U.S. must stop spying on WikiLeaks - Details on intimidation attempts

by dsplittgerber • 16 years ago

304 113 16 years ago

Does anyone know if there's an archive of documents released by wikileaks? I've not been able to find them through the website's homepage.

metamemetics• 16 years ago

http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

dailo10• 16 years ago

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.

ErrantX8• 16 years ago

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)

robin_reala• 16 years ago

Out of interest, what do you believe the opposing arguments to Wikileaks are?

borism6• 16 years ago

> stifling media reports about wikileaks, snatching them and imprisoning them on fluff charges

it is well known that in the US mainstream media imposes self censorship on such issues

rdtsc4• 16 years ago

> 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.

anigbrowl• 16 years ago

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.

lenley2• 16 years ago

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.

caffeine2• 16 years ago

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.

andrewcooke• 16 years ago

so the intimidation worked.

caffeine2• 16 years ago

Yes.

ErrantX8• 16 years ago

I've reached out as number of times to them and never had a reply... which kinda sucks

Vivtek• 16 years ago

Yeah, same here. I'd guess they have no end of volunteers, probably about 0.05% of whom actually end up panning out.

jonknee3• 16 years ago

Maybe they were too worried about the CIA volunteering. I'm sure you're not a spook, but they don't know that.

tome• 16 years ago

Just out of interest, in what way is the UK CIA-infested?

tbrownaw2• 16 years ago

"We freely admit to doing illegal stuff, and the government needs to stop trying to figure out what we're up to." Yeah, that makes sense...

dsplittgerber4• 16 years ago

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.

borism6• 16 years ago

that's why whistleblowers are protected in democratic countries and why we need Wikileaks

GHFigs5• 16 years ago

the government makes the laws

Elected representatives make the laws.

and can declare virtually everything top secret

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

metra• 16 years ago

Where does it say that?

tbrownaw2• 16 years ago

""U.S. must stop spying on WikiLeaks""

""our ongoing work on a classified film""

""our release of a classified 32 page US intelligence report""

""our release of a classified cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik""

shabda• 16 years ago

"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?

madair• 16 years ago

Legal != Moral

jackfoxy• 16 years ago

Moral != (Legal != Moral)

cmelbye• 16 years ago

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. -- Henry David Thoreau

tokenadult• 16 years ago

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.

stan_rogers• 16 years ago

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.

Qz• 16 years ago

If you read the article, what they said is that the governments involved need to stop doing illegal things to try to figure out what they're up to.

Perceval• 16 years ago

If Wikileaks starts acting like a foreign intelligence agency, why are they surprised when the CIA starts treating them like a foreign intelligence agency?

borism6• 16 years ago

which country's interests does Wikileaks represent?

nihilocrat2• 16 years ago

If they supposedly have the video, why don't they just release it?

ErrantX8• 16 years ago

From the article:

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.

nihilocrat2• 16 years ago

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.

breck• 16 years ago

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.

DanielBMarkham2• 16 years ago

I've got some very mixed feelings about this.

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.

kljhgfvgbn• 16 years ago

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.

ytinas5• 16 years ago

>Would you publish nuclear launch codes?

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.

Estragon• 16 years ago

IOW, if you're not doing anything wrong, you can't have anything to hide? :-)

pqs3• 16 years ago

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.

http://freenetproject.org/

update: of course, the lives in danger are those of the editors of wikileaks.

kierank2• 16 years ago

How do you know it's centralised?

pyre• 16 years ago

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.

SamAtt• 16 years ago

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.

lotharbot8• 16 years ago

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.

jacobolus• 16 years ago

Except that the author of said book is totally full of shit, and his book has been ripped to shreds:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/03/29/10032...

ja2ke• 16 years ago

Ugh sorry, I just accidentally downvoted this while trying to upvote it. Sorry again. Thanks for the link!

krschultz• 16 years ago

Alright, has anyone actually read some of these documents.

Check out the US'govt report about WikiLeaks posted on WikiLeaks.

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf

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?

U.S. must stop spying on WikiLeaks - Details on intimidation attempts

Related Stories