

Letters between Wikileaks and the U.S. Government before the leak - zain
http://documents.nytimes.com/letters-between-wikileaks-and-gov

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ajays
Instead of just whining at WikiLeaks, the USG should have claimed that
included in the cables were a large number of fakes, so that if they were ever
leaked, they'd be able to track down the person who leaked it.

When the leaks happens, point to a few cables and claim that they were fakes.

By insisting that these cables will cause "immeasurable harm" and put
"countless lives at risk", the USG is granting credibility to these cables and
hurting themselves. Instead, fight information with disinformation.

Anyway: that would be my advice.

~~~
icegreentea
I dunno. And then you fight disinformation with information. And in all
likelyhood, someone working there decided that the State Department was going
to get some egg on their face anyways, and attempting to cover it up with
disinformation would just add some bacon and mushrooms and turn it into an
omelet of bad PR. This is the least 'dumb looking' way to attempt to suppress
the information.

Or it's entirely possible that they really believe (or know) that the
information will cause harm and risk, and are doing their best to prevent it.
My understanding is that the State Department is usually staffed with people
who want to do the right thing. In fact, most of the US government is.

Seriously, based on how often people cry foul whenever it appears that some
government is trying to spin/manipulate information, it's probably a better
idea that they didn't try that.

And the fact that you advise that points out to something. Your advice is
probably the correct course of action for any body out to maximize it's self
interest. But people generally don't like that in their governments. Hell,
they don't even like when their governments are cold, calculating and cynical.

~~~
Andrew_Quentin
I do not see how they are trying to do the right thing when in this case the
right thing would have been to state which specific information puts lives at
risk.

The fact that they did not state so simply adds credibility to wikileaks case,
that these are fanciful allegations without any evidence whatever.

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faramarz
Last night I couldn't sleep, so I started reading random cables from this
recent release. Boy was I surprised by the information I found.

In one instance, it appeared the US Ambassador to Russia/Georgia had been
invited to a local tribesmen's son's wedding and goes on to detail every bit
of information about his encounters, very confidential chats and even forecast
what will happen in power struggles because of his conversations with various
top ranking guests.

In the cable he even verbally outlines the structure of the house, how many
exists there are, location etc.. as if to mark a military strike on the
location should there ever need be.

All of this led me to beleive this ambassoder is royally fucked. The fact that
Washington has suggested embassy counselors will be called back/removed from
their post is probably very true and otherwise, these kind of information leak
will put them in great danger.

I'm not sure how WikiLeaks determines what information, such as names, should
be censored while other names are fully visible. This is quite disturbing to
me.

