# Wikileaks now leaking a whole buncha Saudi Arabian diplomatic documents **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 20, 2015, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991 "2015-06-20T02:24:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/21 "2015-06-30T09:03:29Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > All in all, though, it seems the _New York Times_ is right: [“No shocking revelations.”](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/world/middleeast/cables-released-by-wikileaks-reveal-saudis-checkbook-diplomacy.html) Basically the same as the Manning leaks then. About the biggest reveal was how childish diplomats are, complaining that certain countries government officials stink of BO and such. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/22 "2015-06-30T09:06:55Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The law only protects whistle-blowers who work within the system. If you take all of the evidence to an Inspector-General or Auditor or your Supervisor’s Supervisor. > > If you take it to the New York Times, the law won’t protect you. You’re doing it wrong. > > (Another dumb thing Snowden, specifically, did, was to dump the whole volume of his evidence where it would be made public, rather than carefully selected subsets of the evidence. The tiniest fraction of what he exposed would have served the purpose, without being nearly as harmful.) I disagree, and if I had hypothetical magical powers I would have made everything kept secret by every government public. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/23 "2015-06-30T09:19:33Z")
> [@grude](#): > > I disagree, and if I had hypothetical magical powers I would have made everything kept secret by every government public. My personal information included? ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/24 "2015-06-30T09:21:15Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > My personal information included? Sure, if by that you mean something in a government database. You and nearly every other human on the planet. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/25 "2015-06-30T10:34:52Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Basically the same as the Manning leaks then. The murder of civilians and first responders in Iraq doesn’t ring any bells? > [@grude](#): > > I disagree, and if I had hypothetical magical powers I would have made everything kept secret by every government public. > [@Ruken](#): > > My personal information included? > [@grude](#): > > Sure, if by that you mean something in a government database. You and nearly every other human on the planet. Garbage like this is precisely why I said “unless it makes the government a better slave to the people.” There are legitimate reasons for the government to keep a secret: because it is the custodian of private information about entities which _do_ have a right to privacy; because although the nature of police operations should be fully open, the specifics of when and where can be justifiably kept a secret until that operation is over; because if you need to prove your identity to the government, telling everyone your password defeats the purpose. If you think that the postal service should tell anyone who asks who is sending you mail, what your password is and which corrupt politicians they are investigating, you are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/26 "2015-06-30T10:39:54Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > The murder of civilians and first responders in Iraq doesn’t ring any bells? > > Garbage like this is precisely why I said “unless it makes the government a better slave to the people.” There are legitimate reasons for the government to keep a secret: because it is the custodian of private information about entities which _do_ have a right to privacy; because although the nature of police operations should be fully open, the specifics of when and where can be justifiably kept a secret until that operation is over; because if you need to prove your identity to the government, telling everyone your password defeats the purpose. If you think that the postal service should tell anyone who asks who is sending you mail, what your password is and which corrupt politicians they are investigating, you are wrong. The postal service has no business keeping OCR’d digital images of what mail you have received in the first place, and the best way to remedy that is for it to be made public. Either that will spur people to action, or they will reveal they don’t care. No secrets period. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/27 "2015-06-30T11:18:33Z")
> [@grude](#): > > The postal service has no business keeping OCR’d digital images of what mail you have received in the first place, and the best way to remedy that is for it to be made public. Even if they aren’t keeping records of what mail you have received, they know what mail you’re receiving _right now_. It is the [analog hole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_hole): it is fundamentally and inevitably impossible to stop _someone_ from keeping a record of every piece of mail you ever receive unless you recognise that some information should not be made public. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/28 "2015-06-30T13:32:25Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > And this is why I think Obama is a traitor for the TPP, negotiating in secret. They say it’s so everyone will bring everything to the table. But if that’s not stuff their people would want them to bring to the table, it shouldn’t be brought. The whole thing should be open minus maybe actual state secrets. But, instead it’s closed doors. > > I’m really hoping it will be used in the elections. Any Democrat can accuse a Republican of supporting Obama making secret pacts with the rulers of other countries and giving him more power. Have you ever negotiated anything _in your life_? If the other party knows your entire strategy, including your bottom line and walk-away point, _you will lose_. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/29 "2015-06-30T13:55:49Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Sure, if by that you mean something in a government database. You and nearly every other human on the planet. Direct deposit for federal employee paychecks is going to get very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/30 "2015-06-30T15:18:00Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Basically the same as the Manning leaks then. > > About the biggest reveal was how childish diplomats are, complaining that certain countries government officials stink of BO and such. In the case of the Manning leaks, there was quite a lot of information, lt was redacted by wikileaks on its own, the US seemed to use the actual names of its sources and agents as well as minutes of confiendtial meetings and broadcast them on regular cable… which was surpising on its own, as the Saudis (like pretty much everyone else) tend to presume that their cables might get compromised and don’t send them except by courier or special one time pads. [QUOTE=grude] I disagree, and if I had hypothetical magical powers I would have made everything kept secret by every government public. [/QUOTE] Including the following i) How to make H Bombs? ii) Vulnerabilities of various public places to terrorist attacks? iii) Name of every confidential informant that police have? ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/31 "2015-06-30T15:29:04Z")
I don’t have much to contribute to the debate here, but I’ve been sporadically reading up on the Saudi leaks throughout the day, and found some interesting bits: Some documents shed light on the behind-the-scenes machinations behind [“by far the largest military export contract Canada has brokered.”](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/leaks-reveal-how-ottawa-cultivated-ties-before-15-billion-saudi-arms-deal/article25105844/) Considering Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights track record, not to mention its current war in Yemen, the deal is somewhat controversial. In the “no shit Sherlock” department, some documents show the Saudis fuming about [“flirtatious American messages” passed along to the Iranians “through an unidentified Turkish mediator.”](http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4670514,00.html) Meanwhile, [_the Washington Post_ argues that one needn’t necessarily go looking for “shocking revelations”](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/06/21/how-leaked-saudi-documents-might-really-matter/) here: > [@](#): > > … The absence of “smoking gun” documents is not the point. As Henry Farrell and Marty Finnemore argued a few years ago with regard to the leak of the U.S. State Department cables, the most important consequence was that “they undermine Washington’s ability to act hypocritically and get away with it. Their danger lies not in the new information that they reveal but in the documented confirmation they provide of what the United States is actually doing and why.” It’s one thing for everyone in the region to “know” about Saudi efforts to control the media, but it’s something else to read the details in an official document — and to know that everyone else is reading them, too. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991/32 "2015-06-30T21:32:24Z")
With regard to Snoden and the US, while I think there should be a path for people who uncover government malfeasance to make the general public aware of it, I am very uncomfortable with any individual functionary unilaterally deciding for himself what should and should not be secret. What I would like to see is something like a classification [IRB](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_review_board) of people who have been cleared for security clearance, made up largely of civilian members of the public but also including some members of the clandestine organizations. Anyone within the organization could submit any document or set of documents to be reviewed by this board for release without fear or retaliation. Unless a super-majority of the IRB agree that it should be kept secret, then the document is released. This way documents that are embarassing to the government can be revealed, if a significant subset of people agree that the harm of revealing them is less than the harm of concealing them, but it isn’t just one random person deciding unilaterally for the entire government. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wikileaks-now-leaking-a-whole-buncha-saudi-arabian-diplomatic-documents/722991.md?page=1)