zlacker

They said the same thing about Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden's leaks. Apparently, everything sensitive was so secret that if anyone was hurt or killed as a direct result of the leaks blowing their cover, we never heard about it. Several instances of appalling behavior (read: constituting war crimes) were exposed, though.

Watch them find something KKK-related in here.

>>bsanr2+(OP)
Yeah, this is a standard part of the spin at this point.

If they really want to keep their means and methods secret, the way to do that would be by giving their internal complaints system enough teeth to never require leaking full documents in the first place.

>>bsanr2+(OP)
I understand what you're saying about what was exposed, but do you really believe that intelligence leaks don't cost lives at some point? I find it harder to believe that identities of spies and TTP being publicized just has zero negative effect afterwards. Those people, though leaked, are likely still classified in some manner so there's no reason for the US or any government to admit that they've lost people or the upper hand in clandestine environments.

Police departments, comparatively, are not that classified or secretive. It's definitely much more likely that there's evidence of undercover operations that were leaked by this, probably. Certainly much more likely than something KKK related, what makes you say that? I admittedly haven't looked to see how far back in time these files go, so something these days seems a little outlandish, at least from what I know right now.

>>easter+b4
The job of intelligence agencies are to gather intelligence and analyze the outcome. The publications that came out of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden was not published unannounced, nor was the content of the leaks unknown. Common practice is also to request comment on such content a few days before publications, even if intelligence agencies usually refuse to comment. In the case of Chelsea Manning, I recall they even asked the agency a few days ahead in helping them redacting names of people.

So unless they are very bad at their job at gather intelligence and analyze outcomes, leaks don't cost lives unless they allow it. It like a pyromaniac telling the fire department the exact location (down to the meter) and exact time (down to the second), and what exact mechanism they intend to use to light a fire. The fire department will get annoyed and angry, and the police will likely show up, but the risk for someone to die in a fire is quite low.

>>belorn+u8
You're absolutely right on journalists working with intelligence agencies on appropriate redactions on the like, I don't want to ignore that. Happened with Reality as well. Despite that, there is always risk. I'm not trying to downplay the legitimacy of all leaks ever, just stating that as a fact. These dumps are huge, and considering that the agencies in question already didn't want to redact them (and chose to just classify them instead) it's hard to believe that journalists would do that same job better than them. Journalists when they don't get meetings precisely on their terms go into hero mode and try to redact themselves only. Snowden is a great example of this, so I'm not sure why you bring it up.

Mistakes happen all the time, and that doesn't even get into poor redaction methods that can be reversed, ESPECIALLY since the groups being targeted are most likely able to put pieces together that journalists can't. The mysterious nine character name might be a total mystery to the interns at NYT, but if you're an insurgent with the context of the rest of the report and (most likely) a few good names to guess with it's far from real mystery.

To reiterate, the lives in question are likely still classified, and revealing even their deaths can come at significant cost. Telling terrorists that they have the right guy presents about zero benefit to anyone but them, so there's no reason it'd be public information.

Furthermore, lives are a pretty low bar. I don't think it should be controversial to say that the US government, for instance, should be a few steps ahead of violent extremists. Debating the specifics of how and what measures are appropriate is another very important and necessary conversation, but saying that redacted leaks are totally fine is like giving just the suits of your cards to your opponent. Nothing like this is harmless, that's just myopic.

>>easter+Ep
The risk is low but indeed not zero. We can construct a scenario where an operative is capture but which identity is unknown, and five years later the person is still in captivity, and suddenly a leak is announced to be published in which agency get knowledge that the captured person name will be included, and the intelligence agency are for some reason still unable to rescue the person before the article later get published.

There is however a lot of conditions for that to happen, which is why the general claim that a leak could endanger lives should be seen as rare, unlikely, while possible event.

To make a guesstimate, journalist and government official risked more life by the additional traveling by plane and car in order to discuss and publically address the leaked documents of Chelsea Manning than the risk exposed by the leaked documents themselves. The agencies involved was likely competent enough to eliminate all higher risks well before the publication date.

> Furthermore, lives are a pretty low bar

I don't think anyone object to that. Leaks should be seen as having a high risk of disrupting operations and increasing resource costs. I would expect that pulling out operatives, protecting collaborators, replacing operatives, and operations that fails are all very costly. The trade between an informed citizens and costs is something which should be more often discussed in politics. Journalists can sometimes reduce the costs with careful work, but it not a clear cut and sometimes they will make a mistake and sometimes its the government that goes to far in hiding too much information from its citizens.