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David: I have a Wikileaks story that I want to mention quickly, and then we'll talk to
Mark Potok in a little bit from the Southern Poverty Law Center. The U.S. has subpoenaed
Twitter messages related to Wikileaks, OK? And if we actually look at the text of the
subpoena, to me, it is concerning. And what it actually says is that all messages, I actually
have the text here, let me look at it, because some... many people are saying am I going
to be in trouble for just Tweeting about Wikileaks?
"The following customer or subscriber account information for each account registered or
associated with Wikileaks, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning," so on and so forth.They
want subscriber names, usernames, screen names and identities, mailing address, residential
address, not that Twitter would have a lot of this information, length of service, when
did you sign up for Twitter, how are you paying for the service, Twitter is a free service
so I don't know what that refers to.
And many people are scared now that the government is actually going to individually investigate
and go after anybody who has Tweeted about Wikileaks. Now, will it be just people who
appear to support Wikileaks on Twitter or not? I don't know.
Wikileaks tweeted, "Warning: All 637,000 @wikileaks followers are a target of the U.S. government
subpoena against Twitter under Section 2.B." They also said it's too late to unfollow.
The trick used is to demand the list, dates, and IPs of all those who received our Twitter
messages.
Where do you think this is going, Louis? Do you believe that there is actually going to
be... am I going to get a phone call because we had on our account, I don't know, 25 different
Tweets related to Wikileaks coverage and Julian Assange coverage that we did?
Louis: I think this is probably just a scare tactic to make people not pursue and read
the leaked cables or, I don't know. I mean, do I really think the government is going
to go after all of these people in any way, shape, or form? No.
David: You don't think so?
Louis: No.
David: I don't know. I was also sent an interesting article from www.Alternet.org about the biggest
smears and misconceptions about Wikileaks, and when I read these, I'm thinking, I thought
we knew this stuff. I thought it was obvious, but apparently, some of these are news to
people.
Fearmongering that Wikileaks revelations will result in deaths. We've said many times there's
no evidence that that's happened. Spreading the lie that Wikileaks posted all the cables.
As we know, Wikileaks has posted about 2000 of the cables. And number two, Wikileaks is
not the one who, what's the right word, obtained, stole the cables?
Louis: Illegally obtained.
David: People are claiming that Assange has committed a crime regarding Wikileaks. These
go on and on. I won't go through the whole list because I know our audience would be
insulted if I went through and tried to explain these to them, but it should give you an idea
of some of the misconceptions that are out there and the ways that Wikileaks is being
smeared.
And even though Julian Assange, in light of Gabrielle Giffords and that incident and other
news, is a little bit on the back burner right now, the last we heard about Wikileaks was
not really about Wikileaks, it was about Julian Assange. The story, and I don't know if you
think, Louis, it is just a specific strategy to get the attention off of the content of
the cables and onto *** allegations, has become about Assange.
Louis: Right. Possibly fabricated *** allegations, too.
David: We don't know.
Louis: Yeah.
David: I wouldn't comment on that, but...
Louis: I think it's very, very convenient.
David: And I think convenient is the word many would use. Let's take a break. Make sure
you're liking The David Pakman Show on Facebook, www.Facebook.com/DavidPakmanShow. We'll come
back, we'll talk to Mark Potok. I have a lot of questions for him, so stay tuned for that,
and still plenty more.
Announcer: The David Pakman Show at www.DavidPakman.com.
Transcript provided by Alex Wickersham. For transcription, translation, captions, and
subtitles, contact Alex at directtranslation@gmail.com.