WikiLeaks may well make us uncomfortable in some of what it does, though in general I believe it's done far more good than harm so far. We need to recognize, however, as Mathew Ingram wrote over the weekend, that "Like It or Not, WikiLeaks is a Media Entity." What our government is trying to do to WikiLeaks now is lawless in stunning ways, as Salon's Glenn Greenwald forcefully argued today.

These are also acts of outright censorship. No, Amazon is not bound by the First Amendment. But if it's bowing to government pressure, it's helping a panicked government tear up one of our most basic freedoms.

Defend WikiLeaks or lose free speech - Dan Gillmor - Salon.com

The US "IP Czar," Victoria Espinel, said at a conference this week that Homeland Security's seizure of a bunch of domain names was apparently just the beginning of a larger plan to go after such folks.

US Copyright Czar: Expect More Domain Censorship | Techdirt

When authorities can’t get what they want by working within the law, the right answer is not to work outside the law. The right answer is that they can’t get what they want...

If it’s OK for a democracy to just decide to run someone off the internet for doing something they wouldn’t prosecute a newspaper for doing, the idea of an internet that further democratizes the public sphere will have taken a mortal blow.

More from Glenn Greenwald:

The U.S. and its "friends" in the Western and business worlds are more than able and happy to severely punish anyone they want without the slightest basis in "law." That's what the lawless, Wild Western World is: political leaders punishing whomever they want without any limits, certainly without regard to bothersome concepts of "law." Anyone who doubts that should just look at what has been done to Wikileaks and Assange over the last week. In this series of events, there are indeed genuine and pernicious threats to basic freedom and security; they most assuredly aren't coming from WikiLeaks or Julian Assange.

Wikileaks and the Long Haul « Clay Shirky

Statements from military and government sources that everyone must pretend that the emperor is still fully clothed are blind, delusional authoritarianism and do not lend credibility to the speakers.

The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.

Columbia University Reverses Anti-WikiLeaks Guidance | Threat Level | Wired.com

Rattle wrote:
It seems like no matter which way this issue is raised to the Wikileaks people, it is never directly addressed. This is why many in the FOI and transparency community can't get behind Wikileaks and Assange.

I'm not at all impressed with this "question" from JAnthony and I don't know why its making the rounds. Its a bunch of unsupported rhetorical assertions that rest on the arrogant assumption that they are all forgone conclusions culminating in a ridiculous "question" that is actually a thinly veiled act of rock throwing. Its easy to throw rocks at wikileaks. Its not insightful.

Obviously, Assange does not agree with JAnthony about the value of diplomatic secrecy. Obviously, anarchists do not believe that western diplomats serve the best interests of the people they represent, and the delta lies within that secrecy. These particular anarchists believe that strongly enough to have taken considerable action as a consequence of their beliefs.

JAnthony's message presumes as a forgone conclusion that all of this is wrong. However, this IS actually the question at hand, and if it were a foregone conclusion we wouldn't be having a discussion about it at all.

I'm not saying JAnthony is wrong, mind you. I'm just saying this message doesn't help convince me in any respect to his case, and he and his should stop assuming that convincing isn't necessary.

Its worth saying, on the other hand, that even if you agree with the anarchists, that doesn't imply that the actions of Wikileaks are necessary or even helpful to their cause. That is a whole other ball of wax.

RE: Assange responds to readers online - Page 3 - CNN

These organisms are not completely different in their chemical makeup from what we already know.

From what I can tell, the microbes prefer to live "normally" but may insert arsenic as a substitute for phosphorus when conditions demand it -- arsenic can play the same role that phosphorus would play under normal circumstances. This is a great novelty. Arsenic is bigger and heavier than phosphorus, and its compounds are less stable. These organisms would not have done this unless they didn't have any other choice. Just like Dr. Gerald Joyce, who was quoted in the New York Times today, I feel sorry for these creatures.

What does NASA's new life-form discovery mean? - Science - Salon.com

NASA’s curiously worded press release earlier this week about an event later today prompted speculation that the space agency had discovered extraterrestrial life; going by a leak ahead of conference, it’s actually something about as alien as you can get from physiology as we know it, only on this very planet. According to NOS, NASA has found a new type of bacteria in Mono Lake, California, which lives with levels of arsenic in its biology that were hitherto believed impossible.

NASA find new lifeform: arsenic microbe widens likelihood of extraterrestrial life - SlashGear

I previously described the WikiLeaks event as consequence free. Carne Ross disagrees, going so far as to predict that this might result in a violent revolution in Egypt.

The presumption that governments can conduct their business in secret with one another, out of sight of the populations they represent, died this week. Diplomats and officials around the world are slowly realizing that anything they say may now be one day published on the Internet...

If a government as technically sophisticated and well protected as the US can suffer a breach of this magnitude, no government is safe...

The only way for governments to save their credibility is to end that divide and at last to do what they say, and vice versa, with the assumption that nothing they may do will remain secret for long. The implications of this shift are profound, and indeed historic.

And not necessarily good, if the result is merely a decrease in the candor of international dialog.

Carne Ross: The End of Diplomacy As We Know It

But Crowley did rule out more aggressive action against WikiLeaks. When asked "is any action going to be taken that could involve" an "extra-legal process such as renditions or a one-way trip for Assange to Guantanamo Bay, Crowley replied: "No."

The State Department has officially stated they are not going to run a black bag op on wikileaks, which many senior Republicans have been agitating for.

Republicans slam White House over WikiLeaks response | Politics and Law - CNET News

The domain seizures by the United States authorities in recent days and upcoming legislation that could make similar takeovers even easier in the future, have inspired a group of enthusiasts to come up with a new, decentralized and BitTorrent-powered DNS system.

BitTorrent Based DNS To Counter US Domain Seizures | TorrentFreak