Wikkileaks

[slinkydevil]

Great news for terrorist oganisations - vital but soft targets:

 

List of facilities 'vital to US security' leaked: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11923766

 

In Britain, the list ranges from Cornwall to Scotland, including key satellite communications sites and the places where trans-Atlantic cables make landfall.

 

A number of BAE Systems plants involved in joint weapons programmes with the Americans are listed, along with a marine engineering firm in Edinburgh which is said to be "critical" for nuclear powered submarines.

[pongo]

Given that 3 million people are reported to have had access to the, so called, secret, so called, cables are you really sure that Wikileaks is the problem China ?

 

Even assuming you are prepared to take Wikileaks at face value and I am surprised that anyone does. Putin doesn't.

[Pragmatopian]

Asange to fight extradition

 

There's something really stinky about this extradition. I hope the UK legal system denies Sweden's request and through 'top secret diplomatic channels' tells the US not to bother applying to avoid any embarassment. It's the least we could do after the US snub to Gordon Brown in his intercession on behalf of Gary McKinnon (as revealed by one of the cables).

 

I would respectfully disagree with Chinahand's view: I think it is in the public interest to cast light on the murky world of US 'diplomacy' in an even broader sense than it is in the public interest to cast light on murky practices within business.

[gazza]

Just gos to show you that you should check local laws.

 

sex without a condom = rape.

sex with a condom that splits = sexual molestation.

 

all i can say is utter crock of shit

[pongo]

Live with the WikiLeakable world or shut down the net. It's your choice

 

There is a delicious irony in the fact that it is now the so-called liberal democracies that are clamouring to shut WikiLeaks down.

 

Consider, for instance, how the views of the US administration have changed in just a year. On 21 January, secretary of state Hillary Clinton made a landmark speech about internet freedom, in Washington DC, which many people welcomed and most interpreted as a rebuke to China for its alleged cyberattack on Google. "Information has never been so free," declared Clinton. "Even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable."

 

She went on to relate how, during his visit to China in November 2009, Barack Obama had "defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens to hold their governments accountable, generates new ideas, and encourages creativity."

 

... What WikiLeaks is really exposing is the extent to which the western democratic system has been hollowed out. In the last decade its political elites have been shown to be incompetent (Ireland, the US and UK in not regulating banks); corrupt (all governments in relation to the arms trade); or recklessly militaristic (the US and UK in Iraq). And yet nowhere have they been called to account in any effective way. Instead they have obfuscated, lied or blustered their way through. And when, finally, the veil of secrecy is lifted, their reflex reaction is to kill the messenger.

[jimbms]

mmm whats the betting he either has an accident or is found hanged in his cell.

[Hermes]

Neck-hanged or Ass-hanged?

[Terse]

Tuesday Dec 7th. Press release from US State Dept:

 

The US is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day event 2011 ... The theme for next year's commemoration will be '21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers'. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals' right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.

 

Who says they don't understand irony?

[Chinahand]

In all the shades of gray that exist in this world the United States is one of the lighter colours when it comes to openness. Of the aspiring Great Powers it is lighter by far.

 

Certainly it looks after its own interests, flouts international law when it suits it and has areas as dark and black as any other country, but though those areas are dark, they are smaller than any of the other countries which would wish to control the global order.

 

The US does want the world to be a more open place where people can question their governments - having that aim and wanting to maintain diplomatic confidentiality are not contradictory positions. For all the faults the US has, it is above average and I very much support its efforts to increase openness around the world. There is nothing wrong with that aspiration.

 

Very little of what has been leaked concerning US conduct has been surprising. The reason is that the US holds briefings and press conferences and journalists are able to write nearly everyday phrases like 'sources close to the White House', 'unnamed officials said' etc.

 

The shocking stuff has come from reading the opinions the despots and secuicrats shared with the US.

 

I very much agree with what Robert Gates says in Pongo's post, overall I doubt you will be able to clearly identify any world changing events to these leaks, but that doesn't mean dissidents who helped the US in nasty regimes won't suffer in consequence, or that already distrustful geopolitical relations - say Saudi-Iranian relationships - don't sour further from learning directly what their rivals think - and little stones can cause big rock falls, though the important issue is the stability of the cliff and not the first pebble to fall, but lets be clear the middle East is not a stable place and to have it publicized that Saudi is warmongering has real consequences which the strategic ambiguity of confidentiality usually dampens.

 

These leaks increase the 'security dilema' Iran faces and nobody knows how it will react.

 

I'm still not convinced that Wikileaks is acting in a responsible manner for all that. Dissidents lives have been put at risk, and geopolitics affected - I don't see anything that Mr Assenger has leaked as justifying his hubris - he has taken on himself alot of responsibility, and having the US trying to lock him up is the least of the moral dilemas he should be facing - people who have helped the US in despotic regimes may well suffer for Mr Assange crusade - he's playing with people's lives, and not for alot from what I can see.

[pongo]

Dissidents lives have been put at risk, and geopolitics affected

 

By the US using a system of information sharing which gives 3 million people access to this information rather than on need to know.

 

This has nothing to do with Wikileaks. If it wasn't Wikileaks it would be someone else. Anything which is in the public domain is going to spill out onto the internet sooner or later.

 

This has implications with respect to many of the issues which many people have concerns over with regard to the gathering and dissipation of information in general. How soon before a celebrity airport naked body scan makes TMZ ? How soon before leaked medical records get published abroad ? How soon before insurance companies are surreptitiously buying dna data ?

 

Given that govts and political groups have long used leaks as a way of propagating information I am as suspicious as Russia and Iran than some of the information in these leaks has not been deliberately left hanging out and that the inevitability of information being leaked is not itself being used as a channel.

[Chinahand]

Pongo - I phrased the issue quite carefully:

 

I'm still not convinced that Wikileaks is acting in a responsible manner for all that. ... I don't see anything that Mr Assange has leaked as justifying his hubris - he has taken on himself alot of responsibility ... he's playing with people's lives, and not for alot from what I can see.

 

Are you really saying that because somebody thinks somebody else will do what they are going to do at some later date, that reduces or nullifies their moral accountability for what they are doing?

 

I agree that the US has responsibilities in this too, and no doubt as a result of this things will become more difficult for both whistleblowers and diplomats in how they classify and encrypt their coms, but I'm not convinced that because of America's irresponsibility somebody can just say 'well somebody else was going to do it anyway, so I just thought lets crack on'.

 

If there was actually something important to be released - say over torture, or state sponsored kidnappings or terrorism etc then I would be far more willing to say this is worthwhile, but on the whole at the moment I can't.

 

Maybe more will come out, but given search technology I would have thought we'd have got the juiciest bits by now - we'll see, but at the moment I feel Assange has achieved very little for all the publicity he's garnered, and he's hurt people.

 

If you were an Iranian businessman the last thing you'd be wanting to read in the Economist is this:

 

Marked “secret” and for American eyes only, it contains some spicy details gained from a “well-connected businessman”. To establish that source’s credentials, the cable’s author lists his family connections (Iran), his place of business (Baku), his education (British), and his distinctive sporting career. The name is not given, but could easily be deduced.

 

For this to be leaked without removing all this identifiable information genuinely puts people at risk from very nasty totalitarian states. Wikileaks shouldn't have done it.

[pongo]

Are you really saying that because somebody thinks somebody else will do what they are going to do at some later date, that reduces or nullifies their moral accountability for what they are doing?

 

No I'm not on that.

 

Some people say that nothing interesting or which we did not know has been leaked. This is not true. And it takes time for the significance of information to be understood. It's information not headlines. It will be for historians and journalists to search this material over time and find out what it contains. In that context it will be a valuable resource for years.

 

Much of the so far is stuff which we would have believed but which our govts have been telling us differently. The stark realities are shocking. The depressing failure of the long war in Afghanistan being one example. It is going to be very interesting to learn what the promised banking revelations are going to be.

 

Marked “secret” and for American eyes only, it contains some spicy details gained from a “well-connected businessman”. To establish that source’s credentials, the cable’s author lists his family connections (Iran), his place of business (Baku), his education (British), and his distinctive sporting career. The name is not given, but could easily be deduced.

 

For this to be leaked without removing all this identifiable information genuinely puts people at risk from very nasty totalitarian states. Wikileaks shouldn't have done it.

 

Sharing that information with 3 million people put that information at risk already.

[Pragmatopian]

Wikileaks cables for sale on Amazon Kindle Store

 

Anonymous recruits data army

Not sure I approve of the methods, but I entirely concur with the sentiment.

 

Geoffrey Robertson to defend Assange

Now there's a QC you want on your side when freedom of speech is at issue!

 

There be a global infowar a-brewin'!

[Terse]

THIS ONE could be very interesting!

[DRIVER]

Oh Yes !!!!!