5 ms·

How the US government inadvertently created Wikileaks

104 points by stfu 13y ago

r0h1n 13y ago
> "So here you have a non-US citizen at a foreign university doing graduate work studies, and the United States government came barreling in and not only snuffed out the funding and killed his studies, it also barred him from knowing what it was he had been funded to research." Help me understand this. How could the US Govt bar Assange from knowing what he had already been researching at the University of Melbourne (funded by the NSA and DARPA apparently)?
- tankenmate 13y ago
  I think what they meant was the reasons the work had been funded and how that played into the larger system(s) it was intended for.
  - r0h1n 13y ago
    That's what I surmised too, but the language in the piece is really confusing.
- derefr 13y ago
  If 1. document X becomes classified; 2. you are have a government security clearance; and 3. your government security clearance isn't high enough to be allowed to look at X, then you must not look at X, keep copies of X, etc. even if X is public knowledge. This came up more recently in the context of government employees getting in trouble for having publicly-leaked but still classified documents on their computers. I imagine, if the research you were funded to create is classified out from under you, you have to delete all public copies of it, and have to pretend you don't officially "know" it any more.
  - gpvos 13y ago
    Can Australian citizens have a US security clearance?
    - csharpminor 13y ago
      Yes, foreign nationals are allowed to obtain basic security clearances. However, in the defense and intelligence communities classified material may also be marked "NOFORN" – no foreign nationals regardless of their security clearance.
      - rdl 13y ago
        Usually it would be an Australian clearance and then access to NATO data. I know the rules are different for dod, leo, and IC clearances, too.
      - malandrew 13y ago
        It would be nice if every single government secret classified not classified as NOFORN became public very quickly (a few years at absolute most). I can understand justifications of keeping data marked NOFORN secret for many many years, but see no reason why the American people should support secrecy that lasts any longer than the amount of time it takes to achieve some political objective.
  - r0h1n 13y ago
    That's a plausible explanation. But this is the first time I'm hearing it in the context of Julian Assange's work. The original piece makes it literally impossible to validate because of the absence of any detail whatsoever.
devx 13y ago
I guess you could call this another one of those "blowbacks" that US has been creating by being too aggressive with certain things or people. When tons of documents start to become "classified", when they shouldn't be, this sort of thing is inevitable.
- walid 13y ago
  What is more detrimental is the uselessness of the phrase "classified" in the after math of leaks. When leaks show that a lot of classified documents are not really that important it will desensitize people to the word classified in the long run and when really important and classified info is leaked, it will be treated with carelessness.
- bediger4000 13y ago
  Statistically, real threats are rare, but ambition and corruption are common. Overwhelmingly, the purpose of censorship is not the protection of national security, but the protection of individual careers. That's not ideology, but mathematics. Because there are very, very, few true national secrets, but a huge amounts of information that someone would like to bury for one reason or another. -- Seth Finkelstein, at http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/0526234&mode=flat http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/0526234&... Finkelstein writes "censorship", but you could put "classification" in and get exactly the same result.
walid 13y ago
What is strange is that the government used the classification of information as a way control it. But what stops others from conducting the same research? In fact I would argue that classifying info will result in people pursuing that info even more than other non-classified research. The Streisand effect all over again.
- anonymousDan 13y ago
  Money, no one else will fund it.
NAFV_P 13y ago
Julian should not lie on his side like that to use a computer. You can end up with awful back problems and numb fingers.
- zeckalpha 13y ago
  And awkward photos.
  - NAFV_P 13y ago
    I'm thinking he had trouble finding enough space to use his laptop.
nwzpaperman 13y ago
Wikileaks is nothing new, folks. What is the actual innovation here? Governments and the interested parties that fund them through bond purchases have always over-stepped the practical boundaries in the quest to maintain and increase their power and control in relation to their peers and the masses. It is true, however, that there would be no market for anything such as Wikileaks if there was no opaqueness in the public sector. "Send us an anonymous package with information through post and we will vet it and publish it, if it's juicy" is nothing new under the sun though.
njharman 13y ago
Of course they (and other overly secret governments) did. Wikileaks reason for existence is transparency. US Government's secrecy forced the eventual creation of wikileaks or things like it. Same with Snowden. Protesters, leakers, et al don't spontaneously erupt. They are created by bad governments.
- JumpCrisscross 13y ago
  "Protesters, leakers, et al don't spontaneously erupt. They are created by bad governments." There are two models that could be at work here: (1) "dissident agents" occur randomly (i.e. they do "spontaneously erupt") but have greater value and visibility when they occur amidst bad government or (2) bad governments cause good agents to become "dissident agents". In all likelihood it's a combination of both: people have varying tendencies of becoming "dissidents". Some people will rebel without a cause, others will follow their leaders to hell. Most are in between, more likely to (a) become, and (b) be empowered upon becoming, dissidents the more "bad" a government becomes. There are varying opinions of what constitutes "bad" government. It would not be surprising that there are correlations between certain worldviews and their populations' propensities to engage in dissident activity. Stylised: pro-war advocates might be expected to go dissident quicker than pro-peace advocates. Point is it isn't obvious. The more likely outcome would have been for Julian to have shut up and kept going his way. What made this time different is worth looking into.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

104 points by stfu 13y ago

r0h1n 13y ago

> "So here you have a non-US citizen at a foreign university doing graduate work studies, and the United States government came barreling in and not only snuffed out the funding and killed his studies, it also barred him from knowing what it was he had been funded to research." Help me understand this. How could the US Govt bar Assange from knowing what he had already been researching at the University of Melbourne (funded by the NSA and DARPA apparently)?

tankenmate 13y ago
I think what they meant was the reasons the work had been funded and how that played into the larger system(s) it was intended for.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  That's what I surmised too, but the language in the piece is really confusing.
derefr 13y ago
If 1. document X becomes classified; 2. you are have a government security clearance; and 3. your government security clearance isn't high enough to be allowed to look at X, then you must not look at X, keep copies of X, etc. even if X is public knowledge. This came up more recently in the context of government employees getting in trouble for having publicly-leaked but still classified documents on their computers. I imagine, if the research you were funded to create is classified out from under you, you have to delete all public copies of it, and have to pretend you don't officially "know" it any more.
- gpvos 13y ago
  Can Australian citizens have a US security clearance?
  - csharpminor 13y ago
    Yes, foreign nationals are allowed to obtain basic security clearances. However, in the defense and intelligence communities classified material may also be marked "NOFORN" – no foreign nationals regardless of their security clearance.
    - rdl 13y ago
      Usually it would be an Australian clearance and then access to NATO data. I know the rules are different for dod, leo, and IC clearances, too.
    - malandrew 13y ago
      It would be nice if every single government secret classified not classified as NOFORN became public very quickly (a few years at absolute most). I can understand justifications of keeping data marked NOFORN secret for many many years, but see no reason why the American people should support secrecy that lasts any longer than the amount of time it takes to achieve some political objective.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  That's a plausible explanation. But this is the first time I'm hearing it in the context of Julian Assange's work. The original piece makes it literally impossible to validate because of the absence of any detail whatsoever.

devx 13y ago

I guess you could call this another one of those "blowbacks" that US has been creating by being too aggressive with certain things or people. When tons of documents start to become "classified", when they shouldn't be, this sort of thing is inevitable.

walid 13y ago
What is more detrimental is the uselessness of the phrase "classified" in the after math of leaks. When leaks show that a lot of classified documents are not really that important it will desensitize people to the word classified in the long run and when really important and classified info is leaked, it will be treated with carelessness.
bediger4000 13y ago
Statistically, real threats are rare, but ambition and corruption are common. Overwhelmingly, the purpose of censorship is not the protection of national security, but the protection of individual careers. That's not ideology, but mathematics. Because there are very, very, few true national secrets, but a huge amounts of information that someone would like to bury for one reason or another. -- Seth Finkelstein, at http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/0526234&mode=flat http://grep.law.harvard.edu/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/0526234&... Finkelstein writes "censorship", but you could put "classification" in and get exactly the same result.

walid 13y ago

What is strange is that the government used the classification of information as a way control it. But what stops others from conducting the same research? In fact I would argue that classifying info will result in people pursuing that info even more than other non-classified research. The Streisand effect all over again.

anonymousDan 13y ago
Money, no one else will fund it.

NAFV_P 13y ago

Julian should not lie on his side like that to use a computer. You can end up with awful back problems and numb fingers.

zeckalpha 13y ago
And awkward photos.
- NAFV_P 13y ago
  I'm thinking he had trouble finding enough space to use his laptop.

nwzpaperman 13y ago

Wikileaks is nothing new, folks. What is the actual innovation here? Governments and the interested parties that fund them through bond purchases have always over-stepped the practical boundaries in the quest to maintain and increase their power and control in relation to their peers and the masses. It is true, however, that there would be no market for anything such as Wikileaks if there was no opaqueness in the public sector. "Send us an anonymous package with information through post and we will vet it and publish it, if it's juicy" is nothing new under the sun though.

njharman 13y ago

Of course they (and other overly secret governments) did. Wikileaks reason for existence is transparency. US Government's secrecy forced the eventual creation of wikileaks or things like it. Same with Snowden. Protesters, leakers, et al don't spontaneously erupt. They are created by bad governments.

JumpCrisscross 13y ago
"Protesters, leakers, et al don't spontaneously erupt. They are created by bad governments." There are two models that could be at work here: (1) "dissident agents" occur randomly (i.e. they do "spontaneously erupt") but have greater value and visibility when they occur amidst bad government or (2) bad governments cause good agents to become "dissident agents". In all likelihood it's a combination of both: people have varying tendencies of becoming "dissidents". Some people will rebel without a cause, others will follow their leaders to hell. Most are in between, more likely to (a) become, and (b) be empowered upon becoming, dissidents the more "bad" a government becomes. There are varying opinions of what constitutes "bad" government. It would not be surprising that there are correlations between certain worldviews and their populations' propensities to engage in dissident activity. Stylised: pro-war advocates might be expected to go dissident quicker than pro-peace advocates. Point is it isn't obvious. The more likely outcome would have been for Julian to have shut up and kept going his way. What made this time different is worth looking into.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]