Pentagon Seeking Out Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange

clustro writes "The Pentagon is desperately seeking the 'cooperation' of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in order to stop him from releasing over 250,000 pages of confidential foreign policy documents. The documents were allegedly provided to Assange by Bradley Manning, the same solider who leaked a video showing a US Army helicopter killing unarmed civilians and international press correspondents."

Comments

We promise we won't hurt you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you just provide us your GPS co-ordinates? Thanks!

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[MichaelSmith]

Could you just provide us your GPS co-ordinates? Thanks!

Better not do that. They are uncomfortably close to mine.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[cappp]

The Wired article http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/state-department-anxious/ provides a little more detail.

The things that stood out to me:

According to the Daily Beast, Manning apparently had “special access to cables prepared by diplomats and State Department officials throughout the Middle East regarding the workings of Arab governments and their leaders.” The cables date back several years and traversed interagency computer networks that are available to the Army. They contain information about U.S. diplomatic and intelligence efforts in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones, the diplomat said.

In chats with Lamo that Wired.com has examined, Manning said he had access to two classified networks from two separate secured laptops: SIPRnet, the Secret-level network used by the Department of Defense and the State Department, and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System which serves both agencies at the Top Secret/SCI level. The networks, he said, were both “air-gapped” from unclassified networks, but the environment at the base made it easy to smuggle data out. “I would come in with music on a CD-RW labeled with something like ‘Lady Gaga,’ erase the music then write a compressed split file,” he wrote. “No one suspected a thing and, odds are, they never will.” “listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history,” he added later. ”Weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counterintelligence, inattentive signal analysis a perfect storm.” Regarding the State Department cables specifically, Manning told Lamo, “State dept fucked itself. Placed volumes and volumes of information in a single spot, with no security.”

Manning described personal issues that got him into trouble with his superiors and left him socially isolated. He said he had been demoted after he punched a colleague in the face during an argument, and was reassigned to a job in a supply office pending early discharge. He also told Lamo, “I’m restricted to SIPR now, because of the discharge proceedings.”

But in his chats with Lamo, Manning told the ex-hacker that all traces of evidence had been deleted from his work computers as part of the troop-withdrawal procedures that have started in Iraq. “I had two computers. One connected to SIPRnet the other to JWICS,” he wrote. “They’ve been zero-filled. Because of the pullout, evidence was destroyed by the system itself.” He also told Lamo that network security monitoring and logging was ineffective or nonexistent. “There’s god-awful accountability of IP addresses,” he wrote. “The network was upgraded, and patched up so many times, and systems would go down, logs would be lost. And when moved or upgraded, hard drives were zeroed. It’s impossible to trace much on these field networks."

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[commodore64_love]

>>>According to the Daily Breast

Now THAT'S my kind of newspaper. ;-) I think the Wikileaks founder should ignore the Pentagon. The leaking of video showing soldiers killing reporters, children, and other innocents is exactly what this country needs to erase the myth that government is "good" for us. Or that leaders can be trusted. Fucking bastards. They promised to end this damn war years ago, and yet here we are. The only way it will end is if, like Vietnam, we turn public opinion against the war and the government.

Keep up the good work Mr. Manning.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Runaway1956]

Uhhhh - I didn't see the same video you saw. I saw an Apache firing on a group of armed men, located in an area from which our ground troops took fire.

I'm not looking to get into a pissing contest, since I like most of your posts here - but for those who haven't SEEN the video, there are two sides to the story. Whichever side you take on the story, you most definitely need to remember that old "fog of war" thing. Mistakes are made, in every war, and the video in question documents one of them.

Point of fact: there were weapons among the men on the ground who were killed. The camera that the reporter was carrying was mistaken for a rocket launcher. The reporter's fate was sealed when he aimed that thing in the direction of our troops on the ground. The men in the Apache believed that he was preparing to fire on American troops.

As for Manning - I have just about made up my mind that he is nothing but a push-button shitbird, and he should have been run out of the military a lot quicker. As much as I support Wikileaks, I simply cannot see that Manning had any good reason for leaking that particular video. All he cared about was damaging the military, out of spite.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Runaway1956]

You're welcome to use the insult. Just for info, a "push-button" in the Navy is any technician who got to sit around in a nice cozy classroom for a couple years, then sewed a Petty Officer's insignia on, just for graduating. Not a terrible insult, but somewhat derogatory when used by men who had to EARN their ratings the hard way. A "shitbird" in any branch is the worthless little turd who never manages to do anything right, and is consistently more trouble than he is worth. Shitbirds are more often discharged with a "convenience of the government" reason, than any other type of discharge.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[qubezz]

The camera that the reporter was carrying was mistaken for a rocket launcher. The reporter's fate was sealed when he aimed that thing in the direction of our troops on the ground.

There were no allied troops in the area. It took about 10 minutes for US Bradley vehicles to show up after they were ordered to the site. The helicopters were just blowing people up they thought looked suspicious, on open city streets. The pilot states that there are AK-47s and rocket launchers, but in the video (purported to be higher quality than what the gunner sees), I can make no such identification.

The fate of the occupants of the van later driving by, two adults and two children, was also sealed when they saw the Reuters cameraman's driver badly injured on the sidewalk (by a previous volley of American bullets from the sky). They stopped, got out to assist, carried him to their van, and then were repeatedly blasted by another hail of bullets from the Apache pilot.

They arrested a hero whistleblower, at least for revealing this video. The government lied, and denied Reuters FOIA requests for information regarding how their reporters were killed, to continue the coverup. The pentagon probably wants to contact Assange to get a statement or any evidence about receiving '260,000 pages' (perhaps a fantasy) so they can throw Bradley in prison for life for the embarrassment, while the Apache gunner gets his GI bill to live another life (and probably become a police officer).

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

What video did you see?

The "group of armed man" was actually a group of around 12 guys, all in a pretty relaxed attitude, none of them was pointing their guns at anything. Only a few of them had guns. Some of them where reporters.

They fired mercilessly destroying the whole place. They stayed to check if anyone was moving, when they saw a few still alive, wounded, agonizingly crawling on the ground, the shoot them again.

Then a minivan appeared, carrying UNARMED CHILDREN AND ADULTS, to clean up the mess, help the wounded, bury the dead. They where all shot dead. They guys in the helicopter new there were kids. And they said (over the radio) "It's their own damn fault for carrying kids to a war zone".

Well, damn, that wasn't a war zone until the US military arrived. And guess what? They had no reason whatever to be there. They made up a war because they needed to sell weapons. Try defending that.

Also, you guys need a good derogatory slang for "military". In Spanish, we say "milicos de mierda". That's the only way anyone here refers to anyone even remotely linked to the murdering machine that is the military.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[dave420]

Not this shit again. It's perfectly legal for Iraqis to have AK-47s. That is not a reason for them to be killed. Fog of war? There's no such thing when you're in a helicopter with such good vision of a peaceful square with no one firing a single shot at you. If the army gunner couldn't tell a camera from an RPG (considering they don't look anything alike), he shouldn't be a gunner. There were no troops on the ground in that square when the cameraman took photos. How could he be preparing to fire on American troops when there weren't any around? It took the troops that were there 15 minutes to arrive on the scene after being requested. It's another excellent illustration of the US armed forces' policy of "make up for poor training by spending millions on their equipment, and hope for the best".

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Runaway1956]

You're commenting on the politician who sent the troops there, or the troops? There is a difference. I have no use at all for George Dubya Bush and his cronies. I thought the reasons given for invading Iraq were bullshit - and I hate the Bush administration for giving people like you ammunition to use against the military. But, if you're honest, you'll admit that the troops and the politicians are easily distinguishable. The politicians, to a man, are cowards hiding behind the guns held by the troops.

I respect the troops, for doing the dirty jobs they are sent out to do.

I have no respect for the politicians who can't figure out when and where the troops should be used.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really believe what you just wrote? Did you even see the video? I'd like to see source stating there were weapons. As far as the heli pilots are concerned, they only saw the reporter's camera holster, you can clearly see that in the recording. The cameraman, at NO POINT, took his camera and aimed for something. He actually was talking on his mobile phone when they striked. Then black van comes, tries to save the wounded and gets shot too. But yea, there could have been weapons in there, too!
I just don't understand why they didn't burn down all adjacend houses. I mean, they could have the feared WMD in there!

Go ask the Iraqi people how they like it, beeing shot without any chance to clear misunderstandings. Not much different from our feared terrorists, if you ask me.

And Manning, he seems to care about people and their rights. You obviously don't. Stop talkin FUD.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Giving them a sack of rice after destroying their houses is not helping them, you bastard.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Voulnet]

No, the troops are human beings with a brain. They are the ones pulling the trigger. They are equally guilty. If you fire your weapon without making sure who your target was, then you deserve as much blame as the one who told you to fire.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[darjen]

You don't have to be a combat veteran to comment on what should be common sense.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Runaway1956]

No, you don't - but it helps when you know what you're talking about.

If you have never stood at the wrong end of a gun, it's near impossible to imagine being there for days, weeks, or even months.

Personally, I've only spent several hours of my life standing at the wrong ends of lethal weapons. I don't consider myself qualified to judge the actions taken by front line soldiers, day in and day out. But, at least I have a few clues about what they are going through.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[darjen]

You can try and justify this all you want, but I'm still not sure how it is anything less than cold blooded murder.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Runaway1956]

Damned shame that a veteran who has a clue feels the need to post as AC in a discussion like this, on /.

How is it that liberals seem to dominate a tech board? Did most of you graduate from Berkeley, or some such?

Whatever - I'll post my opinions however unpopular, under my own name, and let karma take care of itself. ;^)

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Listen to the fucking audio. They were dying to murder those guys. They knew there were children in the minivan (the minivan that came by to pick up the wounded and bury the dead) and they said "it's their own fault for bringing the kids to a war zone", and proceeded to open fire on them. They killed childs, knowingly.

This is not WWII. This is not a war at all, it's an invasion. The US invaded another sovereign nation. Also, this guys are full of technology. This wasn't some guy with a shitty riffle shooting through the jungle and hitting the wrong target. The only reason most people join the military is because they are murderers.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Rinikusu]

That's false, however. There were American troops a few blocks down the street. The part in the video where the photographer leans out and snaps some shots? He was taking pics of the Bradleys sitting down the street. (they recovered the cameras and those were the last pictures taken) Of course it took 10 minutes for troops to get there. You don't just rush headfirst into a waiting potential ambush. If you didn't see the rockets/AKs, you weren't looking hard enough because I spotted at least one of each without any kind of "ambiguity". Then let's discuss the idea that that exact location had been used as an ambush/RPG launch point for running battles over the past few days. There's a lot of context you're missing from the video alone.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Ah, I see. This medals were given to you by the same corrupt government/military that sent you there to murder all that people in the first place, right?

You invade other countries, you still their resources, and then give them a bag of food, and you are suddenly a hero. You are nothing but scam. I know there is no god, but since you are in the military you probably believe it, therefore "I hope you rot in hell".

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Khyber]

Not all of them are filled with high explosive. The M230 chain gun on the Apache can use either the M788 Target round (non explosive,) the M789 HEDP (Dual-purpose explosive round) or the M799 HEI (Explosive Incendiary.)

And at 30mm, you really don't need explosives to rip the human body apart.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[dragonhunter21]

Point of clarification: They didn't know there were kids inside the vehicle before they fired. They only knew after the kids were pulled out by the troops, and were notified as such. Now, the "It's their own fault for bringing kids into a war zone" line was said, but only after the kids were pulled out, and well before it was known that the people on the ground were innocent civilians. I watched the HQ video myself, and the "kids" were pixels. I was inches away from my screen, staring at the paused video, and they were pixels. Same for the "rocket launcher". On the helicopter, he's got a smaller screen, he can't pause the action, and he's always moving. It is a case of failing to identify, yes, but it wasn't the shooter's fault. He saw a bunch of guys that looked like they were threatening his buddies, he requested permission to fire, and he got it. If you saw a guy pointing a gun at your friend, what would you do?

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[mcvos]

It has never been established that the dead were all innocents. SOMEONE in that area had fired upon our ground troops,

You don't see it as a problem that nothing has actually been investigated, and that lots of civilians were slaughtered because SOMEONE somewhere (somewhere else, probably) may have shot at someone?

How would you like it if lots of people in your street were gunned down from a helicopter because somebody in your town may have shot somebody? Do you honestly not see how disproportionate the response is, how any semblance of justice is completely absent, or how disgustingly inhuman that kind of behaviour is?

Kill everybody, just in case somebody might be guilty? What kind of world do you think you're creating with that kind of attitude?

Seriously, these people need to be tried for war crimes. That, or plain murder.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Golddess]

Reminds me of a term I heard recently, seagull manager. They fly in, make a lot of noise, shit on everything, and fly off.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[commodore64_love]

First off I don't blame the soldiers. I blame the U.S. Congress and both presidents for putting them in that shitty situation. We have no business going to war simply because ~1500 people died on 9/11. That isn't even that great of a loss (more people die in a single month just from car accidents), and the war will only create a next generation of tettorists s the kids with dead parents grow-up hating Americans.

Second regardless of the content of the video, it should still be released so the People (the ultimate holders of authority) can see it with their own eyes, and decide if the war being fought is worthwhile. If the People decide it is not, as happened with Vietnam, then we withdraw. If the People decide the job being done is good, then we continue.

In either case the decision should be with the Citizens, and the release of videos like these help make that decision. The government has no right to censor what we see. They are not our Plantation Masters, and we are not Serfs to be treated like idiots.

Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[keirre23hu]

They arrested a hero whistleblower, at least for revealing this video. The government lied, and denied Reuters FOIA requests for information regarding how their reporters were killed, to continue the coverup.

Hero whistleblower? If you sign a non-disclosure agreement that he had to have to have access to classified, he is no hero. You do not get to decide when classified data should be released, regardless of how it makes you feel. There are proper channels for complaining about things and he could have availed himself of those, if he had a problem with what was happening around him. Anyway, it is very obvious that this guy did this because he has a need for attention and respect, not because of his moral stance. The point is, the minute you sign those forms and take that oath, it ceases being about your personal feelings. You have a responsibility for following the law. The wrongs of others does not justify what he did. There are a million things that he could have done, instead of this that would have within the law.

He could be thrown in prison for life, and it would be completely justified because he agreed to risk that consequence unauthorized sharing of classified. You dont get to change the rules after the fact because you dont like them. That line of work is for people willing to accept serious responsibility. Its not like these are trumped up charges or they made a special punishment for him. he gets no sympathy, and he did not help anyone here.

They know not what they seek!

[Cylix]

Good luck finding "Julian" as if such a man would have parted ways with his real name. He is a master of 27 languages and knows the local customs as if he recited them as his daily prayers. This is a man who possesses a near chameleon like instinct and can instantly blend into the background anywhere. Only further surpassing his ability to sink into the inky blackness are the hundreds of contacts he has made from here to hoover damn. Hell, even the rocks and streams seem to offer the man comfort if so much as he breathes a heavy sigh.

I can only laugh when the Pentagon says they want to find "Julian." Just considering the sheer number of hells they'll need to climb down to find the darkest demon who might be able to guess what "Julian" had for lunch just makes me chuckle.

Either that or the Pentagon can just send him an email.

Re:They know not what they seek!

[clustro]

Oh come on.

You know he got lost once in his own museum.

Re:They know not what they seek!

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Good luck finding "Julian" as if such a man would have parted ways with his real name.

Obviously, he is The Most Interesting Man in the World, and only drinks Dos Equis... Or something.

Re:They know not what they seek!

[Cylix]

Julian says to the Pentagon, "Stay thirsty my friends."

Re:They know not what they seek!

[linzeal]

He reportedly will seek asylum in Kenya or Iceland if he is worried he might need protection. Iceland currently has some of the most liberal laws regarding whistleblowers and offers significant protection to them like many of the other Scandinavian countries. You know how we always portray the Minnesotans as honest nice folk, well this is where they get it from.

Re:They know not what they seek!

[Jafafa Hots]

Don't worry -for the next few years we'll be hearing that Julian's "#3 Lieutenant" has been killed or arrested - over and over and over.

Re:They know not what they seek!

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Indeed, if he "vanished" in Kenya, not much would ever come of it.

Re:They know not what they seek!

[linzeal]

Iceland needs money but not that bad, they are a small country that is fiercely protective of their way of life. You could invade and take over their country in an afternoon though. Iceland has no standing army, LA county has more police than them and any town in West Virginia over 100 people has more guns. I think the point is that killing someone in Iceland would have grave diplomatic and strategic consequences, we rely pretty heavily on Iceland for their position between Europe and the the US for shipping and flying.

Re:They know not what they seek!

[toastar]

Iceland needs money but not that bad, they are a small country that is fiercely protective of their way of life. You could invade and take over their country in an afternoon though. Iceland has no standing army, LA county has more police than them and any town in West Virginia over 100 people has more guns. I think the point is that killing someone in Iceland would have grave diplomatic and strategic consequences, we rely pretty heavily on Iceland for their position between Europe and the the US for shipping and flying.

Well of course LA has more Police, That's why we call the us a police state.

Re:As they should be.

[calmofthestorm]

Good thing he's not a United States citizen then, or else he might be violating his social contract.

Re:As they should be.

[Afforess]

You don't get to make that determination yourself

Why the hell not? What, can only "experts" determine that? Funny how the experts are always government paid.

Re:As they should be.

[Majik Sheff]

Yup. Now he's an enemy combatant. Now about those GPS coordinates...

Re:As they should be.

[Microlith]

He has indeed committed treason to the tenth degree.

Leaking a video and foreign policy documents does not constitute "treason."

In Soviet America

[Required Snark]

In Soviet America, leaks plug you.

Re:As they should be.

[daveschroeder]

Are you trying to claim that the people he gave the information to, who NEVER ASKED HIM FOR IT, should also be screwed?

No, if you'll read my post, I didn't claim that, but...

If so, what if he happened to have emailed the info to you? ...

Oh, I don't knpw...let me think: I probably wouldn't post it to the internet and protect the identity of the person who emailed it to me at all costs.

This started over 12 hours ago

[linzeal]

This is amazing that this has taken Slashdot all day to report on the #1 story on most Tech sites and the #2-3 story on most non-tech sites. Is there a reason political stories are never posted by Soulskill on Slashdot? I'm looking over what he has posted and I can't find any. You would of had at least 1000 comments by now, but you are now posting this at 10 pm PST which means that not a lot of people are going to see this. If you want more info look at my signature, that was my 3rd attempt at getting this posted on Slashdot today. It includes 4-5 links unlike the lead.

Re:This started over 12 hours ago

[LoneHighway]

Yes, I submitted this story 8 hours ago and it was ignored.

Re:This started over 12 hours ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a reason political stories are never posted by Soulskill on Slashdot? I'm looking over what he has posted and I can't find any.

I love the guy all the more. Fire all other editors, I say.

Re:This started over 12 hours ago

[TouchAndGo]

12 hours? I'm amazed it was even that quick

Re:This started over 12 hours ago

[mcvos]

Don't worry. In a few days, someone will post it again.

Re:As they should be.

[Jafafa Hots]

Ever hear of the Pentagon Papers?
Classification is supposed to be used to protect the American people, not protect criminals in office, or protect certain classes' privileges, or protect certain corporations' contracts, or to DECEIVE the American public.

If you are privy to misuse of the law in such a way or of such abuses, it's the patriotic and moral thing to do to expose them.

We don't know (yet) what this information is, but breaking the law is sometimes justified if the law is unjust or is being used to protect uinjust actions.

The person taking such action, choosing to break a law they see as wrong faces the consequences knowingly. History will judge whether they were right or wrong.

And in general we should be uncomfortable with the idea of our government deciding that we don;t have a right to know what its doing - pretty much goes against the ideas behind the founding of this country and is abhorrent to anyone not having an authoritarian mindset.

Somehow I'm sure our country and citizens will manage to survive the release of this information that the government feels it must protect us from.

Re:As they should be.

[Vellmont]

Your own personal view on whether something should or shouldn't be classified is irrelevant. There are well-known and established processes that govern classification.

I don't know where you live, but I still live in a democracy. So while my opinion on what should/shouldn't be classified might not be the definitive one, an important one, or even a good one.. it's always a relevant one. You presumably live in a dictatorship, so I can see how you might have a different opinion on it. Of course, your opinion on everything is irrelevant, since you live in a dictatorship.

Re:As they should be. NO RIGHTS ARE INALIENABLE

[eee_eff]

No this is not true, and the attitude is deeply troubling. Because society is FREE and there are certain INALIENABLE RIGHTS. Please look up the meaning of inalienable if you don't understand it. Some of those are contained in the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Re:As they should be.

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hope this is a troll. If so, kudos - it is very well done.

If not, I weep that there are actually people who think this way. It is instructive to understand this kind of mindset. If the democratic will says it's ok, then it must be ok. Countless atrocities committed in the name of the majority have occurred on the basis of this mode of thinking. The Holocaust comes to mind.

I think I'm going to be sick.

Re:As they should be.

[clarkkent09]

All he is saying is that if you do release confidential data based on your personal determination that it is a moral thing to do, you should not be guaranteed to not suffer any consequences. What if the Pentagon is telling the truth and releasing these documents would cause "serious damage to national security" and people die as a result of your decision?

Re:As they should be.

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you bother watching the video?! THe guy did NOT have a ROCKET LAUNCHER. It was a god damn camera with super long lens. (I am not trying to be funny, that's what really happened)

There's a different point of view

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the Wikipedia (and consistent with the media reports):

Manning reportedly said that the diplomatic documents expose "almost criminal political back dealings" and that they explain "how the first world exploits the third, in detail"

Probably this is the same sort of thing that U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler recognized about the military and political black-ops in the early twentieth century. What's new is old.

It's also interesting that Bradley Manning wasn't given an award for pointing out corruption in government, seeing as how congress enacted whistle-blower protection for people who expose corruption in government.

Seems like the military wants to have it's cake and eat it too. Too bad for Manning and the military.

From the article:

Although it is likely that WikiLeaks has broken US laws in de-encrypting the video from Baghdad and publishing secret documents, the tone of an American official who spoke to the Daily Beast sounded more desperate than threatening. "We'd like to know where he is; we'd like his cooperation in this," the official said.

I'm certain that if they get their hands on Lassange, that they would quickly arrest him. There is nothing more threatening to government security than publicity about government corruption.

If in fact the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military (Barrik Obama) is indeed not Right Wing like so many Republicans claim (they say he is a "socialist" and a "liberal") then Obama would make sure that Bradley Manning is given a Presidential Pardon and that any embarrassing and illegal conduct conducted by the military and diplomatic core be brought out into the public (through his proclaimed government "transparency" initiative) and any unethical or illegal acts be punished accordingly.

Somehow I'm thinking that isn't going to happen, because Obama is just a different shade of neoconservative than his predecessor. My two cents anyway. Moderate with moderation!

Re:As they should be.

[jdpars]

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. Constitution > Webster

Re:As they should be.

[bug1]

In the US, we have collectively decided, as a society, that some information should be kept secret, even from The People, and we have empowered and entrusted the government with the power to do so.

Really, did _you_ vote on it, will your vote be reaffirmed every generation or so to ensure its still what the people want ?

Perhaps you should have said, a previous generation let the powers that be keep secrets from everyone, and now we cant get them to give up their power.

Re:As they should be.

[Anonymous Coward]

A free and democratic society does not keep secrets. You mean something less than free and something less than democratic.

Also, the website in question is not a party to the agreements that make information "classified". They are, of course, not obliged to respect those agreements.

If we have a free press, then the information about government wrongdoing can, of course, be published without fear of reprisal. Why would you suggest anything less?

Why do you always reveal a pro-business, information can be criminalized bias in all your postings? What government projects do you work on?

Re:As they should be.

[Miseph]

You're kidding right? Explosions are flashy, they get a lot of attention and everybody sees it. The last thing that a group interested in keeping their activities under wraps would want is for everybody to start looking at them because a critic just turned into a fireball.

Poisonings, "muggings gone wrong", character assassinations, etc. are all much more subtle ways to go about silencing a nuisance. They want a resolution where they can, reasonably, act just as surprised as everyone else. I'd be much more suspicious if he died of a sudden heart attack, or was murdered by an apparent Islamic terrorist than if he went out in a blaze of improbability.

Re:Love the guardian

[AHuxley]

Depends whats in the docs.
Another 5000 name death list as used in 1965 Indonesia?
The names crossed off as killed or captured?
Direct color revolution support, not washed by pro democracy foundations?
Black sights in countries where people where promised never again?
Enough for this generations Daniel Ellsberg?
or a huge list of faith based contractors doing very bad things on endless sole source contracts?

Re:As they should be.

[Urza9814]

In the US, we have collectively decided, as a society, that some information should be kept secret, even from The People, and we have empowered and entrusted the government with the power to do so.

Yes. And Hitler was elected in democratic elections as well. (I know, I know, Godwin's Law) Just because we voted on it doesn't mean it's always the best case. We generally aren't informed on what exactly we're voting on. In this specific example, we're voting on who gets to keep things secret. Which means by definition we _can't_ know what exactly we're deciding. This is exactly _why_ we need people to leak things.
There's the famous saying about preferring that a thousand guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished for a crime he did not commit. I consider this to be quite similar. I'd rather have a thousand national secrets leaked than have that one thing covered up. Just because it's not the next Holocaust doesn't mean it isn't something that needs to be released. Not enough people leaked what was happening in Nazi Germany until it was too late, likely because they were afraid of the consequences. The more tools to lessen the consequences, the better.

Re:As they should be.

[Etrias]

You've got that backwards. Who watches the watchmen? I see what you did there.

You've played this little switch to make it look like WikiLeaks is the custodian, the watchman...but your own logic proves otherwise. You even say that this is Pentagon information, that some secrets should be kept secret and that by just living in the US, we've agreed to that contract.

Wrong, sir. Simply wrong. I'm going to bypass most of what you said because it's simple double-speak. You frame this in a way that is cowardly. Unarmed civilians, collateral murder...both within quotes as if to say that killing unarmed people is okay, that it is a justification. I'm not going to wade into the situation of the battle, but I posit to you that we can and should do better.

The government makes mistakes and we have seen too many times that it tries to cover them up rather than owning up to them. As a country we should strive for that higher ideal. Then perhaps the need for secrets, especially of a botched military operation where civilians died, doesn't need to become a state secret.

Give him a Nobel Prize

[chrisale]

I don't generally post on Slashdot... but couldn't resist. Post them. Now. Please. No doubt it'll hurt US relations with who-knows-who... but the truth is always the best way to create the best change. One day, this man should be nominated, and win, a Nobel Peace Prize.

Re:Give him a Nobel Prize

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I agree 100%

What are we afraid of? our own actions? Well then we certainly shouldn't be hiding them. We should be rethinking them.. but first we must know the truth.

Release it all.

The government has screwed over our own people for many years now. Time for a little pay back.

Re:Give him a Nobel Prize

[physicsphairy]

I don't generally post on Slashdot... but couldn't resist. Post them. Now. Please. No doubt it'll hurt US relations with who-knows-who... but the truth is always the best way to create the best change. One day, this man should be nominated, and win, a Nobel Peace Prize.

And you sir should please promptly provide your name, SSN, birthday, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, place of residence, and any PINs or passwords you may use.

It could be that you will not reply with this information as requested, because your purported reverence for "truth" does not extend to disclosing information which would enable others to do you harm.

Well, welcome to the world of classified information, where if operatives get outed, they get a bullet in the back of the head. I'm not sure what's contained in the yet-to-be-released documents, and maybe indeed some or all of it is information that should be brought before the public eye. But I have a feeling (as will be evidenced by your lack of compliance with my request) that your gungho damn-the-consequences attitude to disclosure is based strictly on the supposition that you aren't going to be one of the direct sufferers if things turn out poorly.

I would like everything our government does to have oversight, but in many cases (witness protection, undercover investigation, battleplans, etc.) the correct mechanism for oversight is to create overseers (judges, internal investigators, et al.) who can answer to the public without compromising their safety and well-being by letting any hostile person have the same information. If that system fails then intentional leaks may be a justifiable recourse.

God help us if there was anything, that, say, put crazy little Kim Jong Il in a missile firing mood.

Re:Give him a Nobel Prize

[Rogerborg]

I agree that the documents should be published, but let's be clear that the "pay back" (in retaliation from Excitable Types) will be against US citizens, not against any member of the ruling cabal. They, and their creatures in the Legacy Media, will lay the blame for the consequences against the leakers, not the speakers.

Re:Give him a Nobel Prize

[BoberFett]

That may be the only way to wake Americans up. If the world gets pissed at us because abused our privilege as one of the worlds most prosperous countries, and abdicated our authority to corrupt politicians as we drank Starbucks and watched American Idol, we will simply be getting what we deserve. The citizens of the US needs a wake up call before those assholes in Washington destroy this country.

Re:Give him a Nobel Prize

[whisper_jeff]

I understand Slashdot's desire for "information wants to be free" mixed with a healthy dose of "don't trust the government" lead you to make that comment and lead others to mod you up but that was the dumbest shit I've ever read on Slashdot in about ... eight(?) years of reading this site.

Releasing this classified information could result in people being embarrassed. Big deal, right? It could result in international relations degrading or outright collapsing. Big deal, right? It could result in operatives being uncovered. Big deal, right? It could result in operatives being killed. Big deal, right? It could result in soldiers and civilians being killed. Big deal, right?

Right. It is a big deal. Just because this one person with a cavalier attitude towards security and classified information thought his "information wants to be free" attitude was more important than the military's "this information needs to be kept from outside eyes because it's important" does NOT mean it's is right to release the information to the public. I'm going to trust the brain trust of those behind the documents a HELL of a lot more than I'm going to trust the judgment of one man who broke laws to steal information.

I know I'll get modded down hard for this. I really don't give a fuck. If this information does get posted to wikileaks, there will be bad consequences and, if those bad consequences include 1 person being killed than it is a big deal that the information has been leaked.

Wikileaks serves a valuable purpose and I hope it is able to continue for many years to come but it has to be balanced with good judgment and it is incredibly bad judgment to release this volume of classified information because you _know_ that revealing something in there will lead to something decidedly bad - something beyond someone just being embarrassed.

You may think he deserves a Nobel Prize - I think he deserves to be tried for treason.

Re:Give him a Nobel Prize

[linzeal]

There are over 500 million documents waiting to be declassified from the past 25 years alone. There is simply no way that much information would ever need to be classified unless the practice of classifying information in certain agencies and by some individuals had grossly abused the system for either financial, political or personal gain. Your words ring hollow friend, I have low-level clearance and find this case interesting for the fact that I've seen systematic abuses of using secrecy even at the lowest rungs of government bureaucracy. I cannot even imagine how perversely they abuse classifying information in the higher echelons of government where billions are routinely expended for projects that are run in absolute secrecy even from most of congress.

Re:Give him a Nobel Prize

[Frenchman113]

Well, welcome to the world of classified information, where if operatives get outed, they get a bullet in the back of the head.

Maybe they should stop doing things that make them deserve getting shot in the head?

Wikileaks doesn't possess these documents

[mentil]

according to WikiLeaks' twitter feed: "Allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect."
Would Wikileaks have a reason to lie and withhold these messages, if the US govt. has the capability to find out if Manning sent them to Wikileaks? Maybe he leaked them, but to someone else, and it was simply assumed to have been to Wikileaks?

Re:Wikileaks doesn't possess these documents

[klui]

Maybe it's a psyop trail balloon so the US government would have public support going after WikiLeaks. Kinda like WMDs against Iraq.

Re:Obama

[pitchpipe]

Obama himself has threatened to arrest the wikileaker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM59bbp0Wsw

I watched your video: Obama does NOT threaten to arrest the wikileaker in the video. If that isn't what you meant to imply you should make it more clear.

Just to be clear, I am an Obama supporter, but I also disagree with some of the things that he does. But let's have a debate that is focused on the facts and reasoned opinion, not innuendo.

Re:Obama

[Vellmont]

When are people going to realize that the differences between Republicans and Democrats exist only in rhetoric?

When are people such as yourself going to realize that assuming that if neither party doesn't agree with a certain view, that doesn't mean they're "both the same". Have you REALLY not being paying that much attention?

If the rather large differences between the two parties aren't what you care about, fine. But don't ignore the differences just because you don't care about them.

This guy Manning

[MichaelSmith]

From TFA:

Manning, 22 [...] As an intelligence specialist in the US army, Manning

I fail to see how a 22 year old guy can be an "Intelligence specialist".

(and get off my lawn BTW).

Re:This guy Manning

[Nimey]

If you score high enough on the ASVAB test (IIRC 90th percentile & above), recruiters are apt to push you into Intelligence. That's what the recruiter who reviewed my test scores in high school said.

Assuming he enlisted right out of high school, he could have been assigned to an intelligence unit (or assigned intelligence duties in a line unit) for approx. four years, which is plenty of time to get enough experience to be a "specialist".

Re:As they should be.

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell dream world do you live in?

"the Army had no reason whatever [mypetjawa.mu.nu] to believe that the "unarmed civilians" featured in "Collateral Murder" were "unarmed""
Common people carry guns in Iraq. Not just pistols either, but assault rifles. I've read in many places that AK-47s are common. Simply carrying one does not make one an "insurgent" http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/12/earlier-this-we/

"the fact that he skipped out on a planned appearance at a panel today in Las Vegas, NV"
WTF would that prove?

"In free and democratic societies, an individual deciding on his or her own to leak classified information is a subversion of that very democratic process. "
Where did you pull this line, Glenn Beck? The democratic process depends on an educated society and a free media so that citizens can make educated decisions. Despotic societies depend on secrets and uneducated citizens. Not to mention the people in charge of the video were not elected.

"if you do, this kind of decision is a moral/ethical one which must necessarily be tempered with consequences. I.e., if, in a free and democratic society, you really believe that a piece of classified information should be released, and you're going to unilaterally decide to do release it because of your own personal beliefs or convictions, you should be willing to pay your society's consequences for it."
If everyone thought the way you do, we'd still have slavery, women wouldn't be able to vote, and any killer with connections would walk free.

MOD PARENT WRONG

[Vellmont]

I watched the whole video. It doesn't mention wikileaks, the wikileaks founder, or anything surrounding this case at all. The video is about an entirely different leak (of which almost no details are given), and Obama doesn't even threaten to arrest that guy.

Re:As they should be.

[Omnifarious]

I hope for intelligent responses to this post that actually acknowledge the need for some information to be protected, and for processes to protect that information, of which the government is the steward. Or, for any reasonable alternative other than any and all information should always be able to be indiscriminately leaked without fear of reprisal.

Well, I agree that some information needs to be protected.

In my opinion, most of the governments in the world use their control over information to the great detriment of their citizenry. They do this on purpose, with malice and forethought. I presume that most people who are in charge of making this happen rationalize it with thinking that they're somehow serving the greater good. In point of fact, they aren't. I can't state that emphatically enough. They are not serving any greater good, no matter what kind of excuses they think they have.

Information about the activities of our government that should be secret should basically only be information that would pretty directly result in someone getting killed if it was public knowledge. Strategic plans, detailed specifications for key military equipment, identities of spies, that sort of thing. Also, in some cases, I would also accept that diplomatic negotiations should be kept secret for some relatively short period of time in order to avoid jeopardizing said negotiations.

Too often used is the excuse that information should be kept secret because it would give our enemies ammunition to discredit us. If that's the case, the information discredits us whether or not its secret. All you are doing by keeping it secret is fostering a false sense of self-righteousness in the populace, one that is ultimately incredibly dangerous and inimical to democracy.

So far Wikileaks discretion and judgement in these matters has been impeccable. Sure, you might think the video depicting the helicopter shooting up civilians is biased for any number of reasons. But those reasons should be up for public debate, not hidden behind a decision to make some piece of information secret. Nobody would be able to argue that the army couldn't have known the civilians were unarmed if the video weren't out there to argue about.

Re:As they should be.

[Omnifarious]

You could say some information should be kept secret ( like military strategies , etc ... ) , but if they can be leaked , they will be leaked , and the chances are it's going to be leaked not to the general public , but to someone with less then good intentions.

That is also an interesting point. If it's on wikileaks, everybody knows its public knowledge and plans can be changed accordingly.

I still think that wikileaks has a bit of a duty to try to filter out stuff that's obviously going to get someone killed if it's publicly known.

Re:Obama

[darkmeridian]

I looked at the link you posted. It did not show Obama threatening to arrest the wikileaker. In fact, it shows Obama signing a law that is meant to protect journalists' rights. Perhaps you meant another link that actually showed what you said it would.

But in this case, the wikileaker would be Manning, the guy who swore an oath to abide by the Constitution and follow orders. The video of the killings was edited to remove scenes where the gunship did not shoot at confirmed hostile forces that was actively shooting at US forces due to the risk of harming women and children. This edit was meant to portray the gunship crew in a bad light, not to tell the truth. Now it comes out that he's leaking over 200,000 highly confidential diplomatic conversations, whose release would jeopardize diplomatic relations with our friends and foes alike. Releasing these documents without permission is a crime. That's different than a journalist being forced to name his sources, it's about punishing a man who broke the law.

Re:As they should be.

[Required Snark]

Yes,the Valery Plame investigation should be reopened immediately with a new independent counsel. Not only should the office of the president and vice president during the Bush administration be examined, but the the DOJ and various intelligence organizations should be examined to see if they were involved in the leak or the following cover up.

Specifically, the new intelligence groups created by Bush/Chaney that were outside the regular chain of command should be investigated. If I remember correctly, these were in the Pentagon, and were staffed by neo-cons, and they reported primarily to Chaney.

All we know right now is that the name of an active serving CIA asset was revealed to the public, with the result of "adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Clearly treason. We also know that Scooter Libby was convicted of obstructing the investigation. So a crime was committed and a successful cover-up occurred. We cannot let this treasonous act go unpunished.

Well, my right wing Slashdot readers, how does it feel when the shoe is on the other foot? Ready to see high ranking members of the Bush team spend the rest of their lives in jail, or be lined up against a wall and shot? Personally, I would volunteer to fire one of the guns, but I guess I just am the kind of person who holds a grudge.

Is it really that hard?

[MacGyver2210]

From the top of the WikiLeaks main page:

"# Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:37:12 wikileaks: Super panel tonight in Vegas with Julian Assange, Valerie Plame & Scott Risen | IRE10 bit.ly/dwcjxI"

Wow, is it really that hard to find him? He tweets his location pretty regularly...

I hope he gets a gun and exercises his 2nd amendment right. If there was ever something I think it applied to, I would imagine this is it.

UCMJ Article 106

[codepunk]

Much more interesting to me is what will happen with the dummy that leaked the info. Article 106 of the UCMJ defines this offense as punishable by death. This soldier knew with absolute certainty that he was committing a grave offense. A court martial is not handled like your everyday court case, no amount of money is going to save his skin.

Treason is lying to the american public about WMDs

[microbox]

Treason is lying to the american public about WMDs. Perhaps you don't think the boss can commit treason. But the public is meant to be the boss - and they were lied too, and money was laundered, lives were lost and countless suffered.

Unarmed civilians?

[Anonymous Coward]

How did Wikileaks know that the people killed by the helicopters in the video were "unarmed civilians"? Did the other "unarmed civilians" who were carrying AK47's tell them?

Concerning the Reuters journalists, if an AP or UPI reporter had been in Dresden during the WW2 British air raid and had died in the firestorm, would someone have filed charges against the bomber pilots? Or Churchill?

War is war. When you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you die. It comes with the territory.

Re:Unarmed civilians?

[Bobakitoo]

All good, except they claim to use "surgical strike", they claim to do "humane warfare", they claim to save these peoples. So war is war and collaterals die. But then they did lie about the truth of war to the public. They deserve to be punished for that or do you value so little democracy?

Everyone know that peoples will die in war. That is not what is the matter here. These leaks are proofs of what really happening. The public need to be informed of what is been done, in their names, for there is no democracy without a informed public.

Re:Unarmed civilians?

[je ne sais quoi]

War is war.

What are you talking about? Didn't you know that the war in Iraq was won in 2003? Or maybe you've forgotten Preseident Bush's speech declaring victory on a certain aircraft carrier about a certain mission whose goals were considered accomplished? He very clearly stated that is was the "end of major combat operations."

While I'm being facetious here, the point is that you claiming that "war is war" is directly contradictory to the official government stance, which is that the operations in Iraq are a police action. Does the killing of unarmed civilians sound like a valid police action to you? Does that sound like something that will win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis? I'll admit that yes, even in police actions sometimes mistakes can be made but there should be an investigation and if warranted, a trial, not a cover-up.

Re:Unarmed civilians?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is the wrong question. According to the Geneva Convention, the question is, "How did those helicopter pilots know that none of those people were civilians?"

Re:Unarmed civilians?

[kindbud]

War is war. When you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you die. It comes with the territory.

The problem with that view of this "war" is that anywhere can be the wrong place, and any time can be the wrong time. So you are talking about a world where summary execution is always acceptable, so long as it is done by a US soldier.

Re:Here comes the court case Judges please be fair

[Cimexus]

Er, this was thoroughly explained at the time of the original article - his passport was 'confiscated' because it was old and damaged and wouldn't pass through the bloody readers. It was returned 15 minutes later, and he was informed THAT passport would need to be cancelled. That is, he'd have to go to the post office at some point and request a new one. NOT that his right to a passport had been removed altogether.

No conspiracy there, just customs informing him his old and tattered passport needed replacing. Happens all the time to regular travelers.

Intelligent Response

[neoshroom]

Aside from the fact that the Army had no reason whatever to believe that the "unarmed civilians" featured in "Collateral Murder" were "unarmed", and the fact that he skipped out on a planned appearance at a panel today in Las Vegas, NV...

Isn't it supposed to go the other way around? You shoot at people who you know are armed and actively dangerous. You often don't have perfect information in war and going on unfounded hunches and "innocent" assumptions can cost innocent lives.

In free and democratic societies, an individual deciding on his or her own to leak classified information is a subversion of that very democratic process. In the US, we have collectively decided, as a society, that some information should be kept secret, even from The People, and we have empowered and entrusted the government with the power to do so. When an individual, on his or her own, decides that some secret information should be leaked -- no matter the reason -- they subvert that process. It is nowhere near akin to leaking sensitive information from totalitarian or repressive regimes, or even from corporate entities. Some might assert that information is overclassified, or classified such as to hide wrongdoing or illegal or questionably behavior. Fine, but: 1. You don't get to make that determination yourself. However...

Correct, the people who may have "classified it such as to hide [possible] wrongdoing or illegal or questionably [sic] behavior" make that determination. You are simply saying that is how it is, but is is not ought. Is that how it ought to be?

2. ...if you do, this kind of decision is a moral/ethical one which must necessarily be tempered with consequences. I.e., if, in a free and democratic society, you really believe that a piece of classified information should be released, and you're going to unilaterally decide to do release it because of your own personal beliefs or convictions, you should be willing to pay your society's consequences for it. People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences (unless they stupidly out themselves, as Manning did). This creates an unhealthy environment for any kind of legitimately protected or sensitive information -- indeed, the rule of law -- in a democratic society. Your own personal view on whether something should or shouldn't be classified is irrelevant. There are well-known and established processes that govern classification. Just about the only thing WikiLeaks believes should be protected from leaking is negative information about WikiLeaks itself. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I hope for intelligent responses to this post that actually acknowledge the need for some information to be protected, and for processes to protect that information, of which the government is the steward. Or, for any reasonable alternative other than any and all information should always be able to be indiscriminately leaked without fear of reprisal.

Clearly our nuclear launch codes should not be leaked. However, revealing truth about human rights abuses ultimately leads to our being a healthier nation. Imagine if the abuses at Abu Garib were classified and still continued to this day without the public knowing any better. Sure, revealing those abuses hurt our propaganda efforts in the Middle East somewhat, but I don't think an America that routinely abuses human rights is one worth living in or dying for.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? [Latin for: "Who watches the watchers?" or "Who polices the police?"]. Whistleblowers do. Watchdog journalists do. We the people in order to perfect a union do.

Re:As they should be.

[Redfearn]

"What if people die as a result" of leaking the confidential data? Many, many people *have* died due to our offensive military operations in that part of the world. I wager that obtaining the documents is an effort to examine the premises and policies surrounding those deaths, a la the Pentagon Papers. The claims of "serious damage to national security" have been seriously overblown in the past. Give the documents to someone trustworthy (outside the United States) to evaluate for their likelihood to "seriously damage" us.

Re:As they should be.

[sirsnork]

Actually that would be an interesting experiment. Every law reviewed by the population every few years. This would give the population control, it would also limit the amount of laws that could be feasibly enacted ehich is something everyone should agree is a good thing. Every first world country is burying itself under the new laws it creates every year when we all have perfectly good laws already on the books to punish those same crimes.

Re:As they should be.

[Eternal Vigilance]

When did 'we' decide this?

You don't have clearance to know that.

What a Hero

[linzeal]

Depending on what he leaked he may be considered a hero by civil libertarians if some of the allegations and rumors swirling about these cables are true. I know I consider him one, this is far less a grave offense against the law and liberty than Cheney's death squads or Bush's/Obama's/Congress's support of the Patriot Act. You seem almost gleeful he has less rights during a court martial, any reason for that?

Re:As they should be.

[Protoslo]

First of all, I think that people do need a video to realize that war, and in particular the Iraq war, is tragic and disturbing. It's one thing to hear that lots of civilians are mistakenly killed in the course of our military occupations, it's another thing altogether to see some of the exact circumstances in which that occurs.

Do you recall the story that broke soon after the video, regarding a house that special forces stormed on bad intel, in which various people were killed, including two women that the soldiers apparently arranged deceptively so that they could claim in their report that they were previously killed in an "honor killing?" The incident that the commanding general of SOCOM had to fork over a wad of cash and apologize for? If there had been a video of that, with black-clad soldiers going "Oh shit! I think these people were just civilians!" and then digging out their rounds from the bodies, tying them up, artfully arranging them, and discussing their cover story, how do you think that would have gone over? Instead of everyone forgetting in a few weeks, we'd still be watching the congressional hearings on CSPAN.

Regarding the guncam video, do you find the destruction of the van, and the attack on the building with missiles while apparent bystanders walk by to be equally unavoidable as the deaths of the journalists? I am a little surprised that the video didn't at least make you wonder at all about the wisdom of the RoE they were operating under. You don't have to demonize the pilots and gunners personally to find fault in the incident. The military's reports found that the crewmen did make the right call in every case, and summarily declared all 20+ men killed in the various attacks "AIF" (Anti-Iraq Forces), so you can't write everything off as a tragic mistake; it was tragic official policy.

Even if all of these things are rendered "unavoidable" by our political need for near-airtight force protection (like the dozens of unarmed civilians killed at Afghan road checkpoints), many people are not aware that they occur. If everyone knew exactly what went on in Iraq and Afghanistan, they might not support the military missions there (or future hypothetical invasions) so much; war reporting certainly had that effect during Vietnam. If no one ever gets outraged, what motivation is there to avoid these entanglements, or even to try harder to avoid civilian casualties in the conflicts we are already fighting?

I can only imagine that all the random milita members on the streets with rifles and RPGs that day didn't realize that the helicopters ~1km away were or could be targeting them. I agree that the Reuters stringers took a foolish risk, and that the initial incident is not indefensible. Maybe "AIF" ambushes are always that ridiculously nonchalant. Everything that happens afterward, though...

Also keep in mind that the only reason anyone (any American) ever cared about this incident was that it was subsequently discovered that two of the "AIF" were Reuters stringers. Imagine how many incidents there must have been where people who didn't work for a major Western news organization were creatively classified as insurgents. I'm sure that some of them weren't pointing giant telephoto lenses at the Bradley convoy down the block, and would be harder to blame for their own demises.

How about Bush, then?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Bush, then? Outing an agent in cover for political reasons. Why isn't he being taken to task? Because that would embarrass the US. That's why they have all these confidential/classified documents: not because of safety of their people or their operations, but because they would be embarrassed if they got read.

Re:As they should be.

[Gaygirlie]

"and people die as a result of your decision?"

How about the opposite: what if people die UNLESS you publish these documents and publishing them would save lives? That's not actually far-stretched, Pentagon and the US army is known for killing people, even completely unarmed civilians.

If you go the "what if" - route then you should consider several different outcomes and not only one.

Re:As they should be.

[OrangeTide]

Every 4 and 6 years I elect representatives that ideally can adjust policy to suit the desires of current generations.

Re:As they should be.

[DrugCheese]

More people die each year from car accidents in the US then every terrorist act combined yet were not spending hundreds of billions of dollars coming up with scientific ways to prevent that, and it could be done easily. Instead we spend hundreds of billions of dollars coming up with scientific ways to better kill. People are already dying - release the documents.

Re:As they should be.

[KarlIsNotMyName]

With the last decade of torture and other war crimes, I wouldn't trust the Pentagon further than I could throw it.

Re:As they should be.

[Ashriel]

The only way releasing classified information on foreign policy gives aid and comfort to a nation's enemies is if it exposes some egregious wrongdoing on the part of the nation having its information leaked, in which case moral obligation to expose unlawful practices comes into play

I don't think that this is the case (not that I'm implying the U.S. military isn't innocent or anything). I think this is a case of some pissed-off loser wanting to exact some sort of revenge against his superiors for the slights he feels he's been given.

In either case, treason, as defined by the U.S. Constitution, does not apply here.

Re:As they should be.

[Bazer]

What if the Pentagon is telling the truth and releasing these documents would cause "serious damage to national security" and people die as a result of your decision?

He will be eligible to work there?

Re:As they should be.

[LordVader717]

I find it astonishing how willingly people will swallow bullshit handwaving out of the desire to avoid conscious guilt.
Let's get the facts straight: The civilians didn't have a rocket launcher. It has been shown that the initial reports were clearly fabricated lies. It shows us a policy of prioritizing military propaganda over professional thoroughness. As such, we have no reason at all to believe their other claims and can only draw conclusion from the raw material we have.

Re:As they should be.

[BoberFett]

Wrong. The people haven't delegated anything for a long time. The state of "democracy" in the US is a joke. We're given a choice between sock puppet A and sock puppet B, and the same person has their hands in both of them. Then once we have chosen which sock puppet is more entertaining, the actual business of governing is then further removed from actual choice because laws are written not by our "representatives" but by special interest groups and unelected bureaucrats. When was the last time congress declared war? Yet somehow we've been in a perpetual state of war for many decades now. Apparently those "experts" that we delegated authority too have further delegated their responsibilities to god knows who.

Re:As they should be.

[BoberFett]

Not sure which asshole mod modded this redundant. This is an excellent post. Particularly "the information discredits us whether or not its secret."

If the information is embarrassing to the US, then perhaps we should stop doing things that embarrass us.

Right to know when government acts in your name

[linzeal]

Our life, liberty and livelihoods are on the line when the three-letter agencies and the White House go around the shadows skulking about looking for loopholes, creating them or running roughshod over the Constitution. When executive power is illegally used to justify futile efforts to demoralize terrorist networks or destabilize pesky anti-US regimes that than backfire and are used as the rallying cry to recruit ever more desperate and hateful individuals to proclaim that the US and its peoples are their blood enemies, we have more than an interest in the documentation of such activity we have the right to know.

Re:As they should be.

[DrugCheese]

And what if You were driving your daughters somewhere through your hometown and came upon what to you looked like an explosion with dying people crawling to safety?

To Americans it's the 'warzone' but to people that live there it is 'home'.

This is called "journalism"

[David Gerard]

How to know you're doing real journalism: when the powers that be are this pissed off.

The shiny-assed poltroons of the New York Times and the Murdoch press can just fuck off. Really. Whining shits that people aren't giving them free money for rewritten press releases any more. Useless fucks.

Boycott the shitty, shitty press. Tell them why. Give money to Wikileaks.

Re:As they should be.

[KDR_11k]

I think the issue is WTF the US Army is doing down there. Not how they fight the war but that there is a war in first place considering it's one that has been started on lies and done nothing but waste money and further destabilize the region.

Re:As they should be.

[betterunixthanunix]

My security engineering textbook actually has a chapter on nuclear launch codes and how that system was designed. You could, in the absence of all other security mechanisms, simply brute force the codes, since they are of deliberately limited length; the military did some research and discovered that when people are under stress (which is likely if they are being asked to arm a nuclear weapon), they can only accurately enter a certain number of digits even if those digits are being read to them.

In my opinion, though, the most interested detail is the motivation for nuclear launch codes. As you pointed out, there should be (and there is) some physical security measure in place to ensure that some random guy does not launch a nuclear missile. The purpose of the arming codes is not to prevent Joe Schmoe from starting World War 3, but to prevent the soldiers themselves from doing so without authorization. Prior to the Kennedy administration, nuclear bombs were armed when they were deployed (dropped from an airplane), and the only measure in place to prevent a pilot from doing so without orders was a single soldier standing near the plane, who was supposed to shoot the pilot in such a situation -- but the commander might issue the order to strike without authorization.

As for the codes being leaked...that was considered as well. The codes change frequently, some change daily (i.e. the codes that the president carries -- there are other codes, like maintenance codes), so even a leak would have a low potential for causing a problem (a pair of rogue soldiers hell bent on launching a nuke would have to get the authorization codes on the same day they are leaked).

Really, people bring up nuclear secrets (and for some reason, launch codes) whenever they want you to abandon all logical thought and stop questioning the need for broad secrecy. A lot of things that people think are secret really are not secret, or are things that were once secret but are not anymore: it used to be the case that anything related to nuclear weapons, even chemical data about the fuel, was automatically classified, but that policy was relaxed somewhat. Sure, there are things that are secret and that are better kept secret, like the locations and planned movements of US military units in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the identities of spies in foreign countries, but there is a limit and things are supposed to be declassified after a certain amount of time, with certain rare exceptions.

Re:As they should be.

[JoshuaZ]

The only way releasing classified information on foreign policy gives aid and comfort to a nation's enemies is if it exposes some egregious wrongdoing on the part of the nation having its information leaked, in which case moral obligation to expose unlawful practices comes into play

Really? There are no other ways releasing documents could do that? It couldn't for example have details of spies within enemy groups, or details of surveillance techniques, or details about the resolution of spy satellites and their orbits. There are lots of very damaging things that could be here that have no moral problems associated with them at all.

Again wikileaks needs to be totally decentralized

[rAiNsT0rm]

Fully and completely. I say it in every wikileaks article here or anywhere. I always draw responses of either "it already it" or "it's fine as it is" and that is bullshit. Wikileaks is one of the most important outlets the world has, to not do everything possible to keep it that way is sheer stupidity.

Re:As they should be.

[Civil_Disobedient]

People leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be no consequences

No, they leak to WikiLeaks because they believe (mostly accurately) that there will be consequences.

Whistle-blowers are not a protected class. If you work for an organization that is breaking the law (particularly if that organization is a government agency) and you blow the whistle on their illegal activities, you should fully expect to be fired. That's the reality of the situation.

And if by some miracle you're not fired, expect the whole affair to be whitewashed and swept under a rug, with no consequences to the people that broke the rules in the first place (it's incredible just how hard it can be to fire a bureaucrat).

By anonymously releasing the information, you can complain while still protecting yourself from recrimination, and simultaneously raise enough of a shit-storm to actually get something done about it for a change.

You seem to think WikiLeaks operates outside the fray of a "free and democratic society," but I contend it is actually a vital part of it.

Everyone knows camera's come with rocket launchers

[SmallFurryCreature]

Afterall, why wouldn't you add a rocket launcher to a camera? You know you would if you could.

And the 8 million civilians killed in Vietnam alone were all legitimate targets because you liberate a country by doing a holocaust.

The US does not do introspection. They are right they must be because else they would be wrong and that does not fit with the American way of thinking.

Re:Obama

[Nimey]

It's easier to say they're identical than to expend time thinking.

Did YOU watch the video?

[the_raptor]

Well did you? Or did you watch wikileaks carefully edited short version?

The US troops who were being shot at and who arrived on the scene moments after the Apache attack found AK's and RPG's and photographed them in situ.

And they shot the van because according to the rules of engagement giving aid to an insurgent made you a target. War isn't a video game, they didn't have a hit box pop up showing there were children in the van. It was a bad call but understandable in the context.

And yes comparing this to WWII is an insult because the allied powers in WWII did not give a shit about civilian casualties* and continued bombing cities knowing full well it had no significant impact on enemy morale. The Nazis were bad guys but the Soviets were worse and the Western allies handed all of Eastern Europe over to them.

* In fact they deliberately targeted the areas to which civilians were fleeing.

Re:Did YOU watch the video?

[Fatalis]

A lot of bad decisions are "understandable" in the sense that the people who made them weren't simply crazy, but that doesn't justify them. All the gunners on the helicopter saw was somebody with a van trying to help someone else who's lying on the ground in a pool of blood. This is a thing that good people do, not just enemies, and a policy that doesn't take this possibility into account should be described as inhumane.

Re:As they should be.

[siddesu]

And Hitler was elected in democratic elections as well.

No, he wasn't, stop spreading that BS please. Hitler was appointed by Hindenburg, then engineered the Reichstag fire, then enacted draconian laws on grounds of security, used that to rig the next election, which still didn't bring him majority. He then forced Hindenburg out, forced the new Reichstag into giving him legislative powers, effectively suspended the constitution, and then proceeded on to murder his opposition in and outside of his party, and, finally, using the "emergency" legislative powers to declare himself a Furher. Or somesuch. But he was never elected at any point of his national political career by a majority.

Re:Censorship in times of war

[Trepidity]

It used to be common to engage in pretty wide-ranging censorship of the media for fixed, relatively short periods, while a war was being conducted, such as during World War I. But to do that requires that wars actually end within a few years. If we institute similar censorship for the "War on Terror", when will we conclude that the war ended and censorship can be lifted? My guess is never.

Re:As they should be.

[snowgirl]

When you have an Apache helicopter, everything looks like a rocket launcher.

Watching the full video myself, I'm left with the impression that the pilot and/or gunner failed to adequately assess the situation and jumped to conclusions as to the nature of the object being held. Getting into a "firing-style position" i.e. crouching behind a corner with a large rounded object pointed out at a helicopter is a good way to get that person antsy and trigger-happy.

I'm not condoning the event, I think that military should have a strict liability in civilian casualties. Namely, if a civilian dies as a result of your fire, then you're screwed, it doesn't matter what conditions surround the matter.

Re:As they should be.

[Vellmont]

Your opinion on what should and shouldn't be classified has no direct relevance to the situation, if this isn't want you want you should exercise your democratic rights by participating in the same democratic process that established the current classification processes.

This discussion we're having right now is a big part of that process. Speech is obviously a necessity in a democracy. This idea you have that democracy is sitting in isolation, calling up your representative and having a little chat with him/her is utterly ridiculous. Democracy happens by people forming opinions, and voting for people who hold those opinions. Peoples opinions are influenced by discussion. Giving your opinions to elected officials is part of the process, but it most certainly isn't the only part. Does this really have to be spelled out for you?

META Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[jagapen]

Uhhhh - I didn't see the same video you saw. I saw an Apache firing on a group of armed men, located in an area from which our ground troops took fire.

The thing that I find most interesting about this argument is that the predominant sides of the argument consist of the side that says, "These guys were irresponsible/criminal Rambo-types. They/we need to do better!" versus the side that says, "These were good soldiers doing the best they could in trying circumstances. Bad things happen in war."

Now, considering that the fighting in Iraq is an anti-insurgency campaign, and the U.S. military is supposed to be winning "hearts and minds," dead civilians, dead reporters, wounded/dead children foster hatred of the U.S. and undermine the mission. Therefore, the people defending those soldiers and saying that mistakes happen are essentially saying this:

"This war cannot be won."

Re:META Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[Runaway1956]

And, your translation is probably on target. You don't win hearts and minds in an occupied territory. A nation that is only ~200 years old, is certainly not going to do much "nation building" in a region whose history goes back ~5000 years. We've shot ourselves in the foot on this one. No matter when, or how, we finally pull our last troops out of Iraq, within two decades (at the outside) Iraq will probably have a theocracy in place, AND be aligned with Iran. (Keep in mind that the US toppled a perfectly legitimate democratic government in Iran - Iraq will identify with them once they tire of our puppets!)

But, again, we are discussing two different things here, one being the politics of the war, and two being the actions of the troops. Based on what I can see in the video, I can probably justify some Extra Military Duty for some of the troops, to be used for an ass chewing for getting it wrong, and for training, and review of the rules of engagement. I certainly don't see anyone doing anything "WRONG", in regards to the rules of war.

Re:META Re:We promise we won't hurt you.

[mcvos]

Now, considering that the fighting in Iraq is an anti-insurgency campaign, and the U.S. military is supposed to be winning "hearts and minds," dead civilians, dead reporters, wounded/dead children foster hatred of the U.S. and undermine the mission.

Exactly. If you really want to win hearts and minds, taking the risk that you might be shooting unarmed civilians is absolutely the worst thing you can do. If you want to win hearts and minds, you need to trust people, and in return show that you can be trusted. Paranoia does not win you any hearts and minds. It just breeds more hostility, more violence, and more enemies.

Hacker Ethic

[0101000001001010]

The Hacker Ethic, as maintained by the CCC.

Access to computers - and anything which might teach you something about the way the world really works - should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!
All information should be free.
Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their acting, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.
Don't litter other people's data.
Make public data available, protect private data.

Re:Hacker Ethic

[xiang shui]

In your opinion, what's the difference between public data and private data?

This brings to mind a classic quote...

[knightsirius]

This brings to mind a classic quote from the 1980s BBC series 'Yes Minister': "The Government Official Secrets Act is not there to protect Government Secrets, but Government Officials"