Wikileaks Releases Another 250,000 documents

[Flesh Thorn]

Cyber Attack on Wikileaks

[RangerX]

The creators of WikiLeaks are socially inept assholes who have no concept of how humans work. While they obviously have an ax to grind with the US, they are also damaging the reputations and relationships of all involved, allies or otherwise.

They crow on about open government, but the fact of the matter is we all have secrets, incriminating and embarrassing. Perhaps they should consider what it would be like if we posted those embarrassing pictures from when they were kids, or tell their girlfriends what they've been saying behind their backs. Assuming they have girlfriends that is. Now take that feeling of "oh shit" and expand it to a global scale.

There will be a lot of proverbial flowers and chocolate buying going on over the upcoming months. That and a lot of potentially lethal spats between "lovers" and neighbors. All because these fuckwits can't grasp the concept that there are reasons for secrets.

[K.Ingraham]

The creators of WikiLeaks are socially inept assholes who have no concept of how humans work.

Which might have something to do with the rape charges that keep dogging wikileak's founder.

They do serve a valuable purpose. This latest dump of theirs goes back to 1960. Sorry, but there is NOTHING "secret" about history. Nothing 50, 40, 20 or to an extent, ten years old has any value except to historians. Governments, ours included, classify much more than they need to, as every one of these events from Ellsburg to this have shown. Over in the UK, they just denied requests to open a court martial file from the Boer War - one hundred nine years ago - 109 fucking years. To keep from embarrassing Lord Kitchener? To protect UK-Australian relations? The Aussies assumed the worse about that case 108 years ago. The protectors of "secrets" provide the best arguments against classification. The habit of over-classification simply lessens the credibility of legit secrets. Again, my favorite example: Nixon's TS file of clippings from the New York Times.
This latest will be a tempest in a teapot. Advocates of one or another political group will gloat over documents that embarrass George W. or Obama, but in the end, nothing has appeared that isn't already known or accepted in the real world of diplomacy and politics. So, the Slovenes were told that they don't get a stopover by Obama unless they take in a released Gitmo prisoner? **yawn** Or that every other nation in the mideast wants Iran's nuclear fangs pulled, that the Saudi's have been begging us to get around to attacking? gee, who'd have thought?
In my 'S-2' period, I once found a file about threat uniforms classified "secret". It was b&w photocopies of color plates from Squadron-Signal and Osprey books published for enthusiasts and scale modelers. Same BS at the ILLRP school
While the scale of Wiki's releases might be too great, they did not steal the secrets any more then the NY Times does. The responsibility of this and almost every other exposure lies with cleared USG employees. Has anyone seen a news report (including on Fox) about current events this decade where a source isn't quoted anonymously because they are "not authorized" to make comments? Maybe if certain DoD officials were afraid of getting caught in their lies they might've thought first before telling the world lies about PFC Lynch and Cpl Tillman.
I'm not defending those who expose secrets as some things should and must be classified, I am attacking USGs habit of gross over-classification in the first place which is a major reason that "secrets" simply aren't respected.

[Chiron]

I heard on the news that there have been more leaks under the Obama administration than all of the past administrations combined.

[Flesh Thorn]

I assume they are blaming the PFC for the theft of information. If so, how does a PFC have access to this kind of information ?

[K.Ingraham]

I assume they are blaming the PFC for the theft of information. If so, how does a PFC have access to this kind of information ?

I haven't read much of the news yet but I did overhead that supposition on the tv earlier.

[C-MAC]

I assume they are blaming the PFC for the theft of information. If so, how does a PFC have access to this kind of information ?

This traitor was a IA-35f and worked in the TOC. That gave him access to all types of classified stuff.

He gained most of the data through SIPRnet and the diplomatic stuff came through sharing with the now defunct Net-Centric Diplomacy link (wow, wonder why they shut that down?).

[mortar_guy78]

I'm with K. Governments classify all sorts of shit that shouldn't be and everyone is getting their ass all tangled up in their underwear about this when it's really unnecessary.

Personally, though, I think sometimes shit like this needs to happen to keep the government honest. Not that it will ever work, but it's a start.

[K.Ingraham]

Gotta say that I loved one of the allied responses to Hillery when she gave him the heads-up that this leak was coming: "You should see what we say about you."

[mortar_guy78]

there are reasons for secrets.

I'm sure that the FBI and the CIA had reasons for wanting to keep COINTELPRO and MKULTRA secret, but it had nothing to do with serving the interests of the American people.

I'm not saying that there was anything of that nature in the wikileaks documents, but the government should be open and accountable to the people. They are, after all, supposed to be serving US.