Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

The Spy Cables: A glimpse into the world of espionage by Al Jazeera Investigative Unit.

From the post:

A digital leak to Al Jazeera of hundreds of secret intelligence documents from the world’s spy agencies has offered an unprecedented insight into operational dealings of the shadowy and highly politicised realm of global espionage.

Over the coming days, Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit is publishing The Spy Cables, in collaboration with The Guardian newspaper.

Spanning a period from 2006 until December 2014, they include detailed briefings and internal analyses written by operatives of South Africa’s State Security Agency (SSA). They also reveal the South Africans’ secret correspondence with the US intelligence agency, the CIA, Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Russia’s FSB and Iran’s operatives, as well as dozens of other services from Asia to the Middle East and Africa.
…

You need to start hitting the Al Jazeera site on a regular basis.

Kudos to Al Jazeera for the ongoing release of these documents!

On the other hand, however, I am deeply disappointed by the editing of the documents to be released:

It has not been easy to decide which Spy Cables to publish, and hundreds will not be revealed.

After verifying the cables, we had to consider whether the publication of each document served the public interest, in consultation with industry experts, lawyers, and our partners at The Guardian. Regardless of any advice received, the decision to publish has been Al Jazeera’s alone.

We believe it is important to achieve greater transparency in the field of intelligence. The events of the last decade have shown that there has been inadequate scrutiny on the activities of agencies around the world. That has allowed some to act outside their own laws and, in some cases international law.

Publishing these documents, including operational and tradecraft details, is a necessary contribution to a greater public scrutiny of their activities.

The Spy Cables also reveal that in many cases, intelligence agencies are over-classifying information and hiding behind an unnecessary veil of secrecy. This harms the ability of a democratic society to either consent to the activities of their intelligence agencies or provide adequate checks and balances to their powers.

The Spy Cables are filled with the names, personal details, and pseudonyms of active foreign intelligence operatives who work undercover for the dozens of global spy agencies referenced in the files.

We confronted the possibility that publishing identities revealed in the cables could result in harm to potentially innocent people. We agreed that publishing the names of undercover agents would pose a substantial risk to potentially unwitting individuals from around the world who had associated with these agents.

We believe we can most responsibly accomplish our goal of achieving greater transparency without revealing the identities of undercover operatives.

For these reasons, we have redacted their names. We have also redacted sections that could pose a threat to the public, such as specific chemical formulae to build explosive devices.

Finally, some of the Spy Cables have been saved for future broadcast – ones that needed further contextualisation. Regardless of when we publish, the same considerations will inform our decisions over what to redact.

The line: “…we had to consider whether the publication of each document served the public interest…” captures the source of my disappointment.

The governments who sent the cables in question could and do argue in good faith that they “consider …. the public interest” in deciding which documents should be public and which should be private.

As the cables and prior leaks make clear, the judgement of governments about “the public interest” is deeply suspect and in the aftermath of major leaks, has been shown to be completely false. The world of diplomacy has not reached a fiery end nor have nations entered wars against every other nation. Everyone blushes for a bit and then moves on.

Although I like Al Jazeera and The Guardian better than most governments, why should I trust their judgement about what secrets the public is entitled to know more than the government’s? At least some governments are in theory answerable to their populations. Whereas news organizations are entirely self-anointed.

Having said that I am sure that Al Jazeera and The Guardian will do the best they can but why not trust the public with the information that after all affects them? I don’t think of the public as ill-mannered children who need to be protected from ugly truths. As far as “innocent lives,” I find it contradictory to speak of intelligence operatives and “innocent lives,” in the same conversation.

Having chosen to betray others in the service of goals of individuals in various governments, innocence isn’t a claim intelligence operatives can make.

Release the cables as obtained by Al Jazeera. Give the public an opportunity to make its own judgements based on all the evidence.

The value of leaks of “secret” information cannot be over estimated.

The leaks by Edward Snowden haven’t changed the current practices of the U.S. government but they have sparked a lively debate over issues only a few suspected existed.

One specific advantage to the Snowden leaks is hopefully IT companies now realize that the government will betray them at a moment’s notice, such it be advantageous to do so. IT companies are far better off being loyal to their customer bases, as are their customers.

Another advantage to the Snowden leaks is an increased impetus for open source software. Not necessarily free software but open source so that a buyer can inspect the software for backdoors and other malware.

The most recent batch of leaks, the “Spy Cables,” appear to be of similar importance. Consider this current headline:

Mossad contradicted Netanyahu on Iran nuclear programme by Will Jordan, Rahul Radhakrishnan.

From the report:

Less than a month after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2012 warning to the UN General Assembly that Iran was 70 per cent of the way to completing its “plans to build a nuclear weapon”, Israel’s intelligence service believed that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons”.

A secret cable obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit reveals that Mossad sent a top-secret cable to South Africa on October 22, 2012 that laid out a “bottom line” assessment of Iran’s nuclear work.

It appears to contradict the picture painted by Netanyahu of Tehran racing towards acquisition of a nuclear bomb.

Writing that Iran had not begun the work needed to build any kind of nuclear weapon, the Mossad cable said the Islamic Republic’s scientists are “working to close gaps in areas that appear legitimate such as enrichment reactors”.

Such activities, however, “will reduce the time required to produce weapons from the time the instruction is actually given”.

The leaked information should (no guarantees) make it harder for Netanyahu to sell the U.S. Congress on something very foolish with regard to Iran and its nuclear energy program.

Just imagine how all the “scary” news would read if the public had full and free access to all the secret information circulated by governments and distorted for public consumption.

If you want a saner, better informed and safer world, leaking secret corporate and/or government documents is a step in that direction.

PS: Have you seen Snowden’s A Manifesto for the Truth?