Wikileaks, disclosure, and risk to soldiers

[mystictiger]

I've already started reading through some of the documents, and they're quite interesting. What I don't understand, though, is how they put soliders at risk.

I suspect that I'm being naive here, but see this in the following terms: the revelation of policy puts soldiers' lives at risk. Does that mean that it is the revelation more than the initial policy that is problematic?

[Wolfy]

I think the Government is just using that as an excuse. The real reason is because they don't want our **** ups to be made public. >_>

But that's just my opinion. o3o

[Minkus]

Combination of both, with more reality (in my opinion) leaning towards covering their butts, or at least trying to.

It's possible that this particular leak doesn't reveal too much about our soldiers and deployment, but if people get used to the idea of leaks and military intelligence being readily available, then we WILL have problems.  Oh, the 21st Airborne (random # and group, for example) has been deployed along the Pakistani border?  Let's look them up and see what we can find out about them.  Oh look, their CO has a family, and their adress is listed!  Time for some leverage . . .

This is of course a worst-case scenario, but just to make the point.

[meikle]

I've already started reading through some of the documents, and they're quite interesting. What I don't understand, though, is how they put soliders at risk.

I suspect that I'm being naive here, but see this in the following terms: the revelation of policy puts soldiers' lives at risk. Does that mean that it is the revelation more than the initial policy that is problematic?

Well, you've read a few of the documents.  There's four hundred thousand of them leaked.  If you've read a thousand of the documents through, you've only read one quarter of one percent of the content that was released by WikiLeaks.

So I mean, just cuz you haven't been able to spot the potential problems...  It's entirely possible that "Somewhere in the other 99.75% of the documents" is the answer to "Where's the stuff that puts people at risk?"

[Brandon]

Im always skeptical to the legitimacy of "leaked documents" when it comes to our military. Having worked in MI for several years I have a hard time seeing a few documents like this being leaked let alone so many. At the same time though, i know its possible but unlikely that they are real

Overall it is politicians looking to cover their asses. Thats what it always is as our military takes great pains to live by the rules of war and our country's expectations on the "proper" way to fight a battle. Ive not read any of the documents yet but I've heard the gist of it is that there were some large scale bombings that were commited by Iraqi's to other Iraqi's which has made the civilian death count so high

[Blesgard]

Transparency is essential to any free and just government. Wikileaks and whistle blowing is the answer to the people's rightful demand to know what is going on in their name. It wouldn't be necessary if the government would just reveal as much as possible.
Of course it makes sense to classify information about current operations, but that is no excuse to cover up mistakes and stuff.
If the government would give out all available informations, there would be no need for wikileaks, then there wouldn't be such uncontrolled revelations that risk people's lives.

[Zakharra]

Transparency is essential to any free and just government. Wikileaks and whistle blowing is the answer to the people's rightful demand to know what is going on in their name. It wouldn't be necessary if the government would just reveal as much as possible.
Of course it makes sense to classify information about current operations, but that is no excuse to cover up mistakes and stuff.
If the government would give out all available informations, there would be no need for wikileaks, then there wouldn't be such uncontrolled revelations that risk people's lives.

That's the problem though. What should and should not be made public? There are some very legitimate concerns for security in some things. There's people who demand that the government make the FBI/CIA/alphabet soup agencies black ops informaton public. Military information, troop numbers, plans and such shouldn't be made public. There's no need.

[Blesgard]

Not all, not to all extend, and not immediately. But it is important that military and secret service orders and operations can be reviewed by the public as soon as it is possible without risking said operation.
Alone the prospect of this review and control by the public will prevent a lot of ab- and misuse.
So yes, in my opinion it is needed to give the sovereigns the level of control over the government and other institutions that it rightfully holds.

[meikle]

If the government would give out all available informations, there would be no need for wikileaks, then there wouldn't be such uncontrolled revelations that risk people's lives.

Right, because nobody would ever offer to give information to our government/military if they knew we'd respond by making their name available to the public under the dropdown list of informants.

I don't think that's an ideal solution.

[Callie Del Noire]

Right, because nobody would ever offer to give information to our government/military if they knew we'd just plaster their name up to the public the moment they did it.

I don't think that's an ideal solution.

I think a good example of this would be the reason I get so inflamed about Valerie Plame's 'outing' by someone in the Bush Whitehouse. She is a 'NOC' (No Official Cover) agent. She was hired to work connections, subvert folks, and generally convince them to do what is best for the US and not their own country. (Though in some cases it might help them too). If you disclose a person like her, what happens to the people back in the other countries that she talked to. (Not even recruited)

They get put up against a wall and get shot. Possibly along with the rest of their family. Information that is in secure documents doesn't have to directly affect the security of the miltary or country to be detrimental. You (as an agent recruited by the US) expect they will protect you from disclosure. If they aren't protected, what can we expect of them?

Secrecy is an element in the game of statescraft. Secrets last a LONG time and sometimes can have a 'half life' that lasts decades. The enigma machines used in WWII by the english were kept a secret for DECADES because the english didn't want to reveal how they reverse engineered them and that some folks they worked against were STILL using them long after the end of the world war.

Another example are the infamous Hoover files, there is quite a bit on them that might STILL embarrass the powerful and even some governments.  Though, I doubt it is as pertinent now as it would have been say.. twenty years ago.

[Jude]

Anything that reflects negatively on our country is a risk to our soldiers because it's easily used as recruiting material for terrorist organizations.  Thus, if we never released any information that put our soldiers at risk, we'd never release any information with the exception of carefully selected propaganda.

The problem, in my view, is the situation that we are in as a nation.  Our citizens no longer trust the government and our country is easily painted as a villain in international affairs.  Release the information and it will be turned against us.  Don't do it, and you further hurt our trust in the government.  There isn't an easy black-or-white solution unfortunately.

If faith in government is restored, then people will be more willing to accept information being withheld from us, but I guess my question is very simple:  should we?  Everything that the government does we pay for, why don't we have a right to know about it?  If the label of "vital to national security" is being misused, what can really be done?

I don't know.

[Blesgard]

Maybe I am just idealistic and naive, but the governments I vote for I do not vote for to fight wars and do illegal secret operations or something.
The point is, the government is not a sort of appointed dictator. The government is liable to the people. The very principle of a representative democracy is based on the possibility of the population to judge and associate with their politicians.
If the government can hide before the population what they really do and stand for... and they can do that atm since they themselves can declare what is important enough to be 'secret' and what not... then the whole system is awry.

As said, really vital informations should be kept back. Like names of Agents and addresses and family of military personal. But the basic nature of an operation needs to be disclosed to the point where the population can actually judge the policy and methods of the government, can name responsible politicians.
Cause that are informations that are important for the people to know shall they be able to make an educated vote.

[Callie Del Noire]

Maybe I am just idealistic and naive, but the governments I vote for I do not vote for to fight wars and do illegal secret operations or something.

Not naive, simply idealistic and hopeful. Unfortunately not everything a government does will smell of honey and roses. It's the nature of things. Unfortunate that it is true and that we have to do shady things but we don't do the things our counterparts do.

[Zakharra]

Maybe I am just idealistic and naive, but the governments I vote for I do not vote for to fight wars and do illegal secret operations or something.
The point is, the government is not a sort of appointed dictator. The government is liable to the people. The very principle of a representative democracy is based on the possibility of the population to judge and associate with their politicians.
If the government can hide before the population what they really do and stand for... and they can do that atm since they themselves can declare what is important enough to be 'secret' and what not... then the whole system is awry.

Some operations shouldn't be made public. The intelligence agencies and military for example, need to be shielded. This doesn't mean that they shouldn't be watched, they do, but there's no need to splash the operations they do into the public arena. That would seriously damage the ability of that agency and the nation to function

As said, really vital informations should be kept back. Like names of Agents and addresses and family of military personal. But the basic nature of an operation needs to be disclosed to the point where the population can actually judge the policy and methods of the government, can name responsible politicians.
Cause that are informations that are important for the people to know shall they be able to make an educated vote.

This in particular... If we exposed the operations the intelligence agencies and military do, that puts a huge monkey wrench in the works. Vital informaton includes more than just the names of the agents and their families. It often includes the operaton itself. After all, everyone knows we spy on our alies. They do the same to us, but t's not thrown out there and made public for all to see. These things are kept hidden.

Why? To be blunt,  the public is stupid. We react with a mob mentality and rarely think things through. This is both good and bad, but it's not condusive to running a nation or getting intelligence. Unfortunately it means a lot of politicians lsie and practice CYA when they are inevitibly caught.  Thankfully that is easier to do now with technology.

[Callie Del Noire]

Why? To be blunt,  the public is stupid. We react with a mob mentality and rarely think things through. This is both good and bad, but it's not condusive to running a nation or getting intelligence. Unfortunately it means a lot of politicians lsie and practice CYA when they are inevitibly caught.  Thankfully that is easier to do now with technology.

I agree. Public opinion is managed, manipulated and folded/spindled regularly.  That being said, public opinion is not needed in EVERY facet of governmental operations. That is the reason why anyone with a TS has to agree to keep their yap shut for a LONG TIME, and anything they write has to be locked up for a long time after their death.

To say it's okay to disclose our secrets like this is ludicrous. You personally might not have looked through all the documents  but I'm sure in the intelligence community a small forest of trees died to provide paper for these docs to be printed out. I think it's safe to say that EVERYTHING was printed out and screened as soon as any intelligence agency with a broadband connection and a network printer got ahold of it.  Particularly the folks in the gulf where these documents were taken from.

And some of these intelligence groups weren't government groups but terrorist groups. Looking for gaps in how things work, seeing who does what (because you can in turn look up people online with crazy ease).  That makes it easy look for leverage on folks.

It doesn't have to be a big intel break to get leverage. A supply clerk in god-knows where. A quick Google shows he's got an ailing mother back home with no one to help him out. That gives the bad guys any of a variety of options. Soft touch could be offering a touch of 'charity' to help her out or on to heavier means. Add in that it could be used to look for folks to  do all manner of things. Loses supplies, confuse the system, help provide access to the supply system and so on.

The material at hand doesn't have to have direct operational effect to give aid to the enemy. If it helps them understand the system they are opposing, the people in place and any of a dozen other tangents, it makes it easier for them to operate. That is why those documents are classified.

Look at it like this. You're playing cards with a bunch of cut-throat sharks, would you let them see your cards?

Personally the tool that leaked this is a test case for treason in my opinion. He has put his brothers in service in danger.  Cut and dried. He leaked these documents because he felt slighted and passed over. 

[Oniya]

Look at it like this. You're playing cards with a bunch of cut-throat sharks, would you let them see your cards?

In addition, if you're playing cards with a bunch of cut-throat sharks, would you even show your cards to your S.O., who you love dearly but has no 'poker-face' to speak of? 

[Blesgard]

Not naive, simply idealistic and hopeful. Unfortunately not everything a government does will smell of honey and roses. It's the nature of things. Unfortunate that it is true and that we have to do shady things but we don't do the things our counterparts do.

But exactly to ensure that, we have to look over their shoulders.

There are countless examples of how the cluelessness of the population has been abused for unimaginable, terrible things. And countless examples how mistakes and mess ups have been covered up and hidden.

Î do not applaud that wikileak release, I just as much see the danger of it. But what I am saying is, that this was bound to happen due the continued dishonestly and the abuse of secrecy.
If the Government in all its facets was more transparent and controllable by the population, less terrible things would happen under the disguise of secrecy and more care would be take to prevent mishaps. Yes, I know this is terrible inconvenient for the Government, but this is democracy, and we have to decide if we truly want democracy or if we just wanna play democracy while let a minority reign to their liking with lies and secrecy.

[Callie Del Noire]

But exactly to ensure that, we have to look over their shoulders.

There are countless examples of how the cluelessness of the population has been abused for unimaginable, terrible things. And countless examples how mistakes and mess ups have been covered up and hidden.

Î do not applaud that wikileak release, I just as much see the danger of it. But what I am saying is, that this was bound to happen due the continued dishonestly and the abuse of secrecy.
If the Government in all its facets was more transparent and controllable by the population, less terrible things would happen under the disguise of secrecy and more care would be take to prevent mishaps. Yes, I know this is terrible inconvenient for the Government, but this is democracy, and we have to decide if we truly want democracy or if we just wanna play democracy while let a minority reign to their liking with lies and secrecy.

Sorry that is where we have to disagree. I figure that somethings need to be 'time delayed' rather than revealed in real time. You are right that there is a 'need to know' but there isn't a 'need to know right now!'.

Too often operations have failed for lack of secrecy. It's a delicate balance between sufficient informed oversight and micro-management.  Does the government need to have an fixture in place to do oversight to ensure proper behavior? Yes.

Does the public at large need to know RIGHT NOW everything the government is doing? No. The public doesn't.

You can't convince me that we do. It's counter to our interests to be 100% transparent. If you, John Q. Public, can see it, so can our foes.

Do you think for a moment that the Taliban, Iran, North Korea or any of a dozen home grown nut jobs looking to recreate the Oklahoma City bombing? I know of a lot of folks the FBI, DEA, and several other agencies who would greatly appreciate NOT giving the folks planning to blow up churches, schools, government buildings and such a clue that they are being watched.

[Blesgard]

I think I said something like "Not all, not to all extend, and not immediately." And I meant it ;)
But right now the minimum closure time for secret files is 50 years!
How in the world is a democracy supposed to react to that?
And this tells how quickly I think we need the information: Quickly enough to react to it. That can have several levels actually.
While operations are running, we need to know stuff like "Hey, we use herbicides to starve out the Korean guerrillas. ok? It might be a bit poisonous, but we think it gets the job done." This is an information we need to know right now when it happens. There is no risk in getting this information except the risk that your population says "No, that's cruel and against the rules of war."
Of course there is no need to release the plan where to drop how much of the stuff, or any other detail of the operation.
Not until the war is over. But after the war is over there is no reason to hold back the informations (except maybe for names)
Same goes for spying, whether on Allies or foes. The population should be able to know whether you are spying on your allies to make sure they do not spy at you, or whether you spy on your allies to give Monsanto a competition advantage.
Whether you spy your foes to prevent terror attacks or whether you are preparing an assassination.
And with time more and more information should be released, as much as possible without risking too much.
And if that takes 50 years to be save, so be it... but no generalized, preventive 50 year closure for everything.

[Zakharra]

I think I said something like "Not all, not to all extend, and not immediately." And I meant it ;)
But right now the minimum closure time for secret files is 50 years!
How in the world is a democracy supposed to react to that?
And this tells how quickly I think we need the information: Quickly enough to react to it. That can have several levels actually.

  First off, the US is not a democracy per say. It's a representative republic. We elect people to the Congress who are supposed to have our best interests at heart. That doesn't always happen unfortunately.

While operations are running, we need to know stuff like "Hey, we use herbicides to starve out the Korean guerrillas. ok? It might be a bit poisonous, but we think it gets the job done." This is an information we need to know right now when it happens. There is no risk in getting this information except the risk that your population says "No, that's cruel and against the rules of war."
Of course there is no need to release the plan where to drop how much of the stuff, or any other detail of the operation.
Not until the war is over. But after the war is over there is no reason to hold back the informations (except maybe for names)
Same goes for spying, whether on Allies or foes. The population should be able to know whether you are spying on your allies to make sure they do not spy at you, or whether you spy on your allies to give Monsanto a competition advantage.
Whether you spy your foes to prevent terror attacks or whether you are preparing an assassination.
And with time more and more information should be released, as much as possible without risking too much.
And if that takes 50 years to be save, so be it... but no generalized, preventive 50 year closure for everything.

The 50 year disclosure is probably there because back then, not too many people lived much longer than 50 years.  I imagine the time frame is to let the memories die down.

  Some of the things you posted are definately idealistic. Spying on allies and enemies. We do not need to know we're spying on them. We do it to them, they do it to us. We ALL do it and letting them know publically that we are will only hurt us.

I cannot see how it benefits us to tell them we spied on their weapons, industrial and military programs, as well as their politics. Then lay out how we did it and to who. There are a lot of nations that would be very upset  if such things were openly admitted too. Ours as well as other nations.

[Callie Del Noire]

I know there are cases and such in England that are sealed till sometime into the NEXT Century, and something similar with the US version of the Secrets Act. There are a LOT of things that would come back to haunt us DECADES later if let out. How can the identity of a spy dead since the 80s possibly be a secret now? (or the 60s for that matter?).

Simple, there are a lot of issues that are involved. Their families for one. It is quite common in some places to march the spy's family out of their house and simply line them up against a wall and shoot them. A few decades aren't that big a deal in the outlook of those governments. Then there is the fact that some of these people might have recruited others who do the same thing (A good example of this sort of long term networking effect would be the Oxford spy ring. Philby spent YEARS cultivating contacts and helping turn others.)

Just because all the principals might long be dead, doesn't mean that the info isn't dangerous.  I know that the info I used to work on stuff in the Navy isn't in and of itself dangerous but it gives an insight into how the system works. Which helps the other side find holes in the system. Several people I have worked with have been analysts in the past and I can tell you DATA matters.

Intel is looking over the facts. Sometimes it's small facts that you don't spot that an analyst will work on. I think that this is an area we have seriously underplayed. The US has long been too tech savvy for it's own good.  We are seriously lacking in HumInt (Human Intelligence) and too focused on SigInt (Signal Intelligence). It has made us lazy and willing to ignore the essentials. But this isn't the matter at hand.

The upload to Wikileaks was one of the more publicized leaks of the last few years. Did it show something bad? Yes, though I doubt the Rueters crew incident would have stayed bottled up much longer anyway. But this little bastard didn't do it for the whistle blowing, he did it because he was too damn lazy to do what it took to get recognized and too smart to consider the consequences of what he was doing.

I don't know if he did anything to merit the full death penalty of his treasonous acts, but he DID commit treason. He did it because he felt that he merited more than he earned and was looking for a way to pay everyone he thought had slighted him. The only reason he wasn't a true for real traitor is that he wasn't recruited to betray his country.

[Blesgard]

@Zakharra
The US is a republic which is realized as representative democracy. That still makes it a democracy in the sense that the people is responsible for putting someone in charge.

And this is exactly what I am about. Those who are put in charge not always have the people's best interest at heart... and the people need a way to tell who does and who doesn't. Overdone secrecy is hurting this control mechanism.

And nations shouldn't spy on their allies :P
Aside that didn't I say there needs to be total transparency in the field of spying, not even at whom you spy. But the population needs to at least know that you spy and have a general idea what for.

[Zakharra]

  The representative part is how we work. We, essentually hire someone to run our country/state/county. While the people can do some stuff, it's the politicians that run everythng. A smart politician will listen to his/her constituents wishes and does try to at least fullfill their promises. Otherwise they will suffer for it at the next election.

The people, as in the public, do not have a need to know everything. There has to be some sort of review board, but there is no need to throw them out like wikileaks did. That was damned stupid of them and vbery dangerous.

  As for spying? Yes, we should and need to do that. No nation is 100% or probably even 50% honest with their allies. We all have secrets we think the others shouldn't know about and to be honest, alot of stuff doesn't need to be shared. National secrets and all that.

The public knows we spy, as do our allies. Our enemies know for a fact we spy and they do the same thing to us. China and Russia have been damned good at implanting spys and agents in the Western world's political, industrial and military organizations.

[Serephino]

But again, if we the public know that spying is being done, and what for, those that we are spying on will know too.  Then all they have to do is a better job of hiding what we're spying for.

It is often said that freedom isn't free, and nothing could be more true.  Trust me, you don't want to know what's going on behind the scenes.  They do what they feel needs to be done, and the average person wouldn't be able to understand that.  Yes, there are some abuses, but we have to hope that all the mechanisms set in place to regulate everything do their job.

All you can do when voting for your representatives is look at what is public.  Voting records are public.  You can go to a website and look at every single vote cast by your representative, and you can read the bills even I think.  You can look at how things are going in general.  If your elected officials actually are keeping your best interest in mind publicly, chances are they are doing so privately too.  That may not always be true, but being corrupt is actually harder to hide than you'd think. 

[mystictiger]

The Plame situation is an interesting one. I've not been able to work out where she was asigned when Libby blew her cover, but it might not necessarily have been getting shot. It is probable that a friendly European country would simply have declared her persona non grata and she would've been on the next flight out.

It'd make for much more interesting election campaigns if the governments really did have to tell the whole truth. "We stand for education, targetting assassination of Al Qaida members, and tacit support for arms trading to unstable regimes." It'd certainly make some of the more tedious prime-minsterial debates more interesting! But then maybe I'm warped and I found the whole "I agree with Nick" nonsense to be tedious and unhelpful.

I think it's highly disingenuous of the various governments to say that releasing war logs increases the risk to Coalition troops. The war logs reflect a practice and a mode of operation. It is this practice and mode of operation that upsets people and increases the risk to them. Publicising something doesn't make it bad - it's the act itself that was bad in the first place. Don't want the locals to get upset by standing by while Iraqi troops execute detainees in the street? Then don't let Iraqi troops execute detainees in the street!