QuoteWikiLeaks
By Lucy Kennedy
July 7th, 2010
Private First Class Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old who allegedly provided the whistleblower site WikiLeaks with footage documenting U.S. troops killing Iraqi civilians, was charged Monday with transferring classified data and disclosing information to an unauthorized source that could cause injury to the United States. The release of this footage by WikiLeaks in April 2010, the subsequent tipping off of the FBI by ex-hacker and journalist Adrian Lamo, and the detention of Pfc. Manning, have thrown the site and its enigmatic founder, Julilan Assange, into the spotlight and prompted much cyber-debate about the ethics of anonymous sources.
The Site – WikiLeaks
Launched in 2006, WikiLeaks provides a forum where whistleblowers can leak sensitive documents while remaining anonymous. It describes itself as "a multi-jurisdictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive materials to communicate to the public." The technical infrastructure of the site is built to protect the privacy of the leaker. A New Yorker article explains that "Key members are known only by initials — M, for instance — even deep within WikiLeaks, where communications are conducted by encrypted online chat services." WikiLeaks has published everything from Sarah Palin's hacked email to a confidential list of U.S. nuclear sites. In 2009, WikiLeaks' editor, Julian Assange, won Amnesty International's New Media Award for the site's work exposing extrajudicial assassinations in Kenya. WikiLeaks exploded into public consciousness in the U.S. in April 2010 with the release of Collateral Murder, the video exposing U.S. gunners killing Iraqi civilians.
In June 2010, WikiLeaks had a legislative success in Iceland. A WikiLeaks-advised proposal to build an international "new media haven" in Iceland, with the world's strongest press and whistleblower protection, passed the Icelandic Parliament. However, despite this increased interest in WikiLeaks, Wired magazine reports that the site hasn't published a document for four months, and has only published 12 documents this year to date. (Though WikiLeaks claimed responsibility for Collateral Murder, it was not originally released on the WikiLeaks site.)
There have been media reports that WikiLeaks plans to release another secret video of an airstrike in the Afghan village of Garani in which dozens of children are believed to have been killed.
The Founder – Julian Assange
Born in Australia in 1971, Assange moved around a lot and had little formal education as a child. He was a voracious reader and became interested in science. As a teenager, he became part of a group that called themselves the International Subversives. They hacked into computer networks, including the U.S. Department of Defense. Assange studied physics for a time at the University of Melbourne. In late 2006, Assange launched WikiLeaks. He is notoriously enigmatic, highly secretive and seems to have no fixed abode. Assange fled the U.S. and went into hiding after the arrest of Pfc. Manning, fearing that he was being tracked down by the Pentagon, which was following up on Manning's claims that he provided WikiLeaks with 260,000 classified State Department diplomatic cables. He resurfaced in June, telling the Guardian that though he feels perfectly safe, he won't be traveling to the U.S. anytime soon.
The Controversial Video – Collateral Murder
Collateral Murder is an 18-minute video that shows Iraqi civilians — including two Reuters employees, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, a photojournalist, and Saeed Chmagh, 40, a driver and camera assistant — being killed by gun fire from a U.S. Apache helicopter in 2007. After the shootings, a military spokesperson said that "There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force." In the video, the gunners can be heard saying "Have five to six individuals with AK 47s. Request permission to engage." But the footage shows no weapons or hostile behavior from the people on the ground. Reuters requested the footage using a Freedom of Information request, to no avail.
This is just a small portion of the article. It's well worth reading/watching. The rest of the article and the video are contained in this link. What are your thoughts?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/wikileaks/2066/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=pbs
Quote from: Sandy Eggo on July 08, 2010, 09:00:27 PM
This is just a small portion of the article. It's well worth reading/watching. The rest of the article and the video are contained in this link. What are your thoughts?
There is way too much that is squirrelly about the whole drama. The involvement of Adrian Lamo and the 2008 Army Counterintelligence memo targeting WikiLeaks make the whole thing seem both staged and unlikely. Lamos is an attention whore, and Manning seems way too naive for color TV.
For instance:
Manning confessed to being the leaker of the Apache attack video "very quickly in the exchange," and then proceeded to boast that, in addition, "he leaked a quarter-million classified embassy cables" to WikiLeaks. The guy was a a private. How would he get access to a quarter-million classified embassy cables? And if he leaked them to Wiki, where are they?
Sounds too much like Saturday morning television.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/18/wikileaks
Quote from: Sandy Eggo on July 08, 2010, 09:00:27 PM
This is just a small portion of the article. It's well worth reading/watching. The rest of the article and the video are contained in this link. What are your thoughts?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/wikileaks/2066/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=pbs
A private getting and reading 250,00 "secret" messages. My ass.
It reminds me of me when I was a Information Specialist with the rank of private. Part of my maidly services to the office was making the coffee for the Officers and the NCOs and emptying the trash cans.
One day while emptying the cans I came across a brown envelope with top secret stamped in red ink "TOP SECRET". Well what does a private do while he is doing his maidly duty. He read the damn thing. It had two sheets of paper in it and they were stamped top secret. One sheet contained what was printed the the Fort Knox Newspaper the day before and the other one was information passed out to all of the instructor of the base.
Tho I never got into the officers latrine at the Information Office, but I can guess that the toilet paper was stamped "TOP SECRET". :flag: :salute:
Quote from: The Troll on July 09, 2010, 08:52:49 AM
A private getting and reading 250,00 "secret" messages. My ass.
. . .
That very thing has been nagging me since this "story" broke. . . :yes: