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When a government employee leaks a document, a crime has been committed. The government's job in this case is to prevent its employees from committing crimes.
by grandalf 17y ago
When a government employee leaks a document, a crime has been committed. The government's job in this case is to prevent its employees from committing crimes.
If instead it takes on its own propaganda effort do discredit a private nonprofit, something stinks.
The CIA is largely a propaganda organization, by the way. One wonders how many Iranian tweets are being funded by US tax dollars and CIA operations.
In my opinion it's completely scary to think that there might be a campaign to discredit wikileaks, but it's a huge relief to see that that document was itself leaked, suggesting that at least some government employees are aware of possible excesses committed by their departments.
If a government agency wanted to discredit wikileaks and didn't feel empowered to simply assassinate the people running it, it could use all sorts of time tested approaches to discredit/discourage it.
- mhansen 17y agoThe CIA is largely a propaganda organization [citation needed]
- barrkel 17y agoI don't think this is seriously in question, is it? For an historical example, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird .
- mhansen 17y agoThanks for the example. Yes, it was a serious question - I thought the CIA was largely an intelligence gathering agency. I hadn't heard of this before.
- digitallogic 17y agoThe CIA has three main responsibilities: 1. On the ground intelligence gathering (ie - Bribing a reluctant member of a militant group for information on their operations and physical location). Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant) 2. Analysis of gathered intelligence and policy recommendation (how trustful is the information from the above described asset, does it mesh with what is already known, and if it is what course of action should be taken). Example: Philip Seymour Hoffman's character in Charlie Wilson's War, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Wilson%27s_War 3. Clandestine operations (carrying out of policy recommendations in #2 that can't be performed by traditional military forces, say the group in question is determined to present a credible threat and needs to be neutralized but is headquartered in Iran). Example: Bay of pigs invasion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion
- cynicalkane 17y agoThat doesn't make it "largely" a propaganda organization. This is important, since a large amount of what's being discussed here hinges on what the CIA "is", or at least can be seen to be.
- grandalf 17y ago- Thare are laws explicitly prohibiting the CIA from producing propaganda intended to influence US citizens in the US (the infamous NY Times' Ahmed Chalabi Iraq chemical weapons truck articles were in violation of these laws and came to exist semi-accidentally b/c the CIA funded Chalabi who generated the "smoking gun" photo which was picked up by the British press and then the US press). - We all know that the CIA funds things like opposition groups, etc. Funds them to do what? Buy guns? Recruit new members? The membership recruitment aspect is obviously propaganda, and I think one could easily consider (for example) a bomb detonated by an opposition group to be propaganda, much like a radio spot or infomercial.
- pavs 17y agoYou must be kidding me. Please do some research on CIA history. Even the most ardent supporters of CIA knows this.
- ErrantX 17y ago> If instead it takes on its own propaganda effort do discredit a private nonprofit, something stinks. I'm not sure if that makes sense. As I read (and I note others have agreed with me on this interpretation) they are saying: - lets find some of those leaks and publicly expose them - and in doing so people will be more concerned about going to wikileaks potentially "destroying" them as a conduit for release. I'm not sure I see the problem there.... if it talked about assassinating them then I'd be pretty concerned to be honest :)
- grandalf 17y agoNote that lots of governments besides the US government are angry at Wikileaks.
- GHFigs 17y agoIn my opinion it's completely scary to think that there might be a campaign to discredit wikileaks, but it's a huge relief to see that that document was itself leaked, suggesting that at least some government employees are aware of possible excesses committed by their departments. Which document are you referring to?
- grandalf 17y agoThe army intelligence assessment doc that was circulated a few days ago.