Crackdown on Wikileaks: Obama orders zero-tolerance police for anyone caught leaking classified info

[and-justice-for-all]

President Obama has ordered the leaks plugged after WikiLeaks revealed thousands of classified and secret documents on Sunday.

BY Richard Sisk
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Monday, November 29th 2010, 12:55 PM

WASHINGTON - President Obama has ordered a government-wide crackdown on access to classified information to limit the future airing of secrets by WikiLeaks.

At Obama's direction, the White House Office of Management and Budget sent out a memo to all agencies to make sure their workers can only see what they have to see to do their jobs.

OMB Director Jacob Lew said there will be a zero-tolerance policy under the new directive.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/11/29/2010-11-29_crackdown_on_wikileaks_obama_orders_zerotolerance_police_for_anyone_caught_leaki.html#ixzz16j6f02f0
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I appreciate Wikileaks and their exposing the US government's bullshit, the US should not be engaged in this sneaky two-faced bullshit.

[mike_c]

1. transparency?

Obama is a tool of the generals and banksters. He is smart enough to know the inherent hypocrisy of persecuting those who reveal the seamy underbelly of the state rather than those who create it and perpetuate it, yet who does he seek vengeance upon, anyway? When the real criminals have been named and the evidence against them made public?

[Hydra]

6. This is actually a good thing

He couldn't declare more firmly which side he's on....though the spin will continue.

Side 1: Corruption, Lies and Death

Side 2: Hope, Truth and Freedom

Which side is he coming down on, hmm?

[thunder rising]

2. Obama never ceases to amaze me anymore ... he's as winger as they get anymore.

[beforeyoureyes]

3. He is exposing the sham. This guy is smart though. He has the entire domino field ready to fall

...should they try and take him down....

He told everyone to download the encrypted files again...he may be ready to pull a big trigger.

I bet they are shitting their pants.

[beforeyoureyes]

4. The Zero Truth Policy....

Wait...wait...that won't work.

Needs a good orwellian name...

How about..

The upholding integrity and justice policy...that should do nicely!

[sasha031]

5. I love Julian, he's going after the banks now

[boppers]

14. He's been after them for years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Bank_Julius_Baer_lawsuit

Oh, and he crashed Iceland's economy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Kaupthing_Bank

[stevenleser]

28. If he would have skipped the latest release and gone to the banks, I would still be a supporter

making the jobs of diplomats harder is not what I have in mind when I think about whistleblowing.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Wrong again, Mr. O. n/t

[Imajika]

8. You mean we shouldn't be diplomatic?

"I appreciate Wikileaks and their exposing the US government's bullshit, the US should not be engaged in this sneaky two-faced bullshit."

So basically, we should just air dirty laundry to anyone who cares to hear it, dump everything our foreign policy team knows into the public domain, break all confidences in the interests avoiding "sneaky two-faced bullshit"? Basically, just refuse to conduct diplomacy?

Oh yeah, we're really going to win friends that way!

And what US government bullshit? These leaks are embarrassing to the US government because it shatters confidences we have made throughout the world, but they really contain no bombshells indicating we've acted in some "sneaky two-faced" manner. These just show diplomats and foreign policy people doing what diplomats and foreign policy people do - gathering information for decision makers and passing it along to help our President and leadership team make the best decisions possible.

So as a result of this we are going to get MORE secrecy, not less.

edited for spelling

[jberryhill]

9. Not only more secrecy

But more compartmentalization of information. And you know where that leads.

[Kdillard]

13. +1000.

[stevenleser]

27. Yes, so much ignorance. No one who understands the institution of diplomacy could feel good about

the latest wikileaks release.

I want diplomats' jobs to be easier, not harder.

[ProSense]

10. Good. n/t

[LeftyAndProud60]

11. I'm sure if Hilary was POTUS she would just release all these documents herself

:sarcasm:

[katandmoon]

12. Unless your name is Dick Cheney or George Bush.

[boppers]

15. What was our tolerance level before? 1%? 7%?

"Zero Tolerance" is bullshit.

[saras]

16. Dualism fails again.

So he's supposed to be a good guy for plugging the leaks, whereas a bad guy would blame Wikileaks for it?

The option that seems to be off the table is to stop generating data that's so embarrassing to have leaked in the first place.

[Fruittree]

18. So you never say anything in private that you would prefer

remain private? Some of the stuff being leaked would have been predictable, ie - Israel has considered bombing Iran's nuclear facilities and other things are just pointless, ie what diplomats call government officials in private. I have mixed feelings about this whole thing and what I see here is more attacks on Obama - We are going to end up with the government we deserve at the next election...

[saras]

23. not all that much

I suppose if I had the sort of record our government does, I'd say a lot more I didn't want public.

But I just don't torture or kill that many people, nor do I make a regular habit of supporting other torturers and killers, nor do I consistently sabotage activists worldwide who try to make things better.

[Fruittree]

25. Obviously I don't support torture or killing people -

I think my problem is that I do think government employees have a right to communicate in private - it's how negotiations happen. The way I view it is if the US were knocked out of its position of power, given the history of mankind, I'm not so sure it would be replaced with anything better. Torture and killing have been, sadly, par for the course throughout history. This doesn't mean we shouldn't try to restrain our government but - I don't know if this makes sense - but one person (Assange) deciding to take the role of revealing private communications which could affect world relations on himself makes me uneasy. I just feel like all this chaos is not going to lead to a good end somehow...

[jeanpalmer]

17. this may require

some plumbers to plug the leaks.

[polichick]

19. "Zero tolerance" for this, but war criminals walk free - that's American exceptionalism! nt

[whistler162]

20. Could you people be a little less clueless!!! PLEASE!!!!

Not the Obama admninistration but the posters who are whining about a crackdown on espionage, which is what leaking is!

[Safetykitten]

21. You vill be zent to ze server farm to polish ze equipments.

[fujiyama]

22. Maybe people here don't realize it

but leaking confidential information is a crime.

Of course all agencies and departments throughout the government will reassess their policies and who has access to what data after the recent leaks. Did people think this would force governments to be MORE open and transparent?

[saras]

24. So it's a crime

So is smoking pot. So is double-parking. So is defending yourself against crime, in many states.

It's just that it's a trivial crime, of no significant consequence, compared to the crime it is revealing to the public.

[phleshdef]

29. Leaking classified information is a trivial crime? Seriously?

[dbmk]

26. Tempest in a teapot

As much as I think Wikileaks is important by existing as a visible/high profile valve for whistleblowing - this round of information seems to be decidedly weak and basically unimportant. All I've seen proved is that internal talks does not match external talks and that privately, government officials will use less than flattering nicknames about other states officials.

The biggest embarrasment for the US in this, seems to be that it was so easily attainable.

Goverments keep secrets and discussions behind closed doors for entirely good and reasonable reasons. Nothing in this release seems to point to unreasonable reasons.

Of course the government will move to make sure that what is confidential information stays confidential.