Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual people. By Stephen C.
WebsterFriday, February 18, 2011 15:07 EDT Update (below): HBGary Federal among bidders. Open Secrets: WikiLeaks, War, and American Diplomacy. DoD Takes Flexible View on Deleting Wikileaks Docs. Department of Defense employees who downloaded classified documents from Wikileaks onto unclassified government computer systems may delete them without further “sanitizing” their systems or taking any other remedial measures, the Pentagon said in a policy memo (pdf) last week.
The release of classified State Department cables and other classified documents by Wikileaks has produced special consternation among security officers, who have tended to respond “by the book” to this unprecedented breach of security procedures. Document Web Site as a Potential Threat. WL vs. Donald Rumsfeld's Lies. The new memoir by former Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld has drawn wide criticism for his failure to accept any blame on the Iraq and Afghanistan fiascoes, and his claims that when he and others promoted falsehoods about Iraq WMD they were merely minor "misstatements," not lies.
But among his other misdeeds was offering misleading statements to the American public about the progress of the war in Iraq, often blaming journalists for being far too critical. Laptop seizures: Interview with Rep. Sanchez. Obama officials caught deceiving about WL.
US officials privately say WikiLeaks damage limited. Top News US officials privately say WikiLeaks damage limited Tue, Jan 18 16:09 PM EST *Obama administration says WikiLeaks' damage "substantial" *Privately, officials say leaks embarrassing, not damaging *Administration seeking to keep pressure on WikiLeaks By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Internal U.S. government reviews have determined that a mass leak of diplomatic cables caused only limited damage to U.S. interests abroad, despite the Obama administration's public statements to the contrary.
A congressional official briefed on the reviews said the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers. Treasury Says It Cannot Sanction WL Or J.A. The Treasury Department said it doesn’t have enough evidence to place sanctions on Wikileaks or its leader Julian Assange, Dow Jones Newswires reported.
Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images Julian Assange, leader of Wikileaks. Gvt-created climate of fear. One of the more eye-opening events for me of 2010 occurred in March, when I first wrote about WikiLeaks and the war the Pentagon was waging on it (as evidenced by its classified 2008 report branding the website an enemy and planning how to destroy it).
At the time, few had heard of the group — it was before it had released the video of the Apache helicopter attack — but I nonetheless believed it could perform vitally important functions and thus encouraged readers to donate to it and otherwise support it. In response, there were numerous people — via email, comments, and other means — who expressed a serious fear of doing so: they were worried that donating money to a group so disliked by the government would cause them to be placed on various lists or, worse, incur criminal liability for materially supporting a Terrorist organization. At the time, I dismissed those concerns as both ill-founded and even slightly paranoid.
JACOB APPELBAUM (MIRROR) BIRGITTA. UN spying wishlist. WikiLeaks cables show the Central Intelligence drew up information wishlist.
Photograph: Getty Images The US state department's wishlist of information about the United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, and other senior members of his organisation was drawn up by the CIA, the Guardian has learned. The disclosure comes as new information emerged about Washington's intelligence gathering on foreign diplomats, including surveillance of the telephone and internet use of Iranian and Chinese diplomats. One of the most embarrassing revelations to emerge from US diplomatic cables obtained by the whistleblowers' website WikiLeaks has been that US diplomats were asked to gather intelligence on Ban, other senior UN staff, security council members and other foreign diplomats – a possible violation of international law.
Fear 'Guantanamo' Or 'Death Penalty' FBI seizes server. The FBI has seized a server in Texas as part of its hunt for the groups behind the pro-WikiLeaks denial-of-service attacks launched in December against PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and others, according to a report.
US fears over Wikileaks. A 13-page memo detailing the new policy urges senior civil servants to beef up cyber security and hire teams of psychiatrists and sociologists who can "detect behavioural changes".
They will then monitor the moods and attitudes of staff who are allowed to access classified information. The move is designed to prevent further embarrassing disclosures of the sort which have dominated the news in recent months. Unfortunately, just 48 hours after the memo was sent, a copy was leaked to staff at NBC news, who duly posted it on their website. Internet Freedom Promise. The conflict between Wikileaks and the U.S.
Government reminds me of something we've been experiencing for some years now in the private sector of corporate activity and social enterprises. Lots of hierarchical, top-down, closed fortress organizations have been discovering that they need to open up, accept that the internet is dispersing power to the edges and into the hands of free agents, a.k.a. the people who used to be their audience.
Think of how internal bloggers like Robert Scoble helped open up and humanize Microsoft's evil empire, or how angry consumer virtual flash-mobs like the one that rallied around Jeff Jarvis's "Dell Sucks" blog post confronted and pried open Dell. Or how netroots bloggers made Howard Dean the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, or how networked "Tea Party" activists generated successful challenges to eight Senate candidates endorsed by the Republican establishment in DC.
Inciting the Whackers. Further to my open letter on those inciting murder upon Julian Assange, this op ed style post again responds to those who say that Julian Assange should be kidnapped, executed, murdered or otherwise be "whacked", to use a favourite Hollywood gangster expression. It is a much expanded variant of the open letter to the inciters at Wikileaks Central. The CIA and/or US military forces have been invoked by some, as the agents who would carry out such extra curial "services" of which it must be said, such actions both incitement and carrying the incitement out, are undoubtedly unlawful.
Doubtless the early December Assange-illegal-posturing Prime Minister of Australia would not officially, take kindly to the latter course of action. The web roll of inciters or borderline inciters is growing. WL on incitement. State Power & the response to WL.