If nothing else, you've got to give the folks at WikiLeaks some plaudits for guts. Not only have they risked their livelihoods and, possibly, lives to remove the veil of secrecy that drapes US foreign policy, but now they are pushing back against all those who fear transparency in a most frightening way.
Do they want to call the "bluff" only to find out it wasn't false bravado after all?
Do they want to take the chance that the emperor will be exposed with no clothes on?
If you were in their uncomfortable position right now, would you?
Julian Assange's lawyer has warned that supporters of the WikiLeaks founder will unleash a "thermonuclear device" of government files containing the names of spies, sources and informants if he's killed or brought to trial.It could be nothing more than a bluff, but do US political and corporate leaders want to take that chance?
Assange, the 39-year-old Australian who has most recently embarrassed the U.S. by leaking hundreds of previously secret diplomatic dispatches over the past week, has dubbed the unfiltered cache of documents his "insurance" policy. The 1.5-gigabyte file, which has been distributed to tens of thousands of fellow hackers and open-government campaigners around the world, is encrypted with a 256-digit key, reports The Sunday Times. Experts interviewed by the paper said that even powerful military computers can't crack the encryption without the key.
Contained inside that file -- named insurance.aes256 -- are believed to be all of the documents that WikiLeaks has received to date, including unpublished papers on the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and papers belonging to BP and the Bank of America. Assange has previously suggested that the documents are unredacted, meaning they contain names that normally would be removed before publication to protect the lives of soldiers, spies and sources...
Do they want to call the "bluff" only to find out it wasn't false bravado after all?
Do they want to take the chance that the emperor will be exposed with no clothes on?
If you were in their uncomfortable position right now, would you?
Wow.
ReplyDeleteI'd been wondering why that guy was still alive...
Brandon,
ReplyDeleteNow we know!
SGL,
From time to time, your comments automatically go into the new Blogger "Spam" comments section. When I receive them via email, there is nothing to indicate the comment has been treated as spam, so I don't know to mark it as non-spam and I often forget to check that folder on the web. I write this to explain why some of your comments don't show up immediately.
I did read the article. It is very illuminating. I must admit that I never really thought about Felt's agenda before.
thanks for the explanation re: comments sometimes disappearing and sometimes not. i'd seen various inconsistent behavior, and hence couldn't reverse engineer what the computer's rules were. didn't realize that "comment too long" resulted in putting a human in the loop, but seemingly without telling the human that something had occurred.
ReplyDelete--sgl
an interesting set of questions re: wikileaks:
ReplyDelete--------------------
http://www.safehaven.com/article/19243/wikileaks-state-secrets-or-clever-tactics
WikiLeaks - State Secrets or Clever Tactics?
By: OilPrice.com | Tue, Dec 7, 2010
[...] when you stop to analyze the content of the information that was leaked it seem that two things emerge: first, the content of the cables were not so earth shattering as to damage national security, or harm Washington's relations with other countries.
Second, upon further analysis, it would appear that the information revealed instead sends a strong message to America's foes.
[....]
All theatrics of embarrassment by the US Department of State aside, the release of such information accomplishes a dual purpose.
Many countries in the Middle East are more concerned about Iran's nuclear program than they have publically admitted. The information contained in one cable states that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has asked the United States a number of times to "cut the head of the snake," when talking about Iran and its nuclear program. Other Arab leaders from Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates had similar concerns.
First, these cables demonstrate to Iran that its Arab neighbors are extremely concerned with the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. And second, it forces the Arab countries in question to perhaps take a more transparent stand vis-à-vis Iran.
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--sgl