The Wikileaks collection

[Firn]

On a different note every time i read that wikileaks released something new i always see the amazement of the media about certain facts, while most of the "secrets" are already known as a sort of public secret, and few actual unknown facts are released.

Thanks to the worldwide media echo to some of it's leaks, Wikileaks seems to act as an extremely bright spotlight which forces many to give some topics, "secret" or not, serious consideration.

Our deer PM Berlusconi has already reacted to the analysis of his character. It is not a surprising one, but what matters that it is one from the USA, brought to you by Wikileaks and not a simple, olf-fashioned columnist "comunista" from La Repubblica.

[Fuchs]

The remarks about Merkel and Westerwelle were no surprise in Germany - we already know our top politicians.

[omarali50]

If the US govt were smarter, they would use these leaks to prove that the US is actually a far more benign power than most people seem to think. And that there is no world government, no elders of Zion and no trilateral commission running the world. In fact, nobody seems to run the place. All in all, very reassuring.
Of course, it will be good if the CIA could upload the more juvenile cables from other countries to wikileaks, just to put things in perspective, but then, CIA probably has no such capability. Maybe they can pay some hacker to do the job?

[slapout9]

If the US govt were smarter, they would use these leaks to prove that the US is actually a far more benign power than most people seem to think.

Yes, I have been reading some of the leaks and I watched Secretary of State Clinton's response and there is certainly an opportunity for the US to turn this to our advantage, on a lot of issues if we were willing to do that. Unfortunately I don't think we will

[Pete]

When I was a kid classified documents were things that were printed on paper that we used to store in things called safes. Perhaps these huge databases that allow unlimited access to those allowed in aren't a good idea -- they should be broken up into smaller databases or have compartmentalized sections within them. On this forum we can see what a member's last online activity was; it would make sense if secure databases captured the transaction activity of users and alarm bells were to ring at multiple levels when people make huge downloads of files way out of proportion to their assigned responsibilities.

[Steve the Planner]

As one of those with "old time" attitudes about the integrity of a secrecy agreement and oath, I spent quite a lot of time at DoS's PRT offices trying to keep the door locked where my Sipr was, and all those maps and reports labels "Secret" and higher.

But I finished 14 months in Iraq with DoS, and never even had an out-briefing about anything I worked on, and terra drives full of valuable Iraqi info which I couldn't find anybody to give it to.

DoS's focus on security was really poor, especially in a mixed US/Foreign staff environment. The FSOs clearly did not understand the security implications of what we were working on with mil staff, or why such things were properly designated as secret. The problem was compounded by deep institutional divides between DoS and DoD, where it was not surprising to hear FSOs openly disdain the military, the war, Bush, etc....

I would not be so quick as to lay everything on Manning's doorstep, especially as wikileaks is now an open door...

The crux of the issue, though, goes back to 1984, and the concepts of a big mega computer controlled by a big mega government.

1984's vision of a totalitarian mega state came apart with the silicon chip and the distributed computing environment. Once everything is decentralized (to any extent), how do you actually keep the genie in a bottle?

Is it really practical to continue to pile up tons of gossipy internet data (the cables) in a widely distributed system without almost routine expectations of leaks---by many different parties for many different reasons. Isn't wiki as inevitable as the Pentagon Papers?

Happily for me, I am told that Wiki's media outlets are screening out names, so I can stay anonymous, but that antiquated idea of locked paper documents is just so 1960.

Doesn't it make more sense to rethink how mountains of cheap gossip is compiled and diseminated in open architecture? Maybe important stuff should be passed by courier or scrambled, and legitimate reports should be more judiciously written?

[Pete]

When I was a little kid spies used cameras to copy classified documents, one page at a time; when I was a teenager copying machines came along, one page at a time; then later came copiers that would feed long documents through, like Daniel Ellsburg apparently used. Now we have huge databases accessable by hundreds of thousands of users and we wonder why something like this could have happened.

The knee-jerk solution of tightening up on clearances doesn't help much either -- the CI guys could bayonet hundreds of walking wounded, the alcoholics, indebted guys, etc -- without actually barring the guys who might be the ones who are likely to cause this sort of trouble.

[JarodParker]

The problem was compounded by deep institutional divides between DoS and DoD, where it was not surprising to hear FSOs openly disdain the military, the war, Bush, etc....
I would not be so quick as to lay everything on Manning's doorstep, especially as wikileaks is now an open door...

As I stated earlier I can't believe that this stuff was not compartmentalized in a way that a junior soldier can't access DOS cables. Especially in light of the above mentioned institutional divide. Just a few years ago I remember the FBI guys complaining that they couldn't share their database with another field office. Has the pendulum swung so far in the other direction?

That's why I'm now convinced that this latest release was not the work of PFC Manning.

On a positive note, the whole thing might be unraveling...
WikiLeaks under new pressure on cable dump

WikiLeaks came under intense pressure Tuesday after its mass dump of sensitive US documents, with China demanding action, the website facing cyber attack and a defector announcing a rival site.

In a Twitter message, WikiLeaks said it was under a DDoS, or distributed denial of service, attack in which legions of "zombie" computers, normally infected with viruses, are commanded to simultaneously visit a website.

NATO, the trans-Atlantic alliance, joined the United States on Tuesday, with spokeswoman Oana Lungescu saying "we strongly condemn the leaking of confidential documents."

In Iceland, former WikiLeaks member 25-year-old student Herbert Snorrason said that he and others planned to create an alternative whistle-blower site.
"We broke from WikiLeaks because a few ex-WikiLeaks members had been very unhappy with the way Assange was conducting things," Snorrason told AFP in Reykjavik.

[Sargent]

From a historian's perspective, these leaks are like Christmas come early. I can promise you, there are a lot of US Diplomatic Historians salivating over this latest cache of documents. It's a dream for a historian, contemporary documents available in a timely fashion for their analysis. At least you can take solace in the fact that there will be very good histories written about this era, rather than the usual skims that must be accepted in the absence of much primary material.

What I find perversely humorous about the wikileaks story is how it contrasts with the big issue of hand wringing among military historians who work in the contemporary subject matter, say OIF: the volume of material generated in the age of computers, the number of versions any given document goes through, and how all of this will be collected and identified, and how anyone will be able to tell the "final" version of, say, a campaign plan. Having done a lot of archival document database work, I have a pretty good sense of how it would need to be done -- but I'd rather take a bullet to the head than get back into that work.

Jill

[JMA]

Yes, I have been reading some of the leaks and I watched Secretary of State Clinton's response and there is certainly an opportunity for the US to turn this to our advantage, on a lot of issues if we were willing to do that. Unfortunately I don't think we will

OK lets look at that.

How do you turn the instruction from the Secretary of State to spy on UN leadership and African leaders to the extent of collecting biometric data into an advantage other than to demand the immediate resignation of Clinton?

[JMA]

If the US govt were smarter, they would use these leaks to prove that the US is actually a far more benign power than most people seem to think. And that there is no world government, no elders of Zion and no trilateral commission running the world. In fact, nobody seems to run the place. All in all, very reassuring.

Benign or inept? That is the question.

It seems like it will take a little time but in the end all will be revealed.

[Pete]

This Wikileaks thing will blow over in a few days. However, I suspect that in the weeks and months to come we'll still read posts with insinuations about how the American and UK forces could be so stupid with their tactics and inadequate weapons, as though it's a moral issue that calls for severe action to be taken against those responsible.

[slapout9]

OK lets look at that.

How do you turn the instruction from the Secretary of State to spy on UN leadership and African leaders to the extent of collecting biometric data into an advantage other than to demand the immediate resignation of Clinton?

She already has. In one of her or the State Department press releases she/they called it "Diplomacy in Action". Intelligence collection is an offical duty of the State Department, focused in the area of the political intelligence. That is why they have their own intelligence department. They probably even have a web site somewhere.

Yep, they do. Here is the link http://www.state.gov/s/inr/

[JMA]

This Wikileaks thing will blow over in a few days. However, I suspect that in the weeks and months to come we'll still read posts with insinuations about how the American and UK forces could be so stupid with their tactics and inadequate weapons, as though it's a moral issue that calls for severe action to be taken against those responsible.

In that particular case it is a moral issue. Lives have been needlessly lost.

[JMA]

She already has. In one of her or the State Department press releases she/they called it "Diplomacy in Action". Intelligence collection is an offical duty of the State Department, focused in the area of the political intelligence. That is why they have their own intelligence department. They probably even have a web site somewhere.

(And as they say) If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

[Rex Brynen]

If the US govt were smarter, they would use these leaks to prove that the US is actually a far more benign power than most people seem to think. And that there is no world government, no elders of Zion and no trilateral commission running the world. In fact, nobody seems to run the place. All in all, very reassuring.

This still remains one of the most sensible things I've yet seen on the leaks

[davidoff]

I was particularly impressed by the SECDEF's response that the cables largely are in line with what the overt U.S. policy is, with respect to each policy area. While I cannot read the files due to the DOD policy that the material has not been de-classified (despite being published) and that reading it would constitute a security violation; it is my impression that the cables largely reveal a responsible and capable U.S. policy privately pursuing policy using the same methods that we have espoused publicly. As the SECDEF stated, this will likely have little effect on foreign policy because countries do not work with the U.S. out of choice, but rather out of necessity and because it is the best choice to achieve many mutual goals.

I am much more interested in the implications for open source analysis of how foreign policy is pursued. The publishing of this material is an opportunity for the best academics (without a security clearance or need to know) in security studies and foreign policy to figure out what methods and policies work best to accomplish U.S. goals. While the material data set is large and will require more time to digest, it presents a unique opportunity to correctly study and formulate policy in a post 9/11 world. In addition, I think the DOD should remove restrictions on DOD members from analyzing this material, or at least remove restrictions from Naval Post-Graduate School and National Defense University students so that their perspective is not left out of the historical discussion.

D

[Rex Brynen]

She already has. In one of her or the State Department press releases she/they called it "Diplomacy in Action". Intelligence collection is an offical duty of the State Department, focused in the area of the political intelligence. That is why they have their own intelligence department. They probably even have a web site somewhere.

Yep, they do. Here is the link http://www.state.gov/s/inr/

INR doesn't do collection, they do analysis. They're also, overall, one of the best political intel outfits on the planet. How much effect good political analysis has on policy is another issue

The "collect masses of personal/biometric data" request reads to me like one of those things that comes from HQ and which busy diplomats in the field generally ignore.

[JMA]

In a shockingly flippant comment to a Canadian television news anchor Evan Solomon of the CBC News Network on live TV, Tom Flanagan, a senior advisor and strategist to the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper today called for the assassination of Wikileaks director Julian Assange . It is believed to be the first ever televised "fatwa" since the edict by the Iranian leadership of the late Ayatollah Khomeini against British writer Salman Rushdie in February 1989. Amazingly, although news anchor Solomon afforded Flanagan the opportunity to retract his statement, Flanagan balked at doing so and instead reiterated that U.S. President should put out a "contract" on Assange or use "a drone" and that he would not be unhappy if Assange "disappeared." Flanagan who is a trusted member of PM Harper's inner circle of Tory strategists joins Sarah Palin in calling for the death of the Wikileaks director as retribution for the website's release of confidential diplomatic and intelligence "chatter" this week.

[Fuchs]

Some usual neocon hawks in the U.S. did the same on air.