New Wikileaks Dump is Unconscionable

[S.A.M.]

Isn't revealing secret documents an offence in the US?

Actually, I think the one who steals the documents is officially accountable. Since they are usually under some non-disclosure contract which includes penalties for breaking it. The average citizen, I believe cannot be held responsible for taking the documents to the public. But I could be wrong.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

In my personal opinion, this is one gigantic dis-information campaign. I don't understand how the Government can immediately shut down websites when they're illegally posting copy-written material, but they appear helpless when their alleged classified dirty laundry is being aired on the "internets"?.

I did say that people would suspect that this has been orchestrated.
But what about the volume of it?

No, sorry, it overestimates the competency of the US government.
They can hardly competently release the information they want to release, never mind release tens of thousands of documents that they are pretending that they don't want to release. Think about it.

 

[S.A.M.]

I don't think its orchestrated. There are no surprises here.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

It's the other way round.
The fact that there are no surprises might lead some people to believe that the leaks are controlled.
The man that set up the site is an Australian, not an American, though he spent quite a lot of time in the US
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

 

[countezero]

Is it just me or this issue has the potential of getting bigger than 9/11 for US?

It's just you.

Actually, I think the one who steals the documents is officially accountable. Since they are usually under some non-disclosure contract which includes penalties for breaking it. The average citizen, I believe cannot be held responsible for taking the documents to the public. But I could be wrong.

You are very wrong. Anyone with classified information in their possession who is not supposed to have it can be prosecuted. How do you think espionage laws are enforced?

It may surprise people living in the US, but you have replaced Russia and China in many country's minds as an aggressor and a threat to peace in the world.

It's no surprise. People are dumb, and in many cases, they are being misled by their government or their press. Plus, it's just cool and hip to hate on the US these days.

In fact, I will predict some people asserting that the US is releasing these documents itself.

The sort of people who are dumb enough to believe your previous statement have already said as much. They just can't believe the US is not more evil than this...

 

[ejderha]

It may surprise people living in the US, but you have replaced Russia and China in many country's minds as an aggressor and a threat to peace in the world.

I don't think that would surprise anyone.

 

[ejderha]

It's just you.

Lol, I am glad to hear that actually. How are you?

Do you personally think it's a real leak? I am really asking to learn your opinion.

 

[S.A.M.]

You are very wrong. Anyone with classified information in their possession who is not supposed to have it can be prosecuted. How do you think espionage laws are enforced?

I doubt it, if that were true, Assange would have been in prison long ago. Why do you suppose they have Sweden incriminating him in a months old rape case? Why don't they just arrest him for treason?

And I'm right, [what else?]

Congress is poised to expand a law that would protect government whistle-blowers from being fired and harassed, including scientists whose findings have been muzzled and employees who may currently be more inclined to tip off outside organizations like WikiLeaks.

"Right now, anyone who tries to exercise free speech rights openly is signing his or her professional death warrant," said Tom Devine, legal director at the Government Accountability Project, a whistle-blower protection organization that has spent years gathering support for the bill.

"That means anonymous leaks to organizations like WikiLeaks are the safest way of getting the truth out. That's not a healthy system for the nation."

The Whisleblower Protection Act, last revised under President George H. Bush in 1994, is on the Senate's table this week and if passed, is expected to glide through the House next week. President Barack Obama, who had represented whistle-blowers when he was an attorney, has been a long-time supporter of the bill.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373662,00.asp

But in the famous tradition of "yes we can, but..."

You can say that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is reckless and dangerous for making the documents public.

You can say he’s hurt the international conversation among diplomats and endangered the lives of innocent people who have helped the U.S. in time of war, people who staked their lives on promises of anonymity.

But before you call someone a criminal, you have to have a law that you can say he broke. Holder is going to have a hard time doing that with Assange.

If the attorney general were confident, he wouldn’t have answered a reporter’s question about difficulties in prosecuting Assange this way:

“To the extent there are gaps in the laws, we will move to close those gaps.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...rip-of-u-s-law-commentary-by-ann-woolner.html

 

[iceaura]

I see no major perception challenged, other than the already discredited notion that the US alone is for tackling Iran.

I listed two. Do you maintain that there has been no major faction of US citizens who believed the war in Afghanistan was a success and a victory until recently, or that some people to this day think the Surge in Iraq was and remains a success and a victory and the creditable cause of recent major improvements in that arena?

But information for information's sake is not always a good thing. Hence, the word discretion.

But it probably is in this case, certainly if it leads to an improvement in the comprehension of what their government has been doing, on the part of US citizens.

It might easily be more difficult to continue pushing the delusion lines, even in the mainstream US media, with a few more fishbones of information lodged in the propagandist's throat. The shortage of simple facts in the public awareness and media presentations allows all manner of bs to be established as a sort of alternative reality, politically useful for some but ultimately harmful to the country as a whole.

Traitor to whom?
”
By any definition, the army chum who stole these documents

We weren't talking about him.

You exemplify the effects of the US media standard framing very well.

 

[S.A.M.]

I was wrong. There are some (very minor) surprises.

The cables have revealed that President Zardari told the US ambassador that Nawaz Sharif's brother warned LET before the UN sanctions over 26/11, allowing it to empty bank accounts before the sanctions. (Read)


Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/wikilea...6-11-tensions-with-pakistan-and-more-69961?cp

The cables reveal that diplomatic missions in New Delhi believed 26/11 attack was a major intelligence failure, and said "...there was no clear evidence after 26/11 to suggest an ISI link."(Read: What diplomats in Delhi said after 26/11) | (Read: Pakistan's reactions on 26/11)

And another secret US cable dated as recently as February 22 this year says Pakistani authorities had told US officials that 26/11 suspect David Headley's statements to American investigative agencies would be treated as "hearsay with little evidential" value in Pak courts.

In another cable, on February 16, 2010, US Ambassador in Delhi Tim Roemer tells Washington, "The Indian Army's "Cold Start Doctrine" is a mixture of myth and reality. It's never been and may never be put to use on a battlefield because of substantial and serious resource constraints." It goes on to call the army slow and lumbering, and unable to attack with an element of surprise. (Read: Cold-Start doctrine - a mixture of myth and reality)


Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/wikilea...6-11-tensions-with-pakistan-and-more-69961?cp

Hoo boy!


Some more stuff on how the US handles foreign policy
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/01-0

A renowned political analyst and linguist, MIT professor Noam Chomsky helped Daniel Ellsberg, America’s premier whistle-blower, release the Pentagon Papers 40 years ago. I asked Chomsky about the latest cables released by WikiLeaks. “What this reveals,” he reflected, “is the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership.”

 

[countezero]

Chomsky's opinions aren't worth much.

And I'm surprised you're surprised that Pakistani leadership might help LeT. I just wrote a large chunk of material on the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan's fingers are all over the attacks, and that angle has been covered pretty extensively.

I listed two. Do you maintain that there has been no major faction of US citizens who believed the war in Afghanistan was a success and a victory until recently, or that some people to this day think the Surge in Iraq was and remains a success and a victory and the creditable cause of recent major improvements in that arena?

The surge was successful -- and no, I'm not refighting that argument with you, either.

As for Afghanistan, I think people respond to reality. The situation several years ago is very different from where it is today. You can't expect appreciations to be wholly consistent if reality is not. I mean, what you're really on about is that you think Afghanistan was a failure. Period. And you think the fact that things look grim now proves you were right all along. Problem is, you ignore periods where things were demonstrably less grim and you scoff at the positive perceptions people voiced during those periods. Of course, I'm also talking to someone who thinks the entire conflict there is largely about pipelines that don't exist, so nobody should really care what you think about anything.

Regardless, nothing in the Afghan or Iraq leaks was "news." All of the details it provided were well known flourishes to the accepted theme that these countries are struggling to consolidate corrupt and non-functional democracies. That is why nobody other than the fringe cared about the actual content of the leaks then or now. And this gets really at the phenomena driving the leaks apparent popularity. You have people who are whipped into a frothing, frenzy of anti-Americanism every time something comes out. The leaks are just a convenient agitator that allows them to express opinions they already hold in a new context -- one which they mistakenly believe has a new paradigm.

But it probably is in this case, certainly if it leads to an improvement in the comprehension of what their government has been doing, on the part of US citizens.

It might easily be more difficult to continue pushing the delusion lines, even in the mainstream US media, with a few more fishbones of information lodged in the propagandist's throat. The shortage of simple facts in the public awareness and media presentations allows all manner of bs to be established as a sort of alternative reality, politically useful for some but ultimately harmful to the country as a whole.

I fail to see how that's the case. Maybe if you point to something and explain what it means and how you think it changes anything I can respond with more specificity. But right now, you're just offering up sentiment.

We weren't talking about him.

You exemplify the effects of the US media standard framing very well.

Well, that's my mistake. No need to be a complete ass about it. Assange cannot be a traitor for obvious reasons.

 

[S.A.M.]

I think everything must be in the open. And I know how naive is that.

Is it just me or this issue has the potential of getting bigger than 9/11 for US?

I thought you were overstating the case, but with just a brief perusal of whats in store and the fact that the cables cover the period from 1966 to 2010, I think this has the potential to be a Big Fucking Deal. And they cannot blame anyone for this, why the frick do they have everything stored in one place? Even I know enough to archive and store off line.

 

[spidergoat]

They haven't even all been released yet, and countezero says there's nothing to see here. Although it does undermine our government, it also gives the average citizen a look into how realpolitik works. It's often not very flattering. This is more news in one place than the major news networks cover all year, if news is just information about how the world works.

 

[ejderha]

I thought you were overstating the case, but with just a brief perusal of whats in store and the fact that the cables cover the period from 1966 to 2010, I think this has the potential to be a Big Fucking Deal. And they cannot blame anyone for this, why the frick do they have everything stored in one place? Even I know enough to archive and store off line.

And how many percent of the files are out yet? 1-2 %? I don't know Sam. If it's that bad, let's hope not.

 

[Echo3Romeo]

I think the technology factor is very important because the generation that is growing up now is a tech savvy generation. And I'm not referring only to the west but to all the Asians and Arabs and Africans who have joined the geek squad. I predict information will become harder to keep inviolate, as more players jump into the foray. Speaking of wikileaks specifically, Assange is but the messenger, the real gold miners are the ones who go in there and get the data out. There will always be an Assange out there.

Hackers don't leak information, they steal it. Leaks come from the inside, from somebody who has gained access to the medium through proper channels. In PFC Manning's case this meant passing the requisite background checks for obtaining a TS/SCI clearance, which is not terribly difficult. In any case, whether we're talking about Manning burning CDs full of documents that end up in the hands of a hacker who runs a website or Walker photocopying schematics of cryptographic equipment that ends up in the hands of a KGB agent, the technology used to facilitate each leak is incidental. The key aspects of the leak itself all come down to the one person.

As far as your point about the geek squad and the developing world, sure, I agree, and so do most governments, militaries, and NGOs. However that simply indicates a new dimension to security. It doesn't automatically imply that said organizations are going to suck at it. I mean, DDoS and intrusion attacks aren't exactly anything new. I don't share your belief that there is some kind of inevitable security crash on the horizon that nobody else sees coming.

That's of course quite possible, if by "life" you mean the current course of industrial geopolitical conflict and maneuvering.

But is that what you would prefer? Is that what you favor? Or do you as many others hope that this wrench tossing will catch hold in some more consequential part of the works?

I favor the status quo to a rather nebulous set of consequences that, while tangential to the status quo, may or may not be a meaningful improvement and could potentially be far worse.

There are fears that one of the consequences to this leak and its timing will be to derail the Senate's voting to approve our next START treaty with Russia. That's a more tangible security concern to me.

 

[iceaura]

The surge was successful -- and no, I'm not refighting that argument with you, either.

You have never fought that argument - you simply and repeatedly assert the obviously false, in the face of all the evidence - most recently, the material in these leaks, which clearly would be news to you if you were capable of comprehending it and its implications.

As for Afghanistan, I think people respond to reality.

Responding to reality would include such things as dropping the notion that the Surge was "successful", in light of the info available from the recent leaks if all the previous info was overlooked - an example of the possible consequences of this material being made public.

Clearly many people have not been responding to reality - do not even seem to be aware of significant aspects of reality, seem to be not merely mistaken but profoundly misinformed, uninformed, oblivious to simple facts.

In such a situation, a data dump like this one could be significant, influential. Depending on how it's covered by the respectable media, which again has some awkward backtracking to do, of course.

And you think the fact that things look grim now proves you were right all along. Problem is, you ignore periods where things were demonstrably less grim and you scoff at the positive perceptions people voiced during those periods.

Things looked grim all along. There was no time when they looked less grim - you are remembering your reality-free assertions then, the "positive perceptions" the lefties were calling bs on at the time, as if they were some kind of actual situation.

I favor the status quo to a rather nebulous set of consequences

Do you expect the victims of the rolling disaster referred to above as "status quo" to share your preferences?

There are rather a lot of them.

 

[S.A.M.]

And how many percent of the files are out yet? 1-2 %? I don't know Sam. .

I've been trying to think what aspects of US foreign policy could be exposed from 1966-2010

Vietnam? Cold War? Israel nuclear transfers? EU? China? Iran? Iraq? It will be an interesting look into the corridors of politics of this century.

If it's that bad, let's hope not

I tend to think the other way around. If its THAT bad, then lets see it asap.

 

[CptBork]

This is more news in one place than the major news networks cover all year, if news is just information about how the world works.

Ah, but they don't contain any info on the 150lb. cat rescued from the narrow sewer pipe, the toothless man with no shirt who got caught stealing peoples' lunches, and the girl who performed her concert in see-through shorts. I'm not terribly impressed by the lack of substance contained in the leaks to date, I hope the pace picks up in the coming days.

 

[ejderha]

I've been trying to think what aspects of US foreign policy could be exposed from 1966-2010

Vietnam? Cold War? Israel nuclear transfers? EU? China? Iran? Iraq? It will be an interesting look into the corridors of politics of this century.

I tend to think the other way around. If its THAT bad, then lets see it asap.

I get you Sam, trust me. When I was "overstating" the only thing in my mind was if this shit is real and that big that it could change and define the world politics overall. And last time that happened -after 9/11- everything has changed. My country has changed for the worse. The world has changed for the worse.
And that change was rapid in a sense and more importantly 'visible', because right or wrong there was a sudden action commited triggering it. What's gonna happen now?

The change will be invisible, mostly unrecognisable and sneaky. You think it was dark behind walls and curtains before, NOW it's going underground for good.

So that's why, I wish those files to be harmless and stupid gossip. That's why I don't want to know everything. It's not ideal I know. But I am expressing emotions and they are not rational.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

And I'm surprised you're surprised that Pakistani leadership might help LeT. I just wrote a large chunk of material on the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan's fingers are all over the attacks, and that angle has been covered pretty extensively.

I'm beginning to wonder just what unpleasant surprises could be in these documents.
Possibly the newspapers are only releasing fairly safe stuff at this time.
If your theory,above, is supported by material in the leaks, it could cause unnecessary conflict.
Other stuff could cause wars.
It is "shouting fire in a crowded theatre", as the old argument goes.

Well, that's my mistake. No need to be a complete ass about it. Assange cannot be a traitor for obvious reasons.

No he's not a traitor, but he is guilty of espionage.
And Sweden's free speech laws have helped him to do that.

There is a difference between whistle blowing, and what has been done here.
Whistle blowing exposes corruption.
This is taking a nation's secrets, and letting anyone read them, without regard to the harm it could do.