Some Sanity From Those In Power In The US Government, Concerning TSA Security & Wikileaks

from the they're-not-all-crazy! dept

While we've been highlighting the absolutely ridiculous responses by the US government to both the terrorism threat to airlines and the Wikileaks situation, it should be noted (thankfully!) that not everyone in the US government is overreacting, and there are some clear signs of sanity.

First up, we have Aaron Farnham pointing us to Defense Secretary Robert Gates' response to the Wikileaks disclosure of diplomatic cables, that seems to take a much more rational view:
But let me -- let me just offer some perspective as somebody who's been at this a long time. Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time. And I dragged this up the other day when I was looking at some of these prospective releases. And this is a quote from John Adams: "How can a government go on, publishing all of their negotiations with foreign nations, I know not. To me, it appears as dangerous and pernicious as it is novel." . . .

Now, I've heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think -- I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.

Many governments -- some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation. So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.
The full statement has even more details, where he talks about better information sharing. Given some of the responses from others inside and outside the government, it's nice to see someone like Secretary Gates (who has been quite critical of Wikileaks in the past), come out with a more reasoned response (though it has received almost no press coverage).

Similarly, Wired has an article highlighting how Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, is speaking more reasonably about anti-terrorism efforts and security as well, noting (as we have in the past) that "perfect security" is an impossible goal that is, itself, damaging to security.

He points out that the US appears to be playing right into Al Qaeda's hands by playing up each failed terrorist attempt and then overreacting to it, noting that (like internet trolls), a better response might be to just ignore them publicly, while continuing to do things quietly on the back end to protect the country.

I don't agree with everything he had to say, but given how many frustrating responses we've seen from government officials on both of these issues over the last few weeks, it's worth pointing out that not everyone is responding that way.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: government, michael leiter, reaction, robert gates, terrorism, tsa, wikileaks
Companies: tsa, wikileaks


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • icon
    Robert Ring (profile), 3 Dec 2010 @ 6:32pm

    More like this.

    I swear, reading the news nowadays makes me feel like 100% of everyone in power is either corrupt, stupid, or a moderate combination of the two. It's nice to hear stuff like this

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 4 Dec 2010 @ 4:05am

      Re: More like this.

      "It's nice to hear stuff like this."

      Slashdot has a tag for articles where this happen: suddenoutbreakofcommonsense.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2010 @ 6:42pm

    Why do you think these reasoned responses gain little media attention? Because its boring and it won't sell.

    Robert, that is the problem, the media isn't interested in news, it is interested in ratings. Hype sells so that is what gets reported.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Mr Big Content, 3 Dec 2010 @ 7:13pm

    And So We Sniff Out The Traitors...

    Interesting to see who are the traitors within the Administration who are in the pay of Al-Quaida and Osama Bin Leaden—they are the ones who, like Gates, are downplaying the treasonous actions of Wikileaks, instead of taking a zero-tolerance approach to such blatant threats to our security. Let us flush out all those expressing these kinds of subversive sympathies for our mortal enemies, round them up and ship them off to Guantamano Bay, where they can rot in h*ck as they deserve.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2010 @ 7:51pm

      Re: And So We Sniff Out The Traitors...

      Oh, yanno what I always say to people who tell me to rot in h*ck...

      I'll save you a seat. ;)

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Pontifex (profile), 3 Dec 2010 @ 8:57pm

      Re: And So We Sniff Out The Traitors...

      For a moment, I thought you were serious.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      harbingerofdoom (profile), 4 Dec 2010 @ 6:07am

      Re: And So We Sniff Out The Traitors...

      obvious troll is obvious.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      abc gum, 4 Dec 2010 @ 8:55am

      Re: And So We Sniff Out The Traitors...

      LOL - that was funny ... oh wait, you were serious?
      This internet thingie is soo confusing.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 4 Dec 2010 @ 10:14am

      Re: And So We Sniff Out The Traitors...

      1. I live in a country that has freedom of speech, even though its under attack by people like you, i still hope that it remains together
      2. USA will always have enemy's, it went from communism to fundamental terrorist; still, i was more worried about the world getting destroyed before i woke up when i was a child, now, its the very very very small chance of a dirty bomb. Things have improved
      3. Sacrificing not only our beliefs, but our very system is how the terrorist will destroy this country, they have no army that can do it, only through fear, and man you are dancing to the fiddlers tune
      4. The person to charge is the person who leaked, if you want to charge someone else, then you need to attack freedom of the press, because wiki-leaks have been around for awhile, it is only the mainstream media that made them famous.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      ClintJCL, 5 Dec 2010 @ 1:27pm

      Rot in hell

      Oh wait, the article said to ignore internet trolls.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2010 @ 8:43pm

    Twitter talked about wikileaks more then sports

    Take a look at some twitter trends which shows that with the exception of the FIFA world cup announcement, these leaks dwarf sport. Even in the FIFA case, WikiLeaks has come into play with some commenters in the UK calling Russia a "mafia" state (two British papers Guardian daily sun, Google has plenty more). The NFL was beat out by WikiLeaks last Sunday and at the rate things are going it will be beat out again this week. Even the generic term football gets beat out except for the FIFA case.

    Take this all with a grain of salt, but I believe this shows that WikiLeaks news is getting out despite all efforts against it.

    Something else to note, I'm not sure how often this happens on twitter trends, but take a look at how constantly WikiLeaks is being mentioned. Its regularly around 0.5% up through 2.1% of all tweets, averaging roughly at 1%. This is over the course of close to 6 days and counting! Has a topic been this popular on twitter before?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    sum guy, 4 Dec 2010 @ 9:25am

    "taking a zero-tolerance approach to such blatant threats to our security"

    don't know if your serious or sarcastic, but when has a zero tolerance policy ever worked? for anything?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Pwdrskir (profile), 4 Dec 2010 @ 9:21pm

    Traitors like Scooter??

    I can’t wait to see how the documents released by Wikileaks stack up to what Scooter Libby was convicted, fined and commuted for doing. http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ax4co5

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 5 Dec 2010 @ 3:32am

    Build your own porno-scan.

    http://hackaday.com/2010/12/03/make-your-own-tsa-naked-scanner/

    ps: If you start glowing green or get big lumps on your body I'm not responsible.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.