Should they post all of those Wiki pages without redaction?
If they hold a press conference and say “we aren’t breaking the law, scouts honor.” will that suffice?
Like I said before, I could be missing something, but unless this wiki dump provides evidence that X law is being broken I don’t see how they can prove they haven’t been breaking the law for whatever time frame the dump covers (13-16 I think).
As I said above, as far as I can tell, the “leak” only shows what they’re capable of doing, not something they’ve done. All they would have to do is say “our ability to hack XYZ is granted by Law suchandsuch and was done with the authorization of soandso.”
They don’t HAVE to prove they weren’t breaking the law. They don’t HAVE to do anything, they’re the CIA. If they want the American public on their side, when shady stuff like this comes out, it would benefit them to give context instead of letting the internet trolls speculate and spread theories.
Haha when has a news statement ever stopped internet trolls?
This stuff is made for conspiracy theory trolls.
I agree and think they should make a statement, even if it’s brief with no specifics.
The problem is the silence. A pretty absurd number of people will flat out accept any statement the CIA/govt puts out. Until that time, everyone and their grandmother (literally) is forced to wonder, and the human imagination doesn’t always paint a pretty picture.
It’s entirely possible that everything being done is above board. It’s entirely possible the CIA has never abused the access they have. Until we hear it from the horse’s mouth, all we can do is speculate.
Edit: Even though none of this most recent leak came as a surprise to me, having it put in the forefront of my mind only leads me to speculate.
This is a really interesting point that deserves more light. Also, is completely sad. But you are correct. People voluntarily give up their enlightenment in the face of too much “confusion”.
I was at a sports performance summit a couple weeks ago and Buddy Morris–a living legend and the head S/C coach for the Arizona Cardinals–drove that point repeatedly: “data isn’t the point. Data is a tool. You have to know how to use it foe it to do any good.”
personal trainers and strength coaches are gettong murdered by this, because they don’t know how to sift and use it. One of the many times I have been glad I am trained as a scientist lol
The problem with a thing like Wikileaks is you cannot just ignore it. Unfortunately, he gets some real shit and either you jump on the info or you get trounced by it.
What strikes me a little odd about the CIA leaks, from what I have read, is these methods of the CIA seem a little old and kind of amateurish. Kind of like ‘The Falcon and the Snowman’ kind of deal. I wonder about the age of the info? Which hopefully is not current, but I guess it could be. And if so, we aren’t really good spies.
The leak is bad and when or if they find the mole(s), I think they are going to get a little more than they bargained for, they may be responsible for a lot of shit. These leaks seem to me to be connected. Whether it’s reported is something else, but it should be public and transparent, trial and all.
I think it’s obvious why Assange doesn’t go after China, Russia, N. Korea, Iran, Suadi Arabia, etc… Those guys don’t care where he is at, they will fucking kill him, unapologetically, and he knows it. He picks on the U.S. because he can get away with it. We are not allowed to assassinate anybody, which is a stupid rule. We may do it behind the scenes, that wouldn’t surprise me, but his would be public as he is a public figure always trying to make a headline.
It’s a stupid rule Carter put in place, which he should have never done because it’s all but impossible to rescind it, now. The public outcry would be large. But the world of espionage is a dank, dirty place where dirty jobs get done and need to be done. Sometimes that requires a trigger being pulled.
Could be its own topic, but we kill entire families of targets. Not just them, but actually end their blood line.
There aren’t direct orders to target them, but man, they end up just as dead.
I shudder to think about a world where Obama (or any POTUS) is issuing assassination orders.
It’s a world that existed prior to the '70’s.
“Assassination” implies leaders, public figures, stuff like that.
You mean like al-zarquawi (sp?) and his kid were us citizens, the kid for sure anyways, and were both killed by drones?
As Zeb would say:
BINGO!
Maybe you mean someone else? Al-zarquawi was an Al Qaeda leader killed in Iraq by W. Bush in '06. I have a very very hard time classifying that as an “assassination.”
Perhaps; or maybe they don’t subcontract national security matters to the lowest bidding private contractor.
Thats what I mean by they end up just as dead. Hussein, Gaddafi, even that recent strike in Yemen.
It doesn’t happen like on TV with a sneaky sniper up on a roof, but man, these people get ended entirely. Just in the course of a regular operation, of course.
You are right. I meant al-Awlaki.
While I agree that it’s splitting hairs to differentiate between an assassination and a military strike, the line has to be drawn somewhere.
The way I look at it, a military strike is more public, while an assassination tends to be sneakier and easier to shift blame.
He wouldn’t necessarily have to release information about one of these countries hacking their own citizens, since as you state, it’s pretty much common knowledge in a dictatorship, but what about their hacking in regards to international espionage? They can release information about the US hacking foreign governments for instance, but no information about China, Russia or N. Korea hacking foreign governments?
Makes me believe Assange is a Russian stooge.