Slashdot Mirror
US Government Strategy To Prevent Leaks Is Leaked
Jake writes "The US government's 11-page document on how to get various US government agencies to prevent future leaks has been leaked. It doesn't get any more ironic than that. After the various leaks made by WikiLeaks, the US government understandably wants to limit the number of potential leaks, but their strategy apparently isn't implemented yet. It's clear that the Obama administration is telling federal agencies to take aggressive steps to prevent further leaks. According to the document, these steps include figuring out which employees might be most inclined to leak classified documents, by using psychiatrists and sociologists to assess their trustworthiness. The memo also suggests that agencies require all their employees to report any contacts with members of the news media they may have."
I think next they should try reverse psychology. Works well with me 5 year old.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/OMB_Wiki_memo.pdf
Encryption algorithms are also public, that doesn't mean they won't work.
Actually, it is. I just know how inevitable it is that some dipwad who doesn't know what irony is will post that it's not, so I thought I'd go ahead and get it out of the way. Please proceed with your regular comments!
This all makes sense. Because simply reporting any media contact isn't a violation of any of their basic human rights. It's perfectly reasonable that who they talk to be monitored, and all government employees should be subjected to regular mental health screening. They have to make sure these people are the right type and not some crackpots who will leak information that the government doesn't want its people to know.
Silly that anyone would write an article about this, as if it shouldn't be common practice anyhow. They should just go ahead and make these things mandatory for the entire populace!
I'm sure that if anyone were falsely accused of being a leaker, they would no doubt have swift access to just recourse. This is the West, after all.
If someone ends up in a such a situation and reports the contrary, their testimony is likely tainted because they are a dirty rotten leaker.
Ultimately, we are all safer somehow.
These stories are free but worth money.
Just wait. This is going to backfire. Federal employees are going to resent being treated as suspected criminals and probably will react negatively to the profiling and suspicion.
...to stop the leaks after the first leaks, have just been sacked. The leaks will now be stopped in a new, and completely different fashion.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
I love knowing how America keeps creeping to become more and more like the Soviet Union with a similar kind of loss of privileges.
Where the debate really needs to be centered is on two things:
By far and away too much is classified material. I don't mind having things like the locations of military units and certain other generally time-sensitive information being classified, but there certainly is a whole bunch of stuff being labeled as classified material mainly because it would be embarrassing if the information was disclosed. That stuff should not be protected under an official secrets act and I wish that a harder evaluation would result in trying to decide what exactly should be considered classified material in the first place.
Speculating that the King of Saudi Arabia is an ass should not be considered an official secret.
How about the United States do a house cleaning on their policies? And how about the United States go back to what the constitution was all about? Maybe then you would not need to worry about this crap! Oh wait that's too simple and all of the agencies would be out of a job. Can't have that now can we!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
It's a standard used for credit card information that requires any computer on a secure network to have removable storage devices disabled (among other things). Having it implemented on the classified network would have prevented the WikiLeaks leak. Not having it implemented on the classified network borders on criminal negligence.
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/documents.php?category=saqs
I do some work for a military contractor and the sheer amount of classified information that's flying around is simply beyond astounding... A lot of things that are banal and boring are marked Top Secret in order to prevent sub-contractors from hiring foreign workers... It's not that the information itself is or needs to be Top Secret but marking it so is a way to keep jobs local...
Wikileaks does not 'leak' anything. They report leaks.
not doing things that would hang heavy on the conscience of people, causing them to leak stuff ? not betraying them ? not misusing their trust ?
.... basically, they are being deceived with shallow excuses and justifications.
then the need for finding 'trustworthy' people who would have to go through security audits, psychiatrists, sociologists, would be at a minimum.
we are not the age of empires in which dumb lackeys blindly do whatever they are ordered to. people of this age, have conscience compared to the dark ages. you wont be able to make them do evil shit, and then keep their mouth shut, if there is a way for them to blow the whistle.
but maybe the problem in the recruitment strategy. touting being a democracy that protects freedom, you recruit people to that cause, with patriotic lines. then, they discover that, what they do actually go against what they had had joined the force for
only dumb enough people would buy bullshit. the rest, will leak, regardless of whether you employ armies of psychiatrists, or not.
Read radical news here
From Wikipedia (which agrees with my military background)
Unclassified
Technically not a classification level, but is used for government documents that do not have a classification listed above. Such documents can sometimes be viewed by those without security clearance.
This document is at the same level as a menu from the kitchen of the White House. Show me documents with Noforn or better and then I'll be concerned.
...post-WikiLeaks environment.
Because this sort of thing never happened before WikiLeaks? This just shows that all their security responses are purely reactive and never pro-active, just like the TSA. The threats have always existed, it just goes to show that whoever has been doing risk analysis for these agencies have been completely clueless and still doesn't get it. Although, if anything, by trying to fix the causes and just blaming Wikileaks there is the benefit of at least getting a stronger system which is why I agree with what Wikileaks did.
Sure, as long as politicians submit to tests assessing their sanity, compassion. raionality and penchant to accumulate power and trample civil rights.
Yes, because a leaker is going to report his own activities. All this does is punish who they consider the "honest" people. Which I suppose will just lead to more disgruntled workers, which is good for the people.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
From the summary...
"...these steps include figuring out which employees might be most inclined to leak classified documents, by using psychiatrists and sociologists to assess their trustworthiness. "
McCarthy, Stalin, and Mao would all be proud. Those who do not, fundamentally, "think right", will be treated... differently. Never mind the fact that screening of the type were talking about here has a dismal record at predicting behavior. It was designed to predict pathology. The two are, believe it or not, rather different things.
samzenpus, doesn't understand commas.
...and that is through making sure it is as homogenious as possible through the use of psychiatrists and sociologists to judge character. The government is of the people indeed.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
What happens when you are married to one, or related to one. You have to file a daily report or do they just fire these people. Manning got this because he had unfettered BULK access to information. Focus on how the technology works.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
If the government sector continues to increase it's percentage of the total employment pie, soon there will be nobody outside of government to leak to. Problem solved!
Everything and its opposite is true. Get used to it.
in light of what Wikileaks has shown, the US Government is doing a lot of things that are not in the best interests of their Citizens.
U.S. Government hires the over educated, at below market rates, and wonders why they "leak", steal and sell at the drop of a hat on todays broadcast...
I call them inquisitors
If the source code for a super secret firewall program designed to protect secrets were leaked, THAT would be ironic. This is an unclassified memo.
or perhaps the number one thing the government could do to prevent leaks in future would be to... i don't know... *NOT DO ILLEGAL SHIT* or, and i know i'm way off base, *NOT SUBVERT ITS OWN IDEALS OF FREEDOM AND EQUALITY*
But, sadly James Earl Jones already played the US Government:
Whistler: "I want peace on earth and goodwill toward men."
Bernard Abbott: "We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing."
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
This document is CLEARLY marked UNCLASSIFIED.
Not FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY (not for public consumption).
Not SECRET ( would cause "serious damage" to national security)
Not TOP SECRET ( would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to national security)
This is a non story.
Chinese govt has an internal "ideology/loyalty" police - that does wire-tapping, surveillance, interviews to ensure the party workers' loyalty to the Communist Party. This latest move to quash leaks is just another indicator that US govt is spiraling toward a Chinese-like control. Whereas Chinese capitalistic economic has exceeded US's model, the US's security/govt secrecy models is more and more like that of Chinese. Sad.....
This sounds like a reassuring statement issued by the US, trying to say "look, We did have a problem, this is how we're fixing it" rather than a leak.
I cant see any negative side effect of the general public knowing that they plan to be more careful selecting who can see their their secret information.
"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes." Douglas Adams
for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
0. Stop classifying stuff that does not need to be secret.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Obama could just get all of them together and "grab a beer" and talk it out. seems to have worked for him in the past. LOL
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Can't the armed forces make rules that subcontracted work cannot be exported out of the country? It's the same effect with less insanity. Hell, even if something like this needed congressional approval or a law of some sort, it's not as though it would be difficult to get it passed.
And having trustworthy people takes care of itself.
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
That is a VERY poorly written and poorly edited document. It asks a lot of questions, giving the impression that the government doesn't know what the government is doing.
The fact that a document that was never classified as a secret is published is neither ironic nor a leak.
"using psychiatrists and sociologists"
They must be 100% accurate, 100% of the time, or their advice is worthless.
"agencies require all their employees to report any contacts with members of the news media"
Maybe, just maybe, the person that leaks something will come up with a way around this rule. Like not reporting the contact.
takes care of itself
Problem is, the kind of people who will pass such a test with flying colors are exactly the people who should not be given any kind of power - they are the people who do whatever is ordered. Give a psychopath money to do a dirty job and keep her mouth shut and she'll do it. Those are precisely the people that the public has an interest in keeping away from positions of power and authority. Eliminating the whistle blowers is eliminating the non-psychopaths.
Just do a Find/Replace on the McCarthyism Protocol? "McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence."
Investigations to find those "most inclined to leak classified documents" -
Ooo! Then we can make a BLACKLIST of those people, keep them from working!
10 History
20 Learn Lesson
30 Forget Lesson
40 GOTO 10
At the height of the Just-Shoot-Assange media circus, Glenn Greenwald pointed out that the New York Times had just spilled the most forbidden, unlawful, immoral, unforgivable secrets of all, on it's front page: imminent troop movements.
Assange, of course, was being treated as if he'd sent countless troops and allies to their deaths with his leaks, even though the Pentagon disagreed that anybody had been hurt, whenever they were asked. (A few Afghan supporter's names had failed to be redacted in an earlier release of the "war logs"; Wikileaks corrected its processes, and fortunately, there's no news of any of those Afghans being attacked, even verbally.)
The NYT piece - about upcoming covert action in Pakistan - generated no comment of that sort whatsoever. How can that be?
Well, the Pentagon, the ground commanders, the Administration, Congressmen - not one of them said a thing. And why not?
Because it wasn't a "leak": it was a press release that didn't come with any follow-up questions allowed, or any accountability for the plan, the statement, or the subsequent action: completely anonymous.
All the benefits of a leak and none of the downside.
"Sauce for the Goose" would require EVERY leak to be followed up with a serious investigation by impartial detectives, and summary dismissal, at minimum, for the leaker. They would prefer, of course, to have complete control of the information and the ability to use it for any reason - public-serving or just partisan advantage - that they wish. Ask Val Wilson.
Mod parent up, please. Why is this glaringly obvious solution NEVER discussed?
.nosig
All this talk of "leaks" in the summary made me think I was reading a SBmail. "Sincerely yours, website. I mean James."
Billie Jean is an ironic song? I mean it's a song about a guy being accused of fathering some kid and trying to deny it. It's being sung by Michael Jackson, let's be honest he's definitely the guy you'd least likely accuse of doing that. (Yes, I know he had a couple of kids.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
It's not even marked FOYO, For Official Use Only. I don't see where it was leaked other than the howler monkeys at MSNBC saying it is.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Wikileaks is the news recovering from decades of chicken-shit ownership and/or FuckUS Plutocratic Corporate Souls controlling the news in the USA.
The USA Congress could have increased protection for whistle-blowers, but decided the real enemy of the STATE is any public-responsible press sustaining our citizen right to know when politicians, diplomats, generals, C*Os, clergy commit crimes, lie, steal, murder, and/or act stupid by personal nature/whim.
As long as the politicians... cannot, or refuse to, protect The USA Constitutional interest of our nation, then they should be greatly concerned the every USA Warrior and Civil Servant swears an oath to "protect and defend The USA Constitution (as TOP priority) from all enemies both foreign and domestic." IOW-IMO all USA Warriors and employees must consider that their sworn oath, prison, and death will all to frequently define a path of life, honor, and authentic-self. If I am ever on a jury in such a big-brother STATE propaganda trial I will acquit our heroes and indite Big-Brother.
There are far to many good citizens protecting US on our streets and remotes battlefields, while a proportional very few (know it all) megalomaniacs and sociopaths seek to manage and control US Citizens with extortion and exploitation policy and law.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Whistleblower-Protections-by-Joan-Brunwasser-101229-343.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-devine-whistleblower-20110110,0,5483256.story
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-985
http://www.whistleblowersblog.org/
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
The memo also suggests that agencies require all their employees to report any contacts with members of the news media they may have.
But they've been telling us all along that the wikileaks folks don't qualify as "journalists" and don't deserve the legal protections that most democracies give to "news media". Employees in contact with such online information sources can easily think that such requirements don't apply, since they've been specifically told that such organizations aren't news media.
Maybe they should think of a better way of expressing what they want their employees to do. Or stop the pretense that, since there are no printing presses involved, people working on informing the public online don't qualify for legal protections such as the US's First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
When loyalty is valued over ethics, all is lost. It's time to start over.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
so meta
Nothing in there about being parsimonious when thinking about classifying documents or reviewing the classifications every year or so.
Nate
I'm sure that if anyone were falsely accused of being a leaker, they would no doubt have swift access to just recourse.
Just as a person who has the same name as someone on the Do-Not-Fly list can immediately get the problem corrected and from then on the fly without being hassled?
Are you, by any chance, on a "do not whoosh" list?
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Maybe we should view the wiki-leaks' journalists as investigators of the people? People have the right to know?
Maybe such things will happen not only with the US documents, but with other governments' documents, and people, well, will have a better insight?
tell the truth the first time, fire people when necessary, and protect them by putting them on trail before the media starts a moral panic, put all that effort into brainwashing people into accepting what your doing tho media
warning pointless sig
Because the conventional wisdom in DC is that the CIA, the State Department and the rest of the government needs to be able to do quasi legal things in order to function.
A lot of things that are banal and boring are marked Top Secret in order to prevent sub-contractors from hiring foreign workers... It's not that the information itself is or needs to be Top Secret but marking it so is a way to keep jobs local...
Nonsense. A lot of things labeled Top Secret are banal and boring because much of the day to day project work most people do is banal and boring even if it is top secret and involves technology, and has to be protected against disclosure due to the possible damage to national security. Project plans, status reports, engineering reports, budget updates, progress reviews, test reports, system design - none of them are exciting, but are necessary, and have to be protected if the purpose of the project is to be protected. If the purpose of developing a top secret device or process is to give your country a competitive advantage in some manner, such as war fighting, it doesn't make sense to have knowledge of the existence, cost, size, scope, or technical details compromised by employing a cheap typing service in some third world country, does it?
In any event, American law allows employment restrictions based on citizenship where national security is involved, it doesn't take a security classification to do that. (Bummer, eh?)
It's hard enough just dealing with American citizens.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
"The real reason for the official secrecy, in most instances, is not to keep the opposition (the CIA's euphemistic term for the enemy) from knowing what is going on; the enemy usually does know. The basic reason for governmental secrecy is to keep you, the American public, from knowing - for you, too, are considered the opposition, or enemy - so that you cannot interfere." - Victor Marchetti, served for 14 years with the CIA, rose to be executive assistant to the deputy director, and wrote The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, co-authored with John Marks, the first critical account of the agency written by an insider
"I spend a lot of time looking at declassified government documents. You take a look at secret documents from the United Stares or, to the extent I know about them, other countries. If they are protecting secrets, who are they keeping them from? Mostly the domestic population. A very small amount have anything to do with security, no matter how broadly you interpret it. They primarily have to do with ensuring that the major enemy - namely, the domestic population - is kept in the dark about the actions of the powerful. And that's because people in power, whether it's business power or government power or doctrinal power, are afraid that people do care, and therefore you have to, as Edward Bernays said, consciously manipulate their attitudes and beliefs." - Noam Chomsky, the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from Imperial Ambitions
"The United States is not nearly so concerned that its acts be kept secret from its intended victims as it is that the American people not know of them." - U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, 66th United States Attorney General, under President Lyndon B. Johnson
http://www.cableleaks.com/forum/Thread-Tell-us-USA-Who-Is-The-Terrorist?pid=321#pid321
Given the obviously abusive levels of military spending, its not potential leakers in need of psychiatric evaluation....
The Freedom of Information Act and the Whistleblower Protection Act are the single best deterrents against leaks, especially megaleaks like these.
First, federal employees with some social conscience commonly see FOIA requests deliver tangible improvements.
Second, any federal employee wishing to leak documents may avoid doing so by describing a desirable FOIA request to an organization like the EFF or Amnesty International. Such 'micro-leaks' may not be desirable for the federal agency filling the FOIA request, but they prevent real leaks, especially mega leaks.
Third, the WPA prevents all manor of leaks by instead encouraging whistleblowing. Did you know whistleblowing saves more federal taxpayer dollars than all other cost saving efforts combined?
Despite all this, Republicans stripped the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of its protections for federal employees working in classified projects and then secretly vetoed it.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Apple has done a fair job at controlling leaks compared to most tech companies (although in recent years more has gotten out). They should take a cue from Jobs and release documents with minor changes to each party. When one of the documents is leaked, it will be quite easy to determine who is doing the leaking.
Because fascists and other authoritarians believe that bad (and illegal) things must be done by the government to keep society functioning well.
Interestingly, in the USA, both Democrats and Republicans fit this description, as well as most of the people who vote for them.
like covering up the apache killings of the journalists in Iraq when all the government really had to do was admit that a mistake had been made in a war zone?
i guarantee you that if our government's actions were less continually ignoble there would be many fewer leaks across the board.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
It does get more ironic than that, because that isn't irony.
Irony is a literary device.
This is more like poetic justice.
is that the person who thought they were being clever by labeling this a "leak" didn't notice it was an unclassified memo sent to the heads of public agencies.
Yea, because all 20 some thousand leaked documents all pertained to the US government trying to keep what most people who have actually saw the unedited version of the video thinks was simply an unfortunate friendly fire type incident based around the mis-identification of a threat in a war zone. I mean nothing was pertaining to not liking the way another country was doing something or anything like that. None of them were about citizens helping soldiers in the field by telling them where an IED was placed or where the bad guys always come from before the fights.
Yea, you're fucking right, what the hell was I thinking. You know, I actually believed the 10 or so thousand so called leaked documents that had absolutely nothing to do with that whatsoever at all were real and just candid communications between people who work in the government. Thanks for pointing out the fact that they all had to do with a helicopter crew shooting an armed escorted reporter in the middle of a war zone while carrying something that looked like a weapon from a distance. What in the hell would this world become if we would have focused on the 20 some thousand fake fucking documents and forgot about the one thing you are still railing about.
That might work all well and dandy, except for the fact that the military doesn't stay exclusively in the continental United States. If you have forward deployed installations you're going to have to have a share of the work contracted out to foreign nationals.
If, by "quasi", you are referring to "queasy", which means "ill", yes....
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
So if there's like most shrinks and politicians. (compulsive lyers) then their not going to leak the information.
If they can be trusted, then the're liberal scum and need to be dealt with accordingly.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
i can see that you're not in the mood to be swayed by logic, reasoning, or facts, but i will still point out a worthwhile quote by Jay Rosen at NYU School of Journalism, "The watchdog press died; we have this instead."
http://vimeo.com/17393373
http://pressthink.org/
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
It's called ITAR. From Wikipedia:
"International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) is a set of United States government regulations that control the export and import of defense-related articles and services on the United States Munitions List (USML).[1] These regulations implement the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), and are described in Title 22 (Foreign Relations), Chapter I (Department of State), Subchapter M of the Code of Federal Regulations. The Department of State interprets and enforces ITAR. Its goal is to safeguard U.S. national security and further U.S. foreign policy objectives.[2]"
Remember that cryptographic algorithms were on the munitions list until 1997. I'm pretty sure that, uh, actual munitions (fighter jets, bombs, the government's program to read your email, etc.) are also on the munitions list.
Diplomats giving their honest opinions to their superiors is definitely against the law...
I would say there never was a watchdog press.
What there is was competition between participants in the press. They worked to scoop their competition and gain market share. It was a constant battle between them and being the first to get the dirt that everyone cared about (their government) meant sales. When all the papers and magazines started becoming conglomerations and getting their news from news service agencies, they only need a presence in an area.
The internet is sort of the same way now. The blogs were the people saying look at me, come to me, then when everyone had a blog and started pulling all their information from other people's blogs, we end up with a bunch of opinions about something already known.
But you could hardly call wikileaks a watchdog journalism. I would probably be hard pressed to even call it journalism at all. You see, there is not story behind the information. There is nothing completing it like you would get with great journalism. There's very little who what when, there is no why or how, and in the end, all you have is a piece of information that isn't anything major for the most part, even if all that was there.
As for the swayed by logic, perhaps I didn't get my point across after 2 posts. A lot of the information is in no way news worthy at all. It's just the discrete and confidential communications between some unprofessional people playing the role of diplomat or soldier. and while there is no bearing on anything illegal in those, there are elements that can be used to harm the US and the interests of the US. I mean seriously, is it illegal for a country to ask us to go to war with another over their nuclear weapons programs? Even if we decided against it?
The question was "Why is this glaringly obvious solution NEVER discussed?" and that answer is, because the largest portion of the leaks had nothing at all to do with *DO ILLEGAL SHIT* or *NOT SUBVERT ITS OWN IDEALS OF FREEDOM AND EQUALITY*. They could however, be in turned used against the US or it's allies in it's perfectly legitimate dealings around the world and at home. They could be used to defeat our efforts in wars that we are currently fighting. When you have 99% of the leaks overshadowing the less then 1% that pointed to something underhanded or illegal, even if you stretch those to include opinions on instances where it's not clear, you end up with people focusing on the nothing to see here leaks that can be used against us.
In other words, the glaringly obvious thing for most people is to stop the leaks. So a reporter got shot in a mistaken incident and they kept it quiet, now that it's in the open, it changes nothing. He's no less dead, to anyone familiar with combat, the copter crew, while not in the right, definitely did nothing criminal because they didn't know they were wrong until after the fact. So it out, we know about it now, nothing's different, except for all the other crap is out too. And that seems to be taking center stage.
either the information was damaging and valuable or it was harmless and worthless. you pick. you can't have it both ways like you seem to be trying to.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Don't classify every damn thing!
NO, it's both.
You see, we are talking two distinctly different concepts here. One is in relation to news, and the other is in relation to the impact the information would have. an example of this is you calling your old lady fat behind her back in a meaningless joke. It's hardly news worthy but if she found out, you would be in the dog house.
but lets go somewhere that isn't that glaringly obvious. 42 23 36. is that news worthy? I don't think so, is it important and damaging if it got out? Well, 25 years ago, it would be because it was the combination to my school locker.
You see, it's hardly damaging or meaningful in the sense that anyone is doing anything wrong. However, given to the wrong people, it can be very detrimental to have it out there. So why don't you stop acting like you are 3 and can't think about these things.
No I mean real windows, glass ones.
I mean, wasn't this government supposed to be more transparent?
How else do you get transparency without leaks?
Obviously the Pentagon needs more windows.
You're welcome.
as well as most of the people who vote for them.
That bit could stand some repeating.
Every harsh word you utter has the right address. It only sounds harsh because the one on the envelope is the wrong one.
Wow, one whole leak where something bad happened which wasn't even illegal! Yeah, you sure showed him and his ideas of "A LOT OF THE LEAKS" not having anything to do with "ILLEGAL SHIT".
I was stationed in Germany in a training unit. We wanted to hire contractors to do some maintenance on weapons (small arms) and hire Americans to do it (for a variety of reasons, the big one being that German contractors had a very long history of being legalistic dicks to our soldiers and were more an impediment to our work than a help in most cases). German law forbids this; in fact, under German law you must demonstrate that there are _no_ German citizens available who can do the work before hiring a foreigner.
So, we acquired authorization to store a weapons system for which the manual was still classified and stuck a copy of that manual in the arms room. Didn't even have to put one of the weapons on the books, just put the manual in the arms room. Presto! we got to hire Americans. It did, incidentally, work our very well for us: helped us achieve our mission and cost less money.
Seriously this was painfully obvious that it was going to happen.
You shouldn't even be saying, "See I told you so!" You should be embarrassed if you did say it. The moment this document was authored it's non-public life expectancy half life could be measured in minutes and possibly hours.
Stewart Brand said something way back 40-50 years ago about "information strives to be free". ( Quote is possibly in error )
How about sane classification? At the extreme end, if you have no classified documents, your leaks of classified documents goes to nil.
99.99% of the documents released are not classified, whatever marking they were given. 90% of those should have been public record from the beginning.
For which the US were paid handsomely. Not only was the debt only recently paid off (mostly due to the dollar tanking), but also the superpower status given to the US (the international currency which enables the US to print money at will).
If you get paid for your arms, you aren't also entitled to adulation.
This document is not classified, nor does it contain any caveat (FOUO, etc) prohibiting further distribution. It is freely available on the White House's site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2011/m11-08.pdf
Another fine example of the media blowing things out of proportion and misinforming readers.
You make it sound like you got 250k pages of criminal reports when probably a single digit percentage, at best, was a violation of federal law.
Now perhaps you live in an ivory tower and think that it's a heinous crime for Clinton to have her people do basic human intelligence gathering, among other "nasty revelations."
I have news for you. Most of Europe and Asia does that shit right back to us. Foreign affairs have been dirty ever since two dissimilar tribes first met and had to share the same savannah or part of the fertile crescent.
If you cannot live with that, then you need to just ignore the news because there is no way for the federal government to be utterly above board in its foreign dealings and not have the American people lose out.
Parent, if I had mod points, I would have definitely bumped you up.
It started back in Team Fortress Classic
Korea 'saved' the Truman administration from having to permanently bring the military back to pre WWII peacetime levels. Achison made a comment to the effect at the time. Achison was also the prime mover in, essentially, warping George Kennon's policy of 'containment', a non-necessarily--military push back against communist expansion (think Marshall plan) into a definitely-military policy. This then drove a military re-buildup (build-down had already happened to a great extent, one of the reasons the NPK walked all over US forces in their first push southwards. Interesting (to me at least) that something so pivotal gets forgotten. Given all the horrible things the US did to SK after Japanese evacuation (Halberstram got it 'way wrong) it's not surprising that it was essentially buried. Oh, and this is when US advisers first get sent to VietNam. One could argue that further involvement in VN was driven by Achison's version of Kennon's plan, and that the 'domino thesis' was just another way of stating this same thing. There was clear feeling against doing anything to save France's (or Britain's) pre-WWII colonial holdings (have a look at the Congressional Register, plenty of public speeches), so without this military containment policy, we'd have let it go to the nationalists.
Yo dog I heard you like preventing leaks, So we put a leak on your leak you you can prevent while you prevent.