wikileaks

[RSshruew]

Time for a new topic.  Wikileaks is all over the news these days.  For or against?

The more I read about it the more sympathetic I am.  These are things that the US press should have been reporting and frankly would be winning awards if they got this info and reported it.  The fact that some ignored this info is probably more criminal to me.

Freedom of Press is supposed to be applauded in America.  So while I'm sure that funding under aged boys sex parties with Afgan cops might not be pleasant to be made public, I kind of think it's a waste of US tax payer dollars.

The real issue, of course, is if these are things that really needed to be secure, they clearly are not.  These aren't leaked in real time and one assumes that if they are leaked to one person who else has them.  So it's not like the information probably wasnt already well known to the world's intelligence communities.

US law generally accepts that the actual leaking of classified information is illegal, but reporting on it is not.  So what crime has Wikileaks committed?  (the fact that he's not subject to US law not withstanding).

Does America really want to make it's policy to shut down anyone saying things the government doesn't want them to say.  Isn't that directly unconstitutional?

In general, is Obama's administration becoming the most heavy handed censors with the justice department seizing domains, pressuring people to shut down support of Wikileaks etc.

Not too mention that trying to shutdown wikileaks is impossible with all the mirrors out there.  We used to lambast China for their internet filters, but it seems it's ok for the US to do it to ourselves.  Yikes.

[RS-LoveOfProfit]

My view on this is that if Wikileaks has access to this "secure/secret" information, then certainly other governments/organizations can as well, and its good that its been shown how pathetically these secrets are kept. Also I hate censorship, so a big fuck you to the US gov for this one.

[RS-genpip]

I'm all for freedom of the press.  What I don't like is the responses that are being given by high ranking government officials in regards to this.  Their initial response is that "American Soldiers Lives Are in Jeopardy".  My problem is that they don't know half of the documents that they have.  So how can they make that assumption?

I also don't like the media for how they are hyping this.  They were afraid to report this stuff when it was happening (trust me they knew it) and now that someone else is reporting it they want to jump on board and earn take their piece of the pie.

If I'm not mistaken, didn't they get most of those documents from a military member that had access to these top secret documents?  THAT person needs to be hung for treason.  He was granted access to Top Secret materials and then leaked them.

I personally don't believe the government has done anything to censor them.  Amazon dropped their content on their own accord, DNS was dropped on their own accord, and Visa/Mastercard/PayPal dropped them on their own.  All of these companies stated that.  So what is the government doing to censor them?

[RSshruew]

I agree with your first three points, but I assume that the government in some shape or form helped push amazon etc to stop supporting wikileaks.

I partially agree with the part of the person leaking the documents (I assume it's more than just the one) should be tried with treason depending on the type of documentation that is leaked.  Some of the leaked docs should clearly be protected under whistleblower protections.

[chillybilly]

Nobody knows exactly how wikileaks got their classified information.  It is suspected that it was from a disgruntled member of the US armed forces that had access and broke US law by copying the classified information, removed it from a government facility and then gave it to a third party.  In fact, there is a military member in custody awaiting trial for those crimes and most people believe he is at least partially responsible.  That person does need to face the full and harshest extent of punishment allowed by our laws.

Next, Wikileaks was asked specifically not to release certain classified information on grounds of national security by the US government.  They broke our US laws by releasing it.  They too need to be punished to the fullest and harshest extent that our laws allow.

I believe in the First Amendment.  It has widely (and correctly, I believe) been interpreted as you have the right to speak so long as you don't infringe on someone else's rights.  This includes subjecting others to danger such as the famous, falsely yelling fire in a movie theater.  When wikileaks published our nations most vulnerable 100 sites, I think that puts people in great danger and I believe the First Amendment no longer applies to them.

Put another way; would you like me to devote a website about your household, your loved ones, your finances, your job, anything and everything that I came to know about you because someone else broke the law and spied upon you, broke into your financial records, and personal files and I posted this stuff to the public available to anyone who wanted to do you harm?  Would you support my right to do so?

I think some asshole who does that needs to be snipered.

[RS-Dolph]

For

[Rom]

Same people that released the Helicopter video I posted about. I've kept an eye on them for a long time.

Glad Billy said something that's somewhat different....this thing was starting to look like an agreement party! sheesh!


Bradley Manning is being charged with leaking some of the information, mainly the Iraq/Afghanistan War Logs. This is known.
Perhaps the helicopter video as well. They are probably looking to see if he's the one that gave Wikileaks the 'cablegate' stuff as well. That is unknown.
FB page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/savebradley  if you want to support!

For the Iraq/Afghanistan War Logs, names and information that was deemed to cause concern for a person's security was redacted by Wikileaks prior to release of the information. I am not sure if they did it for all people, actually. There might be names of Afghans and such; need to find out more on this. If they did publish names, I do think that's kind of unnecessary and definitely has a risk for people - especially Afghans.
Amnesty International and other Human Rights watch groups were asking that Wikileaks be sure to remove names, especially those of Afghans. This was a while ago, so I don;t know if they partially complied, or fully complied.

For 'cablegate', Wikileaks ASKED the US GOV (DoD I think) to  assist in the redaction of any information that was deemed a security risk. The US gov refused to assist. WikiLeaks withheld around 15,000 reports to protect informants. Again, I'm not sure if they released names or full names in the leaks.


In a nutshell of things:

With the US leaks, Wikileaks was not the first to get their hands on the information. It was given to them by a third party, in one case, Bradley Manning.

The number I've heard that have access to classified and below information is pretty large. 600,000 + is one number that comes to mind. Obviously, that number of people who have access increases as the classification of documents decreases.
""But some 11,000 are classified "secret," 9,000 are labeled "noforn," shorthand for material considered too delicate to be shared with any foreign government, and 4,000 are designated both secret and noforn, the report said.""- these are numbers for cablegate.

These documents don't come from way up high. Imagine the shit that's there....

The war logs let us know of casualties, and friendly fire incidents. As I understand it, those numbers were a bit different than what was reported. Not to mention the lack of reporting for friendly fire incidents and US personnel killing civilians.
I think it gave us a better picture of just how many civilians were killed at check points.
It gave us a picture of how the war was shaping up, and how attacks were increasing and by location etc. This should have probably been reported as normal. But hey, we can't even show caskets on TV now.

Cablegate:
My roommate was sorting through, and apparently there was a cable from US to Germany noting how the US has info about German equipment being used in Iran. I'm not sure of the details, but I can see how this can be diplomatically insensitive. Now Iran will know of these things. I can understand 2 countries trying to have a private conversation sharing info that has to do with this stuff, as opposed to having a private conversation on how to do crazy shit, like team up against another country or how to keep the people in check, <insert evil thing here>.

However, plenty of back-room bargaining and weight being thrown around was happening. Arab countries asking the US to watch Iran/'cut off the head of the snake',; U.S. trying to gather support from countries around Venezuela, in trying to isolate it - which made Hugo Chavez praise Wikileaks.
There's tons. Go and read.

This stuff offers but a glimpse of a world that very very very few people know of. Stuff that the populous has 0 control over, and if anything these secret things most likely have control over the populous. Stuff that my crazy ass has been suspecting and talking about for a while now.

As for the legality of it, I am not sure. Again: With the US leaks, Wikileaks was not the first to get their hands on the information. It was given to them by a third party, in one case, Bradley Manning. So, in a way, Wikileaks is a publisher - like a newspaper, in a way. And newspapers have the right to withhold their sources. And newspapers HAVE published these documents, but some went ahead and made their own reductions on top of Wikileaks'.
The argument that this information puts people in great danger sounds like BS. Again, we have to find out how the situation with the names is. As for an overall thing, the worst that may have happened is the populous learned some things they may have not known about. Maybe some diplomatic embarrassment. Hillary Clinton using Ambassadors as intelligence gatherers (e.g. spying on UN) - might be an ouchie, because that's not what Ambassadors are for, or what they should be tasked with.  I have a feeling the countries which are related to one specific event, most likely know about what was leaked.

I'm all for it though. The US gov had it coming for holding back way too much info, and reporting false figures and stories.

[RS-LoveOfProfit]

Thank you for that analogy chilly, it has swayed my opinion on the matter a bit.

[RSshruew]

Thank you for that analogy chilly, it has swayed my opinion on the matter a bit.

Actually I didnt like the analogy at all.

Yes, it covers the embarrassment factor, but that is only one factor at play.  What is the redeeming social value of posting someone's private info like that?  Probably nothing.

However, let's say chilly finds my financial records which prove that I have been funding man/boy sex parties to gain favor with foreign nationals.  Chilly sends that to the Washington Post, who writes it up and outs me.  You'd be saying good job chilly and Washington Post -- not damning them.

I used the Washington Post as an example because Post writer Robert Novak actually outed an active CIA agent in 2003.  His punishment -- jack shit.  

I used man/boy sex parties for obvious reasons.  To get Rom's attention Because US tax dollar funded Dynacorp did that.

[RS-genpip]

So the question then lies in whether Wikileaks is considered a valid US company and thereby answerable to our laws.  Their offices are in Sweden, but did they host information on US servers?

I'm all for freedom of the press and speech, but Chilly's example is pretty simple.  You can't infringe on another person's rights (namely US operative's undercover or military member's serving overseas safety) in the process.

Rom... wikileaks asked the US government to approve them releasing the information and to help title each cable, but the State Department refused to provide any further detail and demanded the information be returned.  guess what wikileaks did next?

[PARALIZED]

  I learned back when I was a young buck that if you're embarrased about something you did you probably shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. I think this is what is happening here with these last wikileaks.
  The US gov got caught talking shit about some of it's allies and is embarrassed about it. Now it's going after Assange to make him an example.
  However, like Shruew pointed out, Wikileaks only posted gathered information just like any reporter would do. The New York Times has printed way more damaging stuff and not had any legal ramifications, like the location of the famous bunker under the country club. There goes 100 million+ down the tubes.
  Personally I'm sure the US gov is behind all the charges against Assange, including the sex charges in Sweden. Also, I'm sure the companies that backed out financially or politically from Wikileaks got a call from someone in the US gov "suggesting" they change. Might be pretty intimidating.
  This is nothing but Assange being made an example of. Sort of like Mark Emery, only on a different scale.
Pissed off the wrong people.

[chillybilly]

Thank you for that analogy chilly, it has swayed my opinion on the matter a bit.

Actually I didnt like the analogy at all.

Yes, it covers the embarrassment factor, but that is only one factor at play.  What is the redeeming social value of posting someone's private info like that?  Probably nothing.

However, let's say chilly finds my financial records which prove that I have been funding man/boy sex parties to gain favor with foreign nationals.  Chilly sends that to the Washington Post, who writes it up and outs me.  You'd be saying good job chilly and Washington Post -- not damning them.

I used the Washington Post as an example because Post writer Robert Novak actually outed an active CIA agent in 2003.  His punishment -- jack shit.  

I used man/boy sex parties for obvious reasons.  To get Rom's attention Because US tax dollar funded Dynacorp did that.

Your examples are good ones on the stuff I couldn't care less about that was posted by wikileaks.  However, in my original example, I wasn't speaking towards the embarrassing stuff, I was speaking to the very real national security stuff of posting our most vulnerable sites to any terrorist that would like to read about them.

Let me clarify with this example.  shreuw, say that there is a gang on the tough streets of Chicago that have publicly stated they want to kill you, your wife, family relatives and pets.  Say they've actually horribly killed one of your dogs a couple years ago already.  Now say that I secretly (and illegally) took photos of your house, identifying easy points of entry, I have detailed logs of the routes you and your wife take to work, when you're planning to take vacations, the locations of your relatives, etc.  Would you support my right to post this information publicly knowing that the Chicago gang would see and use it?

I don't care about the embarrassing stuff being posted.  I care about the stuff that could jeopardize my family like posting the best ways to strike the Byron, IL nuclear plant that's only 70 miles away from where you live.


PARALIZED -- Assange isn't posting stuff just like other reporters do.  Assange has broken the law by posting classified information relating to national security to the nation you live in.  That's like saying that bank robbers are withdrawing money just like any other bank client does. 

[RSshruew]

I still don't think that's a good analogy because I have yet to see any leaked document that is like that.  There is no "How to blow up the {whatever}" document that I have heard about.

The only one that comes close is this list of important facilities.  I have read that document and it lists no detailed information.  It's a list in the format (location) (facility).  For example:  (chicago) (gold mine).  All the facilities listed are common sense, public facilities.  A list anyone can generate.  There were no secret or even military facilities in that list.  

So if you have an example of a document that has such actionable information you are talking about, then your analogy could hold.

That said, what if there is such a document, or one that would be leaked in the future?

If 99.9999% of the documents are not direct security risks and there's that one there is.  Do we take down the entire collection?  Or the person that leaked them.  Is he a whistler blower or a traitor?

The answer for the leaker will have to come down to intent.  If he stole all those documents with the intent of harming America.  Then, yes, he is a traitor.  If he released those documents with the intent on blowing the whistle on corrupt government practices, he should be protected as a whistle blower.  He's probably somewhere in between, given the volume of documents.  I.e., if he released a few targeted documents about certain activities it would be one thing.  But, his carpet bombing approach just seems he had other motives.

And yes, I support fully the laws that he should be tried for for breaking security clearances.  My point is more on how the government and people are reacting to the documents now that the genie is out of the bottle.

To answer your question, would I want someone posting detailed specifics to allow a gang to do me harm?  My initial answer is of course, no.  But, what I really mean by "no" is that I'd not want someone to find out that information in the first place.  However, if someone did find out that information, I'd rather know about it.  

So if my choice is people finding out my information and me not knowing about it, or people finding out my information and posting it so I do know about it.  I'd want people to post it.

[RSshruew]

Also, Chilly, in case you were wondering, there are no Illinois facilities on the list of facilities of critical importance.  So thanks for letting the terrorists know that there is a nuclear power plant in Byron, IL....asshole.

[chillybilly]

I didn't know that.  Gosh, I hope they don't check out my facebook page where I talk about my friend who works there and that unprotected entrance to the plant!