Fish Fear Me

Steady

I've been mulling over some of the reactions to the Wikileaks revelations and the following from Rep. Peter King got me wondering just what legal options are really out there regarding operator Julian Assange and others associated with Wikileaks:

“This is worse even than a physical attack on Americans, it’s worse than a military attack,” King said.

King has written letters to both U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking for swift action to be taken against WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.

King wants Holder to prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act and has also called on Clinton to determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

I don't know about that "worse even than a physical attack" stuff. That may eventually be correct, but I think a more measured response is in order for now. I also think we should not start slinging the term "terrorist" around related to this. I highly doubt that even our staunchest allies are really going to buy that and I think it carries a high risk of knocking us off the moral high ground we can currently use to pressure other nations when it comes to real terrorists.

What about the espionage stuff though? I'm no expert on the Espionage Act, but it seems to me that if the government wanted to charge Assange and anyone else associated with Wikileaks over this they probably have the statutory authority to do so. Should they? I don't think the answer is so open and shut.

I was not a fan of Assange before this last round of leaks and I'm not now. I think he is a morally bankrupt posuer who desperately deserves a good ass kicking. That said though, from what I've read he and the others associated with Wikileaks did not steal any of the information involved in this and previous revelations, it appears that it was given to them by a US soldier who has been charged. So if they just forwarded and published what had already been given to them, should they be prosecuted?

I think we need to take a deep breath and think about it before we plunge into an area as legally murky as that. Clearly the soldier who allegedly forwarded the info to Wikileaks can and must be prosecuted. If he's convicted by the military then I think the feds should definitely try him for treason. However, I don't think it is quite so clear when it comes to a publisher of this info. If we prosecute Assange, why would we not also prosecute the publishers of The New York Times, or The Guardian, or Der Spiegel, or who knows how many media outlets? Would we really want to go down that road?

Be careful with your answer if you are a blogger or someone who thinks that the press shouldn't have special protections regarding speech that are unavailable to the rest of us. Heck, be careful if you do think the press should have special protections. This area is a minefield that easily could have ramifications in other areas, such as political speech for one, that have nothing to do with government secrets. Walking into it is guaranteed to bring at least one Supreme Court ruling that will be deeply divisive no matter what.

Before we head down that path I first suggest a few deep breaths and at least some thought about what could go wrong. And I think that advice applies to pretty much all of us.

Notes On Wikileaks

-This could change any minute I guess, but if this Yahoo blogger's list of top ten revelations turns out to be true then you can list me among the thoroughly unimpressed. I suspect we'll see more than what we have so far.

-This is not the first group of leaked US government info that Wikileaks has released. Previously they have released a batch related to Afghanistan, one batch on Iraq, and a video from Iraq that purported to show US helicopter pilots murdering reporters. The short video that was highlighted was a transparently stupid hatchet job that edited out key context from a longer video. The furor died quickly once that context was explained. The other releases died down more quickly than I expected.

-I think the issue with the Afghanistan info was it consisted of mostly military after action reports and though it was riddled with data of local significance, for the average person it was just boring. I think the Iraq info died down because too much of it contradicted established narrative. It wasn't the Americans committing atrocities against Iraqis, it was the Iraqis doing it to each other. It put American abuse at Abu Ghraib back in 2004 into perspective compared to the horrific torture and killings by Iraqis themselves. The data also mocked body counts of 600,000 to 1,000,000 and clearly established the terrible damage that IEDs did to Iraq. Far more damage than what the Americans did.

-Given those previous revelations, it's a good thing that OMB is today cracking the whip on federal agencies about security. That only took about seven months...why, the speed is blinding! Not to mention how comforting this is about keeping our medical records, or financial records, or even network security records all safe and secure. 

-Related to the above(via Mr. B.), if it is true that as many as 3 million people had clearance and access to this data then how can anyone be astonished that it leaked? The most astonishing thing is that degree of access, not the leaks themselves.

I had a secret clearance when I was in the service, though I can only think of a couple of times I actually needed it and even then it seemed pretty silly to me. That was pre-Internet days, but even without "need to know" stamped on it I wasn't allowed to read just anything marked "secret." Had I walked into HQ and asked to peruse the "secret" files for the heck of it I would have had my ass handed back to me in pieces. I would think that with electronic documents and networks there would be even more attention paid to "need to know", and not less.

I was under the impression that the soldier suspected of leaking this had access because he was in an intelligence unit. If it's true that access was(is?) much broader than that then I'm utterly astonished.

-I have looked through some of the cables and here's an interesting one regarding Iranian influence in Iraq from about a year ago. The cable recounts a meeting with influential Shiites in Najaf, the center of Shiite clerical power in Iraq. I've harped on this in the past, but it doesn't hurt to show another example of how simplistically wrong it is to equate the toppling of Saddam with Iranian victory. Iraq is not Iran's pawn and if someone tries to tell you so then you can be absolutely certain that you are talking to a fool. Yes, Iran has influence in Iraq because it is next door, relatively powerful, and ruthless. There is also the Shia connection, of course. But there are also ethnic and nationalist loyalties that counter that connection and even strains between Iraqi and Iranian Shiites as that cable notes. 

-I read a story over the weekend that claimed that Turkey was allowing arms to get to al Qaeda in Iraq and that the US was arming anti-Turkish PKK terrorists operating out of Iraq. Either of those stories would seem to be explosive. I searched for the cables that make those assertions and couldn't find them.

What I did find though, seemed to show the US and Turkey cooperating to a degree that surprised me. Here's one cable in advance of Secretary Gates arriving in Turkey for a visit earlier this year. I wonder now if what is damaging here is not that the US and Turkey are helping each others enemies, but the revelation that the two nations are cooperating far more than the Turkish public realizes.

-We'll see what else pops up.

One more thing: Nancy Youssef from McClatchy makes the case that the claim that Wikileaks will get somebody injured or killed are overblown because there has been no evidence presented to show that previous revelations have resulted in that. 

Well, maybe, but how much looking has Nancy Youssef done? My guess is none. If some farmer in the village of Stone Age, Afghanistan, revealed as an informant a few months ago, was whacked by the local Taliban last week would we know? I doubt it, because it's funny how passive a reporter can get when facts contrary to a narrative would be a bit inconvenient. And make no mistake, Nancy Youssef does not work to inform you of the news regardless of how the chips may fall, she's there to serve you the narrative that she and her editors want you to see. Even if she did find out that my hypothetical farmer had been murdered I suspect that she would scrupulously report any detail, however small, that would point to anything other than Wikileaks. Perhaps that opinion is not fair to Ms. Youssef, but I spent years watching her and other so-called reporters filtering out positive news from Iraq. They have no credibility in my book. None.

Great

Speaking of Wikileaks and stupid, no, make that criminally stupid, here's an example already of how they are going to get people killed even though they claimed they would redact important information that would identify people who worked with the Coalition:

At 160920C FEB 09, PTT 6 was informed by [Name withheld] the (not redacted you fucking Wikileaks morons) District IP OIC, of alleged detainee abuse at the Husaybah IP station. An update will be posted when more information becomes available.

(PTT 6 would mean Coalition Police Transition Team 6.)

That's up on The Guardian website right now with the district name not redacted. Do you think the assholes in Husaybah have internet access? Do you think the assholes in Husaybah can figure out who was the Officer in Charge of that other district on February 9, 2009? Of course they can

That's just one already. How many more are like that do you suppose? If Wikileaks operator Julian Assange was within arm's reach right now, I would beat the living shit out of him. I kid you not.

Let The Stupidity Begin

This afternoon, Wikileaks did their long awaited document dump of nearly 400,000 classified US military documents related to Iraq. There may be a few revelations, but I think it is most likely to provide an opportunity for many on the anti-war left to get their malevolent stupid on and try to drag others down to their level of idiocy. If the early posts are a guide, be bullish on stupid for the next week.

Let's start with this allegation from The Guardian:

US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

You are going to hear a lot about something called FRAGO 242 and the related FRAGO 039. FRAGO stands for Fragmentary Order and it is defined here as:

Use to send timely changes of existing orders to subordinate and supporting commanders while providing notification to higher and adjacent commands.

I have not been able to find a full copy of either order, but Aljazeera has the following:

(FRAGO) 242 "Provided the initial report confirms US forces were not involved in the detainee abuse, no further investigation will be conducted unless directed by HHQ."

(FRAGO) 039 "Now requires reports of Iraqi on Iraqi abuse be reported through operational channels"

I would like to see the full text of each order. A search of the Wikileaks database yields no results, which makes me wonder if they are deliberately withholding the documents because they explain why the orders were issued. And why would that be?

Well, FRAGO 242 was reportedly issued in June of 2004. Hmmm, now what would have happened in June 2004? Oh yeah, the United Nations returned sovereignty over Iraq to the Interim Government of Iraq. In a letter to the United Nations at that time, Interim Government Prime Minister Allawi noted the following among other things:

In addition, the MNF and Iraqi government leaders...will refer issues up the respective chains of command where necessary.

The Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police reported to the civilian Government of Iraq after June 2004. MNF-Iraq had no more authority to conduct investigations on Iraqi police or army personnel than they did the NYPD. MNF-Iraq troops could and did intervene and file reports up the chain of command when they learned about abuses, but they had no legal authority to go further. 

It is not as though nothing ever happened up the chain of command either. I haven't looked them up, but I remember MNF-Iraq senior officers briefing members of the press about the constant efforts to professionalize the Iraqi Security Forces and the pressure they put on their Iraqi counterparts to end abuses. I'm not going to sugarcoat those very real abuses or excuse them away, but it was not an easy task to get Iraqi officials to make progress on that front while barbarians were threatening the very existence of the Iraqi government and slaughtering their own people by the thousands.

You are going to see a lot of this over the next few weeks:

In June 2004, DOD Issued Instructions to Ignore Iraqi-on-Iraqi Torture

That is absolutely false, and also what I suspect is a deliberate lie.

The falsehoods and lies are just beginning. They are going to turn into an avalanche over the weekend, but I would just urge people to read carefully and watch for distortions, circular links that purport to add credibility to assertions but really don't, and general hysteria. 

You know, the anti-war left from 2001-2008. They're baaaack.