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My HUGE problem with Wikileaks

Uh... when they work for a democratically elected government. If the U.S. people decided it didn't want the CIA, we could elect people to get rid of them. We -- and our elected representatives -- today accept and allow the CIA to operate. And the CIA is overseen by our elected representatives. The CIA director ultimately reports to the President.
 
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My attitude would be different if I thought that our various acts of aggression were beneficial. Overall, the covert stuff has been a waste, imho.
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
Uh... when they work for a democratically elected government. If the U.S. people decided it didn't want the CIA, we could elect people to get rid of them. We -- and our elected representatives -- today accept and allow the CIA to operate. And the CIA is overseen by our elected representatives. The CIA director ultimately reports to the President.
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Yeah, keep telling yourself that. :rolleyes: How can Americans decide whether they want the CIA or not when they don't even know how much is being spent on it let alone where the hell the money is going?
 
bit_pattern said:
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. :rolleyes: How can Americans decide whether they want the CIA or not when they don't even know how much is being spent on it let alone where the hell the money is going?
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We have decided that we want the CIA, and that we are comfortable not knowing what their budget is, and with that information only being known to the elected officials who oversee the agency (which is done by both the executive and legislative branches). If we decide we do want the CIA to be a more open agency to the public as a whole, we can petition our representatives to make it so.

There are already plenty of mechanisms in place to legally declassify information. Maybe you think it should be easier to do so. Great. Start a campaign to change the system so it is.
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
We have decided that we want the CIA, and that we are comfortable not knowing what their budget is, and with that information only being known to the elected officials who oversee the agency (which is done by both the executive and legislative branches). If we decide we do want the CIA to be a more open agency to the public as a whole, we can petition our representatives to make it so.

There are already plenty of mechanisms in place to legally declassify information. Maybe you think it should be easier to do so. Great. Start a campaign to change the system so it is.
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Democracies are great about that kind of stuff! Don't like the laws? Try to change them! If your fellow citizens agree that it should be changed then it will be!
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
We have decided that we want the CIA, and that we are comfortable not knowing what their budget is, and with that information only being known to the elected officials who oversee the agency (which is done by both the executive and legislative branches). If we decide we do want the CIA to be a more open agency to the public as a whole, we can petition our representatives to make it so.
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Keep telling yourself that! :p

There are already plenty of mechanisms in place to legally declassify information. Maybe you think it should be easier to do so. Great. Start a campaign to change the system so it is.
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I don't live in America so I have no legal recou... Say, now THAT'S ironic, isn't it! :D
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
Ah, argument from incredulity. Keep it up.



Legal recourse for what?
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For when the CIA does something I don't like. Wikileaks *might* have put a few lives at risk but at least they haven't, say, illegally invaded another country and run a death squad school for Latin American dictators, not that I'm aware of anyway.
 
bit_pattern said:
For when the CIA does something I don't like. Wikileaks *might* have put a few lives at risk but at least they haven't, say, illegally invaded another country and run a death squad school for Latin American dictators, not that I'm aware of anyway.
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The CIA invaded a country???? Wow that's pretty impressive for an agency of that size.

And the answer is: your recourse is to go through your national government. The CIA is an agency of a foreign government, and your government has the right to bring the U.S. to the UN, or any other international law body, or approach it one on one. The U.S. is ultimately accountable for the CIA and its activities. But I suspect you already know this since that isn't exactly a secret.

And of course, you're just playing the "...but but but... those other guys are badder!" game. That isn't any defense of Wikileaks, it's just pointing out there might be worse organizations in the world. To which I say... well no kidding.
 
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ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
The CIA invaded a country???? Wow that's pretty impressive.
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Ever heard of United Fruit? Or Pinochet? Or Suharto? Etc etc etc

And the answer is: your recourse is to go through your national government. The CIA is an agency of a foreign government, and your government has the right to bring the U.S. to the UN, or any other international law body.
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That is entirely false. Have you had a look at America's policy on international jurisdiction over its citizens lately?

So which government do I go after if I am harmed by Wikileaks?
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Iceland. We've been through this already.
 
bit_pattern said:
Ever heard of United Fruit? Or Pinochet? Or Suharto? Etc etc etc
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Of course. Not sure what that has to do with a CIA invasion of another country. You could argue Bay of Pigs but well... that didn't go so hot. But again, that is all irrelevant since at best you're just trying to argue that maybe Wikileaks isn't quite as bad as other organizations. But "less bad" doesn't equal good.

And this raises the question: let's assume the CIA is completely unaccountable and does what it wants. You're just fine with that?

It seems kind of funny that you just raised the dangers of an unaccountable organization, but don't seem to see any similar dangers when it comes to another organization operating in a similar manner.

bit_pattern said:
That is entirely false. Have you had a look at America's policy on international jurisdiction over its citizens lately?
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Yes. And it has nothing to do with this conversation. One can get legal recourse via country to country relations without prosecuting individual citizens. Indeed, if it is an agent of the U.S. government, your likely recourse is for your country to get retribution from the U.S. government, since it is the U.S. government as an organization that is responsible.

bit_pattern said:
Iceland. We've been through this already.
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So if Wikileaks is prosecuted in Iceland and told to, say, shut down, you fully expect they will comply to the letter of the ruling?

Given how Wikileaks has set itself up and comments they have made, let's just say I am skeptical that that's their intent.
 
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ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
Of course. Not sure what that has to do with a CIA invasion of another country. You could argue Bay of Pigs but well... that didn't go so hot.
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Inavade, overthrow democratically elected governments - same **** different bucket.

But again, that is all irrelevant since at best you're just trying to argue that maybe Wikileaks isn't quite as bad as other organizations. But "less bad" doesn't equal good.
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No I'm not, I'm not making any judgment as to whether WL is "good" or "bad".


And this raises the question: let's assume the CIA is completely unaccountable and does what it wants. You're just fine with that?

It seems kind of funny that you just raised the dangers of an unaccountable organization, but don't seem to see any similar dangers when it comes to another organization operating in a similar manner.[/quote]

No, I am pointing out the inconsistencies in your criticism of WL, that is all.



So if Wikileaks is prosecuted in Iceland and told to, say, shut down, you fully expect they will comply to the letter of the ruling?

Given how Wikileaks has set itself up and comments they have made, let's just say I am skeptical that that's their intent.
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Do you think the US would EVER order the CIA to shut down?
 
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bit_pattern said:
No, I am pointing out the inconsistencies in your criticism of WL, that is all.
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Okay, I must have missed that in all the back and forth. What is inconsistent in my criticism?

bit_pattern said:
Do you think the US would EVER order the CIA to shut down?
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We operated for over a century without the CIA. It's possible. Is it likely? Probably not. Pretty much every country on the planet has a national intelligence agency of some sort nowadays.

But might the U.S. change how they operate? Sure. They have in the past and probably will in the future. We already have, in fact, given the Obama Administration has put an end to some of the practices that occurred under the Bush Administration.
 
I'm not sure why you're focusing so much on the CIA; there are sixteen different intelligence agencies total in the US, you know. Why all the animosity towards the CIA? Most of the intel agencies have pushed the envelope at one point or another in the duration of their existences; look at the FBI during J. Edgar Hoover's reign, for instance. That got reined in just fine, and you rarely if ever hear about the FBI overstepping any boundaries any longer. NSA got spanked rather sharply over the whole "warrantless wiretapping" dealio and now has a lot of limitations placed on it (the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 for example; look it up). If you truly have an issue with something the CIA is doing, then you need to raise the issue with the lawmakers, not complain about it on the internet. Something is much more likely to be done that way.
 
Sabrina said:
I'm not sure why you're focusing so much on the CIA; there are sixteen different intelligence agencies total in the US, you know. Why all the animosity towards the CIA?
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I don't think it is specific animosity at the CIA, it is just that the CIA is by far the most famous U.S. intelligence agency worldwide, so it is the example being used. It wouldn't do much to throw the entire alphabet soup of other intel agencies here, since most of the names would mean next to nothing to most people here (I'm a former Army MI officer myself, so I am quite familiar with them... but most of the public isn't).
 
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quarky said:
How do we know what practices have ended unless they aren't secret?
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I think this has been addressed a few times, but the answer is: we're not supposed to know. That's what we elect our Senators and Representatives and President to know. For better or worse, we have decided that the activities of the CIA (and some other agencies) are going to be overseen almost completely by our elected government, and we are trusting in our system of checks and balances to ensure that they are doing the right thing.

I don't have a problem discussing whether the CIA or other agencies should release more to the public. But if you think they should, the answer is to convince the rest of us to vote to change the system. It's not to unilaterally undermine the system because you personally don't like it. (It's also not to have some secretive, unelected, unaccountable group do it).

It is worth pointing out that the reason for having a system of some secrecy isn't because we don't want the American public to know things, it's because we don't want enemy/unfriendly countries/organizations to know it. Unfortunately, we have yet to invent a system through which we can disclose everything to 300 million Americans and ensure that it is kept secret from the people we don't want to know. So we accept a compromise through which we allow the government to maintain secrecy, and we place some trust in our system of checks and balances, and in ourselves -- that we are electing people of enough integrity and intelligence to properly oversee those agencies -- to ensure that system isn't abused.
 
And another completely unsurprising report comes out months after the facts:
The online leak of thousands of secret military documents from the war in Afghanistan by the website WikiLeaks did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods, the Department of Defense concluded. . . .

The assessment, revealed in a letter from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Michigan), comes after a thorough Pentagon review of the more than 70,000 documents posted to the controversial whistle-blower site in July. . . .

The defense secretary said that the published documents do contain names of some cooperating Afghans, who could face reprisal by Taliban.

But a senior NATO official in Kabul told CNN that there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/10/16/wikileaks.assessment/index.html?hpt=T2
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