Umm, really?

This is still citizen government. However, the government REPRESENTS the citizens. That's the whole freakin' point of representative government in a democratic republic - so that each citizen doesn't need to know everything in order to have what is accepted to be their best interests represented.

We are not a straight-up democracy where everything is voted upon, and therefore, it would be necessary to obtain fully informed votes upon everything. Our founding fathers weren't that stupid. Or rather, they were smart enough to know that it is not in the public's best interest to be completely transparent, but rather, to reveal such information to SELECT, duly elected REPRESENTATIVES of the people.

That is what the word "representation" means.Results.I'm sorry, but are you even taking this seriously? Who's the Commander-in-Chief? Is the Presidency (you know, the Executive Branch) not government now? Or is this just spin to try to make your argument make sense?Do you really have any idea of what you're talking about?

What do YOU think the CinC does, or SecDef for that matter? Surely you do realize that pretty much all of our black operations come on directive from the White House, originating from a little document known as a National Intelligence Estimate, which our President reads daily... And, surely you're aware of the fact that the specifics of such operations, more often than not, are run through both the State Department and the Justice Department to examine possible ramifications, right?Why? So we can endanger those assets we have in the field which gives us intel on which commands are made?

This is a Submarine board, so let me use a Submarine example to make my point. Ever hear of the German Enigma code? What happens when we let the enemy know we're responding to things we're not even supposed to know about?

You guessed it: he changes the code. I'm sorry, man, but that is hopelessly naive.

Should the State Department also release that we decided to act in concert with, say, the Germans? What if the Germans don't want that? Would they ever engage in such dealings with us again?

You can't be serious...

This isn't about sneaking a Twinkie from the snack box in the middle of the night, here. And that quote is as silly as it is trite.

There are plenty of things that most of us do in our day to day life that we wouldn't want others to know. Say someone's looking for a better job. Should they NOT be allowed to keep that information from their current boss?

I could come up with example upon example as to how secrecy and compartmentalization of intelligence and foreign relations is paramount.

My understanding of it is this:

Some puke in the US army with access to sensitive material gets some stupid ideas in his head. He leaks info. I forget what it was exactly, but He's caught, but isn't removed from his position, nor has his security clearances revoked. BIG mistake on the part of the army.

Later on same Army puke who's gone hippie commie, gives out a crapton of sensitive info to wiki leaks. Army puke goes to prison. Wiki leaks profits. Self righteous attention whore at wiki leaks gets his fugly mug in all the newspapers. Turmoil ensues.

Doesn't *need* to know. The point of a representative government is that the average citizen can just live its live without having to know all and everything, they can just sit back and watch TV while others care about diplomatic stuff and such. But the fact that they don't *need* to know says nothing about whether or not they *should be able* to know.

Results? Results to what exactly? Because it is not known what is done, remember?
Results are not everything that matters to the public. The US is in debt? You can either save a few bucks by cutting costs, or you can gain a few bucks by assassinating the richest few and stealing their money. The short term results are the same. But I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't agree with the second way.

So you're saying that the CinC/SecDef/President make all tactical decisions?
That's great news! What do you need your officers for? Just sack all those expensive generals and save a few bucks:yeah:

Did you even read what I wrote? Apparently not. Why don't you get back on this once you have?

See above.

The intelligence gathering operation is still going on. So according to my ideas the information should still be withheld. Sorry, but your example only proves my point.

If it's something the Germans don't want to be associated with, one can wonder whether it is something the US should be doing.
Otherwise, you can simply replace "German" with "a foreign nation" in the report.

More undiplomatic assessments of Turkey and Erdoghan

Should I feel relief now that unofficially the US obviously agrees with my views of Turkey's suspicious nature, and seems to do so since years - or should I feel worried by the dimension of lacking consequences of Washington responding to these shifting views, and the stubborness by which Washington still demands this snake being accepted into the EU and still tries to ignore it's dubious nature?

It's quite clear you're stretching here, as well as taking my responses out of the contexts of YOUR own quotes. As such, I'm going to let my (and basic) logic stand for itself and thank God that the vast majority of people on both sides of the aisle AND the Constitution understands the need for secrecy.

But results might be all that matter to those who don't want the public to know unless it is a result they can sell to the public.
So secrecy is needed as it would be bad enough for people to find their "representatives" are doing business with a crazy murdering drug dealer, breaking all their own laws and misappropriating tax payers money on harebrained schemes, it would be really bad if the bad actions were publicised and they hadn't achieved any positive results at all.
So to keep the population informed and keep the representatives accountable it is important that only success stories with good results are publicised and only then if they have been done all nice andf legal without having to grub around with notorious scumbags:yeah:

One thing out of this latest pile of leaks I find funny.
Prince Andrew and doing business/corruption.
It shines some light on his ex-wife and the errrrrr...... businessmens donations to her "help me" fund

Pakistan:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...732110,00.html

The AP reported this today:

Who ever is going this DDOS attack is hitting them with a movie DVD every second. That just amazing.

that would be 2 dvds or a 2 sided dvd, since a dvd is 4.7gbs
assume that each "zombie" in the botnet contributes an average of 100kb/s
the number of systems in this botnet would have to amount to 100 systems
which if you think about it isn't that amazing.....

edit: depends on what method was used in the attack, if it was pinging that would take a lot more systems

edit 2: darn, my bad. 100 systems is only 10 megabytes, it would have to be 100thousand systems for 10 gigabytes

Suppose the only way the CIA could get access to Ahmadinejad would be if they posed as representatives of the International Commission of the Red Cross from Switzerland... and we did not tell the Swiss (which would not be surprising).

Do you still think the people have a right to know that their country violated about a hundred conventions, agreements, treaties and laws even though the cause may be "good"?

No. Oftentimes the reason such operations need to be kept secret is not due to the target, but the methods of access.

International policy is a dirty game. We are making deals with countries you would be shocked at, and going behind the backs of our closest friends. We are making and accepting trade-offs that would morally offend many US citizens.

Politics making strange bedfellows is a virginal honeymoon compared with our foreign policy. I have been working international policy analysis for almost 30 years (next year!). It is an ugly side of Realpolitik. The reason citizens can enjoy their feelings of pride in their country is
That. They. Don't. Know. About. It.

It is not something to be proud of, but it does reflect the ugly reality of foreign policy.

The truly damaging part of the wikileaks is that data is being released without context or confirmation. Citizens will read a few documents, assume that what they are reading is true, and make conclusions and inferences that may be completely inaccurate simply because they lack the training, experience, and background data necessary to be able to evaluate data like this. This is my profession and it is not easy.

President Bush once commented that he does not "do nuance" when it comes to foreign policy. Well foreign policy is nothing but nuance. :yep:

And reading a little data out of context is a good way to make a wrong inference.

I'll argue that we still retain the right to know. Maybe it turns out the average American citizen is not so eager to have Ahmadinejad killed that they want their agents to pose as Red Cross representatives.

Imagine a boss (in a democracy, surely we, the common citizenry are the bosses, at least in theory) being told he can't access what a deputy (which is what a representative is, to say nothing of a government bureaucrat) is doing because the deputy claims that the methods are really dirty and he really shouldn't know.

The boss may accept the deputy's explanation that it is all the better if he doesn't poke his nose into this affair. But to say he doesn't have the right to is a whole different thing.

Doesn't that rather demonstrate how some posters "pride" in their country and its actions are often so ridiculous.
After all it can only mean that their views being expressed are either based on plain ignorance or on pure hypocracy.

cables about the immense Arab hostility against a nuclear armed Iran

Some of you guys still want to call me a "hawk"? :DL In the company of these people, I'm feeling more like a dove. ;)