WikiLeaks : No One Is Asking The Obvious Question
65Security? WHAT Security?
WikiLeaks is what it is. I don't like our government--not even Hillary Clinton--being embarrassed by publication of sensitive documents. If U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning lives the remainder of his life behind bars, who cares? As the old Baretta TV show advised, If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. But as for WikiFreaks, we could expect nothing else from an organization whose formation is described in Wikipedia as follows:
WikiLeaks is an international non-profit media organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents from anonymous sources [not so anonymous in Manning's case, obviously] and leaks. Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press. Within a year of its launch, the site claimed a database that had grown to more than 1.2 million documents.
The organization has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Newspaper articles and The New Yorker magazine (7 June 2010) describe Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, as its director.
However, the most important (and mostly ignored) question does not pertain (except indirectly) to WikiLeaks. It pertains to U.S. Army Intelligence. We're being asked to believe that a lowly PFC could do all this damage...all by himself.
Sorry. That's approximately equivalent to believing it was really Beetle Bailey who ran Operation Overlord during World War II. Not buying it. Nuh-uh. No way. In other words...
...I call B.S.
Sarah Palin has asked how a young, by-definition-inexperienced PFC could get access to all those documents in the first place. That's a good question...and I've got at least an educated guess as to the anwer.
The Options
If Beetle Bailey's secret identity wasn't General Dwight D. Eisenhower, something else had to be involved. If PFC Manning simply showed willngness to leak data, others who wanted to see America--or perhaps the Obama administration--embarrassed or even partially incapacitated...those folks could have set the kid up in a heartbeat. Sure, Timothy McVeigh, go ahead and bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, why doncha?
Or it could be a conspiracy in which Manning was openly included. That seems less likely, though. Would you trust a youngster to keep his mouth shut...after he'd been hung out to dry like the latest load of laundry?
One thing I do know: Any organization of any size is always looking to minimize damages when something horrendous goes down. In the case of the U.S. Army--the branch of our military in which I personally served--that means hang it on the nearest PFC if you can. Heaven forbid a General or even a Colonel should take the hit.
One example: When I was stationed in Germany as a lowly Army wire rat, an automatic transmission in one of our track mounted 155 Howitzers malfunctioned ...killing two sergeants in the process. The track driver--yes, a PFC--told investigators that when he'd downshifted from the machine's top gear, it had (all by itself) gone all the way to granny, the lowest of the low gears. The soon-to-be-dead men were riding atop the machine. When the ultra-downshift caused the Howitzer to buck violently, they were thrown off...and greased on the track's "downstroke".
Naturally, none of the brass believed the driver. Driver error, they proclaimed. Those transmissions won't do that! In the end, the PFC was cleared...because 5 of the 12 units in the outfit would do exactly that. Factory defects. But they tried to hang 'im...and they tried hard.
So...he hasn't yet been charged, but is Army PFC Bradley Manning being framed as we speak? Or is he guilty? Or.... It's too soon to tell. It's not too soon to ponder or to poll y'all, though.
Have fun.
WikiLeaks: The Manning Conundrum
What Is YOUR Best Guess About The PFC Bradley Manning Situation?
See results without votingCommentsLoading...
Exactly, Arthur. The Obama administration having set this in motion--or even a clique of Progressives having set it in motion without Obama's knowledge--remains a distinct (and not even surprising) possibility.
And yes, I realize I'm preaching to the choir here.
I have a hard time believing a little private could go in and do this, too. Where is the security? I almost choke on my cough when I heard it was a little ole private. What?
Keep on hubbing!
I've gotta say, I'm with you on this one Fred.
jim
While I agree it's highly implausible that a PFC could actually get hold of this vast trove of sensitive documents, I'm trying to find a motive. What REAL forces were involved and why would they want this data leaked to the public?
I believe this all may be a distraction for something yet to come.
Eovery and Jim: Back atcha.
S Leretseh: Motivation could be any of the following, possibly more than one:
1. Doing it just for "bragging rights", i.e. to prove it could be done.
2. Believing ANY secret is bad--if you're PFC Manning, how you wound up in Intel with that mindset is mind BLOWING.
3. A sneaky strike by our own government, looking innocent as they take a slap in the face to hide the real motivation--namely, to shut down the Internet entirely, starting with flash drive restrictions on computers, which the Obama admin IS now advocating.
4. One of many attacks on our entire system as a Constitutional Repuplic, designed to "fundamentally transform" America (as Obama himself promised even before he was elected).
5. Attacks by an enemy regime (or one who that is SECRETLY our enemy without admitting it publicly) to cause embarrassment, affect our foreign policy, or (as Al Qaeda has vowed) to produce "death by a thousand paper cuts".
6. Or, as Jeremey just mentioned, it could all be a distraction for something yet to come.
But, to pin the motive down precisely? Good luck with that!
Okay, "somebody" IS finally asking the question. On Fox News just now, Sean Hannity asked Senator John McCain if he believed "just one man" could have managed the massive leak, all that information. John immediately responded that, no, he does NOT believe one man managed all that.
So...they're catching up, folks!
Something yet to come? Read "The Roots of Obama's Rage". You will get a hint at what is to come. I wrote a hub on this also and touched on what it could be.
Another great hub, Ghost. Keep up the good work!
I definitely DO NOT believe he did it...he is being framed for lack of pinning it on the people who have been compiling all those documents for all this time...
The organization has described itself as having been founded by Chinese dissidents, as well as journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the U.S., Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.
The above are the perpe-traitors. Why do they not go harass all of the above? Or the criminals in our White House who do not belong there?? Why not hang it on the Communist "Czar" working for the loon?? But one of our own?? Come on......I was reading on the Wikileak thing the other day and was so agitated about it, I am still fuming. I am surprised you do not see the smoke signals....oh, is that what is in the sky? The fuming of the people...reminds me of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"....
Yes, JT, "The Roots of Obama's Rage" does indeed make it pretty clear. Let's just hope he's REALLY ticked on Election Night 2012.
Not that "hope" has anything to do with it. We the People working our BUTTS off--now, that has a LOT to do with it.
WMH, the WikiFreaks aren't exactly sitting ducks. Just watched a bit on Fox News which pointed out that the head perp, Julian Assange, makes himself AND his computer setups VERY elusive indeed.
Still, no matter how good he is at snipe-and-scoot, it's highly likely any number of top hackers could get a fix on him from time to time. We'll see.
I a huge fan of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", by the way. Sort of hurt my heart that Chris Lloyd had to play the villain, though. He did it well--no question about that--but I'd rather watch him in stuff like Taxi or Back to the Future...or even in the (Jack Nicholson??) western where he got pissed on by a horse....
One of the HubPage Hubbers has linked to a You-Tube video that indicates there's an international Hacker organization that goes by the name of 'Anonymous' that has declared war on governments who seek to control the internet.
Perhaps Assange is in league with them, uses them, or, uses their techniques.
Jim, I hadn't heard about "Anonymous" but would have been really surprised if something like it DIDN'T exist.
If Assange isn't in league with them as such, it's at least a good bet they like what he's doing.
Good Article. Anyone with half a brain can say he's not alone in this. Not to complicated to figure out except for our government sometimes has less then half a brain which is frightening. This is a prime time for government to get their hands dirty and step in.
Can't argue with that. Thanks for the comment!
Yup, you are correct. Remember the Abu Garab scandal, where the higest ranking person to get in trouble was... a PFC!
Yeah, Jed, I'm coming to suspect that perhaps "PFC" doesn't stand for "Private First Class". Could mean "Patsy For Coverup"...eh?
Manning outed himself by confessing the leak in a chat room. One of the people he was chatting with printed the log and took it to the authorities.
Thanks for the info, Anonymous. I don't know of anyone who's denying that Manning did leak files, and he definitely didn't help his own case by bragging about it. However, that doesn't mean he wasn't "used" in some significant way by others in the chain of command.
Not that I expect anyone else (up the chain) to be identified. Most likely, no one else (if involved) is foolish enough to open mouth, insert foot.
Ghost: Great hub!
Having served in the military I don't think it's beyond belief that a lowly private, or in this case a specialist, would be served up to the wolves.
And it does seem like an awful lot of data for one, and only one, guy to produce. It seems to me he would have had to been alone, undisturbed, for days to get that much info without someone else noticing.
I can't imagine how that would be possible.
My thoughts exactly, LiamBean.
Another similar instance during my service time occurred with an "unqualified" driver. The courier run, round trip from our Kaserne and back from Divsion HQ at Darnstadt, was usually made by one of the Colonel's pets...but occasionally that crew would be short handed.
When that happened, the outfit next turned to our commo crew (wire rats) to shanghai a jeep driver for the day. Most of us didn't have "jeep licenses", whether or not we drove larger trucks. I did, and I'd made that run a couple of times.
Then they came to our bunch for a Darnstadt driver one day and, since I was off TDY at Graf at the time, Glen got snagged. Yep, he was still a PFC at the time. There is a bit of a sharp "Y" onto the main highway when you come out of Darnstadt HQ. Glen rolled the M161 jeep, totalled the vehicle, and cracked his own tailbone from bouncing on the pavement.
Naturally, they tried very, very hard to pin "driver error" on him for that one. His defense: He'd never been properly licensed by the Army--had FAILED the "jeep driving test" and been passed in error. They found out that was true, but then told him, "Too bad anyway. You knew how to drive. You had a license in civilian life."
Nope. He didn't. Glen is a Native American, a Cheyenne from Busby, Montana--and on that sovereign nation's Reservation, he didn't NEED a license to drive legally.
Thanks for commenting!
Ghost! The government--military included, really is too incompetent to secure its data. It really is. These agencies are so fragmented and in such disarray that they don't take the time to even use the built in operating system features to limit or prohibit access to sensitive files by user group.
Quite simply, the people administering these systems simply don't know what they are doing--or don't care because no one on the US Government is held accountable for making mistakes or for being downright incompetent. All that matters to their careers is their willingness & ability to kiss ass.
Crosstimbers Okie, thanks for commenting--especially since you say this like you have reason to know it for fact.
Admittedly, my time in service had me in a postion to see the military willingness to hang the PFC to protect higher-ups...but I wasn't around admin any more than I could help. Too many Colonel's helpers there, most of whom were gay, and that was during my raging-homophobic period. Besides which, "real" workers like us wire rats tended to look down on paper pushers--except, of course, when it came time to collect our pay.
Wound up being an office type myself, later in life, for roughly a dozen years in total. Never did get fully comfortable with the concept, though. (Hammering out copy on my own computer doesn't count.)
Definitely understand and agree about the kissin a** part. You had to be deaf, dumb, and blind to miss that.
Pleasure Ghost! Yes, I know a little of what I speak. Work for a US DOJ agency and have had a little formal training in IT, although that's not the field I work in--which is very, very low-tech. It's amazing the data that no one bothers to secure.
I enjoy your articles. I just discovered you yesterday while searching for info on the Bakken oilfield. I can retire from my federal job in a couple of years at age 50. I know, it's young. But they kick us out at age 57 whether we like it or not. Personally, I like it and I would rather go at 50. I'll be more employable at 50, and will enjoy working in the real world again. Other than the good pay & benefits working for the federal government really sucks unless you are a willing and fairly adept asskisser.
I worked briefly in the oilfield in Oklahoma back in the early & mid '80s as a righand for a wireline company that did mostly cased hole work. Best job I ever had! Too bad I got laid off shortly before the company went broke.
So, I'm looking to retire and get dirty again. This time I'm thinking about getting my CDL and driving a tanker. You said that driving a tanker for Production Transport was the best job you ever had, so let's see some more stories!!
Thanks for checking in. I could surely write a few (dozen) trucking stories. Only thing is, what with our country on fire and all, I'm pretty lockdown-focused on doing political material for at least the next few years.
Not to say that a CDL-related hub couldn't sneak in here and there....
Back to this WIkiLeaks topic: Having trouble, can't stop laughing my taill off--though our 10-weeks-old tom kitten is sitting right under my nose on the desk/table (between my forearms) and just passed some IMPRESSIVE gas, so....
On Fox News, they just posted the comment that Julian Assange's lawyers are terribly upset that private police files (on Assange and his rape charges, no doubt) were LEAKED to the press!
Aw-w-w-w-w-w! ROFL!! Live by the leak, die by the leak!
You make a lot of sense, you should be working for CNN!
Nah. I'm not slanted nearly enough to the Left to survive at CNN. Could see having a Fox News segment that followed Glenn Beck, maybe...:)
Go, Gato. One way to solve the gas crisis.
Heh! Good news: With a bit more age on him, Gato's decided he's just too big to be lying right under my nose these days--so when he does "gas up", it's not quite at point blank range, anyway....
My dog lays beside the bed. Last winter, I was all snuggled into my comforter and he literally stunk me out. I had to get up and leave the room. The stench wafted up under the comforter. I thought I was going to die.
I can picture that ALL too easily!
Arthur Fontes 18 months ago
Problem + Reaction = Solution
Problem - Our secrets are being leaked!
Reaction - The people are up in arms about the security of the Internet.
Solution - Government must control and regulate Internet!
Same plan as always, just different.