The Wikileaks begin: breaking news and live blogging
Posted: November 25, 2010 Filed under: Breaking News, Diplomacy Nightmares | Tags: Wikileaks 46 Comments
Some of the Wikileak documents related to U.S. diplomacy are begining to show up in Newspapers throughout the world. I just read in the Jerusalem Post that there is evidence that Turkish citizens smuggled weapons to al-Qaida.
Wikileaks is planning to release files that show Turkey has helped al-Qaida in Iraq, according to London-based daily Al-Hayat. The newspaper also reported that the US helped the PKK, a Kurdish rebel organization.
One of the documents, a US military report, reportedly charges Turkey with failing to control its borders, because Iraqi citizens residing in Turkey provided al-Qaida with supplies to build bombs, guns and ammunition.
Minkoff Minx found this in the Ottawa Star.
Canada’s official lips were sealed tight on the matter, except to confirm dual overtures from Washington — David Jacobson, the U.S. ambassador to Ottawa, gave a head’s up to Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, while the Canadian embassy in D.C. is “currently engaging” with the State Department.
Sources in Ottawa acknowledged on background that even after the U.S. briefings the scope of what’s coming remains unclear. “We are not privy to the full contents of documents which may be leaked,” foreign affairs spokesperson Alain Cacchione said in an email to the Star.
I’m watching tweet after tweet of status updates from Wikileaks like this one:
wikileaks WikiLeaks
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd briefed by Hillary Clinton on Wikileaks, according to SMH
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
I’m waiting to see more information before I make up my mind that the wikileaks are leaks and not deliberate release of documents by Washington.
I am not sure about the source, Epoch Times:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/46536/
“It is suspected that the release is the massive, 1.4 GB file posted to Wikileaks in August. The file, titled “Insurance,” was locked with encryption, with a note to “Keep it safe.”
The contents of the Insurance file are still unknown. It is, however, 18 times the size of the 75 MB Afghan War Diary that currently contains 76,908 classified military documents. The Iraq War Logs contained 391,832 documents and is around 354 MB.”
Is it insurance for the soldier they arrested already?
That is what I thought…but then the Wikileaks site is officially down…I wonder if the powers that be will do this now. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11736545
“It has not been tested in court, but experts say section 706(d) of the Communications Act could give the president wide-ranging authority to shut down key computer systems.”
Well, one thing is certain, this whole wikileak thing is a global event. Makes you wonder if it is going to be a dud, or a real deal breaker.
I’m hoping that they do what they did with the Pentagon Papers. Each time one paper gets brought down, another one picks them up.
the wikileaks link says: this account doesn’t exist
Yup, I noticed that a few hours ago when I read that Ottawa article.
The tweets have stopped too. They stopped two hours ago which is about the time I posted this; oddly enough.
I read that the U.S. and the U.K. blocked wikileaks.
The twitter said:
wonder where the news came from … is there a trending topic or channel for them?
Perhaps China gave the US and UK some pointers on how to censor the internet?
Well, I’d hope they can only kill so much. Maybe another site will host them?
It doesn’t make sense to censor because the information will get through to other nations and eventually to the U.S. Maybe the wikileak server went down due to internal problems.
I dunno the entire thing is weird. Couldn’t they get a judge to censor it on National Security reasons like Nixon did with the NYT and the Pentagon Papers?
the insurance file is overloaded right now. The wikileaks server says something about scheduled maintenance?
From what I read over on a gamer site, speculation is that wikileaks sent that message about downloading the files, in case the government shuts them down. Something about a code that will be sent out so that the docs can be de-encrypted. This is what they are taking the Insurance File to mean. I don’t know, it all seems strange to me. If there is some sort of censorship going on, then there must be some big time dirt in those encrypted files.
Well, the Turkey thing is damaging enough to blow up NATO.
You can’t access that server now.
That’s what I was thinking.
The Canadians have something up at The Globe and Mail. Not very revealing, however.
Der Spiegel has nothing as of now.
I was waiting to see if the Aussies would say anything. Clinton called them.
Just this in the Sydney Morning Herald. It’s evident of why they would protect this with everything they’ve got. Allegations of corruption by politicians worldwide. Jeez, I want this out in the open!
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/us-briefs-canberra-on-secret-files-20101125-1896k.html
This is probably what you saw earlier.
Sydney Morning Herald
Interesting and I have no idea why spammy ate you … it’s supposed to let you put up more links than just one.
Bad Spammy! Down Boy!!!
***Allegations of corruption by politicians worldwide.***
Quelle surprise…….global….who woulda thunk it.
Heh
Anyone paying attention would know there’s been corruption globally for years…….that’s not new.
I mean testing pennicillin on other nations, subverting democratic elections, installing people who have their own nation and their own self interest……These are all things people who have been paying attention have read about for years now.
there’s 4 or 5 stories up at the Globe.
from your linked story:
” “Most of the time, cables, whether it is here in Canada or elsewhere around the world, reflect the author’s personal opinions, and don’t represent the policies of the government of the United States,” Mr. Jacobson said. ”
That’s some overt CYA right there.
unfortunate nesting.
meant as reply to Dak waaaaay upthread.
Ayup. Diplospeak.
And so it begins, or rather continues. Seems to me I recall an election campaign that promised transparency. I suspect that this time Assange will not be as fortunate as Ellsberg, because there is no longer a media that is interested in anything other than celebrity.
Ellsberg was pretty clean cut and Republican all of his life. It seemed absurd to go after him. I did read that Sweden upheld Assange’s arrest warrant too. I think he’s hiding in the UK somewhere, however.
Some one just reported it down in New Zealand.
I think that someone has pulled the plug on this release….
Bloomberg just came out with this:
SEC. 706. [47 U.S.C. 606] WAR EMERGENCY–POWERS OF PRESIDENT
(c) Upon proclamation by the President that there exists war or a threat of war, or a state of public peril or disaster or other national emergency, or in order to preserve the neutrality of the United States, the President, if he deems it necessary in the interest of national security or defense, may suspend or amend, for such time as he may see fit, the rules and regulations applicable to any or all stations or devices capable of emitting electromagnetic radiations within the jurisdiction of the United States as prescribed by the Commission, and may cause the closing of any station for radio communication, or any device capable of emitting electromagnetic radiations between 10 kilocycles and 100,000 megacycles, which is suitable for use as a navigational aid beyond five miles, and the removal therefrom of its apparatus and equipment, or he may authorize the use or control of any such station or device and/or its apparatus and equipment, by any department of the Government under such regulations as he may prescribe upon just compensation to the owners. The authority granted to the President, under this subsection, to cause the closing of any station or device and the removal therefrom of its apparatus and equipment, or to authorize the use or control of any station or device and/or its apparatus and equipment, may be exercised in the Canal Zone.
and this one…
(h) Any person who willfully does or causes or suffers to be done any act prohibited pursuant to the exercise of the President’s authority under this section…any person who commits such an offense with intent to injure the United States, or with intent to secure an advantage to any foreign nation, shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not more than $20,000 or by imprisonment for not more than 20 years, or both.
So, if I understand this means that if the Pres feels that any transmission (wireless or otherwise) will directly affect the US negatively or pose a security threat…even if it is outside of the Continental US i.e. in the Canal Zone (Which I wonder if that could apply to any location that the US has a vested interest in.) the Pres can suspend communications on any device…It is just odd, and perhaps my conspiracy senses are heightened with all the recent stuff on the Kennedy Assassination still fresh in my head.
Oops, link http://www.thedcoffice.com/34act/a34s35.htm#sec706
Nixon used it on Ellsberg.
yup, and then I found this nugget:
“At its most basic level, the national interest has historically been defined in straightforward terms: the territorial integrity of the state and its political autonomy are the sine qua non of statehood. Without these two attributes there can be no state, and the protection of territory and autonomy from foreign threats is therefore the state’s highest priority.”
““A more useful (although certainly not conventional) definition might be a threat to national security is an action or sequence of events that (1) threatens drastically and over a relatively brief span of time to degrade the quality of life for the inhabitants of a state, or (2) threatens significantly to narrow the range of policy choices available to the government of a state, or to private, nongovernmental entities…within the state” (Ullman, 1983, page 133).
“The NSS analysis of immediate threats to the United States undermines the traditional definition of the national interest. By asserting that the tactic of terrorism is to “penetrate” open societies, the NSS suggests that the conventional distinction between “foreign” and “domestic” is no longer as useful as it has been in the past. The erosion of that distinction arises from the changed circumstances of living in a globalized world, raising serious questions about whether the focus on an exclusive “national” interest remains useful, appropriate, or even meaningful.”
NSS-National Security Strategy of the United States
Globalizing Weakness: Is Global Poverty a Threat to the Interests of States?
Vincent Ferraro
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/ACF59B0.doc
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qdgoJC1ok7UJ:www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/ACF59B0.doc+us+code+United+States+%22vested+interest%22+foreign+policy+defined&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Although this article discusses Global Poverty, Ferraro is citing the report below:
The national security strategy of the United States. (2002). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. [On-line] Available: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html.
And the Ullman cite is this: Ullman, Richard. (1983, Summer). “Redefining security.” International Security 8(1), 129-53.
That is very creepy.
One more link, and then I am going back to reading my book about Peter Lorre…
Israel, U.S. tense as WikiLeaks sets to release classified bilateral communiqués
WikiLeaks material includes diplomatic cables sent to Washington from American embassies throughout the world, a senior Israeli official says.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-u-s-tense-as-wikileaks-sets-to-release-classified-bilateral-communiques-1.326905
“A senior Israeli official familiar with the contents of the message, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that according to the Americans, the WikiLeaks material includes diplomatic cables sent to Washington from American embassies throughout the world. Sources in Washington said the documents would be coming out soon, perhaps even today.
The cables date from the past five years and include media reports, talks with politicians, government officials and journalists, as well as evaluations and various analyses by American diplomats regarding their host countries.
According to the senior Israeli official, the U.S. Embassy said that the documents were not highly classified, but the administration did not know the precise content of the cables.
“The Americans said they view the leak very seriously. They don’t know when they will be released on the internet and what exactly they say, but they didn’t want us to read about it in the newspapers,” the official said.
The American message said that if cables from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv were released, it could be embarrassing because they relate to relations between Israel and the United States, which are usually kept confidential, or because they involve internal correspondence between American diplomats that do not always reflect the official position of the U.S. administration.
The Americans said that if there was embarrassment, it was important for Israel to know that this was not their intention.
Kurt Hoyer, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, neither confirmed nor denied that the embassy had conveyed a message relating to the matter to the Prime Minister’s Bureau and the Foreign Ministry.
However, Hoyer said that the release of classified cables from any U.S. embassy in the world could have serious implications and even affect peoples’ lives.
Hoyer said the embassy harshly condemned the release of classified documents and was very concerned about the impact on American foreign relations.
The State Department in Washington also approached several other countries to warn them of the implications of the release of the classified cables. From a check of their archives, the Americans reportedly believe WikiLeaks might release as many as 400,000 cables.
The New York Times, The U.K.’s Guardian and the German weekly new magazine Der Spiegel have reportedly been given a preview of the documents to decide which ones they want to publish.”
Hopefully when mablue gets up he will have news from Germany. Thx for that!
Going down down down down down
Wikileak’s is tweeting again.
Here’s a new story from CNN on the Wikileaks release.
dia.