Another Wikileaks release

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

This coming from the guy that believes WikiLeaks mentioning Russia or China would mean them hunting them down and "dealing with them directly."

Russia's intelligence services have never had a problem with wiping someone off the map that displeases them, the same with the Chinese.

It pisses me off that environmental groups, and anti-whatever groups take shots at the American's because the American's compared to the Russians operate pretty much in the open.

I guess your forgetting that it wasn't too long ago that the Russian foreign service was indicted for poisoning a mans soup because they were displeased with him. Nor the extermination of another leak during the cold war right in downtown London England.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Russia's intelligence services have never had a problem with wiping someone off the map that displeases them, the same with the Chinese.

It pisses me off that environmental groups, and anti-whatever groups take shots at the American's because the American's compared to the Russians operate pretty much in the open.

I guess your forgetting that it wasn't too long ago that the Russian foreign service was indicted for poisoning a mans soup because they were displeased with him. Nor the extermination of another leak during the cold war right in downtown London England.

I forgot the world has been in stasis since 1955.

Environmental groups take shots at other governments, too. We live in Canada so we hear what the media tells us concerning this hemisphere. It's not as if environmental groups and "anti-whatever" groups only exist in the West. And whether a country operates in the open or not, it doesn't make what they do immune to criticism.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Completely disagree, there are secrets that the government has to keep. Thats why theres a classification system and a date release system when that classified information can no longer do harm.

Plus letting Betty Joe Crocker conspiracy theory trying to interpret stuff beyond her intelligence is outright useless and a wasted excercise.

I can see the "release nothing" point of view. I can also see the "release everything" point of view. What confuses me is the "release some documents but not others" position. The whole point of the site - agree with it or not - is to remove filters and secrecy and getting information out there. Doing that by having yet another organization decide what you should see and what you shouldn't seems to go against their own philosophy.

[CaptainCrunch]

The Russian assasination by poisoning only happened a couple of years ago.

While people think that since the collapse of the Soviet empire that the KGB now SVR or whatever its called has softened are lying to themselves, all that happened was it streamlined and rebuilt itself.

And I've yet to hear world wide condemnation of China's environmental record on the same level as the Oil Sands for example. Call me when we see dissidents chaining themslelves to coal plants or crying over dead ducks in polluted lakes there or in russia call me.

America is and has made itself an easy target.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

I can see the "release nothing" point of view. I can also see the "release everything" point of view. What confuses me is the "release some documents but not others" position. The whole point of the site - agree with it or not - is to remove filters and secrecy and getting information out there. Doing that by having yet another organization decide what you should see and what you shouldn't seems to go against their own philosophy.

You release everything, you're releasing information that you don't want your allies or enemies to see.

There are reasons why you filter, because they do a great deal of harm in terms of building trust and securing international agreements if internal chatter is revealed like it has been in this case.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The Russian assasination by poisoning only happened a couple of years ago.

While people think that since the collapse of the Soviet empire that the KGB now SVR or whatever its called has softened are lying to themselves, all that happened was it streamlined and rebuilt itself.

And I've yet to hear world wide condemnation of China's environmental record on the same level as the Oil Sands for example. Call me when we see dissidents chaining themslelves to coal plants or crying over dead ducks in polluted lakes there or in russia call me.

America is and has made itself an easy target.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the government Thursday to suspend the clearing of a centuries-old oak forest on the edge of Moscow for construction of a toll road, a rare nod to grassroots critics who have fought the project for years.

Late last week, police arrested nine environmental activists camping out in the 1,000-acre Khimki Forest, which faces partial destruction to make way for an $8 billion federal highway between the capital and St. Petersburg, the Moscow Times reported.

The ongoing standoff between activists and authorities has seen the brutal beating of highway critic Mikhail Beketov by unidentified attackers, reports of intimidation threats, and a local government building attacked with smoke grenades after the Khimki mayor suggested that building the highway in the forest of centuries-old oak trees was preferable to letting it pass through residential areas with "dachas [summer homes] and garden plots."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010...ets-uglier.php

BEIJING, CHINA - A top Chinese environmentalist said Tuesday he was beaten and suffered brutal treatment while serving a three-year jail term imposed after he spoke out about rampant pollution in a lake.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest+N...11-215655.html

Pioneering Chinese activist Liang Congjie, who helped found the country's first environmental organization, died last week at age 78.

According to Friends of Nature, the group he helped founded, Liang passed away Oct. 28. Services for him will be held Tuesday at Beijing ####ian Hospital.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/breaki...ang-congji.htm

And there's plenty more if you just do a search. If you haven't heard the condemnation of China's environmental record, you don't pay much attention to environmental activism (and I am going to go ahead and guess you don't.)

So, what's your phone number so I can give you a call?

[HPLovecraft]

Double post.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

You release everything, you're releasing information that you don't want your allies or enemies to see.

There are reasons why you filter, because they do a great deal of harm in terms of building trust and securing international agreements if internal chatter is revealed like it has been in this case.

Protecting what a government might consider classified or private info is not the press' job. If any of this was THAT critical or damning, it either shouldn't have happened period or shouldn't have got into the press' hands.

It's worrying to see some people wanting to label wikileaks as terrorists. I hate to do the Orwellian version of a Godwin but... "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

You release everything, you're releasing information that you don't want your allies or enemies to see.

There are reasons why you filter, because they do a great deal of harm in terms of building trust and securing international agreements if internal chatter is revealed like it has been in this case.

I generally agree with this notion, but I think it would be unlikely that wikileaks has better clandestine sources than most nation states. I bet Iran (for example) already knows most of the important information being released through their own intelligence. The only difference now is that everyone knows that they know what we know... and now no one can play dumb.

Also, and realize that this is wading out into conspiracy theory territory, but I would not be surprised if American intelligence sources purposely leak information that wikileaks will unwittingly make public because it suits some greater purpose. I could see a scenerio where airing certain "secrets" could have politcal gains for some, and losses for others. I am reminded about a supposedly true story from the 1950s and 60s where the U.S. was purposely letting Soviet spies steal technology... but the technology the spies were stealing was faulty.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

Protecting what a government might consider classified or private info is not the press' job. If any of this was THAT critical or damning, it either shouldn't have happened period or shouldn't have got into the press' hands.

It's worrying to see some people wanting to label wikileaks as terrorists. I hate to do the Orwellian version of a Godwin but... "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

Except this wasn't or isn't a case where the government is deciding what to release its a disgruntled soldier who broke his service oath and his security clearance. One it was uploaded the Government lost the ability to content filter or decide.

So yes absolutely the U.S. government is at fault for lax security and poor data security, and whoever supervised the leaker is in huge trouble as well.

I don't label or think of Wikileaks as terrorists. I do think its a guy with a bone to grind who is not doing it for any other reason then to improve his self image, and in his words take a shot at the U.S. government.

While I do agree that governments tend to over classify some things, in this case these were confidential conversations that are part of a diplomats job that need to be classified.

What this excercise didn't achieve was any type of future openness by the U.S. government, if anything information is going to be even harder to come by, and we're probably going to see an even frostier relationship between Government and the Media.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I generally agree with this notion, but I think it would be unlikely that wikileaks has better clandestine sources than most nation states. I bet Iran (for example) already knows most of the important information being released through their own intelligence. The only difference now is that everyone knows that they know what we know... and now no one can play dumb.

Right now, Wikileaks had one of the best sources of information that I've ever seen. Where Wikileaks failed unlike a foreign intelligence service is that they didn't protect their source. In the future I think its going to be tougher for Wikileaks to convince people to help them out because they did no filtering to protect their leak. And I have my doubts that any foreign service has this kind of source at the moment.

But the direct fault of this besides the soldier was lax data security and we're going to see an unprecidented amount of heads rolling after this. If Wikileaks wanted to make the U.S. government more paranoid and secretive they've probably accomplished their mission.

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

lso, and realize that this is wading out into conspiracy theory territory, but I would not be surprised if American intelligence sources purposely leak information that wikileaks will unwittingly make public because it suits some greater purpose. I could see a scenerio where airing certain "secrets" could have politcal gains for some, and losses for others. I am reminded about a supposedly true story from the 1950s and 60s where the U.S. was purposely letting Soviet spies steal technology... but the technology the spies were stealing was faulty.

I have my doubts that they would intentionally leak diplomatic packet information, there's no benefit in exposing that the Saudi Royal family wante Iran attacked as it puts the Royal Family in all kinds of crap with their own people.

I can't possibily see gains in further splitting relations with Pakistan either.

And yes the American's did leak out information to the Russians on a technology front because it was hoped that if we ever had to fight them that the secrets given would create faulty weapons systems. The American's also never worried about the Russian's stealing these secrets because the Russian's usually couldn't replicate it, and it allowed the American's to pinpoint and use leaks.

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Codes

Am I the only one that thinks that some secret things should be kept... secret?

We're probably all better off if our diplomats can offer honest and frank impressions to our governments . . . . . instead of filtered or politically correct impressions because they fear they would ultimately be leaked.

As well, we're all probably better off if our diplomats can have open and frank discussions with opposing diplomats on the understanding such discussions are confidential.

It's up to your government to put some gloss or "diplomacy" on what is said publicly.

On a lesser scale, in our personal lives, there's probably hardly a day that goes by where you don't practice personal diplomacy in the office or in relationships even though you might have darker thoughts rolling around in your head.

If we said out loud everything that came into our heads, we'd have a tough time in life, rolling from one crisis to another with effects lingering throughout our lives. We practice diplomacy as a means of functioning in a society with other people . . . . and they do as well.

The leaker is a genuine traitor and deserves a long jail sentence, moreso as he wasn't a civilian but a USA Army volunteer.

The best thing to come out of the leaks was visible and hard-to-deny confirmation that most Arab governments want Iranian nuclear ambitions stopped, even through the use of military force against fellow Muslims. It visibly isolates Iran in the region and probably confirms a nuclear armed Iran might start a regional arms race. But, again, that was already well-known.

It's a modest car wreck and like any car wreck, most of us are slowing down to take a look. But there doesn't seem to be anything that would truly startle anyone in there.

I saw one description of the Wikileaks situation, from a Pakistani diplomat I believe, as "mischeavious" and I thought that was the perfect summary for it.

Cowperson

[FlamingLonghorn]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

The Russian assasination by poisoning only happened a couple of years ago.

While people think that since the collapse of the Soviet empire that the KGB now SVR or whatever its called has softened are lying to themselves, all that happened was it streamlined and rebuilt itself.

And I've yet to hear world wide condemnation of China's environmental record on the same level as the Oil Sands for example. Call me when we see dissidents chaining themslelves to coal plants or crying over dead ducks in polluted lakes there or in russia call me.

America is and has made itself an easy target.

Three Gorges Dam was a pretty big deal on the environmental front in China.

[Boblobla]

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/11/29...ex.html?hpt=C1

A computer hacker who calls himself "The Jester" claimed responsibility for the cyber attack which took down the WikiLeaks site Sunday, shortly before it started posting hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables.

[mikey_the_redneck]

John Young, a former member of the Wikileaks advisory board has some interesting things to say about wikileaks. He left the organization in 2007.

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source...CD6ORNxIS0aSaA


"A few weeks later, in January 2007, John Young, a member of the Wikileaks advisory board and the founder of cryptome.org, an online depot for leaked documents, corporate rumours and government conspiracies, left Wikileaks, accusing the group of being a CIA conduit. After the split, he published over 150 pages of emails sent by members of Wikileaks on cryptome.org."

"John Young has changed his opinion about Wikileaks. He is now supportive of its work, though has reservations about the project's "self-promotional aspect, and its secrecy, its love of authoritativeness, which are likely due to its being run by those trained in journalism wherein advertising and privileged access to information, and magnification of its importance, are taken to be essential to marketing success."
Young's main gripe is the anonymity of the site's operators, which he describes as leaving the group open to "being co-opted by spies. It is common spy tradecraft to do that, as in journalism, media, education, churches, government and so on."

[photon]

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/pos...julian_assange

[driveway]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

You release everything, you're releasing information that you don't want your allies or enemies to see.

There are reasons why you filter, because they do a great deal of harm in terms of building trust and securing international agreements if internal chatter is revealed like it has been in this case.

Basically, you're operating under the assumption that the diplomatic corps of major nations are as sensitive as Junior High cheerleaders.

[CaptainCrunch]

If you see it that way . . . sure.

Half of what these diplomats do is to dig up and send impressions back to their own state departments, and these impressions are not sunshine and roses half the time, they're honest assessments.

Again it goes back to business. I know that internal conversations about business deals I'm working on are not always flattering about my target so to speak, and those candid conversations and strategy points are not something thats there for general consumption.

[Nage Waza]

So have notes on the 911 conspiracy been exposed yet? Oh wait, there aren't any.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by driveway

I believe that Wikileaks is a valuable resource for the world, but I'll admit that I would like to see them make some releases that aren't specifically targeted against the US government.

One of the upcoming batches is apparently centered around a US bank.