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How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked
UK Guardian ^ | 11/28/2010 | David Leigh

Posted on 11/28/2010 5:07:33 PM PST by PhilosopherStone1000

An innocuous-looking memory stick, no longer than a couple of fingernails, came into the hands of a Guardian reporter earlier this year. The device is so small it will hang easily on a keyring. But its contents will send shockwaves through the world's chancelleries and deliver what one official described as "an epic blow" to US diplomacy.

...

The US military believes it knows where the leak originated. A soldier, Bradley Manning, 22, has been held in solitary confinement for the last seven months and is facing a court martial in the new year. The former intelligence analyst is charged with unauthorised downloads of classified material while serving on an army base outside Baghdad. He is suspected of taking copies not only of the state department archive, but also of video of an Apache helicopter crew gunning down civilians in Baghdad, and hundreds of thousands of daily war logs from military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 0bamasfault; fdrq; gaysinthemilitary; homoagendaalert; homosexualagenda; manning; obamasfault; wiki; wikileak
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To: PhilosopherStone1000

The new Congress needs to hold hearings!


61 posted on 11/28/2010 6:12:07 PM PST by Empireoftheatom48 (Tag line under construction, please mind the gap!!)
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To: Conservative Tsunami

I agree that he may not have acted alone… he may very well have been assisted from various quarters. And that includes people above him with higher security clearances who may have been blackmailed, manipulated or even cooperated with foreign intelligence agencies of their own free will.

The way I see it, there are a bunch of equally plausible ways this may play out, and we may never find out the real one. This is a real mess.


62 posted on 11/28/2010 6:15:10 PM PST by rlmorel ("We treat terrorists with kid gloves, and our citizens with rubber gloves." Rush Limbaugh)
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To: mazda77

Ask yourselves this question, if he did it himself, why has there not been any arrests for dereliction of duty for those who were asleep at the switch?


I think the little queer just accidentally found a terminal logged on to some top security guy, said whoa, and built a mega ping list using the security of the guy who logged on and walked off.


63 posted on 11/28/2010 6:17:15 PM PST by txhurl (If we can shake Congress like a can of pennies, we can uproot voter fraud like a D-9.)
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To: Robwin

Excellent movie


64 posted on 11/28/2010 6:17:50 PM PST by al baby (Hi Mom REMEMBER FREE REPUBLIC IN YOUR WILL. I DID)
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To: rlmorel

This is the government that wants all our personal medical records to be stored as “securely” as our state department cables.


65 posted on 11/28/2010 6:20:02 PM PST by piasa
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To: txhurl

You just don’t walk into an open office and sign on to a secure communications link. The access to secure information and files is controlled in a Comm Center that is limited by access control. If it wasn’t, then there are far more people in trouble over this than Master Manning.


66 posted on 11/28/2010 6:22:34 PM PST by mazda77 (Mike Hogan - JAX Mayor)
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To: phalynx
The USB ports were active on government computers? Really? My company is no where near government but you aren’t connecting a usb data device to any of our machines........

Yes...USB ports are still active on military computers...both on the SIPR and NIPR nets. Now...since the Chinese worm introduced via a thumb drive a couple of years ago...thumb drives have been banned...and if you get caught using them on a gov't computer you will get in big trouble. However...they are still functional. I have watched an army major transfer data from an army NIPR machine to an Army SIPR machine via a thumb drive...because he was too lazy to burn it to CD...and this was after the ban.

However...what I find more surpising about this story is they say the data/cables was up to the "SECRET/NOFORN" level. That really isn't that high of a classification. I have seen some on here question how does a PFC get ahold of that data...well...you HAVE to have a SECRET clearance in most cases just to get on the NIPR net. Matter of fact...if you are AD Air Force...if you CAN'T get at least a secret....you can't be IN...because you can't get on the NIPR. So...getting ahold of SECRET/NOFORN is not that big of a deal. I am SHOCKED that cables that are THIS sensative are ONLY secret/NOFORN. I would think something that could bring disgrace to the nation should be at least TS with a DoS tag or something like that. That is the definition of TS.

67 posted on 11/28/2010 6:25:32 PM PST by NELSON111
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To: dogcaller

Right, that is pretty much the point I make in my post at number 59…

We can start drilling down into various conspiracies and possible explanations that go one layer 2 layers or 10 layers deep… but the simple fact that our security apparatus has been completely watered down and destroyed to the point that it is insignificant is equally plausible as any of those conspiracy theories.

There are a lot of 22-year-old people who understand computers very well, how they are defended, and how to gain access to them. Government agencies including the military, State Department, and nearly anything else are enormous bureaucracies with thousands and thousands of people who have to go through background checks etc.

I think the mistake that a lot of people make is what they see in the movies, and they think our portals to sensitive intelligence archives is guarded in ways that would require you to rappel down from a heating vent through lasers and various layers of wondrous technologically advanced motion detectors that would set off alarms and send guys in black coveralls wielding automatic weapons causing the intruder to fall into a moat containing sharks with frikken laser beams attached to their heads where they would converge on him and destroy him.

I think the reality is far more prosaic… it’s just humongous computer systems holding enormous amounts of data that thousands or tens of thousands of people have access to to varying degrees. In the process by which people are granted access is completely worthless and full of holes.


68 posted on 11/28/2010 6:26:00 PM PST by rlmorel ("We treat terrorists with kid gloves, and our citizens with rubber gloves." Rush Limbaugh)
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To: piasa

Yep. I work in medicine, and THAT Is precisely how I see it as well. This government is out of control.


69 posted on 11/28/2010 6:27:04 PM PST by rlmorel ("We treat terrorists with kid gloves, and our citizens with rubber gloves." Rush Limbaugh)
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To: mazda77

What if you’re an Able Danger open-source coder who needs a patsy?


70 posted on 11/28/2010 6:28:54 PM PST by txhurl (If we can shake Congress like a can of pennies, we can uproot voter fraud like a D-9.)
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To: Robwin
Do we have any kind of security apparatus in this country?

Depends on which federal system you are logged into.

Some monitor all users very carefully.

Others apparently do not.

71 posted on 11/28/2010 6:29:46 PM PST by Rome2000 (OBAMA IS A COMMUNIST CRYPTO-MUSLIM)
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To: NELSON111

Yes. So you see it as I do. The mechanisms governing classification of documents, the computer systems that they are being stored in, the process of granting various users access to that data, and the physical security and set up of those systems is very likely completely and totally hosed due to the enormous bureaucracy associated with managing this.

You sound like you get it… not that others don’t, but I just don’t think that is apparent to some people that that might very well be the root of the problem.


72 posted on 11/28/2010 6:30:58 PM PST by rlmorel ("We treat terrorists with kid gloves, and our citizens with rubber gloves." Rush Limbaugh)
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To: rlmorel

Or maybe this kid simply blackmailed someone for access...


73 posted on 11/28/2010 6:35:20 PM PST by tubebender (If you can not read, this thread will tell you how to get help)
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To: PhilosopherStone1000

This gay troop was downloading Lady Gaga. To me, that is the equivalent of telling as in Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.


74 posted on 11/28/2010 6:35:46 PM PST by chuckee
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To: Rome2000

Agreed. As another poster noted, perhaps the process of vetting documents and storing them allowed these documents of the sensitive nature to be stored in the damned system that was accessible to the State Department. One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that many in the State Department do not have the best interests of our country at heart at worst, and at best, are simply incompetent and using systems set up by people who are incompetent.


75 posted on 11/28/2010 6:36:11 PM PST by rlmorel ("We treat terrorists with kid gloves, and our citizens with rubber gloves." Rush Limbaugh)
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To: rlmorel

actually a bullet in the back of the head of treasonous entities, after a trial and being found guilty, would shortcircut this sort of behavior


76 posted on 11/28/2010 6:38:02 PM PST by Chickensoup (In the Leftist protected species hierarchy, Islamics trump Homosexuals trump Women trump Blacks)
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To: tubebender

That is absolutely 100% possible. This guy has a sexual affair with someone above them who to all external appearances is completely straight, a career military person and a family who has no idea.

Blackmail? That is an absolute possibility, and it is yet another reason why homosexuals should not be allowed to serve openly. I know that there are many who would say that if they were allowed to serve openly, that type of thing would not happen.

That is a pipe dream, because it assumes that because people are allowed to serve openly as homosexuals, it will matter if someone is a known homosexual or not. And that is far from the case.


77 posted on 11/28/2010 6:39:36 PM PST by rlmorel ("We treat terrorists with kid gloves, and our citizens with rubber gloves." Rush Limbaugh)
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To: rlmorel
Yeah...I get it. I mean...who stores DoS cables that are critical of world leaders...and will be "'an epic blow' to US diplomacy" at "SECRET/NOFORN?"

I mean...I cannot TELL you (but I imagine that you know...or have experienced) how many secret/noforn briefs I have been in that showed up on CNN the next day. SECRET/NOFORN is the standard classification that all the intel weenies use...and most of the time...it should certainly be secret/relcan...or secret/relnato...

WHO in their right mind puts this stuff at secret?

78 posted on 11/28/2010 6:41:20 PM PST by NELSON111
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To: section9

According to Ya’acov Lodzowick, Julian Assange is anti-American. WikiLeaks does not expose the world’s most repressive regimes - where that would do a lot of good. Its embarrasses the greatest democracy in the world. That’s all you need to know about that outfit.


79 posted on 11/28/2010 6:43:11 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: tubebender
Or maybe this kid simply blackmailed someone for access...

If this stuff was stored at the "SECRET/NOFORN" level...and he was an intel weenie...then he most likely had a TS clearance...and it would be a piece of cake for him to get it.

So...two things need to happen: 1) Hang him and 2) Figure out what idiot stored info that could be an epic blow to the US if released...at the SECRET level.

80 posted on 11/28/2010 6:44:30 PM PST by NELSON111
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