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Wikileaks Releases Sensitive Guantanamo Manual

James Hardine writes "Wired is reporting that a never-before-seen military manual detailing the day-to-day operations of the U.S. military's Guantánamo Bay detention facility has been leaked to the web, via the whistle-blowing site Wikileaks.org, affording a rare inside glimpse into the institution where the United States has imprisoned hundreds of suspected terrorists since 2002. The 238-page document, "Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures," is dated March 28, 2003. The disclosure highlights the internet's usefulness to whistle-blowers in anonymously propagating documents the government and others would rather conceal. The Pentagon has been resisting — since October 2003 — a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union seeking the very same document. Anonymous open-government activists created Wikileaks in January, hoping to turn it into a clearinghouse for such disclosures. The site uses a Wikipedia-like system to enlist the public in authenticating and analyzing the documents it publishes. The Camp Delta document includes schematics of the camp, detailed checklists of what "comfort items" such as extra toilet paper can be given to detainees as rewards, six pages of instructions on how to process new detainees, instructions on how to psychologically manipulate prisoners, and rules for dealing with hunger strikes."

3 of 643 comments (clear)

  1. Re:You know something? by EaglemanBSA · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is the problem inherent in the wiki-mindset...then again, who's to say anything released by any corporate news agency is any better (maybe even worse)? Fact-checking and verification is a pretty complex problem that, in the end, will always break down to faith in one party or another.

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  2. Re:Prosecute them. by NMerriam · · Score: 3, Interesting

    A lie is a statement, true or false, with an intent to deceive. That is now what happened.


    A lie of omission -- ie, by deliberately censoring and leaving out intelligence that contradicts your interpretation -- is still a lie.

    If scientists had several studies showing that there was a strong possibility of particles smaller than atoms, and deliberately coverd up those studies and experiments so that they could say the atom was the smallest particle as they fervently believe, then yes, it would be a lie.

    What you seem to be confused about is whether a lie has to be intentional. It may well be that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc all fervently believed that their interpretation was correct and that contrary information was not reliable. They may have sincerely believed they were "eliminating confusion", but ultimately they and their delegates made the decision to only tell one side of the story, and deny that a different interpretation even existed. That's a lie, that's conscious, purposeful deception so that you can get what you want.
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  3. Re:Prosecute them. by afabbro · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Citing iraqbodycount.org, antiwar.com, and wikipedia is about as solid as quoting WorldNetDaily.

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