Leaking Classified Information via the Internet

Perhaps it’s a wakeup call to journalists that they aren’t really asking hard questions, investigating stories and taking risks to dig through the smoke and mirrors to uncover what’s really going on.

Unfortunately, this type of journalism is necessary. That’s the sad part of the story.

Yet, I’m not convinced that leaks are the solution.

Let me explain

How many of those leaks were given because an employee was unsatisfied or unhappy and wanted to take revenge?

How much of the story are we missing? Sometimes a piece of information can make the whole difference and change your point of view.

Is that part of the story not being published by the leaker for some reason?

I would have tons of questions similar to these ones but at the end of the day I don’t trust Wikileaks in the same way that I don’t trust newspapers and that I don’t trust governments.

I think that information is always manipulated, sometimes intentionally, sometimes with good intentions, and sometimes because the journalist understand things in a certain way… but at the end of the day, everything is manipulated.

What countries benefited from the leaks? What countries were not mentioned?

Oh! Your talking about that ‘Wikil***s’?Do you really think that it has some real information?I am unable to decide whether the information is real or not

The information is real enough, but whether the info is accurate or not is up for grabs. See for example the Cuba banning Sicko movie (actually not) debacle for example.

It is not about WikiLeaks itself… we’re talking about leaking information in general. But it is natural the WikiLeaks gets more of the attentions because of the amount of information “disclosed” and the way it has been done.

To be honest, this is real revenge for me. You never this huge load of info leaked just like that. I can’t help to think that there’s something behind this and that we’re all manipulated to think in a certain way.

[FONT=“Georgia”]Perhaps an antagonistic “Wiki-verify” site is needed for that and future “leaks” sites?

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If it wasn’t real, then why are there several people in custody?

I think it boils down to whistle blowing or releasing info that can actually put someones life in danger. Take the Valerie Plame scandal, the White house blew her cover and put her in danger, and then all was quickly forgiven. This is clearly not whistle blowing. On the other hand, a helicopter opening fire on civilians would be a case of whistle blowing.

Whistle blowing = good.
OT
perhaps if Scooter Libbey was behind “that” website all would be pardoned.

This is off-topic. But possibly true.

Off Topic:

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/349/c/5/leaking_by_humon-d34xwuj.jpg image of teh WikiLeaks story from DeviantArt

Wikileaks will forever have many positive and negative reactions. Well, depending on individuals point of view. Technology create new communication perspective and we will never know the limitations. Let’s face it!

I surely Respect what Wikileaks has done in past few Months and there should be nothing unshared within the people and the Government other than some serious private issues and if you shoot the messenger or try to suppress the site it means that you are hiding something that you are afraid to tell public.
And that’s not good at all…

Is the WikiLeaks information real? Most likely yes.

Is what you are being told about the WikiLeaks information correct? Not in Pakistan (which is where you are from). There was an interesting article a while back about how the Pakistani media was making up embarrassing Wikileaks items about India and reporting them as facts.

The whole point of diplomatic cables is to provide an unvarnished and accurate view of the situation on the ground to people back in the home country.

Once you start sanitizing everything, it loses it’s value. If a leader is a pedophile douchebag with a foot fetish, then let them write that instead of having to massage this sort of information just in case someone decides to leak the cable later. That’s going to be the end result of this leak, things will cease to be written down and when they are they will be completely innocuous just in case.

If a leader is a pedophile douchebag with a foot fetish,

So what if he is, one country is not doing business (or not doing business) because of pedophile douchebag or not.

Diplomats can privately tell their spouses that they sat in a hot smelly room with a pedophile douchebag but you don’t put it in official reports, sheesh.

Now saying that the populace of some country considers Dear Leader a pedophile douchebag is something different. That’s useful intelligence.

Intelligence is just that, intelligence. It’s not a diplomat’s job to censor the facts, it’s their job to report them in an unvarnished and accurate fashion. Asking that these reports be politically
correct because they might hurt someone’s feelings is ridiculous. The amount of time and effort required to sanitize everything that might hurt someone’s feelings somewhere is better spent elsewhere.

Also I would suggest that reporting that a leader is a pedophile douchebag if it’s not well known is much more valuable than reporting that his countrymen think he is.

The problem I see with this type of “journalism” is that it not only affects more mature community but kids can witness them as well. And it sends very negative impact on young children’s minds. I am not saying I’m against it or that I’m for it, but suffice me to say that there should be a way to keep our children from knowing these leaks.

That’s the parents’ responsibility, not anyone else’s.

While I’m torn on the issues surrounding the situation - the need for transparency vs the lives at stake (i.e. the released names of the Afghani nationals) or how release of the list of national security concerns may have caused them to become targets - I do find a couple things amusing:

[LIST]
[]Assange asks to have his address kept secret for privacy and security reasons
[
]His lawyers are up in arms that his arrest warrant was leaked.
[/LIST]First thought is “pot calling kettle?”

:rofl::rofl: