WikiLeaks: Terrorists or Champions of the Truth?

[Callie Del Noire]

I wasn't talking about that video specifically in my earlier post, but it is a good example. What I am curious to know is why an incident like that should ever be kept from the public, at any stage. It's true the system can work. There are probably instances of it not working, too. But that's entirely beside the point. Even if it works ten out of ten times, there is still no reason why it should be kept from people.

Gee.. nice to know that the military has a right to conduct the investigation discretely without the media crawling up their ass. I'm assuming you're going to put this level of trust and reliability to regular investigations. If I follow your logic, it's okay for every law enforcement agency out there to give out every lead, clue and bit of evidence they have in an active investigation. After all using your logic there is no reason to hide any and all data tied with an investigation before a suspect is found and charges filed.

[Callie Del Noire]

Secondly, the whole wikileaks exposure of diplomatic cables will not risk the lives of any serving US solider, diplomat or other official. At very 'best' it will simply embarrass them. But then there is a very high chance that - for instance - the UK already knew what was in the content of these emails.

Will it make diplomacy harder to do? Yes and no. We have learned that US diplomats have been... taking liberties with their diplomatic status by recruiting agents when they should leave that job to spies. This will probably make people less likely to become agents for the US... or in other words, commit espionage.

The stakes at the international level are simply too high for things like this to matter. Will Britain stop cooperating with the US in Afghanistan or Iraq? No. Will people stop trading with America? No. The embarrasing revelations will be dismissed as propaganda (e.g. the Saudi call that the US bomb Iraq). This is rather like parents finding porn under your bed - it's mildly embarrasing, but we know full well that everyone does this. It will make American diplomats more mindful of what they say, perhaps. It will also further harden a culture of secrecy and security that pervades NATO halls of power.

When various diplomats posted to London steal, keep slaves, and so on, it is simply hidden under the carpet. Only the most vicious dictatorships get 'insulted'. Unless, of course, you're dealing with Israel-Turkey. There Turkey has to show itself to be not a lapdog of the US and therefore will make personal gestures.

If this mattered, there would have been a waive of US diplomats being declared PNG and sent home. Has this happened yet? No.

Palin-Clinton cage-match would be fun to watch, but can we add tigers to make sure they both lose?

And what about the criminal investigations and requests on groups that I pointed out.

Just bull dozed over them I see. So the messages dealing with following illegal money transfers, possible criminal activities such as oh.. Human Trafficing (Slavery and such) are 'no big problem' now that the groups being mentioned have access to the paperwork and requests for data on them?

[Hemingway]

Gee.. nice to know that the military has a right to conduct the investigation discretely without the media crawling up their ass. I'm assuming you're going to put this level of trust and reliability to regular investigations. If I follow your logic, it's okay for every law enforcement agency out there to give out every lead, clue and bit of evidence they have in an active investigation. After all using your logic there is no reason to hide any and all data tied with an investigation before a suspect is found and charges filed.

No, that isn't what I said. In fact, I'm almost starting to wonder if we're even talking about the same thing. Because as I recall, crimes are covered by the media quite frequently. It's not like they give out all the details. Usually names and pictures aren't given out, at least not right away, for obvious reasons. But there is absolutely no justifiable reason, at least not as I see it, and you still haven't provided one, for not even letting people know something could have happened, not unless you intend to keep them in the dark.

[Callie Del Noire]

No, that isn't what I said. In fact, I'm almost starting to wonder if we're even talking about the same thing. Because as I recall, crimes are covered by the media quite frequently. It's not like they give out all the details. Usually names and pictures aren't given out, at least not right away, for obvious reasons. But there is absolutely no justifiable reason, at least not as I see it, and you still haven't provided one, for not even letting people know something could have happened, not unless you intend to keep them in the dark.

I don't think the public has a right to know about ongoing investigations. The 'tell it all now' attitude of the media has made any story that as much attention as the video would have merited would never had been left alone long enough for the authorities to do a through and concise job.

[Hemingway]

I don't think the public has a right to know about ongoing investigations. The 'tell it all now' attitude of the media has made any story that as much attention as the video would have merited would never had been left alone long enough for the authorities to do a through and concise job.

Why does the attention given by the media keep authorities from doing their job?

On the matter of the public not having a right to know, we're just going to have to agree to disagree, as much as that - your views - bothers me. It would be a different debate entirely. Your view of what the government is and what its role should be, is the opposite of mine.

[Callie Del Noire]

Why does the attention given by the media keep authorities from doing their job?

On the matter of the public not having a right to know, we're just going to have to agree to disagree, as much as that - your views - bothers me. It would be a different debate entirely. Your view of what the government is and what its role should be, is the opposite of mine.

Didn't say the public DIDN'T have a right to know.. but an immediate and total disclosure of everything that is going on in a situation at the MOMENT isn't.

I was in the Maryland/DC area during the beltway sniper case. It was really annoying to the police to try and pursue the suspects when the media was constantly demanding more and more information about the investigation, more about the suspects, and continually trying to air more information. Obstructing the investigation and possibly aiding the suspects.

[Oniya]

I remember that time as well - everyone was looking for a white 'box van'.  With that kind of information out there, if the snipers actually had been using a white box van, the media dissemination would have told them it was time to change vehicles.  It's actually incredibly common for police to hold back information or even 'refuse to comment on an ongoing investigation'.  Why should a military investigation be forced to be more transparent than a police investigation?

[Callie Del Noire]

I remember that time as well - everyone was looking for a white 'box van'.  With that kind of information out there, if the snipers actually had been using a white box van, the media dissemination would have told them it was time to change vehicles.  It's actually incredibly common for police to hold back information or even 'refuse to comment on an ongoing investigation'.  Why should a military investigation be forced to be more transparent than a police investigation?

That is what I was trying to say.  I remember watching the chief blow up at the media when they kept probing for more details.

[Zakharra]

 That's the problem with the media immediately putting out all the information they have. It gives the criminals much needed intelligence. For most things, there is NEVER a need to spill information immediately, and often in the long run, no real need eityher. Things can be declassified and some requests (FoIA) can go through, but there is no need  for it to be splashed all over like Wikileaks did.

[Hemingway]

Didn't say the public DIDN'T have a right to know.. but an immediate and total disclosure of everything that is going on in a situation at the MOMENT isn't.

Who is advocating that everything be disclosed immediately? Because I would like to meet them. Is it Assange? Because to the best of my knowledge, no one is suggesting police should release their plans for when to arrest their suspects, or how soldiers are going to attack anyone, before it actually happens. If, however, during the course of the aforementioned arrest, the police get a little too rough with the person they're arresting, then the public should know. They should be aware there's an investigation. They should be able to keep up with the details, what's going on, if evidence turns up that might strongly suggest their innocence or guilt. You know, the way the media usually works. If there was that kind of transparency, then there wouldn't be a need to leak anything, because it would all be available. We're talking about rather massive events here, too, things that concern - or should concern - entire nations, their politicians and voters.

If, however, it comes down to a choice between a government being able to withhold anything it sees fit, or everything being disclosed immediately, I choose the latter. Obviously, it isn't, but as a matter of principle, I'd rather live in a world where everything the government did was public knowledge, than one where the government could do whatever it wanted, and keep people in the dark about it.

I really don't have anything else to add, that wouldn't just be rephrasing something I've already said.

[Callie Del Noire]

That's the problem with the media immediately putting out all the information they have. It gives the criminals much needed intelligence. For most things, there is NEVER a need to spill information immediately, and often in the long run, no real need eityher. Things can be declassified and some requests (FoIA) can go through, but there is no need  for it to be splashed all over like Wikileaks did.

That is why I'm so upset.. I looked at random through the stuff on it.. The first SECRET document I read had ZERO attrocity value ..nothing about the Gulf.. and was covering Criminal Investigations that the public at large had NO NEED to know. Most of it was banking related but I'm sure that there are drug issues, human trafficing and kidnapping groups being discussed in some of those message.

How much hard did they do to investigations all over the world?

don't get me wrong.. I respect the INTENT behind Wikileaks..and they did some good with the exposure of atrocities in Africa in the past.. but this 'data must be free' stuff is dangerous.

[Zakharra]

Who is advocating that everything be disclosed immediately? Because I would like to meet them. Is it Assange? Because to the best of my knowledge, no one is suggesting police should release their plans for when to arrest their suspects, or how soldiers are going to attack anyone, before it actually happens. If, however, during the course of the aforementioned arrest, the police get a little too rough with the person they're arresting, then the public should know. They should be aware there's an investigation. They should be able to keep up with the details, what's going on, if evidence turns up that might strongly suggest their innocence or guilt. You know, the way the media usually works. If there was that kind of transparency, then there wouldn't be a need to leak anything, because it would all be available. We're talking about rather massive events here, too, things that concern - or should concern - entire nations, their politicians and voters.

To be honest, that is a foolish way of thinking. During an ainvestigaton, the media is often hounding the authorities for any scrap of informaton. The Beltway sniper case is a prime example.  Does the public  need to know an inverstigaton is going in? Yes. Do they need to know the details? NO. Not right away for sure. The details of the investigation need to be kept secret so the investigaton can go forward. To expose that is damned stupid

If, however, it comes down to a choice between a government being able to withhold anything it sees fit, or everything being disclosed immediately, I choose the latter. Obviously, it isn't, but as a matter of principle, I'd rather live in a world where everything the government did was public knowledge, than one where the government could do whatever it wanted, and keep people in the dark about it.

I really don't have anything else to add, that wouldn't just be rephrasing something I've already said.

That government would not last long then. No secrets could be kept and it's enemies would crush it like a bug. Some secrets have to be kept.

[mystictiger]

I served in the Navy for 15 years, and would still be if I was medially fit to serve. I know about dicks in the military, I just don't see how one LITTLE DICK who was getting grief for not doing his job can get away with what was basically ESPIONAGE.

Because a man's penis size has everything to do with his belief that something is right or wrong.

And what about the criminal investigations and requests on groups that I pointed out.

Just bull dozed over them I see. So the messages dealing with following illegal money transfers, possible criminal activities such as oh.. Human Trafficing (Slavery and such) are 'no big problem' now that the groups being mentioned have access to the paperwork and requests for data on them?

Having read through several hundred of these now, I have yet to find a single one that would compromise an active or ongoing investigation. I am happy to be proved wrong. The ones I've seen were all in the vaguest possible terms. It takes a particularly stupid criminal to not think that someone will investigate him.

[Callie Del Noire]

Mystic..

With all due respect. The guy admitted that he felt slighted to the guy he leaked it to. The same hacker who notified the authorities!
He didn't do it for 'noble reason' regardless of what he said later on

[mystictiger]

Why do people say 'with all due respect' when they're about to say something that lacks any kind of respect at all?

If what you say is true, then say that. Don't say that he released this information because he had a small penis. It's about as relevent and accurate as saying "He released this information because he drank milk".

I'd suggest you read the transcripts.

The line that caught my eye was this: "(02:17:56 PM) Manning: weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis… a perfect storm"

If all it took was one disgruntled, disaffected PFC, imagine what Al Qaida, the North Koreans, the Iranians, or the French have already?

[Vekseid]

Mystictiger, the accusations of treason involve the private who originally released the cables, not Assange. The person who sent the cables most certainly was a United States citizen.

Everyone in this thread is quite well aware that Assange is not subject to U.S. law, from the very first post.

[mystictiger]

The third post is ambiguous in that regard.

[Callie Del Noire]

Why do people say 'with all due respect' when they're about to say something that lacks any kind of respect at all?

If what you say is true, then say that. Don't say that he released this information because he had a small penis. It's about as relevent and accurate as saying "He released this information because he drank milk".

I'd suggest you read the transcripts.

The line that caught my eye was this: "(02:17:56 PM) Manning: weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis… a perfect storm"

If all it took was one disgruntled, disaffected PFC, imagine what Al Qaida, the North Koreans, the Iranians, or the French have already?

I was being respectful. I tend to type what I think. If I disliked you, I'd let you know.

I read through the statements and he still strikes me as a whiner who didn't adjust to military discipline. If he'd been one of the guys assigned to the flight deck with me, I'd get teh feel he'd be the guy sent to work in the Galley because he didn't follow the rules (sounds like he think's he's too good for them)

And it's fairly hard to get into the network as deep as he did.

You got to have a CAC card to get onto the military network, then you got to have the user permission levels for it.

I don't think Assange should be tried by the US.. of course he is rightfully worried to be concerned about hitting US soild. He took possession of stolen goods.. and classified documents. BUT asides from coming off as a pompous man in the videos of him I watched, I don't think he really didn't do enough to merit active measures from the US.

Of course, I still wonder who pissed he pissed off over the rape case.

[Callie Del Noire]

Disseminating classified information is a Federal Felony.

Providing classified military information to a foreign national is TREASON.

A foreign national receiving classified American military information, then distributing it is ESPIONAGE.

The idiot private should enjoy his stay in Leavenworth. Assange better hope he doesn't get extradited, because I believe we still shoot spies.



...so, Wikileaks(Assange) is not a Champion of Truth, nor a Terrorist. Assange is effectively a SPY, while the soldier is a traitor. People may end up dead because this info was broadcast on the internet. I have no sympathy for whatever may happen to either of these two.

I don't see any lack of clarity in it.

[mystictiger]

I don't see any lack of clarity in it.

Good point. I got a little side-tracked in the capitalisation. Having finished reading the sentence, I agree.

They're not actually charging the PFC with treason or espionage.

I suspect that I just have a deep and abiding sense of skepticism after the WMDs, Guantanamo, dead hostages, and a War in Iraq based on politically-cooked intelligence. If my government were to tell me that the sky was blue, water was wet and fire was hot, I'd want to go and check.

Having read through more cables this morning, they're still all off the titilating / embarrasing nature. My favourite was this http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/12/09ASHGABAT1633.html]one[/url]:

"Turkmen President Berdimuhammedov does not like people who are smarter than he is. Since he's not a very bright guy, our source offered, he is suspicious of a lot of people."

My main thought is: it's no use hand-wringing about "Oh, this will make diplomacy impossible" or "Oh, the rotten chap, he should be arrested or assassinated". Wikileaks is a symptom of what advanced communication, and Wikileaks (or something like it) can't be stopped. The world is turning into a place where your digital mistakes are archived and accessible to everyone. It's useful trying to work out how to live in a world like that, it's not worth trying to stop it.

Maybe these sorts of leaked cables will seem like nothing special to a generation of people whose drunken teenage angsty poseur Facebook pictures and posts are still up there thirty years later. Maybe that means we have a generation to wait before political life catches up with technology.

Do the leaked cables change anything? I wasn't aware of how anti-Iran the Arab leaders are, or of how ineffective Putin is at controlling the Russian government, or of what China really feels about North Korea. So I learnt something. The only way I can imagine the leaking having an actual impact is through people learning more and then applying slow gentle pressure to their governments, the sort of gentle pressure that allows politicians to take small steps because they sense the people are with them, or prevents them from taking small steps.

The US government is in an interesting predicament. It made all these documents float freely around a network as part of a deliberate attempt to "join the dots" after 9/11. I.e. it realized that an effective organization requires open communication. But open communication can't be contained. Assange is trying to provoke the US (and other organizations) to decide whether they will be ineffective with limited communication, or effective with open communication. It's exactly what the West has been preaching at China (the only way to a vibrant knowledge economy is through freedom of expression).

I'm thinking of a statement like this from Hilary Clinton:

"China has a lot of very positive results from economic growth, but I will predict to you, I don't know whether it's five years or 10 years or 15, there is an inherent conflict between economic freedom and the lack of political freedom," she said in a speech in Malaysia in early November.
"The political space for speaking out has not grown."

'Speaking out' means saying something and having it accessible to a wide audience. Clinton is saying that the state should not interfere with these communications.

The US SIPRNET, from where the leaks came, is a communications network designed to disseminate nuggets of information to a wide range of possible listeners, any of whom might be able to do something useful with it.

You might be able to achieve a bit of a reduction in inter-governmental partitioning just by getting the heads of departments to meet for coffee twice a week. But I think they came up with SIPRNET because they realized that "coffee morning for department heads" won't achieve anything, what you actually need is to get the nuggets of information to the people who can do something with them. The department heads don't know who needs what, only the individual experts know who needs what.

So I do think it is fair to say that what Hilary Clinton is preaching to China is very close to what the US embodied with SIPRNET.

This is just another phenomenon that the Westphalian state is unable to deal with. How did they deal with multi-nationals? Be bending over and taking it. With climate change? By burying their head. I am very keen to see what, if anything, will change.

Lastly, I think JFK had it right:

"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it."

Does this mean that I think that all information should be free? No, rather that you should have to justify what you conceal rather than what you release. And national security has been used as a blanket to cover so very many sins. From Concentration Camps (Go Britain), torture, enforced sterilisation, assault, murder, rape, crimes against humanity, graves breaches of the laws and customs of war, and so on. These are all things done in the name of the state. Shouldn't they really be done in the name of the people?

[Callie Del Noire]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/world/07sites.html?_r=1

This is the sort of intelligence I would be worried showing up on the list.

They found a list of sensitive sites among the documents. Most of them are already known, but now any backyard group with the ability to mix fertilizer and diesel knows about it.

No one needs to go out and list our most sensitive and vulnerable locations but this sure helps.

[Trieste]

Nobody needed our help to find the World Trade Center.

Nobody needed our help to find the Federal Building in Oklahoma city.

Nobody needed our help to bomb the London underground.

People who want to hurt us don't need to wait for this stuff. They can get it on their own, or think of things that diplomats might find unthinkable or impregnable.

[Callie Del Noire]

Nobody needed our help to find the World Trade Center.

Nobody needed our help to find the Federal Building in Oklahoma city.

Nobody needed our help to bomb the London underground.

People who want to hurt us don't need to wait for this stuff. They can get it on their own, or think of things that diplomats might find unthinkable or impregnable.

True.. but we also don't need to point out how to black out New England, how to cripple the water system in NYC, and
so on.

[mystictiger]

The list of institutions critical to US national society was interesting in that it included a snake-anti-venom plant in Australia, a Danish vaccine company, and a cobalt mine. In securitising everything - even 'targets' beyond their borders, the US administration has massively broadened what it regards as 'cruicial to national security'. I mean, a gas interchange in Siberia?

That high-pitched whirring noise is Kissinger is spinning rapidly in his metaphorical grave.

[Callie Del Noire]

The list of institutions critical to US national society was interesting in that it included a snake-anti-venom plant in Australia, a Danish vaccine company, and a cobalt mine. In securitising everything - even 'targets' beyond their borders, the US administration has massively broadened what it regards as 'cruicial to national security'. I mean, a gas interchange in Siberia?

That high-pitched whirring noise is Kissinger is spinning rapidly in his metaphorical grave.

Uh..he's not dead.

And.. global economy. Just because it's not in country doesn't mean it's NOT critical.