The NYTimes has started posting its latest Wikileaks collaboration.
They’ve also posted “A Note to Readers: The Decision to Publish Diplomatic Documents“:
… Beginning Sunday, WikiLeaks intends to publish this archive on its Web site in stages, with each batch of documents related to a particular country or topic. Except for the timing of publication, the material was provided without conditions. Each news organization decided independently what to write about the cables…
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The Times has taken care to exclude, in its articles and in supplementary material, in print and online, information that would endanger confidential informants or compromise national security. The Times’s redactions were shared with other news organizations and communicated to WikiLeaks, in the hope that they would similarly edit the documents they planned to post online.
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After its own redactions, The Times sent Obama administration officials the cables it planned to post and invited them to challenge publication of any information that, in the official view, would harm the national interest. After reviewing the cables, the officials — while making clear they condemn the publication of secret material — suggested additional redactions. The Times agreed to some, but not all. The Times is forwarding the administration’s concerns to other news organizations and, at the suggestion of the State Department, to WikiLeaks itself. In all, The Times plans to post on its Web site the text of about 100 cables — some edited, some in full — that illuminate aspects of American foreign policy…
It would be interesting to compare the Wikileak source dumps with the NYTimes‘, and other publishers’, redacted versions. If only there were someone with the memetically selected high-IQ metatalents to fully grokk the PURE DATA in a post-gutenberg Sufi undertanding not available to us bioluddite olds!
Kenneth
The American Empire will come out with so many black eyes from this.
It will be beautiful to behold…will Hillary have to resign in disgrace?
Winston Smith
All I need is a quarter ounce of meth and 36 hours.
Maude
The only thing so far that I find disturbing is Clinton wanting the biometric data on diplomats at the U.N.
Yutsano
@Maude:
Sure. Why not? She has mine. Biometric data isn’t necessarily some scary ebil thing.
Omnes Omnibus
That is simply brilliant. Sheila, take a bow.
Ned Ludd
In the last batch, Marcy Wheeler looked at a document about the capture of the three American hikers by Iran, and she found that Wikileaks redacted more than the New York Times.
Her post has a list of the specific items.
Also, the way in which Wikileaks redacts information is much more secure, but also makes the document harder to follow.
wengler
If we still lived under Bush, the NYT would wait for 2 years so as to “not interfere with the elections” just like for the massive wiretapping story.
The newspaper industry is so outmoded. I think I will ignore the Times story and go straight to the source. Or better yet I am already reading the Guardian coverage of this before the source material drops.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: This. Also. Too.
@Ned Ludd: So it’s a whole lotta teeth gnashing over…not so much in the end.
Kenneth
@Yutsano:
This is just the beginning. It’s going to be a seven-day series: drip, drip, drip.
And he’s promised to reveal info about US assassinations and death squads.
I_D_Inuse
Ya know Anne Laurie, there is a difference between nuance and hyperbole. Snark does not, nor ever will trump reason and facts based on available knowledge. The question before us in this age of information, verified or not, is very simple, what is real and what is an imagined real, ginned up to enhance a point of view?
Never mind the facts as we know ’em, full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes, no matter the blowback? Unreasoned emotional fee-fees rule? That is not nor ever will be an adult answer and FSM knows we need adults at the helm of our so called ship-of-state.
Maude
@Yutsano:
That’s with your permission, isn’t it? If I gave permission for that data to be released to an agency, I’d be fine with it.
What bothers me is the amount of personal data wanted on diplomats without their permission.
Yutsano
@Maude: With my permission inasmuch as if I wanted the job I’d better give it. Without their knowledge or consent does get into creepy territory. Unsurprising, but still creepy. Though what the State Department wanted with the weights of diplomats at the UN is beyond me.
Brick Oven Bill
Leaked!
A far more accurate portrayal of sensitive American diplomatic relations.
Ned Ludd
I’m not sure I understand your comment. Are you talking about Wikileaks, or are you talking about Clinton’s order to spy on UN leadership?
Clinton also wanted biometric information “on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace operations and political field missions, including force commanders”. Biometric data included “DNA, fingerprints and iris scans.”
According to the Guardian, Clinton’s order appears to violate the UN convention on privileges and immunities.
Ned Ludd
@Maude: I have a comment in limbo/moderation that asks what you meant by comment #11. Anyway, I missed your comment at #3, which clears things up. So when my other comment appears, you can ignore the question.
Maude
@Yutsano:
Maybe they were going to have them on see saws and wanted to see who would tip the board too much.
I want to see how this plays out.
I read the list of things wanted by DoS and that’s what disturbed me.
Bnut
Exactly what would wikileaks reveal that would cause any sort of change in US government behavior? Because is that not the goal here? If we show the public what kind of nefarious shit we do, maybe we won’t do it anymore? PLEASE. After the Warren Commission, the Pentagon Papers, IranContra, and on and on, what would Assange actually reveal that could make the crazy train stop? The answer is nothing. The President of the United Stats openly admits to giving kill orders on American citizens w/o any type of process. We have admitted to having secret prisons in other countries. Unless there is some document signed by the government authorizing testing of diseases and drugs on an unknowing populace, there will be no change. Oh wait (Tuskegee, MKULTRA). Tom Clancy and Dale Brown are as much to blame as anybody.
Ned Ludd
@Yutsano: Not just weights, but also “DNA, fingerprints and iris scans.”
More, from the Guardian:
[…]
Luthe
…Aaaaand crowd-sourced reading/algorithmic analysis of the cables in 3, 2, 1…
BGinCHI
@Bnut: Agreed. Dale Brown was a terrible basketball coach.
Kenneth
And it’s no coincidence that the WikiLeaks site went down today–that’s our “cyberwarfare” unit at work, working on keeping relevant information from it’s own citizens.
USA! USA! USA!
The Empire will never fall!
Most rotten nation since 1945.
Yutsano
@Ned Ludd: Which of course begs the question why State wants to venture over into CIA territory with all this. I freely admit it’s more bizarre than anything. Though now I’m curious as to what information the Chinese have about the UN diplomats.
@Kenneth: Dude…do you need a towel now or just a moment to yourself?
Maude
@Ned Ludd:
Thank you for posting the list.
I think this is going to cause real problems.
Bet Dr. Susan Rice isn’t having fun right now.
Bnut
@BGinCHI: Actually THAT Dale Brown was fucking awesome. He hated the NCAA.
Kenneth
@Yutsano:
I’ll save the towel for next Sunday when they drop the China documents.
That should be entertaining, and will fuck the Washington foreign policy establishment in this country for decades to come.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kenneth: Yeah, it is impossible that Wikileaks servers were overwhelmed. FFS if we were going to knock over their servers as a cyber-warfare technique, would we do it before the documents were leaked? But don’t let me stop you from suggesting that the US is a purely malign force.
BGinCHI
@Bnut: OK, I agree. He also hated Bobby Knight, which I always thought was brave.
WyldPirate
@Bnut:
Ah, quit yer bitchin’, bnut. We at least APOLOGIZED for this shit. What more do you fucking want?
For fucks sake. Some of you must expect us to live up to the ideals our country was allegedly founded on.
USA! USA! USA! We’re #1!
BGinCHI
I’m curious about what Jonah Goldberg is going to suggest we do to Julian Assange in his next column.
My guess is something along the lines of “getting medieval on his ass.”
burnspbesq
Meanwhile, Mr. Assange is continuing to refuse to cooperate with Swedish prosecutors. Could it be that they have a case, and he knows it?
Kenneth, that’s your cue to jump in and argue without one shred of evidence that the Swedish prosecutors are doing the CIA’s evil bidding. Don’t disappoint me, lad. I’m already laughing at you.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI: That ascribes a level of creativity that Doughboy there has not demonstrated up to this point. But it could be fun counting the movie cliches.
Bnut
@BGinCHI: If he doesn’t mention some pliers and a blowtorch we’ll know he’s gone soft in his (doughy) middle age.
Kenneth
@burnspbesq:
It is interesting that these “rape” allegations came right after he started leaking info of the US government and it’s lackeys, isn’t it?
Fortunately he will find asylum in Switzerland. And Switzerland is one of the few western countries not beholden to the Empire.
Bnut
Favorite wikileaks revelation: a profile of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a “voluptuous blonde” Ukrainian nurse.
Yutsano
@Kenneth:
I think that would require him being in Switzerland. And there is no evidence that is the case at this time. Unless you possess some uber secret knowledge you’re just giggling over.
The Swedes have an empire again? Did this happen when I wasn’t looking?
@Bnut: Okay, yeah, that’s kind of hilarious.
arguingwithsignposts
ok, i have to admit i lol’d at the matoko_chan slapdown. :)
General Stuck
Hope Mr Assange grows a pair of eyes in the back of his head, and maybe one for his alleged felonious dick.
eemom
I recommend this Der Spiegel article — best account of the whole mess I’ve seen yet:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,731580,00.html
I love this quote:
For the record, I still think Julian Assange is nothing more than a megalomaniacal asshole. Other than that, I don’t really give a shit about any of this, and sort of look forward to being an impartial spectator at the tsunami of bullshit that will drench the emmessemm over the next few days. Especially if it will drown out fucking Palinmania.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kenneth: Asylum in Switzerland? Don’t be so sure.
General Stuck
I here they can rock yer world
eemom
@Kenneth:
how endearingly naive. It’s not gonna matter worth a shit.
Yutsano
mclaren is awake. Y’all consider yourselves warned.
burnspbesq
@Kenneth:
It’s equally interesting that the allegations came right after he had sex with two Swedish women, which they claim was non-consensual.
I think my timeline has a bit more explanatory power than yours.
General Stuck
All this, and still no Whitey Tape.
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
I’m reasonably certain that I don’t want to know how you know this.
General Stuck
@Yutsano:
Well, it is post sunset, so Vlad the Magnificent ought to be having his first cup bout now. I think we have the best whackjobs on the blogs, somebody ought to study it.
Bnut
@Yutsano: For the longest time I thought Maclaren strollers were some type of expensive racing stroller from Mclaren. It made me hate people in Brooklyn more than usual. But then I realized I could not read or spell, so I felt a bit better.
eemom
@burnspbesq:
We’d better not discuss s*x with little Kenny — I doubt his mommy and daddy have told him the FOL yet.
He might be a good match for little matoko, though, once the two of them pass puberty.
Yutsano
@General Stuck: “Oh we’re all quite mad here my dear. I’m mad, you’re mad.”
“Me? I’m not mad!”
“But of course you are. If you weren’t you wouldn’t have come here.”
General Stuck
@Yutsano:
Welcome to the wabbit hole.
BGinCHI
@Bnut: 5 bucks Cole describes Tunch as a “voluptuous blonde.”
mclaren
Because by refusing to print said portions of the Wikileaks dump, the Times will prevent anyone from finding out what was in ’em.
Oooooooookay.
You know, sometimes I think I came from another planet in a spaceship and landed as a baby on the Planet of the Slow People by accident.
Joseph Nobles
@Ned Ludd: So Wikileaks is redacting more than the New York Times, and this was after the Times submitted cables to the government and took some of the suggestions. Nice to know about Wikileak’s abundance of caution.
General Stuck
@mclaren:
Just your dumb luck there sparky, landing in the land of ice castles and telephone booths.
Nellcote
@mclaren:
Sometimes I think you should go home for the holidays.
Yutsano
@Bnut: I discovered one of the reasons Noo Yahkers are relatively nice to others is that they’re too busy hating on each other. It’s kinda funny to me, but when a city’s been around for 400 years I guess resentment builds up fast.
Oh boy. Anyone else see the cable re: the Saudi king? That will get ugly real fast.
Luthe
@Kenneth:
Speaking of falling empires, y’all have heard Dar Williams’s song ‘Empire’, correct?
General Stuck
Of course most of the America haters will comb through this pile of shit, for a nugget or two of “told you so”, but about everything I’ve read so far seems to indicate a lot of people simply doing their jobs.
edit – that now will make it harder to do those jobs amidst the resentments these leaks will surely cause over petty jibs and jabs/ Hopefully, no major or minor wars will break out from it all.
Bnut
@Yutsano: People tend to live around those who are like them. I think urban settings just force us so close together, we start to hate everyone around us because we see our own flaws in them.
Cat Lady
mclaren’s in the house, where’s cell phone nation’s #1anti-slave embryo anime wallah? There’s an hour until Colts-Chargers to kill.
JGabriel
Yutsano:
Clearly, this information is needed for the government’s advanced work in the science of Bio-Rhythms. It’s all a matter of making sure none of our great diplomatic allies are actually secret terrorists, through the predictive power of Biorhythms!
Why do you hate America?
Before long, you’ll be criticizing our plan to harness the power of Dianetics and install Thetan particle detectors at our great airports. Everyone knows terrorists are overburdened by Thetan souls trapped here by Xenu!
.
Kenneth
@Yutsano:
Empire means the American-Israeli Empire.
Bnut
@JGabriel:
I’m assuming it’s profiling. Who knows how many personality profilers there are between CIA, NSA, State, etc.
Nellcote
Well at least now the congressional goopers will have something to investigate.
JGabriel
Yutsano:
DUDE! You don’t drop a bomb like that without providing a link!
There are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of cables! How the fuck are we supposed to be able to find just one?
.
JGabriel
@Bnut:
And that’s more scientific than bio-rhythms and dianetics how?
.
dan
i’m especially amazed at how the zionists infiltrated the saudi government to get them to ask the US to destroy Iran’s nukes. Israel must be even more powerful than in the wildest conspiracy theories.
Kenneth
@dan:
Saudis are just Imperial puppets, you haven’t realized that yet?
matoko_chan
Only the greys quote Heinlein.
We quote Morgan and Stephenson and Herbert and Gibson.
Bob Loblaw
@General Stuck:
The Gulf states come off looking really bad. Just feckless and whiny and underhanded. They will not be pleased with our inability to contain the leaks.
Honestly, this series of wikileaks is one of the most strident acts of anti-authoritarianism in years, bordering on near anarchy. They’ve decided to flip the bird to every last world leader in a single stroke.
burnspbesq
@Bob Loblaw:
Yeah, it’s a damn shame that the world will see them for what they are.
Anya
@dan: Saudi Arabia started as a counter to the Ottoman Empire and it continues to be a client state. Mohamed Abdul-wahab started off as an ally to the British Empire to defeat the Turks and now his distructive message continues through these teenage boys who are dreaming of mass murder.
Anne Laurie
@JGabriel: From Der Spiegel’s helpful overview :
@Yutsano:
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Given our recent embarrassment in over the “high-ranking Taliban official” who turned out to be just another Afghan grifter, perhaps the diplomats just want really, really comprehensive descriptions of every non-Amurkin they’re liable to be dealing with?
@Cat Lady: “cell phone nation” — dang, I knew there was a tic I’d overlooked!
mclaren
Fortunately, this latest massive Wikileaks dump is good news for John McCain.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie:
Don’t be a perfectionist.
maus
@dan: Are you smug AND stupid? Hating israel doesn’t preclude them from hating their neighbors.
lawguy
@burnspbesq: I do believe that they have found a stash of coke and 180,000 kroners in his apartment.
burnspbesq
@lawguy:
Is there a point lurking there?
JGabriel
@Anne Laurie: Thank you, Anne.
.
Platonicspoof
Conversely:
Is there someone in the State Dept. who knows all this day to day activity, the histories behind it all so there’s context and then, even the short term effects?
E.g., the day to day events before, during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, or 911, or the occupation of Iraq?