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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?
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.
".. 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
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
I don't think that's the way it is going to have been set up. Far more likely it's going to be an automatic disclosure of the decryption process from a source independent of Wikileaks should Julian Assange or any other key members fail to check in some how at regular intervals. That way if they should be detained or "meet with an unfortunate accident" the contents of the assurance file go public.
Quite frankly, I think the US military and government are pointing their fingers in the wrong direction here. The people that are really at fault here are those who have still not managed to put adequate controls on the access and export of sensitive data; one of the task given to the DHS, IIRC. Quite simply put, I doubt that there is any reason why a single person should have been able to access all those documents in the first place, let alone be in a position to take copies and pass them on too WikiLeaks and the media. It's not like Gary McKinnon hasn't given them enough egg on their faces about poor security procedures already, is it...?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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
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
The names you cite in number 4 are an obvious straw man. Wikileaks is not leaking those names, it is redacting them as we speak BEFORE listing those names. so what's in those 15,000 documents? And who is paying you to mislead us?
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.