[el_magnifico]

I find it quite strange that no one has opened a thread about this yet.
Wikileaks recently published a batch of 250000 documents containing sensitive information regarding USA foreign relations. Apparently, this documents detailed USA questionable interventions in many countries' internal affairs, revealed spying on UN officials, lobbying for American commercial interests, and harshly criticized individuals in the government of allied countries.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/28/wikileaks-us-embassy-cables-documents_n_788893.html
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2010/11/state-department-secret-cable-lays-out-us-intelligence-gathering-agenda
http://cfolch.blogspot.com/2010/11/wikileaks-diplomatic-cable-on-paraguay.html
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/erin-rosa/2010/11/memo-reveals-us-state-department-knew-honduras-coup-was-illegal-did-not-f

The USA government has apparently required the local embassy with information about Argentine President Cristina Fernandez's mental health.

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/52501

I have yet to see the actual documents. They're unavailable to the public as of yet, but it seems they were delivered to many European papers, which will be publishing redacted version in the upcoming days.
Wikileaks also denounced a DoS attack on their servers, although I can imagine the traffic must have been quite high today anyway.


UPDATE: Some of the cables have been released to the public already.

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/

[achtung]

Government acts almost solely in its own short-sighted self-interest.

Story at 11.

Seriously though, this should be an interesting sneak peek into what our officials really do.

[Rodo]

The USA government has apparently required the local embassy with information about Argentine President Cristina Fernandez's mental health.

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/52501

wtf??
It's a local newspaper from what I can see, I woudn't buy that right away.

[el_magnifico]

The USA government has apparently required the local embassy with information about Argentine President Cristina Fernandez's mental health.

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/52501

wtf??
It's a local newspaper from what I can see, I woudn't buy that right away.

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/mayor/filtracion/historia/deja/descubierto/secretos/politica/exterior/EE/UU/elpepuint/20101128elpepuint_25/Tes

Mañana EL PAÍS ofrecerá detalles, por ejemplo, sobre las sospechas que la presidenta de Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, despierta en Washington, hasta el punto de que la Secretaría de Estado llega a solicitar información sobre su estado de salud mental.

Tomorrow EL PAÍS will reveal details, for example, about the suspicions that the Argentine president, Cristina Fernández, raises in Washington, up to the point that the State Secretariat [Departament of State?] requires [solicits?] information about her mental health.

EL PAÍS is one of the newspapers that received the raw documents.
I didn't wanted to quote something in Spanish, because the last time I said something in Spanish here... well, you all remember that. The Buenos Aires Herald was the only newspaper in English I could find that said something meaningful about this particular incident.
EL PAIS, on the other hand, is not a local newspaper, but an European one.

[Rodo]

I've been reading some of those, quite interesting..

Thanks for the links

[iamzack]

* iamzack yawns

[Topgun]

tl;dr
apparently Putin and Berlusconi are party animals.

[Flipside]

So, every country thinks every other country is led by idiots, the mentally insane and bloodthirsty phsychopaths?

Where's the surprise there?

[Mongoose]

I think the real topic of interest here isn't the content of the documents themselves, but whether or not Wikileaks has (or should have) the right to release them publicly.  I tend to fall on the negative side of that question myself, considering the myriad potential repercussions of their actions that they seem to have given very little thought to.

[Flipside]

I tend to find it bounces from the sensible to the foolish. It's no surprise whatsoever, for example, that US Politicians requested details of Conservative politicians in the UK when it looked like the Tories were going to get into power, that's not controversial, it's good political practice. On the other hand, releasing details of Saudi Arabia's opinion of Iran was foolish to the point of further destabilising a region that is already wobbling all over the place.

For the main part, I tend to fall on the same side as Mongoose, there's nothing to be gained and plenty to be lost by releasing this information.

[Dilmah G]

+1 to that.

[el_magnifico]

Biographic and financial information on all leading contenders, and especially on Minister of Education Blanca Ovelar, former Vice President Castiglioni, Lino Oviedo, and Fernando Lugo; and biometric data, to include fingerprints, facial images, iris scans, and DNA, on these individuals. [Emphasis added.]

Information on communications practices of Paraguayan government and military leaders, key foreign officials in country (e.g., Cuban, Venezuelan, Bolivian, Iranian, or Chinese diplomats), and criminal entities or their surrogates, to include telephone and fax numbers and e-mail addresses, call activity (date, time, caller numbers, recipient numbers), phone books, cell phone numbers, telephone and fax user listings, internet protocol (IP) addresses, user accounts, and passwords.

Don't you people think that's a bit like crossing the line? What would have happened if Paraguay would have been caught spying on the personal information of candidates of the USA, including personal emails and other accounts? Is this acceptable because the American government is the one doing the espionage?
And what about the evidence suggesting USA supported the last coup d'etat in Honduras?
And isn't the American government going against the very principles of free market capitalism when it lobbies in favor of private corporations, if that turns out to be true too?

I can't believe you guys think that is normal. I thought the leftists' anti-Americanist rhetoric was just overreaction, that Chavez and his followers were mere clowns, and now it turns out that he was right all the time, and yet nobody cares?
I'm quite confused now.

[Scotty]

What would have happened if Paraguay would have been caught spying on the personal information of candidates of the USA, including personal emails and other accounts? Is this acceptable because the American government is the one doing the espionage?

To the first, why?  To the second, no, and what are you going to do about it?

And isn't the American government going against the very principles of free market capitalism when it lobbies in favor of private corporations, if that turns out to be true too?

I'm not a little hazy about where it says we have to support free market capitalism.

[Flipside]

I once read a wonderful monologue on how countries that are friends manage to stay friends by spying on each other. After all, the more you know about each other, the less distrust. I don't doubt the UK's secret service have file upon file of information regarding foreign diplomats.

Right or Wrong is a more complex issue, firstly, Wikileaks are mostly publishing the opinions of Ambassadors who are performing a very difficult dance, any Ambassador who is thought to be 'going native' often finds themselves re-assigned to another post, they aren't there to like the country involved, merely to represent the interests of their own country. Secondly, even the acts which are morally questionable do not automatically make themselves required reading for the general public, that can often increase tension and beligerence and make a solution less likely, rather than more, sometimes a little behind-the-scenes work can do far more good than shouting it from the rooftops.

As Mongoose stated, it's not really a question of the morality of what has been said or done, it's about Wikileaks decision to release that data to all and sundry.

[el_magnifico]

To the first, why?

That's not the point. The question was if everyone would take it as normal if some other intelligence service from some other country spied on private, personal information of random American citizens.
I can understand spying on other governments. Every single country does that.  But I find spying on the personal life of people that aren't even on the government yet, including their emails and their DNA, a repudiable act.

To the second, no, and what are you going to do about it?

Wow, so it's not acceptable, but they can get away with it anyway because they have the economic/military might to shut their opponents' mouths off, and that being the case, that is normal. Way to be civilized.

I'm not a little hazy about where it says we have to support free market capitalism.

First, don't say we. Even if I have something against the acts of your country, I'm not targetting you in the criticism.
Second, rephrase that please, since I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean.

[el_magnifico]

sometimes a little behind-the-scenes work can do far more good than shouting it from the rooftops.

"Good"? From whose perspective? Is supporting the removal of a democratic government (even one I disliked) "good"?

This kind of reminds me to the Church trying to hide pedophiles. "It's not about the morality of those acts, they are just humans with sins, it's about the reputation of this Holy institution". Screw that, I want pedophiles disguised as priests in a jail, and I want governments out of people's private lives, especially if such governments claim to do good, and then torture, murder, lobby, and meddle in internal affairs of other countries.

[Flipside]

Is increasing tension between several countries that already have strained relations any more 'good'? That's the conundrum really, how do we define 'good' and 'bad' in this situation?

Edit: And to clarify, I'm not saying I agree with what was revealed in the leaks, or support those actions, but how has the generalised realease of this information helped the world situation in any way, chances are it's done far more damage than anything else.

[el_magnifico]

I have updated my previous post.

[Swifty]

Interesting post on Slashdot by former military personnel. He basically states that Wikileaks has swung the pendulum and that it'll sway the other way now. Wikileaks will make the public lose access to more government documents in the long term which would have been revealed over time as the government is stimulated to ensure something like this doesn't happen again.

I wrote some of the classified documents on Wikilieaks during my time with the military. I am a civilian now. Much of what I have written is already available to researchers and journalists from the Marine Corps Historical archive in Quantico, Virginia. The Iraq dump contained many significant events from my battalion, but lacked the commanders' comments or the command chronology narrative to tie the events together and put them into perspective. This information is actually available through official sources. What is on Wikileaks has is actually quite limited.

I have two concerns about the fallout to the leak. The first concern is the U.S. may retroactively classify documents currently available to the public, or be less likely to release documents in the future. This will result in a net loss of access to information to the general public. My second concern is the military may become more compartmentalized and soldiers at the small-unit level may no longer have access to the same amount of intelligence information as they previously had. This would be unfortunate because a lot of the young Marines or Soldiers bring a fresh perspective to looking at the raw information and can often connect the dots and find things missed by back-office analysts.

The public has a right to know what the government is doing as long as it doesn't compromise operational security. Within the government there are people pushing to declassify information and make it available. There are others who would like to make everything a secret until the end of time. This latest leak will push the pendulum towards the secret squirrels. I doubt too many service members will want to follow in Pvt. Manning's footsteps, so Mr. Assange probably won't be getting too much new information. Without people sending him leaks, Mr. Assange wouldn't have much of a web site. If the U.S. were smart, they would put up an alternate web site to Wikileaks which would provide declassified versions of government documents and explain why it is important to balance the public's right to know with the need for operational security.

[Flipside]

I have updated my previous post.

There are corrupt Ambassadors, but these releases aren't about those, there are corrupt Governments (probably the majority), but the fact of the matter is that exposing paedophiles in Churches is far less likely to start people fighting and killing each other than the revealing that Saudi Arabia want America to invade Iran. Most of those paedophiles were revealed in a court of law, through legal prosecution, with solid evidence, not stolen data released a website.

As a counter-example, one paper released a so called 'list' of known paedophiles, which resulted in the persecution of a lot of innocent people, including the attack on a pediatrician by a certain illiterate group of people in the UK. It's all very sensational, and probably well intentioned, but the reaction to the 'revelation' was that of the mob.