Loss of Privacy

We spend the hour with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, talking about the biggest leak in US history: the release of more than 91,000 classified military records on the war in Afghanistan. As the Pentagon announces it is launching a criminal probe into who leaked the documents, Assange asks what about investigating the “war crimes” revealed in the leaked military records? He also talks about the media, why he isn’t coming to the US anytime soon, and what gives him hope. “What keeps us going is our sources. These are the people, presumably, who are inside these organizations, who want change,” Assange says. “They are both heroic figures taking much greater risks than I ever do, and they are pushing and showing that they want change in, in fact, an extremely effective way.”

Transcript here.

Wikileaks has released 92,201 records pertaining to Afghanistan, including intelligence reports and paramilitary operations. In the leak, Pakistan is identified as an insurgent ally.

Wikileaks editor Julian Assange, in an exclusive interview with Channel 4 News said he believes this is “the most comprehensive history of a war ever to be published – during the course of the war”.

The Afghan War Diary an extraordinary secret compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The reports describe the majority of lethal military actions involving the United States military. They include the number of persons internally stated to be killed, wounded, or detained during each action, together with the precise geographical location of each event, and the military units involved and major weapon systems used.

The White House is condemning the release. No surprise there.

Reaction in Washington political circles is already beginning. The Times posted a White House memo to reporters sent Sunday evening, without naming which Obama aide wrote it, seeking to downplay the disclosure as not surprising, and saying that “Wikileaks is not an objective news outlet but rather an organization that opposes U.S. policy in Afghanistan.” And Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Foreign Relations Committee, said the release demonstrates that “calibrations” to the U.S. policy toward Afghanistan were necessary.

The time line and spin from the White House at the New York Times.
The Guardian has an interactive map detailing events related to the leak.  They have some of the best coverage detailing the events and the leak.
Channel 4 has several stories and the video below about the unseen Afghan war.

CNN has an article. If CNN does what it usually does, there will be pentagon officials speaking on the news about how bad the leak is and not discussing what’s actually in the leak.
Boing Boing has a story with several links to other places to read and digest the information.
Spiegel also has a story and some photos.
Glenn Greenwald wrote a piece last week about the motives behind the whistle-blower prosecutions. It’s highly relevant to this story.
Reddit also has a very lively discussion on the matter.

WikiLeaks is down at the moment, unable to sustain the weight of the hits it’s receiving over this current leak. The documents in question can be found here and a dedicated website for the information can be found here. In the meantime, you can also grab a torrent of the files and download it. This will help decrease the load on the WikiLeaks page.

One of the more interesting aspects to this entire story is the recurrent question of why does WikiLeaks now do the investigative journalism that the newspapers should be doing? Yes, they are reporting on the story, but it is WikiLeaks that is gathering information and it is Julian Assange that is putting his ass on the line. Granted, he had some major help from places, such as the Guardian, in figuring out what it was that he had, but regular journalists used to perform this task. WikiLeaks essentially become the middleman as the newspapers are afraid to take a stand. Still, credit needs to be given to the Guardian for taking a small stand and sifting through and categorizing the information and helping Assange.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the quagmire that is Afghanistan should be reading this. Then, consider donating to WikiLeaks so they can continue their work.

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