Wikileaks question

There are two issues...

POLITICO 44
The Obama administration is preparing for a leak of hundreds of thousands of classified documents from the whistleblower Web site WikiLeaks that are expected to include diplomatic communiqués between U.S. officials about key allies and other information that could undercut military operations and derail fragile diplomatic relations.

Administration officials have been scrambling over the weekend to reach out to allies and give them a heads up about what the documents are likely to contain. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top diplomatic officials have called leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain, France and Afghanistan to mitigate the fallout from the release of what would be the largest batch of documents the website has released thus far.

As in the past with two other releases of documents, on U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, WikiLeaks was expected to release the documents through some of the same news outlets it has used before, including The New York Times, Germany’s Der Spiegel and Britain’s Guardian newspaper. Administration officials expected the release would come Sunday, POLITICO was told.

News reports over the weekend indicate this dump of documents – as many as 3 million and as few as 250,000 — will contain classified State Department cables that could run the gamut from embarrassing communiqués among U.S. diplomats about close allies to intelligence documents that could undermine counterterrorism operations in places like Yemen and Afghanistan.

NBC reported Friday that the leaking of diplomatic communications over the negotiation of the START nuclear treaty with Russia could be used by opponents of the treaty to undermine its ratification.

At the Pentagon, officials are finding themselves once again bracing for a release of classified documents they were unsuccessful at keeping under wraps. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN for an interview set to air Sunday that the release of the documents sets a “very, very dangerous precedent." Mullen reiterated concerns about jeopardizing not only the lives of troops but individuals who have worked with the U.S. government.

“What I don’t think those who are in charge of Wikileaks understand is we live in a world where just a little bitty piece of information can be added to a network of information and really open up an understanding that just wasn’t there before,” Mullen told CNN. “I would hope that those who are responsible for this would, at some point in time, think about the responsibility that they have for lives that they’re exposing and the potential that’s there and stop leaking this information.”

Media reports from Ankara suggest that Washington aided the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, and that Turkey helped al Qaeda in Iraq. The Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that some of the U.S. documents contain “unflattering” assessments of some Russian officials.

They “touch on an enormous range of very sensitive foreign policy issues,” according to an e-mail written to the appropriate House and Senate panels by Elizabeth King, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs. “We anticipate that the release could negatively impact U.S. foreign relations."

If wiki leaks is not treason than nothing ever is.

In the Pentagon Papers case - not an exact parallel but with half of the transaction the same, the Supreme Court ruled that NY Times and the Washington Post could publish the classified information under First Amendment rights.

There is a legitimate role for secrecy, and there is a legitimate role for openness.

Washington/Berlin, Nov 28 (DPA) The first details of the illicit publication of US classified diplomatic cables and documents were leaking Saturday on the internet.

The US State Department was bracing for the publication by WikiLeaks of millions of confidential messages and reports sometime in the coming days. Germany's Der Spiegel, London's Guardian and the US's New York Times were expected to simultaneously release their stories and links to the documents in the coming day or so.


The documents are expected to contain classified and embarrassing details or communications about other countries. They will represent the third batch of secret US documents posted by the upstart WikiLeaks organisation.


The German website netzpolitik.org reported Saturday on a brief posting on Der Spiegel online that hinted at some details of the WikiLeaks documents. Der Spiegel took the posting down after only a brief appearance online.


According to the link to the now-disappeared article, the documents will include 250,000 diplomatic cables sent by US representatives all over the world to the State Department in Washington.


Most of the documents were transmitted since 2004, only one document dates back to 1966, netzpolitik.org reported.


More than 9,000 documents stem from the first two months this year. Spiegel Online did not comment to DPA on the veracity of netzpolitik's report or on whether the summary was posted in error.


US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has reached out to Germany and a handful of other countries to contain the diplomatic fallout ahead of the WikiLeaks publication, the State Department said Saturday.


Only a small portion of the documents are classified as secret, that is, with the second highest secrecy level. An estimated 4,330 documents were so confidential that they were not to have been made accessible to foreigners.


None of the documents that WikiLeaks obtained were classified as 'top secret', according to the alleged Spiegel report.

2010-11-28: ARIJ Conference [Update 1]
Submitted by admin on Sun, 11/28/2010 - 08:31
Julian Assange joined the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism third annual conference today via video link. ARIJ is the region's first media network supporting in-depth reporting. The conference is taking place in Amman, November 26-28, 2010.

"The material that we are about to release covers essentially every major issue in every country in the world," Assange said, adding that "Over this last month much of my energy and activities have been spent preparing for the upcoming release of a diplomatic history of the United States," as quoted by AFP.

""This is an organisation with a four-year publication history. As far as we are aware, and as far as anyone has ever alleged in any credible manner whatsoever, no single individual has even come to harm as a result of anything that we have ever published," he said.

According to the event website, over 200 Arab journalists, editors and university academics from 16 Arab countries, including those benefitting from the network in the eight ARIJ countries of operation — Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Syria, are attending:

"The conference, sponsored by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), is an ARIJ initiative to improve both the standards of hard-core investigations that promote accountability and transparency for the benefit of the public and to foster cross-border networking."

Classified Papers Prove German Warnings to Bush
By Klaus Wiegrefe[br />11/24/2010

Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer made every effort they could. The German chancellor and foreign minister spared no effort with their appeals, whether in public or private, in small groups or with the eyes of the entire world upon them. In the end, though, it was all for naught. Then-United States President George W. Bush wouldn't allow anyone to change his mind. He was dead set on launching a war against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and thereby bringing "freedom," as he put it, to the Middle East. It was a freedom that Bush described as " God's gift to mankind."

Over time, however, this would-be gift from God has grown to become the biggest foreign-policy disaster in US history since the Vietnam War. The war in Iraq and its subsequent occupation has cost more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians and over 4,000 American soldiers their lives. Washington's credibility has been severely damaged, and Iraq will remain a trouble spot for the foreseeable future.

It is facts like these that have helped stoke the outrage since Bush recently published his memoirs, "Decision Points," in which he claims that Schröder -- the very man who won re-election in 2002 in large part based on his opposition to the war -- assured him in January 2002 that Germany would support the United States if it decided to go to war against Iraq. For his part, Schröder was quick to deny Bush's comments, claiming instead that "(t)he former American president is not telling the truth."

SPIEGEL has now obtained a previously secret copy of notes taken from a conversation in February 2003 marked "Classified Information -- For Internal Use Only." At that time, in was just a matter of weeks before US soldiers invaded Iraq. Klaus Scharioth, a Berlin-based state secretary in the German Foreign Ministry, had flown to Washington in the hope of still having a chance of changing the minds of Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser at the time, and other high-ranking members on the National Security Council.

According to the notes -- all in German -- the meeting amounted to 90 minutes of verbal blows, which primarily stemmed from Rice's "relatively rigorous and uncompromising" defense of the US position. The same notes indicate that Scharioth didn't budge an inch toward Washington, either. In retrospect, though, they document a high point in German diplomatic history, because the objections and predictions put forward by Berlin on that Tuesday have turned out to be legitimate and correct.

By Daniel Tencer
Sunday, November 28th, 2010 -- 2:08 pm

A classified directive signed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered US diplomats to spy on the highest-ranking officials in the United Nations, according to documents obtained from the latest WikiLeaks document dump.

The targets of the spying reportedly included UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, as well as the ambassadors of the permanent members of the UN Security Council -- China, Russia, France and the UK.

Even as its servers were under a denial-of-service attack Sunday, making it virtually impossible to reach its Web site, the whistleblower group WikiLeaks began releasing the first batch of US government documents -- many of them State Department cables -- expected to cause embarrassment or even a straining of relations among the US's diplomatic partners.

The Guardian, which along with the New York Times, Germany's Der Spiegel, France's Le Monde and Spain's El Pais received the WikiLeaks materials in advance, dug up a cable signed by Clinton in June of 2009, "demanding forensic technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications."

The articles published today and in coming days are based on thousands of United States embassy cables, the daily reports from the field intended for the eyes of senior policy makers in Washington. The New York Times and a number of publications in Europe were given access to the material several weeks ago and agreed to begin publication of articles based on the cables Sunday online. The Times believes that the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match.

US embassy cables: browse the databaseUse our interactive guide to discover what has been revealed in the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables.

Mouse over the map below to find stories and original documents by country, subject or people

About the Documents
A mammoth cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the last three years, provides an unprecedented look at bargaining by embassies, candid views of foreign leaders and assessments of threats. The material was obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations in advance.

The articles published today and in coming days are based on thousands of United States embassy cables, the daily reports from the field intended for the eyes of senior policy makers in Washington. The New York Times and a number of publications in Europe were given access to the material several weeks ago and agreed to begin publication of articles based on the cables Sunday online. The Times believes that the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match.

Is it justified? Should a newspaper disclose virtually all a nation's secret diplomatic communication, illegally downloaded by one of its citizens? The reporting in the Guardian of the first of a selection of 250,000 US state department cables marks a recasting of modern diplomacy. Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever computing's snake-oil salesmen claim. No organisation can treat digitised communication as confidential. An electronic secret is a contradiction in terms.

Anything said or done in the name of a democracy is, prima facie, of public interest. When that democracy purports to be "world policeman" – an assumption that runs ghostlike through these cables – that interest is global. Nonetheless, the Guardian had to consider two things in abetting disclosure, irrespective of what is anyway published by WikiLeaks. It could not be party to putting the lives of individuals or sources at risk, nor reveal material that might compromise ongoing military operations or the location of special forces.

In this light, two backup checks were applied. The US government was told in advance the areas or themes covered, and "representations" were invited in return. These were considered. Details of "redactions" were then shared with the other four media recipients of the material and sent to WikiLeaks itself, to establish, albeit voluntarily, some common standard.

The state department knew of the leak several months ago and had ample time to alert staff in sensitive locations. Its pre-emptive scaremongering over the weekend stupidly contrived to hint at material not in fact being published. Nor is the material classified top secret, being at a level that more than 3 million US government employees are cleared to see, and available on the defence department's internal Siprnet. Such dissemination of "secrets" might be thought reckless, suggesting a diplomatic outreach that makes the British empire seem minuscule.

The revelations do not have the startling, coldblooded immediacy of the WikiLeaks war logs from Iraq and Afghanistan, with their astonishing insight into the minds of fighting men seemingly detached from the ethics of war. The's disclosures are largely of analysis and high-grade gossip. Insofar as they are sensational, it is in showing the corruption and mendacity of those in power, and the mismatch between what they claim and what they do.


more . . .

I vote for Klimmer to tell us which of these two conflicting stories we should believe.

. . . it is in showing the corruption and mendacity of those in power, and the mismatch between what they claim and what they do.

WikiLeaks is tweeting that officials in Washington are "hyperventilating again over fears of being held to account."

That's not hype. They really are worried this time.

Why so? Because this release of documents could pull back the curtain on how the United States practices international diplomacy.

To understand why this matters, consider two related realities:

1. Many, if not all, of the US officials who deal on the international stage tend to like secrecy, as it allows them to play by different rules when dealing with countries that are deemed "allies" or "rogues." In other words, despite the blunt official talk about how the "war of terror" is a universal endeavor, the United States sometimes casts a blind eye toward—or even works with—groups that are identified as practicing terrorism.

2. These powerful players often feel threatened by transparency, as it reveals when they are allow allied states to act like rogue states. This gets especially messy when "friendly" governments are allowed to get away with actions that the U.S. otherwise identifies as being so serious that might justify economic sanctions or even a military response.

Understand these facts and you will understand why official Washington is worried by this particular WikiLeak.

Reportedly, the next leak—which could come this weekend—will include "hundreds of thousands of classified State cables that detail private diplomatic discussions with other governments, potentially compromising discussions with dissidents, and even, reportedly, corruption allegations against foreign governments."

Among other things, international press accounts suggest, the new WikiLeak will include a military report revealing that the US officials were aware that the Turkish government allowed its citizens to aid Al Qaeda in Iraq. An additional document will, according to London's Al-Hayat newspaper, reveal that the U.S. aided Kurdish separatist rebels whose group, the PKK, is listed by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization.

Turkey is a complex country located at a critical crossroads for the United States. It is no secret that U.S. officials have always applied different sets of rules when dealing with it.

The problem is that the public revelation of the differences between US treatment of Turkey and, say, Iran, could be more than embarrassing. It could call into question whether US officials are consistent in their condemnation of terrorism and of countries that condone terrorism.

Of course, that's not what State Department officials are saying publicly.

They're talking about protecting diplomatic secrecy.

You read the WND?

Seems to be....

Amongst teabaggers.

Providing an Analysis

Of course, most of these documents will be made public regardless of what The Times decides. WikiLeaks has shared the entire archive of secret cables with at least four European publications, has promised country-specific documents to many other news outlets, and has said it plans to ultimately post its trove online. For The Times to ignore this material would be to deny its own readers the careful reporting and thoughtful analysis they expect when this kind of information becomes public.

But the more important reason to publish these articles is that the cables tell the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money. They shed light on the motivations — and, in some cases, duplicity — of allies on the receiving end of American courtship and foreign aid. They illuminate the diplomacy surrounding two current wars and several countries, like Pakistan and Yemen, where American military involvement is growing. As daunting as it is to publish such material over official objections, it would be presumptuous to conclude that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name.

So.....

What are all you anti-government torture cheerleaders really afraid of?

Remember, they work for us, all US citizens. We do indeed have a right to know what is being done in our name.

You are confusing the need for transparency for good governance and the need for an unfretted press to hold politicians with the need to hold private conversation with foreign leaders in confidence.

Whom would you charge with sedition and/or treason?

I just read that the one of the cables describes the President of South Korean giving some sort of assurances to the Chinese that South Korea would provide financial support if the North Korean government collapses.

F*#king bullshit how we try our own soldiers more harshly than the enemy.

Lets see.. We bomb the sh#t out of whole countries, but that is treating them easier. We invade countries that did not attack us,

Uh.. after he threatened to kill the prisoner. After he cut the prisoners clothes off with a knife. Then cut his handcuffs. Even if the prisoner attacked him, he was likely scared out of his mind.

Army intelligence ordered the release of Mansur and Lt. Behenna was ordered to return the terrorist to his home.

Lt. Behenna failed to properly report the incident

What do other countries do when such subterfuge occurs?

Willful ignorance: the Republican credo.

Michael Behenna was airborn. He let an unarmed man get in a position to attack him? And you believe that? Come on dude. You can't be that naive.

3 million individuals have clearance to access this info,

The trajectory of the bullets is conclusive to a defensive shooting!!!!!

So basically what you are saying is that this unarmed naked man attacked two armed military personnel and the only way that they could protect themselves was to shoot him.

The 251,287 cables, first acquired by WikiLeaks, were provided to The Times by an intermediary on the condition of anonymity. Many are unclassified, and none are marked “top secret,” the government’s most secure communications status. 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.

Blue.. They drove this guy nuts and he attacked. Either they were fools for letting him get in a position to attack them, or they planned it.

He was unarmed and naked. All that they would have had to do is point the gun at him while they released him. They didn't. So they screwed up.

Source: Miami Herald

No evidence that WikiLeaks releases have hurt anyone

By NANCY A. YOUSSEF
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- American officials in recent days have warned repeatedly that the release of documents by WikiLeaks could put people's lives in danger.

But despite similar warnings before the previous two releases of classified U.S. intelligence reports by the website, U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone's death.

Before Sunday's release, news organizations given access to the documents and WikiLeaks took the greatest care to date to ensure no one would be put in danger. In statements accompanying stories about the documents, several newspapers said they voluntarily withheld information and that they cooperated with the State Department and the Obama administration to ensure nothing released could endanger lives or national security.

The newspapers "established lists in common of people to protect, notably in countries ruled by dictators, controlled by criminals or at war," according to an account by Le Monde, a French newspaper that was among the five news organizations that were given access to the documents. "All the identities of people the journalists believed would be threatened were redacted," the newspaper said in what would be an unusual act of self censorship by journalists toward government documents.


http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/28/1947638/no-evidence-that-wikileaks-releases.html#ixzz16di5ZvjW

And please dont make the weak arguement about my lack of service.

Most Marines and Army are trained to defend themselves, as are police. You SHOOT!!! OR YOU ARE DEAD!!!!!! IT'S A F*#KING WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is just ignorant. He didn't need to shoot this guy if he had done his job correctly.

You are the one who claimed that I was out of my league, thus implying that you knew better. I just pointed out that you didn't serve either, so you don't know any better then I do. And I talked to my landlord who did serve.. and honorably. So get off your high horse that you know better. I think that the opinion of a retired two star general who served honorably on the ground frontline in Korea and Vietnam trumps your opinion any day.

IT'S A F*#KING WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As the records allegedly are not top secret and 3 million individuals have clearance to access this info, it is certain that the intelligence agencies of all involved nations also have had access to this intel.

Wow!!! You were there! I didn't know that. I must be wrong then.

And please dont make the weak arguement about my lack of service. I prolly would have shot him too.

I don't know why you are proud of stating that you'd murder someone,given the chance, but there it is. I know all I need to from that.

I don't think that you understand the huge mistake America made in going into Iraq.

Whole different can of worms, John.

The military police should have handled this one, along with an escort from this guys patrol unit. This guy broke a bunch of rules of training and ended up killing an unarmed man. If we can't behave better then our foes, we are doomed to become them.

Why only send him with an intertreper and NO ESCORT if he was an insurgent?

Just curious...

How do you know he was a terrorist, blue

How do you know he was a terrorist, blue?


Edit: and how do you define "terrorist"?

You truly are an idiot, every day

Some of you f*#kers do not realize the true scope of things.

Iraq was debatable...

both theatres are debacles.

Bleuy....

Your idiot pal WAS an "intel f*#kup"....

riend saw a 250 pounder near lake almanor last month.
thats a big kitty,

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad, said the US government had orchestrated the release of thousands of US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks to pursue its "political goals".

According to the cables released on Sunday, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf leaders repeatedly urged the US to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program.

"We don't give any value to these documents," Ahmadinejad told a news conference in Tehran, Iran's capital. It's without legal value. Iran and regional states are friends. Such acts of mischief have no impact on relations between nations," Ahmadinejad said.

"These documents are prepared and released by the US government in a planned manner and in pursuance of an aim. It is part of intelligence warfare and will not have their desired political impact," he said.

it may not be so much a case of content, but how it was presented....

Pretty clear from this that you cannot view all majority Islamic countries as a single bloc or civilization. Pretty clear that there are certain countries (Iran) that are viewed an extreme and/or a threat by other Islamic countries with which the US has better relations.

boobs

It's about honesty. You don't negotiate by lying. You OK with the US lying to or about our allies?

It would be espionage, knott treason.

Galatians 6:7 (KJV)
"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

In Wake of New WikiLeaks Release, JFK, Ellsberg's Remarks on 'Secrecy', 'Covert Ops' Worth Noting
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9646677
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8214


In Wake of WikiLeaks Cable Release, JFK, Ellsberg's Remarks on 'Secrecy', 'Covert Ops' Worth Noting
JFK '61: 'Word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society'
Ellsberg '08: 'Most covert ops deserve to be disclosed by free press'

As the information from WikiLeaks latest release of documents becomes public, and as the U.S. Government continues to scramble to mitigate what the White House is calling today a "reckless and dangerous" leak, condemning it "in the strongest terms" as an alleged threat to national security, it's worth keeping in mind, for valuable perspective, what the 1970s legendary "Pentagon Papers" whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg wrote in an op/ed for The BRAD BLOG in early 2008...


Many, if not most, covert operations deserve to be disclosed by a free press. They are often covert not only because they are illegal but because they are wildly ill-conceived and reckless. "Sensitive" and "covert" are often synonyms for "half-assed," "idiotic," and "dangerous to national security," as well as "criminal."


As well, John F. Kennedy's April 1961 speech on what he described as this nation's abhorrence of secrecy, and the necessity of a free press --- as delivered to the American Newspaper Publishers Association at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York a year or so before his death --- is rather astonishing, and more than a bit ironic, in light of today's leaks and, as directly, the actions of the Executive Branch and its enablers in this country --- in Congress, in the mainstream media and in the public --- over the past dark decade. JFK's remarks include these thoughts among others that must be heard or read...


The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it.
...
And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.
...
And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
...
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary.

Too much Clancy and 24 for you Sir.

If something is going on that is illegal then yes, it should be outed.