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Pentagon Demands Return of Leaked Afghanistan Documents
Multiple news agencies are reporting that the Pentagon has demanded the return of WikiLeaks' collection of secret documents relating to the war in Afghanistan. Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell said, "The only acceptable course is for WikiLeaks to take steps immediately to return all versions of all of these documents to the US government and permanently delete them from its website, computers and records." According to the BBC, Morrell also "acknowledged the already-leaked documents' viral spread across the internet made it unlikely they could ever be quashed," but hopes to prevent the dissemination of a further 15,000 documents WikiLeaks is reportedly in the process of redacting. "We're looking to have a conversation about how to get these perilous documents off the website as soon as possible, return them to their rightful owners and expunge them from their records." WikiLeaks, predictably, shows no sign of cooperating.
It doesn't matter if Wikileaks complies, Pentagon has made it very clear they will make them comply:
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said that not embarrassing the US military was "doing the right thing" and he hoped Wikileaks would "honour our demands".
However, asked what the Pentagon would do next, Morrell told the AP that it was up to the FBI and Justice Department to decide how to proceed.
"If doing the right thing is not good enough for them [Wikileaks], then we will figure out what other alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing," he added.
Of course the right thing to the US government is always whatever the US military says is the right thing, and as the Wikileaks documents that have recently been released show in brutal detail, the US military has an unusual interpretation of what is 'right'.
Couldn't they just download it?
to decrypt the insurance file!
It is already out in the open. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Or "Things that have been seen can not be unseen."
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Government is the only business which holds the special right to employ coercion (meaning physical force or threat thereof) against you in order to achieve its goals. Secrets have absolutely no place in such a relationship.
Am I saying I wouldn't put an ounce of trust in such an entity no matter how loud they scream "we need secrets"? You're damn right I am.
OMG DELETE THE INTERNET!
Here we go again with people thinking that the paper paradigm applies to the digital world.
How on Earth do you return digital documents? Do you scrape the oxide layer off the hard drives, put it in a little vial, mark it with volume mount point(s) and put it into an envelope addressed to Pentagon? Oh, yes, I know, you first print out the directory listing (like we used to do with the floppies), tape it to the vial, then scrape, fill the vial and ship.
As for the further documents -- they better watch out, because WikiLeaks may just give up and publish all of the unredacted stuff just to preserve it.
As for WikiLeaks somehow "embarrassing" the U.S. military: waitaminuzel here. Did WikiLeaks compel the military to do all the embarrassing stuff? No? Then well, maybe it was better the taxpayers knew what their money is spent on, huh?
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Didn't we hear this before during the Vietnam war? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
".. we've got to be careful, Amy. Mullen actually was quite crafty in his words. He said "might already have" blood on my hands .. it's really quite fantastic that Gates and Mullen, Gates being the former head of the CIA during Iran-Contra and the overseer of Iraq and Afghanistan, and Mullen being the military commander for Iraq and Afghanistan -- I'm not sure what his further background is -- who have ordered assassinations every day, are trying to bring people on board to look at a speculative understanding of whether we might have blood on our hand"
link
Fame whore? Without googling, off of the top of your head, what's the full name and correct spelling of the guy behind WikiLeaks? And what does he look like?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
I guess if the Pentagon had guns or something perhaps they could have leverage.
But just having 5 sides and 5 angles? What do they expect to to the wikileaks? Poke it to death?
The documents leaked so far illustrate the frustration of U.S. forces in fighting the protracted Afghan conflict and revived debate over the war's uncertain progress.
These documents are showing that the US' operation aren't doing too well. WikiLeaks is holding back stuff that may endanger people's lives.
This is all about the Pentagon and the Government trying hide their incompetence and stupidity. It's also to trying to keep information out of our hands to keep the support for the wars from it's continual slide down.
We're in another Viet Nam type era.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
They'll be soon available as a free download.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
[Rolls eyes] Can't they just file a DMCA takedown notice like everyone else?
return them to their rightful owners
Rightful owners? They must mean the American people who paid for all of this, right?
Reply to That ||
Losing a war? Here's the plan!
1. Leak documents that show boring day to day operational details, including civilian casualties on the internet
2. Blame the people who distribute, download and read said documents for the deaths of those people and the deaths of everyone else from now on in the war due to "security risks"
3. ???
4. Profit
5. (STILL lose the war)
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Because while the name of some Afghani that ratted out where a random weapons cache or meeting point is isn't exactly important or ground breaking news to us, it sure makes them less likely to help and the Taliban is already saying their looking over the lists for reprisal targets (probably partially in truth but mainly to scare Afghani civilians into not cooperating anymore).
Seriously? The guys been in the paper constantly the last few months and has given countless interviews. My mother knows his name. Oh, and he looks like Bill Maher but slightly gayer and more strung out.
Yes, Seriously. I guess everyone missed my point.
WikiLeaks has been around for years and it has only been in the last couple of months that he's come out of the woodwork to defend what they have done.
Before this episode, one would would have to look kind of hard to get his name and his photo wasn't the easiest thing to find - I tried a couple of years ago when WikiLeaks first started making waves.
That isn't a media whore.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
They knew what we were in for.
When you see photos of Afghanistan and see all that rubble, guess who did that? The Russians bombed them back into the Stone Age and they still couldn't get them under control - and if you consider that the Soviets didn't give a rat's ass about PR, I'm sure they didn't pull any punches like we do (read: the didn't give a shit about civilian casualties)
Bush KNEW this would be folly if they didn't have an adequate plan but Nooooooo, he went in there shoot'in up the place with no plan.
So yes, I'll blame Bush - he deserves it.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Wikileaks relies on stuff people send them. If you have classified information from the North Korea government/military, I'm sure they'll be happy to post it online.
And they do have some reports about North Korea, including about when WMD were traded between NK and Pakistan, but they come from the US, which is where they can get that info.
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I should hope not. Too bad the authorities have convinced the public to condemn the messenger instead of the message... Very sad state of affairs we have here.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
To expand on my comment, Wikileaks released the initial documents and with-held this additional 15,000 documents BECAUSE they were concerned about the risk that these particular documents may contain some information that should be redacted for safety (in particular, names/locations, etc). As Wikileaks states, they approached the Pentagon and requested their assistance in identifying certain documents or items within these particular 15,000 documents that should be redacted. The Pentagon REFUSED to assist them in doing it.
So if you're going to try and claim that Assange and Wikileaks don't care about people's safety that might be directly impacted by release of these documents, then you MUST also claim the same of the Government. The government is pouting and saying that they would rather tell Wikileaks to eat it than disagree with them AND at least have a chance to promote the safety of those very people they claim to be concerned about.
And he likes long, moonlit walks on the beach.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Make no mistake, by the standards of any state in the union, Julian is a murderer.
Wikileaks is probably moribund now because of how they handled this. But this is the internet, so there will be a replacement sooner or later. I can only hope that the replacement learns the right lessons here.
The leaked data can fit (broadly) into 4 categories.
1) Junk. Unavoidable in any large data/document set.
2) "This is what war looks like." Gun camera footage, etc. Kudos for releasing this. The people back home should be able to see this so they can make informed decisions.
3) "Our plan isn't working very well." We all knew this already. No harm in releasing it, and drawing attention to it might foster real debate.
4) Shit that is going to get people killed. There is no journalistic value in publishing a list of villagers that are helping us. The world does not benefit from knowing which people in the Taliban were feeding us information. These people are DEAD, some already and some soon to be. And Julian killed them just as surely as if he had pulled the trigger himself.
So, after the leak hangs and Julian goes into hiding, if you decide to start Wikileaks 2.0, please try really hard not to help our enemies kill our friends. We want to support your cause and we think that it is important to make the truth available to the people so they can make informed decisions. But we have limits, so you need to have some decency and exercise some discretion.
See that "Preview" button?
Why no classified Russian or Chinese documents on Wikileaks?
Oh that's right.
The Russians and Chinese would hunt them down and kill them.
Which is not out of the question, btw. It will be a real tragedy when Julian is knifed in a botched robbery attenpt.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Last I checked the citizens of the USA are the rightful owners and based on the information in them, the Pentagon as a whole needs to be fired by their employer AND the rightful owners of those documents: US citizens.
Consider this my official endorsement of the "Anyone but a Republicans and Democrats" candidate.
Brewster had it right, time to vote "None of the Above"
Clinton dropped the ball.
Bush kicked the ball out of bounds.
Obama then robbed the spectators and sold the ball to the opposing team.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
but honestly, the guy is a fame whore who really doesn't care who dies just as long as he has fame. He wants his time in the sun. Even after seeing other press stories about Taliban acting on namesof informants and such he doesn't really seem to care.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, we’ve got to be careful, Amy. Mullen actually was quite crafty in his words. He said "might already have" blood on my hands. But the media has gone and turned that into a concrete definition. There is, as far as we can tell, no incident of that. So it is a speculative charge. Of course, we are treating any possible revelation of the names of innocents seriously. That is why we held back 15,000 of these documents, to review that.
Now, some names may have crept into others and may be unfortunate, may not be. But you must understand that we contacted the White House about that issue and asked for their assistance in vetting to see whether there would be any exposure of innocents and to identify those names accordingly. Of course, we would never accept any other kind of veto, but in relation to that matter, we requested their assistance via the New York Times, who the four media partners involved—us, Der Spiegel, The Guardian and the Times—agreed would be the conduit to the White House so we wouldn’t step on each other’s toes. Now, the White House issued a flat denial that that had ever happened. And we see, however, that in an interview with CBS News, Eric Schmidt, who was our contact for that, quoted from the email that I had relayed to the White House, and that quote is precisely what I had been saying all along and completely contradicts the White House statement.
You can't take the sky from me...
The people behind Nixon were the same people behind Reagan, and Bush1, and Bush2. You can look at group pictures and litterally see these same people standing behind the frontman.
And?
Obama has Clinton carry-overs. Clinton had Carter carry-overs. Carter had LBJ carry-overs. JFK/LBJ had FDR carry-overs. And some of those administrations had guys that had White House time going back 40 years.
When a President enters office, he wants some seasoned hands with him. That means people that have served in previous administrations. There's nothing sinister or conspiratorial about that. That's just common sense. One of the things Clinton suffered from his first two years was having more green rookies than guys like Lloyd Bentsen who actually knew what the hell was going on. Plus, since Republicans have won more often than Democrats in the White House since 1970, there's a lot more guys with experience working there on the GOP side. You want to bring in some fresh blood, but at that level, it's more important to have experience.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel