NOTE The following text is a quote:
http://www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=103001
Pentagon Demands WikiLeaks Return Stolen Documents
By Elaine Wilson
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 6, 2010 – The Defense Department is demanding that WikiLeaks immediately return the stolen military documents in its possession, including 15,000 documents that the website has not yet published, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said here yesterday.
The department also wants the whistle-blower website to permanently delete all versions of these documents, which contain classified and sensitive information, from its website, computers and records, Morrell told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.
“We are asking them to do the right thing,” he said. “This is the appropriate course of action, given the damage that has already been done.”
The website recently published tens of thousands of classified documents spanning the January 2004 to December 2009 time frame. The documents detail field reports from Afghanistan and an alleged Pakistani partnership with the Taliban, and also include names of Afghan informants who work or have worked with the U.S. military.
Last week’s disclosure “has already threatened the safety of our troops, our allies and Afghan citizens who are working with us to help bring about peace and stability in that part of the world,” Morrell said.
Recent reports claim that WikiLeaks asked the department for help in reviewing these documents before releasing them to the public as part of a “harm minimization exercise,” Morrell said.
“WikiLeaks has made no such request directly to the Department of Defense,” he said.
The Defense Department is not yet sure which 15,000 documents the site is referring to, Morrell said. “We have some ideas and are doing some proactive work … in the event that the documents we suspect they could be are indeed the documents they are threatening to post,” he said, adding that the public disclosure of additional documents can only exacerbate the damage.
Defense officials further are demanding that WikiLeaks cease its “brazen solicitation” of U.S. government officials, including the military, to break the law, Morrell said. If WikiLeaks does not comply with these demands, he added, Pentagon officials will look to other options to “compel them to do the right thing.”
“This is an appropriate first step,” Morrell said. “We will cross the next bridge when we come to it.”
The incident is a matter of interest to the U.S. government as a whole, not just the military, Morrell said. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates asked the FBI to investigate early on, and the Justice Department also is involved. The Pentagon has a task force of more than 80 experts — from the Defense Department as well as other agencies — working around the clock to find issues of concern, he said.
When necessary, officials are notifying the appropriate entities, such as commanders in Afghanistan, Morrell said, and the Defense Department also is taking measures internally to reinforce existing rules and guidelines and boost vigilance.
Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, condemned the leaks during a Pentagon briefing July 29.
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2573910/posts
Antiwar activists rally around suspected leaker
Yahoo! News ^ | August 19, 2010 | DAVID DISHNEAU,
Posted on August 19, 2010 2:54:56 PM PDT by StrangeFeathers
HAGERSTOWN, Md. – The Army private suspected in one of the largest unauthorized disclosures of classified information in U.S. history has become a hero to many anti-war activists who have joined an international effort to free him.
At demonstrations this month in New York, Oklahoma City and Quantico, Va., where Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is being held, dozens of supporters have shouted that “Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
NOTE The following text is a quote:
www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=60488
WikiLeaks Has Yet to Contact ‘Competent Authorities’
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 18, 2010 – The operators of a website that published tens of thousands of classified documents have contacted no “competent authorities” in the Defense Department, a Pentagon spokesman said here today.
WikiLeaks already has released 90,000 classified documents, and the site’s publisher said he plans to release about 15,000 more.
“Those documents should be returned,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. “There should be no further posting of these classified documents, and those that have been posted should be removed.”
The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division and the FBI are conducting an investigation into the leak of the documents.
WikiLeaks officials have attempted to use the media as an intermediary, “but the Defense Department has had no direct contact with WikiLeaks,” Whitman said.
In any event, the Defense Department is not interested in negotiating with the organization, Whitman said, noting that it’s simply against the law to release classified documents. If Defense Department officials participated in trying to sanitize or redact these documents, he said, they still would be guilty of releasing classified documents.
“These documents are property of the United States government,” Whitman said. “The unauthorized release of them threatens the lives of coalition forces, as well as Afghan nationals. All should be returned immediately, they should be removed from the Web, there should be no further posting of them to the Web, and all data bases containing them should be destroyed.”
Defense Department officials are analyzing the leaked documents to try to minimize the risk to coalition forces and to Afghans who worked with the coalition, Whitman said, though he would not get into specifics.
Another danger of the leaks is the possibility that commands may safeguard information and intelligence so much that those who need it won’t get it, Whitman noted.
“There is a balance to make sure that all the available intelligence is accessible where it needs to be accessible,” Whitman said. “But there should be safeguards, too, to preclude or mitigate instances where people may be acting in an improper, unauthorized or even illegal way.”
Intelligence is a tool that young servicemembers must have to carry out their missions, he added.
“Anything that we do as we assess the situation here and learn lessons from this will always be balanced with the imperative that our forces on the ground need to have access to the best information that we can provide them,” he said.
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