On Sat, 11 Dec 2010 16:58:49 -0600 "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> writes:
> We now know (and presumably this will not change) that u.s.
> departmentnss
> are infested with hundreds, perhaps moe, employees with top-secret
> clearances who are willing to reveal classified information. I don't
> know if
> this is trivial or important;, but it is of some interest.
In the US government there are loads of people who are willing to leak classified information for all kinds of different reasons, starting from the top down. The White House, almost any White House, is one of the main leakers of classified information for sundry political purposes. And we may recall that it was the last Administration that even deliberately blew the cover of a CIA operative for political reasons. Then you have all sorts of officials who will leak information for reasons of bureaucratic infighting. Then, there are those people who leak because they are whistleblowers who are ticked off or outraged by actions of the government which employs them.
>
> I still think the efforts to repress are more damagaing (i.e.
> helpful to us)
> than the information itself could ever be.
I think that's right, especially given that the US response to WikiLeaks has been so outrageously heavyhanded, hysterical, and just plain over the top. It's already making the US an object of mockery around the world.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math
>
> There may also be hundreds of employees with top secret clearances
> who are
> also willing just for the fun of it to release false information.
> It's
> probably happened already in fact.
>
> Carrol
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
> [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
> On Behalf Of Charles Turner
> Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2010 4:11 PM
> To: LBO-Talk
> Subject: [lbo-talk] McClatchy Newspapers: Tying Assange to Manning
> won't be
> easy
>
>
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/10/105110/wikileaks-tying-assange-to-
man
> ning.html>
>
> "Despite the obstacles, [Jeffrey] Smith, the former CIA general
> counsel,
> thinks the U.S. must prosecute.
>
> The sheer volume of documents makes it likely that the government
> can find
> at least one example that proves Assange damaged U.S. national
> security, he
> said. He said the fact that WikiLeaks solicits those with
> classified
> information to provide it to the website shows an ongoing effort to
> harm
> U.S. national security.
>
> To not prosecute, given the number of documents, would be a bad
> precedent,
> he said.
>
> "The U.S. government, I just don't see, throwing up their hands and
> saying
> there is nothing we can do," Smith said.
>
> Still, any prosecution is likely only to dissuade others from
> publishing
> secrets in the future and won't prevent the continued release of the
> State
> Department documents, experts agree. WikiLeaks already has said it
> has the
> U.S. government's assessment of every detainee who was ever held at
> Guantanamo Bay and will release the documents next week.
>
> "I don't see a clear linkage between prosecuting and a cessation of
> publication," [Steven] Aftergood said. "If prosecution would lead to
> an end
> to the publication of these documents, the decision might be
> straightforward. If prosecution is essentially irrelevant to the
> process of
> further disclosure, we are back to where we started."
>
>
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