"The U.S. has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials"

“The United States has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials. Will President Obama order the military to deploy those capabilities?”

LOL, as if! Did you backtrace it? That Washington Post op-ed by former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen is best read in Mad Dad Voice. Yes, this is the same nutball columnist who effectively argued for arresting or assassinating Wikileaks frontman Julian Assange a couple weeks ago (Raffi Khatchadourian’s response in the New Yorker is a must-read).

There is no “off” switch for the internet in America. But even that reactionary fantasy misses a critical point: the encrypted “insurance” file which was posted earlier this month by Wikileaks pre-emptively negates any draconian, linear response that the state might consider: unlock the file with a key (or keys) that could easily be tweeted, emailed, or otherwise shared by Assange and colleagues, and the next Big Dump would be laid bare for all to read.

As nutty as Thiessen is, his rant reminds me of something I’ve heard friends and folks I follow ask aloud lately: could “The Wikileaks Problem” be the excuse our government needs to rally support for new curbs on ‘net freedom? Just as child porn was the internet menace no one could argue against in earlier decades, perhaps the national security panic sparked by Wikileaks will be the bogeyman, this time around. (via)

Update: Kevin Poulsen at Wired News on the “cyberwar against Wikileaks” crazytalk: good luck with that.