But his pants are down, his cover’s blown…
And the politicians throwin’ stones,
So the kids they dance
And shake their bones,
And it’s all too clear we’re on our own.
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.— Throwing Stones, by John Perry Barlow and Bob Weir / The Grateful Dead
Note I’ve added a small listing of minor planets lower down in the article.
WikiLeaks, a web-based organization that publishes classified and secret documents, has posted a set of new government documents as of yesterday evening. This is another rare moment of transparency in a world that is moving toward ever-greater secrecy and control. Much of that is based around technology; it was not long ago that only entities such as the government or The New York Times newsroom could so much as send a fax. Today, we can access FindLaw from a Droid while riding the subway. We can be photographed naked going through airport security. So the control game is mostly about technology (but the search still comes down to the frisk, the only useful cop is one who understands some psychology, and frankly if you’re looking for explosives dogs get the job done best).
So here in the pre-climactic throes of our technological adolescence, it’s fitting that we have the Virgo Moon ascending over the chart for the earliest reported time that the documents were available. I’ve used the location of Stockholm because that’s where PRG, Wikipedia’s primary host is located, and Sweden is the country that has jurisdiction over the project.
Many other websites have been commenting on the content of the leak, though it would take months or years to properly assess a quarter million pages of material (that much is unreleased, so far, and will be posted gradually). I understand that this is a genre of work that is aimed at the diplomatic community. These are the meat and potatoes of day-to-day communication among embassies and diplomats, and you can be sure that there are some real gems in there. One of my favorites is how the past two secretaries of state, Madame Secretary Rice and Madame Secretary Clinton, ordered their diplomats to spy on other diplomats — including obtaining hair samples for the DNA database if possible.
Remember that embassies are notoriously secretive, and the contents of diplomatic relations are protected six ways from Sunday. I recall hearing the story of an embassy employee who risked attack by a lion rather than give up her diplomatic pouch. And embassies are one of the best places for leaks. During the early part of WWII, the U.S. embassy in London, under the stewardship of Joe Kennedy Sr. (JFK’s dad) was a direct leak to the Third Reich; yes, it’s history that JFK’s dad was a down home red-blooded all American Nazi collaborator. So Roosevelt had to route all sensitive communications to Churchill and others around the embassy, and meanwhile you can be sure they piped all kinds of bullshit past Joe’s desk so it would get into enemy hands.