High Irony at the CIA
The Washington Post reports that the CIA has launched a task force to assess the impact of the WikiLeaks. Much mirth, apparently, has been occasioned at Headquarters by the Wikileaks Task Force's acronym.
I'm not sure whether the deeper irony of this story is intentional, however. Apparently, they're really congratulating themselves over there about the way they kept themselves out of the cables:
To some agency veterans, WikiLeaks has vindicated the CIA's long-standing aversion to sharing secrets with other government agencies, a posture that came under sharp criticism after it was identified as a factor that contributed to the nation's failure to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Even while moving to share more information over the past decade, the agency "has not capitulated to this business of making everything available to outsiders," said a former high-ranking CIA official who recently retired. "They don't even make everything available to insiders. And by and large the system has worked."
The only hole remaining to be plugged, I suppose, is this "former high-ranking CIA official who recently retired"--as well as about half a dozen other CIA officials who apparently leaked their heads off to the Washington Post.
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Comments :
Nov '10
Re: High Irony at the CIA
Don't forget Senators, who leak info all the time and get away with it.
Jul '10
Re: High Irony at the CIA
Please. DC is a colander. Congressional members, staff, White House staff, Cabinet members, you name it. Manning just showed everyone how modern technology has turned it into a mass production industry for the 21st Century.
Aug '10
Re: High Irony at the CIA
Have Diane Sawyer be in charge, after all she is better informed than the Director of National Intelligence.
Are we missing Negroponte yet ?
Nov '10
Re: High Irony at the CIA
How much should we (citizens) know about what is going on in the classified world? Do we deserve to know classified info?
Jul '10
Re: High Irony at the CIA
Why is the information classified? What does the classification protect? Who would releasing the information harm?
Some of what is being protected is confidential, in the sense of privacy protection. The FBI has files on many, many people chock full of unsubstantiated allegations. Raw intelligence is often no better.
The tension is usually between the public right to know, which covers possible wrong doing, criminal or political, and the government's requirement to protect information that could cause harm if released. The kind of information J. Edgar Hoover abused for decades. But also the kind that keeps 20 more governments from going nuclear in the next five years.
The Hillary memo on UN surveillance is a classic case of embarrassing confirmation of what everyone already knew.
In the Assange case, we can start with the harm caused to thousands of Afghanis friendly to Americans. Assange has given the Taliban an assassination list. At this stage, it appears, with the blessing of the Australian government.
If either side consistently prevails, freedom dies.