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Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents
cyclop writes "In March, U.S. troops in Iraq shot to death Nicola Calipari, the Italian intelligence agent that rescued the kidnapped journalist Giuliana Sgrena. U.S. commission on the incident produced a report which public version was censored for more than one third. Now Italian press is reporting that all confidential information in the report is available to the public, just by copying "hidden" text from the PDF and pasting it in a word processor (Italian). The uncensored report can now be directly downloaded (evil .DOC format, sorry)"
That gives the term "security by obscurity" a whole new meaning... Hidden text?! What were they thinking!
Interesting the the people that posted this don't point out any smoking guns. It's mildly interesting that they were able to thwart the ridiculously inane classified protections, but it's telling that they didn't find anything that further incriminated the U.S. service personnel.
It's unfortunate but if you choose to negotiate with kidnappers (and thereby encourage more kidnapping) and further don't tell someone who's subject to daily suicide car bombs that you're going to be speeding down a road that is infamous for daily suicide car bombs, is it any surprise this happened?
Should I expect less if I make jerky motions into my pockets when a police officer pulls me over for a routine traffic accident?
There might actually have been respectable and perhaps important reasons for redacting some of that information. Not that it matters now, but it seems a bit imprudent to fervishly publicize information about troops that could have serious ramifications for them.
I know it never pays to underestimate human stupidity.
But non the less - I wonder if people can really be this stupid. Perhaps making people think they accessed confidential information is just a trick so the report seems more believeale.
In March, U.S. troops in Iraq shot to death Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, who was travelling in a car that - according to US troops - refused to slow down for a coalition checkpoint.
It's illegal to knowingly download classified docs, I trust you will do the right thing.
I, for one, will do my duty as a citizen and read the document. Living in a state in europe, I will look if there is any information in it that might be vital to my countries existance and then do the right thing - which might even include distributing the document to others.
Classified?
Have you read it?
The original document says "UNCLASSIFIED" just on top of every page.
It appears that this all boils down to a blame game - the US wants to defend its soldiers and assign blame to the Italians for not sharing information, whereas the Italians want the American soldiers held responsible for what is, essentially, a tragic circumstance in a war zone.
The Italians in the car weren't expecting a roadblock at that location, and the Americans didn't know about the rescue operation that was in progress...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Since when is breaking the law morally wrong? The reason the US has guns is so that its citizents can break unjust laws and defent themselves from an unreasonable government. There is nothing "wrong" with breaking the law, and I wish peopld would start realizing that.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
"If it was me, I would have shot the car. It was clearly speeding towards their position."
It was? That's what not surprisingly those who shot claim, however I have seen no prove of that claim yet, and the other side is telling a different story.
"The driver was not paying attention."
He wasn't? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
"He had a spotlight and a laser pointer shined on them."
He did? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
"They supposedly had the windows down in the car to hear for threats."
They did? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
"They were going in excess of 50mph, and the driver admits he was not in the habit of checking his speed."
They were? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
Seriously, and some Americans wonder why others might not like the US? I don't say it was the soldiers fault and the Italians didn't do what you claim, I simply don't know, what I do know however is that the US' urge to deny any wrongdoing whatsoever, no matter what, acting as if the facts in this case were totally clear, though they clearly aren't, is deeply disgusting and doesn't endear the US to the Europeans and others.
So, if you are wondering once again why some people don't like you, just look at the parents comments, at similar comments already made here, that also were modded up and you might just get a hint about why there is a lot of Anti-Americanism in the world.
As an american living in Italy, we've seen a lot of coverage of this over here.
The Italians involved said they weren't speeding. The Americans said the vehicle was travelling too quickly.
I think anyone, italian or american, can figure out the reason for this disagreement by watching a cowering family of american tourists trying to cross the street in Rome or any other large italian city. Some people obviously have different ideas about what 'fast' or 'dangerous' driving is.
I like Italy in many ways, but sometimes I really have to agree with Bill Bryson's "never should have let the Italians in on the invention of the automobile" sometimes!
Well, now we'll see, won't we?
The US government has for a long time, and this adiminstration in particular, classified things reflexively, whether secrecy was actually required or not.
In many ways it'll be scarier if the redactions show nothing of interest at all: not protecting anybody's privacy or any actual secrets. (A quick scan suggests exactly that.) It leaves open the question, "Why is the government keeping that information secret? Why is the government keeping so much information secret?"
There are many things that people would like to know to keep an eye on their government. Not all of that information should be released, for national security reasons, but it's always been the government who makes that decision. This lack of a check on the power of government makes people increasingly nervous as crimes (e.g. Abu Ghraib) are discovered anyway.
Most people in government over-classify things in order to protect their jobs. It's not a crime to overclassify; it's a big crime to release national security info, even accidentally. That's understandable, but a failure to release information that people are allowed to know makes it extremely difficult to check up on what the government does and whether it is still acting in our interest.
So yeah, maybe this is a bad thing. Maybe this is a release of national security information and lives may be lost. Or maybe it's laziness, somebody redacting because it's easier than checking on whether or not it was OK to release. Now we'll find out, and perhaps gain some broader insight.
She's a communist, she's written extensively for Il Manifesto and has made a lot of statements underlining her political affiliation & beliefs.
That said, there's nothing wrong with being a leftist, and it's irrelevant to this case (except that, of course, she's using her platform & beliefs to put a pretty massive spin on things.) Saying "the communist reporter" is similar to stating "the black assailant."
In this case it's just a horrible, possibly avoidable tragedy and I'm sure everyone involved really really sorry it happened, not that that helps.
As for the idiots saying things like "if soldiers don't want to get blown up, they should stay the f*** out of Iraq", that's about as base, nonsensical, ill-informed and sad an attitude as I can think of, and simply not deserving of a response.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Oh, get real. It's difficult to know what really happened, and whether the soldiers made a mistake or whether it was simply a terrible tragedy, but if the soldiers had wanted that woman dead, there would be nothing left of her, the car, or any of the other occupants besides a smoking crater.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence".
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
I suppose it would't be too hard to twist the DMCA into "protecting" hidden text as a security/DRM mechanism and calling this action "circumvention". The main problem is that our technology has outgrown 90% of the human race. Another example of this kind of thinking is on the moblog site, yafro.com. There are tons of women who post nude photos of themselves in their accounts. Much like Slashdot, there is a friends/foes type system. If you and another person are mutually in a friend relation, then you can see their "locked" pictures. So... when a few jackasses decided to mutually friend some of the Yafro women, take their locked photos and post them in a public forum on Yafro (a club), these women flipped out. They griped about how they were entitled to their privacy and it had been violated. They're right as far as ethics and respect go. But, this is the internet. Anything you place on it can't be expected to be private or protected in any fashion. If someone wants the info bad enough, they are going to get it.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Why don't you check your facts. Calipari was the killed agent. The person you are talking about is Giuliana Sgrena.
And some references to some unreleased "satellite photos" aren't really credible source of information especially after US has been caught in blatant lying about WMD evidence and about torture in Guantanamo, Afganistan and in Iraq.
I think this incidence shows how trigger happy and uncompetent the US troops are. There is no question that if the Italians had know they were in danger of US troops they would have stopped. But evidently the troops aren't able to warn in a clear and understandable way the car's that are aproaching their checkpoints -- and so innocent people get killed all the time in Iraq. This is just one case that has gotten much attention as the passangers were Italians instead Iraqis.
They should arrange their roadblocks with clear warnings - and preferrable also with physical blocks, using tire puncturing blocks etc. Adn they could maintain large enough distance to their roadblocks that they wouldn't feel so threatened thaty they have to shoot first and ask later.
C'mon think 1 second of another alternative.
.DOC format, I'd tend to think that seeing how US military failed in terms of preparation and casulties in Irak, but this would be also too big (someone would get charged for something really huge, and normally someone having access to this type of document as source to encode them, isn't a total idiot and has been checked up. Plus, there's surely a procedure on how to make documents and etc. there).
:) )
It's really sad to see this much "nerds" falling into the easiest route from point a to b without even considering any other possibilities.
How about this: They don't have a clue on how to get to the heads of the insurgency, thus they can't send them bad information, in which case they "do an error that looks legit" and broadcast it abroad knowing every news agency and curious person on the planet will pick it up.
Disinformation is a powerful thing. and even if the troops movements and all kind of information is included in the text, maybe there's one point there that they know that could be set up as a trap or whatever.
I mean, it's easy to jump to conclusions that humanity is stupid because someone revealed information, and the military knows nothing about the evil
So the point is, I could be wrong, the gun-jumpers could be wrong, but one thing is right; there are ALWAYS other possible alternatives to something obvious, especially when it's military or political. A forum like this is not to say "ahh bad bad bad" and see 500 messages of bitching on bad bad bad, but rather to promote a certain level of dicussion and intelligible arguments.
My $0.02CDN (which isn't worth much
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
- The world hates George Bush and the Republicans because
- The Republicans and George Bush hate and have no respect for the rest of the world. The Republicans have such friendly ideas as to disband the U.N.; have the U.S. completely withdraw from the U.N.; move the U.N. headquarters out of NYC;
make the U.N. a U.S.A. puppet (John Bolton is for the latter).
As the sayin goes, with friends like these who needs enemies?You just have to look at how George Bush treats fellow Americans called Democrats to understand the level of contempt and hate that exists for the outside world as well. As an American, if you want to go to a George Bush Town Hall meeting you have to sign a paper of loyalty. You have to ask yourself why that is?
In my opinion the bigger story here was how the U.S. handled diplomacy. Obviously the answer is poorly, arrogantly and with a strong middle finger salute to the Italians. This is no different then the diplomacy of Fox News, AM Hate Radio, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Laura Ingram and all the rest of the right wing giving their fellow Americans called Democrats the finger 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Ultimately all the hatred and contempt the right heaps on the left will end in violence.
Whoever Bush appoints to the U.N. will be expected to behave similarly; waive arrogantly a strong John Bolton middle finger salute to the rest of the world as well.
I really hate the way that Americans often seem to lose their sanity the minute the word "communist" is mentioned, since it seems like such a knee jerk reflex, especially since the cold war ended around 15 years ago. However, I think that Sgrena's attitude toward the US was probably not the most favourable, as I can't imagine a European communist paper employing a giddy yay america type person. While communist papers and parties in Europe are dinosaurs, as not many are interested in them, I think that the general view of the US in Europe has nothing to do with being communist or not.
Living here myself, I simply see European attitudes as being one's of suspicion and disbelief at the rhetoric and actions of the current US government.
However, a lot of Europeans are just as supicious of their own governments as these are just as opaque in the way they do things.
No, in fact it is rented from Cuba (even though they refuse the payment) and the U.S. government's position is that it is therefore foreign soil and not subject to U.S. laws or Constitution.
"They were captured in disguise and according to the laws of warfare could be summarily executed as spies."
While it's nice to refer to what the actual laws and interpretations allow, you miss the most important point: they have no due process rights. As you state, they have no Geneva Convention protection, even though they were captured as "the enemy" in a war. They are also not protected by the U.S. Constitution (see above link) because they are considered on foreign soil, even though they were captured by Americans, are being held by Americans, and are on an American base. In short, they have no protected rights for due process that civilized nations provide to everyone including war criminals, enemy soldiers, and civilian criminals.
Some people may not care. After all, these are terrorists, right? Well, how do we know? Is the military infallable? Is every accused person guilty? That's what due process is for. Is this not the "absolute power" behaviour that pissed off American's enough to create the U.S. in the first place, and provide such basic protections to all people?
This is a sad and unfortunate incident.
I don't care about any political bearings of any of the players. Only of those involved and their saftey.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye. That can be agreed on. It is also a shame and that can be agreed on too.
Honestly you do NOT mess around in a situation like this. As a soldier you can't just say "Oh look at that speeding car lets see what they want". You have to take action and it sounds to me like procedure was followed to the best of ability.
Communication could have been better.
The driver could have been smarter.
The vehicles shouldn't have been moved. Though I'm glad they were as more could have died.
That can be agreed on. Well no cause it doesn't matter because Americans are at fault automatically.
Just think about this. She was released. Why the need for any urgency?
The one thing I think everyone missed is this:
Sgrena claimed that her kidnappers, just before releasing her, had warned her that the American forces would be a danger to her.
Perhaps she had some form of Stockholm Syndrome and caused the driver to react differently when the warning shots happened?
Why on earth would the Americans want to intentionally harm her? Oh that's right the kidnappers said so so it must be true.
If that is true why then was medical treatment given to her and those involved as a priority over all else?
Anyway...
You know people are nitpicking when you read things like:
Giuliana Sgrena was hit, in the shoulder according to the U.S. version, but in an upper limb, according to Italian journalists.
So they already have an axe to grind. Eventually the truth will come out though no one will want to hear it. Both sides were at fault.
You're just a repressed coincidence theorist. Let's see: a group of high government officials go out of power with the change in party control. They publish a detailed plan for invading Iraq for unilateral strategic reasons, noting that without other justification, they'll need a "Pearl Harbor" scale event to invade. A decade later, they return to their old offices when their party retakes the White House. A few months later, a Pearl Harbor scale event occurs. The officials claim falsely that the event is connected to Iraq, and invade.
That's not very complicated. Every part is public knowledge all along. It is deluded people like you, who won't accept the truth, who enable the outrageous acts of these evil officials. Your kind of zombie is easy to identify: you can't dispute the facts, or the simple logic, so you attack the messenger with rhetoric and extreme exaggeration. I hope you're enjoying Bush's America, composed of lies, hatred, war, poverty, and rapid decline. Maybe you'll get a date with one of the Bush twins!
--
make install -not war
And do you consider the result "ok"?
With all due respect, USA had nothing to do in Iraq, it wasn't threatened by it and it knew that it poses no danger. Also, at the current stage there are open admissions that intelligence data was twisted for political needs not to represent actual situations.
How often do you shoot your neighbors just because they might be holding a gun and planning to shoot you? And claim that this was just a self-defense out of necessity? Try it out! It works! It's the american way, after all!
The fact that USA tries to enforce its laws across the world is NOT acceptable, regardless of what your comment shows you think. This just isn't how the law is supposed to work.
There are cultures where murder is a very encouraged and normal (if not mandatory) response to a case if someone rapes your daughter (in example).
There are cultures where there are no needs for cops, because the justice is enforced by everyone and any criminal risk loosing not only his position in society, but home and friends too.
You just might have heard that there are cultures where the LAW is defined and exact and don't depends on 15 tomes of decisions of similar cases or your capabilities to appear as a victim of society to the jurors.
I'm not saying that Sadam Hussein wasn't a criminal. Yes, he was, he was involved in war crimes, genocide, just plain power stretching around and enforced really harsh means to silence the opposition, but this wasn't the USA's business. For heaven's sake, Iraq even isn't a border country for the USA, what would add some credibility to the "World Cop" role it postulates.
In short: US law is law that is (and should be) enforced only in USA. One step across the border - and you have a different set of laws. And that's how it should stay - each culture deciding itself on the laws it needs and the enforcement methods it should use.
There is a really, really big difference between McJunkie Girl (violently raped at each of last three parties she attended and happy for that) and the wife of some Taliban Man (violently beaten up each evening, and happy for that). And laws are made to reflect that.
And anyway, while the military might have managed to convince the world that it was all made up, they would have figured out how it was done quickly enough anyway.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
Everyone asserts that the US constitution doesn't apply overseas, but I don't see anything that would imply that in the constitution itself - it's all along the lines of, "Congress shall not do X."
Not "Congress shall not do X, except to brown-skinned furriners with funny outfits and long beards," or "Congress shall not do X in any place where reporters might see it done," or "Congress shall not do X unless they first convince a majority of voting Americans that it's OK."
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
The 1-76 TOC had two means of communicating with 4th Brigade, its higher headquarters: Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)2 and FM. The 1-76 FA Battle Captain was using only VOIP to communicate with 1-69 IN, but experienced problems with VOIP, therefore losing its only communication link with 1-69 IN, other than going through 4th Brigade. (Annex 97C). As a result, the Battle Captain was unable to pass updated information about the blocking mission either directly to 1-69 IN, or to 4th Brigade. He did not attempt to contact 4th Brigade via FM communications. (Annex 63C).
and
(U) Mr. Carpani told Sergeant First Class Feliciano who Ms. Sgrena was and that he was trying to get to the airport. He told Sergeant First Class Feliciano that he heard shots from somewhere, and that he panicked and started speeding, trying to get to the airport as quickly as possible. Mr. Carpani further told Sergeant First Class Feliciano that he continued to speed down the ramp, and that he was in a hurry to get to the airport. (Annexes 91C, 136C).
So it all came down to two issues.
(1) Failure to communicate. The car wasn't where it should be, wasn't informed of what was waiting ahead of them, gave its position but that information was not forwarded to the roadblock, so they were not expecting them.
(2) The driver then risked the lives of everyone in the vehicle by reacting with very bad judgement when he arrived at the roadblock. (accelerating the vehicle after he was spotlighted, laserpointered, and heard the warning shots)
Bad decisions by the driver of the vehicle, amplified by failure to communicate.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
read the censored stuff, it is highly dangerous - for the guys who want this war, not for the guys who execute it. PAT
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