Journal: WikiLeak’s Doomsday Files

Civil Society, IO Secrets, Peace Intelligence, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Chuck Spinney Recommends....

If this report is accurate, Assange may have created a cyberwar war equivalent of the unbreakable “one time pad” — all Assange needs to do is post the key and doomsday bomb goes boom.  Perhaps the Pentagon ought to hire him to teach DoD how to wage the net centric warfare it loves to talk about.

WikiLeaks Ready to Release Giant ‘Insurance' File if Shut Down

Published December 05, 2010

Sunday Times

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has circulated across the internet an encrypted “poison pill” cache of uncensored documents suspected to include files on BP and Guantanamo Bay.

One of the files identified this weekend by The Sunday Times — called the “insurance” file — has been downloaded from the WikiLeaks website by tens of thousands of supporters, from America to Australia.

Read the rest of the article….

Reference: On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy + RECAP on Secrecy as Fraud, Waste, & Abuse

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Secrets, Methods & Process, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Officers Call, Policies, Policy, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, True Cost

People are more likely to lie, exaggerate and distort when they know they won’t be held accountable for what they said, and people like to say what their interlocutors want to hear, says Jordan Stancil.

Jordan Stancil

Jordan Stancil is a lecturer in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs of the University of Ottawa.

Phi Beta Iota: This is the single best overview of how secrecy supports corruption.  It is consistent with testimony to the Moynihan Commission on Secrecy and with Morton Halperin's findings in Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy in which one of the “rules of the game” was “Lie to the President if you can get away with it.”  Today, the “rule of the game” is “Lie to the public if you can get away with it for at least one election cycle.”  Newt Gingrich started the decline with his power and ambition, Dick Cheney peaked at 935 documented lies that Colin Powell allowed to stand unchallenged, and now Obama, with Bloomberg in the wings, are the anti-climax of secrecy as fraud Of, By, and For Wall Street.  America has become a cheating culture, an unthinking culture, far removed from the essence of a Republic.

Middle East Online

First Published: 2010-12-05

On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy

The more I think about the WikiLeaks episode, the less I know what to say about it. Unfortunately, too much commentary, right and left, has tried to inject certitude where ambivalence should be.

It is not clear whether the WikiLeaks disclosures will damage our national interest. During the few years I spent as a Foreign Service officer, in Jerusalem and Berlin, I produced and read a fair number of classified cables, and I understand the rather obvious point that diplomats might get more — and more sensitive — information when their contacts believe that what they say will remain secret. We have heard endless appeals to “common sense” about the need for secrecy on these grounds.

But common sense also tells us that people are more likely to lie, exaggerate and distort when they know they won’t be held accountable for what they said, and that people like to say what their interlocutors want to hear. The annals of diplomatic communication, indeed of all communication, are filled with evidence of this banal insight, which many people seem to have forgotten in their rush to defend government secrecy.

This is a permanent reference.  Read the rest below the line, followed by links.

Continue reading “Reference: On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy + RECAP on Secrecy as Fraud, Waste, & Abuse”

Journal: WikiLeaks Next Round BANKS

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, IO Multinational, IO Secrets, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth
DefDog Recommends...

WikiLeaks plans to release thousands of internal documents from a major
U.S. bank in early 2011, Forbes magazine reported on Monday.

“You could call it the ecosystem of corruption,” Assange told Forbes
during an interview in London, but refused to provide details about the
bank.

MORE @
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article923432.ece?homepage=true

Phi Beta Iota: Our hope for the round after banks would be massive leakage from the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee.  This “open everything” meme is way cool.  Think of it as tough love.

Facebook Question and Answer

Jonathan Kan So, do WikiLeaks make your Open Source Intelligence dream comes true?

The short answer is no–WikiLeaks is the lowest form of open source raw sewage–BUT WikiLeaks is serving an enormous purpose in demonstrating without equivocation that “rule by secrecy” is unethical, inept, and not in the public interest.  It is a catalyst for change, not change itself.  For change the game, see Tom Atlee on politics (search Tom Atlee Change the Game) and for substance see my M4IS2 Briefing to South America, at www.tinyurl.com/SteeleCHILE.  Pass it on.  The revolution has started without a single politician being involved.

Journal: US Secret Intelligence Tasking US Diplomats

02 Diplomacy, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Secrets, Methods & Process, Officers Call
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

Insofar as I know, the DoD military Services remain under broad and explicit proscription from accessing the Wikileaks site or the Wikileaks releases in any form.  Some of the Service directives are very intimidating, threatening court martials for military members, loss of security clearances, etc., etc.  From the broadcast media, it appears that major lockdowns of information will shortly follow.  And SPC Bradley Manning, currently confined at Quantico, will probably walk as, I suspect, will Hasan at Fort Hood.  MA

Phi Beta Iota: This demonstrates that the National Clandestine Service (NCS) is completely ignorant of what can be known through open sources, and that the Secretary of State is not doing her job of assuring that diplomacy is not micro-tasked into what are clearly clandestine and covert operations support functions absolutely not appropriate to diplomatic status.  These people should not have message release authority.  The US Government needs a total make-over.  First, however, CIA needs a director that is fully capable on day one.

U.S. Expands Role of Diplomats in Spying

By MARK MAZZETTI

November 28, 2010

WASHINGTON — The United States has expanded the role of American diplomats in collecting intelligence overseas and at the United Nations, ordering State Department personnel to gather the credit card and frequent-flier numbers, work schedules and other personal information of foreign dignitaries.

Revealed in classified State Department cables, the directives, going back to 2008, appear to blur the traditional boundaries between statesmen and spies.

The cables give a laundry list of instructions for how State Department employees can fulfill the demands of a “National Humint Collection Directive” in specific countries. (“Humint” is spy-world jargon for human intelligence collection.) One cable asks officers overseas to gather information about “office and organizational titles; names, position titles and other information on business cards; numbers of telephones, cellphones, pagers and faxes,” as well as “internet and intranet ‘handles’, internet e-mail addresses, web site identification-URLs; credit card account numbers; frequent-flier account numbers; work schedules, and other relevant biographical information.”

Philip J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, on Sunday disputed that American diplomats had assumed a new role overseas.

Read the rest of this sad story….

Journal: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Successes

08 Wild Cards, 09 Terrorism, 10 Security, 10 Transnational Crime, Government, HUMINT, IO Multinational, IO Secrets, IO Sense-Making, Law Enforcement, Military, Peace Intelligence
Marcus Aurelius Recommends

(1) If true, probably a good idea.

(2) Appears that indiscretions abound.

Miami Herald November 6, 2010

Spy Agencies Use Ex-Captives To Infiltrate Al Qaeda

By Paisley Dodds, Associated Press

LONDON — Months after he was released from Guantánamo Bay, Abdul Rahman was back in the company of terrorist leaders along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. But he was a double agent, providing Taliban and al Qaeda secrets to Pakistani intelligence, which then shared the tips with Western counterparts.

The ruse cost him his life, according to a former Pakistani military intelligence official, Mahmood Shah. The Taliban began to suspect him, and after multiple interrogations executed him.

The case of Rahman, which Shah recounted to The Associated Press, falls in line with a key aspect of the fight against terror — Western intelligence agencies, with help from Islamic allies, are placing moles and informants inside al Qaeda and the Taliban. The program seems to be bearing fruit, even as many infiltrators like Rahman are discovered and killed.

It was a tip from an al Qaeda militant-turned-informant that led international authorities to find explosives hidden in printer cartridges from Yemen to the United States a week ago, Yemeni security officials say. Officials say the explosives could have caused a blast as deadly as the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people.

Read rest of article….

Phi Beta Iota: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) done right, in the context of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) done right, is the cheapest, fastest, and most effective means of creating intelligence (decision-support) at all levels from strategic to tactical.  After ten years of letting CIA get away with doing both badly, and ten years of the Pentagon's recovering from treating its HUMINT and CI people like shit, it appears that adults are finally back in charge.  We continue to under-budget for operational HUMINT and OSINT, and we continue to grossly over-spend on contractor vapor-ware for technical capabilities that simply do not deliver 96% of what what we need, but that is a separate issue.  It is good to see HUMINT (not OSINT) making some progress.  However, the continued absence of a strategic analytic model and honest governance means that these capabilities are not being focused on transnational crime or on white collar crime, where the most significant gains in the public interest are to be achieved.

See Also:

2010: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Trilogy Updated
2009 DoD OSINT Leadership and Staff Briefings
Graphic: OSINT and Full-Spectrum HUMINT (Updated)
Graphic: OSINT and Lack of Processing
Graphic: Four Quadrants J-2 High Cell SMS Low
Graphic: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) 101 (Wrong Way)
Graphic: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) 102 (Right Way)

2010 Reference: The Pentagon, Information Operations, and Media Development

02 Diplomacy, 10 Security, Cultural Intelligence, InfoOps (IO), IO Multinational, IO Secrets, Media, Media Reports, Military, Peace Intelligence, White Papers
Report Online

CIMA is pleased to release a new report, The Pentagon, Information Operations, and Media Development, by Peter Cary, a veteran journalist with extensive experience reporting about the U.S. military. As part of its post-9/11 strategy, the Department of Defense has launched a multi-front information war, both to support its troops on the ground and to counter the propaganda of radical Muslim extremists. The DoD’s global public relations war, however, has fostered criticism that the department has over-reached and tarred the efforts of non-DoD Americans doing media development work abroad.

While the DoD cannot be criticized for trying to protect the lives of its soldiers, it has spent vast amounts of money on media operations–which can tend to be conducted in secrecy and whose effectiveness often cannot be measured. This report examines the impact of DoD information operations on international media development efforts and offers recommendations – including that the DoD leave media activities that could be considered public diplomacy to the State Department.

Tip of the Hat to Niels Groeneveld at LinkedIn.