WAR LEAKS
(Posted 2010-07-28 14:48:35 by ArchPaladin)

There have been reports here and there that have probably escaped the
casual news observer's attention.  Private Bradley Manning was arrested and
has been detained in Kuwait for leaking a set of confidential documents to
the online and largely underground whistleblowing service Wikileaks [
http://wikileaks.org/ ] [wikileaks.org].  The Wikileaks group released a
video from this collection of data showing troops shooting down a bus
containing kids and some journalists.

If you're not familiar with this news - no problem.  Google for 'Bradley
Manning' and you'll get some useful info to help you get up to speed, if
you're interested.

I have been casually watching the stories go by on this because Manning's
release of data has prompted a number of discussions on government
transparency, wartime conspiracy and cover-ups, and the legality and
morality of whistleblowers.  A lot of good technical discussion, some of
which I thought about posting here but never got around to doing.

What changed my mind is that Sunday, Wikileaks released a large set of data
that they obtained from an unknown source (I believe it's Manning, but
that's just a guess), which contains the records of day-to-day operations
in the Afghanistan war.  They call this data set the Kabul War Diary [
http://wardiary.wikileaks.org/index.html ] [wikileaks.org].  The data
totals around 75,000 transcripts - military recordings of combat
engagements, prisoner transfers, psychological warfare, friendly fire, and
so on, and all the details that go with each event.  They also use Google
maps to track the locations of events.  News reports detailing the release
of this data state that there are records showing that forces will cover up
accidents and downplay or escalate the nature of various incidents
depending on how it makes them look (so, basically expected human
behavior), although in a _very_ brief amount of time browsing the records I
couldn't find anything that would suggest this.  All the data is available
on the web and for download.

I hope this will bring discussions around transparency to the forefront. 
Personally, I can't say that every act of whistleblowing is good, as it may
put lives in danger, but Wikileaks appears to recognize that.  In general I
think that less concealment is better.

Perhaps this will also spark some public awareness of what is going on in
this war, and that it is time to end it.

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