I am not going to comment on the substance or subject matter of what the whole Wikileads project has put out there. No, that is done and others will comment and clean up - what is important to me is the next step.
This isn't complicated, and the path remains the same as I have outlined before. We need to understand the basics and respond in an effective manner - simply, boldly, and without hesitation.
First of all, the soldier as the source should be given to the military to take care of. The Army needs its best prosecution team on him and should punish him as much as possible in a very public way. Make an example of him. He is and will be drenched in blood. No quarter or mercy should be given to him. Whatever the max is; make is so.
What to do to the Wikileaks IT infrastructure, US and foreign individuals involved - well - the Justice Department will have to figure it out. They all have blood on their hands - but what we can do inside the rule of law is a fuzzy area. Better to go hard and lose on appeal than to go weak and encourage others to leak as well - but that is just me.
What does the military do next? Well, we need to be honest with ourselves. NIPRNET, SIPRNET, and TS-SCI systems and higher are only as good as the people who are sitting in front of them. Most thumb drives and CD-R/RW abilities have been disabled, but that only stops amateurs and are easy to get turned back on - ask any Flag Aide. Information compartmentalization and file use monitoring software are hopefully steps already taken long ago, along with a thorough IT forensics of what that guy did and who allowed such slack procedures that enabled him.
That is a start. Oh, as you may have noticed, I didn't use any names here. The reason is simple; these people are not doing this for some grand reason, no - they are narcissists. They want to hear their name and have it heard. They crave some feeling of power and attention. Nuff said.
Howdy Morning Defense readers!
I would love to see his name as the first treasonous bastard to be put down since...
ReplyDeleteMake an example of him and make those types realize that it is a death sentence.
I would say this might meet the threshold of treason in wartime. After a conviction, send this guy to the SCIF at Leavenworth with the other TS-SCI criminal and give them anonymity and silence for the rest of their days.
ReplyDeleteThe entire show is pitiful... no information any sensible observer of diplomatic scene isnt going to deduce himself - Chirac is pompous fop, Berlusconi womanizer, Merkel boring and Putin alpha male. And you dont need expertise of French diplomat quoted to see that Russia still has problems with accepting independences from Baltics and Poland to Georgia. And that for Russia good neighbor means obedient servant.
ReplyDeleteNote that this time it is the foggy bottom that was hit. Seems military has quietly did emergency leak control... and good job of it.
Manning needs to be tried for treason. That being said, this entire incident shows how crappy Federal/DoD IT really is. Massive amounts of money are thrown at contractors, who produce crap. The military itself has very weak IT talent, mostly because of the lure of the private sector. I dont know how to fix this, but its not by spending more - an obscene sum is already spent.
ReplyDeleteI hope Manning's immediate superiors get burned very hard by this - he should have been more closely supervised.
One other lesson is that over-classification is the norm. Not that this is a necessary lesson for most of us, but this drives it home to the general public.
Notice that when the subject was military and the leaks imperiled our guys in the field there was little outrage at the leaks. Crickets chirping.
ReplyDeletePublish State Dept. cables and watch the talking heads on tv explode.
Interesting.
Pass the popcorn.
When I first saw his picture on the "Support..." site, I seriously thought it was Alfred E Newman in an Army beret. Ooops.
ReplyDeleteThought the exact same thing, except mine was, "Wah, freakin', wah". Sucks to be them.
ReplyDeleteOffer a $1 million dollar reward for bringing to the nearest US Embassy. Consulate or military base anyone who is employed by WikiLeaks, dead or alive.
ReplyDeleteFind their servers and and data storage facilities and destroy them completely.
This was an act of terrorism no different than any other. These leaks have resulted in the deaths of individuals. No mercy. Make WikiLaeaks an example.
Lex has a post up on Asymetric Warfare, regarding the killing of Iranina nuclear scientists.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking yesterday that WikiLeaks and Co have most likely sentenced more to death, slow, in many cases, too quick in some, that even Mohammaed Atta and his crew of 18 others.
The Cyberware has begun. Worse yet, it's not national miltary against national military. It's "unlawful combatants" who sit in front of a flat screen and kill with keystrokes. One might equate them to the UAV crew at Nellis, but these are the indiscriminant killers, who aren't connected to the trigger pullers at all, they facilitate death and destruction on a grander scale....and all for their glory.
Hitler, Stalin and Mao, step aside: Your historical record for masss slaughter is being challeneged by the dark side of the geek world, by those who do not require any degree of the people to be in such a position of power.
Oh, and don't you dare sell "unauthorized" copies of the latest Hollywood releases, as the local news talked o having successfully shutting down 6 such sides here in FL....Sure glad we know how to respond to the little people, while we cower and wring our hands in the face of the seriously bad people.
<span>Lex has a post up on Asymetric Warfare, regarding the killing of Iranina nuclear scientists.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking yesterday that WikiLeaks and Co have most likely sentenced more to death, slow, in many cases, too quick in some, that even Mohammaed Atta and his crew of 18 others.
The Cyberwar has begun. Worse yet, it's not national miltary against national military. It's "unlawful combatants" who sit in front of a flat screen and kill with keystrokes. One might equate them to the UAV crew at Nellis, but these are the indiscriminant killers, who aren't connected to the trigger pullers at all, they facilitate death and destruction on a grander scale....and all for their glory and in a position to confound the Laws f Armed Conflict to the breaking point. Just look what happens to those in GTMO? We can't decide...
Hitler, Stalin and Mao, step aside: Your historical record for masss slaughter is being challeneged by the dark side of the geek world, by those who do not require any degree of the people to be in such a position of power.
Oh, and don't you dare sell "unauthorized" copies of the latest Hollywood releases, as the local news talked o having successfully shutting down 6 such sides here in FL....Sure glad we know how to respond to the little people, while we cower and wring our hands in the face of the seriously bad people.</span>
Who in the world did the background check on Manning? Just the public info on him showed he was a risk. Who was his supervisor? Know your troops, gentlemen, or are we still being politically correct-gay in Manning's case vs. Religion in Maj. Hassan's case?
ReplyDeleteThe irony is outdone only by the hypocrisy of those currently in leadership.
ReplyDeleteSeize domains for filse sharing. Sit back and watch as WikiLeaks discloses state secrets and codemns our friends to death.
Manning will be dealt with in a meaningful way, at least I have no doubt. He doesn't appear to be a foreign agent, more of a misguided kid trying to make a splash - his 15 minutes of fame. Too bad it will ruin his life.
ReplyDeleteIT technology evolves faster than bureaucracies can manage it.
Find the right IT contractor, not the biggest, or ones selected specifically because of ownership.
Operational intel needs to be protected, but we classify way too much information - a lot of this recent batch seems to be more embarrassing than crippling.
I don't think you understand what an act of terrorism is. Is it detrimental to the national security of the United States? Absolutely. But not everything detrimental to our national security is a terrorist act, or even illegal. At the point where you're advocating killing civilians who haven't directly participated in hostilities, I think you've gone too far.
ReplyDeleteHow is it possible that one man was able to keep copying secure files without alarm bells going off? Because too much (inappropriate?) stuff is classified and the compartmentalization is pitifully inadequate. Fix both of those and Wikileaks will go away by itself.
ReplyDeleteI understand completely. When we had actual patriots and citizens running this nation, horse theives got a quick drop on a long rope. These punks should be treated no differently.
ReplyDeleteThe ever insightful Wretchard at the Belmont Club explains Wikileaks:
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<span><span><span><span>http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/11/29/helplessly-hoping-2/#comment-131663</span></span></span><span></span></span></span>
So did black men in Mississippi who dared speak to white women. Times have changed, and that's not all bad. I'm fine with the rule of law requiring something more of us in this situation than the summary execution of anyone associated with WikiLeaks.
ReplyDeletewill you accuse the major newspapers who reprinted the data of killing with paper?
ReplyDeletemight be the case for "pen is mightier than sword" lol...
Wanna see US embassies everywhere closed and no one trading with the US? Thats whats gonna happen the first EU citizens gets killed by whatever in the alphabet soup will pull the trigger. Plus gien the way things thend to blow up in the faces of agents, ee the spectacle comparable to the Rainbow Warrior. Fix the leaks first and you can worry not for the wiki.
ReplyDeleteapples and oranges, guest. Apples and oranges. Let's try and stay on topic, mkay?
ReplyDeleteBut notice which papers did the publishing - the most hardcore left, anti-American papers in Europe and America. And yes, j'accuse
ReplyDeleteOr think back to Valerie Plame and compare that response to the current one. Is it only when a conservative can be (tangentially) involved that it becomes serious? Apparently for Obama and his ilk that is the case...
ReplyDeleteFor all those foreign governments and media outlets professing their indignation at the attitude and opinions expressed in the cable you have to ask..."Obama demonstrably doesn't like his own country, what the he** makes you think would he would like yours?"
ReplyDeleteIf Der Spiegel and Le Monde are leftist, then what are Der Stern and Liberation?
ReplyDeleteYep, maybe not exclude profile-matching minorities, but watch them the extra bit closely... in the case of Hassan, it would be enough to step in and prevent.
ReplyDeleteEwok - I wouldn't lose much sleep if the US did something about this, but I doubt we will. Can you be so sure that Putin or the Saudi royal family won't do something?
ReplyDelete1. cf. the Walker den of vipers. Supervisers need to supervise. Access & Need-to-know is just that.
ReplyDelete2. for the PFC - try on espionage (broader staute, easier to convict than treason), isolate from fellow man and find a pile of boulders to be turned into pebbles in the middle of a pestilential, malarial swamp. Life should be nasty, brutish and prolonged to agony's final wretching threshold. rinse/repeat.
3. Wikileaks? Son of Stuxnet. You go, you download, you lose.
4. Wikileaks purveyor? A life spent in the shadows, perpetually on the run and in fear of his life. Constantly.
Next!
Coming back to like it a second time.
ReplyDeleteSo, here's some news og more suck: Amazon helps break DDOS attack on WikiLeaks. Damn...I sell stuff there....You? Decide if you like Amazon enough to keep putting $ in their tills.
ReplyDeleteThen it's their problem... Putin has enough fallout already with the Litvinenko case.
ReplyDeletePlus with wikileaks half of the problem is gone - you know that leak has taken the place, and it is mostly low-level info.
Really serious leaks are those that report to one master only, about much more serious stuff, and we dont know about them until we stumble on Ames or someone of his ilk.
On the linked matter, heard about 2 top Iranian nuke scientists getting blown up in Tehran? That shows Iranians have really spotty security. Instead of rounding all the scientists into secure location Los Alamos or Arzamas-XXX style they allow them to attend universities. Ah, and this also shows that someone has the guts to do the wetworks still, definitely. Would I be accused of antisemitism if I say it shows the hallmarks of Israeli style? :P
Tim, a large part of the problem is that they know where the servers are; they're in Sweden. Apparently that country prides itself on the fact that they ask no questions at all of those who use servers there. They're crazy about privacy rights, and consider their policy a feature, not a bug.
ReplyDeleteThe only ways we could shut them down are: taking over the site (very difficult, if not impossible, considering the skill of those running the wikileaks site), DOS attacks, and physically destroying the server.
Even if you run them out of Sweden, Iceland has a similar policy, so they have another haven.
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ReplyDelete</p><p>Let me just offer some perspective as somebody who’s been at this a long time. Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time. And I dragged this up the other day when I was looking at some of these prospective releases. And this is a quote from John Adams: "How can a government go on, publishing all of their negotiations with foreign nations, I know not. To me, it appears as dangerous and pernicious as it is novel."
</p><p>Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments — some governments — deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation.
</p><p>So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another.
</p><p>Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.
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I've quoted you and linked to you here.
ReplyDelete