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WikiLeaks Set To Release Unpublished Iraq War Docs
Tootech writes with this snippet from Wired:
"A massive cache of previously unpublished classified US military documents from the Iraq War is being readied for publication by WikiLeaks, a new report has confirmed. The documents constitute the 'biggest leak of military intelligence' that has ever occurred, according to Iain Overton, editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit British organization that is working with WikiLeaks on the documents. The documents are expected to be published in several weeks. Overton, who discussed the project with Newsweek, didn't say how many documents were involved or disclose their origin, but they may be among the leaks that an imprisoned Army intelligence analyst claimed to have sent to WikiLeaks earlier this year."
"They're really cute puppies too," said a CIA spokesperson. A Swedish prosecutor immediately filed charges of animal cruelty against the Wikileaks founder, then retracted them, then filed them again.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Not the fact that Wikileaks is publishing information like this. Not the possible side effects from "inside information" being released.
No, what bothers me the most is that something like Wikileaks needs to exist at all.
Living With a Nerd
It's ugly. No doubt. Really really ugly but in a ugly world can you really play with kid gloves on?
I like that it contributes to the accountability but it frightens me that I believe wikileaks. Is it any worse then believing (insert major news outlet here)?
In a world filled with neverending bullshit, anything different can't be bad though.
I think that we're enjoying a good period right now where Wikileaks is still useful. How much time will we have before groups start to release faked documents to it in an attempt to discredit their rivals? Poisoning the well must only be a few years away, assuming they don't manage to dismantle the entire organization by then.
Yet Another Tech Blog
(but so much more, including game and movie reviews)
http://yanteb.peasantoid.org
This is a war not monday-night football. We don't need arm chair commanders making political hay over day-to-day operations.
I'm for an open government, but I don't see how knowing intimate details about operations will make the government more open about the war. Sure you can point to the effectiveness of the ground forces, but your totally disregarding the defense contractors who are really raking in the money. In fact I believe these documents will serve to focus our attention on old field reports and distract us from Haliburton, Blackwater (Z), and others who are profiting from the war. Worse these documents are really just increasing Wikileaks visibility at the risk of endangering US troops and worse the Afghans that helped.
Now if wikileaks could disclose documents between congressional leaders and these contractors, then I would be very impressed.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
There is no other option. You are providing evidence against a powerful wrongdoer. One that holds a special right to employ physical force against you. You cannot play "let's make a deal" with them. They will bury you. The only option is to be aggressive, just as government was aggressive in hiding their wrongdoings in the first place.
I salute those who engage in whistle-blowing and hold the highest respect for them. They are the ones making personal sacrifices to help us all, not the elite at the top of the power pyramid.
Anyone doing anything for him? If he wouldn't have taken a stand on this, nobody would have known anything.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
If they were making it all up, the government wouldn't care what they said.
Technoli
I don't really know, perhaps someone can explain better, but I just get this bad feeling the way they are going about this.
Well, here is the situation we have right now: the government labels a document classified, and we are expected to assume that it would be dangerous for anyone without clearance to read the document. After all, we are at war, and if the enemy were to learn about our planned troop movements, it would result in many dead American soldiers.
Great, in theory, and it makes sense -- the military has always needed to keep certain things secret during times of war. Unfortunately, the military also has a habit of classifying documents inappropriately. An old video of an attack that left two reporters dead? Reports about the numbers of casualties? We live in a democracy, and we need to know what is happening in order to make democratic choices. The inappropriate classification of documents is the reason Wikileaks does what it does. The government can only lie about the reasons for classifying documents so long before the people stop trusting the government, and we crossed that line a long time ago. Wikileaks exists to fight back and show people what the government (and other powerful organizations) does not want them to know. Sure, Wikileaks has some responsibility for ensuring that civilians are not harmed in the process, and they try to redact the leaks. They even asked for government help in redacting the leaks. In the end, though, Wikileaks is run by volunteers, and the government is not willing to help them, so yes, some civilians are harmed. That is unfortunate, but it is not Wikileaks' fault -- Wikileaks is not responsible for the war, and Wikileaks is not responsible for the government misclassifying documents to the point of becoming untrustworthy.
Palm trees and 8
*ENGAGE SARCASM MODE*
When you are blowing the whistle, you got ask permission first. Because I am SURE the pentagon would happily lend a hand and help with releasing video of its soldiers slaughtering unarmed civilians complete with audio track of the soldiers enjoying the slaughter as if it is a game.
*END SARCASM MODE, SWITCH TO QUIET DESPAIR*
The above post is sadly a growing movement of "don't rock the boat" people who just don't want to hear anything that upsets them. If you tell them their house is on fire, they blame you, not the fire. Shoot the messenger, so you never have to hear anything disturbing. Trust the state, keep quiet and all will be well.
Reagan did this well, soothing voice, zero policies zero convictions. No wonder people want him back. No matter that he killed the economy. All is well because he said it was.
If you read the news and your blood doesn't boil every other article, you ain't reading news, you are reading entertainment.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Obama promised openness and accountability. He delivered more secrecy and persecution of whistleblowers than Bush. Ergo he deserves what he gets. Maybe with enough popular backlash (and make no mistake: domestic or not wikileaks and thinking Americans' support for it constitutes popular backlash) politicians will start considering *doing* the things they promise in order to get elected.
Here's an alternative view for you: if, for example, rather than hiding pictures of our torture behind claims that releasing them will incite those near our victims, what if we instead had a firm policy of releasing pictures of our wrongdoings, prosecuted those responsible, and had that whole accountability thing? Maybe the fact that we don't have any accountability (because we're tacitly approving heinous activities) is *actually* more damaging to our national security than releasing these sorts of documents. But hey accountability and transparency have never worked before. Nope. The Church Commission was completely wrong about that one. Whoops. There went 20 years where we could've been torturing more than we did.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
The US government could neuter him by not being so secretive. If the only things that were kept a secret were those things that were truly important he'd have no power.
How much time will we have before groups start to release faked documents to it in an attempt to discredit their rivals?
To measure that interval, your clock would have to run backwards.
Fake, but Accurate
I thought the general argument was that they release this information because the US citizens (and indeed, the world, since the US likes to romp around with its army) should have got these facts from their government in a more safe way. However, since they did not, it falls to wikileaks who tries their best to censor it safely, and even (so I hear) gave the US gov't a chance to censor the names further.
Am I wrong?
How would that law be enforced? If you cannot read the documents, how do you know whether or not they have been overclassified?
Palm trees and 8
read some Glenn Greenwald. Yes, the same Greenwald that excoriated Bush. It's called consistency in pursuit of your beliefs.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/06/obama
But perhaps you missed the recent decision and its history.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/08/obama/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/opinion/09thurs2.html?_r=1&hp
for those who say it wasn't Obama, it was his Justice department, for which he appointed Holder, "champion of civil rights"... except when it matters.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
How would that law be enforced? If you cannot read the documents, how do you know whether or not they have been overclassified?
I have argued that items be reduced in classification from Top Secret to Secret. The entity with Original Classification Authority agreed and the classification level was reduced.
The parent has a point.
Even for non-classified documents or procedures. Consider a building permit. The group granting permits can only LOSE if they grant a permit which should not have been granted, but little to lose if they deny the permit for a new design. That is why we have so many homes built on previously approved designs, it makes the approval process safe for all parties. Classification is similar. No one wants to be the guy who reduced a classification level, and later we find out that it should have been higher. The burdon is dangerous and it is asking someone to accept responsibility and potentially liability.
I have proposed processes by which we increase periodic reviews of classified material with a de-emphasis on losing face or embarassment. (it isn't supposed to exist now, but being humans it will always be there) Naturally that won't fly without a LOT of pressure.
I would prefer such a system to the current wikileaks approach of "Release it all and let God sort it out". It is irresponsible.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Improve accountability? No, all this will do is force the decision-making process further away from the prying eyes of public scrutiny. Arguments and discussions will only take place "off the record" and in ways that can be immediately destroyed. No decisions will be documented - at least not in a way that can be used against anyone. Don't like the amount of paper that a bureaucracy produces? You won't have to worry about that much longer...
Well said, but unfortunately this weeks ruling means it is only going to get worse , much much worse..
Quotes from above:
"The ruling handed a major victory to the Obama administration in its effort to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy power."
"The distorted, radical use of the state secret privilege -- as a broad-based immunity weapon for compelling the dismissal of entire cases alleging Executive lawbreaking, rather than a narrow discovery tool for suppressing the use of specific classified documents -- is exactly what the Bush administration did to such extreme controversy."
Rulings like this passed with little to no media coverage[1] show that the US is more little down the slippery slope to our Orwellian future. And people here are worried about wikileaks? The mind boggles.
[1] Slashdot posts old old news on Wikileaks instead - like there was ever a doubt that the remaining documents will be published
Improve accountability? No, all this will do is force the decision-making process further away from the prying eyes of public scrutiny.
How I wish you were wrong - but this weeks major, (incredible, unbelievable, and under-reported) news proves you very very right....
Isn't the notion of 'landowners only' a bit more palatable during the colonial era? Back when they wrote that particular rule, all one had to do to be come a land owner was build a cabin. It's a tad more complex today, and I'm not at all sure that they would want it to have stayed the same.
I hate to break it to you, but land owners weren't particularly vested in the interest of the country as a whole nor really the welfare of the local community. Southern land owners wanted to continue slavery, holding medium or large land stakes for farming which left it uneconomical for most people to own land; and the cotton gin basically demanded either very cheap or free labor (or machinery which only became viable after the exploitation of fossil fuels) to remain competitive. Meanwhile, Northern land owners wanted to have dormitories where hundreds of workers made finished goods, working 7 days a week (they could only get 6, thanks to the Bible), 16 hours a day for a penitence that would at best be sent home and with multiple other workers be enough to cover rent and food for the parents; in short, think a sweat shop but worse (since all of this was above board at the time, they could charge what they liked for the room and board (a non-negotiable aspect of the work), further decreasing effective wages. Hence, Southern land owners wanted high raw good tariffs, low finished good tariffs and Northerners wanted the reverse.
Funny. It general holds true that more urban areas are better educated (on average) and vote Democrat (ie, the east and west coasts) and rural areas are inferior educated (on average) and vote Republican (ie, the middle of the US). Meanwhile, urban areas tend to have higher renting (because land prices are so high, urbanization tends to require more job switching which encourages more resident relocation through the years which encourages renting) and rural ares tend to have higher land ownership (because land prices are relatively cheap, the job market is a bit more stable, and with distances as far apart as they are most people already expect to drive long distances and hence are more intent on investing in property).
Now, it could reasonably be argued that the average people doesn't vote and the less educated or more inclined to vote. But, that says more about the apathy of the masses than it does about the stupidity of the minority or their bad voting habits. To that end, it doesn't really explain the voting behavior in the middle of the US which shouldn't see such swing voting behavior with many more land owners.
PS - Yes, I realize a lot of those "land owners" are really "mortgage holders". But, a great debt is also of rather deep concern and I think would still fit all your qualifications on why such individuals should vote better.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
From the "Most Read Countries" category:
Pages in category "Iraq" - 1,746 total
Pages in category "United Kingdom" - 384 total
Pages in category "Afghanistan" - 382 total
Pages in category "Germany" - 278 total
Pages in category "China" - 215 total
Pages in category "Canada" - 159 total
Pages in category "Australia" - 134 total
Pages in category "France" - 128 total
Pages in category "India" - 120 total
Pages in category "Poland" - 83 total
Pages in category "Sweden" - 73 total
Pages in category "Denmark" - 70 total
Pages in category "Russia" - 57 total
Pages in category "Israel" - 49 total
Pages in category "Thailand" - 42 total
Pages in category "Greece" - 38 total
Pages in category "Iran" - 11 total
Pages in category "Italy" - 3 total
Pages in category "United States" - 9,719 total
Note that there is a great deal of overlap here. For example, a majority of articles in category "Iraq" are also (for obvious reasons) in the category "United States."
But you really think that even ignoring the huge overlap, the US's shenanigans outweigh all those other countries combined by a factor of nearly 2.5? Clearly I'm the one turning a blind eye to the rest of the world, right?
Or maybe the US is just really bad at keeping things secret. I guess that's also possible...
And none of that addresses the fact that he admits to editing documents and videos for impact. It's basically impossible to do that without introducing some sort of bias.
=Smidge=
It could also be the fact that wikileaks and wikileaks philosophy is far more popular in the US.
You assume that all those leaks are things which are bad for the US.
6,717 of the 9,719 documents under the US are in fact from the Congressional Research Service
Read this:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Congressional_Research_Service
Although all CRS reports are legally in the public domain, they are quasi-secret because the CRS, as a matter of policy, makes the reports available only to members of Congress, Congressional committees and select sister agencies such as the GAO.
Members of Congress are free to selectively release CRS reports to the public but are only motivated to do so when they feel the results would assist them politically. Universally embarrassing reports are kept quiet.
personally I'd consider that pile of documents to be an unambiguously positive thing for normal americans.
Releasing them was not an anti-american thing to do and it accounts for the majority of the US documents.
After all, you paid for the research to be done, you should get to see it even if it embarrasses some politicians.
Most of the remainder is accounted for in 2 or 3 large document leaks about the iraq war.
for example 1500 in one large leak.
So no.
wikileaks isn't picking on the US in particular just because the number is big and you were too lazy to drill down and see why the number was so large.
The US is somewhat overrepresented but then the US has a large population, leaking documents is respected to a certain extent and when it comes down to it the US is the richest and most powerful nation out there so there's going to be more to leak anyway.