Community | November 29, 2010 | 29 comments

DAMAGE CONTROL ; US tries to contain damage from leaked documents

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101129/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/wikileaks

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remanns
Cleaning Up After Leaks
WASHINGTON – Bristling over the unauthorized release of more than a quarter million classified State Department documents, the Obama White House on Monday ordered a government-wide review of how agencies safeguard sensitive information.
The weekend release of documents reflecting, in some cases, unflattering assessments of world leaders has caused embarrassment to the administration. The director of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, Jacob Lew, said in ordering the agency-wide assessment Monday that the disclosures are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
The U.S. cables contained raw comments normally muffled by diplomatic politesse: Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah pressing the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake" by taking action against Iran's nuclear program. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described as "feckless" and "vain." German Chancellor Angela Merkel dismissed as "risk averse and rarely creative."
Publication of the secret memos and documents made public by the online whistle-blower Wikileaks Sunday amplified widespread global alarm about Iran's nuclear ambitions. It also unveiled occasional U.S. pressure tactics aimed at hot spots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea. The leaks disclosed bluntly candid impressions from both diplomats and other world leaders about America's allies and foes.
It was, said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, the "Sept. 11 of world diplomacy."
In the wake of the massive document dump by online whistleblower WikiLeaks and numerous media reports detailing their contents, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was expected to address the diplomatic repercussions later Monday. Clinton may have to confront the fallout first hand after she leaves Washington on a four-nation tour of Central Asia and the Middle East — a region that figures prominently in the leaked documents.
Most of the disclosures focused on familiar diplomatic issues that have long stymied U.S. officials and their foreign counterparts — the nuclear ambitions of Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, China's growth as a superpower, the frustrations of combating terrorism.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101129/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/wikileaks

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29 comments // DAMAGE CONTROL ; US tries to contain damage from leaked documents

  • riverratt50
    • 0
      riverratt50  

    • From the article, "The Obama White House on Monday ordered a government-wide review of how agencies safeguard sensitive information." So instead of our "upstanding president" standing up and saying enough of this bull. He put's his team in motion to make sure that the lies and secrets stay that way in the future. What a guy!!! You get busted with your thumb in the pie and all you can think of is how to get away with it next time. Not, what a guy, it's what a spineless dick..

    • 1 year ago
  • cclark_productions
  • pjacobs51
  • remanns
  • pjacobs51
  • CalgarC
  • remanns
  • littlwarrior
    • +1
      littlwarrior  

    • heres a thought if the government was honest and transparent in the first place, you know the way our founding fathers meant it to be, we wouldn't even have a problem. My what a revolutionary concept!

    • 1 year ago
  • Vierotchka
    • +3
      Vierotchka  

    • One thing is for sure, there are people in the US military and government that are sick and tired, and very pissed-off about the US shenanigans over the past several years, to have supplied all these documents to Wikileaks.

    • 1 year ago
  • kennymotown
    • +4
      kennymotown  

    • I understand the damage to security, but what the hell are we going around the world selling democracy if we don't have an open government!

    • 1 year ago
  • DougChristian
    • 0
      DougChristian  
    • kennymotown:

      Come on dude. What's an open government? Don't tell me you don't have a concept of the value of legitimate state secrets or of the ability to have candid non-diplomatic conversations in private. If the leader of a foreign country tells our diplomats something in confidence, then in an open government we're supposed to make it public and embarrass him? Our ambassadors can't communicate any impressions they have of foreign leaders that they aren't willing to read in front of that leader and his mom? I don't understand how diplomacy works in this "open" world you're fantasizing.

      If we can't make a sharp and glaring distinction between these leaks and whistle blowing; between airing honestly private dirty laundry and exposing illegal activity; then we are lost.

      Think about this: SIRPNET was open to literally MILLIONS of Americans. PFC Manning, a regular United States soldier was merely one of so many with access. If they'd all just read a page and leaked only the few that showed anything illegal then we'd have a winning system. Now we'll lose that because security trumps.

    • 1 year ago
  • kennymotown
    • +2
      kennymotown  
    • DougChristian:

      The government has lost it's respect over the last decade, with lies about weapons of mass destruction, Iraq had something to do with 911, we don't torture, etc,etc. I'm not saying the leaks were right but the lies were wrong and have cost us our economy and thousands of innocent lives on both sides. With that in mind, just maybe the government needs to takes it's lumps now and get it right before we go on another imperialistic crusade!

    • 1 year ago
  • DougChristian
    • -1
      DougChristian  
    • kennymotown:

      Those were political lies by the last administration. They were publicly refuted by respected people. That was a media problem which persists and grows stronger. This is utterly unrelated and will have a negative impact. I've already heard this described as the "911 of diplomacy". Think about the implications of that. Do you think it'll lead to more open diplomacy?

    • 1 year ago
  • kennymotown
  • DougChristian
  • kennymotown
  • ayipis
    • -2
      ayipis  
    • kennymotown:

      LOL..that is so touching....maybe we can get colbert and stewart to have another "rally" to end this insanity LOL..

      by the way..when is your revolution going to happen??

    • 1 year ago
  • ThatCrazyLibertarian
  • toastyguy11
  • CalgarC
    • +2
      CalgarC  

    • hahaha... they get what they deserve... now if the us government stops fucking with our food system among other things maybe i will feel bad for them!

    • 1 year ago
  • pjacobs51
    • +4
      pjacobs51  
    • Image

    • Exactly 251,287 pieces of data from 250 US embassies and consulates was released yesterday by WikiLeaks, and while none of the information was particularly shocking, it's been described as the largest intelligence leak in history. Here's how it happened:

      According to The Guardian, which was one of the chosen publications by WikiLeaks to help spread the information, the cables were copied from the defence department's Siprnet network by a 22-year-old soldier, Bradley Manning, who was working at an army base near Baghdad.

      Manning's been held in solitary confinement since April, after his unauthorised downloads were discovered. According to the soldier, it was all too easy to gain access to the network and download the files:

      "I would come in with music on a CD-RW labelled with something like 'Lady Gaga' … erase the music … then write a compressed split file. No one suspected a thing ... [I] listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history."

      Amounting to 1.6GB of data, Manning claims that "information should be free. It belongs in the public domain," however he made the mistake of IMing another hacker, Adrian Lamo, and boasting of his deeds. Lamo then dobbed him in, while Manning uploaded all of the files to WikiLeaks.

      Gawker has a run-down of some of the more "interesting" factoids contained within the cables, but really, none of it is as horrifying as the video of an Apache helicopter firing at Baghdad civilians, which is believed to have been obtained by Manning and released by WikiLeaks back in April. [The Guardian]

    • 1 year ago
  • remanns
    • +3
      remanns  
    • pjacobs51:

      Purely personal moral to this - - -
      If you're going to spy ------ for gods sake, DO NOT tell people you did.
      ( This information may now be free,...but Mr. Manning aint ! 22 is pretty damn young to start spending a life in prison. )

    • 1 year ago
  • remanns
  • pjacobs51
  • CalgarC
  • remanns
  • remanns
  • CalgarC
  • remanns
    • +3
      remanns  

    • "The catastrophic issue here is just a breakdown in trust," he said Monday, adding that many other countries — allies and foes alike — are likely to ask, 'Can the United States be trusted? Can the United States keep a secret?' "

    • 1 year ago
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