Posted on 12/02/2010 6:14:59 AM PST by ChrisBoundsTX
Unless you have been in a hole for the past two weeks you have seen news cycle plagued with stories about the 251,000 stolen U.S. State Department documents that were released to the public by WikiLeaks. The release has left an immeasurable stain on America and its foreign policy on the world stage. Spiegel bluntly summarized the embarrassment that the released documents left:
"Never before in history has a superpower lost control of such vast amounts of such sensitive information — data that can help paint a picture of the foundation upon which US foreign policy is built. Never before has the trust America’s partners have in the country been as badly shaken. Now, their own personal views and policy recommendations have been made public — as have America’s true views of them."
While calls for WikiLeaks white-haired, Australian born founder Julian Assange to be arrested and executed for treason, espionage, and a number of other crimes are abound, let’s take a step back and see how this whole fiasco started.
The root of this embarrassing problem traces back to Private First Class Bradley Manning. Then as an Army Specialist, Manning was working as an intelligence officer in Iraq. He took it upon himself to steal hundreds of thousands of government documents, some of which were labeled secret or classified. He then sent them to WikiLeaks.
Manning was arrested after former hacker Adrian Lamo tipped off the feds. Lamo provided instant message chat logs with Manning admitting to the stealing of the documents, sending them to WikiLeaks, and bragging about the ease of doing it all. In the conversation with Lamo, Manning summed up his motivation for his actions, stating that “information should be free” and that it “belongs in the public domain”. He also stated that the full database of documents that he leaked would have “significant impact.” Everywhere there’s a U.S. post, there’s a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed. It’s open diplomacy. World-wide anarchy in CSV format. It’s Climategate with a global scope, and breathtaking depth. It’s beautiful, and horrifying.” Anarchy is “beautiful” – really?
Manning is now sitting in jail waiting for prosecution (and possibly execution) for his crimes, but the story now turns to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Assange tasks himself with providing an “innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information.” As of lately, the information WikiLeaks has been exposing has been hundreds of thousands of internal government documents provided by Manning.
Prior to the latest release, documents regarding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were published online despite the claim of several government and military officials that it will harm national security and cost lives. Assange was not fazed by such rhetoric. Making documents like that public is his life objective, regardless of the potential damage they could cause.
The latest WikiLeaks documents dump has hit a raw nerve with world governments and their citizens. While the documents themselves are far from something that will destroy America’s stance on the world stage, the release of private conversations between government officials and foreign diplomats is humiliating.
Think of it as someone sending out your private e-mails and Facebook messages to everyone on your contact list, including your friends, family, employer and co-workers, business associates, and neighbors – except on a much larger scale and the stakes significantly higher. Some things are just not meant to be seen by certain people. In this case government officials and diplomats from Russia, Europe, the Middle East, and numerous other countries likely were beading with sweat and blushing after they realized the debacle America’s intelligence breach caused.
At the end of the day, while certainly humiliating, most of the information revealed in the leaked documents are not too surprising to those who stay on top of what is going on in America around the world. Saudi Arabia is funding al-Qaida and wants to bomb Iran, Iran is arming Hezbollah, Vladimir Putin is the head honcho in Russia, Pakistan is assisting the Taliban, North Korea is helping Iran with its missile program, America is spying on Russia (per Hillary Clinton’s orders), and the list goes on.
The damaging part of the documents leak is that they name names. How will it go when Secretary of State Clinton tries holding a foreign relations conversation with Putin now that he understands that she gave orders to spy on his diplomats? Will Pakistan’s leaders give the U.S. the cold shoulder since they have been exposed as aiding and abiding the enemy, further complicating their fragile government and our war effort in Afghanistan? Only time will tell.
While the U.S. attempts to limit the damage to its relationships with other nations after they have read how we really feel about them, the question lingers as to what is to be done about Julian Assange. He is in hiding so he would have to be found first, but is he protected by law under freedom of speech rights or has he committed a serious crime such as espionage?
Interpol has issued an arrest warrant for Assange, but that has to do with “sex crimes” rather than this document release. Sweden has also issued an arrest warrant for sex crimes, including rape. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that the Department of Justice and the Pentagon are actively investigating Assange’s actions and whether or not he can be charged under the Espionage Act.
Assange’s legal fate remains uncertain, but he has vowed that more document leaks are to come. The next targets are big banks, financial institutions, and corporations. He told Time magazine in a private interview, “Yes, the banks are in there. Many different multinational organizations are in the upcoming weeks.”
Remember that Manning claimed there would be significant impact with the release of the full database. Is that something that can be tolerated indefinitely? I can only hope that Assange is apprehended for distributing stolen government property before he causes more damage. Otherwise WikiLeaks will continue to rattle the cage, breaking the bonds of global stability. No economy will benefit from the fallout of global unrest.
Gee,
I thought Americans and the American constitution were the enemy of the State Dept.
The real enemies are those who leaked the information. All of those individuals are traitors and should be prosecuted as such.
I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that leaking information and leaking the stolen documents are two different things. If it were just information and not stolen documents then the story would be different.
What I find incredulous is that of all the leaked information, NONE of the items pertain to global warming.
That sounds like a sort of a good thing.
The US Supreme Court ruled in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971 that the government cannot order a media outlet to not print something on the grounds of secrecy as that would be a violation of the freedom of press.
I hate to say I agree with that ruling but I do. We are far better off with the government not being allowed to dictate to the press what it can and cannot publish. But even if it was legal for the government to censor a media outlet, even that would not have stopped WikiLeaks.
WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP !!
"The root of this embarrassing problem traces back to Private First Class Bradley Manning."
WRONG! If they keep going back ... they'll get to the culprit ... eventually.
It's by design.
Well stated! Unfortunately that is why nobody but PFC Manning, already in custody, will pay for this.
“What I find incredulous is that of all the leaked information, NONE of the items pertain to global warming.”
...Yet.
It seems that in the case of government secrets, while all of these are stolen by the leaker, the courts have ruled that they are OK to publish. But yea, if you did this to a private entity it would be considered theft and you would be opening yourself to civil legal action.
I love the double standard. We will see how this plays out.
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