Pentagon Demands Return of Leaked Afghanistan Documents 523
Multiple news agencies are reporting that the Pentagon has demanded the return of WikiLeaks' collection of secret documents relating to the war in Afghanistan. Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell said, "The only acceptable course is for WikiLeaks to take steps immediately to return all versions of all of these documents to the US government and permanently delete them from its website, computers and records." According to the BBC, Morrell also "acknowledged the already-leaked documents' viral spread across the internet made it unlikely they could ever be quashed," but hopes to prevent the dissemination of a further 15,000 documents WikiLeaks is reportedly in the process of redacting. "We're looking to have a conversation about how to get these perilous documents off the website as soon as possible, return them to their rightful owners and expunge them from their records." WikiLeaks, predictably, shows no sign of cooperating.
They will make them comply (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't matter if Wikileaks complies, Pentagon has made it very clear they will make them comply [theinquirer.net]:
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said that not embarrassing the US military was "doing the right thing" and he hoped Wikileaks would "honour our demands".
However, asked what the Pentagon would do next, Morrell told the AP that it was up to the FBI and Justice Department to decide how to proceed.
"If doing the right thing is not good enough for them [Wikileaks], then we will figure out what other alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing," he added.
Of course the right thing to the US government is always whatever the US military says is the right thing, and as the Wikileaks documents that have recently been released show in brutal detail, the US military has an unusual interpretation of what is 'right'.
Re:They will make them comply (Score:4, Funny)
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the US Military that drives the decisions of the US Government. It's the military contractors that drive the decisions of the US Government.
Military-industrial-congress complex: The same people go through a revolving door and alternate between military, government and private enterprise. Perfect example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld [wikipedia.org]
You see, term limits only mean that the people in power have a rotation. They go from being in control of the government to running newspapers and contractors when the other team is in government and then they come back to power with a new frontman.
The people behind Nixon were the same people behind Reagan, and Bush1, and Bush2. You can look at group pictures and litterally see these same people standing behind the frontman.
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
The people behind Nixon were the same people behind Reagan, and Bush1, and Bush2. You can look at group pictures and litterally see these same people standing behind the frontman.
And?
Obama has Clinton carry-overs. Clinton had Carter carry-overs. Carter had LBJ carry-overs. JFK/LBJ had FDR carry-overs. And some of those administrations had guys that had White House time going back 40 years.
When a President enters office, he wants some seasoned hands with him. That means people that have served in previous administrations. There's nothing sinister or conspiratorial about that. That's just common sense. One of the things Clinton suffered from his first two years was having more green rookies than guys like Lloyd Bentsen who actually knew what the hell was going on. Plus, since Republicans have won more often than Democrats in the White House since 1970, there's a lot more guys with experience working there on the GOP side. You want to bring in some fresh blood, but at that level, it's more important to have experience.
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Informative)
Of course they did.
Then they became republicans.
Never heard of the "southern strategy"? Or just want to keep quiet about it?
Re:They will make them comply (Score:4, Funny)
The international banking cartels drive the decisions of military contractors and government, they create the money for war and profit from it.
You're so right man. You know what else is scary? Clowns! Why do you think all three branches of government (four if you count the military) conspire to hide the clown threat? Why do you think congresscritters regularly act like clowns? The evidence speaks for itself.
About those conspiracies... (Score:3, Insightful)
Alex Jones has an interesting theory: Wikileaks is actually a false flag project by the government to (1) leak information and then (2) use that to justify why only people with Internet Licenses should be allowed to have websites.
I think AJ is full of shit too, but it's an interesting thought.
Sounds like something the 1920s-era National Socialists would invent.
I don't think there's a conspiracy here at all... just a case of Bradley Manning's ego running wild (when he gets to Ft. Leavenworth, I wonder if he'll think it was worth it?), but if there was any conspiracy to leak the documents, then it's far more likely that an intelligence agency did it to pressure Pakistan, as many docs purportedly implicate the Pakistani military and intelligence services of aiding Al Qaeda on the side.
Re:They will make them comply (Score:4, Funny)
Oops, that slipped out...
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They will make them comply (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know how they intend to save face by claiming they shouldn't be held accountable, and will make people pay for embarrassing them.
The fact that they consider embarrassment a bigger issue than accountability or civilian lives, is a clear sign they have their priorities wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama is? He took three months to consider his general's report, then gave the man LESS than the MINIMUM number of troops the general asked for-- as if to claim that he somehow knew better.
My point is this: don't pin it on W. All of our leaders are rife with incompetence.
I think I'm gonna go ahead and pin it on the guy that started it, if it's okay with you. Or even if it's not.
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I'm gonna go ahead and pin it on the guy that started it, if it's okay with you. Or even if it's not.
Osama Bin Laden?
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Informative)
He started a war? Amazing, I didn't know he had his own country.
Re:They will make them comply (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Interesting)
Well if you're going to go that far back, didn't he get his training and seed money from the CIA?
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Informative)
Short answer: no.
Longer answer: read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone [wikipedia.org], especially the section on Criticism. The CIA funded several groups in Afghanistan against the Soviets, but bin Laden's was no among them; he had his own money (inherited from his father's construction business) and funded his own soldiers. There is no evidence to suggest any CIA money ever went to equipping or training bin Laden or his followers.
And even if there were, it would not make one iota of difference. Choosing the lesser of two evils sometimes means you're left with a really evil choice.
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>Choosing the lesser of two evils sometimes means you're left with a really evil choice.
The third choice is for the CIA to stop trying to project power beyond the US border. They should not be interfering with foreign affairs, anymore than we would want the EU to assassinate a Governor (Schwarzenegger for example) and install somebody the EU likes better.
Re:They will make them comply (Score:4, Informative)
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Informative)
That's hard to deny. Bin Laden's express purpose in attacking the US was to goad the US into a counterattack that would precipitate a holy war. GWB did exactly that. He gave Bin Laden everything he wanted.
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Informative)
Obama is? He took three months to consider his general's report, then gave the man LESS than the MINIMUM number of troops the general asked for-- as if to claim that he somehow knew better.
My point is this: don't pin it on W. All of our leaders are rife with incompetence.
That may as be (I certainly think Clinton would have made a vastly better president than Obama--his inexperience is showing rather painfully in many venues), but that is irrelevant to this wikileaks leak.
All of the documentation covers a time prior to Obama taking office, so the grandparent is correct: this reflects entirely on Dubya and his administration, not Obama, whatever Obama's failings may be.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama is? He took three months to consider his general's report, then gave the man LESS than the MINIMUM number of troops the general asked for-- as if to claim that he somehow knew better.
So Obama is not taking it seriously because he took three months to decide? How long is long enough? And he didn't give the general everything he asked for? That indicates he's "claiming he knows better"? Or are you saying that "taking it seriously" requires immediately granting the Pentagon everything they ask for? Strange test.
Re:They will make them comply (Score:5, Insightful)
That's right. "Taking a war seriously" means hollering "Let's get it on" and sending in the shock and awe, killing a few hundred thousand civilians and then letting the guy behind 9/11 have a nice vacation in Tora Bora.
I blame Bush for good reason. (Score:5, Insightful)
They knew what we were in for.
When you see photos of Afghanistan and see all that rubble, guess who did that? The Russians bombed them back into the Stone Age and they still couldn't get them under control - and if you consider that the Soviets didn't give a rat's ass about PR, I'm sure they didn't pull any punches like we do (read: the didn't give a shit about civilian casualties)
Bush KNEW this would be folly if they didn't have an adequate plan but Nooooooo, he went in there shoot'in up the place with no plan.
So yes, I'll blame Bush - he deserves it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
couldn't get them under control - and if you consider that the Soviets didn't give a rat's ass about PR, I'm sure they didn't pull any punches like we do (read: the didn't give a shit about civilian casualties)
Though it's worth considering, that not giving shit about civilian casualties is probably a recipe for disaster if you plan to really control a country.
Well, unless you nuke them from the orbit, of course, with enough warheads to cover every mountain valley...
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Bush KNEW this would be folly
Maybe he really -=believed=- that the Russians couldn't take Afghanistan because the US were arming and training the Taliban.
Or that Rambo did it, and James Bond helped...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NOT following the generals suggestion does not equate to incompetent.
Soldiers always want more war - that is not what is always wanted by society at large.
Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Soldiers always want more war - that is not what is always wanted by society at large.
In 11 years of posting here, that's one of the dumbest things I've ever read here. If you really believe that, then you don't know a damn thing about soldiers.
They had insurance (Score:3, Interesting)
Since everybody knows that the US respects no laws and will invade anyone at a drop of a hat, Wikileaks took precautions by putting up a large *encrypted* file called "Insurance". [theregister.co.uk]
Presumably everybody has downloaded it even though nobody has the password.
And if America tries to have the wikileak people assassinated the password is probably set to spread automatically.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
WikiLeaks has been around for years. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? The guys been in the paper constantly the last few months and has given countless interviews. My mother knows his name. Oh, and he looks like Bill Maher but slightly gayer and more strung out.
Yes, Seriously. I guess everyone missed my point.
WikiLeaks has been around for years and it has only been in the last couple of months that he's come out of the woodwork to defend what they have done.
Before this episode, one would would have to look kind of hard to get his name and his photo wasn't the easiest thing to find - I tried a couple of years ago when WikiLeaks first started making waves.
That isn't a media whore.
Re:WikiLeaks has been around for years. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the government was after me and I felt I might risk being picked up and "disappeared", I might suddenly decide to become a "fame whore", too. Get my name and face out there in every fucking place imaginable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the government was after me and I felt I might risk being picked up and "disappeared", I might suddenly decide to become a "fame whore", too. Get my name and face out there in every fucking place imaginable.
And he should do more of this. Most Americans still don't know who he is, and probably have heard very little about this story. He needs to get his name out there, and cultivate a much greater awareness so there will be a huge public outcry if anything unfortunate were to happen to him. Perhaps he should try out for American Idol.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
and cultivate a much greater awareness so there will be a huge public outcry if anything unfortunate were to happen to him.
The problem for him is there is a sizable chunk of the US population that would be more than happy to see him get sent to jail or to Gitmo for this. You highly overestimate how much positive sentiment is on his side over this ordeal.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
He's a nice guy. Soft spoken, almost shy. Not someone I'd consider a fame whore.
Re:At first I thought Wikileaks was doing good (Score:4, Funny)
And he likes long, moonlit walks on the beach.
The art of misleading people is really a science (Score:5, Informative)
but honestly, the guy is a fame whore who really doesn't care who dies just as long as he has fame. He wants his time in the sun. Even after seeing other press stories about Taliban acting on namesof informants and such he doesn't really seem to care.
JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, we’ve got to be careful, Amy. Mullen actually was quite crafty in his words. He said "might already have" blood on my hands. But the media has gone and turned that into a concrete definition. There is, as far as we can tell, no incident of that. So it is a speculative charge. Of course, we are treating any possible revelation of the names of innocents seriously. That is why we held back 15,000 of these documents, to review that.
Now, some names may have crept into others and may be unfortunate, may not be. But you must understand that we contacted the White House about that issue and asked for their assistance in vetting to see whether there would be any exposure of innocents and to identify those names accordingly. Of course, we would never accept any other kind of veto, but in relation to that matter, we requested their assistance via the New York Times, who the four media partners involved—us, Der Spiegel, The Guardian and the Times—agreed would be the conduit to the White House so we wouldn’t step on each other’s toes. Now, the White House issued a flat denial that that had ever happened. And we see, however, that in an interview with CBS News, Eric Schmidt, who was our contact for that, quoted from the email that I had relayed to the White House, and that quote is precisely what I had been saying all along and completely contradicts the White House statement.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
To expand on my comment, Wikileaks released the initial documents and with-held this additional 15,000 documents BECAUSE they were concerned about the risk that these particular documents may contain some information that should be redacted for safety (in particular, names/locations, etc). As Wikileaks states, they approached the Pentagon and requested their assistance in identifying certain documents or items within these particular 15,000 documents that should be redacted. The Pentagon REFUSED to assist t
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The claim that Wikileaks redacted identifying information is not mentioned in US mainstream media. I checked the recent NPR stories. I emailed them about this. A google search brings up various conflicting bits of information. See for example:
http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2010/08/03/wikileaks-redacted/ [firedoglake.com]
I really would appreciate reliable coverage of this aspect.
I think Wikileaks should send the files to the Pentagon before publishing, let them do the redaction. I am sure that they will not "overdo"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it is the business of a military to conduct war. In the case of the US military, it is their job to conduct war when the executive asks them to. And he did. Do you know why he did? Because Americans demanded and supported it overwhelmingly. How is that not the "right" thing for the US military to do?
It has already been proven that most of the people who supported military action also believed that saddam was responsible for 9/11 and a whole bunch of other total bullshit that the then-current administration deliberately led people to believe (with media collusion) specifically to drum up support for the war. Fuck, anyone who's seen Wag the Dog should be capable of seeing through it, let alone anyone who has paid any attention to history at all. Nice to see that the Halliburton shills are still too unpop
Re:They will make them comply (Score:4, Insightful)
It's already been proven that most of the people who voted for they guy who promised to end the war but hasn't also fail to comprehend basic economics and a whole bunch of other bullshit and were also much less informed about facts than those who didn't fall for shallow and, err, hopey shtick that's given us almost two years of FAIL.
This is a red herring, because I think Obama is part of the same problem that Bush is a part of, that the Clintons are a part of... There's a reason republicans and democrats unite to attack "third-party" candidates and it has nothing to do with delivering to you the best possible president. I have utterly given up on voting for the lesser of evils, because I no longer believe in the lesser of evils. Better to make a statement, however feeble, than lend your support to the two-party system.
I usually try not to feed the trolls, but you handed me a pretty fantastic straight line. If that was your goal, then you're still a troll, but thanks.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have utterly given up on voting for the lesser of evils
"Ok, you have a choice: you can vote for death by hanging, or death by firing squad." Lesser of two evils be damned; I'm not voting for anyone who wants one of my favorite activities to be illegal, let alone several of them. And both the Democrats and Republicans want pot, prostitution, gambling, and noncommercial copyright infringement to be illegal. Both parties want longer and longer copyright terms.
Since there were five parties in the last Preside
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
...of course the last time "Americans demanded and supported it overwhelmingly" also after being told of lies about WMDs, etc. (not that what the gov was doing isn't some reflection of the society anyway)
Look, in my place the military is slightly impotent overall and generally is as an institution where lazy would-be sportsmen (you need to have absolutelly perfect health, when joining, to be a soldier) can live comfortably. At least, perhaps, with not making it too vital, too big, too entrenched in the soci
The return of the documents... (Score:5, Funny)
Couldn't they just download it?
Re:The return of the documents... (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html [27bslash6.com]
Re:The return of the documents... (Score:5, Funny)
I think people are mis-reading their demand, what i think happened is that the pentagon lost their copy and they want someone to send them the backup.
"Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it" - Linus Torvalds
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's time (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It's time (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite frankly, I think the US military and government are pointing their fingers in the wrong direction here. The people that are really at fault here are those who have still not managed to put adequate controls on the access and export of sensitive data; one of the task given to the DHS, IIRC. Quite simply put, I doubt that there is any reason why a single person should have been able to access all those documents in the first place, let alone be in a position to take copies and pass them on too WikiLeaks and the media. It's not like Gary McKinnon hasn't given them enough egg on their faces about poor security procedures already, is it...?
Re:It's time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's time (Score:4, Insightful)
You are aware of the fact that you can't actually count to 2^256, no matter how many acres of computers you have? If they are able to crack 256-bit AES, it would be because they found some usable weakness in the algorithm, in which case we have no idea how much computing power is required, and maybe an ordinary computer will do.
I like to think they use those acres to play raytraced Crysis.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering they've already shared the unedited files with at least three other news agencies.. yeah, this is just the beginning.
Re:Too late (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering they've already shared the unedited files with at least three other news agencies.. yeah, this is just the beginning.
Newspapers have sat on much bigger stories just because the government said "please".
Multiple newspapers sat on or killed stories because, then Director of National Intelligence, Negroponte asked them to.
Telecom spying anyone?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Multiple newspapers sat on or killed stories because, then Director of National Intelligence, Negroponte asked them to.
And the government isn't used to anybody telling them "no". That's the biggest reason they're pissed - because they aren't in control of this situation, Wikileaks is. I watched the full press conference [c-span.org] yesterday where they issued this ultimatum. He looked like such a fool. "Demanding" that Wikileaks "does the right thing". If you ask me, Wikileaks has already done the right thing by asking for assistance from the U.S. Gov't (albiet indirectly) in redacting the documents. Wikileaks should issuea a public s
Red Flag (Score:5, Insightful)
Government is the only business which holds the special right to employ coercion (meaning physical force or threat thereof) against you in order to achieve its goals. Secrets have absolutely no place in such a relationship.
Am I saying I wouldn't put an ounce of trust in such an entity no matter how loud they scream "we need secrets"? You're damn right I am.
Re:Red Flag (Score:4, Insightful)
Government is the only business which holds the special right to employ coercion (meaning physical force or threat thereof) against you in order to achieve its goals.
The government is not a business.
:)
At least in my country the government is an entity in place to serve its citizen. Not a business with the goal of generating revenue...
That being said, the government should be transparent... So yes, I agree... Government use of secrets should be very restricted...
Re:Red Flag (Score:4, Insightful)
The government does need some secrets. Some of the information in these documents is exactly the kinds of things they need secrets for. It just doesn't make sense to make public things like informant's names and our military strategies. There's plenty of other information in these docs that should be destroyed, I don't disagree with that. But saying "No secrets, EVER!"... that just doesn't work in reality, even if its a good ideal to shoot for.
Pentagons reaction (Score:5, Funny)
OMG DELETE THE INTERNET!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's been made clear to governments around the world that an untamed Internet is more powerful than all of them put together. Because the Internet is nothing but their populations truly free.
They should realize they work for us, and stop fecking up because it'll get them into trouble.
But instead they'll pretend it's a security risk and a danger to children and destroy it piece by piece.
Re:Pentagons reaction (Score:4, Funny)
From the Pentagon press release an old adage similar to that of mother's across the world:
"I brought the Internet into this world, I can take it out!"
before that can happen (Score:3, Informative)
I see a little problem here (Score:5, Insightful)
Here we go again with people thinking that the paper paradigm applies to the digital world.
How on Earth do you return digital documents? Do you scrape the oxide layer off the hard drives, put it in a little vial, mark it with volume mount point(s) and put it into an envelope addressed to Pentagon? Oh, yes, I know, you first print out the directory listing (like we used to do with the floppies), tape it to the vial, then scrape, fill the vial and ship.
As for the further documents -- they better watch out, because WikiLeaks may just give up and publish all of the unredacted stuff just to preserve it.
As for WikiLeaks somehow "embarrassing" the U.S. military: waitaminuzel here. Did WikiLeaks compel the military to do all the embarrassing stuff? No? Then well, maybe it was better the taxpayers knew what their money is spent on, huh?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The part of the picture which I think you're missing is this: the copies may be missing information that the originals contain. This is certainly the case if WikiLeaks is editing them (redacting text) before releasing them. If the files have been tampered with, they may not be admissible as evidence in a court, or they may not be as compelling to a jury, even if they are. There are legal standards for admitting digital evidence, and then there are the forensic experts, of course. Telling a court, "here's a
Re:I see a little problem here (Score:5, Insightful)
If the pentagon manages to get the originals back, they might just save Cheney, Powell, Rice, Bush, Wolfowitz, etc. from a public hanging.
That'd be a shame.
Re:I see a little problem here (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that pretty much what was done to Saddam? Granted he was still president.
Or the old nazis and the Pol Pot gang they are finding.
Now one would have to convince a nation that has control of thousands of nukes to give up one of their previous leaders. That's the tricky part.
Re:I see a little problem here (Score:5, Informative)
Obligatory bash.org [bash.org]:
Re:I see a little problem here (Score:5, Funny)
THAT WAS ME! Over 10 years ago, on IRC. I can't tell you how much I love that that quote still pops up every now and then on the interwebz.
Dude, I wouldn't be bragging about trying to get your song back!
Pentagon Papers Redux (Score:5, Informative)
Assange responds to Wikileaks attacks (Score:5, Interesting)
link [democracynow.org]
Something I don't understand (Score:3, Interesting)
If these documents are so damaging and endanger so many people, why the fuck has the media talked about it at least a couple of times every single day since the documents were released? Wouldn't ignoring it decrease the chances of people hearing about them and going to read them? Literally millions more people are aware of these documents being leaked thanks to news sources talking about how bad it is that they were leaked.
Stay classy.
They're damaging to our government (Score:5, Insightful)
The documents leaked so far illustrate the frustration of U.S. forces in fighting the protracted Afghan conflict and revived debate over the war's uncertain progress.
These documents are showing that the US' operation aren't doing too well. WikiLeaks is holding back stuff that may endanger people's lives.
This is all about the Pentagon and the Government trying hide their incompetence and stupidity. It's also to trying to keep information out of our hands to keep the support for the wars from it's continual slide down.
We're in another Viet Nam type era.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"New York Times reporters met with White House before publishing WikiLeaks story" ie "administration "praised" New York Times reporters for their handling of leaked Afghan war material"
" They also praised us for the way we handled it, for giving them a chance to discuss it, and for handling the information with care. And for being responsible.”
"but the White House doesn't seem to have told the T
It's ok, no need for all the fuss (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Information (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It also shows how utterly stupid the people who we entrust to fight wars for us are. Like these documents haven't been distributed all over the world in hundreds of thousands if not millions of downloads already from the main site, and as if there aren't currently thousands of OTHER sites all over the world offering these files for download.
Invoking the Streisand effect will only make matters worse and encourage even more downloading.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps if pentagon had guns or something (Score:5, Funny)
I guess if the Pentagon had guns or something perhaps they could have leverage.
But just having 5 sides and 5 angles? What do they expect to to the wikileaks? Poke it to death?
No problem! (Score:4, Funny)
They'll be soon available as a free download.
DMCA takedown notice? (Score:4, Funny)
[Rolls eyes] Can't they just file a DMCA takedown notice like everyone else?
Rightful Owners (Score:5, Insightful)
return them to their rightful owners
Rightful owners? They must mean the American people who paid for all of this, right?
Great they worked it out (Score:5, Insightful)
Losing a war? Here's the plan!
1. Leak documents that show boring day to day operational details, including civilian casualties on the internet
2. Blame the people who distribute, download and read said documents for the deaths of those people and the deaths of everyone else from now on in the war due to "security risks"
3. ???
4. Profit
5. (STILL lose the war)
WikiLeaks... shows no sign of cooperating. (Score:5, Insightful)
I should hope not. Too bad the authorities have convinced the public to condemn the messenger instead of the message... Very sad state of affairs we have here.
Re:WikiLeaks... shows no sign of cooperating. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not hard to convince when you leave names and villages of people who provided information in the documents.
People who are being hunted and killed.
Julian Assange's response via the NYT?
- He claimed that many informers in Afghanistan were "acting in a criminal way" by sharing false information with Nato authorities.
- He insisted that any risk to informants' lives was outweighed by the overall importance of publishing the information.
So he is judge and jury, knows they were "acting in a criminal way", and let others execute so he does not have blood on his hands.
Yep, sounds like "justice" to me.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/transcript/id/600647/n/Inside-WikiLeaks
"REPORTER: Do you lie awake at night wondering if you have found all those?
JULIAN ASSANGE: They have a particular code within the reports. It wasn't too hard. That said, it is possible, there may be a stray report here or stray report there. The choice, again, we are forced to make hard choices and those hard choices are do we do best effort to minimise harm, which we have don
The Genie is already out of the bottle (Score:3, Insightful)
Murder (Score:3, Insightful)
Make no mistake, by the standards of any state in the union, Julian is a murderer.
Wikileaks is probably moribund now because of how they handled this. But this is the internet, so there will be a replacement sooner or later. I can only hope that the replacement learns the right lessons here.
The leaked data can fit (broadly) into 4 categories.
1) Junk. Unavoidable in any large data/document set.
2) "This is what war looks like." Gun camera footage, etc. Kudos for releasing this. The people back home should be able to see this so they can make informed decisions.
3) "Our plan isn't working very well." We all knew this already. No harm in releasing it, and drawing attention to it might foster real debate.
4) Shit that is going to get people killed. There is no journalistic value in publishing a list of villagers that are helping us. The world does not benefit from knowing which people in the Taliban were feeding us information. These people are DEAD, some already and some soon to be. And Julian killed them just as surely as if he had pulled the trigger himself.
So, after the leak hangs and Julian goes into hiding, if you decide to start Wikileaks 2.0, please try really hard not to help our enemies kill our friends. We want to support your cause and we think that it is important to make the truth available to the people so they can make informed decisions. But we have limits, so you need to have some decency and exercise some discretion.
Re:Murder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Murder (Score:5, Informative)
Wikileaks agenda (Score:5, Insightful)
Why no classified Russian or Chinese documents on Wikileaks?
Oh that's right.
The Russians and Chinese would hunt them down and kill them.
Which is not out of the question, btw. It will be a real tragedy when Julian is knifed in a botched robbery attenpt.
War? (Score:3, Funny)
What is this "war" everyone is talking about? We elected the guy that represented the half of the establishment party that was against the war. Clearly it is over.
Last I checked: (Score:4, Insightful)
Last I checked the citizens of the USA are the rightful owners and based on the information in them, the Pentagon as a whole needs to be fired by their employer AND the rightful owners of those documents: US citizens.
Consider this my official endorsement of the "Anyone but a Republicans and Democrats" candidate.
Brewster had it right, time to vote "None of the Above"
Clinton dropped the ball.
Bush kicked the ball out of bounds.
Obama then robbed the spectators and sold the ball to the opposing team.
Re:For something that's "nothing new".. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ha,ha! (Score:4, Informative)
Wikileaks relies on stuff people send them. If you have classified information from the North Korea government/military, I'm sure they'll be happy to post it online.
And they do have some reports about North Korea, including about when WMD were traded between NK and Pakistan [wikileaks.org], but they come from the US, which is where they can get that info.