WikiLeaks

The times we live in. Is this constructive, destructive, a setback or an opportunity? Where is the Iranian intell? What is the damage to Saudi Arabia who instigates from behind an American shield? What of Arabs secretly attempting to encourage the US to military action against Iran before Israel? Crown Prince bin Zayed labeled Ahmadinejad Hitler...

What is the impact of all this? What do you think?

WASHINGTON — A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.

Some of the cables, made available to The New York Times and several other news organizations, were written as recently as late February, revealing the Obama administration’s exchanges over crises and conflicts. The material was originally obtained by WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to revealing secret documents. WikiLeaks intends to make the archive public on its Web site in batches, beginning Sunday.

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I love reading this stuff, and I want to know whats being said, but it's not a good thing to make this public.

I ascribe to the Dennis Miller philosophy regarding the "Ground Zero Mosque:"

...as far as this mosque at ground zero, can they build it, of course you can, you know you can, should you? You know you shouldn’t, it’s bad manners for you to do that there because of the people who died there...

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How was an Army PFC (Private First Class) able to access 250,000 secret documents?

Rocket Surgeon said:

I love reading this stuff, and I want to know whats being said, but it's not a good thing to make this public.

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If I don't get 4th and 14th Amendment protections, why should 'they'?

WilliamBoyd8 said:

How was an Army PFC (Private First Class) able to access 250,000 secret documents?

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Way to use the Grid against them.

Rocket Surgeon said:

I love reading this stuff, and I want to know whats being said, but it's not a good thing to make this public.

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I know what you mean.

We, who are sane and rational and law-abiding, are eager to know the dirty secrets, but would rather not let those, who are insane, irrational and law-breaking, to also find out!

But then you know me. A little chaos can go a long way to making things interesting, even opening doors for dialogue in the most unlikely circumstances. Airing dirty laundry may be cause for general improvement and self-reflection. All tarred with the same brush, and what-not.

I am one of those who think that information, like all non-material goods that are not limited in number should always be free and freely available. There should be no consequences on copying any immaterial goods, be they information, ideas or entertainment creations.

I'm not, however, suggesting that protecting information should be illegal. If I have clandestine documents tucked away in a safe and somebody cracks in makes its contents public, he should still be charged with breaking & entering, if caught.

Also, mankind is a pretty heterogenic group. I don't think there's "us" and "them" per se. Sure, there are individuals that can be viewed as directly opposing everything I stand for, but as long as me, him and everyone else in between has free access to the same information, there will always be a balance. It's a law of nature.

In fact, the people who attempt to protect any immaterial goods are actually not preserving balance, peace or anything else they might claim. What they're instead trying to do is to tip it in their favor. I have no trouble against any forces opposing that.

Finn said:

In fact, the people who attempt to protect any immaterial goods are actually not preserving balance, peace or anything else they might claim. What they're instead trying to do is to tip it in their favor. I have no trouble against any forces opposing that.

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That was clear in Hillary Clinton's speech earlier: complete political spin, attacking those who published the documents for endangering the lives of others, while failing to acknowledge any wrong-doing by the authors of the documents themselves.

All the documents do is put into black and white the things that most people expect would have been said in any case. Even allies smile sweetly and shake with one hand, while concealing the knife in the other behind their back.

Motives are usually thinly veiled behind public countenance. But the cynical among usually suspect what might be going on behind the scenes.

One fact that was aired on the news tonight, was that these documents were already freely and legally accessible to 3 million Americans. Only now have those in power decided to bolt the stable door. The horse, meanwhile, has galloped off into the distance.

Finn said:

In fact, the people who attempt to protect any immaterial goods are actually not preserving balance, peace or anything else they might claim. What they're instead trying to do is to tip it in their favor. I have no trouble against any forces opposing that.

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In terms of The Raven, there is the Private Message function, for the type of communications which do not even fall under the "Open Discussion" forum...

If moderators, (or members) private messages were made available to the entire membership it would undermine the peace here, and the intigators would be censured...and most likely put in solitary, or banned.

Rocket Surgeon said:

In terms of The Raven, there is the Private Message function, for the type of communications which do not even fall under the "Open Discussion" forum...

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There's a PM function here?!?

Pale Horse said:

There's a PM function here?!?

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Not to mention whatever classified messaging (or protected immaterial goods) conducted to administer peace, (or preserve balance) here on site...

Immaterial vs. Plausibly Deniable

Shirley, and you make your point so delicately (to paraphrase a 'diplomatic' movie)...

But the minions here that feast on the food we give them (and their banter to and fro) can not be fairly classified to the correspondence between two or more ambassadors.

Now if you were to claim that messages between Finn and I should be brought to light, your reasoning might be more grounded.


What goes on in the Facebook/Social Media of PM's on a site such as this, is of no consequence what so ever.

Pale Horse said:

Shirley, and you make your point so delicately (to paraphrase a 'diplomatic' movie)...

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Well, I'm not trying to walk on water without getting my feet wet...yet.

It was merely an inspired tangent, not so much a point as a question.

Pale Horse said:

But the minions here that feast on the food we give them (and their banter to and fro) can not be fairly classified to the correspondence between two or more ambassadors.

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No, just the larger aspect of freedom of information...the moderators are a far better comparison to ambasadors.

The mention of (members) was merely an aside, and I stand by the idea that a breach of that privacy would not foment peace.

Pale Horse said:

Now if you were to claim that messages between Finn and I should be brought to light, your reasoning might be more grounded.

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I'm not claiming they should though it did strike me as interesting how Finn's opinion might apply to this forum where I've witnessed actions to either extreeme, (without the benefit of the context of "private cables").

An interesting parallel.

Pale Horse said:

What goes on in the Facebook/Social Media of PM's on a site such as this, is of no consequence what so ever.

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I tend to believe there are exceptions, but of course I have zero proof.

It's an interesting case study indeed. A fascinating one at that. I'll be inspired when Finn weighs in.

Pale Horse said:

It's an interesting case study indeed. A fascinating one at that. I'll be inspired when Finn weighs in.

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There's a lot to his post, he points out the law of nature, though I would argue this forum is a system, a community based on rules and their enforcement and as such are not natural and not subject to natural law. By extension neither is the Wikileaks conundrum.

I would say his closing comment could be taken as contrary to his own role here at The Raven, (some days).

To paraphrase it:

In fact, the moderators who attempt to protect any immaterial goods are actually not preserving balance, peace or anything else they might claim. What they're doing instead is to keep it in their favor. I have no trouble against any Ravenite opposing that.

The day WikiLeaks or a similar instance shows interest on data concerning the backroom dealings here at The Raven, I'll be the one to voluntarily hand them all I have on the subject.

But as long as I doubt it'll be something that interests the world at large, I'll be obliged to protect its status as correspondence only meant for the eyes of limited individuals.

I ought to note that there is only person to determine what material can be considered healthy for the balance and what's insignificant - and that is the leaker. I actually have no opinion on if this huge wad of diplomatic mail that's hitting the Internet as we speak is leakworthy or not, but men like Bradley Manning and Julian Assange obviously think it is, and I'm willing to yield to their discretion. As I were if somebody hit my PM inbox and decided its contents were something to show the world. I'd still be after their hides for the code breach, though. As I were if the cracker were to blackmail me with said contents instead of just spreading it out for all to see.

In similar manner, if Mr. Assange was selling these things to the highest bidder instead of putting it up someplace everyone can see, I wouldn't be admiring him but likely calling him a criminal.

I won't chew out the hide of Ms. Clinton and her ilk for wanting to keep these messages out of the public eye. I do think however that she is a hypocrite when she claims that this'll hurt the world and endanger innocent people. Well, maybe it might endanger some individuals, but in turn it would also empower others. This would also happen equally on "our" side and "theirs"... so yeah. That's what I call maintaining the balance.

There are two states that are natural for information. One is when the message is available to those who are meant to be its recipients and the other is when it's available to all, no questions asked. When it lands somewhere in between on the scale of publicity, well, that is the state when we move from natural to unnatural.

There are two kinds of content in WikiLeaks: beneficial and insignificant. There is nothing that could be considered counter productive, because it's free for all to see and that in itself is the negating effect that turns initially harmful information into one of those two categories. What comes to the contents of The Raven's PM system, I believe that large majority of it, if leaked, would turn out to be of the insignificant kind. And that is why I've got no qualms in keeping it private.

What comes to WikiLeaks in itself... since insignificant information creates a sum of zero and beneficial stands as positive, as a whole WikiLeaks is nothing but beneficial. There's no question around that.

For the diplomat, would it not be best to phrase private messages also in diplomatic language, so as not to create offence in the case that the message be delivered to unwanted parties?

Constructive criticism or points of note, rather than nasty private digs made with the false security that only the intended will read them?

These are the faults of diplomats, and not the faults of those who decide to display them publicly.

There could have been a case where many more of these documents would have had negligable repercussions. There will always be some messages that the sender would rather not let others see, and that would also apply to The Raven.

As Rocket wrote, sometimes, for the sake of peace and harmony, it is better that the wider audience is not aware of certain personal thoughts. In those cases, one Raven member might virtually shake the hand of another, while holding the kinife in readiness behind their back in their other hand. Only when things become untenable might the knife be actually shown publicly, but until that moment it's best to see how things pan out.

Wikileaks has shown us the knife behind the back due to sloppy security and careless tongues and fingers. To many of us, the results aren't earth-shatteringly unexpected. It's what states do, because it's what people do naturally.

Montana Smith said:

one Raven member might virtually shake the hand of another, while holding the kinife in readiness behind their back in their other hand.

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Or kiss the ass thereof.

Gear said:

Or kiss the ass thereof.

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An equally despicable act!

One of the episodes of the The IT Crowd that was on TV last night happened to be "Something Happened", where the masseur kissed Roy on the butt: "He kissed me on the bottom."

Hey, what two Raveners do in private stays in private, Private.

WilliamBoyd8 said:

How was an Army PFC (Private First Class) able to access 250,000 secret documents?

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In the mid 90s my uncle was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force and attempted to defend himself in military court on accusations that he attained a key to Building 500 (of which as a Staff Sgt he wasn't of the ranking to have had) and stole a slough of items (base station radios, high grade sleeping bags, soldier back packs, ect) with the intent to sell them.

My uncle claimed to everyone that two officers were lying and that he had been framed. However, supposedly, there were "discs" he'd stolen, and he told the court that he'd given them to his mother and sister. It's speculated what was on these "discs" and why he'd lie of their whereabouts, but while and sometime after this was happening, our phones were tapped, we were shadowed, and there were a couple of break-ins on our home in which each a 1968 Deutsche Mark was left on the kitchen table.

Said uncle was found guilty and spent 5-7 years (can't remember exactly how long) in Leavenworth Maximum Security Prison.

The whole thing is still pretty mysterious, partially because he's never been a dear family member. My mom asked him what the message was suppose to be with the coin. She had taken it as a direct reference to her ('68 being her birth year). His reply was only 'it doesn't mean what you think'... He had been stationed in Germany for a while, and is also a shady liar, but, idunno...

We had found military and court documentation that had records on this affair, so that accounts for some of the info, but who and how far can you trust?

Some people might call BS on this whole story. All I've got to say is that I'm telling this as I know it.


Oh, and what's this got to do with WikiLeaks?

My anecdote was simply trying to backdrop WilliamBoyd8's comment. I wasn't just talking to raise my post count.

Finn said:

What comes to WikiLeaks in itself... since insignificant information creates a sum of zero and beneficial stands as positive, as a whole WikiLeaks is nothing but beneficial. There's no question around that.

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I think the whole idea of transparency is a lofty and worthwhile goal, but this most recent leak is forced transparency without a focused goal other than anarchy. That Wikileaks imposes editorial manipulation, giving the Apache footage a biased title and cutting content, and most recently selectively releasing documents, not all, is contrary to the simply stated goal of transparency.

Unfortunately I don't think there is any insignificant information, especially when dealing with disparate personalies, cultures and goals...and don't believe the sum of zero is possible in this "game."

Which is partly how I read:

Montana Smith said:

Constructive criticism or points of note, rather than nasty private digs made with the false security that only the intended will read them?

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Now:

Montana Smith said:

These are the faults of diplomats, and not the faults of those who decide to display them publicly.

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...I agree this is all begins with poor security measures, (or more precisely lack thereof), but it does not absolve Wikileaks from exponentially compounding the problem by posting it.

Gear said:

Hey, what two Raveners do in private stays in private, Private.
Said uncle was found guilty and spent 5-7 years (can't remember exactly how long) in Leavenworth Maximum Security Prison.

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If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can hire...

Interesting story, and the problem stems from security as you illustrate.

Fair? Balanced?

I always used to laugh at Madonna whoring out Christian symbolism, heralded as an edgy artist and "bold and brave." Would have loved to see such a bold and fearless artist take on Islam's oppression of women. Never going to see that.

Where is Wikileaks' expose' on Iran or North Korea? Ah, they simply post what they get, (with catchy labels like "Collateral Murder")...Oi.

Wikileaks is a new player jumping in the middle of an established game whose nuanced rules developed over time with numerous complications including many participants playing by their own rules with as many different goals, (in a spectrum from dominance to compromise), though the results are lives won and lost. From my point of view, Wikileaks is simply further complicating the game. Fizzbin for all you Trek fans!

While I would embrace unbridled transparency, international diplomacy does not lend itself...

I have to believe Wikileaks is counter productive.

Hey, why are the polls results viewable....

Who said we're all going to die?!