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The DNC's Lawsuit Against WikiLeaks Is an Attack on the Freedom of the Press
It's a large world, filled with felonies big and misdemeanors small. And so I prefer to write long columns. But sometimes a short, sharp word is necessary. The Democratic Party is suing WikiLeaks and they shouldn't. As Glenn Greenwald wrote last week in The Intercept:
The Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit this afternoon in a Manhattan federal court against the Russian government, the Trump campaign, and various individuals it alleges participated in the plot to hack its email servers and disseminate the contents as part of the 2016 election. The DNC also sued WikiLeaks for its role in publishing the hacked materials, though it does not allege that WikiLeaks participated in the hacking or even knew in advance about it; its sole role, according to the DNC's lawsuit, was publishing the hacked emails.
As Greenwald points out, the Dems' claim that "WikiLeaks is liable for damages it caused when it 'willfully and intentionally disclosed' the DNC's communications ... would mean that any media outlet that publishes misappropriated documents or emails (exactly what media outlets quite often do) could be sued by the entity or person about which they are reporting."
After the Manning releases in 2010, the Obama Justice Department wanted to sue WikiLeaks. However, they couldn't prove that anyone from WikiLeaks had actually stolen documents. They knew that suing WikiLeaks would have infringed on press freedom. Sue WikiLeaks, and you have to sue the Washington Post as well.
The DNC has no such qualms now.
Also at Al Jazeera.
See also: Why the DNC Is Fighting WikiLeaks and Not Wall Street
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:09PM (1 child)
The Democrats have a huge propaganda problem, because no matter how many times that kind of thing is repeated, oil states like North Dakota have skyrocketed up from being pretty poor, to being the 16th highest income state in the country, whereas Democratically controlled states like Michigan remain mired in poverty, ranking 33rd highest in the country. Surely if Michigan would just increase taxes and regulations some more, then they'll finally be wealthy, LOL, they just need to do what doesn't work even harder, LOL.
I mean, its not just that the message doesn't sell, or that the message isn't being repeated enough, but there's not enough centralized control. So in related news stories its all about massive hiring in the Dakotas or job shortages in the Dakotas or house prices tripling in the Dakotas meanwhile there are "unrelated" stories about house prices in Detroit going to zero and abandoned houses being demolished and no jobs in Detroit and everywhere there's a democrat government there's, purely coincidentally, a food desert and dead malls and high gun crime and stuff like that.
I would imagine with increased social media and central control of the media via mergers, they'll be able to put propaganda like that out with a straight face and no opposition by cheating the public. Censor some wikipedia articles of actual numbers for being racist or something, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income [wikipedia.org]
That also ties in to the problem of the Democrats can only win by propaganda / lying / cognitive dissonance, whereas the other side is fact and reality based, which is a much easier sell even if what remains of legacy media is screaming in unified, centralized, corrupt opposition.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Friday May 04 2018, @08:34PM
North Dakota has a small population, so the income boost from a few oil and gas companies has a huge impact on the state economy. The same amount of drilling in Michigan, which has thirteen times the population, wouldn't do as much. So you're lying with statistics too, though I'm not sure whether it's intentional or not.