Wikileaks, Manning and Adrian Lamo

2010-12-02

There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know But there are also unknown unknowns; there are things we do not know we don't know. we don't know.

-- Donald Rumsfeld

WikiLeaks is, day-by-day, publishing hundreds of some 250,000 leaked US Government diplomatic cables. Compiled details about the diplomatic cables reveal the true feelings of the diplomats serving in various foreign embassies and consulates. These diplomats are only one step removed from both the US Secretary of State, and the field agents of the numerous US intelligence agencies (when diplomats and agents are not one and the same, that is). Governments around the world continue the time-honored diplomatic tradition of saying nothing by voicing vapid opinions about the leak. Amusingly, Israel finds the current leaks favorable, while Iran has decided they are part of a propaganda campaign orchestrated by the US Government.

Bradley Manning faces certain decades in jail over the leak, which he unwittingly confessed to. Snippets of a chat session between the naive and unstable Manning, and media darling Adrian Lamo show how a desperate, troubled soul searching for a confidant gets taken advantage of by a spineless, worthless pile of dog shit.

Lamo, who gained notoriety after hacking the New York Times web site, is far from honoring the early "hacker" ethic of information transparency that I grew up with. To protect his government contractor job, he's turned into an informant of the lowest kind, preying on weak people to protect himself in light of his own weaknesses. As it turns out, I'm not the only person who is utterly repulsed by Lamo.

With more of his own weaknesses published on WikiLeaks for all to see, Lamo pushes for prosecution of Julian Assange (the WikiLeaks leader-in-hiding). Julian conducted an eloquent interview weeks prior to the cable leak. It explains why the work that WikiLeaks does can (in a theoretical way) be important. Following the cable leak, Swedish rape charges (initially brought after the Iraq war SIGACT leak, and later dropped) were renewed via Interpol

Sarah Palin's response to the current WikiLeaks episode displays her typical ineptitude that repulses both the average Alaskan and usually supportive Fox News reporters. I can't see the republicans choosing her as the 2012 presidential candidate, unless they are willing to give this coming election to ye olde incumbent.

"In a free society we're supposed to know the truth"

--Ron Paul

The Wikileaks phenomenon - the existence of an organisation devoted to obtaining and publicly releasing large troves of information the U.S. government would prefer to keep secret - illustrates just how broken our secrecy classification system is. While the Obama administration has made some modest improvements to the rules governing classification of government information, both it and the Bush administration have overclassified and kept secret information that should be subject to public scrutiny and debate. As a result, the American public has had to depend on leaks to the news media and whistleblowers to know what the government is up to.

--American Civil Liberties Union