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Compiling the WikiLeaks Fallout
Now that the world has had some time to process the quarter million diplomatic documents published by WikiLeaks on Sunday, the media landscape is rife with reactions, threats, and warnings. Some US lawmakers have complained loudly and at length, saying that "WikiLeaks is putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the leak "not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests, it is an attack on the international community." The Guardian points out that it's not the media's job to protect diplomats from embarrassment, and other US officials seem to agree, focusing their wrath instead on the security practices surrounding sensitive information. The Pentagon and other agencies are looking at ways to tighten security, promising increased internal auditing and banning the ability of systems containing classified information to connect to thumb drives or other removable media. Meanwhile, few officials seem to be commenting publicly on the contents of the leak, which are sure to cause diplomatic problems around the globe.
But they sure do hate Wikileaks. What's the difference?
I don't really think one day is really enough time to process these documents.
I'm certain more details will come out as people have more time to go through these documents. But so far what I've found most surprising is how unsurprising these documents are. So the US is spying. Big fucking deal, everybody spies. This isn't news. There's no smoking gun, no festering sore of corruption that this was presented to be.
Is this really a case of 'holding the US to account for its crimes' or just malice, someone's personal agenda to get back at the big bad Americans? So far, it's looking more like the latter. I'm starting to question my former support for wikileaks.
At least consider the possibility.... there is evidence if you look.
http://theintelhub.com/2010/08/07/wikileaks-whistleblowers-cointelpro/
I don't know if this happened to many other people, but when I was reading through the leaks, I thought: It's good that my government knows all this stuff and keeps track of it. I think I've grown so used to thinking of the USA as being run by fools that it was actually a bit comforting to see that they actually do research and know stuff. Too bad that doesn't stop them acting foolishly!
FTA "promising increased internal auditing and banning the ability of systems containing classified information to connect to thumb drives or other removable media"
Are the people running this network lost in the eighties, um, I mean sometime before Multix (say the early sixties)?
Wouldn't you think that internal auditing and limiting the ability to copy classified files to removable media should have been addressed decades before this leak occured?
Wherever You Go, There You Are
that guarantees the leaks from Wikileaks are legitimate and not some delusional writing from Sarah Palin?
That is my thought as well. The best way to silence WikiLeaks is to leak tons of false data that seems right, let it make a lot of noise, then prove that it is all fake. No one will trust them again - so hearing another major leak right after the pentagon one - makes me wonder just how real is this...
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
After the last few attempts to embarass and shame the USA, I am eagerly awaiting to see what other countries they will go after next. After all, some of the most secretive regimes in the world including China, North Korea, Iran, Russia must have some secrets that wikileaks surely must be pursuing to unveil.
If not, then it will show wikileaks to be a blatantly partisan and anti-US organization, not some self styled truth seekers.
Fundamental question, here: if these documents are "putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world", how the hell did Wikileaks get ahold of them? If this information is so sensitive, how is it that an upstart organization like Wikileaks managed to acquire it?
Because honestly, anything that Wikleaks knows, intelligence agencies the world over have probably known for decades.
fuck people over if they dont want trouble. Wikileaks and everyone involved in exposing the treacherous activities are heroes of the people now, nothing can stop them. The best bet for the governments involve is to admit their wrong and change their behaviour for the future. Some should perhaps even call it quits but politicians are like vermin, very hard to get rid of.
"WikiLeaks is putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world."
COUNTLESS they say. countless as in, a few hundred, tops. compared to 66.000+ (official no, unofficial probably higher) dead in iraq, unknown number dead in afghanistan, unknown number lost in the hands of cia, nsa and ice. (even inside usa - http://www.thenation.com/article/americas-secret-ice-castles )
.....
and they come up with long-repeated, surefire bullshit 'putting countless lives at risk' -> vague enough too, you can never calculate how many lives lost and compare it to those who got killed while chasing a wild goose under false pretenses in afghan mountains or iraq plains.
but that's all fancy talk. what they are basically saying, bluntly and in streetspeak is :
"Let us continue doing our filth behind the veil of secrecy by biting the bait of 'risk of freedom and lives'"
Read radical news here
Having worked for several businesses that have attempted to ban the use of portable media -- it's a pointless endeavor. Anything that connects to a USB port can emulate anything else that can connect to a USB port. I have seen USB flash drives that emulate rewritable CDROMs, etc. And with just a little bit of work, you can use standard HUD devices like mice and keyboards to stream data out at very high speeds to other devices. And nevermind Firewire and it's built-in ability to directly manipulate system memory -- if the port has power, all your memory are belong to us. -_-
There is only one security measure that works in this situation: Air gap. Everything else is window dressing.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I was expecting some juicy details about diplomacy with green aliens from another galaxy, disappointed :(
I don't really see the diplomatic fallout being very significant.
Sure, lots of countries will make some noise, but those countries all have their own diplomatic corps who write the very same sort of memos. It's an embarrassment, but certainly not a surprise.
I realize it could put certain individuals in harms way (hopefully any such names were redacted before the dump), but I hope Wikileaks keep this up. There's far too much secrecy going on around the world. It's all one big self-fulfilling prophecy in which nobody trusts each other and everybody is forced to keep a gun under the table. Anyone that is angry about this for nationalistic reason is a tool. Of course, these leaks could be baloney psy-ops, which is real a possibility. That's a scary scenario and in the complete opposite direction of what it's presenting itself as.
I had exactly the same reaction. It was pretty refreshing.
Le français vous intéresse?
What I really have to wonder is that if essentially one guy with a website can get this much info, how much do the other nations with active espionage units manage to get?
I say post them all. Air the dirty-laundry so to speak. The only thing at "stake" is the respect, career, and face of the individual who sent the original defaming document in the first place. Certainly, if the people they were speaking of find out, they'll be upset, but what good does upset do? Oh NO! Somebody called me unstable! ... oh wait... I called them the same thing last week...but let's not go there!
Rock on Wikileaks!
*I agree, two days should DEFINITELY be enough to process those document LOL*
"The Guardian points out that it's not the media's job to protect diplomats from embarrassment" - do they really 'point this out'?
Because The Guardian is generally considered a newspaper on the left side of the spectrum, the side which has produced an entire catalogue of rules and guidances regarding what the media SHOULD do. This includes 'promoting social cohesion' and not 'giving a voice' to 'right-wing elements'.
So sorry, whoever wrote that, I am not sure who gave The Guardian the power to decide that antiracism, feminism, fighting Fox News and social cohesion ARE the job of a journalist whilst avoiding the embarrassment of diplomats is anything but. I don't think they have that power actually, or should have it.
that guarantees the leaks from Wikileaks are legitimate and not some delusional writing from Sarah Palin?
These were done on computer, not with paper and crayon.
That's all the proof you need.
Trolling is a art,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the leak "not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests, it is an attack on the international community."
somehow it suddenly became an attack on 'international community'.
says the secretary of the country that grabbed german citizens in germany and tortured them abroad.
Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official "that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29cables.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
if, exposing the above filth was an 'attack on international community' what the fuck was going and grabbing german citizens in germany and torturing them abroad ?
filth. nothing but filth. and if ANYone listens to their bullshit about 'risking countless lives and freedom', they will be able to perpetuate that shit. notice - freedom. freedom of grabbing people abroad and torturing, she means, probably.
Read radical news here
I don't like how that sounds. It is as if problems do not exist if nobody speaks of them, or if citizens have no right to know what goes on in a country controlled by people they voted for, or ...
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
A country is spying? It's using it's embassies to spy? Countries without nuclear capability don't want their mutual neighbor to get its hands on nuclear weapons? How is anyone surprised by any of this? Clearly a report written by esteemed whistle blower Captain Obvious.
The NYT was in a dialogue with the State Department over the leak, and the State Department never questioned that they were genuine.
I think a much more serious problem would be someone slipping in a small number of fakes amid the 200k real cables for malicious purposes.
I mean, I don't know exactly what information all these documents contain. But it seems to me that if there is backroom dealing going on people should know about it. Might force the international political community to be more honest... ...ah! I see the problem... any political community (international or otherwise) is built up of lies and deceit that dealing honestly is so far outside the current players skill set that they can't manage it.
They only released 243 cables at this point. http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/
wouldn't even make a weekly TV series.
Very, very, very, BORING.
The government is the one releasing the information. Assange is almost certainly working for a US intelligence service. Google around...
What graphics engine does it use...?
There are rumors that wikileaks is gearing up to release:
* Even more diplomatic cables
* Operational details of US weapons systems.
But I see this is a good thing. Right now there is too much balance of power with a single country - sort of like Microsoft running 90% of the desktops. It's good to avoid power monocultures as much as computing monocultures, and to this end the US needs to become weaker, and other nations (Russia, Brazil, China) to become stronger. That will be better for the whole world in the long run.
This makes me think of all that advice 'stupid kids' have been given lately about forwarding emails or posting on facebook... perhaps State Dept officials need to start listening? Normally they seem to treat the weight of the federal government as a blank check to do and say whatever they want yet still be protected by secrecy. Maybe having the same risk of embarrassment the rest of us have will give them a little empathy for all those little people they claim to be working for....
quarter of a million documents have not been released. only a small proportion has been released as yet. see wikileaks website
Hillary, some people want a transparent government bad enough to force it on you. I guess you don't always get your way.
... currently is the government to the home of the free and the brave. Especially the freedom of non-Americans everywhere. Besides, the buzz is more fuzz than substance, and I daresay governments the world over have weathered worse storms than a load of embarrasment. Even very large amounts of embarrasment.
And, as Der Spiegel correctly points out, with two and a half million SIPRnet users, this was an accident waiting to happen. Even though now that it rains it seems to pour.
"You shouldn't care unless you've got something to hide."
Isn't that line we always hear from these government agencies when it comes to privacy invasions? I can only assume from the outcry that they must have something to hide.
Many Bothans died to bring us this information.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
Seems a lot like the annoying kids who break into lockers to try to find diaries/journals/rants about teachers so they can spread them all over school and feel like they're really smart, secret ninja types instead of the little whiners they really are. "Hey, everybody, we got secret government documents! Look at us, look at us, aren't we so clever!"
Yawn.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
Am I the only one amazed that these systems that hold this information allow the wholesale download of the entire database? Search everything, sure. But to request the full text of every cable, and not set off an immediate alarm or lock out? What are they using as an informational storage system? MS access?
have the most to lose. I have no sympthy for someone who looks like a fool when his blunder is exposed.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
Why on earth were all these not encrypted with only the intended recipient able to decrypt? An agency with the resources and reach of the US government surely has the ability to do that.
Does anyone know why so much sensitive communication was done in the clear?
if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear
You remind me of this guy I met while going through security at the Seattle airport.
I have been saying for a long time, that Israel is far less worried about the Iranian enrichment program, than the Arab countries - and this diplomatic cable leak has proven me right. Arab states have urged the US to destroy the Iranian nuclear enrichment program. Yes, the Muslim brothers. Turns out, there's more animosity between Sunni (Arab countries) and Shia (Iran) than they like to admit. Not surprising, violence between Sunni and Shia kills orders of magnitude more Muslims than West-East conflict.
I find it particularly telling that Saudi Arabia, which has itself a formidable weapon hardware, would be begging the US to do the dirty deed for them. I find it telling, not surprising: Muslim countries would not want to be seen in disagreement, and an air raid on another country's research facilities could definitely be interpreted as a "disagreement".
None of the things I have learned from these leaks surprised me at all. The candid opinion of US diplomats and politicians about some "allies" such as Turkey, is refreshing. Oh, I would love that kind of candor from politicians in every day life!
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
And notable that everyone with a loud voice (politicians, newspaper editors) are displeased. Me thinks they do not like embarrassment nor competition.
Do you see what happens ? Do you see what happens Hillary? This is what happens Hillary! This what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass! This is what happens Hillary!
Misread the title, I thought it was some cool add-on for Fallout.
For a document release that was supposed to "reshape world history", it's actually been a pretty disappointing ride thus far. Embarrassing, sure, but by no means earth-shattering. No international corruption rings, not even a single assassination plot (Hollywood screenwriters hoping for some free inspiration must be sooo disappointed right now). Some spying sure, and amusing adjectives about various world leaders, but not much that wasn't already known or assumed at some level (if you needed the Wikileaks cable leak to learn facts like: Putin is Russia's power broker, China hacked Google, and Colonel Qaddafi is mentally unstable, then you haven't been paying attention).
If anything, it's actually strengthened my faith a bit in the US Government. No real smoking guns, and the Obama administration seems to have acted reasonably responsibly with respect to the multitude of issues in the Middle East, and even in accordance with their public policy. Yeah, I know it doesn't include "top secret" information, but still, most of it is of no particular interest except for world historians and a day of news entertainment for the masses.
I'm still solidly in the middle about the justification of release, and the lack of substantive information is pushing me back to thinking it's not justifiable. Yes, I think government should be transparent, but let me say, as someone who manages a small organization, I do talk about people behind their backs, often in email. Making snap judgments of other people based on limited encounters, subjective and unfair as it is, is how we manage our day to day lives.
From (one of) TFA:
"As a democracy, our nation has always believed the American people should have access to as much information as possible.
But we have also long recognized that -- to keep our country safe -- some information must be kept secret," he said.
"This is a balancing act that the American people themselves ultimately control through our democratically-elected representatives and our institutions.
...so, which of the "American people" are allowed to access enough information to determine this control?
In actuality, it's bureaucratic asshats who make the decisions on which scandals should be released "for the good of the people" (a.k.a., "for the good of my career").
North of the 49th, all observations and notes made by a public servant, even personal ones, about co-workers or clients are deemed non-personal information and subject to information requests. I don't know as much about goings on south of the border, but I would imagine there are some parallels...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
I do agree that not all info needs to be public (The point of having government officials is that we trust that they use their expertise to deal with the issues without having to ask the public about everything) it doesn't hurt much. Despite what some politicians are trying to say, it really won't destroy USA-France relations if it becomes public info that the US ambassador in France thinks that the president of France is an idiot. What will happen is that the ambassador is switched and business as usual ensues.
Then there are obviously stuff that should be published. To quote the guardian:
So, then it is not a question of whether to release or not, it is simply a question of which of the documents should be released. As releasing all of them doesn't really do as much (undeserved) harm as the politicians like to claim, I prefer this to the situation where WikiLeaks would say "We have 250 000 documents... We chose to release these 10 000". Not only would I be unable to trust them (why did they choose to go with those 10 000? What's in the other 240 000? What's their agenda?) but they don't know everything about everything so they can't know for sure what is relevant to some people and what is not. Now the people (or rather, the local newspapers) can look at the data and look for documents that relate to issues they're investigating.
You're also forgetting that it's not just the interests of the USA that should be considered here. Not everyone in the USA needs to know what USA diplomat in Finland thinks about the finnish people and the government. But that information might be important to finnish people (we're humans too, you know). Again, some rude language isn't gonna cause diplomatic problems but if the documents reveal more about hidden deals that the population might not agree with, about flaws of our leaders, etc... We might need that info the next time we vote (in a few months).
Seeing that WikiLeaks has so far a perfect track record of redacting any information that really puts people at risk and the government had months between finding out about the leak and the publication, I don't really see how this could be viewed as a negative thing.
"WikiLeaks is putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world."
Actually, I would like them counted and specifically explained how information leaked to wikileaks risked their lives and/or freedom.
Now, if you can point out a lot of people who are now at risk in a very real way, then yeah, I'd call shenanigans on Wikileaks and damn their irresponsibility.
Unless they deserve it.
But if you CAN'T point out who and what exactly is being threatened here, then the only real damage is some embarrassment. Tough. Most of these aren't really secrets, they're just candid and blunt assessments. Some of them WERE secrets, and shit that seriously needed to come to light.
I'm not a big fan of the "OK government secrets" thing.
I'm pretty convinced that just about every thing that the government tries to keep secret is because it is a morally bad thing that they would be ashamed of if it was made public.
Sure, there are technological secrets, but most of the secrets that they are up in arms about are behavioral secrets.
Personally, think that every government secret that can be outed should be outed, and the people doing the outing should be held harmless. Allow the government to keep its secrets as best it may, but there should be no retribution when they drop the ball and the secret gets out.
For years we have heard "If you have nothing to hide, you should have nothing to worry about" aimed at private citizens. Well what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Khalid El-Masri was kidnapped in Macedonia, not Germany, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri and http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2007/02/07BERLIN242.html
I have no sympathy for Julian Assange, should he somehow face prosecution for these leaks. For the longest time, I knew of WikiLeaks, but had never heard of Assange. Until more recent times, WikiLeaks' message was clear: We are simply to conduit for others to leak documents. I saw them much like a P2P network - people may use the service, but ultimate responsibility lies with the user.
I now feel different. With the Iraq and Afganistan leaks, as well as this one, it is clear to me Assange has fallen in love with his own legend. At least in spirit, WikiLeaks appears to have gotten into the promotion business and crafting a "public image" (and I believe have decided to push an agenda, but I understand that's a contentious point). Had Assange not decided to at the very least not become a celebrity (if not pushing an agenda), I firmly believe the media and government official would be more focused on the source of the link as opposed to being focused on WikiLeaks and Assange.
Assange himself has contributed to painting the target on his own back.
I wrote some of the classified documents on Wikilieaks during my time with the military. I am a civilian now. Much of what I have written is already available to researchers and journalists from the Marine Corps Historical archive in Quantico, Virginia. The Iraq dump contained many significant events from my battalion, but lacked the commanders' comments or the command chronology narrative to tie the events together and put them into perspective. This information is actually available through official sources. What is on Wikileaks has is actually quite limited.
I have two concerns about the fallout to the leak. The first concern is the U.S. may retroactively classify documents currently available to the public, or be less likely to release documents in the future. This will result in a net loss of access to information to the general public. My second concern is the military may become more compartmentalized and soldiers at the small-unit level may no longer have access to the same amount of intelligence information as they previously had. This would be unfortunate because a lot of the young Marines or Soldiers bring a fresh perspective to looking at the raw information and can often connect the dots and find things missed by back-office analysts.
The public has a right to know what the government is doing as long as it doesn't compromise operational security. Within the government there are people pushing to declassify information and make it available. There are others who would like to make everything a secret until the end of time. This latest leak will push the pendulum towards the secret squirrels. I doubt too many service members will want to follow in Pvt. Manning's footsteps, so Mr. Assange probably won't be getting too much new information. Without people sending him leaks, Mr. Assange wouldn't have much of a web site. If the U.S. were smart, they would put up an alternate web site to Wikileaks which would provide declassified versions of government documents and explain why it is important to balance the public's right to know with the need for operational security.
The Valerie Plume Leak was real leak that resulted in lots of people being killed and no one involved was punished. If that was not a priority, I doubt any of this would be.
The Pentagon and other agencies are looking at ways to tighten security, promising increased internal auditing and banning the ability of systems containing classified information to connect to thumb drives or other removable media.
The more you tighten your grip, Gates and Clinton, the more memos will slip through your fingers...
That is all.
Brad Manning is the real leaker. Anyone else could have done Assange's job.
Apparently disclosing the following counts as an act of terrorism according to a certain republican:
* US diplomats spying on UN
* Canadian diplomats asking ExxonMobil and BP to help "kill" U.S. global-warming policies to ensure that "the oil keeps a-flowing" into the U.S.
* Yemen goverment lying to its people on US bombings
* US pressing Germany to not pursue arrest warrants for 13 agents CIA agents. (arrest warrents that the cables describe as "From a judicial standpoint, the facts are clear, and the Munich prosecutor has acted correctly.")
This is stuff that people need to know.
My UID is prime. Hah!
"I have a hard time getting worked up about it - a government that views none of my personal correspondence as confidential really can't bitch when this sort of thing happens."
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/11/28/wikileaks-reaction/
If someone robbed the Federal Reserve of a Billion dollars, and then bragged for 6 months over his intent to buy a Mansion and a Yacht, a government would be considered within their rights
to arrest and extradite him and recover property, right?
These documents are US government property and declaring them as stolen would prevent any legitimate business from posting them, and to take aggressive action against Mr Wikileaks.
(Yes, I'm sure he has a hundred cached sites with this info and they will never all be tracked down....but allowing this to become public record is unacceptable. It is unlikely anyone was surprised by this in any event. If the security was so piss-poor that a nincompoop could steal all this materiel, I'm sure smarter and more subtle spies have been reading through this like the morning paper for years. )
Like the cop told me the other night: "If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide. Now, bend over"
Really, this is fucking awesome. They complain when we the public have secrets, but they claim they need to have their own secrets, look, if you're going to rub my crotch when I go visit my brother or grandma, don't fucking expect any sympathy when you're plotting shit with radical governments and that crap gets out. If you want privacy, give me back mine.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Acutally, as of 29th November Wikileaks have published a grand total of 246 cables, which by my reckoning is not quite the same as a quarter of a million.
It sure looks as if the admiral succeeded, at least as far as the stovepipes separating State Department and the Pentagon are concerned.
Unless I'm much mistaken. this latest batch of raw data also comes straight off SIPRnet ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet just like the Iraq and Afghanistan data), which offers a convenient one-stop shopping opportunity for all things data that is militarily and diplomatically sensitive, up to and including that classified as " secret".
Of course there is the huge advantage of wide and instantaneous dissemination. On the other hand, perhaps disseminating all this data to about 3 million people throughout the US government has some drawbacks too. You know, just to take a totally off-the-wall scenario, if someone loads a couple of years of text data onto a USB stick or a CD and walks out of the building. I wonder how security analysts evaluated that possibility.
Does anyone know of any other large organizations that use such single-point-of-vulnerability systems for sensitive data?
Of course it's easy to second-guess whoever OK'ed this setup, but perhaps now is the time to reconsider its design (e.g. end-to-end encryption so that operators can't read the traffic so easily, and access logging in the sense that you keep a log of who then decrypts what).
Dont ask dont tell is sound?
Really?
Idiot.
Why was all this information in one place where a disgruntled person could get at it?
Who disgruntled that person?
This was not a technological problem. Trying to hold it back with technological measures would be like trying to hold back the tide. (Well, maybe some kind of virtual desktop where the user is never in the same room as the hard disk and no Internet connection. But I'd bet someone on this site of all places will post a way to leak information from that kind of setup, withing minutes of my hitting Submit).
My most fun billable hours are spent dealing with technology, but every time I do a risk assessment something else turns out to be more important.
Let it all be real even!
"Praise with faint damnation".
Seriously, something is way fishy here. Combining a couple parts of other slashdot stories earlier:
Are they seriously saying that half or more of this wasn't public knowledge in the spy community already? Just as a fictional example, couldn't James Bond have dug this info out of people? Are they seriously saying document security was so good this hasn't already trickled around at the cable level?
Are they seriously saying they couldn't do anything to stop this? Screw making Assange a marytr, doesn't that level of Ops kill for a living?
Someone else brought up the Copyright Defense. Wouldn't this be releasing copyrighted info to the tune of 11.6 Billion in fines at the going rate?
What's up with the multi-month head start to the newspapers - "Here's the story that makes Old Media a hero - wanna bid on the exclusives?"
No, this is just a Mikhail Tal grade chess move. So full of quadra twists absolutely everyone misses the real point. If this is so unstoppable a leak, is that the quarterfinal push to shut down the net as we know it?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
These documents weren't top secret to begin with, far from it. 3 000 000 americans already had access to all this data. Even if Iran couldn't have paid a single one of those 3E6 enough money (which I seriously doubt... In before "Maybe they did, maybe this is it"), many of their allies could have. If there is data like that, it's the USA government that has been very neglectable in the first place. Most such people are probably already known in their respective countries. In any case, there was months between USA finding out about the leak and this. USA could have warned such informants already if they wanted to. (It still wouldn't have been nice. It would mean that the wealthy Iranian would have to move out of the country. But I guess that it is a risk he took very willingly and as such shouldn't be used to prevent the release... Though I wonder if he knew that 3 000 000 americans would have access to documents about him? Perhaps he is glad that this leak happened and he found that out.)
WikiLeaks is putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world."
that seems like what the government has been doing since they started these wars anyways!
That just remember me some XFiles episodes ... but in real this time?
I'd much rather the international community be living in a glass house anyway; people are less prone to throw rocks.
We have a more pressing issue. The TSA is putting at risk the lives and freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world.
When we've dealt with that, we can revisit the risk of the increasing irrelevant Wikileaks disclosure.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
Golly, if only Manning had been treated like Alan Turing and driven to suicide... right? I bet you would have been right there with the needle for the hormone therapy, trying to force one of the most brilliant minds of his--and possibly any--generation into a neat little cubbyhole that doesn't make you feel all icky inside.
You realize that homophobic douchbags like yourself very nearly made us lose WWII, don't you? Do you have any idea how close things were? What would have happened if we hadn't broken ULTRA? ...And that a significant number of Arabic-language analysts were drummed out of the DoD in compliance with DADT, significantly weakening our ability to process and understand the vast quantity of SIGINT and HUMINT gathered on a daily basis?
Manning is a criminal, but leave his fucking sexual preference out of it, troll.
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
I think there are pros and cons but discretion should be used in mass publication of any information.
What is the point in damaging international relations because somebody was called a slob?
Will the net effect be less transparency and less communication?
Hello Cruel World
If he hosted music files big brother would have shut his site down by now.
a + 4 interesting? Really mods? For a homophobic attack on gays thinly veiled as "facts"?
If this was any country on our shit list, NYT and the rest of the fawning idiots would be praising WikiLeaks for being defenders of Western civilization. Everyone up in arms is not upset that secrets were revealed; they are upset that the truth makes America look bad.
Well, sorry it takes a leak and a douchy sort of guy to make America rethink it's position as the totally incapable, laughable, and incompetent unilateral policeman of the world. If we had stuck to American jobs and trade, we wouldn't have just blown three trillion dollars on two bullshit wars that accomplished nothing except for putting Iran in prime position to run the region when we are economically incapable of projecting our influence there. We wouldn't be in deep shit because we no longer have a middle class and our living standards are dropping for the first time in our history.
The sort of hubris that led us to kill hundreds of thousands of muslims and spend trillions in response to an attack that cost us 3,000 lives and a few billion dollars (besides pussy fair weather patriots abandoning the stock market) is exactly the sort you can find in these cables. If they went back further, you'd find us saying "Hey, Saddam is better than Khomeini! Nuclear Pakistan is better than Marxist Afghanistan! The Shah is better than a sovereign Iran! Millions of dead Vietnamese are better than Marxist Vietnam! Pinochet is better than Socialist Allende!"
Our allies and the electorate need to know: there are no principles at work here. Just some people who have confused the word democracy with American Corporate Interests.
idiots who have no knowledge of history to know that, american colonies were taking after the roman empire from their art to architecture (even kid's names) and united states government was modeled after the roman empire and senate ?
ignorance at best.
Read radical news here
Don't be rude to people you don't know, even if you aren't face-to-face with them.
Maybe best to tell that to diplomats before they are bad mouthing other people behind their backs?
Anyways, I think that is beside the whole issue. The real issues are those instances where diplomats are ordered to get biometric data on leaders, crack their passwords and encryption mechanisms, search briefcases and offices. Stuff like that.
Btw, I tried fixing the moderators giving you -1 Troll all over the place yesterday. No mod points today, and don't have patience for metamod, but I respect your opinion, for the sake of discussion. I just think it's like selling your soul to a soulless entity. Call it a corporation, call it a country, doesn't matter, it makes you blind to the REAL issues here.
Of course, you have to do a little journalism, some work, to get to the bottom of these papers, some real investigation.
There is nothing anti-American going on here. It was just another poor security decision after 9/11, just like Afghanistan, just like Iraq, just like Patriot Act, just like etc, etc., OR these papers were deliberately opened for access to 3 million workers, and are not that important anyways.
Just don't say you were never warned. These cowboys (republicans) had lots of warnings, and ample time, before shooting themselves in the foot.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
DADT is sound because Manning may have been gay? Your evidence for why he was dismissed is basically that he was an ass. Are all gay people asses? Are they all "erratic?" Are all heteros not erratic? If he wasn't gay this wouldn't have happened? Seems like your saying being gay is the cause of Manning's issues but why isn't it also possible that he was a douche that happened to be gay? Maybe instead of DADT the military should just have stricter standards and get rid of all people like Manning instead of just the gay ones like Manning.
And don't use Gawker as proof for anything.
It was drilled into my head at a young age that if I didn't want people reading something, then I shouldn't write it down. All of these leaked documents were things that people wrote down and then let leak out into the world. If the government didn't want the public to read this stuff then they A) shouldn't have written it and B) should have taken better care to keep it private. The government gets to spy on its citizens, I think it's only fair the citizens get to read what the government has been up to.
I think finding out that the king of one of your neighbors has asked the Big Devil, Source of All Evil, to assist them by removing your blossoming nuclear capability just MIGHT cause one to hold a grudge, don't you?
The Iranians are under no illusions about how their nuclear capability is perceived by neighbouring states, whether they read the telegrams in flagrante delicto or not. That being said, of course it's a useful propaganda tool to stir up the average Iranian citizen.
I don't think grudges are amenable to causality calculus. I think your point treads on institutional infantilism. Dang, the insecure table-pounding Iranian leadership is going to bite their soother in half over these harsh and unexpected words. If the leadership holds a grudge over this, they were shopping for grudges in the first place. For cripes sake, 48% of Quebec is seething to escape from totalitarian bondage.
Do we really need to tip toe around the obvious because the spin department of some aggrieved party is going to pull an infantile hissy fit, playing strictly for optics? Interesting how teenagers think of their parents as The Big Devil and how quickly the grudges are set aside at the first sign of trouble (unless mom is Livia Soprano and dad is worse).
On the Iranian front, we're in serious danger of the Peter principle here. Nuclear states will proliferate until some state bites off more than it can chew and warheads start to go missing. Like teenagers, every budding superpower thinks it can handle hard alcohol. America is not going to admit that these states can handle the responsibility, even if they could.
A perfect recipe for bravado and ambulances at midnight, as everyone in the Middle East justifiably fears.
I certainly hope the wiki leak people are held responsible for the damage this brings about. Giving them a free ride is just plain stupid. Hopefully this makes someone with wet work powers act.
Indeed - what got me was that they asked diplomats to try and get hold of UN members credit card numbers... meaning that the US government are not in cahoots with every and all financial institution and some admin assistant in the Pentagon can't dial up someone's financial transactions on a whim. Conspiracy theorists around the world (and probably a few paranoid schizophrenics) take note!
Stop being corrupt. Seriously. They won't have anything on you if you don't abuse your powers like power-hungry idiots. Don't get mad at them for exposing the truth.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Of course the gov't has a legitimate interest in keeping certain secrets, but at the same time, letting politicians do things without even telling voters about it--let alone taking responsibility--is always going to be abused.
I wish we took a middle route. For example, things could be classified, but with the requirement that they have to be reevaluated every year. Anything the gov't does should be public as soon as it's safe. Currently, it seems like the path of least resistance is to keep anything that's classified secret indefinitely, which is dangerous and wrong.
If classified docs were actually released in a timely way, the government could build trust--if we knew that foreign policy from five years ago was reasonable, then we could be more confident that whatever is happening in secret today is reasonable. As is, we just found out through Wikileaks that Hillary Clinton ordered the state department to spy on a bunch of European diplomats (steal credit card info, frequent flyer numbers, etc). Not long ago, Wikileaks gave us video of American helicopters machine-gunning a photographer in Baghdad; he had been working for Reuters, and some soldiers mistook his camera for "a weapon".
The sad reality: Wikileaks is a necessary institution. It is a blunt instrument, but it is the only effective check we currently have on a government that often hides wrongdoing from us in the name of national security.
Gosh yeah, no need for the public to know that US ally Saudia Arabia is STILL financially supporting Al Queda while at the SAME time urging the US to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. No need to know. No, let the Saudi's play both sides while keeping the masses uninformed.
But we all "knew" this? Yes, but "we" "knew" so many things. Rumors are one thing, facts are another. NOW it is PROVEN and can therefor no longer be denied. Perhaps THIS time when shady deals with Arab nations are made again, this little bit of FACT will force US senators to be a bit more critical.
The US has a VERY long history of a two or even three-faced foreign policy. Claiming to be pro-democracy yet propping up dictarorships of the worsed kind around the globe. Speaking nice about allies like Holland yet having senate approved invasion plans for allied nations. These documents show what America truly thinks. But we don't need to know. No. We need to be kept in the dark, our masters know best and we should obey blindly.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I"m all for whistle blowing in Scandals and in morally ambiguous situations (ie memos saying that some guy was tortured in a foreign country or memos detailing abuses in Iraq Prisons). But lately it seems like Wikileaks is just releasing documents to get some publicity. It is one thing to release leaks, but it is another just to release tons and tons of documents that are not necessarily related to wrong doing. The diplomatic cables are nothing special to me. I would assume every country has similar dialogs so it is no big deal. There's nothing really wrong about any of it for the most part. Maybe there are a couple of tidbits that would have been good to release about specific things. But the overall release just seems to give the us a huge disadvantage in diplomatic relations (since none of the other country documents were released as well). And for no good reason. Even the Iraq documents were too much. Specific Iraq documents showing war time torture offenses, theft of money, etc. would have been fine. But just releasing everything doesn't seem to have a good reason. When I think of whistle blowing I think of exposing illegal/immoral behavior, not just releasing everything for the sake of releasing it. If it was this manning guy I hope they throw the book at him. If he was whistle blowing then I think he still should have lost his job/etc. but maybe not so hard. Releasing every document just seems as a violation of his duty to keep classified information secret for no good reason. He should go to jail for a very long time.
In any case I don't think whistle blowers should be punished if they are really whistle blowing, but then again they probably should get some sort of light punishment. But for someone who is just releasing documents for the hell of it and nothing is classified throw the book at them. I sign a document basically saying I will keep my employer's shit confidential. If he/she is breaking the law, then I can release the stuff to the authorities and in theory I have done the right thing. In reality the authorities are often in bed with the company so I may not. But for normal stuff I wouldn't dream of releasing anything, otherwise it just violates the document I signed. Basically it is a trust thing, if you arbitrarily violate trust then you cannot be trusted with anything. You wouldn't go off airing the dirty laundry of your family usually, unless someone broke the law and even then you may still not go airing it.....
The initial source of the military leaks - Bradley Manning - shows why "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is a sound policy and that Manning should have been dismissed.
DADT was policy and was being enforced at the time Manning was serving. How is it a "sound policy" if it utterly failed in this situation?
I don't know if this happened to many other people, but when I was reading through the leaks, I thought: It's good that my government knows all this stuff and keeps track of it. I think I've grown so used to thinking of the USA as being run by fools that it was actually a bit comforting to see that they actually do research and know stuff. Too bad that doesn't stop them acting foolishly!
I seen this kind of comments here already. From my viewpoint it seems you're Government knows what they're doing when it comes to foreign 'relationships', which I suppose is because that's all it matters to them.
They already got American people by the balls, so why care for them.
If they would have used a ke$ha CD it wouldn't have taken long before they would have gotten caught.
Dear God.
Is... is this a joke? A Gay leaked the files, therefore Gays should be banned from the military? Seriously? This is modded +5?
What is wrong with people. I am fucking sickened.
Here is a novel idea. If you want to make a deal with one country that is going to piss off the rest of the world ... DON'T.
Nothing I have seen so far really paints the US in a bad light. The stuff about China not supporting North Korea puts China in a position where they have to either support or drop N Korea. If anything really looks bad for the US Government it will most likely impact previous US administrations.
I think this release came from the Obama administration. I think it is an attempt to break stalemates, particularly relating to China and North Korea.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The fact that this has been modded up "interesting" makes me slightly nervous that the batshit population has infected /.
It should be marked troll and forgotten about - however, of course people spouting bigoted transphobic nonsense aren't trolling, just those who insult Apple/Microsoft!
Really, Slashdot?
This is not an attack on America, or "the international community", it is even bigger than that: it is a declaration of war on the nation-state itself. What we’re really watching here is the life and death struggle of the nation state vs. “the Matrix”. The war is heating up, and so far the Matrix seems to be winning pretty easily. If the Matrix can weather the global collapse of nation states, the world should look very different in a few decades. I’m imagining technologies like desktop manufacturing, “metacurrencies”, vertical farming, off-grid solar power and social networks allowing entirely new forms of human social organization to emerge. I'm sure the tech-savvy, "open source" readership of Slashdot can grasp the implications of all this, and will choose the winning side. The last piece of the puzzle that is still missing is an “open source religion”, which is a progressive, spiritual vision of where this is all taking us. I like to call my vision the “Eco-Matrix”, which I see as a more constructive alternative to the al Qaeda model. Maybe I’m a dreamer, but if enough people dream something it has a way of becoming a reality. I've written more about the Eco-Matrix here: http://thesingularitarian.blogspot.com/2010/11/imagining-eco-matrix.html
"The files are all SECRET rather than TOP SECRET" ..
most of the cables are not even marked secret
"An honest whistle-blower who reveals true wrongdoing will lose their job when found out, but they won't be prosecuted for releasing the information."
again, are you kidding ????
Wrong. We hire politicians to please the greatest number of people possible, and that requires being two-faced. Once you accept that, politics starts making sense.
"Homophobia" is just a stick for angry people like yourself to try an suppress dissent. The president of the American Psychological Association at the time when homosexuality was dropped as a disorder ("pending further research") was Nicholas Cummings. Cummings has said his profession was characterized by:
"intellectual arrogance and zealotry" and homophobia as intimidation is one of the the most pervasive techniques used to silence anyone who would disagree with the gay activist agenda..sadly, I have seen militant gay men and lesbians-- who I am certain do not represent all homosexuals, and who themselves have been the object of derision and oppression-- once gaining freedom and power, then becoming oppressors themselves."
Gender Identity Disorder of course still remains a recognized disorder (for the time being) and Manning really wasn't military service material.
The "gay suicide" epidemic is also mostly a media creation. Youth suicides are down drastically from the 80's and 90's with only a mild uptick in early 2000's. There are less than 5k suicides of people under 25 - and none of them fill out questionnaires about their sexuality before dying so the "gay suicide epidemic" is not substantiated (and a video that recently went viral showed a 14 yr old boy at a school board meeting lamenting
the "gay holocaust" of 6 million gay suicide deaths a year - preposterous of course). Some have tried to use (as evidence) half-way house and drug rehab surveys that suggested homosexuals in the surveys had more suicidal ideation but that was a small sample of an extreme population.
As for the "gay linguists" - they were discharged before even finishing training and were not even translators yet.
As a Congressional Research Service report made clear, homosexuals discharged from the military have decreased in numbers and most of the homosexuals discharged (almost 100% "honorably") "out" themselves most of the time because they want to get out of the military.
DADT - The Law And Military Policy On Same Sex Behavior"
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/150775.pdf
The US is probably the only country that combined diplomacy and military intelligence into one network (SIRPNet) that is completely accessible by far more than 100.000 people worldwide. They therefore put usability far above the need for security.
Was this decision because of 9/11 and the complaint that there was a lack of communication amongst intelligence agencies?
Dont ask dont tell is sound?
Really?
Idiot.
How is this post "insightful" in any meaning of the term?
All I see is a personal attack (i.e. flamebait).
No, this is evidence that "people with mental health issues" shouldn't be given access to confidential materials. It has NOTHING to do with don't ask don't tell and EVERYTHING to do with someone who is (for whatever reason) likely mentally ill.
Gender Identity Disorder *can* lead to erratic behavior and other issues that would make someone unfit for military service. However, so could any number of other issues that have nothing to do with sexual orientation or gender identity. There are many people who are gender dysphoric, yet have robust mental health and who, with treatment that addresses the issue (usually transitioning to their target gender/social presentation) don't have more issues than many people have from any number of other issues.
Ditto for sexual orientation - in fact, I'll say that a culture that demonizes people just because of the gender of the consenting adults they are attracted to probably makes things RATHER worse. I can't imagine what it would be like to have to lie about who I am (swap the gender pronoun of my partners, for example) or hide who I am - but I can bet that it must be incredibly fucking difficult.
Frankly, the fact that you frame your entire argument as if it supports don't ask don't tell says to me that you have an axe to grind with homosexuals serving in the military, period and this is just more grist for that particular mill of yours.
Anyway, the idea is that people who are unreliable - for WHATEVER underlying reason - should not be put into positions where that can be an issue. The place where we disagree is that you seem to think that being homosexual or transgender in and of itself makes someone unreliable, and I think that's absolute horseshit.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
People like you sicken me. You keep posting the same links, grasping at any straws to try and prove you are right.
Meanwhile, we do not need links - we have history showing us that degradation of any social class, whether they be black, women, or gays, will be overcome despite idiots like yourself trying to justify their pitiful existence.
In terms that someone browsing Slashdot might prefer, you are obsolete and your ideas are inefficient and wrong. Soon you will be as important to the general population as Windows 3.1 is - something to mock, to snicker at, and to wonder how we could have survived with things like that impeding progress.
Yup, and did you see his photo? I knew that giving white people guns would be the end of us all!
> Why should a diplomat's views on the quality of leadership of another country become public info?
There are only two scenarios that come to mind. (1) the later of Fifty years after the event or one year after the diplomat's death, or (2) when those views seriously inform the government on a position which later becomes an area of national controversy where there is legitimate reason to believe the government is deceiving or has deceived its people.
In the first case, releasing the information preserves history. Our history books are wrong--all it takes is one look at witness's statements in a crime and one look at what actually happened, or one listen to pro-Palestine and pro-Israel folks on the same peace treaty, to realize that everything is greatly colored by one's point of view. The more information we have about an event--especially the kind of event considered in these cables--the better we know what our world has been.
In the second case, the government is attempting to hoodwink its people. The people's first defense should be, if they already have evidence to show a government cover-up, some kind of legal action for the equivalent of discovery, but more carefully regulated.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
These people run our world. To understand, we need to know how they work. If you could wish for the next countries diplomatic papers.. Who'd you wish for? China? Russia? Switzerland?
Remember folks, those in power will always condemn anything that exposes or embarrasses them.
Good journalists expose abuses of power and so hold the powerful to account, they act as a 'fourth estate'. e.g. de Spiegel
Bad journalists peddle the words of those in power e.g. BBC news, New York Times
Whether you think Wikileaks is good or evil isn't important, it doesn't matter, it is negligible, the cables are now part of the public domain and it is their contents that are the real news story.
Why is arguing against homosexuals being able to openly serve their country so important to you?
I mean, I know a lot of people who are kinda icked out by gay folks, but none of them go to any kind of effort to search out documentation to back up their being icked out or anything; it just isn't THAT important to them. In fact, most of the ones who I know who would preface things like "well, it kinda icks me out" or anything like that are actually in favor of same-sex marriages and repealing don't ask don't tell because they don't really think that would hurt them in any way.
So when I run across someone who seems to really be up in arms about it, I have to ask: why is it important to you?
Full disclosure for me: I work in a major university doing social psychology research and behavioral interventions aimed at reducing sexual risk-taking behavior amongst primarily LGBTQ youth; one of the key things we've found is that LGBTQ youth who are in environments that are less stigmatizing of their orientation and identity tend to behave in ways that are much less risky; I want the kids to play safe, so for me, actively trying to make the world more accepting will help accomplish this. What's your story?
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
> We hire politicians to be upfront and honest. We don't hire them to be two faced.
Here, we're talking about diplomats, not politicians. Diplomats have to be political, but they're not what we think of as politicians in the US, because we think of politicians as presidents and Congressmen.
And presidents and Congressmen don't get elected based on statesmanship, truth-telling, or even (directly) political connections sufficient to get an appointment (like ambassadors).
Presidents and Congressment get elected on the basis, primarily, of being able to avoid saying anything substantive--if you can avoid saying anything substantive, then it is harder to attack you. And attack ads are the most effective kind. It's a horrible fact, one that does much to defeat the ideals of democracy at the heart of our government, but it is a fact.
Fortunately, a lot of Congressmen (and the President) are decent people, even if one disagrees with them. They are decent people, but that's not what they get elected for.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
wikileaks is the savor of the usa. they expose are government for the duchbages they truly are hopefully enough to the point the sheeple get these 2 party out of power and start over. and we start electing people we believe can do the job again installed of 1 of 2 of the same type just spouting different lies. of course of korea keeps up what there doing we are looking at world war 3 anyways. rember this is how the first 2 started it was alot of different country's in fighting. we are blowing up sand people and the korens blowing up themselfs again.cuba and the sand people are in a never ending civel war and we are involved. people call the usa world police but when you try to police the world it only makes thre problems your problem and wala world war.
> People who are abusing their powers will suffer. People who do dirty deeds and want clean hands will suffer. People who believe that their position protects them from personal responsibility will suffer.
And war could start in Korea, as China's position to us (that they are ready to support reunification) could make the dictator over their upset in a way which undermines China's negotiating power with Korea at a time when that power could prevent a shooting war. For example.
I wonder if some of these touchier releases come from having Harold Koh as legal counsel to State, or whether he wrote his note refusing to identify specific areas that could cost lives under protest.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
If it is permissible for the media to knowingly accept stolen material and then publish it, what is to stop them from knowingly accepting and publishing your personal information, say your medical records, or credit card information. The whole notion of freedom of the press assumes that the press acts honourably in it's pursuits. Just because someone or some organisation can do something does not mean they should do something. The question is whether or not Wikileaks acted responsibly once they received the illegally obtained documents. If they did not, then they should be held accountable.
Now people may argue over what acting responsibly may entail, but I'm pretty sure if it was their personal private information, say medical records or tax records that had been obtained illegally, the general concensus would be that whoever reported it should be held accountable. Why not for illegally obtained government records that are also not handled responsibly?
I feel ashamed about the wikileaks.
I was a old time supporter but now not any more.
What we are seeing are true face cable that mean to be confidential.
And the world still is a ugly world. And US is not better or worse from any $country.
The problem is now that it will look that US has a lot of prejudice and bad mouthing while DictarshiT countries will seem 'nice'.
I do not believe US is a Saint, but it is the Less Evil, and when the shi---t cames the world always call for us.
(haiti,Earthquakes,etc)
Wikileaks cables reveal China 'ready to abandon North Korea'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/wikileaks-cables-china-reunified-korea
IMO this is the kind of information that shouldn't be leaked. By revealing this it could further agitate North Korea and it also forces China to take a stand much earlier when it could've worked under the radar to address the issue.
Not a single word of denial from the government
We cannot solve problems with the same thinking that got us there - A Einstein(paraphrased)
I'm going to work tomorrow as a diplomat like some /.'er suggest . Transparent is the word of the day. So here will be my first diplomatic words to boss man. "Boss, you're a hairy ape who is dumber than a box of rocks. You should just resign your position and let the goldfish in the front lobby take over."
I'm sure these diplomatic responses will do wonders for our relationship and I'll get that raise I've been wanting. I might even try it on my wife when she makes at one special dish that I really don't like too much but is filling. "He babe this food is terrible". And of course I'm sure every Diplomat in this world would benefit greatly from this new sense of truth and openness.
Maybe we should be regretting all that shit our diplomats were talking about world leaders, instead. Seems like that might be more productive.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
ironically the perpetrators of this filth, are not those 'eurofag socialists'. they are precisely the 'american freemarketers'.
Read radical news here
Does the public (A PERSON) have the right to know when: Stupidity rules decision making, Security (TS/SBI+) is used to hide wrong-doing and criminal activity, and/or death, destruction, and economic collapses have far more private-interest, than national security. Wikileaks tells US, EU, RU, CN, Arab and Persian citizens/people how totally fycked-up are their governments.
Wikileaks says that folks are good and gullible around the world, and leaders globally should be held accountable for their actions.
Wikileaks should be protected by The USA Constitution as a great source of truth, because the US and global press/news is totally pwned by dogmatic irrational plutocrats.
Save Wikileaks in the interest of all humanity and integrity in governments, religions, militaries....
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
This is playing out like a witch hunt from the middle ages:
'crime'
A few people set up web site to publish anonymous leaks
The principle is so simple that the actual act of publishing could have been done without any human intervention
punishment
Step 1- 'shoot the messenger': blame the site holders for the outrage over the contents of leaks
Step 2- destroy the character: engineer drawn out rape accusation on creator of site, make sure it gets widespread coverage. Characterise creator of site as eccentric, allege recklessness and life endangerment.
Step 3- isolate: remove visas, funding, persuade internet service providers to reject hosting. Coerce media sources towards negative stories on site.
Step 4- characterise as dangerous: accuse of being terrorist organisation, of 'attacking' the host country and the whole world.
Step 5- presumably burned at the stake?
An amazingly poisonous reaction to a non-profit site that essentially moves data from a USB stick onto a web server anonymously, a triumph for tribalism over common sense.
AND THE STATE DEPARTMENT HAS DONE NOTHING TO RECTIFY THE SITUATION !
Hillary ... buh-bye !!!
I scrubbed the USB ports, the secondary IDE and any other port we were directed to off of motherboards at one custom PC assembly place. This means removing the connectors and destroying easy connection to the traces buy scraping or dremeling them off.
There are several components that can be removed on some motherboards to prevent external connection and if you have the motherboard manufacturers cooperation you can find the pins to destroy on the chips or remove the chips and any other components needed. When directed to we removed components, traces, cut the pins off of chips. I assume the manufacturers were enthusiastic about providing such valuable information.
After testing all of the areas we worked and any engineering directed us to were potted. Once that is secured then all cabling is potted at the ends. The cables were something special but I never got to look inside, they were smooth thick ribbon cables. The potting seemed be a fiber and alumina filled epoxy resin.
Then the case is secured through various means and the anti-tamper switch is activated in the custom bios.
When a board would get toasted we'd see how difficult it was to remove the potting and it would pull parts of the board off.
This was the lowest level. There were higher ones that used custom motherboards and cases. They did not have any of the external ports except what was specified. The entire board was potted except for power, processor, harddrive and a few other places.
Video was usually on board, if not the card was potted in and a pop rivet was used instead of a screw.
It may or may not have been some government order but there was nothing classified.
What country are you from? Your opinion of politicians doesn't bear any resemblance to any I know.
An argument can be made that Manning should have been denied security clearance for being unstable, but what does that have to do with DADT?
I can probably find a few thousand violent, unstable men who are just as unworthy of security clearance and yet quite straight. I can probably find a few thousand homosexuals with whom you could trust the secrets of every nation on this planet.
My point being, you're injecting DADT in an argument where it does not belong, without sufficient proof to show that "gays are unstable, hence that's another point against Manning having security clearance". Also known as a non sequitur fallacy.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
it is appalling that you see 'confessions' that you are wanting to see. it seems my response is irrelevant. i bet you saw a few more confessions in this post too. suit yourself.
Read radical news here
Wow. A perceptive person among a flock of the blind. Good for you. That's a very hard thing to achieve these days.
But I would suggest that you are off just a bit. (Seeing as the U.S. isn't managed by the U.S.)
As always, it is profitable to apply the age-old wisdom of asking; "Who Benefits?"
Wikileaks is Israel.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/11/27/gordon-duff-wikileak-predictions-sticking-my-neck-out-2/
-FL
Come on! Is EVERYBODY asleep today? The spy rings are not a fantasy; they're documented right out there in the open. The blackmail via child prostitution rings in Washington are not a fantasy; they're documented right out there in the open. The Zionist machinations to manipulate the U.S. and the world to achieve their own ends are not a fantasy; TONS of that shit is right out there in the open, documented. Just because it's done at a whisper doesn't make it not there. Just because the term, "Sayanem" has been scrubbed from Wikipedia doesn't make it not there.
For goodness sake. The Israeli press even says it right out loud:
As always, it is profitable to apply the age-old wisdom of asking; "Who Benefits?"
Wikileaks is Israel.
There is a TON of information available on this subject, but you are not going to hear it on your TV. The article below summed it up before it happened. . .
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/11/27/gordon-duff-wikileak-predictions-sticking-my-neck-out-2/
-FL
You say that Wikileaks isn't putting anyone at risk, but actions have consequences. If tensions in the Middle East escalate because the views of the Saudi Government (and others) has been made public with regards to Iran, isn't that putting people at risk? Sure the Iranian government may have already been aware, but what about the people on the street? What if some extremest uses this to say that the Saudis are in bed with the West and plan attacks against the Saudis? What about Yemen? The government was quietly helping the US, even though the people are definitely anti-US. Now that the information is leaked, how much support will the US get from the Yemen government? Will the government still continue to help or will it follow the will of its people? China though North Korea was getting to big for its britches. However, given that being made public and now the tension between North and South Korea, will China reinforce its ties with the North to safe face?
Actions have consequences and those consequences affect the lives of people abroad and in the US.
It does not matter if its a few hundred, a few thousand or a few million. The cable leaks reveal the identity of intelligence sources. These intelligence sources are innocent civilians whose lives are now in danger or ruined because of Assanges decision to leak.
In some cases their families lives are also ruined. Men, women and children who will have to change their identity and live on the run, or never see one another again, because foreign governments around the world now know they worked with the US government.
What did they ever do to Assange? If Assange's leaks theaten hundeds of lives then it's not worth it. I suspect these leaks cause even more damage because now people will be afraid to work with the US government and afraid to surrender out of fear that someday soon in the future Julian Assange will reveal their identity.
Revealing the identity of an intelligence source is one of the worst things you can ever do. It's one of the worst forms of snitching there is when you claim to be on the side of civilians then you have to be on the side of intelligence sources, not enemy combatants and soldiers.
Assange is making himself into an enemy combatant. He is passively assisting the enemy by revealing intelligence sources.
And if it's true that intelligence agencies around the world already know this and then some then it further diminishes the effectiveness of the intelligence agencies who wont be able to find anyone who will want to work with them. It will reach a point where people will rather die than work with US Intelligence.
Yes theres 100,000 dead as a result of the war. Those 100,000 are mostly enemy combatants, terrorists, fighters, and some of them are civilians.
The people Julian Assange is putting are risk are 100% civilian. It's not the same.
I see your confessions because they are there. You, on the other hand, "see" your 99% figure because you want it to be true. You're trying to project your dishonesty onto me.
The only thing that is "appalling" to you is the fact that you weren't allowed to get away with lying.
You don't know anything about what's in the documents.
Your "99%" figure is something you invented, and you're throwing a temper tantrum because you were reminded of that fact.
You agree with me. You have no choice.
"3. (S) The Baku businessman is a UK-educated engineer from a
prominent Pre-Revolution Isfahan family, and formerly owned a
large factory in Iran. He is a former national fencing
champion of Iran. former President of the Iran Fencing
Association, and Vice-President of an Azerbaijan sports
association. He has been based in Baku for more than ten
years, working primarily as a sub-contractor to BP and the
Cape Industrial Services company. While his oil services
company includes an insulation division that may be in
competition with INSULTEC, source has provided "inside"
information on many other Iranian issues (including
comprehensive data on the status of new Iranian oil refinery
construction) that does not relate to his private interests
in any way.
4. (S) Note: A quick google check revealed several companies
with the name INSULTEC in the title - these may or not be
affiliated. Based on the information provided by source
(currently in Iran, where he frequently travels), one
possible candidate could be "INSULTEC Chitral Ltd." End
Note.
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable...09BAKU179.html
This all but names the intelligence source. How much more evidence do you need that Julian Assange is putting lives at risk? READ THE DOCUMENTS!
Well, at a minimum, someone *in* the government is being less than diligent with regard to secrecy.
The fact that people insist on referring to these messages as "cables" is a strong indicator of how out of touch certain party are. It's too much to expect them to use any kind of modern security measures, or even to know about them. The security of every one of these documents was compromised upon being committed to any medium in clear text.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/03/09BAKU179.html
Thank your hero Julian Assange for putting this businessmans life at risk.
I don't know how you can be any more specific.
"3. (S) The Baku businessman is a UK-educated engineer from a
prominent Pre-Revolution Isfahan family, and formerly owned a
large factory in Iran. He is a former national fencing
champion of Iran. former President of the Iran Fencing
Association, and Vice-President of an Azerbaijan sports
association. He has been based in Baku for more than ten
years, working primarily as a sub-contractor to BP and the
Cape Industrial Services company. While his oil services
company includes an insulation division that may be in
competition with INSULTEC, source has provided "inside"
information on many other Iranian issues (including
comprehensive data on the status of new Iranian oil refinery
construction) that does not relate to his private interests
in any way.
4. (S) Note: A quick google check revealed several companies
with the name INSULTEC in the title - these may or not be
affiliated. Based on the information provided by source
(currently in Iran, where he frequently travels), one
possible candidate could be "INSULTEC Chitral Ltd." End
Note.
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable...09BAKU179.html
The credibility of the U.S.A. Federal Goverment is obileterated in one stroke.
Now the people of the world and the U.S.A. can see the U.S.A. and themselves for what they are.
As for the peoples of the U.S.A., civil war is called for.
The current Perpertrator Barak Hussain Obama and others of his liking in the Federal Govermment of the U.S.A. are targeted.
Happy killing
"3. (S) The Baku businessman is a UK-educated engineer from a
prominent Pre-Revolution Isfahan family, and formerly owned a
large factory in Iran. He is a former national fencing
champion of Iran. former President of the Iran Fencing
Association, and Vice-President of an Azerbaijan sports
association. He has been based in Baku for more than ten
years, working primarily as a sub-contractor to BP and the
Cape Industrial Services company. While his oil services
company includes an insulation division that may be in
competition with INSULTEC, source has provided "inside"
information on many other Iranian issues (including
comprehensive data on the status of new Iranian oil refinery
construction) that does not relate to his private interests
in any way.
4. (S) Note: A quick google check revealed several companies
with the name INSULTEC in the title - these may or not be
affiliated. Based on the information provided by source
(currently in Iran, where he frequently travels), one
possible candidate could be "INSULTEC Chitral Ltd." End
Note.
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable...09BAKU179.html
I think you mean Valerie Plame.
Nobody was killed as a result of that leak, only her identity as a CIA operative was revealed.
The identity of the leaker was Richard Armitage, who managed to get immunity from prosecution for cooperating with the investigation (which did result in a perjury and obstruction conviction for Scooter Libby, who I suspect was a fall guy). He claims that he didn't know she was an operative, and that the prosecution was lenient because he was forthcoming. I, however, suspect that it went something like this:
Prosecutor: Mr Armitage, in exchange for your cooperation, no charges will be filed against you.
Armitage: Sounds great, I'll cooperate.
Prosecutor: Do you know who leaked Valerie Plames identity?
Armitage: I did, sucker!
that guarantees the leaks from Wikileaks are legitimate and not some delusional writing from Sarah Palin?
These were done on computer, not with paper and crayon.
That's all the proof you need.
Didn't she have an e-mail account awhile back?
Consider how the current Israeli government has been caught out with members of death squad pretending to be citizens of allied nations which now still allied with Israel. That should put things in perspective that a "spark" isn't going to do much at all to diplomatic relations anywhere unless it's around the size of an exploding nuke especially since the USA is liked far more than Israel so can get away with a lot more without the "damage" you imagine will happen.
... ever expects chickens to come home to roost.
Especially not in multiple Tysons.
(one Tyson is the equivalent of the number of chickens produced in one year, for Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN))
Enjoy your chicken nuggets.
A little dirt is exposed. You shoot the messenger. You fucking coward. You don't deserve democracy, you deserve a pair of golden handcuffs. You are an enabler of evil.
(Yes, I do realise the irony of AC calling someone a coward)
"WikiLeaks is putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world."
How brainwashed do you have to be to believe this utter bullshit?
Compared to what previous governments have done and the current one still does, to a lesser degree, im just hopelessly demoralized that these acts of a "civilized society" leaks don't have even half the impact other leaks such as the Pentagon papers during the vietnam conflict/war had.
It is mind shocking, it makes me scream inside how the fuck people people get so passive after being lied, abused, have their well being in life dimished or taken away.
If the actions of Governments as noted will cause "fallout" - perhaps consideration should be made to not do such actions in the 1st place?
One of the strongest indicators that it's a false flag operation is that Assange and WikiLeaks are still alive and kicking. Had he crossed U.S. intelligence, he'd have disappeared by now.
Interesting point! I didn't think of it that way. Of course, I doubt that Angela Merkel's credit card, that she uses on Amazon.de, for example, has "Angela Merkel" as the account name. I really don't know how it works, but I can imagine that governments have a rotating set of pseudonym accounts for the private use of diplomats. So maybe it's not a matter of having the records, but a matter of knowing which records match which diplomats.
(If you want to get a Score 5: Informative comment, you have to lie and include a link to the evidence that proves you are lying.)
THE order by Hillary Clinton
demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications.
It called for detailed biometric information "on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders" as well as intelligence on Ban's "management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat". A parallel intelligence directive sent to diplomats in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi said biometric data included DNA, fingerprints and iris scans.
Washington also wanted credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and even frequent-flyer account numbers for UN figures and "biographic and biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives".
UN afterall is land used by the United Nations Headquarters is considered international territory they have a status of Embassy
These invasion plans, approved by the senate, are specific for Holland because it holds the international supreme court. If ever an American is put on trial for war-crimes, the US will invade an allied friendly nation with full military force.
That says a LOT about the US of A.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There are many Americans very happy with the outing of these particular communications. We now know why China attacked Google for example. I'm unsure how many informants will actually be compromised by the leaks either, for sure the pentagon admited none were compromised by the Iraq War Diary. There will however be one national security interest seriously compromised by the leak : SIGINT. These leaks will give foreign governments a far clearer picture of America's intelligence gathering capabilities and limitations, at least at the level "secret" that's available to diplomats and negotiators.
In any case, there is a long term solution to the leaks problem, simply create stronger internal facilities for review. For example, we could give every senator an aid with a top secret security clearance. Any U.S. soldier could request that one or more of these aids reviews specific classified documents. Yes, the aid might need to physically walk over to the pentagon to gain access, plus he'd be briefed on what he's allowed to tell his senator, but the simple fact that the aid works for the senator, not the pentagon, would usually make all the difference to someone like Manning.
I think it's Stephen Covey who said something like : never say things about someone that you wouldn't say if he was in front of you. ...
I guess it's time for US diplomacy to read the 7 habits
"that guarantees the leaks from Wikileaks are legitimate and not some delusional writing from Sarah Palin?
These were done on computer, not with paper and crayon.
That's all the proof you need."
That's a bit harsh. I was going to say it's because it wasn't all done on Twitter.
The post claims that a quarter million diplomatic documents published to the world, but in reality, only 226 (out of 251287) documents have actually been published so far.
hey, guess what? the american idiot will vote for a Tea Party President in the next years, so... I see nuke war in the horizon, thanks USA voters!!
You really do believe that, as shown by the fact that you consciously emulate her with every post you make.
For example, you emulated Palin's dishonesty by trying to link my position with approval of her and her politics.
Are you going to support your 99% claim now, or are you going to scream another confession?
Wikileaks claims some sense of moral superiority by releasing this data to show us America's flaws, but this is only possible due to our strengths. We have a free and open society, and value free speech. If WikiLeaks released this level of documentation from Russia, Iran, or some other more repressive society, their people would be dying or disappearing. If they are truly interested in making the world better by releasing classified information, they should release Iranian documents on their nuclear program or Russian documents showing their government's organized repression of dissidents and open press. But they won't, because they want to remain alive.
im doing that. well spotted !! how could i not see myself !!! i confess i confess !!
Read radical news here
How can you call intelligence sources 'innocent civilians'?
I'd vote for Area-51 and Rosewell :)
:: There is no light at the end of a tunnel. There is a tunnel after a tunnel : Thom Y.
Your rambling about "secret pardons" is shown for the ignorance it is by a simple google search. Try a search for "pardon bush iran conta" and the top link is link to the New York Times with the heading "Bush Pardons 6 in Iran Affair, Aborting a Weinberger Trial". You really have no clue so please stop pretending I'm making things up.
Time to throw this back in your face after your accusation about me making things up over the pardons - "It's little inaccuracies like that which makes most of everything else you say seem so unbelievable".
Your action of calling for the death of somebody that committed a relatively trivial crime and then pretending you didn't sickens me. I suggest less mindless cheerleading and less of a royalist attitude and something more closely resembling adult behaviour. That "might makes right" attitude is why we have problems with countries that practice it, such as China and Iran. You may pretend to be a patriot by cheering on your political team right or wrong and calling for the deaths of those that embarrass the state but you are really pushing to create a little piece of Iran at home (complete with revisionist history when reality is inconvenient). As for the "everyone else", you'll find that you are a rarity and almost everyone in the entire western world values the rule of law over the rule of force.