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Obama Wants Allies To Go After WikiLeaks
krou writes "Coming on the back of human rights groups criticizing WikiLeaks, American officials are saying that the Obama administration is pressuring allies such as Australia, Britain, and Germany to open criminal investigations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and to try limit his ability to travel. 'It's not just our troops that are put in jeopardy by this leaking. It's UK troops, it's German troops, it's Australian troops — all of the NATO troops and foreign forces working together in Afghanistan,' said one American diplomatic official, who added that other governments should 'review whether the actions of WikiLeaks could constitute crimes under their own national-security laws.'"
How does a little egg on the Governments face = endangering troops? Seems to me sending them to Afghanistan and Iraq puts them in more danger than anything wikileaks could ever publish.
for bringing our own war criminals to justice.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It's nothing personal. He just doesn't like freedom of speech when it's about him in some way. Nobody really does, though.
He blew any attempt at real credibility by sensationalizing "collateral murder." Exposing the Afghanistan documents has done very little in telling the public something we didn't already know (everyone was well aware that there have been civilian casualties). Ironically, all he really did was expose a bunch of innocent civilians as US informants, who are now likely to be beaten, tortured, and murdered (along with their families) by the warlords they had outed. How noble of you, you egotistical twat.
Similes are like metaphors
What about investigations into the crimes that US troops (among others) and people higher up in the chain of command have conducted?
Why do they never get put on trial and punished?
Naive to think that they ever will be perhaps, but still...
This administration has proved time & time again that transparency is, at best, inconvenient. Tyranny is their preferred path.
"These documents that this website released endanger the lives of men and women around the globe. THESE DOCUMENTS. THESE DOCUMENTS RIGHT HERE."
If you don't want people to know about what's in the documents, stop fucking talking about them.
Living With a Nerd
It's not limited to just troops. I'm sure that the Taliban greatly appreciated suddenly having a comprehensive list of the names of hundreds of Afghan civilian informants.
The US is just doing what it does best: being a bully.
They would get a lot more support for this sort of action if the leaked documents were legitimately classified due to national secrets rather than just because they are embarassing. Revealing that the US government has been lying to its citizens and the world about what is happening in Afganistan and Iraq is certainly something they wouldn't want but keeping the electorate in the dark prevents them from providing direction to the country by electing officials to serve its aims
You know, you could replace Assange's name in this quote with Obama's and it would read equally true. Trying to drag us Europeans in as allies to support what looks like a war on exposed government cover-ups will not do wonders for how the US government is perceived over here.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
Gosh, it's as if our government doesn't appreciate it when people leak videos of our soldiers murdering civilians! You'd think they'd be grateful, since it gives them a more accurate understanding of why the civilians there are turning to extremism.
and if the government can't keep its secrets, don't blame the folks who find them on the street. 95% of that stuff has already been in the papers, after all, within a year of its happening. the issue is level-1 security, the folks who have access. in the US, prior cases have established that if the press gets facts, they can print.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I know I will hear a lot of counter-arguments to this but I'm going to say it anyway.
The documents were leaked by people who are in a position of disagreement with their orders and the behavior of the military and political officials. Simply saying "I don't like it" isn't enough of a statement for anyone's needs or purposes. If they are in the know and have evidence that "bad things" are happening, presenting proof of these bad things is the only true means of expression.
The U.S. and its involvements (interference) in the affairs of other sovereign nations is simply not appreciated by the majority of the world and this is especially true more recently. If there is anything that threatens the U.S. national security more than anything else, it is the increased disapproval of the U.S. in the world. People who are intent on sharing facts and truth wouldn't be as much of a problem if the U.S. was on the straight and narrow.
The notion of "if you haven't been doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to fear" has been used by governments against its citizens for a very long time. But when directed against governments, we see a pretty different set of standards.
Maybe a week or so ago. He simultaneously stated that there was nothing new or dangerous in the leaked documents, yet called it irresponsible for WikiLeaks for release this information. Normally, I'd take into consideration the "this will harm our intelligence assets" argument, but this has been going on for 9 years and every time we get a peek behind the curtain, we see that the public face on the war is a complete lie.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Wikileaks is journalism, and this is a test of the American principle of "Freedom of the Press".
Sometimes the press publishes embarrassing, inconvenient, or dangerous information.
Those are the times when society is asked, "Is the freedom to publish a core value enshrined in a special place in our society or not?"
As an American, I hope the answer continues to remain "Yes".
I find myself torn on the subject. While the Taliban was undoubtedly a terrible organisation that harmed the nation of Afganistan I don't believe that we have the right to unilateraly invade and 'make' them change. After all I imagine that during WWII that the Germans would have been extremely upset if records of their collaberators were released but we laud the French freedom fighters for discovering and executing them. The only difference in this case is that our side is the 'good' guys in this one.
So when did reporting secrets become illegal Reporters do it all the time, it's their job. Half the time it's the politicians who leak the information in the first place. I really didn't see much in the stuff that everyone didn't already know or suspect anyway. Anyone remember the Pentagon Papers?
The leaked files were in possession of Wikileaks for months. During that time they contacted the Pentagon for assistance in minimizing the damage to informants that would likely be a consequence of the leaks.
The Pentagon and US military railed against the idea of helping to mitigate the damage and condemned the notion of making this data public, and so after a few months of fruitless negotiation the entire 91,000+ files were leaked unaltered. The perception that this all happened in the space of a few days is false and not worth entertaining.
Do note that Assange has subsequently been cavalier over the notion that people could die should the Taliban employ the documents to locate them; his comments have been of the blunt 'ends justify the means' flavour. Whether a person's life is worth the US losing this amount of face over controversial events in Afghanistan is down to individual perception but my point is that this situation isn't quite as clear cut as much of the mass media depict - and this goes for those in favour Wikileaks actions as well as those against.
The key part of the article, of course on the second page, is the following:
"Pentagon wants to bankrupt us by refusing to assist review," he tweeted on Monday, referring to the effort by WikiLeaks to convince the Defense Department to join in reviewing the additional 15,000 documents to remove the names of Afghan civilians and others who might be placed in danger by its release. "Media won’t take responsibility. Amnesty won’t. What to do?"
Wikileaks went to the Pentagon and/or White House and asked them to assist in the redaction of sensitive things... like the names of civilians. They refused to do so thinking it would prevent the release of the documents. Instead, Wikileaks simply did a cost-benefit analysis and found that the potential danger of the Taliban acquiring the documents, sifting through them, picking out suspect names, and then targeting them was not as valuable as releasing all these documents to the public.
Now, the government is going to try to demonize Wikileaks in every possible way... not because they're endangering lives or missions, but because they are willing to unveil damaging secrets. It's the Pentagon Papers all over again. The government will lose this battle in the long run.
Then again, as the immediate effects of the leaking of the Pentagon Papers showed, the public doesn't care. Ideally, people would be marching on DC, enraged at military mismanagement and lack of direction, but, just like before, they get excited by the sensationalism and then they forget.
Lose-Lose
What does this have to do with giant robots?
Let's not beat around the bush. What they REALLY mean is that wikileaks is threatening their justification for spending. Spending is what makes the business of government incredibly lucrative for the elite few, not lying. Lying is merely a means to more spending.
The defense industry is worth billions of dollars per year, and the vast majority of that cash comes from government. The more money passing through the hands of the elite at the top, the better their position to exploit that flow of cash for personal gain.
Am I saying that money is the primary motivator of war, and the underlying objective of defense spending? You're damn right I am.
This is my thought too. I think it's a good thing to have a venue where evidence of wrongdoing can be leaked. For example, I didn't have an issue when they leaked the video of the Baghdad strike that killed the Reuters journalist and other unarmed civilians. The military was trying to cover it up, and the video showed evidence of possible wrongdoing. But they shouldn't leak something just because they can. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for the military to keep much of their information classified.
Anonymous sourcing. All the benefits and none of the responsibility.
Is it any wonder that government officials demand it for any and all discussion since 'reporters' are unwilling to have a backbone and refuse it when there is no justification.
Treason?
So, this doesn't come as a surprise either. Similar foreign policy, not as blatantly arrogant as Bush, but not better as Clinton's. The right answer to the leaked documents would have been: "Of course the documents talk about human right abuses. That's why we have these documents. It just shows that we are investigating every claim and are really committed to justice..." Next step: work with international support (Amnesty International) to have names redacted ("in the interest of Afghan civilians" maybe). Not the dumb old "really bad if our dark secrets become public"-statement. That might work with some super-patriotic Americans but will damage any trust other countries had in the new administration.
The European reaction to American pressure tactics? Quite predictable. European politicians will complain but play along, but the public will grin even more about the American claim that they are the champion of free speech.
Not that the government wouldn't have a justified interest in keeping at least some war related documents secret for at least a period of time, but the way they are going after the leak is more damaging than the leak itself. It reminds people of past cover ups. Obama is about to loose all the good-will bonus he got after the election. His hope-slogan carried the hope that things could be done differently and not the same-old. Now it's the same old "pressure the Allies"? Well, that's how Reagan created the Green party in Germany. Maybe Obama can help the pirate party.
Also make sure to say what war crime they committed as per 18USC2441. Then please provide evidence of said crime to at least the standard of a reasonable cause to believe (what is normally required for a grand jury indictment).
If you are talking about the helicopter video then no, sorry. While there were civilian casualties, that is not illegal. War is not pleasant and the rules of war are very different from normal civilian law.
So if you really believe there are people who need to be indicted, then let's here specifics. If you are just grandstanding and/or talking without understanding what a war crime really is, then please stuff it.
In some cases, it is not. Consider police informants.
A quote from an "American diplomatic official" becomes the Obama administration's position in an article and then becomes what Obama himself wants in the /. story that links to it.
The next step will probably be someone linking to the /. article and suggesting that God wants the world's nations to rise up against Wikileaks.
Given the that officials sources have be shown to be full of shit, how can they expect us to believe them now?
Karma: Bad. (As in Good?)
It's my understanding that Wikileaks makes attempts to redact what they're able to protect the supposed innocent wherever possible, as a policy. It seems likely that they would indeed have reached out to the Pentagon to assist in redacting the names before publishing it just as they had claimed. The government, of course, hides behind the claim that "we're primarily concerned with the safety of our troops and of civilians" while refusing to accept the offer to help redact information. If the safety of those people was such a concern to them, they would take any opportunity to redact those names given, even if it comes at some sacrifice to their principals (aiding Wikileaks in redaction). They'd rather cut off someone else's nose to spite their face.
While I clearly have concern over the safety of persons who may be innocent, it's also vital to note that Assange does not (presumably) work for the government in any way. If they don't want information to be leaked, they should protect their information in the first place. I don't see how Assange is obligated to protect their data for them, other than to redact personally identifiable information where possible simply out of human decency.
Probably 18USC798.
It is against the law to release classified information. You'll notice that various people have been prosecuted for spying with regards to that sort of thing in the past. If it wasn't illegal to release it, well that couldn't very well happen.
It is illegal to disseminate classified information, period. It doesn't matter that he's doing it second- or third-hand.
Just as dealing with stolen property is a crime, even if you aren't the person who stole it in the first place.
So bring the informants to United States already. They did their jobs. I'm sure there will be new informants to come forward.
Do you let a spy stay in foreign country if (s)he's been exposed?
I viewed Obama's actions as simply a way for him to skirt our laws. We have laws that protect whistle blowers. Other do not. I have the impression that this is his way of overcoming that legal limit--get your allies to attack when our laws fail you, even if they are there to protect against retaliation.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Government is only part of the picture. The other half is what I like to call "Red State Stupidity".
Red State Stupidity is the phenomenon whereby people who heavily favor the Republican Party and "conservative" ideals act in a way that's completely detrimental to themselves and their interests.
Take war, for instance. People living in the Red States are often the poorest people in the USA, and thus the first to get shipped off to hellholes like Afghanistan and Iraq as the front-line troops. They'll often wind up dead or seriously wounded, all for very little compensation. Intelligent people in such a situation would obviously not vote for politicians who scream for war. Yet that's exactly what we see these Red State Citizens doing; they actively support warmongering, when they're the Americans who suffer the greatest from war.
Furthermore, these Red Staters are already the primary recipients of most federal welfare and transfer payments. Their poverty in fact puts them in the best position to receive more such funding. Yet they go out of their way to support politicians who seek to eliminate all social programs that benefit the citizens.
Even worse, these Red State Fools support politicians who actively support free trade, which is just another name for shipping the jobs of these Red Staters over to Mexico and Asia. These Reds have in fact caused the very unemployment that has brought them so much poverty!
If it weren't for these fools living in the Red States, war wouldn't be considered acceptable. Most people in the civilized Blue States would not stand for money being wasted like that.
Is it just me or has Obama done a full 180 turn around on what you expected his policies to be since he came into office. So far I have yet to see a strong indication that he does things differently. So much for "change".
Then why isn't anyone going after the New York Times, who republished that information?
This has all happened before, and it'll all happen again:
That's a flimsy excuse, too. They must have a list of the people they're concerned with protecting. How hard is it to programmatically apply that to a copy of the documents and send the results back? They can't find a small handful of people out of the 1.5million in the Armed forces to task with this? Or they're concerned with people's lives, but not enough to bother spending some resources protecting them?
It's clear that they're responding to this the same way we reportedly respond to hostage incidents. We don't negotiate and we'd rather you kill everyone than compromise with you in any regard. Sensible in real hostage crises. Not so much in a journalistic release.
I didn't realize you could commit Treason against a country of which you are not a citizen... but the wording of that seems to imply it, since it says Person and not Citizen. I'm curious if I'm missing something important.
I know that slashdotters automatically love anything involving making information more free, but...
I liked Wikileaks, too, until they published all the reports from the ground in Afghanistan. Up until then, at least the high-profile stuff revealed actual coverups of things that could be damaging because the fact that it happened was embarrassing or wrong. But the latest stuff? It's pretty much mundane, but it reveals important sources of information to American troops. Revealing that the troops have sources of information would be fine if completely unsurprising. But who benefits (other than the Taliban) from revealing their names?
C'mon, Wikileaks. Step up and act like real journalists. Think before you post. And if you fsck up, don't be surprised when people get pissed off.
Those documents were reviewed by Wikileaks removing names. And some docs were withheld.
If these were just dumped on line somewhere this would not be the case.
Wikileaks is not the system that is broken. And Wikileaks saved lives.
I've been wondering at what point invading Afghanistan changed from being about finding Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to bringing down the Taliban. As near as I can tell it actually happened before the invasion, but what I've never figured out is how the change seemed to slip past everybody. I mean, the Taliban was no more responsible for 9/11 than Saddam Hussein was, but there's been lots of people pointing the faulty Iraq connection but nobody pointing out the faulty Taliban connection.
There has been a bought and paid readings of a prewritten script as part of a coordinated effort to progressively demonise, discredit and finally destroy Wikileaks. The PR divisions of most organisations, charities included, can simply be viewed as part of the modern media sector. And as part of that sector, their primary purpose is to echo the opinions and worldview of their benefactors.
No-one cared about these civilian risks when the documents were first released; the Pentagon was still reeling from the shock of encountering actual investigative journalism. The scriptwriters were called in, but it took them a week or two to come up with hooks. The civilian risks has so far been the most successful way to paint the leaks in a negative light. The mainstream media, literally incapable of digesting the data load it was faced with, has swallowed this propaganda far more easily, and found it more palatable than doing the job they claim to do--showing truth to power.
The powers said that the war in Afganistan was going well; that the US and the UK were winning. The Wikileaks expose proves that they were lying. The war was going terribly all along. See what that is there? That's journalism; not paid propaganda. Wikileaks did the people of the US and the UK a enormous service, virtually unparalleled in history. And instead of their thanks, Julian Assange is going to be drawn and quartered.
The Western free press is dead; Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. It is not possible to expose hard truths or challenge those in power in any modern Western state(or at least the Anglo-Saxon ones). Those who try will be destroyed, discredited or simply ignored. This is made possible by the modern media, which has become a propaganda complex of terrifying size, power, and influence.
The definitive proof of all this will be the fate of Assange, which is now playing out before our very eyes. He is going to be torn apart by the monstrous media; A feral pack--on leashes. He is finished. No idealistic journalists, no cadre of bloggers, no editorials, no law, no person, no country can save him now.
And if you try anything similar, they'll get you too.
May the Maths Be with you!
Assange isn't American, thus 18USC798 doesn't apply to him.
I don't think the leaked Afghanistan war documents are a 'little egg'. It's clear proof that the war is lost and there is no hope for winning. ...
Bullshit. The Wikileaks documents a lot of out-of-context reports, mostly from low-level soldiers and unit commanders. Essentially, it's an internal bug-tracking database for the war.
Look at any internal bug-tracking database for any reasonably-sized project and you'll immediately conclude that the project is a horrible steaming pile of crap that everyone hates. That does not necessarily mean that the project actually is worthless. Imagine what the MS Windows (or OS X, or whatever) internal bug database must be like. Millions of known, incompatibilities, crash reports, and unsubstantiated error reports. And yet MS and Apple make shit-tons of money from them, and millions of people use them every ay.
Of course there are major problems with the war. It's a fucking war.
As a non-American citizen, Assange has no particular obligation to attend to the defense of the US. Calling him a traitor is simply a false accusation.
Right, the Taliban does all this stuff, but they themselves are blameless. In fact, all these deaths are really Assange's fault. Please. The Taliban is going to go around murdering people regardless of any information released at Wikileaks.
Assange-bashers need to pick an argument. Either the information he released is old news (in which case it was also old news to the Taliban), or it wasn't. And if there really are new revelations of misconduct by the US Armed forces there, then he was right to release the data. You can't go around insisting both that there was no cause to release it AND that it was horribly threatening to Afghan informers.
It would be one thing if we were doing something like WWII here - fighting for our own survival. But we're not. We're spending a bunch of money we don't have, getting a bunch of our own people killed, and only God knows how many Afghans killed, fighting a war that is essentially useless. No one realistically thinks that we're going to transform Afghanistan into a model of peace and democracy no matter what we do. No one thinks that if we just left Afghanistan tomorrow, our national security would be affected in any way whatsoever. Given that, yes, I think this war needs to be shoved in America's face every day, 24/7. This is what we're buying with our tax dollars and the blood of our soldiers. We're killing a bunch of guys who hate us, but live in caves and have no realistic capability to do anything to us. Plus blowing up wedding parties, schools, etc, etc. Yes, most of our operations are going correctly and not killing civillians. But the number of civilians it's OK to kill when there's no threat to you? That would be zero. America needs to see these images, over and over and over.
Unfortunately you are entirely correct.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
You seem to imply that the public should need a reason to know any given piece of information... and if the government believes that the public has no good reason (or the government's need for secrecy is greater), then the public should not know.
I'd counter the opposite. Our government is *OUR* government. It should not keep secrets from the general population without a darn good reason to do so. Furthermore, there should be a neutral third party involved determining the need for secrecy, instead of those in power.
Put simply, I'd rather our government keep too little secret than too much.
** note to NSA/CIA/White House/RNC/DNC/Goldman Sachs: If you've overlooked my name, please add me to all your various watchlists. ** The campaign against Wikileaks insults the dignity of the people of the United States and the world. It is long past time for the United States to become a good neighbor in the world instead of continuing to become a nakedly imperial power. p.s. to Mr. Gibbs and Obama: I'm a human being, a former naval office and I vote.
"Nothing we despise in the other person is entirely absent from ourselves." -- Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
If they're on every page, then it would be easy for you to provide the filename and page number for the very first mention of a civilian informant? I mean, it would be trivial: "Page 1 of the document named 'secret military stuff.txt' identifies an American sympathizer in Afghanistan, and puts his/her life in danger".
Surely you, the honorable Anonymous Coward, wouldn't exaggerate for effect?
This. If he's a criminal, so am I (currently seeding the leaked docs on torrent).