Slashdot Mirror
Open-Government Technique Used on Iraqi Documents
stalebread writes "MSNBC has an article looking at an internet-based 'many hands make light work' approach to data sifting. From the article: 'The federal government is making public a huge trove of documents seized during the invasion of Iraq, posting them on the Internet in a step that is at once a nod to the Web's power and an admission that U.S. intelligence resources are overloaded. Web surfers have begun posting translations and comments, digging through the documents with gusto.'"
Why are people crying "conspiracy theory" here? It is public knowledge that the government has already given these docs the once over and determined that translation was a low priority; they mined them for gems already and the Pentagon has already released a study on a few hundred of the documents that were considered worth translating. About the rest they were not going to release them at all until Rep Hoekstra, under the influence of Stephen Hayes, put intense public pressure on Negroponte's office; Negroponte finally relented and allowed them to be put on the internet. This is not a conspiracy theory; it is published in the Congressional Record.