WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

But that's usually not what diplomats do - you certainly remember that from the training for Foreign Service Officers.

IFirst of all, many an innocent man or woman have been prosecuted and secondly one's personal assessment of whether or not he has broken a law is entirely irrelevant to DOJ actions.

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More outcry from us? Why isn't there more outcry from those targeted?

Because it was breaking your law in your country.

Considering the way many of them acted with the corrupt Oil for Food program, I don't think keeping an eye on them is such a bad thing.

It has also been alleged that the American government was aware of the scandal and chose to not prevent the smuggling because their allies Turkey and Jordan benefited from the majority of the smuggled oil. US Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan) is quoted in an interview for the New York Times as saying, "There is no question that the bulk of the illicit oil revenues came from the open sale of Iraqi oil to Jordan and to Turkey, and that that was a way of going around the Oil-for-Food Programme [and that] we were fully aware of the bypass and looked the other way."[3]

Galloway testimony

"We have your name on Iraqi documents, some prepared before the fall of Saddam, some after, that identify you as one of the allocation holders," Senator Coleman accused MP Galloway in May 2005. "I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader" retorted Galloway, stating that the charges were false and part of a diversionary "mother of all smoke screens" by pro-Iraq-War U.S. politicians to deflect attention from the "theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth... on your watch" that had occurred not during the Oil-for-Food program but under the post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority by "Halliburton and other American corporations... with the connivance of your own government." Galloway claimed that the subcommittee's dossier was full of distortions and rudimentary mistakes, citing, for example, the charge that he had met with Saddam Hussein "many times" when the number was two.[4] This unusual appearance of a British MP before a US Senate committee drew much media attention in both America and Britain.[5]
The Majority Staff of the subcommittee prepared a subsequent report pertaining to Galloway, which was released in October, 2005. It elaborated on allegations and evidence of the committee and included disputed [6] testimony from former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. It also alleges that another officer of Mariam Appeal, Galloway's then-wife, received $150,000 in oil kickbacks, which she denies.[7][8] Senator Coleman conveyed these reports to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Manhattan DA, the Washington DC and New York federal prosecutors, the UK Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and the Charity Commission.[9][10] None saw fit to pursue charges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Program_Hearings

Finn wrote:

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IFirst of all, many an innocent man or woman have been prosecuted and secondly one's personal assessment of whether or not he has broken a law is entirely irrelevant to DOJ actions.

That's definitely a true statement. The United States always has put itself
above the law, not only domestically but also internationally.

So someone living in Bermuda can commit fraud against a US bank, and as long as they stay out of the country and arent a US citizen, then they havent committed a crime?

I'm suggesting both your law and international law say it's illegal.

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More outcry from us? Why isn't there more outcry from those targeted?

Because it was breaking your law in your country.

The leak of the directive is likely to spark questions about the legality of the operation and about whether state department diplomats are expected to spy. The level of technical and personal detail demanded about the UN top team's communication systems could be seen as laying the groundwork for surveillance or hacking operations. It requested "current technical specifications, physical layout and planned upgrades to telecommunications infrastructure and information systems, networks and technologies used by top officials and their support staff", as well as details on private networks used for official communication, "to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys and virtual private network versions used".Guardian source

First of all the notion of legality as respects international spying is ridiculous. It is illegal everywhere but that doesn't stop any nation from engaging in it, and no nation outlaws it with the expectation that it will prevent anyone from spying on them. The purpose of making it illegal is so that when you catch someone doing it you can stop them.

Presumably you can cite the US law that makes the actions reported by WikiLeaks illegal,

because as you might expect, I don't place a lot of stock in international law.

Ok, spark away, but I don't see why folks here should be all up in arms if the folks being targeted aren't.

"The intelligence information the diplomats were ordered to gather included biometric information, passwords, and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications."

You can't break US law when you're a non-US citizen living and working outside of the US.

Thomas wrote:

You can't break US law when you're a non-US citizen living and working outside of the US.

Sure you can.

You're a hypocrite with his hands on his ears yelling 'lah lah lah lah I'm not listening to you lah lah lah lah'