Wikileaks - It's time to open the archives

[Maurice Picarda]

Philip is a reasonably good bet, as is Edward for ill-conceived commercial ventures.

 

[Will2403]

via Guido:



Dunno if this is authentic - thought it was worth posting here though.

During the course of working on the material over many weeks each publication has formed its own individual judgments about specific stories. There are some cables the Guardian will not be releasing or reporting owing to the nature of sourcing or subject matter. Our domestic libel laws impose a special burden on British publishers.

The papers are just going to have the soft shit in them. Got to wait for the website to become available or the original files to become available. I've been able to access the site a couple of times, but there is no link to download the files. Quite disappointing so far.

 

[Corax]

The Royal has to Harry, surely?

Diddling an Aghan prisoner or something.

 

[newbie]

Is there anything we didn't already know? I'm a bit underwhelmed so far

Did you Know N Korea was supplying Iran with advanced Russian designed missiles? I didn't, nor did the NY Times.

Secret American intelligence assessments have concluded that Iran has obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design, that are much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal, diplomatic cables show.

Iran obtained 19 of the missiles from North Korea, according to a cable dated Feb. 24 of this year. The cable is a detailed, highly classified account of a meeting between top Russian officials and an American delegation led by Vann H. Van Diepen, an official with the State Department’s nonproliferation division who, as a national intelligence officer several years ago, played a crucial role in the 2007 assessment of Iran’s nuclear capacity.

The missiles could for the first time give Iran the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe or at Moscow, and American officials warned that their advanced propulsion could speed Iran’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

There has been scattered but persistent speculation on the topic since 2006, when fragmentary reports surfaced that North Korea might have sold Iran missiles based on a Russian design called the R-27, once used aboard Soviet submarines to carry nuclear warheads. In the unclassified world, many arms control experts concluded that isolated components made their way to Iran, but there has been little support for the idea that complete missiles, with their huge thrusters, had been secretly shipped.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29missiles.html?_r=1
needs registration

 

[Divisive Cotton]

He wasn't let anywhere near the front line or any possibility of danger

 

[Corax]

He wasn't let anywhere near the front line or any possibility of danger

I'm sure he could have got one chaufeurred over.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

Apparently the UK's military record in Afghanistan gets a good kicking - I wonder what "our boys" have been really up to?!

 

[binka]

guardian bloke on sky news says they plan to release the good stuff on britain at the end of the week. the wankers.

 

[elbows]

The papers are just going to have the soft shit in them. Got to wait for the website to become available or the original files to become available. I've been able to access the site a couple of times, but there is no link to download the files. Quite disappointing so far.

I wouldnt say that. The papers will pick and choose what they focus on, but I dont think you will find they are only going for the 'soft shit', or that the stuff they dont cover is going to be loads stronger and support an even more sinister woldview or anything like that. There could be a few exceptions.

Anyway as well as the issue of wikileaks site being attacked, and the media filter, wikileaks themselves are not just going to give us the entire thing in uncensored form. And there may be documents they withhold completely.

What the newspapers websites have said about the stuff so far is interesting, though perhaps not as exciting or worldshattering as some may have imagined it could be. Its pretty much in line with my expectations in the sense that the nature of candid diplomatic cables seems just the same as it was in past, ie all the declassified stuff thats already available from decades ago. As such it will disappoint some people, conspiracy theorists may find a few things to use but generally it paints the usual picture of how the world works that is at odds with their comic-book version. If they dont find much of interest they could make a conspiracy of 'what stuff didnt wikileaks release'. Its the unknowns that hold the excitement for them after all, dont want a load of small details getting in the way of the dramatic story.

Lets see how much the press stumble around things like the UN spying like they did when Short opened her mouth years ago.

 

[elbows]

guardian bloke on sky news says they plan to release the good stuff on britain at the end of the week. the wankers.

The drip-feeding is going to be quite annoying.

 

[laptop]

The drip-feeding is going to be quite annoying.

You can summarise all the stories in 240,000 documents overnight?

If you could, you'd still want to drip-feed the results to, you know, sell some papers

 

[AKA pseudonym]

Anyone know of a mirror where we can get the original files?

post #129

lol@

It was childishly easy, according to the published chatlog of a conversation Manning had with a fellow-hacker. "I would come in with music on a CD-RW labelled with something like 'Lady Gaga' … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing ... listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history."

 

[weltweit]

I am interested in what comes out ..

But I don't take any newspapers.

Where do you think I can pick up most of the juicy bits?

 

[AKA pseudonym]

I am interested in what comes out ..

But I don't take any newspapers.

Where do you think I can pick up most of the juicy bits?

read the links here... its all there

 

[claphamboy]

I am laughing so much; I am finding it hard to type.

 

[Balbi]

I am laughing so much; I am finding it hard to type.

Putin and Medvedev as Batman and Robin?

 

[agricola]

Apparently the UK's military record in Afghanistan gets a good kicking - I wonder what "our boys" have been really up to?!

Given that these are internal yank documents you will probably find it was things like treating prisoners with a degree of respect, not bombing wedding parties and failing to corrupt local government.

 

[Will2403]

http://www.wikileaks.info/

When do wikileaks plan to release the actual documents?

 

[claphamboy]

In a statement, the White House said: "Such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government.

 

[ViolentPanda]

exactly the stuff about iran is just what we all thought anyway thats why i want to know more of the gossip and their opinions of public figures

It's the nature of intel that most of it is confirmatory rather than ground-breaking, so having "what we thought anyway" confirmed is to be expected.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's gotta be Fergie - She'd sell anything to anyone if they paid the right price

I'm hoping for something more melodramatic, like Harry being outed as a horse-rapist, or something similar.

 

[AKA pseudonym]

We here undersigned express our support for the work and integrity of Julian Assange. We express concern that the charges against the WikiLeaks founder appear too convenient both in terms of timing and the novelty of their nature.

We call for this modern media innovator, and fighter for human rights extraordinaire, to be afforded the same rights to defend himself before Swedish justice that all others similarly charged might expect, and that his liberty not be compromised as a courtesy to those governments whose truths he has revealed have embarrassed.

In earnest support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange:

http://readersupportednews.org/julian-assange-petition

 

[MikeMcc]

I do think this may be a step too far. There's a good reason that we apply a 30-year rule to releasing information like this. A lot of decisions and intel involve subjective analyses that may well be unflattering and may well turn out to be incorrect, or require responses that are expedient. If the initial data is out there to be viewed by all and sundry it will have two effects. Firstly the responses by the foreign governments and individuals will be affected, probably adversely. Secondly the sources will become come more circumspect in how they report, and this may lead to mis-calculations. When these involve nuclear capable countries this could be disasterous.

The case of the after-action reports was different to this one. The physical events ahad already occurred and the effects on the ground had already been felt. This is substantially different.

 

[Corax]

Yeah, shit! Transparency of govt might go some way to influencing a modification of their behaviour!

 

[MikeMcc]

Yeah, shit! Transparency of govt might go some way to influencing a modification of their behaviour!

And if it means that the governments are working from sources that are too scared to say boo, or are unable to gain agents to work for them in casse their names are published? It could well cause a mess that acts to de-stabilise intelligence for the next 10 years, making things less safe.

Given that the source is probably due to poor IT security on the Spam's part, It Probably means that the Chinese already have all the info anyway given how far they are ahead of the game in terms of IT intelligence and warfare.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Have you read any of the links here? It's not intelligence data, it's messages from diplomats, and the source is clearly stated.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/ by the way, for the list directly from wikileaks.

I liked "A Caucasus Wedding".

 

[AKA pseudonym]

Letters between Wikileaks and the U.S. Government

 

[MikeMcc]

Have you read any of the links here? It's not intelligence data, it's messages from diplomats, and the source is clearly stated.

And where do the diplomats get the intelligence to build their opinions? All it takes is a comment from a diplomat that mentions something that is known to a limited set of people. Repeat that over 100 messages and it narrows the sources down dramatically. They don't have to say that so-and-so said this, only that so-and-so knew more of the facts that appeared in the messages.

The counter-intelligence bods are bloody good at their jobs and they don't require a vast amount of info to start witch-hunts. Even if some of those are ultimately innocent, it serves as a lesson pour-encourager-les-autres.

 

[elbows]

Talk about drip drip, reease is going to happen over months!

The embassy cables will be released in stages over the next few months. The subject matter of these cables is of such importance, and the geographical spread so broad, that to do otherwise would not do this material justice.