wikileaks suck opening secrets re: iraq afghanistan terror

[Randy Haskin]

Leaking secret documents in violation of orders is not, in itself, treason.

Valid point.

What Manning is going to have trouble with is the non-disclosure agreements he signed as part of gaining his security clearance, which have extremely stiff penalties and are legally binding.

That, and a whole handful of other UCMJ offenses.

[CAPFlyer]

The additional question here is not insomuch about that the information was leaked, but whether or not WikiLeaks was/is encouraging the leaks of this sort of information (and is thus inciting insubordination in the military), which is a clear violation of the Espionage Act of 1917, which very clearly defines that the First Amendment is not unlimited, but is very specific on where those boundaries are.

[JDK]

The ramifications of the story are very interesting, and lots of different items running out. As well as the current political issue. Another interesting article here:

http://www.theage.com.au/world/leaks-da ... 18i4n.html

And a quote at the end (bear in mind the same statement applies to ALL countries, in the nature of diplomacy).

Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defence: ''The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.''

Are leaks important? History shows they are a vital check and balance to the corrupting privileges of power. What and how leaking and publishing is justified is very debatable. However when your own side start to compromise you may as well be the bad guy. At least they get to enjoy it.

[tom d. friedman]

this assange.......... riiiggghht..... i'd love to highlight the 1st 3 letters of his last name!! he sounds like somebody out of a james bond flick with his threats, or worse out of an austin powers spy spoof!!

[Neal Nurmi]

I must say I have very mixed feelings about all this. I tend to have a rather personal and emotional take on it all.

I tend to think that very little should really be kept secret by government from us, her citizens. These people are our employees, and we should be able to see how the money is being spent and just what they are doing in our name.

I get the impression that more and more often these days stuff is being kept secret to avoid pissing off the citizens, or to avoid embarrassing the government, or both. These are not good enough reasons for secrecy, in my opinion.

The years of young George really show some of the dangers of too much room to operate in secrecy, as did the Ellsburg released documents during the Viet Nam era. An awful lot of stupid and bad and expensive stuff has been done under the cloak of the secrecy establishment.

I haven't really seen much of anything in these thousands of documents that will hurt anybody at all. I have seen a lot to embarrass the government.

My emotional response is that since my government has very deeply and profoundly embarrassed me on several occasions in recent years -- torture, starting unprovoked wars against backward little countries and then not being able to win those wars!, rendition, Katrina, the Supreme Court handing an election to the numerical loser, saving the Bankers' multimillion dollar asses (with our Grandkids' money) after the Bankers (with government collusion) got us into the mess to begin with. 10 % unemployment in the world's richest country, etc etc etc. -- I cannot feel very darn sympathetic when the government gets emabarrassed.

If they didn't try to keep so many silly secrets, and instead only kept the important and really useful stuff secret, we would not have all this silliness going on...

[JDK]

It would be nice if people thought about this issue, as Neil's discussed his views, rather than reacting.

If you trust your government to tell you the truth, where's the problem?

Think about that.

Interesting articles here:

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/41890.html

And here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11882092

[Kyleb]

An interesting aspect of this case is that the fellow behind Wikileaks claims to have mailed out a "poison pill" type file which includes very damaging information. Apparently, he hasn't provided the code to unlock the encrypted file, but is using the threat of exposing that information as leverage to avoid prosecution.

Hmm, wonder how long it took the NSA/CIA or whoever to crack his encryption...

[Bill Greenwood]

Neal, well said.
However, this latest report of strategic sites around the world, seems to go the wrong way, and should not have been disclosed.
The list doesnt't reveal anything the U S govt did wrong, as far as I can see, and it might be of some use to our enemies. Of course any terrorist can find plenty of targets without this list.

I wonder what the motivation of the Wikileaks founder is and that of Manning, if he is indeed one of the sources.

When I was in the service, I had a secret security clearance, not top secret, but i don't remember knowing anything that the enemy wanted to hear. I sure didn't encounter any Angilina Jolie types offering me any cash. I don't recall signing any non disclosure statement either.

Last edited by Bill Greenwood on Tue Dec 07, 2010 11:30 am, edited 2 times in total.

[Bill Greenwood]

Neal, as for as the govt bailouts, both of the auto industry, and the banks; whether you agree or not with the favoritism given these few, it does seem to be working out even better than hoped. It saved some jobs, perhaps many thousands, and also the firms have paid back most of the govt money borrowed, perhaps above 90%.

CNN today says the govt is selling Citi shares for enough to repay the $45 billion loan and make a $12 billion profit above that.

[CAPFlyer]

CNN today says the govt is selling Citi shares for enough to repay the $45 billion loan and make a $12 billion profit above that.

Does that mean I get an extra $460 in my tax refund this year since the government isn't supposed to be making profits?