WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

I hope the right heads roll

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

I hope the right heads roll

Rather silly of you, all politics (from personal to Presidential) is based on CYA, not on blaming the responsible. (Mikey did it)

Maybe WikiLeaks can do the right thing by returning stolen property.

wandeljw wrote:

Maybe WikiLeaks can do the right thing by returning stolen property.

Wikileaks hasn't stolen any property.

They are in possession of stolen property.

JTT wrote:

Why? Because it earns you brownie points somewhere.

<snip>

but you sit silent while the USA has butchered millions around the world.

Brownie points? for what?

Do you object to the US and Yemen creating a cover prior to the accident, because thats when it was decided. The cables reveal that they choose to continue that cover. The decisions to maintain the cover may have less to do with concealing the loss of life (a public fact already) or who was executing the strike, and more to do with carrying out earlier objectives.

But I am perplexed at the insistence of a number of you to continually try to separate the initial secret agreement & the resultant civilian deaths. Clearly (to me anyway) if there had been no secret deal, the bombings & the civilian deaths would not have occurred.

Not that I am alarmed that you might think less of me, but it appears that you have misinterpreted my statement.

When I stated that only the Yemeni should be outraged, I meant as respects the Yemeni government lying about who was responsible for the attacks. Whether the Yemenis or the Americans took responsibility for the attacks they were going to be launched and whatever civilians died would have died either way. It is interesting to me that Saleh decided to deceive his people, but I'm not one of his people and so why should I, or anyone else who is not Yemeni, be outraged? The lies didn't cause the civilian deaths.

Whether one feels outrage over the death of innocent civilians, regardless of their nationality, is an entirely different matter.

If I were a Yemeni citizen I would be outraged, but I don't see why anyone who is not a Yemeni cares beyond it being interesting.

As for the link I provided:

If the Yemenis taking responsibility for the attacks was a secret, you wouldn't expect the Americans to announce a change in tactics to drones would you? You would expect to hear of it from the Yemenis (see link), but as we all now know the attacks and the tactic belonged to the US.

It could be argued that Wikileaks has already returned the property to the rightful owners.

Let's leave it here, shall we?

But some information needs to be kept secret. Foreign sources need to be protected from disclosure because their own governments may retaliate against them.

Conversing with you is like wading through mud.

CIA to examine impact of files recently released by WikiLeaks
(By Greg Miller, The Washington Post Staff, December 22, 2010)

The CIA has launched a task force to assess the impact of the exposure of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables and military files by WikiLeaks.

Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it's mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: W.T.F.

The irreverence is perhaps understandable for an agency that has been relatively unscathed by WikiLeaks. Only a handful of CIA files have surfaced on the WikiLeaks Web site, and records from other agencies posted online reveal remarkably little about CIA employees or operations.

Even so, CIA officials said the agency is conducting an extensive inventory of the classified information that is routinely distributed on a dozen or more networks that connect agency employees around the world.

And the task force is focused on the immediate impact of the recently released files. One issue is whether the agency's ability to recruit informants could be damaged by declining confidence in the U.S. government's ability to keep secrets.

"The director asked the task force to examine whether the latest release of WikiLeaks documents might affect the agency's foreign relationships or operations," CIA spokesman George Little said. The panel is being led by the CIA's Counterintelligence Center but has more than two dozen members from departments across the agency.

To some agency veterans, WikiLeaks has vindicated the CIA's long-standing aversion to sharing secrets with other government agencies, a posture criticized after it was identified as contributing to the nation's failure to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Even while moving to share more information, the agency "has not capitulated to this business of making everything available to outsiders," said a former high-ranking CIA official who recently retired. "They don't even make everything available to insiders. And by and large the system has worked."

As recently as two years ago, the agency rejected a request to make more of its intelligence reports available on the SIPRNET, the classified network used by the Pentagon to pass information around the world.

"We simply said we weren't going to do it," another former CIA official said. "The consensus was there were simply too many people potentially who had access."

The former officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss agency security measures.

Among those people with access to SIPRNET was a low-level U.S. Army intelligence analyst, Bradley E. Manning, who has been charged with disclosing classified information and is suspected of using a simple thumb drive to steal the files that were sent to WikiLeaks.

The CIA has had its own computer scandals. Security clearances for former CIA director John Deutch were suspended in the late 1990s after he was accused of keeping classified information on his computer at home.

Officials said the agency also has had difficulty keeping track of laptops sent to overseas stations, as well as sensitive information shared with thousands of contractors.

The agency employs software measures to minimize the chance of a WikiLeaks-like leak. Agency systems send warnings to administrators whenever a large amount of data is downloaded. And most of the CIA's computers are not equipped to allow the use of a removable drive.

Asked what might happen if he had inserted a thumb drive into the machine at his desk, the former senior CIA official quipped: "There would probably be a little trap door under my chair."

Even so, CIA security experts have fretted for years about the implications of moving secret information from pieces of paper to digital files that can be distributed online.

"It's just a huge vulnerability," the former high-ranking CIA officer said. "Nobody could carry out enough paper to do what WikiLeaks has done."

Joint Statement

UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection
the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression

Joint Statement On Wikileaks


December 21, 2010 – In light of ongoing developments related to the release of diplomatic cables by the organization Wikileaks, and the publication of information contained in those cables by mainstream news organizations, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression see fit to recall a number of international legal principles. The rapporteurs call upon States and other relevant actors to keep these principles in mind when responding to the aforementioned developments.

1. The right to access information held by public authorities is a fundamental human right subject to a strict regime of exceptions. The right to access to information protects the right of every person to access public information and to know what governments are doing on their behalf. It is a right that has received particular attention from the international community, given its importance to the consolidation, functioning and preservation of democratic regimes. Without the protection of this right, it is impossible for citizens to know the truth, demand accountability and fully exercise their right to political participation. National authorities should take active steps to ensure the principle of maximum transparency, address the culture of secrecy that still prevails in many countries and increase the amount of information subject to routine disclosure.

2. At the same time, the right of access to information should be subject to a narrowly tailored system of exceptions to protect overriding public and private interests such as national security and the rights and security of other persons. Secrecy laws should define national security precisely and indicate clearly the criteria which should be used in determining whether or not information can be declared secret. Exceptions to access to information on national security or other grounds should apply only where there is a risk of substantial harm to the protected interest and where that harm is greater than the overall public interest in having access to the information. In accordance with international standards, information regarding human rights violations should not be considered secret or classified.

3. Public authorities and their staff bear sole responsibility for protecting the confidentiality of legitimately classified information under their control. Other individuals, including journalists, media workers and civil society representatives, who receive and disseminate classified information because they believe it is in the public interest, should not be subject to liability unless they committed fraud or another crime to obtain the information. In addition, government "whistleblowers" releasing information on violations of the law, on wrongdoing by public bodies, on a serious threat to health, safety or the environment, or on a breach of human rights or humanitarian law should be protected against legal, administrative or employment-related sanctions if they act in good faith. Any attempt to impose subsequent liability on those who disseminate classified information should be grounded in previously established laws enforced by impartial and independent legal systems with full respect for due process guarantees, including the right to appeal.

4. Direct or indirect government interference in or pressure exerted upon any expression or information transmitted through any means of oral, written, artistic, visual or electronic communication must be prohibited by law when it is aimed at influencing content. Such illegitimate interference includes politically motivated legal cases brought against journalists and independent media, and blocking of websites and web domains on political grounds. Calls by public officials for illegitimate retributive action are not acceptable.

5. Filtering systems which are not end-user controlled – whether imposed by a government or commercial service provider – are a form of prior censorship and cannot be justified. Corporations that provide Internet services should make an effort to ensure that they respect the rights of their clients to use the Internet without arbitrary interference.

6. Self-regulatory mechanisms for journalists have played an important role in fostering greater awareness about how to report on and address difficult and controversial subjects. Special journalistic responsibility is called for when reporting information from confidential sources that may affect valuable interests such as fundamental rights or the security of other persons. Ethical codes for journalists should therefore provide for an evaluation of the public interest in obtaining such information. Such codes can also provide useful guidance for new forms of communication and for new media organizations, which should likewise voluntarily adopt ethical best practices to ensure that the information made available is accurate, fairly presented and does not cause substantial harm to legally protected interests such as human rights.



Catalina Botero Marino
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression



Frank LaRue
UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression