Wikileaks

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Clyde, Dec 3, 2010.


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  1. Clyde

    Clyde Jet Set Tourer Administrator Founding Member

    Just curious what you all think of this release of data.
     
  2. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    As far as I am concerned, the whole affair, is a colossal Screw-Up. The WikiLeaks Dude, needs to get caught, and sent back to Sweden, to face the charges pending there, and the Pentagon Kid needs to be tried for Treason. I really could not care less if Hillary, looks like the fool that she is, or Obumma, now, seems as inept as I figured he was three years ago. The Pentagon Kid was entrusted with State Secrets, and when you leak that stuff you commit Treason. Just consider a SHTF scenerio, where one of your own, leaks all your group defense plans, and cache locations, to the outsiders. What do you think the Group would do, to such a person?
     
  3. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    How would you feel about an informant turning evidence on a gang or the mafia? They'd still be his "Group" he was betraying.

    All a matter of perspective. One mans rebel is another mans freedom fighter.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  4. Hispeedal2

    Hispeedal2 Nay Sayer


    Except he's not. He's releasing information which jeopardizes HUMINT source operations. Ultimately, the sources will be killed. The intel they were providing will no longer be available and US troops are at risk because of it.

    It's treason. It's murder. Plain and simple.

    If he was whistle blowing for the good of something, it would be different. I understand it's in vogue to try to "rat gov't secrets", but this is a bit too far.
     
  5. RightHand

    RightHand Been There, Done That RIP 4/15/21 Moderator Moderator Emeritus Founding Member

    I share your feelings, and BTPost, on this one. Although I have considered the "right to know" aspect, it is my personal opinion that this is one of the times security trumps general public knowledge. I struggle with this.....
     
  6. UGRev

    UGRev Get on with it!

    if the information that was leaked was older info that was covered up and didn't have any "in operation" context, I wouldn't have any problem with it. I think we have a right to know at the very least, after the fact. Ex: if they actually had a leaked doc of who killed a high profile person, wink, wink. However.. while an op is play and so long as it's the government NOT screwing us.. I say "hands off".
     
  7. Witch Doctor 01

    Witch Doctor 01 Mojo Maker

    try them both for treason... the wikileaks guy is in violation of the US Code as well
     
  8. VisuTrac

    VisuTrac Ваша мать носит военные ботинки Site Supporter+++

    Well, I 'might' have been able to dl the entire archive but with 250k of them, yeah, i might be reading them until after the 2012 solar flare. and printing them would be cost prohibitive.

    as for treason vs. patriot until i see the actual cable, with procedures and process, drop locations, names of US intelligence assets THAT were not already know to the community at large. i'll reserve my judgement until i can digest a larger portion of what is available out there.

    anyone have a specific cable id that they could point as evidence as treasonous to release?

    I have learned not to say something about someone behind their back that i wouldn't say to their face. that way you can't be blackmailed later. [beat]
     
  9. UGRev

    UGRev Get on with it!

    what about the banks? what about the fraud the gov't is pulling? you know what.. as bad as this guy may seem..I think it sort of has become a necessary evil or the truth will never come out. It's all the truth or no truth at all and the truth hurts..
     
  10. Hispeedal2

    Hispeedal2 Nay Sayer


    I too share that struggle between state secrets and public right to know. The Wikileaks aren't about exposing an abusive gov't (for the most part). They are about trying to make a name... damn the expense in US lives (or Afghan lives for that matter).

    We live in a post-Vietnam media that prizes being able to "uncover" secrets. The only real scoop in wartime is failure. Success doesn't sale. All these Geraldo types are trying to make a name for themselves and have little understanding of how their actions affect operations on the ground. I have seen more than a few reporters kicked out of country for printing something that was not supposed to be printed. Operational capabilities are the normal violation. I have seen entire collection methods made void for months because of a slip up by a reporter. It seriously hindered operations at the National level. It took months to start all over.

    On the other hand, I think whistle blowing is good. I think we should be open with the media. If PFC Smith wants to share his opinion on the war, so be it. Of course, you have to understand that you are receiving an opinion from a kid that wastes his entire pay check on Xbox games and is probably worried about the next level of guitar hero instead of how his interaction with the local populace affect the entire operation. Americans want to see the faces of their boys at war and I believe they should do it. If Joe wants to blog about his war experience and isn't violating OPSEC, do it. There is no better way raise support for a conflict than to talk to those extraordinary men and women that do the job.

    There is a wall of distrust between the military and the media. Our response to the mistrust is to be even more guarded, thus we are in this cycle. The only way to break that barrier is to let Joe's story out and let the American people see what he faces.
     
  11. VisuTrac

    VisuTrac Ваша мать носит военные ботинки Site Supporter+++

    some of the stuff is declassified stuff from the 60s and goes up items from jan/feb of this year.
    [ghrit]
     
  12. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Apples & Oranges, Melbo.... The Mafia or a Street Gang, are not the same as a City State, and a turncoat from a Street Gang or the Mafia, gets treated just like those who are convicted of Treason in a City/State, by their group as well, which was my point. When a MAN, gives his WORD, and accepts the responsibility for keeping State Secrets, and leaks them, then he has NO Personal Integrity, and his Word, from that point on, is forever suspect. I would have no truck with any such person, if I KNEW, that they had this kind of event, in their PAST, period. YMMV....

    As far as Assange goes, I do not have any problem with him posting, or printing, whatever he can get his grubby little hands on. That is Freedom of the Press, and he is free to write, or publish whatever he chooses, as far as I am concerned. HOWEVER, he needs to go face the charges in Sweden, and then come back and tell us all about how he was framed, AFTERwards... He would get a fairer trial in Sweden, on those charges, than anything he would ever get, here in the good old USA, from our government folks.
     
  13. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    HUMINT sources compromised and resources to be killed? I think we're talking about two different things. I haven't read the current documents that are being called "Cable-Gate" yet. What's an example of this? I thought it was email traffic that would be cause for high level embarrassment from our top .gov officials (Like Hillary, etc).

    What I was referring to in my first post was the release of the footage of the murder of the Reuters Journalists by Brad Manning. Video here: Collateral Murder

    I'd really like to know more about all of this. I've never quite trusted Assange and often thought the whole 'wikileaks' thing was actually a propaganda arm of the .gov. He falls in line with the party line in his theories.

    This thread is going to be ugly... ;)
     
  14. VisuTrac

    VisuTrac Ваша мать носит военные ботинки Site Supporter+++

    Hmm, kind of makes me wonder why a young private (22) would be allowed to have security access to diplomatic cables with out being monitored in some fashion.

    how many corporate networks monitor where you have been on the internet, record the files that you have saved to CD or memory stick or hell even block saving of files. Is the government going to admit that their cyber security isn't even as good as a $2MM annual revenue mfg company that has some trade or process secrets? Now if that was the case the Chief Security Officer (military/diplomatic/civilian) should be facing gross negligence, dereliction of duty and be shot as well.

    Something doesn't smell right. We are all looking here at this huge dump of 'classified' information (legislative branch is looking as well) . I wonder what is going on over there (unknown and unseen). I wonder if this is a decoy? Some gossip mixed in with some truths and half truths ?

    I don't know the answer but, it sure seems like a little bit of Sun Tsu's 'Art of War' Deception and Foreknowledge to me.

    Then again, I am pretty sure the gummermint would never lie to it's peeps.
    [footinmouth]
     
  15. SLugomist

    SLugomist Monkey++

    And that is why they are trying everything in their power to silence "them". Might be some pissed off citizens if the truth comes out about .govs, .bankster shenanigins.
     
  16. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    Interesting op-ed from Mike Rivero at whatreallyhappened.com.

     
  17. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    WIKI ahhhh fk man.....
    I hate that web site to many geniuses point to it all the time I say lets burn it down and hang them all....
    Peak Oil will take care of them soon enough...:oops:
     
  18. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    You know, this could be an engineered phenomenon to justify a shutdown of the current freedom of the web. For our safety.
     
  19. Quigley_Sharps

    Quigley_Sharps The Badministrator Administrator Founding Member

    Now you know where I'm coming from.(y)
     
  20. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    poorrichard's blog: Is WikiLeaks for Real?

    Is WikiLeaks for Real?

    By Behrouz Saba at newamericamedia.org

    The quarter of a million American diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal that American diplomats have a low opinion of the thuggish Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. They call him "feckless." Equally underwhelming are the revelations that Nikolas Sarkozy is "temperamental" and Muammar al-Gaddafi likes flamenco and blondes. What is more, some of Iran's Arab neighbors look to Tehran with fear and loathing, Afghan politicians are corrupt, and American corporations lobby the Congress.



    The global media is in a tizzy, repeating the same mundane, stale information from 251,287 cables released by WikiLeaks, a media organization that claims a loosely organized network of international contributors. Curiously, such publications as The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, Le Monde and Spain's El País have carried the leaks dutifully, even though their well-policed pages are otherwise governed by highly divergent philosophies, policies and practices. Even more curiously, all news organizations repeat the same cherry-picked factoids that their ace reporters apparently culled from the documents.


    No wonder that some on the Internet believe WikiLeaks to be a “false flag” operation—part of a Big Lie mounted by the American intelligence community.


    Julian Assange, the curious-looking founder of WikiLeaks—a cross between Casper the Friendly Ghost and Illya Kuryakin of the 1960s TV spy series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.—has the kind of checkered, globe-trotting past that makes him a prime recruit for intelligence services.


    At the same time, most Americans quickly dismiss these charges, asking why their government would covertly conspire to release information that is potentially damaging to itself.


    A closer look shows the many ways that these revelations bolster the status quo in Washington. They mainly deflect public attention from far more urgent issues—including a broken economy, dysfunctional governmental services, Obama's chimera of hope and change, and a general hollowing out of America at its core, commensurate with its imperial reach.


    More than that, the leaks characterize an increasingly unaccountable United States as the "victim," equate investigative journalism with treason, and communicate without repercussion Washington's frank opinion of world leaders with whom it is less than pleased. (It doesn't hurt the Obama administration a bit for the world to know that certain Arab capitals are just as opposed to the Ahmadinejad regime as Tel Aviv is.)


    Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of spy craft and the long history of similar false-flag operations would never question the benefits of such ruses to preserving many vested interests. This history includes the Gulf of Tonkin report, the counterproductive "war on drugs," and "detection" of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, to name just a few.


    Yet the majority of Americans would be hard pressed to name even one or two agencies in the vast, well-funded intelligence apparatus that sucks up their taxes while remaining virtually unanswerable to them and their elected representatives.


    In reality, the system is composed of 16 agencies whose existence is verifiable and another six that are thought to act in total secrecy. Most Americans know about the Central Intelligence Agency, but it iis among the smallest, least well-funded of the group, which is mostly under the Pentagon command with a total annual budget of nearly $50 billion. The fact that the State, Treasury and Energy departments also have covert operations will come as a surprise to many Americans. Asking people on Main Street to define the functions of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office or the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is sure to invite blank stares.


    America's covert machinery, easily the largest in world history, reaches every corner of the globe, gathering, hiding, publishing or distorting information to suit its own purposes. On its payroll are politicians and artists, scions of noble families and common gangsters, visionaries, crackpots, assassins and healers the world over.


    It would not be surprising at all if WikiLeaks were being used by this intelligence network to do its bidding, knowingly or otherwise. Surely this would explain the almost comical spectacle of WikiLeaks "releasing" tons of potentially damaging information while America's entire intelligence community merely whimpers like a whipped dog— as if the U.S. were not capable of moving the website out of civilian reach and erasing it from existence as easily as it introduced the Stuxnet virus to the computers of an Iranian nuclear plant. (Overshadowed by the WikiLeaks's non-news was the Monday morning bombing in Tehran that killed one Iranian nuclear scientist and injured another.)


    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton must be trying hard to keep a straight face as she "apologizes" for or otherwise "explains" the words of the bad boys and girls of American diplomacy. Equally constrained must be Attorney General Eric Holder, who speaks of an "active and ongoing criminal investigation" of WikiLeaks. Sorely missing is a voice sufficiently powerful within the government or major media to question this global spectacle, which doesn't pass the smell test on many levels.
     
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