikiLeaks site you will NEVER be hired for a governmental job or contract.

The government of Sweden has issued an arrest warrant on what appear to be obviously trumped up charges, and as soon as they manage to extradite Assange from England you can bet that the US will try to grab him from them. As Sweden has far less protections for defendants than the UK it will be far easier for us to grab him and run him off to GitMo or some other such place and make him disappear.

In response a group of hackers and online activists from all over the world has taken down the Swedish Prosecutors site, the Visa, and Mastercard site, and other sites from governments and corporations who are attacking WikiLeaks. Assange himself was one of the great hacker sin his day and thousands of hackers all around the world look up to him for that, and for his campaign of transparency in the world. These hackers, and thousands of more people around the globe look at this as a fight between secrecy, control, and a massive global corporate/governmental evil versus the forces of freedom, liberty, and freedom.

I agree with them, and I stand with Assange and the hackers. The US government has lost its way, and this case is a clear indication of that. Nothing the site has published has endangered the US at all, they are all cases of the government lying to us, and not national security. The same with the lies and illegal actions of major corporations. Take a stand for freedom, write your congressmen and demand the government stop its assaults on WikiLeaks.