I've recently read a good book that I think is insightful here. It was written by a Bush Administration official and is called "How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack."
No matter how you feel about the obvious pro-Bush slant this book is worth reading for two reasons...
1. The author actually spent time talking to the CIA people who carry out Ops. He got to ask them "why do you do this?" and "why does this work?"
2. The information shared wasn't available until the Obama administration declassified it. So it gives an unprecedented look into how intelligence agencies work and how much of their work is simply psychological.
After reading the book my opinion is they're screwing with Wikileaks. Again, the real expertise the CIA has built up over the years is in how to get people to think what the CIA wants them to think. In this case I believe they want this editor to think he's being spied on at every turn.
Increased paranoia, especially on someone who is already prone to it, will eventually drive a person over the edge. As this post shows his instinct is to fight back in public meaning the more paranoid they can make him the more likely it is he'll start ranting in public and (they hope) discredit himself.
One consequence of the CIA making him think he's being spied on at every turn is making him think he's on to something big.
This allows the CIA -- or other intelligence agencies -- to feed him doctored or fake information, thereby destroying his credibility. I think it's highly likely the upcoming video of civilians being killed is actually a setup to discredit the wikileaks guys.
Did anyone else draw a parallel to the current Internet censorship in China?
There are differences of course, but they are both instances in which the government feels threatened by the power of information that the Internet gives the individual.
Yes, and no. Because while clearly there are parallels in that they feel threatened I think that, ultimately, there is a line which the US currently hasn't crossed (e.g. stifling media reports about wikileaks, snatching them and imprisoning them on fluff charges, human rights abuses etc.).
Additionally what scares them is the handing out of classified material; which isn't quite the same as stifling criticism of the government etc. Whatever your feeling on whether it should be classified or not they have an obligation to reasonably mitigate information they consider secret.
There is a very very fine line and, if true, I feel it's being extremely closely tread on this occasion.
(just to add: I support both sides in this, so sorry if I am sat on a fence somewhat :D)
> Ultimately, there is a line which the US currently hasn't crossed
If US government is killing civilians in various countries and is orchestrating arrests of minors, morally it is not really rising above China by much. Yeah, it is not sending 'guidelines' to the media, because there are other methods of influencing what gets published and what doesn't -- namely intimidation of journalists and sources, appeals to the owners of media corporations and so on.
> Additionally what scares them is the handing out of classified material;
Well what kind of classified material? Yes, if these are nuclear launch codes, or frequency hopping codes of military radios, they would have a valid reason to detect the source of the leak. I think most of us and most US citizens would agree with the government doing that. But these are videos of slaughtering of civilians. At this point, the CIA should be appologizing and not running around arresting and following people. There are now showing their true face (well to the rest of us who didn't know it yet).
> Whatever your feeling on whether it should be classified or not they have an obligation to reasonably mitigate information they consider secret.
That is what I have a problem with -- "an obligation". Obligation to who? Government? Why should we have an obligation to them that trumps our moral sense of right and wrong? Luckily there is someone there, who is an actual human being, with a moral sense, that knows that killing innocent people is wrong no matter how many classification layers get slapped on top of it. That is why these leaks happened. Someone put their job, freedom (and life?) at risk because they felt that the "obligation to hide murder under the carpet" is wrong.
Any classified material. I don't think they should be discriminative based on some ill specified metric; if they feel the material should be classified then they should attempt to keep it so. If Wikileaks feels it should be public then they should attempt to make it so. Therein we have the makings of balance.
> Obligation to who? Government? Why should we have an obligation to them that trumps our moral sense of right and wrong?
We certainly don't have an obligation, that's silly. They have an obligation to stand by the laws they impose. Otherwise whats the point :)
And They have an obligation to do what's in the best interest of the citizens of this country.
Classification is useful only so far as it improves our well-being. Nuclear launch codes and radio frequencies fall under this. Keeping something classified because it embarrasses a gov't official or maybe costs him a job is not.
Reality is not so clear cut. There is a huge span of information which is useful to potential enemies without directly being a risk to people's lives.
For instance, in the Army counterintelligence report that Wikileaks recently published one of the classified items (much of the content of the report was actually unclassified information) lists certain countries that were believed to have the capacity to hack Wikileaks. Now, if you were (say) North Korea, then your presence or absence on that list tells you something about what the US knew about your cyberwarfare capabilities. If you were the US, leaking this information undermines your desire to not reveal all you know, and might even reveal something about your own intelligence capability.
I've intentionally chosen a fairly benign example because my point is not that this information is so valuable, but that classification of information does not simply break down into "nukes" and "embarrassing".
> Well what kind of classified material? Yes, if these are nuclear launch codes, or frequency hopping codes of military radios, they would have a valid reason to detect the source of the leak. I think most of us and most US citizens would agree with the government doing that.
I think the point is that they don't know what information is being stolen and how deeply they have been penetrated, and this scares them. What is released to the public is not as relevant as what information wikileaks actually has. Why should they trust wikileaks not to sell that information to other nations? Their reaction is understandable. On the other hand, as always, I'm curious what wikileaks has in store for us.
> Why should they trust wikileaks not to sell that information to other nations?
I think in this case they realized the leak is probably from an insider. So the issue for them is not being able to trust their own people. Unfortunately whistle-blower laws and protections don't work for classified material. Whoever leaked this was either an agent working for another country or someone who had a strong moral sense of right and wrong. They most definitely put their job and freedom on the line. I would guess that they were morally motivated. Government agents and even CIA operatives and analysts are still human beings and (luckily) some of them hold basic human rights and moral values above agency's classification levels.
> ... how deeply they have been penetrated, and this scares them.
That is an interesting phrase because it assumes someone from outside penetrated them. I would guess it is just one of their employees. They don't necessarily plan on quitting or getting exposed, but rather they want to keep working but they are seeing this exposure as helping shed light and getting the record straight. With ultimate good results for US and the CIA.
> Their reaction is understandable.
Yes it is -- from their point of view. But I look at understanding their position as one would understand the position of a serial killer. There is some internal logic of course. But it is rather insane and wrong to the rest of the world. Given that US taxpayers are funding both the alleged killings of civilians and the cover-up, they should probably become aware of what's happening.
One way to stay away from such controversies is to simply not commit things that would bring them about.
So we'll supposedly see soon enough what this is all about. If it is just baseless hype from wikileaks, then they will lose all their credibility and will become as believable as a tabloid magazine.
> But these are videos of slaughtering of civilians.
Unless I've missed something, the evidence Wikileaks claim to have hasn't been released yet (that's the 5 April date they keep mentioning). And yet, they describe it as a "massacre" and you echo this by using the word "slaughtering".
I have little sympathy for governments who try to do dubious things claiming national security/terrorist threat/whatever as justification without presenting any real evidence. I have equally little sympathy for Wikileaks, trying to drum up publicity at a time when it is desperately short of money, doing the same thing with just as little evidence shown. If it's that important, why are they waiting to reveal it, and practically daring the security services to stop them?
I fully support the need for whistleblowers like Wikileaks. But I am also fine with stuff being secret or not known. shrug the world just works like that.
Wikileaks has the right to try and dig up secret stuff (though I dont fully agree with the way some of it is presented) and governments have the right to try and stop information escaping with reasonable measures.
When got right there is a nice balance which should help in the effort to keep governments on the "straight and narrow".
If government in a democracy can only hold those powers the people have ceded, why are they allowed to withhold material information from the people? Sunshine is surely the best disinfectant.
It would be dangerous for governments to have no secrets. I'm perfectly fine not knowing where our nuclear subs are or the specs of Air Force One. The issue is deciding what's classified and having whistleblowers are a good way to keep a balance (governments won't feel like they can get away with something just because it's classified) without risking tons of lives.
I think it could be claimed that a PAST action often should not be classified unless it directly affects an ongoing directly related incident. If it needs to be classified, then maybe the US population as a whole would not have agreed with the action (and rightfully so). I think it does stoop to a low I feel we (as the US) should not venture down. Are individuals not able to make judgment calls based on evidence compiled?
"President Obama declared on Tuesday that “no information may remain classified indefinitely” as part of a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch’s system for protecting classified national security information."
I will respect you more if you'll start a perfectly transparent democracy which makes every piece of information public, and then see how well that works in a war.
ErrantX put it best. In general, their mission of exposing any leaked document can actually decrease freedom rather than increasing it.
Examples:
1) If they ever leaked witness protection documents - the witnesses are now less free (more at risk).
2) Their actual leaking of the membership of the British National Party. You and I might disagree strongly with their platform, but, leaking that membership does harm discourse coming from a minority group (admittedly, an extreme one).
I think the key as you said that some team at wikileaks ultimately controls the the editorial review of the information (intell) flow...
Wikileaks makes editorial decisions, a lot of governments are going to be interested in the information that wikileaks receives but decides not to publish.
Sorry, but that's what intel agencies world wide are going to do...accumulate information. In many ways wikileaks is simply a similar intel agency unless they begin to publish all the information they receive and become completely transparent.
Of course, due to the nature of what wikileaks does, it seems that they can not afford to be transparent in their operations... somewhat ironic huh..
I fully agree that freedom of information also means freedom to not publish things the entity(publisher) does not see fit.
On the other hand...
Should the government be allowed to intimidate an entity into self-censoring?
Should a corporation/entity be allowed to intimidate an other entity (with legal actions or other means) into self-censoring?
Should a group of people/corporations (majority or not) be allowed to intimidate a minority group/entity into self-censoring?
Should social norm of "We do not do business with entities deemed immoral (publishing anti-xxx materials)" be allowed to force entities into self-censoring?
No. Every government and large organization has secrets; a small number are legitimate, a larger number are maintained for reasons of venality, to hide incompetence and so forth. The US has a very open society, notwithstanding its various flaws.
China takes a different approach. Not only does its government obscure its own workings from its population, it seeks to cut them off from ideas which differ substantively from its philosophy of governance. I'm not sure that the intent of this is necessarily evil; to mind it's more like an extreme case of paternalism. The Chinese rulers may figure that untrammeled democracy in china would quickly degenerate into mob politics followed civil or externally directed war. On the one hand I find such an attitude most disagreeable and the tactics employed to that end almost comical; on the other hand, the country went through a painful spasm of mob politics during Mao's cultural revolution relatively recently, and it's understandable if they have no desire to repeat the experience. Whatever the reasons, Chinese society predates even western civilization, is historically somewhat more homogenous and also somewhat authoritarian. The long-term direction of such a society changes slowly.
Let's not forget that there have been numerous revolutions within American society that made representative government more representative of the actual population of United States citizens.
It's hard to evaluate the progression of democracy over time when comparing such vastly different societies as you have mentioned...also we should not use the U.S. example as some sort of normalized index...
Not saying you were doing that, just throwing it out there.
I want to help them out by writing software, but I live in a CIA-infested country (the UK) and these reports make me genuinely afraid of reaching out. While I greatly admire their courage and respect their cause, I'm not really brave enough to sacrifice myself for the greater good.
I've worked with non profits (habitat for humanity, etc) who were too busy to take on more help. Each untrained helper needs resources to be trained. If you're lucky they need of unskilled labor (or untrained labor - skilled is the wrong word) but if they don't then you probably wont get a call back.
I've started some of the work unsolicited. Advertising and fundraising to be precise. I kept them in the loop and eventually they want to be involved.
Organizations often need to put more work into allow people to help them but they often need to put more work into everything.
Yeh my conclusion also; I've wondered about setting up a similar site/service instead. If they have so many submissions a year that they can't handle them all there is definitely scope for more people to help out independantly.
One thing I've noticed about cowards is that they make sure to pick fights with people, and organizations, such as the CIA, the United States, (or some other western, liberal government), who they know will never really do them much harm. You want to make a stand? Send a donation to that Danish cartoonist guy who draws pictures of Allah doing stupid shit. You may be a coward, but I'm sure you're enough of a man to at least send an anonymous check.
Am I the only one that after reading it agrees with the government?
Specifically WikiLeaks posted classified documents showing troop equipment allocation and anti-IED jamming equipment specs. What possible purpose does this serve? There is nothing embarrassing/illegal about what our troops are carrying and how they are fighting IEDs, but there is a lot of extremely valuable intel for the enemy in those documents. Honestly the guys at WikiLeaks are lucky as hell they live in a country where they are not strung up for treason already. You would not be seeing Tweets from these guys in many parts of the world.
Frankly I don't WANT to help WikiLeaks. If you are endangering my friends actually deployed, what is the purpose of leaking this stuff? To show how good your sources are? So the guys running WikiLeaks value their journalism cred and their own ego over the lives of people actually relying on IED jammers to work?
That's easy for Thoreau to say when he lives alone in the woods. And that peaceful place in the woods was only his to live in because earlier English-speaking settlers in North America had gained that land from the aboriginal inhabitants.
Thoreau spent a year in the woods, but he was not an anchorite by any stretch of the imagination. Besides being a civil libertarian he was also an accomplished engineer who developed pencil making machinery and built milling equipment.
And, as I have said here elsewhere, the disobedient must be willing to face the consequences of their disobedience else it means nothing. I have little respect for the draft dodgers of my youth, particularly those who now expect all will be forgotten when they return from Canada to visit their aging relatives, but for Mohammed Ali and others who subjected themselves to imprisonment, I have a great deal of respect.
If Wikileaks starts acting like a foreign intelligence agency, why are they surprised when the CIA starts treating them like a foreign intelligence agency?
Well, since the government makes the laws and can declare virtually everything top secret without any checks and balances whatsoever, they have virtually unlimited powers to stiffle unpleasant truths.
Only according to exemptions from the FOIA and other legislation (i.e. laws made by elected representatives). The relevant exemption here being for information "specifically authorized under criteria established by an Executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy". If you'd like to read the most recent Executive order to that effect: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13526
without any checks and balances
Executive secrecy is subject to judicial review. This was established in amendments to the FOIA in 1974, which were in fact vetoed by the Executive, but the veto was overridden by Congress. You can read more here: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB142/index.htm
Edit: From an Economist lexington column: "“How Free?” not only details and condemns the administration's familiar sins, from Guantánamo to extraordinary rendition to warrantless wiretapping. It reminds readers of its aversion to open government. The number of documents classified as secret has jumped from 8.7m in 2001 to 14.2m in 2005—a 60% increase over three years. Decade-old information has been reclassified. Researchers report that it is much more difficult and time-consuming to obtain information under the Freedom of Information Act." The Economist: Lexington: Land of the free? http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cf...
I'm not sure what you're trying to say with all of this. You were still wrong in almost everything you said before, and everything you just linked to is in regards to things done by the previous administration.
This is highly relevant when attempting to characterize a trend, as (for instance) your own link to the article on Executive Order 13292 states: "Both Executive Order 12958 and Executive Order 13292 were revoked and replaced in full by President Barack Obama in the issuance of Executive Order 13526." This is why I linked to Executive Order 13526.
I just don't see what your point is, aside from the uncontroversial point that the Bush administration was awful.
I'll try to make it as clear as possible: As history has shown, the executive branch has a lot more power when it comes to classification authority and FOIA practices than most people seem to believe and is able to extend that authority almost at will. This is one example of a growing number of executive authorities being virtually unchallenged by courts, and is not dependent on whose administration it is (look at Clinton's controversial use of his pardoning authority in his last weeks on the job). Society underestimates the executive's powers.
This is not helped by your use of misinformation. Again, you were factually wrong in your prior assessment, and made at least one glaring oversight in your last comment. Only now have you changed the subject from X to "what society thinks about X", as if to say facts don't matter if somebody out there doesn't know them. I can't think of a more abhorrent attitude towards truth than that.
"We freely admit to doing (which is potentially) illegal stuff, and the government needs to stop trying to figure out what we're up to by intimidating our volunteers and instead sue us" - Why does this not make sense?
So as soon as the US classifies something it is no longer valid, in your view, for anyone to show it? I guess they can do whatever they like then! Just classify everything that would otherwise be illegal.
Is is no longer legal for anyone to show it. That's the definition of "classified".
Wikileaks is trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, they want to do illegal stuff for moral/philosophical reasons. On the other hand, they want the US government to stop treating them like they're doing illegal stuff. They're obtaining and releasing classified information, and at the same time complaining that the US government is spying on them. Doesn't this strike you as a little bit silly?
" Iceland or any other country is not under US jurisdiction! CIA is not law enforcement agency!"
Right. The Central Intelligence Agency doesn't have "jurisdiction" the same way a law enforcement agency does, because they're not law enforcement. They exist to "collect, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence [and] engage in covert action at the president's direction in accordance with applicable law."
"Wikileaks is a medium for whistleblowers, not a "spy agency"!"
Imagine what a reckless policy it would be for the CIA to decide "we do not investigate Wikileaks because they're just whistleblowers". Wouldn't that make them a possible haven for actual foreign spies? Put another way: how do you know Wikileaks is completely free of foreign spies?
The CIA, as an intelligence agency, has the duty to gather intelligence on groups like Wikileaks. They have the duty to have a clear understanding of what Wikileaks is doing, and to act against them (individually or as a group) if it is deemed necessary by the president or others in the chain of command.
Iceland or any other country is not under US jurisdiction!
The article claims that US State Department was investigating a leak from the US embassy in Iceland. If the government of Iceland (an ally and NATO member) is cooperating with such an investigation, that is unsurprising.
Wikileaks is a medium for whistleblowers, not a "spy agency"!
Regardless of how you describe it, Wikileaks is of interest to people whose job is counterintelligence (i.e. secret-keeping). Suppose you have information you want to keep secret. I prevent you from keeping that information secret. How shall you regard me?
I guess I should re-evaluate why the information is secret and attempt to explain why the information is secret to the concerned individual before it's released. I guess that is a slippery slope, but I do not really understand the need for classification of any past air strikes that do not involve future missions.
There's already a procedure for evaluating classification of information, a built-in system for declassifying things after a particular period of time, and procedures for whistle blowers to follow when something is inappropriately classified or merely inappropriate. ("Alert the media" or "leak this to wikileaks" is, generally, a very-very-very last resort.)
I don't understand the classification of past missile strikes, but I'd bet someone who knows the list of classification criteria could explain it. (Or, if it's inappropriately classified, challenge it through the proper channels.)
I was just reminded of one example: if "they" knew that we knew such-and-such detail about an airstrike, they might (1) be able to identify our method for intel gathering, or (2) be able to identify our source, which would get our spy killed.
It's the same principle as "loose lips sink ships". Sometimes harmless-looking individual details are actually the key to keeping our guys safe in hostile environments.
None of this has anything to do with Wikileaks. They are exposing things that are obvious cases of corruption. How are we helping the largely imaginary terrorists if we expose a CIA murder cover up?
"They are exposing things that are obvious cases of corruption."
1) Are you sure that's all they're exposing?
2) Are you sure none of their employees are passing things that don't meet those criteria on to other intel agencies, even if they don't put them on the official server?
3) Are you sure that, when they expose corruption, they're appropriately sanitizing incidental details that might otherwise get our spies killed etc.?
It's tremendously dangerous for a group that does not have a strong intelligence-analysis background to expose classified material. From what I've seen, they simply don't have the process in place to appropriately handle the material they're working with.
On one hand, the more open the society is the better it is for everybody. Wikileaks performs an impressive and valuable service by allowing a place for information to get published.
On the other hand, even in a perfect world, hell if everything should be out in the open for everyone. There are lots of examples, going back as far in history as you'd like, of state secrets serving a necessary and important role. Even averting war.
So my question to the wikileaks folks is this: where's the line? Would you publish anything, and the more secret the better? Or is there some kind of rule you use? Would you publish nuclear launch codes? The identities of spies in countries that would execute them for it?
There is way, way, way too much secrecy in the world, especially among U.S. Agencies. They classify anything they want, and the biggest reason is political CYA. Having said that, I can't give carte blanche to Wikileaks either. Before I support them, I need to know what standards they have.
Even more serious, this isn't bean bag, guys. A country pays a few billion to keep something secret and you blow the whistle? You might want to make sure your life insurance is up to date.
So is wikileaks there for the leaks? Or there for the public? I don't think the two goals are the same thing.
Afaik, wikileaks has never been about publishing launch codes. It's about revealing cover ups and there should be no government cover ups. If they are trying to hide something they've done then it's probably because it's illegal.
There is a difference between personal privacy (which does not affect others) and government secrecy (which affects many people).
If the military/police force killed people, whether those people are terrorists or civilians, the deed should be reported and let the public decide whether it's good or bad.
Maybe the public decide killing a few civilians in a war is acceptable and voted in agreement, who knows?
And what about government employees with access to sensitive information who can't keep the secrets they agreed to when they signed up? Do you think the public should get to know who they are so they can decide whether the leakers can still be trusted to hold government jobs?
No, you can have things you want to hide and that's fine. Unless you're a powerful government trying to hide your own illegal (or should-be-illegal) activities.
if nuclear launch codes are compromised and leaked, then public needs to know that their government can't keep nuclear secrets safe. hopefully said government at least has procedures for mitigation of said leak (nuclear weapons and associated facilities are sufficiently secured physically)
So I'm the Russian intelligence community, and I've had the U.S. launch codes for several decades.
I decide to wreak some havoc inside the National Command Authority, possibly as part of some larger strategic objective. So I go to Wikileaks and release the codes.
In this case, in whose interest is Wikileaks acting? Not the U.S. citizen's. Not the rest of the world. Clearly their acting as an agent for the Russians. (Russians are used here as a prop. Substitute any players you like)
The more I think about it, the more the idea of anonymous information leaking seems fraught with lots of problems. Overall, yes, a great idea. But I have some serious questions. As a third party with access to sensitive information, I can play all sorts of games using Wikileaks.
EDIT: I'll add a couple more examples so we don't get lost out in the weeds.
The Chinese decide to invade Taiwan. As part of that, over a period of several weeks Wikileaks "discovers" several documents detailing how certain Taiwanese officials were caught doing drugs/molesting children/robbing banks/beating old people. Most of these stories are true (but old), and generate quite a bit of negative press in the United States. Mixed in at the end, however, are totally false stories guaranteed to cause the greatest public outrage. The MSM has no time to vet the stories just before the Chinese invade, and since it's a 24/7 cable news world and since Wikileaks has a good track record so far and it runs them the MSM runs them too. Public opinion is sternly against giving Taiwan any assistance, creating a decisive edge for the Chinese.
The Israelis decide they are going to have to attack Iran to prevent it from developing nukes. Over a couple of weeks, suddenly documents are found from the French and Saudis "proving" Iran has a nuclear prototype bomb. More documents are "found" showing that the Iranians are prepared to use it on Israel. Let's assume these docs are real, although from the Israelis standpoint it doesn't matter. Finally docs are found that show the Israelis have decided to go through the United Nations and have given up trying to stop Iran with force. These last docs are released just a day or two before the attack.
The difference between a newspaper and Wikileaks is that a newspaper deals in credibility. Wikileaks just deals in leaks. That makes the model horribly broken and easy to manipulate. Just think of the fun an intelligence agency could have with something as simple as marital infidelities. Used to be you'd have to set up an entire operation to get stuff published with some kind of authority. Not anymore.
I'm sympathetic to your overall argument, but not to this specific example. It's very much in US interests to know that someone else knows the launch codes. The consequences of having them made public (a public scandal, the cost of changing them, internal investigations, etc.) are much less dire than the alternative - when your potential enemy knows them and you're not aware of the fact.
Alternatively, WikiLeaks may find that it's in the public's best interest to alert the DoD that someone submitted launch codes. And hey, it ends up resetting the other country's advantage.
Or it may find that in the second case the documents originate from China and ignores them - or finds that they are from the past and unimportant now. Officials get churned in and out, so this could be easy to disprove.
I think they'd likely be better off NOT getting involved with nuclear technology related posts in general, though. They really just need to do VERY due diligence on other factors. Perhaps they should have paid people be able to review documents prior to mainstream release (sort of a "Beta" release) with a big red alert stating that the leak is pending Beta public review for facts.
The Russian intelligence agency does not have to release the code through wikileaks. If they have it, they can release it anyway they want, there's nothing the CIA can do about them.
Wikileaks is a medium for whistleblowers. No such resource can be nor is trusted blindly, no matter what past track record shows. Every leak is evaluated on it's own merit.
It is also public, which means it's there for public benefit. Of course governments or other parties can and do fiddle with it, but information that's in the open will be evaluated and eventually will either be confirmed or denied to fit into larger picture.
Simple solution, the penalty for an official classifying something as secret because it was illegal, or they were doing a deal for a supplier or they were covering their butts could be the same as that for revealing a real secret.
The problem of Wikileaks is that it is centralised and, therefore, is vulnerable. Freenet offers a much more resilient approach. It is true that Freenet is not yet easy enough, but it is just a java application which almost anyone can run. Of course, writing wikileaks.org on the browser bar is easier and faster than installing Freenet, but it puts lives in danger. By the way, there is a wikileaks mirror on Freenet. It might be better to do the other way round, wikileaks should be a mirror of the freesite.
It has a centralized structure. There is a hierarchy of responsibility, etc. There is an 'entity' to attack, whether it's the servers, or the editors/leaders/etc. Which is different from something that is truly distributed where each person is -- for all intents and purposes -- equal to anyone else in the group.
That's it. If the server is down, goodbye wikileaks. If the bank accounts are seized, goodbye wikileaks. If the leaders are imprisoned, good bye wikileaks.
But that's like saying you can secure a computer by sealing it an concrete box and burying it under the ocean.
Wikileaks triages the data, pushes it out to the media, maintains physical drop-boxes across multiple continents, and much more. All of which requires people doing real work, the storage of data is a tiny part of the problem.
And even for the storage part freenet isn't a real solution. How many journalists do you know who use freenet ? - pushing data into the public domain is useless if only a tiny handful of people have access to it.
Some of the new interest is related to a film exposing a U.S. massacre we will release at the U.S. National Press Club on April 5
Personally I'm willing, for the moment, to take on faith everything posted so far (and that they have a video of some kind) - we'll see what happens April 5th.
I'm okay with waiting, but I'm just wondering why a site that's about leaking things is holding a carrot in front of us.
I have a strange feeling that the video is not as juicy as we're lead to believe, and it's just a publicity stunt, which is why I'm posing the question to HN.
It's a fundraising campaign. They're not releasing it because they're trying to raise money and are building the hype. Read the article. Pretty disingenuous if you ask me.
No matter how you feel about the obvious pro-Bush slant this book is worth reading for two reasons...
1. The author actually spent time talking to the CIA people who carry out Ops. He got to ask them "why do you do this?" and "why does this work?"
2. The information shared wasn't available until the Obama administration declassified it. So it gives an unprecedented look into how intelligence agencies work and how much of their work is simply psychological.
After reading the book my opinion is they're screwing with Wikileaks. Again, the real expertise the CIA has built up over the years is in how to get people to think what the CIA wants them to think. In this case I believe they want this editor to think he's being spied on at every turn.
Increased paranoia, especially on someone who is already prone to it, will eventually drive a person over the edge. As this post shows his instinct is to fight back in public meaning the more paranoid they can make him the more likely it is he'll start ranting in public and (they hope) discredit himself.