RSSWhat Should We Do About Wikileaks?
December 2, 2010
Squeaky - See all 31 of my articles
This week we all read and heard about the recent dump of classified information into the internet, a scandal called wikileaks named after the website (wikileaks.org) that divulged the information. The website was founded in 2006 and is famous for gathering information from anonymous sources then placing them on their website for all to view.
The most recent information disclosed private communications between the US and 270 embassies and consulates. The information is embarrassing at the very least. It will undoubtedly fuel already boiling tempers in the East. Years of goodwill will be destroyed as private conversations and name calling is made public. Leaders of countries will now know exactly what other leaders think of them, as very candid and (assumed) private conversations are revealed.
One of the scariest revelations for me is that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now knows that his neighbors view him as a trouble maker and asked the US to destroy the nuclear facilities in Iran before they were functional. Without a doubt this will be an irritant to Iran and probably lead them to be less cooperative (if possible) in the future considering that the US did not act even though a number of our Middle Eastern allies asked us to.
So, what do we do with Wikileaks, its founder (Julian Assange) and Army PFC Bradley Manning?
Wikileaks will claim freedom of speech and that it has a right to disclose information that it did not steal or obtain illegally. The question that will likely need to be sorted out in court is did Wikileaks (or its owner) have any obligation to protect classified or secret military information? Julian Assange will be the one to receive any direct punishment since he is the founder, owner and one that makes the decisions for wikileaks. PFC Manning is the one that illegally obtained the classified, secret and normal electronic transmissions. Manning then provided this information to wikileaks for some reason unknown to me.
The losers in this situation:
- Manning. He will pay the highest price for this. He’s currently serving in the military; he knowingly, intentionally and voluntarily downloaded the information and allegedly provided the information to Wikileaks. Manning was discovered to be the “alleged” perpetrator only after he confided his actions to a reformed hacker named Adrian Lamo. That hacker reported the confession to the government.
- Currently serving military personnel. Information never intended to be shared with the opposition has likely been leaked and will be read by insurgents. There will be lives lost because operations and locations have been disclosed.
- Diplomacy. Communication from world leaders shared with various government officials known as “cables” were downloaded and shared. Some of these communications were extremely damning of other countries and was never intended to be read by anyone but the intended recipient. There will be hard feelings, growing distrust between countries and leaders will be hesitant to speak freely any longer over email with diplomats and leaders from other countries.
This whole event is disturbing to me because you have a very low level analyst (Private First Class) able to scour servers for classified, secret and even top secret reports and emails, download them and burn them to CD, place them on a flash drive or even email them to anyone that he wanted without detection. This will undoubtedly hurt our soldiers serving in the Middle East because those documents likely detail many of our Operations as well as identities of embedded spies. From an IT perspective I’m mystified by many reports I have heard indicating that PFC Manning had the authority to access server logs and erase the footprints that would have implicated him as the downloader. In other words, not only did he have top secret clearance, he had the ability to destroy any evidence that he ever viewed and/or downloaded the information. This is an incredible oversight and needs to change immediately.
I fail to see how this leak provides any benefit to anyone short of those working for the opposition. We may for a very long time wonder what motivated an active military enlistee to disclose this harmful information. For now I will watch as the events unfold as additional information is disseminated through the media. We can be assured that since this information has hit the web it will forever be out there. The files are currently accessible by downloading the torrent using a P2P program … they are roughly 350 MB per the wikileaks.org site.
Wikileaks founder has found his moment of fame and is trying to draw it out by indicating his next disclosure will bring down a very large and prominent US bank (rumored to be Bank of America). The documents are rumored to demonstrate unethical behavior. Assange told Forbes.com in an interview (about the bank), “You could call it the ecosystem of corruption.”
My question—how will the media portray Wikileaks and Julian Assange? Will they be made a hero or a villain? How about PFC Manning? Will he be a martyr? I personally think they should both be locked up for what they have done with classified information.
The Political Observers
Iran and Afghan war diaries, Leaked military documents, Military leak, PFC Manning, Wikileaks
Dec 02, 2010 @ 09:03:00
I don’t think that free speech extends to the point of allowing someone to publish stolen information.
Clearly, Wikileaks received stolen property, and clearly they would have known this. If someone offered me the Mona Lisa, should I buy it from them and then flip it for a quick profit? Of course not – I’d be receiving stolen property and would be aware of the fact that it was stolen. Similar situation here. It would be rather obvious to the receiver that these documents were not released by those with proper authority. There’s not a lot of ambiguity.
As a document mamagement professional, the apparently massive gaps in security scare the crap out of me and make me want to rattle the locks on the system I support. I can’t fathom the reason for such a catastrophic failure of separation of duties.
Dec 02, 2010 @ 12:33:29
I’m with Kosmo regarding how shocking the security lapse is. Regarding the rest of the story, I’m not sure what to think. I don’t know if we’ve heard any reports of anyone being harmed by the last leak (not that we would), and with this leak, at least what is being reported in the press is just highly embarrassing, but doesn’t seem to reveal any secret ops, etc. Disclaimer, though – I’m only going by what I’ve heard. I haven’t had the time or inclination to read the actual documents or research this in depth to know exactly what is out there. I believe in transparent government, but with the realization that there have to be secrets in some situations.
Dec 02, 2010 @ 15:10:30
You’re exactly right about the security. The government holds my place of business to a higher standard with basic customer and medical data than the governemnt holds itself to when working with top secret and classified data. The government even boasted that today they have 60% of the DOD computers being monitored…60%?
There are reports that when Manning was stationed in Iraq, some of the data he was pulling was information on embedded troops, etc. I haven’t taken the time to dig through the released documents either so I’m taking spood fed information from the media. The fact that the information has been allegedly leaked tells me that if someone hasn’t been hurt to date, it’s only a matter of time unless they were able to pull out the operatives.
Either way there have been comments by other nations indicating that they will hold back on what they say now. That can’t help diplomacy.
The next release about the alleged US Bank will be interesting. The information apparently came from an executives laptop. I’m wondering how THAT was obtained.
Thanks Boyzzzz.
Squeaky…
Dec 02, 2010 @ 21:07:04
This freedom of speech thing is rather interesting. We as Americans think we understand what right is being quoted, but Mr. Assange is an Australian living in Sweden, I believe. There is no other country in the world that has our truely remarkable freedom of speech. Besides that, he is free to say anything he wants, what he is doing is publishing. Although the U.S. has freedom of the press, it is also a uniquely American right.
Assange claims he did not pay for the data, but received if for free, and since he is providing it for free he is innocent of any wrong doing. He may have gotten it for free, but he is using this data to increase the traffic on his web site and therefore increase his income. By making material gain from stolen items, it is equivalent to selling stolen goods.
Since he is did not commit a crime in the United States and he is not a U.S. Citizen, we will have to wait and hope that one of our allies, to take action.
In some ways this event is quite good for the world. It trashes the conspiracy theories that make the government omnipotent. I have heard more than one person ask why the government has not just shut down his web site or provided for an accident to end his career. The simple answer is that they just simply do not have the resources (or coordination) to watch and control everyone all the time.
Dec 02, 2010 @ 21:23:03
I get what you’re saying, Martin, but I’m not sure it’s that simple.
Where, exactly, did the transfer of stolen information take place? On US soil or elsewhere? Are there interstate commerce issues coming into play?
At some point, Amazon S3 servers were used – some of which are in the US (actually PHYSICALLY located here, since geographical proximity – and the resultant decrease in latency – is the whole point of S3). At that point, he was essentially distributing stolen goods to US citizens from a location in the US.
Even if Assange received no material gains, that doesn’t mean didn’t break a law. Let’s say you steal the Mona Lisa and give it to me. I then turn around and give it to Squeaky as a gift. I received no material gains – but I’m certainly guilty of receiving stolen property.
Shutting down the website won’t do much good, even if the government wanted to do it. The toothpaste is already out of the tube – you can’t make the data secret again.
Dec 06, 2010 @ 22:14:01
Wow….. So many misconceptions in such a short comment. I’m sure you’re well intentioned, but you have a very blinkered view of the world outside the USA. And inside it for that matter…
>>There is no other country in the world that has our truely remarkable freedom of speech
Apart from say Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, most of Europe, Japan etc.
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=251&year=2009
>>Besides that, he is free to say anything he wants, what he is doing is publishing.
If he’s free to say it he’s free to publish it, according to supreme court interpretations of the US first amendment.
http://law.jrank.org/pages/7025/Freedom-Press.html
>> Although the U.S. has freedom of the press, it is also a uniquely American right.
As noted above this is false. The countries listed above all have a free press.
>>I have heard more than one person ask why the government has not just shut down his web site
They are trying to. As I write this (0400 GMT Tues Dec 07) wikileaks (.com, .net, .org) are currently unavailable. Though you can find them via google, at a new IP address
http://213.251.145.96/
Probably not coincidentally Amazon ‘independently’ decided to pull their hosting just after their latest publication. http://tinyurl.com/25cdke9
>> or provided for an accident to end his career.
Again, they are trying to end his career. See the resurrected Swedish rape allegations
http://tinyurl.com/2cswsy4
>>The simple answer is that they just simply do not have the resources (or coordination) to watch and control everyone all the time.
This is true. But they certainly have the resources to dump on Assange, and they are doing their very best to close him down.
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Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending Assange and Wikileaks unconditionally. I really hope they are holding back the names and locations in the cables as much as they say they are. But I think they provide a useful service in an age where governments (yours, mine, and others) have no compunction about lying to the public and to each other.
Dec 06, 2010 @ 22:28:42
My concern isn’t whether he has the right to publish information that he possesses so much as it is a concern that he knowingly received stolen property.
I heard an interesting allegation from the hacker whom the PFC confided in. The guy was on TV over the weekend and made the assertion that Assange had provided technical assistance to Manning to help him steal the data and then cover his tracks. If that’s true, then he’s not just involved after the fact, he’s part of a conspiracy to steal the information.
Dec 06, 2010 @ 22:30:43
Oh, btw, welcome to the site. Just a heads-up that comments with a lot of links do get held for moderation, due to the chance of them being spam. Obviously, your comment wasn’t spam, but similar future comments are also going to get trapped by my filter. You’re still very welcome to leave them (hey, any comments that ads value is welcome), just don’t be surprised if there is a small delay, since I have to manually approve them.
Dec 07, 2010 @ 08:30:36
Welcome to the soapboxers flippertie.
I won’t argue that the US has the broadest freedom of speech and press in the world. However, like anything else there are limits imposed with good reason. Fighting words is the most common exception, but there are other exceptions related to national secrets which are defined in US Code Title 18 Section 793 which is sometimes referred to as “The Espionage Act”. The transfer of Classified, Secret, Top Secret or information regarding national security are most definitely covered by this code. Assange’s actions (conspiracy that Kos refers to and publishing of known secrets) fall nothing short of criminal.
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/37/793
I can’t agree that he’s free to say or publish anything he wants. I’m conforted to know that you’re not unconditionally defending Assange and Wikileaks, but I think I understand your stance. The right to say and publish what we want is paramount and can’t be infringed upon, however there are somethings that need to be held back because of national security. The Supreme Court has included other limitations which are obvious, they include but are not limited to: obscenity, child pornography, speech that constitutes advocacy of the use of force or law violations. Beyond that, some speech is disallowed simply because of where or how it is presented.
To make a long soapbox thought shorter: Freedom of speech and press are rights of ours in the US, but there are limitations. We can’t simply put anything out there that we want.
Squeaky…
Dec 02, 2010 @ 22:26:56
Kos is hitting it on the head…profiting from the goods by selling them would be a separate violation. At this point he has (at minimum) received stolen goods. It would be easy to argue that as soon as the information was downloaded and used in any way that Manning was not authorized—the goods can be considered stolen. Assange receiving the goods that are stolen is clear, but it becomes complicated because it’s not simply Martin’s 60″ one inch thick LED TV directly from the wall. Due to the very nature of the goods (classified and top secret information), it will involve a whole separate set of laws that I know very little about.
I don’t think that it would be a stretch for a prosecutor to argue that the victims involved come from all 270 embassies and consulates that had private conversations released. That could likely be prosecuted as an international crime. That being said…this is where I have to claim complete ignorance to international law.
Martin makes a good point though. Assange is an Austrailian but has lived in Sweden and God knows where else. He is not in the US so if we only pursued US charges we would need to convince another country to hold him for extradition when/if he were found.
It will be interesting to see how the government proceeds and what route they choose to go. Manning will undoubtedly be nailed to the wall. Assange on the other hand could go either way. Will they pursue him to make an example out of him or let things quietly die? If they do go after him, how successful will they be?
Dec 02, 2010 @ 23:11:42
Now that I think more about it, the location and citizenship of Assange might not be the important piece. If Wikileaks is a owned by a US-based corporation (which it probably isn’t), then the corporation will be guilty of the crimes, and the officers could be held responsible for the actions of the corporation. I would assume that this means that they would have liability regardless of their stature as US citizens or non-citizens.
I’m not able to immediately find precise details about the organization’s ownership.
Dec 17, 2010 @ 13:15:06
Without arguing international law I would like to state a point of view from an American standpoint. Most of the information so far is information that Americans are entitled to under law. The US government should be as transparent as it can be along with the other countries involved. Without this transparency they should expect The People to gather information by any means available. The information age will open up the world governments to the people, it will not change they should adapt.
Dec 17, 2010 @ 15:12:53
I’ll throw this idea out there – transparency in governing is not the same thing as transparency in military strategy. The former is something I agree with, the latter is something I don’t. From a practical point of view, it’s just not possible to have 300 million Americans know our military strategy without also alerting the enemy.
Dec 17, 2010 @ 17:03:25
I agree with you. We should not know about all current military secrets or objectives but i still want to know who killed JFK. lol