Wikileaks due to leak another 2.8 million documents

I think you'll have to document that claim.

Here http://insidetech.monster.com/news/articles/8992-report-taliban-kills-afghan-elder-based-on-wikileaks-docs

The connection isn't absolute but there is a strong correlation. In either case it was irresponsible and possibly even criminal for Wikileaks to publish this information why they knew it could lead to people being harmed.

Oh and apparently they guy who leaked to documents cold face the death penalty.. though that looks unlikely and his max sentence could wind up being life.
 
No. They haven't. Nobody has died as a result of Wikileaks posting any information.

EDIT: The pentagon disagrees with you raken:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/28/1947638/no-evidence-that-wikileaks-releases.html
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/28/104404/officials-may-be-overstating-the.html

If that's correct, then I'm glad to be wrong. I still maintain that releasing names is a VERY stupid idea... [Side note: since when did you start trusting U.S. intelligence? The same intell said Iraq had WMD's .. I know this is a weak dig. They also said that they have no intel that they DID cause deaths... people are still dying.... do you think the Taliban did act on some of those name... once again I know I'm speculating here but you have to admit the releasing of names does put those named at risk.)

These refer to the most recent release. The documents on the Afghan war did include unredacted names of informants.

Still. its nice to see Wikileakes showing some responsibility toward the information they leak.

Playing devil's advocate here.
 
YES. Not so much that the whistle-blower feels bad, but that the whistle-blower IS THE BAD GUY! They've always done this. Look at what the Nixon Administration said about Daniel Ellsberg at the time the Pentagon Papers were leaked.
Of course he's the bad guy, holy shit, man. Let's argue. We've got hundreds of thousands of classified and otherwise private documents stolen from the US government. He's the biggest traitor in human history. Comparing this cable leak to a whistle-blower that reveals government atrocities is way out of line. And I see that that's all you guys do here, because you like to argue things that never happened. "whistle-blower" my ass. Name one damn atrocity that this revealed. And skip over the naming of vulnerable confidential sources, because that hurts your argument. Notice that the New York Times, the Guardian, and others have a responsibility to protect those people's names, while Wikileaks doesn't. Doesn't give a shit, because this is in the name of... transparency? I don't think so.

Except that none of these communications are top secret. Most of them are unclassified, meaning that most of this information would be free to find in decades time.
While most politicians today focused their criticism on Wikileaks for releasing a quarter of a million classified State Department documents, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin instead took aim at the Obama administration for the leak.
^See, these are the kind of people you want to argue with, but I'm not that person. Don't compare me to Sarah Palin or politicians that blame Wikileaks. That's like blaming Ford for a drive-by shooting.

And if what you say is true, what makes you forget the difference between today and 10 years from now?

As for whether or not they are classified, well, it's not like I would know, but it's written in the headlines themselves.

"WikiLeaks released more than 75,000 stolen classified documents" - the Washington Post
a cache of more than 251,287 American diplomatic cables and directives, including more than 117,000 that are classified.
(Perhaps someone at the Washington post is worse at math than even myself)

Apparently you've been reading the Washington Post's and their ilk's bullshit slant, so I can't see how you would have missed that.
Washington Post said:
the criminal enterprise WikiLeaks

Maybe that's why I didn't see anyone condemning WikiLeaks, because I don't fill my head with Sarah Palin level garbage politics by reading it.

Yeah because since Russia spies on the U.S., the U.S. should be allowed to spy on the entire U.N.. That's equivalent.
What's the difference? Please explain to me the major difference between Russia spying and the US spying.

Except that YOU DID COMPARE THE TWO.
VirusType2 said:
The point is that it's nobody's business because they are private discussions. I never compared the severity of the two. Nice work trying to miss the point.

I AM NOT COMPARING THE SEVERITY OF THE TWO, for the third time.

So now the leaks are both dangerous and useless? Right.
Look, I haven't read them all, have you? How am I to know which ones or how much of it is dangerous. How do you know? And who said they were useless? NOT ME.

According to the New York Times, which was given advance copies of the documents, many cables "name diplomats' confidential sources, from foreign legislators and military officers to human rights activists and journalists, often with a warning to Washington: 'Please protect' or 'Strictly protect.' "
That sounds dangerous.

Then you cannot read.
Yeah I guess that's why some U.S. Republicans want to kill Julian Assange, while Australia wants to revoke his passport and several countries want to declare Wikileaks a terrorist organisation.
I can read, I just don't read The Washington Post and Fox News. And a terrorist organization could only dream of stealing 1% of this much information, so it doesn't surprise me.

If Wikileaks is guilty of espionage or encouraging the documents to be stolen, then Assange is guilty. Amazing revelation, that.
Because by supporting Wikileaks, I'm advocating for a more transparent government, therefore I must want to know every single mundane and shitty pointless detail about government bureaucracies, in twitter form.
Everyone here seems to, actually.

I'm against people that steal classified or otherwise sensitive information from my government. I must be a crazy radical. :rolleyes: I'm still pissed that night vision technology was stolen and sold to China 5 years ago. But I guess you don't mind that North Korea probably has American developed technology that saves American lives now, because that's transparency for you. Maybe we can post information on how to build a good ICBM on www.Instructables.com

A government is not a person, it shouldn't have the same rights to privacy as an individual.
Disagree. And a corporation isn't a person either, it shouldn't be allowed to vote. But apparently, it can, and it does. The same rights as people, and the same rights to privacy, for that matter.


I personally feel--and I don't say this lightly--that, considering North Korea and Iran, we could see World War 3 over this leak, so you decide for yourselves if this leak is dangerous:

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/us-friends-foes-savage-wikileaks-20101130-18emy.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/11/29/wikileaks.must.have.weapons/

"The Arab countries are pushing the United States towards military action more forcefully than Israel," said an Israeli official.

Russia also played down being called "a virtual mafia state" where all the decision-making is done by "alpha dog" Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and not President Dmitry Medvedev, described "Robin to Putin's Batman".

"Our own diplomats are sometimes just as open in their own private messages to each other," a Kremlin official told the Kommersant business daily.
(I personally got a laugh out of this one)

Krynn said:
You're not getting my point.
I don't think you're getting mine either. The company secrets are the government secrets, to use your example. Therefore a leak would give an enemy months or even years early warning for preparation. That's why this leak could be dangerous.
 
I don't think you're getting mine either. The company secrets are the government secrets, to use your example. Therefore a leak would give an enemy months or even years early warning for preparation. That's why this leak could be dangerous.

This is stuff thats already happened though. Its done and shelved. The Government classifies information for years and years after its done with it. I know the need and practicality of secrecy, but when the dust settles all the information should be released so people know exactly what they did and can hold people responsible. I'm not suggesting they give us the maps with landing zones and missile strikes marked for every military action they're about to commence in the near future, but im saying that when the operation is concluded and there is no need to keep it classified other than for hiding mistakes and avoiding accountability, it should be made available for scrutiny.


I personally feel--and I don't say this lightly--that, considering North Korea and Iran, we could see World War 3 over this leak

Then you are a fool. There is simply no way WWIII would occur because people said mean things about them. Even if it did, the war would last a fraction of a year because every nation in the UN would attack them. And guess what? The world would be better off.
 
OK, fair enough. I can't find any fault with that.

I just think any secret - anything that the enemy doesn't know is potentially valuable intel.
 
And I think that any secret - anything that we dont know, is potentially harmful if nobody can be held accountable.
 
Even if it did, the war would last a fraction of a year because every nation in the UN would attack them. And guess what? The world would be better off.
They are all readying for war right now. A dozen nations are gearing up for war left and right. You did read the articles? You watching what North Korea is up to as well? So I can't say if the leaks will be the cause, but it certainly doesn't look like it's helping - or is it?

Face it. We are in 2 wars right now. More war is coming. Tonight; 6 months from now, who knows? Do I actually think there will be some huge World War like WW2? No, it won't be like that, because you will be taking your ass to work and not hiding in a bomb shelter.

And I think that any secret - anything that we dont know, is potentially harmful if nobody can be held accountable.

There is a difference between being held accountable for atrocities, crimes, mistakes, and other scandalous shit and: dumping hundreds of thousands of classified, confidential or otherwise private documents on the internet, with minimal or no discretion. You think this is about accountability?
 
There is a difference between being held accountable for atrocities, crimes, mistakes, and other scandalous shit and: dumping hundreds of thousands of classified, confidential or otherwise private documents on the internet, with minimal or no discretion. You think this is about accountability?

Yes. I believe its an attempt at holding the government responsible for its actions. I believe that it is the agenda of Julian Assange and Wikileaks to promote such attempts.
 
Well, I was going to say something about WikiLeaks needing accountability for themselves, but apparently, they've done a much more thorough job this time of redacting sensitive information.

Still
"They are not experts about how to redact in a way that protects American forces," Morrell said on "John King, USA." "Classified documents should not be in the public domain. At least not willy-nilly like this."

The big concern, Morrell said, is that the documents provide insights into "patterns of behavior, our tactics, our techniques and our procedures."
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-10-22/...er-julian-assange-redacted-documents?_s=PM:US
 
Well, I was going to say something about WikiLeaks needing accountability for themselves

A point I wouldn't have disagreed with. Though I think it would be more applicable to the people actually providing the documents, rather than the organization distributing.
 
Very unfortunate. The whole situation was a tragedy. But war is ****ed up and this shit happens... no matter how much we try to stop it from happening. I don't mind Wikileaks leaking that video, but they have leaked information that put people in danger and gotten people killed. Based on that the Wiki leaks founder (and those involved in the leak) should be extradited for trial.

Yes, now if only there was some way to hold people accountable when they shoot up unarmed civilians without any kind of provocation or justification.

I do find it odd that in the case of actual innocent people dying you say it's just an unfortunate thing that happens in war. But when people try to stop that war by leaking documents you suddenly have this new found love for human life and the risk of death to someone is unacceptable and anyone that does this should be tried for treason. What happened to the "it's just war" mentality?
 
Obviously because the lives of Our Troops are vastly more important than those of Brown Civilians.
 
Yes, now if only there was some way to hold people accountable when they shoot up unarmed civilians without any kind of provocation or justification.

I do find it odd that in the case of actual innocent people dying you say it's just an unfortunate thing that happens in war. But when people try to stop that war by leaking documents you suddenly have this new found love for human life and the risk of death to someone is unacceptable and anyone that does this should be tried for treason. What happened to the "it's just war" mentality?

You misunderstand my point.The fact that these things happen sickens me, but was is sick to begin with and its naive to think we could prevent 100% of incidents like this. Wikileaks put additional people more danger because the released names, and so they should be tried.

Its never "just war." War is a terrible reality. The first rule of was is that Innocent people die, therefore we should do all we can to minimize the truth of that rule. We will never do away with that reality but we can mitigate it.

The gunship pilots made a terrible mistake, but understandable (initially... shooting at the van was WAY over the line).. This doesn't make the even any less terrible but it a grim reality of war. The people involved in the incident should be investigated and if there is found enough, support those involved should be punished. Just as wikileaks should be investigated and tried for putting people in danger.

Both had lapses in judgement that either put people in danger or got people killed. Those involved in both events should be put on trial and investigated.
 
I can agree with that in a way. What I don't understand is what more evidance do you need on the people that made the decisions the day of that chopper shooting? The video is there for everyone to see. The military seems to refuse to investigate so that won't happen. But certainly you can make your own judgements based on that video. And it sounds like you did make a judgement, one that I agree with. But you don't seem to want to actually say how those responsible should be punished.

As far as wikileaks goes I don't think they should be held liable, the person that leaked it to them should be. What wikileaks did is no different than if you go to a torrent site and download the leaks that way. As soon as you do that you are also distributing the files since thats automatically how torrents work. Does that mean that anyone that downloads these documents using a torrernt site, or shares them with people, should be held liable for the leak as well? Tried for treason?

There is no actual law that wikileaks violated and the justice department is desperately grasping at straws to find something they could be charged with, they haven't come up with anything yet.
 
The British government promised to protect America's interests during the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, according to a secret cable sent from the US embassy in London.

Jon Day, the Ministry of Defence's director general for security policy, told US under-secretary of state Ellen Tauscher that the UK had "put measures in place to protect your interests during the UK inquiry into the causes of the Iraq war".

The admission came in the cable sent on 22 September 2009, which recorded a series of high-level meetings between Tauscher and UK defence officials and diplomats, which involved the then foreign secretary, David Miliband.

- snip -

The revelation of the move to defend Washington threatens to undermine the inquiry, which was launched by Gordon Brown 'to identify lessons that can be learned from the Iraq conflict'. It is due to deliver its findings around the turn of the year.

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op.../wikileaks-chilcot-iraq-war-inquiry&cat=world

I get the feeling this will get a lot more play across the pond and will be barely mentioned here.
 
War is just as much a PR campaign. If an American soldier is torturing, raping, and/or killing civilians, they must be stopped at all costs. We must win the hearts and minds of civilians over there. So far, we have failed, and I'm putting the blame directly on the failed PR campaign.

It really only takes one instance of an American raping a civilian for the image of all American forces tarnished. The enemy can and does use this to brainwash and recruit new fighters. I've seen documentary footage: civilians with tears in their eyes "THEY ARE RAPING AND KILLING OUR WOMEN."

Now, we know it must be an isolated case, but they are brainwashed to think we DO just that. And they fight hard and are not going to submit and surrender to an enemy like that. They will fight to the very last soldier. We must win their minds, and that requires extreme discretion from our troops. And that requires accountability.

When people think they can get away with something, they often will try. But punish them for their crimes - set an example so that others won't do the same. Hiding the truth doesn't make it not happen. The enemy has eyes and ears on the ground. Crimes might sometimes go unnoticed to us here in America, but it won't go unnoticed in Afghanistan and Iraq to the civilians and our enemies.
 
Of course he's the bad guy, holy shit, man. Let's argue. We've got hundreds of thousands of classified and otherwise private documents stolen from the US government. He's the biggest traitor in human history. Comparing this cable leak to a whistle-blower that reveals government atrocities is way out of line. And I see that that's all you guys do here, because you like to argue things that never happened. "whistle-blower" my ass. Name one damn atrocity that this revealed. And skip over the naming of vulnerable confidential sources, because that hurts your argument. Notice that the New York Times, the Guardian, and others have a responsibility to protect those people's names, while Wikileaks doesn't. Doesn't give a shit, because this is in the name of... transparency? I don't think so.
You would've thrown Daniel Ellsberg in prison for revealing that The Vietnam War started because of a lie and he'd be a national traitor rather than a ****ing hero, if you had your way.

Apparently the U.S. military lying about the deaths of 15,000 people isn't a big deal, revealing the PA colluding with Israel on Operation Cast Lead isn't a big deal, the torture of thousands of Iraqis at the hands of Iraq's police force (with full knowledge of the U.S), the 2008 War in South Ossetia occurred because of a ****ing misunderstanding between Condoleeza Rice and a South Ossetian politician. That's 150,000 misplaced people, hundreds of civilians and soldiers dead, thousands of homes destroyed because of a mistake. This is just three things I can remember off the top of my head that that whistle-blower has revealed and you want to call him the biggest traitor in history for it. Take a hike.

And guess what? Wikileaks actually censors more than the Pentagon does. It's easier for you to read, that to quote this article

http://publicintelligence.net/wikileaks-redacts-more-than-pentagon-in-latest-release/

And on top of that...

CNN said:
However, the review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by the disclosure
The Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, says that no confidential sources have been harmed or revealed by the previous leaks so why would these leaks be different and harmful when they're not direct battlefield reports like the prior leaks? Because of the embarrassment caused by it?

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/10/16/wikileaks.assessment/index.html

See, these are the kind of people you want to argue with, but I'm not that person. Don't compare me to Sarah Palin or politicians that blame Wikileaks.
Only you are and you don't even know it.

And if what you say is true, what makes you forget the difference between today and 10 years from now?
How do you not see the difference? Now there are people in people who can be held accountable (and thrown out) while in office, as opposed to later when even more damage has been done by them. How can you not see that?

As for whether or not they are classified, well, it's not like I would know, but it's written in the headlines themselves.

"WikiLeaks released more than 75,000 stolen classified documents" - the Washington Post
I was referring to this dump, most of which are unclassified. Have a look.

Apparently you've been reading the Washington Post's and their ilk's bullshit slant, so I can't see how you would have missed that.

Maybe that's why I didn't see anyone condemning WikiLeaks, because I don't fill my head with Sarah Palin level garbage politics by reading it.
Guess what? I wasn't even thinking about the American media! I actually talking about the foreign press, particularly the western press, where its half condemnation, half praise. The American media is more slanted against Wikileaks. Just look at the difference between CNN's American coverage vs their International coverage:

What's the difference? Please explain to me the major difference between Russia spying and the US spying.

Because one government actively kills journalists and defectors around the world while torturing people and cooperating with organised crime, plus installing corrupt governments to suit their needs. The other... oh wait. The other just doesn't kill journalists and defectors.

I AM NOT COMPARING THE SEVERITY OF THE TWO, for the third time.
EXCEPT YOU WERE! I JUST QUOTED YOU COMPARING THE SEVERITY OF THE TWO!

Look, I haven't read them all, have you? How am I to know which ones or how much of it is dangerous. How do you know? And who said they were useless? NOT ME.
That didn't stop you from judging all of them and calling the whistle-blower the biggest traitor in history.

I can read, I just don't read The Washington Post and Fox News. And a terrorist organization could only dream of stealing 1% of this much information, so it doesn't surprise me.
So do you consider them terrorists?

If Wikileaks is guilty of espionage or encouraging the documents to be stolen, then Assange is guilty. Amazing revelation, that.

To be guilty of espionage, you need to be acting for another national body, in their interest. Wikileaks does not do that at all. To argue that because other countries interest lie in seeing the U.S. humiliated (or what-have-you), therefore it's espionage, is a dangerous, stupid argument to make, as it's the exact argument China uses to persecute wealthy business investors on espionage charges when a business deal doesn't go in their favour.

I'm against people that steal classified or otherwise sensitive information from my government. I must be a crazy radical. :rolleyes: I'm still pissed that night vision technology was stolen and sold to China 5 years ago. But I guess you don't mind that North Korea probably has American developed technology that saves American lives now, because that's transparency for you. Maybe we can post information on how to build a good ICBM on www.Instructables.com
Because this is clearly the same thing that's happened here.. This isn't classified information thats going directly to a foreign entity, it's going to the public and being deseminated by the entire globe. The information effectively becomes valueless because everyone knows about it, it's not the same as spying on people and providing that intelligence to only one governing body.

Disagree. And a corporation isn't a person either, it shouldn't be allowed to vote. But apparently, it can, and it does. The same rights as people, and the same rights to privacy, for that matter.
A corporation doesn't govern the populace and have ultimate control over the law of the land (although I agree with you about corporations being counted a person, that's bullshit).

I personally feel--and I don't say this lightly--that, considering North Korea and Iran, we could see World War 3 over this leak, so you decide for yourselves if this leak is dangerous
This leak isn't anywhere near as dangerous as the actions of the people in charge, the only difference here is that the people in charge are actively being defended by the world's press, while manufacturing charges against the people who leaked this.

WW3 will not start over these leaks, that's utter nonsense. If war were to happen between NK and SK or Iran and everyone else (apparently), it will happen regardless of the leaks themselves. At the end of the day, it's the leaders of the countries that make decisions to take them to war, and before they do that they have to take into consideration a lot more than just "The other guys wants to kill us, so we better kill him first". The U.S. and what other nations are on its side will win any war it goes into with either of those countries. The occupation and the cost that comes afterwards is gonna be what determines whether or not they'll actually bother going to war in the first place. The leaks have no bearing on that.
 
You're not being entirely honest

I don't disagree with you on most of the things you argue against me for. I've already asked you not to pin me as the classic opponent. My views are my own.

1) "most are not classified," you say. The truth: 117,000 are classified, out of 251,287. "Most" isn't being entirely honest, even though it is >50%. And in actuality, it is nearly 50% classified according to the information available at this time.

2) the person who leaked the pentagon papers is not the same who leaked the diplomatic cables. So pretending they are is disingenuous and has done nothing but make the argument tiresome and inaccessible. Bradley Manning is in custody, I would assume.

3) I already explained that 'destroying Wikileaks' is not in my interest, when I have never argued against WikiLeaks or Assange.

4) I have already happily admitted (I posted the article) that WikiLeaks has done a commendable job so far redacting sensitive information, this time. But fine, argue something that was unknown 24 hours ago on which I already stood corrected on. Despite the fact that so far, WikiLeaks has done well to protect the innocent and war strategy, he isn't qualified to know what is sensitive and what is not. This material was never intended to be in the public domain.

5) You continue to pretend you don't understand English, for some reason, as an arguing point.

6) Trying to build a case against someone is not the same thing as "manufacturing charges against the people who leaked this". (I think you meant "manufacturing charges against Assange.")

7) You are ALL FOR TRANSPARENCY11!!11, when you don't even list what country you live in by your username. What that tells me, is that you are all for transparency until it comes time for you to be transparent.
 
7) You are ALL FOR TRANSPARENCY11!!11, when you don't even list what country you live in by your username. What that tells me, is that you are all for transparency until it comes time for you to be transparent.

lol'd.
 
You're not being entirely honest

I don't disagree with you on most of the things you argue against me for. I've already asked you not to pin me as the classic opponent. My views are my own.

1) "most are not classified," you say. The truth: 117,000 are classified, out of 251,287. "Most" isn't being entirely honest, even though it is >50%. And in actuality, it is nearly 50% classified according to the information available at this time.
Pedantry.

2) the person who leaked the pentagon papers is not the same who leaked the diplomatic cables. So pretending they are is disingenuous and has done nothing but make the argument tiresome and inaccessible. Bradley Manning is in custody, I would assume.
Again, you're being pedantic. Daniel Ellsberg was sentenced to 115 years in prison for leaking the Pentagon Papers for similiar reasons to Bradley Manning. A huge amount of this information is important for the public to know and critics of the leak only focus on the gossipy nature of it that the tabloids have picked up on and nothing else.

4) I have already happily admitted (I posted the article) that WikiLeaks has done a commendable job so far redacting sensitive information, this time. But fine, argue something that was unknown 24 hours ago on which I already stood corrected on. Despite the fact that so far, WikiLeaks has done well to protect the innocent and war strategy, he isn't qualified to know what is sensitive and what is not.
I admit, I skimmed the thread until I came to your reply to me, and focused on replying to you before reading the rest and didn't see your post on page 6 about that. However, Wikileaks have approached the Pentagon in order to redact information that will harm informants and they have rejected Wikileaks offer time and time again. Who's he by the way? Bradley Manning or Julian Assange and Wikileaks?

5) You continue to pretend you don't understand English, for some reason, as an arguing point.
You can't admit you were making silly comparisons, when I quoted you making silly contradictory comparisons.

6) Trying to build a case against someone is not the same thing as "manufacturing charges against the people who leaked this". (I think you meant "manufacturing charges against Assange.")
I thought you were talking about Assange.

7) You are ALL FOR TRANSPARENCY11!!11, when you don't even list what country you live in by your username. What that tells me, is that you are all for transparency until it comes time for you to be transparent.
Yes, because I'm a government. That's it. You've got me. I'm hypocrite by my own standards because I want transparency in government, but not my own life. Somehow I don't equate a government and an individual as being the same and because of that, I'm a hypocrite.

Really? REALLY?
 
I was going to make a new thread but then I saw this one so I figured I'd just post this here instead.

In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. An April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.

Linkenstein
 
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