While Wikileaks makes headline this week for releasing thousands of diplomatic cables, clueless journalist Tom Chivers of the telegraph does a roundup of “Wikileaks’ 10 greatest stories“. He lists this without realizing that Wikileaks was late to the party started on Climate blogs, including Climate Audit, The Air Vent, Climate-Skeptic.com, Lucia’s Blackboard, and WUWT.
More than 1,000 emails sent over 10 years by staff at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit were posted on Wikileaks after being accessed by a hacker. They appeared to show that scientists engaged in “tricks” to help bolster arguments that global warming is real and man-made. One said: “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The report was described by sceptical commenters as “the worst scientific scandal of our generation“. The head of the CRU, Professor Phil Jones, stepped down from his role in the wake of the leak, although following a House of Commons inquiry which found that he had no case to answer he was reinstated.
This reporter’s lack of research aside, the Wikileaks issue and it’s damaging impacts are summed up quite well in this article from the Globe and Mail by a former diplomat who was responsible for reporting on human rights violations:
It’s not just the militant activist in Guelph, Ont., reading the cables. It’s the military dictatorships and the secret police in capitals all around the world. In the days and weeks ahead, people who dared to share information with U.S. diplomats will be rounded up. And thousands more who may have been willing to pass on pictures of tortured bodies will keep them in the desk drawer instead.
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By the WAY! One other thing I thought about…
CODING! (Sorry to go on twice about this..)
But I remember, during my “Civil Air Patrol Days” being on an air base and seeing a document labeled “TOP SECRET”. I informed an AF officer who properly secured it.
He did come back to me and say, “Did you see anything?” I noted it must have been some addressing or labeling as it was “random numbers”. He laughed and said, “That was an ENCODED document, and is only DECODED for the recipient and then DESTROYED…”
HUM….laziness anyone?
Max
Pascvaks says:
December 1, 2010 at 7:15 am
I vote for incompetent.
I notice a number of comparisons between the fact that State Department Info WAS leaked but MI-5 and other INTELLIGENCE agencies info was not leaked. Is there really a comparison here?? The US State Department, although working with very sensitive information at times, is USED by security agencies, and NOT TRUSTED by them!!!
The US State Department is a Bureaucracy that had outgrown its usefulness decades ago!! It has worked against the Congress and Executive numerous times. How any President doesn’t come into Office and simply dissolve the mess I do not know.
Wikipedia co-founder and Ohio State alum Larry Sanger distances Wikipedia from Wikileaks in an article published this morning in the OSU Lantern, at http://www.thelantern.com/campus/alum-speaks-out-against-wikileaks-1.1813044.
According to the interview, “A ‘wiki’ is a website that lets Web users edit and create linked pages. WikiLeads has strayed from that definition, as it can be edited only by WikiLeaks employees.”
The interview does not mention Assange’s Climategate claims, but with reference to the diplomatic leaks, it reports that “On Thursday and Friday, Sanger wrote a series of Tweets saying that WikiLeaks is an enemy of the U.S. and should be dealt with accordingly.”
“‘He’s an international outlaw,’ Sanger said. ‘He keeps doing things that directly attack … perfectly legitimate government operations.'”
[Also posted on CA and tAV].
Tim Williams says:
December 1, 2010 at 7:41 am
The pride you so obviously take in your role in disseminating a few, cherry picked, quotes out of context from an enormous amount of hacked private email with the probable intent of disrupting the Copenhagen climate talks is really….touching…. Blah, blah, blah…
Tim-bob – if you’d like a copy of the original dataset from the Russian servers, I’d be happy to forward you a copy – send me an address through Anthony – you can read them ALL, at your leisure. Come back when you’re done for remediation. Quoting that string of vacuous links only demonstates you have no critical thinking ability, or are just plain lazy.
Hotrod Larry – “…It is that cross checking and assembling a picture from hundreds of bits of information where the damage will come….” Absolutely.
I don’t really understand the criticism of the Telegraph here. They don’t seem to have an editorial agenda and more or less just let their contributors get on with it.
Compare this with the Guardian that not only doesn’t allow any dissent from it’s agenda but actually inserts insults into it’s contributers pieces in order to stir the pot.
The poisonous influence of GuardianEco
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2010/11/29/the-poisonous-influence-of-guardianeco.html
“Someone should tell Norfolk police. They’ve wasted a year and a lot of taxpayers money looking for the hackers!”
Have they ? I doubt it.
They probably realised rapidly (with the help of the anti-terrorist group that was sent in to help them) that it was not a case of intrusion. Then they were told not to make any statement about it since the political powers that be wanted to let “illegal hacker” smears distract from the content.
It is now being blamed on WikiLeaks so as to weaken public support for Assange.
Copenhagen was not his fault , it’s because of him that we could not save the planet (what a bastard). The billions of people that will now die when the glaciers are gone in 2035 will be BLOOD ON HIS HANDS, I tell you.
Long time reader says: December 1, 2010 at 4:27 am
So leaks are OK when scientists are behaving badly but not OK when goverments are behaving badly? ……In my opinion whoever leaked them to Wikileaks is a hero.
———————————————————————————
Long time reader: Get real. The first responsibility of any government is to defend the nation. This means that it has to take actions that are unpalatable under normal civilian conditions such as gathering intelligence (and nastier) to achieve this. It has happened since time immemorial and always will if that nation is to remain. That is why secret documents remain so (and should) until well after the event. (Consider what Churchill and Roosevelt did and said during WW11) You simply cannot compare the two situations.
Douglas.
MartinGAtkins
Your point about the Guardian well made.
Let us not forget also that the Guardian is one of the agents assisting in sorting through the leaked documents before they are published on Wikileaks, so you can be certain that they will be applying their usual leftist filter to whatever they offer for publishing.
funny to see everyone’s panties all twisted up!
Wikileaks is obviously an intelligence operation….the telegraph, cnn, and the nyt are simply running a marketing campaign for CIA/Mossad, or whoever is behind them…and whoever is behind them.
if Wiki-Leaks employees take their job seriously, one of them should leak Wiki-Leak internals about the background of all their own untrue statements, the misleading of the public and why Climategate was so neglected.
It is surprising the number of bloggers who think Wikileaks is exactly what it says on the tin.
Here is some pause for thought.
http://stream.adamdodson.org/items/view/3071
Blunder Anthony?? Blunder?
I knew this wikileaks thing was all just bullocks from the moment it appeared on EVERY mainstream media outlet known to man.
But I did not know what their agenda was.. why do this?
This article makes it all so clear.
Its all just Hegelian Dialectic..
The leaks have proven to be a problem.. so you create a leak yourself.. and control the situation.
Now all leaks are from wikileaks?? what?!?
None.. I repeat NONE of this wikileaks bullocks is real.
If you read “Charlie Wilson’s War” you learn all the major secret services work together, supposed friends or foes. They work for reasons other than us or at least not the majority of us. What if Assange is but a script that is being played out for the majority?
I think the threat to expose a major US bank will break their neck, as I suppose that many of their anti US friends are also connected with big money.
From what I’ve read in the released cables, I haven’t learned anything that I didn’t already know, or surmised…..”China doesn’t know how to control North Korea,” “Arab leaders want Iranian nukes taken out” etc.
I agree with many that foreign sources in China etc. will probably end up with the bullet behind the ear, they play for keeps over there (unlike the US!).
Well I donated to wikileaks yesterday. I think the world is a better place for having a wikileaks in it. Secrets are dangerous and the world has far too many of them. And courts the world over are far too quick to declare things secret and attempt to control what Journalists can and cannot say. There is a lot of corruption and nastiness hiding out there that needs to be exposed to the light of day.
These huge US government leaks have actually been the worst thing that ever happened to wikileaks. The site itself is now barely functional, and the huge cache of other useful smaller leaks blowing the lid off corporate corruption or govenmment misbehavior all over the world are now difficult to access.
Several wikileaks founders have left and are trying to split off an alternative site or sites. I fear that wikileaks itself may not survive. But hopefully like the hydra – ten new wikileaks will arise from the ashes of the first as the concept has clearly proved itself a success.
The Telegraph’s website is to go behind a pay wall shortly. That should ensure that this once esteemed newspaper diminishes even further in terms of its influence. The Times is said to have lost 95% of its traffic since it took similar action a couple of months back. I suspect that the MSM are desperate to get themselves out of the line of fire from bloggers such as yourself, Anthony.
REPLY: Doubtful, the truth is they are starving for revenue. The old ad model for newspapers has been dying. – Anthony
REPLY: Doubtful, the truth is they are starving for revenue. The old ad model for newspapers has been dying. – Anthony
That is a good point. It doesn’t work anymore. Perhaps if they offer good articles, good reading, and , last but not the least, change sides (this will be the more painful part), they will get readers again.
Now that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has done a political aboutface and wants WikiLeaks shut down (after the damage is done and a new majority is in the House), public attention should turned to the potentially even more disasterous legislative garbage which the Democrats may try to pass in response to this crisis.
An analysis by Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano:
“The whole post-911 mantra was the need to share, the need to share, the need to share,” says Heritage Foundation foreign-policy expert James Carafano. “All that is going to be great, until some share gives up to an al-Qaida operative all the intel he got from DHS.
“This was going to happen eventually,” he tells Newsmax. “… The need to share is far more important than all the [intelligence] compromises.
…Stopping leaks is difficult, when so many people have access to the information, he says.
“If you want to roll it back to where we have strict compartmentalization, you can do that,” says Lowenthal. “Now we’re back in the situation where everyone is in these little silos, and nobody knows what everybody else is doing. This is the problem with the world we live in – those are your choices and they aren’t pretty.”
Lowenthal, like Carafano, would rather err on the side of stopping the next major terrorist attack. Newsmax
Neither would I be surprised if there were some kind of back door effort at increased controls over the internet, similar to this:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/censorship-internet-takes-center-stage-online
nobby –
there are two tom chivers and i’m not sure this one ever worked for the Guardian.
however, it seems Louise Gray did a brief spell at the Guardian after leaving The Scotsman (where she covered social and political affairs before touching on CAGW with Bjorn Lomborg – see below) and before joining the Telegraph.
29 Sept 2006: Scotsman: Louise Gray: Climate change is good for Scotland –
professor
Climate change in Scotland will lead to ‘fewer deaths from cold’ Professor
Lomborg argues reducing carbon emissions will have little effect Professor
accuses lobbyists of ‘scaremongering’ leading to public ‘hysteria’..
http://news.scotsman.com/climatechange/Climate-change-is-good-for.2814470.jp
Louise’s long list of alarmist pieces for the Tele ends with the Guardian article below:
Journalisted: Louise Gray
1476 articles (since February 2008)
http://journalisted.com/louise-gray?allarticles=yes
18 Feb 2008: Guardian: Louise Gray: Green worker
Booking a business trip? Think about the transport you choose
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/feb/18/green
this April 08 piece was possibly written prior to Gray moving to Tele, but published after she moved:
28 April 2008: Guardian: Green-eyed monsters
Is your workplace full of eco-refuseniks, forever hindering your best
efforts to save the planet? Or, asks Louise Gray, could it be possible that
they have a point?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/28/workandcareers
except for the April 08 Guardian piece, Louise has no links at the Scotsman or the Guardian after the time she appears at the Tele. if Louise wishes to dispute the above, she is free to do so.
the Tele has Lean and Gray for alarmism, Booker on Sundays for the sceptics and a Delingpole blog. however, the weight of articles leans (no pun intended) heavily towards the alarmist side. CAGW is not a left/right thing.
Ian H – I’m of two minds on wikileaks.
First off, they’re under no particular obligation NOT to publish something that falls in their lap. They might elect to do so out of various ethical concerns, but that’s about it.
If they go out in pursuit of material and bomb, bait, or bully someone like PFC Manning into providing it, then that might be a different story.
Now, Private Manning on the other hand has pretty much violated every principle of conduct he’d signed up to, and if he were shot at dawn I’d have no particular trouble with it.
As for the content of the material thus far – I see little that brings discredit on the US, and much that reinforces the need for a robust political and military posture overseas.
Remember, the Community Organizer and Great Reformer in Cheif stands ready to help with all your speech and internet needs.
1. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a 47-page bureaucratic plan for the “Reinvention of Journalism” that outlines a series of taxes and also
establishes a journalism division of AmeriCorps with government underwriting the training of young journalists, provides tax incentives per news employee, increases funding of public broadcasting, and proposes a 5% tax on consumer electronics and/or assessments on users of public airwaves.
2. The Obama administration has announced plans to regulate the Internet through the Federal Communications Commission, extending its authority over broadband providers to police web traffic, enforcing “net neutrality.”
Last week, a congressional hearing exposed an effort to give another agency—the Federal Election Commission—unprecedented power to regulate political speech online. At a House Administration Committee hearing last Tuesday, Patton Boggs attorney William McGinley explained that the sloppy statutory language in the “DISCLOSE Act” would extend the FEC’s control over broadcast communications to all “covered communications,” including the blogosphere. reason.com
3. “Information freedom supports the peace and security that provides a foundation for global progress. Historically, asymmetrical access to information is one of the leading causes of interstate conflict. When we face serious disputes or dangerous incidents, it’s critical that people on both sides of the problem have access to the same set of facts and opinions.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
More good laughs from The Telegraph, from an AGW crisis parrot who seems to have been eating stale crackers at Cancun:
“Cancun climate change summit: small island states in danger of ‘extinction’
Protect us from becoming an ‘endangered species’ say small island states as UN report shows devastation from sea level rise.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8170075/Cancun-climate-change-summit-small-island-states-in-danger-of-extinction.html
As many of the commenters – who are almost all snickering at this article, at Cancun, and at the whole AGW tall tale – on this article have noted, that story has been totally debunked… even in the BBC was forced to admit that.
But, quoting the infamous Patchy de la IPCC, this parrot gives us some hope:
“Cancun climate change summit: UN considers putting mirrors in space
UN scientists are to consider moves such as putting mirrors in space and sprinkling iron in the sea in an attempt to cut global warming, the head of the IPCC said.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8169039/Cancun-climate-change-summit-UN-considers-putting-mirrors-in-space.html
Thank goodness for the UN!
And more laughs from an unidentified parrot:
“Polar bears spotted swimming with cubs on back
It is thought the practice is new and the result of the bears having to swim longer distance in the sea because of reductions in the Arctic ice in the summer.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/8168213/Polar-bears-spotted-swimming-with-cubs-on-back.html
On the bright side, the comments on all these stories reveal that this Emporer has no clothes and, judging by the level of ridicule, the cold has created significant shrinkage.