The New York Times received its dump of diplomatic documents from the Guardian, not Wikileaks. This isn’t surprising given that the Times’ editor went out of his way to call Wikileaks irresponsible, ran an unflattering profile of Julian Assange alongside the last Wikileaks story, and wouldn’t even link from their Iraq Wikileaks story to the Wikileaks site.
I can’t think of another instance of a newspaper bashing a source while at the same time publishing a major story based on that source’s revelations. The opposite is usually true, since most media outlets grant anonymity to sources in return for even the most trivial revelations, so it’s impossible for their readers to even begin to judge the source’s motives.
I’m sure the Times will chalk this one up to Julian Assange’s eccentricity, but I have to believe that they’ve damaged themselves in the eyes of other potential sources. Having to rely on the charity of a British newspaper to get one of the most important stories of the year is a pretty low place for a paper that fancies itself the leading American newspaper.
bkny
it’s not as if the nyt is gaining anything p.r.-wise by sidestepping wiki. killer joe has been bashing them all morning for publishing — not even bothering with the distinction.
Lavocat
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The Gray Lady has been a House Organ for at least a decade now.
JGabriel
mistermix:
Well, America is in a lower and lower place in general.
.
JGabriel
bkny: killer joe
Which killer joe? Biden? Scarborough?
Edited to add: Never mind. I’d forgotten about Joey Scar’s dead intern until after I posted.
.
Keith G
I understand why governmental institutions and their associated personnel would dislike Assange, but I am having trouble getting a hold of a context for the amped up animus that others are displaying.
Remember how destructive the last dumps were going to be? The substances of these leaks aside, there are just too many other truly terrible things going on in the world for so much energy to be sucked up by this “process” story. It’s sad that the Times has saw fit to let it’s hand ringing impact it news reporting.
Dan
The times took things to an unnecessary (and counterproductive) extreme, but I think a newspaper should view all sources with some skepticism. When a person leaks something, they have their own motivations for doing so and that is something that should be explored by the paper. Going after him personally the way they did is another thing, though.
MattF
I kinda disagree. The diplomatic cables are news and Julian Assange is Julian Assange. The Times shouldn’t have to make nice to him. I’m not saying, btw, that it’s OK to smear Assange– but he shouldn’t be immune, either.
JPL
OT…..I went to the Guardian to read their reporting and saw that Mark Ruffalo was put on a terrorist watch list. link
If true, as a nation we are lost.
It appears that the LATimes reported the story on the 24th, so sorry if it has already been discussed.
Mr Furious
As if sourcing The Guardian instead of Assange insulates them from the right-wing criticism they’ll face here in the U.S.
They’re still publishing the leaks (as they should). But as Morning Joke demonstrates, there’ll be no distinction or credit forthcoming—it’s all treasonous betrayal by the liberal left media, and ultimately the leak’s from Assange regardless.
Mr Furious
@JPL:
Yeah, Ruffalo discusses it in his GQ profile this month as well, so the LA Times didn’t exactly break it on the 24th.
JPL
@Mr Furious: Thanks. Sorry to go OT but the Guardian has it under their breaking news. I’ll read the GQ article but IMO this should be on the front page of the NYTimes.
Shalimar
I think their point is that wikileaks isn’t their source, they are just printing a newsworthy story they picked up from elsewhere. Whatever helps them sleep at night, I guess.
matoko_chan
that is why the WaPo doesnt get squat.
Assange bashing.
dude, OUR government tried to smear Assange with rape charges, bullied moneybookers into closing wikileaks account, has threatened other nations into denying Assange asylum.
if the cables were a little fresher we would see the Unipolar Bully delivering ultimatums to independent nation states on Assange.
OUR FREAKING GOVERNMENT.
CNN is not going to get another interview either.
Suck It Up!
Last night during the promo of what’s to come on the 10 o’clock news, the news anchor tells us we’ll find out ‘why wikileaks is being called a terrorist organization.’ This was a local Fox channel and I remember reading somewhere that Liz Cheney has said that wikileaks should be called a terrorist organization.
Oh my.
matoko_chan
i dont have ANY links but im still moderated.
vtr
“Mark Ruffalo was put on the terrorist watch list.”
This might be OT, but I’ve never seen this written in the active voice. Who puts someone on the terrorist watch list? What is the process?
Omnes Omnibus
@matoko_chan: As a citizen of Hacker Nation, shouldn’t you be able to solve that on your own?
Napoleon
@JPL:
So, who is he and why does it matter?
Napoleon
@JPL:
Never mind, just looked at the link.
Napoleon
If I am Assange I tell the Gaurdian they don’t get the next installment if they don’t commit to not passing it along to the NYTimes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Napoleon: Is Wikileaks interested in good press or is it interested in releasing info?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Omnes Omnibus:
Now that is funny!
Napoleon
@Omnes Omnibus:
There are 3 or 4 other papers running the info, and there is nothing stopping the NY Times from running a story after other papers release theirs. If I am Assange and I think the NY Times ran a libel hit piece, why would I do something to help their circulation? It is not exactly an either or proposition.
Alwhite
Yeah, this will damage their image in the eyes of the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy too. Given the papers behavior and the response to it over the last couple of decades do you really believe that or are you just hoping?
Dennis SGMM
@JPL:
If Martin Luther King was alive today, he would be put on the terrorist watch list. The government of this proud land has never been able to resist using security measures put in place to thwart legitimate, external threats against non-threatening citizens whom it perceives as rocking the boat.
Jay in Oregon
Is anyone keeping track of how many of these clowns kept quiet about, if not defended, the outing of Valerie Plame?
Liz Cheney can STFU about Wikileaks as far as I’m concerned…
Jay in Oregon
@vtr:
I think it involves a burning bush…
El Cid
@Dennis SGMM:
Instead, he was put on the Communist watch list. And warrantlessly (both literally and figuratively) surveilled just the same, as well as being subjected to harassment.
guster
@Mr Furious: I don’t think they’re trying to insulate themselves from right-wing attacks. I think they see themselves not primarily as a newspaper the job of which is to seek and publish sometimes-difficult truths, but as an positive, productive element of the United States establishment that comes with an influential, often-excellent newspaper attached.
They are the embodiment of Very Serious. They are so, so responsible that they’re far less eager to do their own job than to cover for the shortcomings of some other Responsible Party.
Dennis SGMM
@El Cid:
He sure was, may he rest in peace. Well, anyway, I will sleep more soundly tonight knowing that the government is protecting me from Mark Ruffalo.
Dave
@Suck It Up!:
Strangely enough, Peter King was on the Today show this morning saying the exact same thing. Funny, that.
soonergrunt
But I thought we weren’t supposed to care about or question Assange’s motives.
Dennis SGMM
@Dave:
The answer is simple: we’ll just label anyone who disapproves of any of our actions as a terrorist – and then we’ll borrow the money from China to go after them.
burnspbesq
@matoko_chan:
“i dont have ANY links but im still moderated.”
For all you atheists and agnostics out there, here is definitive proof that God exists and wants us to be happy.
burnspbesq
@Napoleon:
Libelous? What parts of the Times piece are false and defamatory?
soonergrunt
@burnspbesq: That would be the parts that didn’t read like they were giving him a hand-job.
soonergrunt
@burnspbesq: Why would she be moderated over her love of peach pie with ice cream?
bjacques
I said it in a previous thread, but I’ll repeat it here. I strongly suspect the NYT are cheesed off because these leaks are the sort of informational cocktail weenies that used to be reserved for the Kewl Kids, making them feel all special and insidery and saving them the trouble of actually, you know, checking stuff out. Now hoi polloi get to fill up as well. What’s a Very Serious Person to do?
1) Say that there’s nothing to see here, so move along?
2) Shout louder about the spilling of secrets than about the secrets themselves?
3) Bring up those rape charges hanging over Assange’s head?
I guess we can rule out
4) Do his or her damn job so we can trust them to make sense of this kind of information, investigate it and report on it in a timely manner.
Dennis SGMM
What kind of security establishment gives a low-level person unfettered access to hundreds of thousands of classified documents? What kind of security establishment is so lax internally that a person could make off with hundreds of thousands of documents? If it’s worth a serious charge against the person who leaked the documents then it’s also worth serious charges against the people who set things up so that the leaks could happen.
Suck It Up!
@Dennis SGMM:
Now I’ll just wait for the right to start shouting that Obama is not keeping us safe because he refuses to declare wikileaks a terrorist group.
Maude
@Dennis SGMM:
I’m sorry sir, but that information is classified.
@Dave:
King was also on local rightie radio in NY. Exact same words. Talking points are alive and well.
It’s hard for Repubs to slam Obama on this as a lot of the leaks will come from Bush years.
eemom
wheeeew…….for a minute there after I clicked on the site I thought there WASN’T an omg-wikileaks-assange-we’re-all-gonna-die post up this morning……and I was listening for the hooves of The Four Horsemen galloping into the driveway…..
Dennis SGMM
@Maude:
It’s Obama’s fault that the Brobdingnagian mess of a security establishment hastily cobbled together during the Bush years is a hastily cobbled together Brobdingnagian mess of a security establishment.
eemom
This comment from Keith G in the last thread imo perfectly summarizes what another tempest in a teapot this whole thing is:
https://balloon-juice.com/2010/11/28/wikileaks-reaction/#comment-2236271
I took the liberty of reposting lest it be lost in the torrent of matoko-shit that followed.
El Cid
A ton of documents have been released as well about US policies in Latin America, but haven’t received much discussion here.
Corner Stone
@Keith G:
Lot easier to focus on the man then it is to deal with the enormity of the situation.
I’m assuming they’ll continue to regale us with stories about 5 Star Hotels and other nonsensical bullshit.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Last night during the promo of what’s to come on the 10 o’clock news, the news anchor tells us we’ll find out ‘why wikileaks is being called a terrorist organization.’ This was a local Fox channel and I remember reading somewhere that Liz Cheney has said that wikileaks should be called a terrorist organization.
Just as “democracy” has been redefined to mean “any government the US government likes”, “terrorist” has been redefined to mean “anyone that annoys the US government”.
They’re showing the world what the US State Department really thinks? OH GOD – THE TERRORRRRRRRR!!!!
catclub
J. Cole posted this on the Wikileaks posting from last night.:
“*** Update ***
One final irony. All this data was available because we changed policies in response to 9/11.”
Does anyone have a pointer to what he is referring to?
I looked over the first 250 or so posts in that thread and did not see it.
Thanks.
Maude
@Dennis SGMM:
When they set up Homeland Security they changed how secrets were shared.
The access to secret documents is spread over agencies and lower level employees.
This is a huge mess. Obama has ordered a review of this process and he will get the answers.
SoS Clinton will be be speaking about this matter later today.
Maude
@catclub:
Go to Washingington Monthly and read the first comment by sharks about this. It’s the easiest to read and he has it in a nutshell. He uses a post from Huffpo to explain.
matoko_chan
@eemom: you already proved you were a moron during the A-stan leaks when you insisted that Assange had released ALL the docs when he actually retained 15k docs to redact.
shut up and swallow cudlip.
you are a dolt. your overlords are just misdirecting retards like you and sooner onto Assange so you won’t notice how bad they fucked us, so they can keep on fucking us in the name of ‘murrican exceptionalism, gawd and country.
catclub
@Maude:
Thanks.
Wow, that is insane.
I thought there were two pieces in access:
level of clearance AND need to know.
It seems that the bosses for the IT guys could only figure out one of them.
Mike M
What was the purpose of releasing these documents? Was the US duplicitous in its international relations? Was the government acting against its national interests or contrary to its stated foreign policy? So far, there don’t seem to be any major surprises.
It seems WikiLeaks primary motivation was to embarrass the US.
soonergrunt
@catclub:
That’s how it’s supposed to work. Obviously it didn’t work that way in Private Manning’s facility.
soonergrunt
@Mike M:
This is Balloon-Juice. You’re not supposed to think about their motivations, dude. You’re just supposed to praise them, and hope that they lead to the downfall of the country. Please try to keep up.
/sarcasm
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“I thought there were two pieces in access:
level of clearance AND need to know.”
Remember, the 9/11 commission criticised the stovepiping of information within agencies and recommended need-to-know shift to need-to-share.
Right now, the State Department is probably wondering why the fuck they shared their cables with other agencies.
I think we’ll be back to the stovepiping criticised by the 9/11 report in 6 months.
matoko_chan
@Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan: there are three pieces to access– level, compartment, and need-to-know.
sooner SAID Manning worked in a SCIF.
that stands for Secure Compartmented Information Facility.
that is why it would have been impossible for Manning to get the 260,000 diplomatic cables.
Someone fed him.
Corner Stone
What’s hilarious is, that anytime someone makes a comment that criticizes a policy or outcome of the current administration they get excoriated for it. People shout them down in a torrid flurry of “Don’t assign motive to President Obama!” and “You can’t know what he’s thinking!” and “You’re always trying to say Obama is a bad or evil person!”.
Even though the statement 9 times out of 10 was about a policy or outcome itself, with no personal motives assigned or interpreted.
So it makes me LOL here when people seem fixed and intent on delving into motivations for what are essentially data dumps, with zero editorial content. In fact, about the only editorial content allowed, beside whatever redacting is decided upon, is the timing of the dump releases. That’s it.
Yet motive must be assigned, bad juju must be allocated and fantabulous stories propagated to defame.
It’s hilarious I tells ya.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to stay in a 5 Star Hotel for a couple nights. Because that is the mark of truly nefarious eeeevil.
matoko_chan
@Mike M: please dont pierce sooner’s information protection bubble.
he has his own private
foxnewsidaho.matoko_chan
@Corner Stone:
yep. i cant puzzle out the timeline.
collateral murder video Apr 6 + approx 3 months
A-stan doc dump July 26 + approx 3 months
Iraq doc dump Oct 25 …this one would have been exactly 3 months but gov paid cyberhacker mercs attacked Wikileaks servers so they pushed the button early.
now, less than a month later, the diplomatic cables.
so that the US didn’t get a lot of prep time? but the US has known Wikileaks had the diplomatic cables since July 15.
i wonder why.
and when will the Garani massacre video drop?
the piece de la resistance, maybe…. the grand finale?
soonergrunt
@Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan: Manning worked in a SCIF. A Secured Compartmented Information Facility.
What is supposed to happen is that people come in there, work on what they are there to work on, and then leave. If somebody asks for access to what you’re working on, you’re supposed to report it.
What appears to have happened, is that the personnel who had access to the SCIF were not policing the facility, and Manning’s supervisors were not supervising Manning. It can be hard to keep track of who’s doing what because John Smith doesn’t know what Mary Jones has access to. He knows that she doesn’t have access to Project A, because he’s on Project A and he knows who’s assigned. He doesn’t know anything about Project K because it’s not in his assignment list. So when he sees her looking at Project K files, he doesn’t know any better. It doesn’t require a conspiracy to do what he did in the SCIF. It requires his superiors and co-workers not doing their jobs to standard. John Smith may not know that Mary Jones isn’t cleared for Project K, but he damn well should’ve known that she wasn’t allowed to bring any recordable media or electronic devices into or out of the SCIF. That information was supposed to be part of his training prior to SCIF access, and should have been signs on every wall in the SCIF and stickers on every computer tower, computer monitor, printer, encryption device, keyboard, and telephone in the facility. Manning said as much in his brag chats with Adrian Lamo. He noted to Lamo that he took a CD-R labeled “Lady Gaga” into the facility and copied the data onto that and then just walked out with it. Additionally, it appears that the computers in the SCIF were not properly configured. They should never have had CD/DVD recorder drives, nor open USB ports, since the data in the SCIF is not supposed to leave the facility in the first place.
matoko_chan
@soonergrunt: could someone please ax that moronic cudlip Soonergrunt how many Lady Gaga CD-RW it would take for Manning to get oh, say ….1.4 gigabytes of data out of the facility??
soonergrunt
The thing about a pie filter is that one can turn it off and see if the filtered subjects are still as fucking stupid as they were when they were first filtered. I do this about once a month or so, or if I notice a pattern whereby the filtered dumbshit appears to be replying to or commenting on something I said.
So, matoko-fuckwit has just proved herself incapable of using google, which I would’ve thought a base skill for a member of the “hacker nation”:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/how-us-embassy-cables-leaked
In answer to the member of “teh hacker nation,” 1.4 GB would be two CD-R/CD-RW discs since they hold 700MB each. He might have used three or four discs though, in the eight months he was at it. He might have even used the same disc over and over again to move the data from the SCIF to his own personal laptop, which most likely had more than 1.4 GB of free space.
And with the knowledge that she’s just as resolutely dumb as she always was, the pie filter goes back online and she returns to gabbing about her love for peach pie with ice cream.
catclub
@matoko_chan:
one. you label a writeable dvd as lady gaga.
satsq
matoko_chan
@soonergrunt: but that isnt all Manning got out.
he also got out the collateral murder video, the gharani massacre video, and al-lah knows what else. 1.4 gig is just the insurance file, not all the leakage.
i WORKED behind the doors.
you dont carry RW media in an’ out to make your own home movies.
How did Manning get the collateral murder video? he was A-stan theater.
how did Manning know where to get the diplomatic cables?
do you know the star property, JWICS, SIPR and GOSIP access protocols?
Someone helped him, and you are a cudlip sukking up w/e the gov feeds you.
USA! USA! TEAM AMERICA FUCK YEAH!
matoko_chan
do [email protected]soonergrunt: do you not understand the meaning of COMPARTMENT in SCIF?
that means code-word.
it means no access unless you have a billet in that compartment, that you have been cleared and have need to know.
no way Manning acted alone.
he is just not giving up his cohort.
you and eemom are all ooo, Assange an Manning are teh evil.
i think Manning and some other analysts got a bellyfull of America slaughtering civvies in an immoral unjust and unwinnable war.
And do you know what Manning and Assange have accomplished?
they just shut down the neocon warpimp push into Iran, just like Adams and Ellsworth shut down LBJ’s 206,000 troop push into the Big Muddy.
An’ they are going to be heroes in history, just like Adams and Ellsworth.
soonergrunt
Well, I do know that the whole RW part of CD-RW is ReWriteable.
I also know that there’s a lot more knowing about to government secured communications than looking up stuff on the internet.
GOSIP was a standardization instruction that has since been abandoned in favor of TCP/IP. It wasn’t an access protocol. It contained references to the OSI protocols X.400 and X.500, which were frequently used by civilian companies for secure communications, and which were retained by DoD for some time due to their scalability. If you actually had the level of access you claim, you would know that and you wouldn’t confuse the terminology. It’s not like it’s secure information, after all. By the way, DoD hasn’t used those technologies for about a decade.
JWICS is above SIPRnet, for Top Secret and SCI-level communications. There were/are JWICS terminals in the SCIF that Manning worked at, and he had SCI clearance and access to these machines.
SIPRnet is Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, and is a Secret-cleared in house internet system for DoD. The diplomatic cables that are making all the news were carried on SIPR. It looks and functions very much like the internet and network access found in the typical enterprise environment. It even uses MS Office 2007 running on MS Windows Vista or Windows 7, with a MS Windows Server 2003/2008 back-end.
All of these systems had physical access in the SCIF. As much as matoko-dipshit wants it to be the truth that Manning had help, there is absolutely not evidence that he either had or needed help to commit the breach.
Stuff about the Afghanistan theatre is available in Iraq and vice versa. Intel analysts in one part of CENTCOM can work on things from all over the theatre. It’s kind of like the way I, sitting at a computer in Oklahoma City can post to Balloon-Juice, which is run by a guy in West Virginia, which server is physically located in Jacksonville, Florida.
Surely a member of the hacker nation could suss this out on her own.
soonergrunt
@soonergrunt: Oh, and one more thing–people can work on more than one thing at a time.
Compartmentalizing the information does not mean that somebody only works on one thing at a time to the exclusion of all other things. It means that information is not widely disseminated to those who do not have a demonstrated need to know. A cleared person can, and frequently does, work on multiple projects at a time, with different team members, and does not share information from project A with the team from project B and vice versa. As I have noted earlier, people working on project C may no idea what project A is, or who is assigned to it, even if one of their project C team members is also on project A.
And given the security lapses that must have occurred for Manning to accomplish what he accomplished, there is still no reason to believe that Manning needed or had assistance.
You really ought to know what the hell you are talking about because every so often, you will run into somebody who does know. I do IT support for the military, and one of my jobsites is…a SCIF.
matoko_chan
@soonergrunt: do you know what your problem is retard?
you cant bear to admit that you and the rest of of our troops are just cannon fodder for the fucking warpimps that run this country.
that Iraq and A-stan are meaningless meat grinders that chew american soldiers into hamburger FOR FUCKING NOTHING.
and you are so motherfucking stupid that they tell you are doin it for for gawd and country but really you are keeping the oligarchs on top and lining their pockets.
you dumbass, Manning and Assange are the heroes.
you are a fucking meatpuppet missionary for jeebus democracy and big white christian free market bwana.
lets rumble asshat.
lets see what you know.
Lifestyles or Loyalties?
Black world or white world?
matoko_chan
and im sure Manning had help. he is covering. german diplomatic cables?
i think the collateral murder video radicalized a lot of analysts, and the garani massacre video, an who knows what other horrorshows are vaulted?
Adams had help, but he took the fall too, and never implicated anyone else.
the rot is inside.
what wikileaks is doing is rubbing the electorates nose in what is being done in our name.
911 unravelled the lesson this country learned in Vietnam.
Inshallah Wikileaks is going to keep us out of Iran.
Assange and Manning are heroes, and you are a dumb hamburger cudlip.
matoko_chan
an’ jus’ sos u kno, sooner.
i left work and went back to school becuz i didnt think i could pass a poly anymore, after reverting to Islam.
matoko_chan
and one more thing Sooner.
the real reason im sure that Manning had help is because i would have done it. i would helped. and every decent human with an IQ over room temperature should be outraged by what these fucktards are covering up and doing in our name.
but it wasnt my theater an i didnt see it.
so i got out alive.
and i hate all you dumb cudlips that are trashing Manning and Assange soooooo much.
you should be trashing those fuckers that have covered this shit up for almost a decade so more american kids and muslims could keep dying FOR FUCKING NOTHING.
THE
@matoko_chan:
It’s not for nothing.
It’s like the wars of the Reformation.
Catholics vs Protestants.
In the end the winner was the secular states of modern Europe.
Likewise, in the wars between Christian fundamentalists, and Muslim fundamentalists…
I predict atheism and socialism will be the winner.
THE
Screw it. I’m in moderation.
I keep forgetting about the social
izm word.
THE
Fixed.
Thank you moderators.
Marcelino Monoz
Wikileaks is back on Amazon. Currently released so far… 486 / 251,287|esmeil|