Wikileaks just leaked a list of assets that the US government considers critical to our country’s well-being. Essentially, this is a list of targets that terrorists could hit that would really, really hurt. Releasing such a document is beyond irresponsible. At this point, Julian Assange and his cronies are actively aiding terrorism. Wikileaks is already having trouble finding someone to host their site. Now, they’ll probably be declared a terrorist organization, and end up as international pariahs that have to use a server in Iran or North Korea or some damn place like that.
They’ve got no problem finding someone to host the site, or the many hundreds of mirrors of it. Maintaining a domain name is proving a bit harder, but that’s easy to get around, if inconvenient.
For info:
the main Wikileaks site http://213.251.145.96/
List of mirrors: http://213.251.145.96/mirrors.html
If I were a terrorist interested in compiling a list of targets, I wouldn’t bother with a secret list like that one. It would be easy to look in general reference sources like Wikipedia or the front pages of newspapers.
It seems to me that it’s likely of a piece with other leaked information: if it’s really that important, then the government’s failure to keep it securely is a failure on their part. If Wikileaks can get it, then so can others, and somebody else (who isn’t interested in making the fact known) probably already has. At least now it’s known that the information is out there and its security was inadequate.
That certainly suggests that it’s not so critically sensitive; it may amount to a list that a smart team with moderate resources could largely have compiled for themselves anyway. A serious espionage or terrorist organization wouldn’t even need to do that. Surely it’s impossible that any authorized readership of 2.5 million doesn’t include some people willing to sell the material with no questions asked.
Yeah, those top-secret gigantic mines, the satellite farms, the landfall points of undersea cables, arms manufacturing plants, the Hoover dam. Who knew?
Ummm, shouldn’t any enemy worth its salt know what the critical list of assets of their target country is? I’m sure that terrorists put some thought into their targets, and I don’t think there’s really any surprises on the list.
I thought “know your enemy” was rule #1 of warfare.
I don’t know how “secret” this latest wikileak crap is or isn’t, but it reminds me of something along these lines that always pisses me off.
I’ve interacted with plenty of “information is power and should be known by everyone” types.
They sure love that idea when it comes to all kinds of government or business or science info that total and full disclosure is the ONLY way…but if you suggest that all their PERSONAL info be freely available and they generally freak the fuck out…
I certainly don’t think that all government information should be made public. However, the over-reaction to the release of this particular document seems unjustified: it does not endanger the U.S. or its allies significantly.
The latest US-oriented stuff doesn’t seem like all that much to be honest. I don’t think there’s been anything an interested observer couldn’t infer, and certainly none of it would be a surprise to any of the involved governments. It’s basically a cheeky look up-skirt for us proles.
What complete bollocks. The list did not give any information as to their exact locations, security measures, vulnerabilities or any similar factors - although it does reveal the US asked its diplomats to report back n those matters.
The list runs to hundreds of communications installations, transport hubs, important factories and energy hubs, across dozens of countries around the world.
It is of no particular use to terrorists, all it does it pick out which of the untold thousands of possible terrorist targets the US feels are the most critical to its national security. Google Earth is a better tool to Al Quaeda than this list.
IMO the WL people who edit the information before release have done an outstanding job of removing anything useful to terrorists from all the information leaked so far.
In all fairness, having not seen the originals, we can’t know that.
Exactly right, IMO. As I said in another thread:
Meh, the Obama administration appears willing to handle the problem of this organization in a spineless (or at least dilatory) manner, so I’m sure Wikileaks will continue to operate unimpeded despite its threatening nature.
You don’t think it’s because there’s a difference between information regarding the activities of governments and information regarding the activities of everyday people? Differences in who those entities are supposed to be accountable to? Differences in the range and scale of the effects of those activities? Vast differences between the numbers of people whose lives are in any way affected by either entity?
The suggestion that governments should be open is neither comparable nor analogous to the suggestion that everybody’s personal information should be open and that is why you see a different reaction to the latter than you do to the former.
So, are you saying there is no such thing as a valid secret or not?
There isn’t really much Obama can do short of having the people running Wikileaks murdered, and even that wouldn’t be very effective. Realistically his only option is to launch an investigation, identify who leaked to Wikileaks, and have them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. He can also of course lobby Congress to broaden the legal defination of espionage and/or broading the conditions which make it a capital crime (which raises problems of it’s own).
Were Wikileaks an American-based organization, I would feel quite confident that their activities are covered under the freedom of the press.
As they are not, I suppose it’s up to whatever nation their servers are currently hosted in to decide the matter.
That’s trivially simple to justify: the police and the government have been granted extraordinary powers that are denied to everyone else. Their use of these powers is why their actions should be subject to public scrutiny, because these extraordinary powers are easily abused.
I suspect we’d find out for sure, sooner than later, if Wikileaks starts passing out Israeli or Russian information.
At some point, despite all one’s moral justifications, all the reasoning from a position of perfect rationality, you’re still throwing red paint on Puff Daddy’s fur coat.