Debates on WikiLeaks disclosures get hotter in U.S.
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Some questioned the ability of the U.S. government to protect its confidential information.
Network World reported that there has been a lot of press speculation that all of the documents, starting with the helicopter attack video, have come from the same source, a young U.S. Army intelligence analyst, who has been arrested.
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But, if news reports are accurate, no log was kept of access to the database or, if such a log exists, it was not regularly reviewed, since suspicion was directed at the analyst by a person outside the U.S. military.
It therefore seems the system is set up to allow average citizens broad access to millions of classified documents without a way to monitor such access, and it allows a bulk download of these documents, according to Network World.
"What would you think if your corporate software development team had put together such a system for your confidential corporate documents? There are lessons to be learned here, not just by the U.S. government," Network World said.
"The surprise about this latest series of leaks is not that it happened, but how it had not happened long before. Actually, maybe it has -- not everyone who would like a copy of such information would be interested in publishing it," Network World said.
Ada Evening News said in an editorial that Assange's WikiLeaks is undermining American diplomacy at best and U.S. national security at worst. He should be stopped and his website shuttered.
"We live in an age when people sometimes reveal private details of their lives on websites for all the world to see. This is a mistake, but WikiLeaks goes one better. Among other things it has revealed private thoughts of public officials about their counterparts in other parts of the world never intended for the public domain," the editorial said.
It said that international diplomacy is a delicate art, and while the preliminary indications are no lasting harm was done by these most recent revelatory documents, who knows what might show up next on WikiLeaks that could do a great deal of harm?
It compels America's current administration to nip this piracy in the bud. Someone on the inside is providing WikiLeaks with access to secret information. If this is not treason, it only misses it by a hair's breadth, the editorial said.
Journalism maintains the public has a right to know. But WikiLeaks is creating a new and potentially dangerous information paradigm and should be stopped, the editorial added.
