Yes, appears incriminating ....
starting late yesterday with this from Wired, U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe:
Quote:
By Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter
June 6, 2010
9:31 pm
Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.
SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged. .... (much more in article and blogs cited below)
E.g., blogs at the Nation, Arrested Wikileaks Whistleblower: 260,000 Classified Docs Show “Almost Criminal Political Back Dealings”; and at the NY Times, U.S. Soldier Arrested in WikiLeaks Inquiry After Tip From Former Hacker, are running with the same story.
Regards
Mike
War in Afghanistan -- 92,000 reports now on public display
By now, most everyone has read about WikiLeak's release of 92,000 reports from operations in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010 -- some of them classified. Over the last month, three news organizations: the New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel had access to the documents. Today, they published stories based on their analysis, simultaneously with WikiLeaks release of the source documents.
All three news organizations make promises that "little or no harm" will come from their reporting.
I've only begun to wade through this mess. But initially, the hair is raised on my back. I'm wary of such easy promises.
The gravest concern is the classified information. There is simply no way that WikiLeaks or the news outlets can predict the outcome of releasing classified information -- even if names have been redacted. Classified information is protected for a reason. Lives, operations, negotiations, partnerships may perish when it's not.
I'm also concerned how easily the Rule of Law has been discarded in favor of "transparency." And how it's likely that these documents will be misinterpreted and/or distorted because they lack context and authentication. And how both these things will impact progress in Afghanistan and how we conduct ourselves as a society.
Anyways, back to reading.
Down from 260K claimed ...
when I briefly reported the Manning case, Yes, appears incriminating .... , to 92K actually published. So, Wikileaks' denial of the 260K log entries may be technically accurate - unless there are to be 2nd and 3rd installments.
In any event, if someone cannot make something out of 92K classified log entries (that is, something that they shouldn't be able to make out otherwise), I'd be very surprised. Consider the Venona intercepts (The Rosenberg Case Resurrected) - not exactly gems of clarity and incomplete; but they filled in many blanks.
Regards
Mike
Classification and unauthorized release
As a former national level Army analyst, my experience was that there was an awful lot of stuff classified that had no business being classified.
A little background for those who don't know:
1. There are only 3 levels of classification in the US, confidential, Secret, and Top Secret with Secret being the middle level (contrary to the NYT story). They are established and defined by Executive Order, not by legislation. There are also compartments within each category where access is granted based on "need to know."
2. Level of classification is chosen by the"degree of harm" to US national security based on unauthorized release.
3. Most classified documents are classified because they are based on previouslly classified documents - called "derivative classification authority."
IMO documents are legitimately classified when they relate to war plans (writ large), intel sources and methods, and perishable friendly and enemy information, as well as non-perishable stuff. Generally, once a plan has been executed, there is no longer a need to keep it classified although there may be some parts that should remain so. Generally, intelligence information is perishable and becomes part of the public domain fairly quickly so there is usually no longer a need to keep the INFORMATION itself classified. Sources and methods need to stay classified fro a very long time.
My experience has been that once classified it is unusaul for declassification to take place. An exception was OPORD BLIND LOGIC, my plan for the post-conflict reconstruction of Panama which my boss deliberately declassified after it had been executed. But, it is generally too difficult to take the time to declassify plans and information while retaining as classified what should be retained. So, people don't bother. There are also plenty of examples of the improper use of classification. When the opening to China took place, my organization ran a curren intel article on Ping Pong Dipolmacy that the author classified as Confidential even though he had taken it directly from the CBS Morning News on the grounds that if it were UNCLAS the generals would not believe it! In other cases, things have been classified only because they would embarrass public officials if released - this was IMO the primary reason the Nixon Administration sought to block the release of the Pentagon Papers.
Despite some cases of improper classification, the general problem of overclassification and lack of declassification is the all too human response that doing what is right is simply in the "too hard" box. That brings on its own problems such as Wikileaks and the Pentagon Papers (which should simply have been declassified and released).
Cheers
JohnT
Responsibility to protect...
The 'documents', if they can be called as much, appear to simply be culled from a well-known database used in theater.
The other issue, one that I'm personally concerned about, is the impact on the lives of named individuals in these documents. When we signed our agreements concerning the proper use of classified material, it was implied that the government would hold up its end of the bargain and prevent the unauthorized disclosure of our names, identities, activities, etc. The fact that US individuals are named in these documents and NOT redacted by the media is disturbing. This could have significant personal and professional ramifications for those who are not career, active-duty intelligence personnel. In some cases, the perception of involvement in 'covert' or 'special forces' raids could make us unhireable in certain professional disciplines.
What sayeth the Council on this matter?
Agree with John W's caveat
Legitimately classified stuff should only be declassified properly. That said, we shouldn't make it go into the "too hard box." My point, besidess being to give a bit of info on the nature and pitfalls of classification was to say that by not declassifying what and when we should, we create situations where someone else will "declassify" it by improper, unauthorized release. That is part of what happened in both the Pentagon Papers and the Manning and this other Wikileaks case. Not moral equivalency at all.
Tom, Australia is a combatant with us but NOT a member of NATO. She is actually a member of the ANZUS alliance. What, however, would you prosecute Wikileaks for? As far as I can tell, they have broken no US laws. Remember, we do not have an Official Secrets Act (which would probably be unconstitutional anyway). You can prosecute the govt leaker but not the media outlet.
Cheers
JohnT
A Treasure Trove of Information
Just as large amounts of unclassified data put together can provide intelligence, I am sure 92,000 pages will provide the enemy information on or TTP's and other operations.
Sadly such leakers haven't been prosecuted.