Sunday, July 25, 2010

Leaking Like a Sieve . . . .

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have done it again, and BIG TIME. Apparently, the leak of tens of thousands of Afghan war documents makes the Pentagon Papers look like child's play.

The Guardian UK has the full story with lots of background links.

Fascinating stuff to wade thru which I've just begun to do.

Something for you to do on a summer Sunday afternoon, eh ? ? ? ?

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has now weighed in on the topic, and his summary is spot on:

Whatever else is true, WikiLeaks has yet again proven itself to be one of the most valuable and important organizations in the world. Just as was true for the video of the Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad, there is no valid justification for having kept most of these documents a secret. But that's what our National Security State does reflexively: it hides itself behind an essentially absolute wall of secrecy to ensure that the citizenry remains largely ignorant of what it is really doing. WikiLeaks is one of the few entities successfully blowing holes in at least parts of that wall, enabling modest glimpses into what The Washington Post spent last week describing as Top Secret America. The war on WikiLeaks -- which was already in full swing, including, strangely, from some who claim a commitment to transparency -- will only intensify now. Anyone who believes that the Government abuses its secrecy powers in order to keep the citizenry in the dark and manipulate public opinion -- and who, at this point, doesn't believe that? -- should be squarely on the side of the greater transparency which Wikileaks and its sources, sometimes single-handedly, are providing.

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