That putz Admiral Mullen gets his wish.
Posted on 11/28/2010 5:07:33 PM PST by PhilosopherStone1000
An innocuous-looking memory stick, no longer than a couple of fingernails, came into the hands of a Guardian reporter earlier this year. The device is so small it will hang easily on a keyring. But its contents will send shockwaves through the world's chancelleries and deliver what one official described as "an epic blow" to US diplomacy.
...
The US military believes it knows where the leak originated. A soldier, Bradley Manning, 22, has been held in solitary confinement for the last seven months and is facing a court martial in the new year. The former intelligence analyst is charged with unauthorised downloads of classified material while serving on an army base outside Baghdad. He is suspected of taking copies not only of the state department archive, but also of video of an Apache helicopter crew gunning down civilians in Baghdad, and hundreds of thousands of daily war logs from military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
That putz Admiral Mullen gets his wish.
I think your assumption is predicated on the premise that all actions, communications and intelligence operations are above the board all over the world and open to analysis.
It’s not realistic to think that’s the case, in my opinion, intelligence can be dirty, dangerous, under the board, and double handed. I think it’s just the nature of it in many cases, and if that is open to scrutiny on a constant basis by the general public in any country, and that means it will be open to scrutiny on a constant basis by everyone in the entire world.
The same for diplomacy, which is often forked tongued and double handed. I don’t agree with the premise that these things could and should be open to our constant daily examination.
“Read the whole thing and look upon the face of a traitor. I know that the US needs military bodies, but I bet I could have figured out he was a traitorous leftie in five minutes of questioning.”
How did a 22 year old ‘anaylst’ get his hands on classified State Department documents?
We’re being led by the nose.
Obama has done nothing to stop this hemorrhage of US secrets.
What a load of crap. That group of "civilians" had weapons including an RPG. A word of advice. if you hear helicopters, don't stand next to the guy with the RPG.
So, when does the Secretary of State resign?
That's the bottom line. It's not like he hasn't had plenty of time to deal with this issue.
Yep, they purposely demolished both security and Oval Office protocols. 0bama's done his part by heaping further trash on trash.
If you have ever read the book “Unlimited Access” by Gary Aldrich (who was in charge of White House security and the vetting of security clearances for White House personnel) you will know exactly what I mean.
I have. Mind-blowing account, wasn't it?
Bottom line, I can visualize exactly how some young idiot could get access to this material.
Based on the sloppy past (Clinton) and obvious sloppy present (0bama) I see where you're coming from.
There was the case of Israeli double-agent spy (Pollard) smuggling out very sensitive material, but he was paid, experienced, held dual allegiance, and most likely had help. A 22 year-old seemingly pulling this off independently and falling on his sword alone is odd.
I think I would start out by hacking and getting all the dirt and private email of the people at Wikipedia. Assange is currently having some issues with rape allegations. Somebody needs to get the police reports and publish all the details, including making up a few.
The USB ports were active on government computers? Really? My company is no where near government but you aren’t connecting a usb data device to any of our machines........
Read recently that over a million people in the U.S. have high level security clearances for one reason or another...guess a security clearance is a concept just as dumbed down as everything else these days.
A number of questions...but main one is, how did such a young/junior no-body get access to such material, and how did he manage to download such volume, that no one noticed....
A major house cleaning is in order starting with Ms Hillary...she assured us all, that when she was in charge things would change....yup!...sure has been some changes...
Btw, folks, if you would like to see a terrific movie, fairly close to the facts, get The Falcon and the Snowman starring Timothy Hutton and that pos Sean Penn. It will give you chills. The book is even better. Recommend both.
Public hanging...
He wasn’t just in intel, he’d been an experienced hacker since age 16.
While I do think there is merit in your analysis that we may be “led by the nose”, one only needs to look at how intelligence has changed over the years.
There was once upon a time when the only way to get access to sensitive documents was via physical examination. In those cases, there were strict rules and regulations on how that documentation was handled. Things had to be checked in and checked out, records were kept, and even with huge bureaucracies, people often knew that access could be traced back.
Over the years, look at how material is stored. Much of it is in electronic form in computer systems with passwords that have auditing capability and so on. But, the knowledge needed to maintain those systems and the auditing software and the dictionaries that drive it is often highly specialized. People inhabiting the upper levels of the security agencies are probably more bureaucratic than technocratic, and are likely to leave security mechanisms in the hands of those below them. Somebody has to hold the keys… in these huge systems that are so interconnected with so much data with thousands or tens of thousands of people who have access to them, I would not be surprised at all to know that there are a lot of people with access to information who have no business having it.
Additionally, I am willing to bet that the screening processes for security clearance are, in most cases, complete and utter shams. There was once upon a time when there was no chance that a known homosexual would gain access to sensitive, classified material, simply because they were regarded as a known security risk. In the same light, a known drug user would’ve been in the same boat.
But we all know, and I think everybody knows that the penalties for lying or deception are completely toothless and are probably never enforced. Background checks? I would be willing to bet that true, in-depth background checks that really dig into a person’s past the way they used to are nonexistent. As I said in the previous post, Gary Aldrich described the security process in the Clinton White House… there wasn’t one. And that was the White House! Those people had the keys to nearly everything, but a decade or two earlier, they would’ve never been able to get to the front gate.
It is my opinion that the handling and processing of classified documentation is a complete and total mess. I am frankly not surprised all if this were exactly as laid out.
But, I’m not discounting that we could be led by the nose as you stated. That is also possible to me.
Because there is information we require to
defend our country from our enemies. Disclosing
that information could cost the life of the person
who provided it or disclose the manner used to
obtain it. There are weaknesses and strengths
that we choose not to divulge to our enemies will
not exploit our weakness or create defenses
against weapons we have they are unknown to
them. Such information is not for public
consumption. If you think otherwise, you should
never be a cleared person.
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