UK Asks News Outlets Not To Publish WikiLeaks Bombshell, US Prepares For Fallout 606
Stoobalou writes "The UK government has issued Defense Advisory Notices to editors of UK news outlets in an attempt to hush up the latest bombshell from whistle-blowing web site WikiLeaks. DA Notices, the last of which was issued in April 2009 after sensitive defense documents were photographed using a telephoto lens in the hand of Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick as he arrived at No 10 Downing Street for a briefing, are requests not to publish, and therefore not legally enforceable."
This news comes alongside a raft of articles detailing the US government's preparations for the release. Officials are warning allies that the documents will be more damaging than previous releases, to the point of potentially damaging diplomatic relations with countries like Turkey. The Vancouver Sun wonders if this will lead to a change in the way diplomats communicate.
What do they have to hide? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What do they have to hide? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:What do they have to hide? (Score:2, Interesting)
Quite Predictable--If you Believe the Prophets! (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm not as religious as I used to be, but I couldn't help but be reminded of some Bible verses:
"God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil" Ecclesiastes 12:14 (New International Version)
"On the day of judgment, men will render account for every careless word they utter." Matthew 12:36 (Revised Standard Version)
"Everything that is hidden will be shown, and everything that is secret will be made known." Luke 12:2
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What does Wikileaks get from this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikileaks used to feature [archive.org] leaks from all over the world, big and small. Truth and transparency for their own sake motivated the organization. In this capacity, Wikileaks might have been a force for good.
But a few years ago, Julian Assange (who is as autocratic as the rumors indicate) and his ilk abandoned [wired.com] the original goals of the organization to wage a political war against the United States. Wikileaks launched a massive fundraising effort, then started to ignore documents from the general public. Most telling is that the operators let the submission system stay broken for months at a time: if your leak doesn't harm the United States, Wikileaks isn't interested.
Today's Wikileaks uses methods that the old Wikileaks would have found deplorable: these include a strict internal hierarchy, deceptive video editing, spin-heavy public statements, marketing-driven timing, purity tests, and blackmail [erictric.com]. Whereas idealism drove the old Wikileaks, every action taken by its present incarnation is informed by malice aforethought. It's no longer about the truth. Now, it's a vendetta.
Speaking as someone who was formerly involved with the organization, I cannot support today's Wikileaks or its leadership. They've been captured by their vanity and pride [activism.net][1] and as far as I'm concerned, they can hang, then burn.
Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
[1] That some prominent members [twitter.com] of the organization consider [bit.ly] this wretched document the "obvious truth" illuminates their mindset.
Re:What does Wikileaks get from this? (Score:3, Interesting)
> Or maybe people in those countries don't send Wikileaks stuff to publish?
Who says they haven't? There's no reason the leakers of the US info had to be American.
Is it possible that perhaps a state actor with an extremely high level of technical espionage capability and whose massive and on-going exercise of that capability (read: cyber-attacks) against the US, might lead to the bulk capture of such material? Is it possible that having gained access to such material, they might forward it to WL through a US front?
Personally, I think its far more plausible than that some mid-ranking US officer had access to the sheer volume of diplomatic cables that is being published here.
Re:let me clear your mind. (Score:3, Interesting)
"What good would it do the citizens of either nation to have these observations broadcast for the world to see? "
Absolutely. Using your example it is clear that the US has chosen an ambassador with no respect for the Prime Minister. Without this leak that would result in years of subtle damage to relations. With the leak there is a new Ambassador who may deal with the UK with appropriate respect. And... it might prompt the Brits to take a second critical look at their PM and if he is an idiot hopefully he won't be re-elected next term.
Lord Moran's "Final Impressions of Canada" (Score:4, Interesting)
From the poison pen of xmas past.
Colby Cosh: Some apparently unwelcome candour on Canada [nationalpost.com]
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/transcripts/Lord-Moran.pdf [bbc.co.uk]
As a Canadian with a reasonably good recollection of 1984, all I can say is "ouch" and "damn straight". I've lived in five provinces (BC, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia). He has a point about the fetish in Toronto/Ottawa for loading the international penis ruler onto their iPhones. It's a bit of a culture shock for a Canadian to show up in Toronto and discover other Canadians taking themselves seriously.
Back when I was in eastern Canada, there was a lot of talk about changing the rules to allow mergers among our five large banks, so that bankers in Toronto could have bigger international wieners, and then after the party, collect state welfare like the big American banks they so bitterly envied.
On the flip side, Toronto does have a kick ass film festival, so I didn't totally feel like I was living in a foreign country.
Re:And I though slashdot articles were badly writt (Score:4, Interesting)
Well dammit, tell him to get the telephoto lens out of his hand...
You jest in grammar. But, as I recall a lot of people thinking that he had deliberately displayed that document.
The first odd thing was that he was walking into the building using the very public front entrance used almost exclusively for photo-ops.
The second odd thing was that the document's cover sheet was removed - anyone who has ever seen a classified document knows they have cover sheets to officially label them and prevent accidental disclosure.
The third odd thing was that the event was used to justify pulling in the timetable on a bunch of terrorism raids (the document was apparently part of the investigation) - it's pure speculation but perhaps there had been hesitation on making the raids and this event was a internal political move to force someone's hand. I haven't been able to find out what success, if any, there has been with respect to prosecuting the people raided (even then, the standard of evidence in the UK (and the USA) for such things has been lowered to such a point of ridiculousness that a successful prosecution isn't as meaningful as it once was)
Re:What does Wikileaks get from this? (Score:3, Interesting)
You were talking about a charge of "high treason", which is a legal concept, so I responded with the legal concept of "war". You can't cherry pick whatever you want, colloquial definitions or legal ones at your whim, unless of course the "legality" of things is just an excuse for a lynch-mob (which admittedly looks like the state of affairs in the US these days).
So in common-sense way, the US is waging wars: one inexcusable war of conquest in the guise of pursing 100 or so members of Al-Queda and the other inexcusable war of conquest where the aggression was "justified" by fabricated out of whole cloth "intelligence". Under such conditions, since these activities are so contrary to the US Constitution in both letter and spirit, it would seem reasonable that an act of sabotage of these wars would actually be something true "patriots" would do, not "traitors"...
And what you are missing here is that bureaucratic ass-covering was the grease on which both the Nazi Germany and the USSR run. Many of these bureaurats are also authoritarians and some are downright evil people who do actively conspire to deprive the regular citizens of their freedoms, but do so (like most of the Nazis) in a delusional belief that they are doing it for the populace's own good (its just that peons are too dumb to help themselves and it is up to these "professionals" to take care of things).
That is one of the main foundations upon which fascism was constructed, or did you really believe that the entire Nazi apparatus in a country as large as Germany was composed of just leather-clad psychopaths? Or did you suppose that an entity the size of USSR was choke-full of ego-maniacal "leaders"? Incompetent, ass-covering bureaucracy accounted for something like 80% of the "success" of both.
Bullshit. The "jihadist" forces are only mildly amused by this data because it does not pertain to operational activities that can be exploited and when it does the locals have much better picture of the situation than the bureaucratic reports can paint. Even the Pentagon was forced to admit that no Afghani informers were compromised due to the last round of leaks.
It is even worse for the diplomatic cables where the damage is wholly the product of arrogance and superiority complex of the US "diplomatic" staff and any idea of "exploitation" by the jihadists is laughable. Most jihadis in Afghanistan are unlikely to know what a "diplomatic cable" is.
What's good for the goose. . . (Score:1, Interesting)
What's the drivel the Government loves to keep telling us ?
" As far as privacy is concerned, you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. "
The game isn't nearly as fun when you don't get to exempt yourself from the rules now is it ?
It is rather sad we have to rely on organizations such as Wikileaks to provide some transparency and truth in how our government really operates. The reality being the US government being just as seedy and full of liars and corruption as those we like to dismiss as second rate countries. Apparently we just have a better PR rep than they do :/
Re:What does Wikileaks get from this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or maybe people in those countries don't send Wikileaks stuff to publish? They're not an investigation organization, they just publish them protecting the identity of the source.
Uh... Question here:
Is Wikileaks able to properly process documents written in a language other than English?
Re:What does Wikileaks get from this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Suddenly govt cares about privacy? Ha ha! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What does Wikileaks get from this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anything less than that
Leak about the US doing evil and you do have the protection of the legal system. In open court your defence team will have your leaks confirmed as true and can then call experts.
The press sit up and facts about methods, wars, funding, drugs, weapons, listening stations, taps, death squads, death lists, legal advice on going to war
Re:What does Wikileaks get from this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really, parts of the truth can paint a picture entirely different then the whole truth.
That much is true, and therefore releasing part of the truth invites the potentially negatively affected party to release the rest of it (or at least as much as they need to repair their image), which means more truth released overall. Which is a good thing.
And timing the release to impact certain events can have a far more negative consequence then the documents on their own might at any other given time.
Also true, but not really relevant to the usefulness of leaked information.
IT might even have consequences that cost human lives.
It might, but this is a fallacious argument in general, since it's exactly the one used by totalitarian regimes historically to justify any oppressive measures and crackdowns - "The enemies are out there! The dissidents are conspiring to destroy our society and kill us all! They must be silenced before their treacherous lies subvert our cause!".
So, in any particular case, you have to actually look at the cost/benefit of releasing such documents. Of particular interest is what damage was made by making them secret in the first place (thereby affecting public opinion etc). You also have to look at the benefit of teaching a lesson to those who would perpetrate crimes, thinking that evidence is secured away, and then seeing it subjected to public scrutiny to their horror - which would hopefully mean less such crimes in the future.
Overall, I'm not aware of any leak coming from WL where the cost/benefit ratio (in my subjective opinion, of course) was not advantageous for release.
Or did you not think about it and just believe they are the good guys no matter what happens?
I don't believe that WikiLeaks are the "good guys". They can knowingly be on al-Qaeda and DPRK payroll simultaneously for all I care. What matters is whether they deliver factual information. Similarly, any other party is also invited to deliver such information. If CIA wants to set up a WL-like front org to "leak" interesting stuff on China, Iran or Russia, they're more than welcome to do so as well. As a Russian citizen, I would of course be particularly interested in any stuff on my country (though there has already been plenty of "bombs" from elsewhere - but, alas, they do not have effect of the same magnitude in an authoritarian, sham-democracy society).
Re:let me clear your mind. (Score:3, Interesting)
The USA is like an abusive uncle, and extremely brutal one at times.... and anybody who minds her secrets being revealed is not a human being in my books. How's that for a balanced outlook? Why would I care about the "friends" of an utter non-entity? It's not like there hadn't been an easy way out of this: coming clean voluntarily.
This isn't about "revealing secrets", this is about a cocaine crazed rapist wearing huge hats with fruit on it taking a fucking look in the mirror. Only when that doesn't happen voluntarily do ugly scenes occur and third parties get hurt. So.... boo-fucking-hoo? Any power addicts resenting that should be next. It's really that simple. Turkey can cry me a river and then drown in it. Pah.
Re:Security is an embarassment (Score:1, Interesting)
Julian Assange does not have an intelligence operation. He publishes leaks provided by third parties. In fact, it is likely that those third parties include not only individuals but also foreign intelligence agencies.
Re:The last release (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at the snippet on the video on this site [mypetjawa.mu.nu]. (Please ignore the offensive domain name, I haven't found this video snippet posted elsewhere.) The guy there is clearly carrying an RPG, which is exactly what the trained soldier in the video said he saw before escalating the situation. It's a shame that the photographers got shot up, but they took that risk walking around in the open with people carrying RPGs.
I've had people come back and say it was a piece of photographic equipment. I was in the military, and my wife is a professional photographer. We both agree, that it looks and hangs and swings exactly like a weapon; and it doesn't look like any piece of photographic equipment we've ever seen.
To mods: This is not a troll, this is exposing an important piece of information which contradicts commonly held beliefs.
Re:What does Wikileaks get from this? (Score:3, Interesting)
You do understand, sumdumass, that "confirmation bias" is an evolutionary adaptation, and a very important one.
Or maybe you dropped that community college philosophy class before the professor actually explained the value of "confirmation bias".
You've used this little bit of theater before when you don't have sufficient energy to actually disagree with someone. It's a punk move.
Please remember, I was replying to an Anonymous Coward who was spreading anonymous FUD and making specific charges against the wikileaks community that were unsubstantiated. Excuse me, where does "actual evidence" fit into your understanding of "confirmation bias".
Reality (Score:1, Interesting)
To the frields and family of the human being killed (and of course that human being himself), collateral damage IS murder. A soldier doesn't aim and shoot accidentally. He aims and shoots quite consciously, and at that point, it hardly matters whether he was "100% sure" he was aiming at the right person.
Consider the case where a gang member points and shoots deliberately during a turf war, kills an innocent, and then later claims "I was sure he was the enemy, so you can't really blame me". Bullshit -- that's first degree murder.
Re:let me clear your mind. (Score:2, Interesting)
[...]Oh, and this will be powerful ammunition for those who would like to see the government given the power to censor the Internet.[...]
Oh, please! Don't be so naïve to think that they're not going to try censor it anyway.