^^^ And what does any of that to do with informants and field intelligence personnel? You continue to make a case for whistle-blowers and government oversight, yet seem genuinely oblivious that the description doesn't accurately describe what Assange is doing. He's crossed the line and is a detriment more to the little guys doing the work than the evil government big wigs you believe are harmed. And what about the people that Roosevelt "dragged" into war. It was the same then. Lend Lease and all that. We should have sat idle and let the Nazis do their thing?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/12/06/wikileaks_chinese_hacking/ http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/11/08STATE116943.html#par32 I promise you, this is extremely damaging. But one example out of 250,000 cables, one that impacts me first hand in my work.
Not any more than sit idle while our form of government gravitates towards the nazis/ss. While I believe that reasonable transparency is a good thing I admit that airing our dirty laundry is not. By the same token, our laundry should not be allowed to get that dirty. I've yet to see any publication verifying that "informants" or anyone else was exposed. I have heard claims, but nothing that has been verifiable as to the damage other than embarracement and light being shown on just how much dirty politics has permiated our dealings with other countries. This all just seems like another smear campaigne to me. PS: the chinese have been at it long before Assange created a site for whistleblowers. doesn't our overtaxed asses deserve better cyber security than systems with windows vulerabilities on it?
Wiskas, you aren't getting it. Forget about politics. Forget about international relations. I'm trying to show you, in 250,000 cables there is a wide variety of unrelated and completely damaging information. What I showed you was about cyber threats. What business whatsoever does this have being released on the grounds of political activism? It directly jeopardizes US Cyber Intelligence and Cyber defense operations. It even had a specific domain name which was said to be utilized by chinese hackers. The cables contain much more than just diplomatic gossip. This is but one example.
My opinion is that Assange is a journalist and WikiLeaks is a publisher. Ultimately, it comes down to whether you care more about exposing corruption and accepting some degree of collateral damage that comes with it, or about keeping information secret under the pretense that revealing it leaves our country vulnerable. What powers? Source where you heard/read this?
He is more than this. Why? Because he AIDED in the leaking of classified information. He provided a secure drop box, a safe means for folks like Bradley Manning to leak the documents. He is an accessory to espionage. The best analogy I could think of is that Bradley Manning is a bank robber and Julian Assange helped him launder the money afterwards.
So NOW collateral damage is acceptable? Which is it guys? Leaked information that can hurt our foreign affairs, agents and, affiliates or is it more important for everyone to know everything no matter the cost? Hypocrites I stress yet again! Why does everyone automatically expect what is leaked is some sort of corruption and not for our safety or the safety of another nation? I also don't blindly believe in our government but I have to respect and assume some of what is leaked will cause us damage politically and in lives lost.......not just U.S. lives either. MSP is right. Some of you just don't get it! Pick a side. I actually want to call people out on this but I think I just give up on stupidity. Sorry.
Thank god someone else understands this. I have had varying levels of security clearance most of my adult life, and it always baffles me when people think that classified = government cover up. Could not be further from the truth.
Also one more point.....some of you have asked who or what has been specifically hurt? To repeat what Wikileaks has done by specifically naming sources, names and, confidants that have helped our nation in staying terror free would be criminal as well as yet again....hypocritical. If you've downloaded the info and read through it, you would see how many many people have been put at risk and how our nation now stands with others. It's ridiculous at best and thank god one of the leakers that sent this info to Assange will NEVER see the sun again. Fuck him. What is wrong with some of you? I won't repeat what has been leaked.
If the info is that sensitive that they are handling? It wouldn't be a bad idea now, would it? Why the fuck do you think MS got so big? And I do get it. While we at it, let's outlaw grades and report cards in our schools....no accountability for any guv officials and throw the bill of rights in the toilet. This isn't about secrets.....you guys don't get it. This is about accountability and 'us'.....letting "them" know we are watching and will always be watching. it also lets the guv know just how insecure their security systems are that they are relying on. In other words, what the guv does to "secure" classified info....isn't working. Like everything else, it's broken. It needs fixed. It's places like WL that will stress test things that need to be built better than they evidently are. And for you guv employees: wtf is wrong with "we-the-people" playing the game by the same rules the gov plays by?
Wiskas.....I really don't see where you are coming from. You sound one sentence away from "The Uni-Bomber." at this point. Are you reading all of the posts or are you so mad that you skip over them. This is one of those moments where I hate this statement but.....I guess we'll have to just agree to disagree. ......God I hate that.
I have read all posts. I feel strongly that there needs to be oversight and resist greatly any and all attempts to negate a bill of rights that our country was founded on. I tend to see things from outside of any box that seeks to contain me and my mind. It's not so much a dissagreement, as it is a difference in perspective. This can be typified by the manipulations that brought about the housing industry bubble that collapsed under it's own weight recently. Most on here did not become affected by it and as a result thought less of the impact whereas the industry I have worked in for 34 years was decimated. My perspective was different than say, MSP's. Likewise, you in the defence and security biz are affected by WL in ways that doesn't affect me in the same ways. We are all patriots, it's just a matter of what acts and perspectives our patriotism demands of us. It takes + and - polarities to form energy. This too, is a founding premiss for our way of life that make the USA so great. Unibomber? I think not. Anger? Not that either. It's more a matter of concern for how your world will be when you retire. Just look at how things of an international nature have come to be. Usually they form in a sequence of steps and follow a formula. The things that change too quickly lead to revolt and violent destruction. In an example of you and I, we are for all intensive purposes one full generation apart. That is one more generation of change that doesn't appear to be a positive thing. One more generation of realizing just how this whole political/diplomatic/social thing gets manipulated and takes on a life of it's own. I dearly love our country and all it is founded on. I get filled with concern when I see it threatened just as you and Shadow do. My job is to voice that concern that stems from seeing the things I do from where my vantage point is and you guys from yours. Together we are the oversight that needs to be for our security. We are "we-the-people". Though we see different angles on the same subject both perspectives are needed. It's not a matter of "agreeing to dissagree" so you're off that hook. It's a matter of the checks and ballances that came together in the Constitution of the United Staes of America and actually is as it should be. As for Assange, he doesn't even matter. he didn't personally do anything other than make a website. What matters is why the whistlblowers blew that whistle. Assange and WL is meerly a smokescreen. What's going on that someone felt the need to violate security protocols? That's what kind of questions come into my mind. Any damage done was an ongoing unmitigated risk to begin with. Granted the risk to anyone was enhanced and realized with the disclosure. I still don't see the need to give up any premiss contained in the bill of rights because of any reason. In a quid-pro-quo to your displeasure in spouting the "agree to dissagree" phrase, I'll offer up one I grew up with that I detest to this day: "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile". oh gawd, how I hate that phrase to this day I'd like to reitterate something here and now. I, in no way shape or form, have a single put down for you, ranger, shadow wolf, will or any other member of our forum that serves or have served as well as all of our troops domestic or overseas. I'm eternally gratefull for all of you guy's service to our beloved country. You all are doing your job and have added to our country. I, on the other hand, have a job to do also for our country. My job is to call foul when I percieve a threat to our way of life. I take a shit ton of namecalling and ridicule for it. It's a thankless job but it has to be done by someone. My perceptions may not be popular but they are true based on my view. That's not saying I spew all fact, that's just voicing what I believe and percieve from where I sit. We can still do that can't we?
There are hundreds of thousands of government employees, contractors, and military personnel that need access to some level of classified information. The vast majority do not work in some kind of IT setting where they are expected to know alternative operating systems. Training hundreds of thousands of people to use Linux would be an horrible waste of tax dollars and ridiculous. Linux or MAC OS is not without its abundance of security flaws itself and if the government decided to use them our enemies would simply refocus their efforts on that software. There are, of course, many ways the government can improve its current cyber security posture and many of those changes are in progress. However, blaming the government's failure to stop Bradley Manning from exfiltrating data through technical means rather than Bradley Manning himself - who sign non-disclosure agreements and was entrusted with the care of sensitive information - is absurd. On the point of it "not being about the secrets, about accountability" ... It's absolutely about secrets. The argument that Bradley Manning is a whistleblower goes out the window when you actually look at the data he leaked. Adrian Lamo, the ex-hacker who turned Manning in said this: If he ONLY leaked the helicopter attack video I would have SOME sympathy for him. One can understand at least the motivations for releasing such a video. Instead, he loaded a metaphorical shotgun full of random classified data and fired. Much of that has nothing to do with "what the government is doing", in a decision making sense per se, but rather operational details of various national security tasks the US is involved with, which are now all compromised. Wiskas, I know you aren't putting any of us down and theres no hard feelings, of course. I enjoy a good debate. I just happen to feel strong about this one. I just wish you could understand the true content of this leak and that is not the act of whistle-blowing you think it is. Keeping things secret is not an act of keeping citizens blindfolded, it is an act of keeping our ENEMY blindfolded, which is by extension an act of protecting the citizens.
If a whistleblower approached a journalist with evidence that a company was knowingly poisoning its consumers, and the journalist published the information, would he be committing a crime for exposing "trade secrets", or would he be doing the public a favor? I don't think WikiLeaks is releasing this information with the intent of harming anybody. Assange approached the Pentagon to edit some of the stuff before leaking it. If you can prove that he hates the USA (and all the other countries whose information has been leaked), please do. Otherwise, I can safely disregard your comments. I'm also not under the false impression that these leaks elevate the threat we're under. The threat has been there for a long time, and it's not going away anytime soon. BTW, the name calling is completely unnecessary and detracts from the argument.
It's not a false impression, its a fact, one that if you read one of my previous posts I gave an example of one such "elevation" that I personally can witness the impacts of in my job. You are falling into the same trap that many have, having not actually reviewed the raw leaked data (not that I particularly encourage anyone to do so) and not understanding that there is a large amount of it that "tags-along" with the politically charged data, having nothing to do with it. The net effect is that essentially, a RANDOM assortment of classified data is now exposed, with equally random and varying effects on national security.
- I did read the stuff that you linked to. - I've read some of the cables. - I'm aware of the type of information exposed. I don't think it changes anything. - We already knew we were under attack from Chinese hackers. They'll continue to get more crafty regardless of whether leaks happen or not. We've had this discussion ad nauseam. My position won't change and neither will yours, so I'll bow out gracefully.
This seems to be said as if there isn't a giant amount of Iraqi/Afghan casualties already. From my understanding, Wikileaks exposed the government for underreporting the amount of "collateral damage" already happening. What you're saying is, as far as political damage, it's okay that the damning stuff be done, just that no one here about it? Whatever side you pick, there's gonna be a good amount of lives lost. Why not pick the side with transparency and disclosure? People justified the Bush wiretapping laws saying, "Don't do anything wrong and you don't have to worry about it." Well, we can now tell the government the same thing. We can't hold our elected officials accountable if we are not getting the proper information. Unfortunately, it's tough to trust our government knowing that we're being lied to in such a manner. Okay, we understand we're "at war" over there and there are lives being lost, but why lie about the amount? What else are they lying about that they don't have to but are just ashamed of?
What exactly are you asking for? The citizens to have full access to all classified information? Thats absurd. Do you want access to the plans of special forces raids before they happen? Do you want to know the GPS coordinates of taliban training camps? Do you want to know when Army convoys are set to depart and detailed route information? This is what you are asking for when you ask for transparency and disclosure through the illegal distribution of classified documents.
Irrational, stupid/ignorant, or anti-American. Support Assange and pick one. Again, not trying to offend anyone. But there's really no other explanation for supporting him and what his organization has done. They've gone well past ordinary whistle-blowing and obviously have an agenda, to deny that is either irrational or stupid. To support it is anti-American.
Anti-American is to narrow a view, Wikileaks is world wide exposure. Like it or not, this is the world we live in and groups like Wikileaks aren't going anywhere.
Yeah, anti-American isn't the best description at all. In the contexts of my interests it works though. "Anti-government" is even less accurate, as those most harmed really aren't high government officials or anything. Just working folks, both American and otherwise, working toward our goals and objectives.
