Wasn't The Real Security Problem The Initial Leak Of State Dept. Cables Rather Than The Latest Leak Of Those Same Cables?

from the playing-the-blame-game dept

One of the myths around Wikileaks' original release of State Department cables was that the organization simply dumped all the cables unredacted and let everyone sort it out. That's simply not true. Wikileaks released only small batches of documents at a time, mostly in conjunction with newspaper reporters, and redacted sensitive info. While Wikileaks just did a big dump of additional cables, the big news that people are focused on is how a German newspaper found an encrypted file of all the cables that apparently has no redactions at all, and has a password that is easy to find. While the details aren't entirely clear, most of the evidence seems to suggest some sort of human error, in placing the encrypted file online and then, later, accidentally releasing the password to the file.

While it does seem like there's a fair bit of bad security and bad process on the part of Wikileaks, it does seem to be a little odd to pin the full blame on Wikileaks and various hacker groups as Paul Carr does here in his story on the new file:

In truth, it almost doesn’t matter who is responsible: the eventual release of the unredacted cables was inevitable. The message of Wikileaks — and the amoral cult of leaking for lulz that came in its wake — has always been one of callous contempt for the human cost of “free information”. From Assange’s well-publicised remarks to Guardian reporters that “if [informants] get killed, they’ve got it coming to them. They deserve it.”, to LulSec [sic] and Anonymous’ willingness to publish the personal details of anyone even tangentially associated with their ‘enemies’, what we see time and time again from mass-leakers is a sociopath’s disregard for individuals, combined with a Hollywood serial killer’s hunger for attention. Sooner of later — for attention, to make some misguided political point, for the lulz — someone was bound to obtain and leak the raw documents.

But all of this ignores where these documents came from originally. These cables were apparently available to hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of people within the government if they wanted to look at them. At that level of accessibility, it's not hard to realize that lots of people had these documents, and there's a fair likelihood that those working for foreign interests were able to get their hands on these documents long ago. The only folks who didn't have them were the public.

Now, I do disagree with the tactics that Anonymous and LulzSec tend to take (and, honestly, am still surprised that their attacks have been so effective). But, that's mainly because I just don't think such things legitimately move issues forward. Instead, they focus the discussion on the hacks, rather than the content of the hacks, and get people focused on what they believe to be a bunch of script kiddies (whether it's true or not).

But I think it's a bit silly to blame their attitude and hackings for this release. The documents and their details were almost certainly "available" to various foreign parties long before anyone leaked them to Wikleaks. While this latest release certainly shows some serious process problems with Wikileaks (no surprise there), it's kind of amazing that people aren't pointing out that the much bigger security/process problem was at the beginning of the chain, in which the documents were available to so many different people without much security or protection in the first place.

Filed Under: leaks, state department cables, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Wikileaks Can Receive Visa & Mastercard Donations Again... But Visa Doesn't Understand Why

from the for-the-lulz? dept

Last week, Wikileaks and Datacell threatened to sue Mastercard, Visa and Paypal if it didn't stop blocking payments to Wikileaks. The claims were basically collusion charges, in that all of the major payment companies were blocking payments. Things got strange today, however, when suddenly Datacell announced that payments worked again, and clearly implied that the companies had lifted the blockade. Except, Visa is insisting that it has not lifted its ban on Wikileaks and has no idea how payments are getting through. The details seem a bit sketchy. Some careful wording by Datacell's CEO suggest that he really just found an alternative payment gateway provider, which likely means this is a very temporary loophole, before the payment companies block again.

Filed Under: antitrust, collusion, europe, wikileaks
Companies: datacell, mastercard, paypal, visa, wikileaks

WikiLeaks Planning Legal Action Against PayPal, MasterCard & Visa

from the thought-this-would-go-away? dept

There hasn't been much talk lately over the fact that PayPal, MasterCard and Visa all cut off Wikileaks late last year, after the US government freaked out about the release of some State Department Cables. None of the firms has done a very good job explaining why this makes sense (or why they continue to allow other groups, such as the KKK to receive funding, while singling out Wikileaks). I'm sure those three firms, which took quite a public bashing when the news originally dropped, would prefer that there not be any more talk about it. However, Wikileaks and the payment firm they used, DataCell, are apparently planning to file a legal complaint this week against all three firms in Europe. A draft of the complaint, which was obtained by Andy Greenberg at Forbes (linked above and embedded below), claims that the three firms violated Articles 101 and 102 of the EU Treaty, effectively a form of antitrust law. While I tend to think many antitrust claims are merely attacks on successful companies, this seems like a case where they could make sense. Here you have basically the only three ways for most people to transfer money easily, all agreeing to block a single (small) client from receiving money, despite no legal ruling against the operation (hell, charges haven't even been filed). It certainly would make for an interesting case.

Filed Under: antitrust, collusion, europe, wikileaks
Companies: mastercard, paypal, visa, wikileaks

ACLU Drags The State Department To Court For Its Failure To Declassify Publicly Available Documents

from the joseph-heller's-coffin-clocked-at-over-7,200-rpm dept

Of all the spectacle surrounding the Wikileaks/Cablegate situation, nothing has proven to be more bizarre than the U.S. government's actions and policies concerning the continued classification of the leaked cables. One of its first efforts was its patented "escalating response", in which it first blocked off the Wikileaks site, followed by any site with the word Wikileaks in the title and, when this didn't seem to be burying its employees' heads in the sand quickly enough, it reached out to various security firms to see if they could build some sort of Wikileaks filtering system for its computers.

Things turned even more surreal when lawyers for Guantanamo detainees were not allowed to view leaked documents that had been published online by various news services. When is public information not truly "public?" Well, when it's "classified," of course. Had the principles not been currently fighting a legal battle in a U.S. court, they could have joined the rest of the U.S. (and the world) in reading and using these leaked documents.

In the business world, if a document is considered secret, it's commonly accepted that if it becomes public by other means, those with a contractual obligation not to discuss are now free from their obligations. This makes sense. Pretending that documents that are publicly available for all and which have been widely discussed in the press are not "public" doesn't make sense.

With a recently filed lawsuit against the State Department, the ACLU hopes to bring this legal catch-22 to its illogical conclusion and make publicly published documents officially public. Andy Greenberg (Forbes) explains the ACLU's rationale:

Given that all those memos have already been covered by the news media, why bother to declassify them anyway? "The point is to expose the legal fiction that the secrecy system rests on," says Ben Wizner, a staff attorney for the ACLU. "The government uses this formality of secrecy to avoid having to answer for real violations of the law."

Wizner says that keeping the documents classified makes them much more difficult to use in courts, for instance, and allows the government to avoid confirming their authenticity.

The files that WikiLeaks released on Guantanamo detainees in April, for example, can’t be used by the defense lawyers for those prisoners unless they’re viewed in a secure government facility. “Government employees can’t read the New York Times. When I go to court in a real lawsuit seeking to get compensation for a victim’s ordeal and hold people liable, I can’t use this information,” Wizner says.

This should prove to be an alternately infuriating and entertaining case. There's going to be a whole lot of circular reasoning in play, all of it under the pretense of protecting state secrets that everyone already knows. The sad part is that taxpayers will be footing the bill for the government's last-ditch attempt to close several barn doors, while warily keeping an eye on all the free-roaming horses.

Filed Under: cables, classifications, state department, wikileaks
Companies: aclu, wikileaks

Former Obama Advisor Says Wikileaks Is Wonderful For The US Government

from the if-only-he-would-tell-Obama-that dept

While the White House seems to be doing whatever it possibly can to try to file charges against folks involved in Wikileaks, a former Obama adviser is talking up how wonderful Wikileaks has been for the US government, in that it's helped people understand the "challenges" the US faces. Mike Nelson who at one point was White House director for technology policy on IT says that the US government shouldn't hate Wikileaks for the release of all those State Department documents:

“The US diplomats actually came out looking pretty good because the same thing they were saying in private was the same thing they were saying in public," he said.

"The data that was divulged provided a lot of the justification for policies that the US government had been undertaking for years."

Nelson said that the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, held a press conference to denounce WikiLeaks as a fraud because of leaked cables describing meetings between US ambassadors and heads of state in Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

"Memo after memo said, 'The head of state reports that the guy across the [Persian] Gulf is crazy and they want the US government to do something about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad'," Nelson said.

"In public the heads of state would never say that, which was why Ahmadinejad concluded the memos were fake because he thought he was well-loved by his Arab brothers.

"Releasing this information is giving people a better understanding of the challenges that [US] foreign policy makers face."

Later, he said that he hoped such revelations from Wikileaks would lead to more open discussions by governments, rather than trying to keep everything secret.

"If there is a corrupt official taking million dollar bribes from the Russians, maybe that should be public knowledge rather than hidden in a WikiLeaks cable?" he said.

I assume he meant a State Department cable, but the point makes a lot of sense. Too bad so few people in government seem to agree.

Filed Under: mike nelson, us government, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

White House Ramps Up Efforts To Criminalize Wikileaks, As Witnesses Refuse To 'Cooperate'

from the this-is-the-new-transparency? dept

We've discussed a few times how, despite all the promises of transparency and protection for whistleblowers from President Obama, the Obama administration has been by far the most aggressive presidential administration in going after leakers and trying to charge them with crimes. So it was little surprise that the feds were putting tremendous pressure on folks like Bradley Manning to admit to a "conspiracy" involving Wikileaks. Manning refused to play along, so now the feds are broadly widening their investigation, issuing all sorts of random subpoenas on people with very, very distant relations to Wikileaks, seeking something (anything!) that can be used to bring charges under the Espionage Act.

Meanwhile, many who are being called as witnesses are refusing to participate, and may face jailtime themselves:

But it also highlights a very important potential controversy: the refusal of numerous witnesses to cooperate in any way with this pernicious investigation. One witness who has appeared before the Grand Jury has already refused to answer any questions beyond the most basic biographical ones (name and address), invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to do so, and other witnesses are highly likely to follow suit.

One option for federal prosecutors when facing a witness who refuses to answer questions on this basis is to offer them immunity, meaning that nothing they say when testifying can be used to prosecute them (they can still be prosecuted, just not with the aid of anything they say while testifying). Such an offer then precludes further invocations of the self-incrimination privilege as a grounds for refusing to answer questions, as it means there is no longer any danger that the witness could incriminate themselves by testifying. In the event the government makes such an offer, the court would almost certainly compel the witness to answer questions. But at least some of those witnesses -- ones who have already been subpoenaed or are likely to be -- intend to refuse to answer questions anyway, risking an almost-certain finding of contempt of court, which typically carries jail terms as a means of forcing testimony.

One witness or potential witness who is considering that form of civil disobedience told me they view the attempt to criminalize WikiLeaks as such a profound assault on basic freedoms, including press freedoms -- one motivated by a desire to conceal government wrongdoing and illegality -- that they would rather be imprisoned than cooperate in any way with those efforts. That is the mindset of true principled heroism, and if it actually comes to that, anyone committed to transparency and preservation of press freedoms should do everything possible to support such persons in any way they can...

This whole thing seems like a massive waste of resources by the Administration, seeking to punish whistleblowers and the press for revealing information that wasn't sensitive, but merely embarrassing.

Filed Under: espionage, fifth amendment, first amendment, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

ACLU And EFF Want To Find Out Who Rolled Over When Gov't Came Calling For Info About Wikileaks

from the who-didn't-protect-its-users dept

While there's been plenty of attention paid to the US government's attempt, using a 2703(d) order (sorta like a subpoena, but not quite), to get info from Twitter on certain users who had a connection to Wikileaks, one of things that we pointed out at the time was the only reason we knew about the orders to Twitter was because Twitter fought the order. We wondered who else received such orders and just rolled over and handed over the data.

It appears that the ACLU and the EFF are asking the same question.

While (of course) it would appear that such info is being kept totally secret by the US government, those two organizations scanned the case numbers to determine that it appears four other similar orders were issued at the same time as Twitter's order -- and they'd like to know who those orders went to, in order to defend the users' right to privacy. The argument seems pretty sound here. Since these users are currently fighting the government's attempt to have Twitter hand over their info, shouldn't they have the right to fight against other services handing over their info?

Of course, the end result of this will almost certainly be a revelation of which four online services simply rolled over rather than defending their users' rights. Anyone want to take guesses as to who's on that list?

Filed Under: government, privacy, subpoena, wikileaks
Companies: aclu, eff, twitter, wikileaks

WSJ Launches Wikileaks Competitor... But Says It Can Reveal Your Info To Law Enforcement

from the that's-not-good dept

With all the focus on Wikileaks recently, and the question of whether it is or is not "press" (not that it actually matters), one point that I've heard more than a few people raise is: why didn't any of the big news organizations create Wikileaks? It seems like a no-brainer, but they didn't. Of course, with the attacks on Wikileaks itself (and it is an organization with flaws, clearly), we've seen a number of alternative platforms for leaking information spring up, and now The Wall Street Journal has entered the game with a platform it's calling SafeHouse.

Now, it's great that the Wall Street Journal has decided to get into the game, and one would hope that other newspapers will set up similar secure and protected dropboxes for information. But... there are some serious problems with the WSJ's implementation. First of all, the terms of service basically say that you shouldn't expect them to protect your anonymity at all:

"Except when we have a separately negotiated confidentiality agreement… we reserve the right to disclose any information about you to law enforcement authorities or to a requesting third party, without notice, in order to comply with any applicable laws and/or requests under legal process, to operate our systems properly, to protect the property or rights of Dow Jones or any affiliated companies, and to safeguard the interests of others."

In other words, if you leak to the WSJ and the government wants to know who you are, the WSJ is going to tell the government. Apparently, the WSJ doesn't think too highly of the concept of journalistic shields for sources.

Separately, researchers, including Jacob Appelbaum are pointing to numerous security flaws in Safehouse's implementation that could also reveal someone's identity, despite promises of anonymity.

Hopefully, the WSJ is willing to admit that it hadn't necessarily thought through all the implications, and will fix these problems quickly.

Filed Under: competitor, safehouse, wikileaks, wsj

Hillary Clinton: We Want Journalism Innovation That Makes Info Easier To Share... Unless It's Wikileaks

from the tone-deaf dept

Jeff Sonderman points us to the odd statement put out by Hilary Clinton and the State Department for World Press Freedom Day, in which she praises the internet for making info easier to share and for holding governments accountable:

We have all witnessed the power that this surge in connectivity can have in shaping society and holding governments accountable. New media empowers individuals around the world to share information and express opinions in ways unimaginable just ten years ago.

Even as we celebrate innovations that make information easier to share, we are reminded that in many places around the world, journalists are still targeted for harassment and abuse, and are sometimes killed. Today, we remember that journalism is a calling of everyday heroes. We must continue to stand up for those who speak out in perilous circumstances as they pursue, record, and report the truth.

And yet, all of this is occurring at the same time that the State Department has continued to condemn Wikileaks and has supported the treatment of folks like Bradley Manning. He doesn't qualify as someone who decided to "speak out in perilous circumstances" as he tried to "pursue, record and report the truth?"

Filed Under: freedom, hillary clinton, journalism, press, state department, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

The First Amendment Doesn't Care If Wikileaks Is A Media Organization

from the either-way... dept

One of the big debates over Wikileaks in the last few months was whether or not Wikileaks really was a media organization. Of course, as some people are finally realizing: it doesn't matter. The First Amendment should protect the organization no matter what kind of organization it is:

That's one argument in an article that appeared Wednesday in the Harvard Law and Policy Review by Jonathan Peters, a lawyer and research fellow at the Missouri School of Journalism. The First Amendment, Peters argues, protects both free speech and freedom of the press, and neither of those protections is any more or less powerful in protecting an organization that publishes classified documents. The amendment, after all, reads "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, nor of the press," and doesn't make a distinction between the level of protection on either one of those two clauses.

"The First Amendment does not belong to the press," Peters writes. "It protects the expressive rights of all speakers, sometimes on the basis of the Speech Clause and sometimes on the basis of the Press Clause. To argue that the First Amendment would protect Assange and WikiLeaks only if they are part of the press is to assume (1) that the Speech Clause would not protect them, and (2) that there is a major difference between the Speech and Press Clauses."

This seems like an important reminder for those still arguing over how to classify Wikileaks.

Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, media, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks