Wikileaks and the US State Department

[dre]

In part it is because the consequences are so much less than they are in other places. Yes, there's the threat of jail time, but one of the big criticisms of Wikileaks is just that; that it picks on Western governments in general and the US in particular because it's far more likely that they can get away with it, that the public won't stand for governments coming down heavy on them. They can skirt the rules, find friendly countries and they know that the most they'll get if they don't get caught is a lot of huffing and puffing from the Secretary of State, or at worst, they'll spend a few years in prison.

If Assange was to authorize the publishing of an equivalent amount of material from China or Russia, then he'd better hide and he'd better hide good, because those guys have no qualms taking someone like Assange out. If he did what he did to the US to Russia, Assange wouldn't be fearful for his liberty, he'd be fearful for his life.

So why the US gets such a bum rap out of this mystifies me to a great extent. Yes, a lot of what was leaked was hardly big-time secret, most of it thus far hasn't been all that earth-shattering, more of the "We think the President of France is a bastard" sort of thing, just like most diplomatic dispatches since the Middle Ages have been. Some, like spying on UN officials is obviously going to get everyone up in arms, but if for one minute you don't think the Russians or the Chinese, or hell the UK, France and probably even Canada (that is if CSIS can spy its way out of a cardboard box) do the same sort of things, you're deluding yourselves. During the Cold War, I'm sure every friggin' office in the UN had multiple bugs in it.

In part it is because the consequences are so much less than they are in other places.

If Assange was to authorize the publishing of an equivalent amount of material from China or Russia, then he'd better hide and he'd better hide good.

Your misinformed about who WikiLeaks is. They were founded by Chinese and South African dissidents, and theyve done dumps on dozens of countries all around the world.

In 2009 they exposed the Chinese government for launching cyber attacks on google, and China shut down access to WikiLeaks on chinese networks. The behavior that China was caught in was far more serious than anything in the US dumps, and diplomats making up pet names for each other

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20023994-501465.html

WikiLeaks has an upcoming dump of Russian documents as well, and Moscow is already up in arms about it.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2028283,00.html

They published a copy of a secret Gag order that the UK government had put on a newspaper so that it couldnt report to the public on the illegal dumping of hazardous waste.

Everything from human rights abuses in East Timor, to classified japanese videos of nuclear reactor leaks, to leaking drafts of the copenhagen report. They also leaked reports that showed information the German government was trying to hide from their citizens about their healthcare system.

that it picks on Western governments in general and the US in particular because it's far more likely that they can get away with it

This is just silly. They do not "pick on western governments". They have no clue where whistleblowers and leaks will come from, and the contributors are totally anonymous. It runs as a pseudo WIKI! An AMERICAN chose to "pick on America" in this case.

This is a whole new genre of media and its hear to stay. WikiLeaks is just the tip of the iceberg, and dissidents around the world are already planning to launch their own similar dump sites.

Edited December 3, 2010 by dre

[eyeball]

Right you are a two hundred member conference call every morning with everyone talking at once.

I was thinking more along the lines of a Parliament actually.

Oh, hmmmm...on second thought you're right, what a complete waste of time that would be.

Edited December 3, 2010 by eyeball

[M.Dancer]

I never said it excused the crime. I said its strange that people are angry at the messenger, and not the root of the problem which is that the US beaurocracy leaks information like a busted sieve out of every orifice. This isnt the first dump... were talking about millions of documents here and multiple different cases.

I can be angry at the thief and the fence...

[GostHacked]

In any case, it was an inside job..

This, I can agree with.

[Oleg Bach]

Which officials have called for his assassination?

Every liar on the planet wants him dead. Now that is a lot of heat this guy is taking..but he can handle it...as for Sweden "wanting to question him" - about having not one but two disgruntled concubines..well good luck.

Jullian Assange..or what ever his name is - committed the sin of showing that international diplomacy is a sham..and there will never be peace or prosperity in the world as long as you have jerks in high places who shake hands with the right- and stab you in the back with the left.

So what is so horrible about putting the weight of embarrasment upon the sluggish spines of those that deserve to carry the burden?

How in the hell do you think our more intelligent military feel-- when they see their friends give their lives fighting in Afganistan..when our soldiers are being underminded by our diplomats...Diplomats are supposed to be skilled in the art of creating trust...now no one trusts Canada..THIS puts lives in more danger..blame it on the ratish governments not on some adventuring computer geek that likes to have to wives at once.

[scribblet]

Actually he's committing an act of war, the only thing Assange wants is to bring down a government, commit chaos.

[BubberMiley]

It's pathetic that the same group of people who were so outraged by the outing of one paper pusher at the CIA, are now all of a sudden cheerleading the exact same thing, but on a much grander scale.

Total and complete bullshit. This "group of people" exists only in your Mabus-like delusional brain.

Edited December 4, 2010 by BubberMiley

[dre]

Actually he's committing an act of war, the only thing Assange wants is to bring down a government, commit chaos.

WikiLeaks has posted dumps on dozens of governments. I dont imagine they think theyll "bring down" any of them. What they want to do is provide a service where whistleblowers can anonymously post information they think the public needs to know. In most of the recent dumps wiki doesnt even publish the content. They act as a go-between between the whistle blowers and media outlets. Nothing but a middle man.

So you really have to laugh at the pitchfork crowd, and how they focus on wikileaks. Even though thousands of media outlets have released the same information.

1. Intelligence analyst downloads data.

2. Intelligence analyst uploads data to wikileaks.

3. Other media outlets download data from wikileaks.

4. Other media outlets run the story and disseminate the data.

Yet the entire ire of the "wikileaks is evil" pitchfork mob is focused on one guy And all he was was a middleman.

[eyeball]

Actually he's committing an act of war, the only thing Assange wants is to bring down a government, commit chaos.

If it wasn't him or Wikileaks it would have been someone else. Given the stratospheric level of distrust and the yawning divide that's growing between the governed and their governments - between the incredulous and the incredible - it was only a matter of time before simple guilt and moral and cognitive dissonance finally caused people to start snapping. As has been pointed out Assange is only a conduit passing on what's been passed on to him.

If you're looking for the real source of chaos, it's probably resulting from the people who are trying to impose too much order on everything. It's coming full circle and they're finally screwing themselves for a change...and a rather refreshing change at that.

It's been said that much of what's been revealed has been out there for at least a few years but this was almost always in a speculative sense, a sense that governments have denied and downplayed till the cows came home. But these so called cables have clearly confirmed some pretty damaging, embarrassing and inconvenient things, like for example just how utterly corrupt the government we're desperately trying to prop up in Afghanistan is and especially just how much and how deeply our government has known it.

After all that's been said and done in public versus what has been said and done in secret I can't imagine how any wounded soldier or bereaved person who has lost a soldier to this damned war could ever imagine with a straight face for very long that they didn't die or get wounded in vain. They'd have to be even more desperate to hide their true feelings and awareness than the government. No one likes to be made a fool of, which I guess explains so much of the anger the people who imagine they've been betrayed are feeling. How many of these and how long it will take them to focus their anger where it rightly belongs is anyone's guess. Perhaps the next round of revelations and release of the financial 'cables' that have been winging their way through the back-rooms of power and influence will tip the scales.

Bring it on I say. I just love the sweet stench of freshly stirred shit and corruption. I can't get enough of it.

[bloodyminded]

Sycohphant is the right word. It describes perfectly the worshipful devotees of WikiLeaks. And their refusal to admit that WikiLeaks has done anything wrong.

No, it's the wrong word. That's all.

Nope. All one has to do is read the news. The link you cited puts things in perfect perspective. WikiLeaks wanted to negotiate only on their terms. They refused to compromise even a bit. Their idea of a proposed working relationship was for the State Department to hand over more classfied materials.

This is quite different from your assertion that the whole thing was " a lie," cooked up by wikileaks' supporters.

You were misinformed by some no-nothing whom you read. Since then, you have discovered your information was false. And for some reason, you believe that you're being mistaken is somehow a sign that you were right.

And the fact that you're championing that type of disregard for innocent people's lives, all in an effort to satisfy some deranged "stick it to the government" sexual fantasy is disgusting.

I have a "disregard for innocent people's lives," and this stems from some "sexual fantasy"?

You're losing it, Shady. Best to jump off your sanctimonious high horse.

Edited December 7, 2010 by bloodyminded

[bloodyminded]

And by the way, the State Department response was to a letter from WikiLeaks from November 26th. How does that help the names and people involved in their document dump during the summer?

Wikileaks made the same request with the earlier document dump.

At least do the elementary minimum of research before making your claims.

Edited December 8, 2010 by bloodyminded

[guyser]

At least do the elementary minimum of research by making your claims.

...come on its shady....he's best when he is ignorant and wrong, like 90% of the time.

Where else would one get a laugh?

[scribblet]

Really we are being held hostage by the insidious Assange, as many people will never believe him guilty of the charges, even if he is. If he is accidently hit by a truck, no one will believe it was an accident - so - who's to say this isn't a put of job by Assange to keep him out of reach of the U.S.

Has he shown everything he has or only just what suited his political agenda?

[bloodyminded]

Really we are being held hostage by the insidious Assange, as many people will never believe him guilty of the charges, even if he is. If he is accidently hit by a truck, no one will believe it was an accident - so - who's to say this isn't a put of job by Assange to keep him out of reach of the U.S.

Has he shown everything he has or only just what suited his political agenda?

It's a plot and an international conspiracy, I tells ya.

[scribblet]

Yup, tin foil hat time... LOL

BTW, his stated goal is to bring down gov'ts by limiting their ability to communicate, he sure isn't doing this for altruistic reasons, he has his own political agenda.

[dre]

Yup, tin foil hat time... LOL

BTW, his stated goal is to bring down gov'ts by limiting their ability to communicate, he sure isn't doing this for altruistic reasons, he has his own political agenda.

Yawn.

[Pliny]

I think Assange is serving an important role in the evolution of governance in today's information age.

He is undoubtedly costing some people their lives, and that is not good but I think governments are more concerned with how he is embarrassing certain individuals. Some will be embarrassed, some will be offended and there will be some backlash to the exposure of this "top secret" information.

Assange is basically exposing the fact that political pettiness and arrogance are a danger to peace and overall global well being and not much else.

[Pliny]

Double post

Edited December 15, 2010 by Pliny

[bloodyminded]

He is undoubtedly costing some people their lives

Some evidence for this claim would be excellent.

[dre]

I think Assange is serving an important role in the evolution of governance in today's information age.

He is undoubtedly costing some people their lives, and that is not good but I think governments are more concerned with how he is embarrassing certain individuals. Some will be embarrassed, some will be offended and there will be some backlash to the exposure of this "top secret" information.

Assange is basically exposing the fact that political pettiness and arrogance are a danger to peace and overall global well being and not much else.

Even IF the release of information HAS cost people their lives (and I have seen no evidence of this yet)... How many lives have been lost because of governments abuse of secrecy. My guess is its in the millions.

Assange is basically exposing the fact that political pettiness and arrogance are a danger to peace and overall global well being and not much else.

In this case thats correct. But this is only one of many dumps by wiki leaks. Theyve dumped documents showing the Chinese government launched a cyber attack on google, they dumped documents on the Japanese covering up the severity of nuclear reactor leaks, theyve dumped documents showing the UK government tried to hide illegal toxic waste dumping from their own citizens, documents on Myanmar, and many other items.

This is the exact kind of media I have always wanted... The ability to view raw uncensored data myself and form my own opinion of what it means, as opposed to other media in the west which is pretty much only good if you want editorializing and celebrity fluff pieces.

[GostHacked]

The fallout from the Wikileaks docs will manifest itself in a way that may not be obvious to some.

It is a precursor to clamping down on information online, how it flows, and how it is controlled.

[bush_cheney2004]

...This is the exact kind of media I have always wanted... The ability to view raw uncensored data myself and form my own opinion of what it means, as opposed to other media in the west which is pretty much only good if you want editorializing and celebrity fluff pieces.

Oh great...then you no doubt support total transparency, including exposing private data like tax records, medical conditions, offenses by minors, sexual assault victim identification, driving records, insurance claims, adoption proceedings, abortions, etc., etc.

Edited December 15, 2010 by bush_cheney2004

[dre]

Oh great...then you no doubt support total transparency, including exposing private data like tax records, medical conditions, offenses by minors, sexual assault victim identification, driving records, insurance claims, adoption proceedings, abortions, etc., etc.

If you actually read any of the wikileaks threads you would know what I support and what I dont. Im not going to explain it for a tenth time because youre too lazy to read the threads you post in.

[eyeball]

Oh great...then you no doubt support total transparency, including exposing private data like tax records, medical conditions, offenses by minors, sexual assault victim identification, driving records, insurance claims, adoption proceedings, abortions, etc., etc.

Speaking for myself I would only support the release of private data of politicians or bureaucrats who try to exploit other people's private data.

By the same token bloodyminded flipped at Pliny, if there is any evidence that Wikileaks has released private data of the sort you've mentioned you should produce it.

[Pliny]

Some evidence for this claim would be excellent.

Perhaps a bit premature for me to make this statement.