Dan the Man today hits the Wikileakphobia nail on the head:
"There are one or two very specific areas where governments need to act in secret, but most of what has been leaked falls into the Pretty Bloody Obvious category. The only reason it is of interest is that it was classified. The days of official secrecy are over; they have been displaced by technological change. Get used to it."
2 comments:
There was a letter from somebody who used to work on the old D committees in the paper last week. He said that during the Cold War there was a conspiracy between the army, Government and newspaper editors to create the allusion that the old D notices covered important subjects when they generally didn't. The really important and secret stuff was kept hidden on a need to know basis.
The Wikileaks are all coming from an open access communication system, so I suppose that whilst some of them looking exciting to us non-exciting types they really aren't that key to world security issues. Unless of course you happen to be Mr Abdula of 47 Acacia Avenue, Tunbridge Wells in which case you've had it mate!
I read something today that was a semi serious case: wikileaks revealed the prime targets for terrorists as far as the Spanish government was concerned. Similarly obvious but it could cause a terrorist cell to switch targets to one that "the politicians and the US didn't care about so much".
P.S. Mr Abdula moved last year, he had the feeling somebody was on to him ;-)
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