[Dilmah G]

I'm not sure whether this man has rocks in his head or was just born ignorant. Either way, Assange and the wanker who leaked it all should both be tried for treason.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/publication-of-afghan-informant-details-worth-the-risk-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange/story-e6frg6so-1225898273552

THE FOUNDER of WikiLeaks was forced last night to defend his decision to publish tens of thousands of uncensored intelligence documents.

The Times revealed that the names, villages, relatives' names and even precise GPS locations of Afghans co-operating with Nato forces could be accessed easily from files released by WikiLeaks.

Human rights groups criticised the internet site and one US politician said that the security breaches amounted to a ready-made Taliban hitlist.

Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing website, told The Times that he would "deeply regret" any harm caused by the disclosures.

But in an extensive interview he defended his actions:

he claimed that many informers in Afghanistan were "acting in a criminal way" by sharing false information with Nato authorities;

he said the White House knew that informants' names could be exposed before the release but did nothing to help WikiLeaks to vet the data;

he insisted that any risk to informants' lives was outweighed by the overall importance of publishing the information.

Mr Assange said: "No one has been harmed, but should anyone come to harm of course that would be a matter of deep regret - our goal is justice to innocents, not to harm them. That said, if we were forced into a position of publishing all of the archives or none of the archives we would publish all of the archives because it's extremely important to the history of this war."

Jane Harman, the congresswoman who chairs the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, said: "While I strongly support a free press and I am a co-sponsor of the press shield law, these leaks are deadly serious. Someone inadvertently, or on purpose, gave the Taliban its new 'enemies list'."

Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said: "Real people die when sources and methods are revealed. Clearly people who are co-operating with us are now at risk. That is precisely one of the reasons we've been so concerned about this leak.

"The whole campaign is about convincing Afghans that it's worth taking the risk to come and work with us to take a stand against the repression and brutality of the Taliban."

A spokesman for President Karzai of Afghanistan predicted that the leak would cause "a big disaster in the future". Siamak Heraway said: "We worry about this. We will see informants being assassinated by the Taliban; we will see a massacre."

Mr Assange told The Times that many Afghan informants, including those whose details were potentially disclosed, were "telling soldiers false stories ... creating victims themselves". When asked if that justified releasing their identities, the former computer hacker replied: "It doesn't mean it's OK for their identities not to be revealed."

Mr Assange, who founded WikiLeaks in 2006, said that any document that "clearly jeopardised innocent people" could be added to the bank of 15,000 documents already held back from publication. "If we made a mistake we will review our procedures and react," he said.

But he admitted that any remedial action could well have no effect, as the information was already in the public domain.

Mr Assange said that he had asked the White House last week to help to "minimise the chances of innocent informers being named". He said that the White House did not respond.

He added: "We understand the importance of protecting our confidential sources. The United States appears to have given every UN soldier and contractor access to the names of many of its confidential sources without proper protection."

There is no evidence so far that the Taliban have used the information to identify and kill people whom they regard as enemies. But there is a growing fear that the leaking of such sensitive intelligence, including private conversations between US troops and Afghan elders in villages across the country, has left a lot of people exposed.

Ahmad Nader Nadery, a commissioner at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said that revealing the names and villages of people who interacted with US troops was very irresponsible. "I am sure that the Taliban have already downloaded the WikiLeaks reports and are looking for names," he said.

Michael Hayden, the Director of the CIA between 2006 and 2009, said: "We have a tremendous moral responsibility to our sources. Because of the nature of our work, your sources are literally putting their life in your hands."

Adam Holloway MP, a member of the Commons Select Defence Committee, said: "I hope the blood of someone's life is not on that hacker's hands. This is going to put people in danger, even just those who have had conversations with American soldiers. The whole point has been the need to separate the population from the insurgency. If people think their names will be leaked across the planet for engaging with Western forces it makes it that much more difficult."

A spokesman for Reporters Without Borders said: "Our first impression is that it seems a little surprising to see Afghan names here. Clearly, when we work on reports on sensitive stories there is always attention that local innocent names are not mentioned."

[redsniper]

I have mixed feelings about wikileaks.

[Dilmah G]

They're usually great, I'll admit, but this time they've really overstepped the mark.

[karajorma]

Didn't he boast about being hosted in Sweden because they have strict laws about revealing sources?

I suspect he's basically just nullified any argument against revealing who his own sources are.

[Flipside]

Thing is, for me there's a mixture of emotions, some of the information in there is very sensitive and damaging to relations between countries that are going to be needed if this whole mess stands any chance of being cleared up, but other information is more along the lines of 'face-saving', basically trying to stifle the real human cost of the war, which I find unfortunate, though understandable from a PR point of view, it really will not help either side come to a resolution when facts like this are being revealed.

Part of me is glad that the Coalition has to now look at least part of the cost of the war in they eye instead of burying it in paperwork, but part of me is also annoyed that information that could damage relationships between entire countries has been released, to me, releasing information about the casualities caused by your own team is whistleblowing, but revealing secret information gathered on the activities of the other guys? That's just a little too close to treason for my tastes.

[Dilmah G]

My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?

The man isn't just a traitor, he's an accessory to murder.

[achtung]

Without wikileaks, we wouldn't know **** about ACTA, and many other nasty things.

Mixed feelings suck man.

[General Battuta]

My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?

It wasn't simple negligence. He held back documents he believe would bring direct harm to human lives. He apparently just missed some.

[Kosh]

My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?

The man isn't just a traitor, he's an accessory to murder.

The real problem is the Pentagon has been trying as hard as it can to muzzle the press in order to bury what war is really like. There's a reason you don't see american coffins coming home anymore, because they closed off the port they use, and bring them in in the middle of the night. The whole war in Afghanistan was bungled almost right from the beginning, not enough people to capture bin laden or and allowing the taliban to slip away, no exit strategy. At least with our other bungled occupation the Iraqi government told us to leave by a certain time, here there is no such thing. Like it or not, we're stuck for quite a while, and with that huge mineral find, we're probably never going to leave.

[NGTM-1R]

Part of me is glad that the Coalition has to now look at least part of the cost of the war in they eye instead of burying it in paperwork, but part of me is also annoyed that information that could damage relationships between entire countries has been released, to me, releasing information about the casualities caused by your own team is whistleblowing, but revealing secret information gathered on the activities of the other guys? That's just a little too close to treason for my tastes.

Oh, there's no question he's commited treason. What do you think the leaker is being charged with?

But more to the point everyone's all on about how it's "bringing things into the open" and blahblahblah. Stop. Back up. It's done nothing of the sort.

In simplest terms the only new information that this has brought to light was the stuff about ways and means that anyone sane should have left buried to prevent a greater cost in lives, time, and treasure. There is nothing that was not always publically available about casualities, difficulties with the locals and Pakistan. It has been an open secret that Pakistan has ties to the Taliban and needs to clean up its own intelligence service for years and anyone to whom this is news has not been showing much interest in the problems in Afghanistan. People have reported on this in the news before even.

There is absolutely nothing of informational value to the general public that has been newly disclosed by this. There was absolutely no reason to disclose it to the general public for that very reason. It was egotistical stupidity, pure and simple.

[Ravenholme]

Part of me is glad that the Coalition has to now look at least part of the cost of the war in they eye instead of burying it in paperwork, but part of me is also annoyed that information that could damage relationships between entire countries has been released, to me, releasing information about the casualities caused by your own team is whistleblowing, but revealing secret information gathered on the activities of the other guys? That's just a little too close to treason for my tastes.

Oh, there's no question he's commited treason. What do you think the leaker is being charged with?

But more to the point everyone's all on about how it's "bringing things into the open" and blahblahblah. Stop. Back up. It's done nothing of the sort.

In simplest terms the only new information that this has brought to light was the stuff about ways and means that anyone sane should have left buried to prevent a greater cost in lives, time, and treasure. There is nothing that was not always publically available about casualities, difficulties with the locals and Pakistan. It has been an open secret that Pakistan has ties to the Taliban and needs to clean up its own intelligence service for years and anyone to whom this is news has not been showing much interest in the problems in Afghanistan. People have reported on this in the news before even.

There is absolutely nothing of informational value to the general public that has been newly disclosed by this. There was absolutely no reason to disclose it to the general public for that very reason. It was egotistical stupidity, pure and simple.

And let's forget that his leak included the names of hundreds of Afghan informants who are now living on borrowed time. A large number of them will be killed by the Taliban, and it will hamper future efforts to get information from sympathetic people in Afghanistan.

These guys are absolute mother****ers and I would happily see them go to the wall. Civvie bull**** about "But they brought things to light!" be damned.

[Dilmah G]

NGTM-1R: Agreed, I had a read through and didn't find anything too new.
Ravenholme: Also agreed.

My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?

It wasn't simple negligence. He held back documents he believe would bring direct harm to human lives. He apparently just missed some.

But see, that isn't good enough. These are people's lives who depend on this kind of information being withheld. People's lives who at times like now, rest upon the morality and competence of people working with and around US departments of defence and intelligence. And now people like Assange. A person whose staff can't do their job properly, evidently. (Not to say they're completely incompetent, but there was absolutely no margin for error this time. I have a feeling they just wanted to push the thing out the door rather than evaluate the thing in depth).

I probably wouldn't be able to do a better job of it, but then again, I'm not the one trying to equate war to some kind of karma system (See: Assange's comments about how the informants had it coming) or trying to undermine US intelligence and the entire war effort by publishing all of this.

[Klaustrophobia]

My greatest concern is for the welfare of those Afghani informants whose names and other important details were present in the initial release batch of documents. And all he has to say is that he would 'deeply regret' any damage caused by his negligent disclosures?

It wasn't simple negligence. He held back documents he believe would bring direct harm to human lives. He apparently just missed some.

I'm calling bull**** on that.  If he was really concerned about putting people in harm's way he wouldn't have done it AT ALL.  The fact he held anything back clearly shows he knew it was stupid.  This was about causing a stir.  Really what pisses me off even more than the initial leak/posting is how fast the media was to snatch it all up and start spreading it as far and fast as possible.  I'm all for free press, but same thing applies as to individuals:  your freedoms end the SECOND they infringe anyone else.

[General Battuta]

Chill out, I'm not interested in a slugfest.

What I am interested in is how these documents compare to the Pentagon Papers. If they are analogous, then the guy has done his country a great service.

I need moar informations.

[NGTM-1R]

What I am interested in is how these documents compare to the Pentagon Papers. If they are analogous, then the guy has done his country a great service.

They more or less can't be. While impressive in volume there's very little here that's of interest on the higher-level decison making of the war. (Which has been very open and transparent anyways.)

Even a cursory glance at the source pretty much proves you're not going to get groundbreaking information out of them. He wasn't cleared for it.

EDIT: Spelling

[Dilmah G]

No, no. There's no way these documents are in any way as powerful as the Pentagon Papers. Most of the documents are a rehash of information we've known since we've got there. One of the only pieces of information I hadn't heard about before was Task Force 373 or something to that effect, and several friendly fire allegations/civilian casualties. But the latter are bound to happen in any warzone, perhaps their release will motivate the Coalition to do more about stopping blue on blue incidents and acting more heavily against those who shoot civilians.

Either way, I fail to see how anyone who even contemplates giving a whistleblowing organisation the names of Afghani informants and interview transcripts could in any way be someone worthy of respect. I dunno, perhaps he downloaded everything he could to a portable hard drive and sent it all to wikileaks before checking what was in there. In which case, he's made just as big a blunder as Assange has.

EDIT: And you beat me to it, NGTM-1R.

[NGTM-1R]

I dunno, perhaps he downloaded everything he could to a portable hard drive and sent it all to wikileaks before checking what was in there.

According to what I've heard, he had like a 2 gig thumb drive and did exactly that.

[Dilmah G]

what.

[Scotty]

Most of the documents were S.A.L.U.T.E. reports.

Size
Activity
Location
Unit
Time
Equipment

One gets filed after every patrol, and each one of those occupies a page/document.

The ONLY significant thing this leak has really done is put sympathetic Afghan civilians at risk.

[Mongoose]

So in other words, both the source and Assange are total and complete ********s.  Wonderful.