Insurance
Wikileaks posts a huge encrypted file. Wired notes:
Cryptome, a separate secret-spilling site, has speculated that the new file added days later may have been posted as insurance in case something happens to the WikiLeaks website or to the organization’s founder, Julian Assange. In either scenario, WikiLeaks volunteers, under a prearranged agreement with Assange, could send out a password or passphrase to allow anyone who has downloaded the file to open it.
Little scary.
August 6th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Very … interesting
August 6th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Insurance.
Cause, you know, if nothing happens to it or him, the file just goes away right?
The only scary thing is the folks named in the document getting killed because of some hippies wanting to make the world a safe place for peace.
August 6th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Wat?
August 6th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
The scary part is that he probably needs it, listening to some US politicians who think that somehow the US has jurisdiction over a foreign national in a foreign country for violating US (and US only) law. You can’t reject universal jurisdiction because you fear for your citizens and demand it over everybody else. How would Uncle feel if the Russians demand his extradition to Russia because that neat new AK-470 he linked was supposed to be secret?
August 6th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
“The only scary thing is the folks named in the document getting killed because of some hippies wanting to make the world a safe place for peace.”
Regardless of what happens with the U.S. economy, our troops in harms way, or anything else for that matter, lets hope that the hippies never get their way! God forbid someone makes the world a safe place for peace, as I would much rather my kids die for corporate interests draped in a flag, then to have a prosperous life living in freedom, those dirty hippies!
Here is an opposing opinion, and I tend to agree with this opinion rather than killing of people for the purpose of killing them. This will surely win over the hearts and minds in Afghanistan.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt401.html
August 6th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
I say let’s find out what’s in that file.
😉
August 6th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
I cannot resist. Obamas birth certificate.
August 6th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
“bwm Says:
The only scary thing is the folks named in the document getting killed because of some hippies wanting to make the world a safe place for peace.
Wat?”
I expect he is talking about the people who worked as informers for the coalition forces who are named, along with their fathers and villages for purposes of identification, in the documents posted. A fact that Taliban spokesmen were quick to point out might have a chilling effect on anyone being willing to work with us there.
Here is a small portion of NY post story on it.
::One tribal elder suspected by the Taliban of liaising with American officials was taken from his home in a Kandahar village and executed by gunmen at the weekend.
Death threats have also begun arriving at the homes of a number of other tribal leaders.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange acknowledged that Afghan deaths may be “unavoidable” after his website released the files, but he said he felt in was in the public interest.::
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/taliban_seeks_vengeance_on_afghans_cy9V6VfsOcOW3982DAC44O
August 6th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
The only reason the albino is still breathing is because he’s in the spotlight. For now.
August 6th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Leak the file! It’s only fair. Why don’t they leak all the killing and beheading that the Taliban has been busy doing?
Albino mushroom in the spotlight – is he a Twilighter?
August 6th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Military justice grinds slowly, but it DOES grind fine. The PFC who’s in the stockade will rat out his WikiLeaks bosses.
Guess what, Justice fans, US Treason law says that in time of war, treason which causes “exceptionally grave” damage to US security is a capital crime.
As for the Brit, they have their own law, the Official Secrets Act, which they regularly send their people who violate it off to gaol for long stretches.
I believe that the USAG, Eric Holder, will actually make some effort to be especially vigilant on this one, because to be slack about it conveys the wrong message for the Fall elections, which are already looking ugly for the D side.
Of course, the solution to stopping it is for the military to stop giving Privates access to this level of information, and to stop recording this level of detailed information in the first place. In my book, the military gets the biggest black eye here, but take no comfort in the fact that the Government was made to look stupid here.
We ARE at war, and with a ruthless enemy who will use ALL that information to their advantage. If it advances the time when NATO has to leave the ‘Stans with it’s tail between it’s legs, that is not a victory for us, whether we be Ls, Ds or Rs. Defeat is defeat any way you slice it, and it bodes us ill when our military gets defeated in the field, especially by a fifth column.
August 6th, 2010 at 11:14 pm
Of course, even if this file does protect him from the US government, it makes him a target for militant groups that want to know what’s in the insurance file.
August 7th, 2010 at 12:38 am
Sorry to play the Luddite here, but I can’t help but notice that without “intelligence computers” he’d have needed wheelbarrows, and the whole Alger Hiss pumpkin farm, to trundle off with that many files. In olden times, before the marvel of modern technology, this level of information wouldn’t even have been at the Pentagon.
It reminds me a little of McNamara and Kissinger suddenly breaking into tactical transmissions in Vietnam. The ability of higher authority to have access to field information creates a need for higher authority to have that access, und so weiter, usw.
August 7th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Here is an idea: Why not get out of Iran and Afghanistan? If we did that, then this would not be an issue.
In the 9 years since 9/11, we have lost 6,632 US lives in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters. There were 2,669 US citizens killed on 9/11. We have lost 2.5 World Trade center attacks in this insane ‘war’ that has no end, and no clear objectives. Not to mention the loss of freedoms that we have had to endure.
Declaring ‘war’ on an act makes no sense. That ensures that you will never end that war, and ensures that there is no clear way to declare victory.
To those who are wanting to crucify this guy: What if the US govt were to begin assasinating US citizens(oops- already being done), or holding American citizens without trial (oops, already being done), or performing unconstitutional wiretaps (oops- already being done)? Would you still be in favor of killing this guy?
The vast majority of the stuff he has released is not classified to prevent the enemy from knowing military secrets, it is classified to prevent the American public from knowing the truth about what their government is up to.
August 7th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
I have a distinct feeling that these files were sanitized long before manning got to them.
August 7th, 2010 at 11:25 pm
Just what is the “national interest” in Afghanistan or Iraq? Or Korea, Japan, Germany, etc, etc.
Forever war. Forever having no rights.
For the health of the state!
August 9th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
When did we get into Iran?
August 10th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Tomcats:
Since May, there has been a buildup: 4 carrier battle groups are in the area, as well as a 6,000 marine amphibious group.
The USS Truman is just the first element of the new buildup of US resources around Iran. It will take place over the next three months, reaching peak level in late July and early August. By then, the Pentagon plans to have at least 4 or 5 US aircraft carriers visible from Iranian shores.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-begins-massive-military-build-around-iran-sending-4-new-carrier-groups-region