I love those kids, but they're both hideously mistaken.

Assange is an asshole, but so what?

Their should be a cost for keeping secrets unnecessarily. If you're a public servant and you make something secret that doesn't absolutely need to be, you should suffer. And I mean a fine and/or imprisonment, losing your job as a given.

Assistant Sec of Defense/former ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freedman in the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/opinion/05freeman.html?ref=opinion

Mr. Assange’s grand accomplishment will be nothing more than to make it far harder for American diplomats to get candid answers from their Gulf Arab and Israeli counterparts.

To me the main fault of this info spread is that the info is not just made open - it was delivered with certain comments from the publisher.
And millions of lemming-people will not seek the truth in the provided data, but rather look for proof of the comments, thus getting biased.
So the site turned from a mere medium into a source with its own agenda.
But the truth is what we always knew without any leaks - this info spread has not disclosed anything that we did not know or discussed before as it was.

No, but I've done nothing, ethically, karmically, or otherwise, to justify having this info stolen. I suppose everyone will have a varying opinion on whether the government has.

2. The Wiki-info wasn't stolen out of my house in the dead of the night. It was hacked by an ostensible member of "my" team, then posted by a third party on the internet. Pretty big diff.

3. Spying is spying, and we'd steal other countries' intelligence if we could. I'm not sure you'd say the same about your neighbor's PIN.

> Mr. Assange’s grand accomplishment will be
> nothing more than to make it far harder for
> American diplomats to get candid answers
> from their Gulf Arab and Israeli counterparts.

Well, says who? And how will we know? Has candid response been a blessing from these players heretofore?

Listen, is there any branch of service more famously, nakedly, shameless political than diplomatic service? Throughout my lifetime, it's been the absolute sewer of public appointments... The realm where hillbilly car dealers who remained loyal in tough campaigns are rewarded by fresh president with positions of prestige, authority and adventure, at God-knows-what cost to the taxpayer, to American interests broadly, and to the respect of the nation in which they serve.

I can't believe you're taking this side of it. Here, listen to Welch. And buck up.

This is a Morning Pisser.

Dear Me at December 5, 2010 3:32 AM: First of all, is there anything more mechanically awkward, or psychologically grandiose and off-putting, than using a first-person singular pronoun as your name? Call yourself Cheesehead, call yourself Dude, call yourself ANYTHING but that. Secondly, after a week of this, I've not heard anyone say ANYTHING about the comments. No one who cares enough about these things enough to read them would trust that commentary... Assange has been mocked, perhaps correctly, as an unprofessional gatekeeper; a charge to which the best (and withering) response of a free thinker is Yeah? So?

Dear K-dogg at December 5, 2010 4:21 AM: You're not being clear. You appear to be offended that something was stolen from you, yet this information was obviously not in your possession. It's difficult to see how this could therefore be a loss for you... If that's the point you were making, and who knows.

I was referring to the comment above:

"Do you feel that way about your bank information and your PIN code?"

This part didn't cut and paste. My apologies. My point was that this analogy was extremely poor.

"Their should be a cost for keeping secrets unnecessarily."

Okay, Crid. I work at a facility where Special Nuclear Material is stored.

Where do you draw the line?

Keep in mind these few things:

The target can be so important as to engage the resources of a nation-state. Primary information can be gathered by studying secondary information. The physics of building an atom bomb is not a secret - but the features allowing truly tiny warheads are (the USA had 60-lb atom bombs in 1962). The location of resources can be inferred from the measures used to protect them (barbed wire means something valuable is in there). Password protection and encryption means the same thing.
And if I learn your name, I can learn about what your project is doing by befriending you. Do you think the furor about Facebook doesn't apply elsewhere? Google is tracking you right now, and that's a plain old commercial venture. What do you think a dedicated effort looks like?

And just when does the knowledge of how to build a compact atom bomb become stale - "unnecessarily" secret?

There IS an expiration date on some facts - but not on others.

It's clear you haven't thought about this much. While some info seems innocuous, any data miner can assemble a picture of what is going on by examining the peripheral information.

I suggest that there is another reason for enduring the Wilileaks spectacle:

It gives government the excuse to crack down on your Internet services.

Watch it happen!

And yes, Crid, someone else wants to make sure there are no "unnecessary" secrets...

Doug Casey made a great comment:

"Shining a light on the sociopaths who hide in the dark places under the rocks of government is always a good thing."

Whole interview here:

http://www.caseyresearch.com/displayCwc.php

Let me clarify that I think too much in government is unnecessarily secret, but some things need to remain secret. It's like your thoughts -- if you had a device on your forehead that printed out exactly what you were thinking, you'd probably have been dead years ago. Even with somebody you love, you sometimes think, "What the hell is he doing?!" Some things are better left unsaid and unreleased. Who decides these things? Well, in government it's often people who abuse the public by making things secret that should be open. But, is the answer opening all? I don't think so.

I haven't blogged on this before because I've had divided thoughts on it -- I'm both for openness in government and prudent keeping of secrets. I appreciated Dalrymple's more nuanced view as well as Berllinski's. I've discovered her writing and thinking recently, and I have great respect for her.

some of you are truly morons. diplomacy by nature needs to remain secret to be effective. if you think no harm has been done by these leaks, ask jordan or saudi arabia about that. it amazes mw how anyone can defend that attention whore at wikileaks. he needs to be dead very soon

> It's clear you haven't thought about this much.

Oh. BLOW ME. Blow me like a TRUMPET.

Just once, I'd like to hear support for secrecy from someone who isn't [A] a blathering idiot, or [B] personally financially interested.

Christ.

> but some things need to remain secret.

And of this haul, none of which was highly classified, what are you distressed to see come to light? How are you NOT helped by knowing today what you didn't know ten days ago.

Jesus people, time for some backbone, OK?

@pirate jo it's childish to assume that the entire international diplomatic community is filled with 'sociopaths'.

The truth is that these leaks aren't that revelatory for anyone who follows international affairs. It's actually heartening to see that State can play ball effectively, and is capable of pursuing long term strategic goals.

What exactly justifies the claim that these diplomats are so evil?

> The truth is that these leaks aren't
> that revelatory for anyone who follows
> international affairs.

Yes!

> It's actually heartening

Yes, though this meager praise is actually almost too full fulsome.

Excellent comment

> My point was that this analogy
> was extremely poor.

Exactly.

If your bank PIN meant so much to the bank that they wouldn't even let you have it, and then they got upset because they'd lost it, you'd probably take your investments elsewhere.

For the record, I don't think Dalrymple is a blathering idiot, or financially interested. The good doctor's take on this is inexplicable. It's at least possible that a younger author like Berlinski has a lot of diplomat friends without whose support her books can't be written, so she decided to take one for the team.

Maybe Dalrymple's just tired of all the damn hippies on the internet.

@Crid - "I've not heard anyone say ANYTHING about the comments."
I suppose you found that info by the tag "American soldiers fight the war like any war is supposed to be fought" and "American Diplomats do their job like they are supposed to," right? Surprise - that's what these leaks are about. Yes, the american soldiers fight the war exactly the right way and the diplomats are doing their job just the proper way, and if you think otherwise, you'd better grab a rifle and go fight some other way, without killing those who want to kill you, or go join the Diplomatic Copse and invent some different kind of diplomacy without outsmarting those who want to outsmart you.
You lemmings reacted this way only because it was tagged as "an info-bomb" but your reaction is like a reaction of a 5-yoear-old toddler who entered the Mom and Pop room in the night when the parents were having sex. I refuse to say that "sex is bad" and "parents are to be punished" only to spare your hurt feelings, I insist on saying that this is normal, and the only person who is to be blamed is the one who pushed an innocent lamb into all this.
I repeat - this is all normal and everything is known to adults, if you think otherwise, then you don't cry and blame the wrong people, but try to grow up.

> some of you are truly morons.

Check your capitalization next time.

Upsetting the leadership of Saudi Arabia and Jordan isn't all that regrettable.

Crid, that was a GREAT analogy.

I didn't find any of the information in the documents to be terribly revealing, either. None of it came as any big surprise.

Come on, Amy - it sounds like Bank of America is going to be the next batch of grubs being exposed to sunlight. You have to be feeling just a LITTLE bit validated and amused by that.

I am shocked, shocked to discover that Sarkozy has a bit of a Napoleon complex, Berlusconi is a satyr, Russian democracy is dead, China is getting tired of North Korea, and Arab leaders are much, much more afraid of Iran than Israel. No one who pays attention to world affairs could ever have imagined that any of these things were true.

"He needs to be dead very soon"

Assange is just like those self-righteous but very selective PETA members who will gladly splash red paint all over a little old lady wearing a fur shawl, but would never dare say a peep to a Russian mafioso in a fur coat or a Hells Angel in a leather jacket. There's a treasure trove of Russian & Chinese secrets out there waiting to be exposed to the light of day. But they will never show up on Wikileaks, because Assange knows that if he ever embarrassed those governments, they would hunt him down to the ends of the earth & make sure he died slowly & in agony. He can posture about transparency all he wants, but he will never, ever take action against anyone he fears would lash out savagely against him in return.

Arab countries: We really hate how you're over here, interfering in our business, trying to police the world, all the while thinking you can turn our kids into blasphemous, McDonalds-eating, iPod-listening little infidels. But could you bomb Iran for us? As much as we kiss I'm-a-nut-job's ass, we'd still like to see his nuclear facilities bombed to oblivion, and would like to blame it on you!

I can't say that any of it surprised me at all. That we have so many first-graders ruling actual countries was a bit dismaying, but surprising? Not really, no. I'm actually quite glad to see where so much of my money is going. Glad that I know, not so glad about where it's going.

Having lived in the world while in the USAF -- I became so used to saying winintel*, canwidi**, and several other acronyms that I didn't blink an eye.

Most of what what wikileaks is revealing is the dialog between friends commenting on the third person they are friends or opponents of. This is in the same category of going out for a smoke and the person you are talking about comes out too.

Some of it should not be made public -- such as the names of those who assisted us in Afghanistan and Iraq. (We know how uncivilized some of those f'ers are and how the retaliation might go.) But the large majority is in the nature of gossip & strategies that are embarrassing. They really shouldn't be made public either. No more than I have a convo with a supposed friend and they repeat it to the third person.

* WNINTEL Warning Notice -- Intelligence Sources & Methods Involved
** CNWDI -- Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information

> sounds like Bank of America is going
> to be the next batch of grubs being
> exposed to sunlight. You have to be
> feeling just a LITTLE bit validated

Point to Peej!

> Assange is just like those self-righteous
> but very selective PETA members

Exactly. F'n hippies... Essentially correct, but sort of sloppy in their targeting.

I remember when Wikileaks had just been formed, and they were getting a lot of positive press in the open source community. The original idea seemed to be a sort of Amnesty International, that would protect democracy activists and whistle blowers in countries w/o a free press. It wasn't explicitly anti-West or anti-American. But the organization was soon taken over by the standard cast of anti-AmeriKKKan lefties, who then focused all their efforts on embarrassing the US.

> I suppose you found that info by

What info? Who's a lemming? Listen you can be forgiven for being wrong, but not for being unclear. Sort out the identity thing and try again... No one will ever know....

> soon taken over by the standard cast of
> anti-AmeriKKKan lefties, who then
> focused all their efforts on
> embarrassing the US.

Exactly. I wonder how people would feel about a similar document dump from China, Iran, or the Norks.

But no, they're going after the one nation on the globe that won't behead them for pulling a stunt like this... And the one which has (perhaps) the least to lose from the exposure.

Well now they're threatening to release unredacted files if Assange is brought to trial, even for the sexual assault charges in Sweden. This is basically a death threat against many of the individuals named in those files. So what they're demanding is that their organization and its members should be immune from all prosecutions, for any matter, globally. This seems rather hypocritical considering their demands for international justice and the like.

Apparently, one thing that made it easier for them to show this info was taht the US govt, trying to avoid communication problems that were part of why 911 wasn't prevented (if that news about those SOB's who wanted flying lessons but weren't interested in learning how to land had gotten to the right person, that could have saved a lot of lives).

Yes, they should have been more careful about who had access, but this may prevent them from keeping the info where all of the agencies can see it, and info like this can be vital.

Remember the underware bomber's family let the authorities know that he was likely to do something like that, but the information didn't get to the right people and the right no-flight list on time.

Access to the right information is important. And this may prevent some vital information sharing.

Fuck the lot of em.

But no, they're going after the one nation on the globe that won't behead them for pulling a stunt like this...

This. And ...

There's a treasure trove of Russian & Chinese secrets out there waiting to be exposed to the light of day. But they will never show up on Wikileaks, because Assange knows that if he ever embarrassed those governments, they would hunt him down to the ends of the earth & make sure he died slowly & in agony. He can posture about transparency all he wants, but he will never, ever take action against anyone he fears would lash out savagely against him in return.

Thank you, Crid and Martin. As always, both of you slice right through the noise to an excellent point. My gripe with Assange isn't that he's exposing a bunch of maggots to the light of day, it's that he's taking easy pickins. Sure you can find things the U.S. has done wrong - the U.S. has more cameras to begin with.

When Assange shows the moxy of an Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Wafa Sultan, he gets an A instead of a B. Two women already have proven to have bigger balls than he does, but then he does look like Doogie Howser. Too bad they're not hackers, too. Imagine what THEY would show the world.

I have no problem with some mud being slung on the face of the United States government, if it's deserved - in fact, I especially want to know these things since I'm one of the people funding it. But if his "magic lasso of truth" is so powerful, why isn't it being turned on much worse evil?

It's gotta be tough to know when something should and shouldn't be secret.

Crid, if you said something in confidence to someone, and they wrote it in their journal, and someone hacked their journal and blabbed it everywhere, you wouldn't tell that first person anything anymore, would you? Don't you think the Arab and Israeli are going to feel the same way?

Informants's names were given. This could lead to their deaths. Which is sad and very unfair, since their information was generally such that would save US soldiers' lives. This is going to make it harder to get informants. Do you really want people who were trying to do something good to get killed? And probably in a rather horrible way.

I did like knowing that most of the other Arab nations are upset about the idea of Iran having nukes and want the USA to stop it. Of course, if we do, they'll probably officially complain.

Martin, I liked your analogy about the PETA members. And I like animals but find PETA's antics offensive in general.

Uncovering actual issues, scandals, stuff that needs to be exposed and fixed, is one thing. That's what investigative journalists are supposed to do. But exposing secrets that didn't need to be, that will get good people hurt and killed, that's hideous.

> Mr. Assange’s grand accomplishment will be
> nothing more than to make it far harder for
> American diplomats to get candid answers
> from their Gulf Arab and Israeli counterparts.

Well, says who? And how will we know?

Well, crid, I for one would say so. Say I ask you for a candid assessment of your coworkers, and I tell you it'll remain confidential. But I accidentally email your response to "all@". Your candid assessment may well have been radically different if you had an idea it might get back to those coworkers.

Or you might be one of those rare people who would make the same assessment regardless of who got to read it. In which case, hats off to you.

As for how we'll know, well, we won't actually know since Wikileaks won't have access to that detail. Either our sources dry up, or more likely, they'll couch their wording in such diplomatic terms as to not ruffle any feathers. They'll have to go forward knowing that there is a decent chance that anything they say will NOT stay confidential.

IRA just made the point I wanted to make... it's been said by other commenters, but nothing in this recent batch of material has really surprised anyone. The only surprising thing was how candid some of the diplomat authors were about things. And you know what? If I'm SecState, that's exactly what I want my diplomats to do: give me their no-shit read on what's actually happening in the countries that they are detailed to. I'm not a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I give her props for encouraging her people to do this.

Which brings me to my other point, that Crid and other commenters have already hit on some: "The idea behind WikiLeaks is that life should be an open book, that everything that is said and done should be immediately revealed to everybody,..." This would be a far more interesting conversation if that was what Wikileaks was actually about. But it isn't. The world now sees Assange for what he is: just another Internet bottom feeder. If he did this to Putin or Chavez or the Chinese government, he'd be dead by now. And he knows it. (And for that matter, I'd advise Washington to leave him alone. Actaully, if I were working for the CIA and I wanted to have a little fun, it might be interesting to see what a disinformation campaign could slip into Assange's publication pile.)

"Just once, I'd like to hear support for secrecy from someone who isn't [A] a blathering idiot, or [B] personally financially interested."

You have. My work is subject to checks for classification, but I have no control over the designation it receives. I can also show you piles of material which has been released.

Christ.

No, Radwaste. But this isn't the only time you've been confused.

And you are. My assertions come from the standards we have to observe at Savannah River Site and from counter-espionage briefings.

You?

It's gotta be tough to know when something should and shouldn't be secret.

No, it's not. Material is classified in the first place by the amount of damage it would do to security plans if it was released. Yes, there are judgment calls. These are made by the people who build the device or collect the information or develop the new process, and they know the lifespan of their process. I hope you would not have Cecil, the Starbucks barrista, decide - even if he can tell the difference between 35 kinds of hot liquid.

Please note that there is a process to release previously classified information. The reviewer has to make sure the released information doesn't reveal anything about current programs or the agents who developed it. Yes, therefore, you can read about "C" Reactor Pu-239 production back in the '60s. No, you will NOT read about where they store it today.

So far as SRS goes - and I surf their several-terabyte Document Control Register daily as part of my job - this seems to be working.

-----

Here's a gem I bet you didn't know, though it's not a secret: Naval forces worldwide record audio all the time from their sonar systems. In real time, the combat computers assemble information on the distance and character of all sorts of targets and the environment around them. These are watched intently by crews at sea, as they are the "first strike" warnings of submarine combat, which still has the policy of testing defenses by actual intrusion. (That should make you wonder, and maybe breathe deeply once or twice.) The recordings are collected and coordinated by a shore facility to see if something new can be seen. (You've never seen how it works in the movies.)
The tape - now it might be a disk drive - looks like anything else, and if you didn't have the right software to read it, you wouldn't have anything. But they're still Secret, because they would reveal how well - or how badly - American systems were covering movement at sea.
So sub crews won't tell you where they've been, because if you know where they've been, you have half of what you need to track their boat everywhere. The other half is an audio recording of the same place and time.

Now and then, there are intentional releases of information. You might have noticed that when the Chinese killed a satellite, the American response was to take a common warship and kill one, casually, even. "Big deal, China. Click. Bang."

There's a lot going on. That's why I think the Wikileaks thing is a publicity stunt the US government will use to censor Internet traffic.

Lots of people talk, because it validates what they've done for 20 or 30 years. They should be quieter, even though they are generally silent about important points, but such talk doesn't excuse further talk.

"There's a lot going on. That's why I think the Wikileaks thing is a publicity stunt the US government will use to censor Internet traffic."

You think so, Rad? I have doubts, not because i'd put it past them. But the whole thing seems to have caught the White House completely by surprise. Had they had some intel that it was about to happen and if they had jumped on it right away, they might have succeeded in instilling enough fear to make that happen. But they've missed the window; if they try it now, their motivations are going to be pretty transparent, and I don't think they will get much sympathy even in Washington.

> someone hacked their journal
> and blabbed it

This isn't how Madison secretely has a total crush on Connor from Home Room, but that Queen Bitch Ashley had to go and tell everyone. Not every matter in international affairs has a comfy, familiar, down-home analogue. The interests that Saudi Arabia has with respect for the United States are not simplistically gossipy. And I will not be caused to worry on behalf of imaginary people.

> exposing secrets that didn't
> need to be, that will get good
> people hurt and killed,
> that's hideous.

It's the SECRETS that are killer. When people are truly under threat, I suspect it's because the United States has been making immoral mischief anyway. Those people are being put in danger on my dime, in my name, without my approval. THAT'S what needs to stop.

> Say I ask you for a candid
> assessment of your coworkers

What is WITH you people? Can you understand anything in terms larger than the most petty scenarios of a workaday life? How come you're so horny, so BLOODTHIRSTY, for dishonesty and intrigue?

I've said this before here: The problem is Sean Connery and his chest hair. The Connery movies made the fantasy of the stoic, murderous secret agent irressistable. Rather than see the world as it is, folks would much rather luxuriate in that fantasy –which after all, obsolves them (they imagine) of responsibility for horrible acts committed on their behalf.

> You have. My work is subject
> to checks for classification,
> but I have no control over
> the designation it receives.

First of all, YOU ARE AS FINANCIALLY INTERESTED AS A PERSON CAN BE. You're always ready to support modest, thoughtful, transparent government, until you can squeeze a little extra juice out for your own career. These seemingly biannual episodes of dick-swinging machismo from you are a terrific embarrassment. All your other comments about the righteousness of capitalist democracy are suddenly washed away in these floods of utterly bogus self-aggrandizement... In just a few words, you become the enemy, everything I hate about the gullibility of the American taxpayer. You're so hokey.

Secondly, that your own best efforts at clear communication are so often a muddle makes me doubly fearful for the safety of the wretched enterprises you so nakedly pimp.

You are the last man on the surface of our twitchy little globe to be trusted about what constitutes "excusable" talk. Would we expect anything different from a TSA agent, or a lobbyist, or anyone else sucking the public tit, howsoever indirectly?

PLEASE give me another round, Raddy... I'm begging you. Tell us again how your human specialness deserves to operate in secrecy, preferably with a black budget. Use acronyms... Arcane ones! Talk more about how people who don't live their lives in the benefit of government technocracy are the real fools at the table.

> I take it you would take the NYTimes
> to task when they ise, what's the word?
> unnamed sources?

I don't see your point. What does the use of unnamed sources by old-time media have to do with anything?

Nice job, Crid - foaming at the keyboard.

You're a video guy. A good one, I'm sure, yada yada, but I'm not making anything up while you're manufacturing outrage and simply being mad.

When you have a clue, I'll be able to tell. I suspect you learned about this stuff sitting in the dark with either popcorn or Cheetos in your lap, but hey, you wanna be an expert, spout off, go ahead. I know about the Appeal to Authority fallacy. You could get something right.

Meanwhile, I have to handle the information I deal with daily by how it is marked by procedure, and by an Authorized Derivative Classifier.

By the way, DOE-Savannah River has ordered that no Wikileaks content be uploaded to any Site device, that no comment be made on any of the content, and that doing so subjects the doer to immediate termination and prosecution. See, we all signed on to be responsible for such things, so they can do that.

DOE also reminded us in that message that no matter if it is revealed, classified material remains classified until it is actually released. I'm sure that's inconvenient. I hope it doesn't cause another fit.

> I'm not making anything up

Nope, buttercup, you sure aren't... You let other do your thinkin' for you.

And then you signed off on it.

But it's fun to watch you pretend like these just happen to be your beliefs... It's not like you were bought or anything! It's not because it's in your interests. It's pure coincidence that your opinion about this information toes the line drawn by the tawdriest, most shallow public "servants" we could have imagined!

Heck, you'd have signed the forms anyway, right?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...

What a nitwit. Well, you can follow instructions {...spout off, go ahead}.

Done?

It's not coincidence, my poor, deluded but must-be-right online acquaintance, it's the law, and it has been one for a loooong time.

But you simply know better.

Not really.

Right... You BELIEVE in the policy. It's merely not that you have no other markets for your skills, whatever they are... You JUST HAPPEN to concur with the gummint and Senators Feinstein and Lieberman as they threaten Amazon and Visa and Mastercard and the New York Times...

Just so happens. Pure cowinky-dink. Despite the intensely PERSONAL nature of the excellence you trumpet in discussion of these matters, it just so (miraculously!) happens that you're with the bad guys on this one.

Ok then!