The Cables -- Now with UPDATE!!!!

Oh Jeebus.

The WikiLeaks Cable Leak has started, and apparently it will continue for... months to come.

Oh Jeebus Christmas.

Ain't we got fun?

Uh. No.

Just the summaries I have read have been enough to make me throw up a little bit in my mouth. I am sick, literally sick at the revelation of this stuff.

It's a completely different response than I had to the earlier WikiLeak doc dumps. Then it was really not such a big deal. The information from military field reports was largely already reported -- if not detailed -- long before the dump, and there was really no reason for the material to be secret in any case. As I said at the time, there was no reason to keep a field report secret in perpetuity; military censorship was sufficient to keep names or whatever out of the public sphere, and once operations were concluded or moved on or whatever, there wasn't any tactical reason to keep the reports secret.

But this is different.

This is very, very dangerous.

Failure to protect diplomatic correspondence is first order failure, and failure to protect this many diplomatic cables is almost unbelievable. It is a potentially catastrophic failure, a globe affecting, world-changing event of unprecedented import.

I don't know that anything too terrible is going to happen, but already the fall out is looking to be severe. Where it could lead is anybody's guess at this point, but as I suggested elsewhere, if you haven't already battened down, it would be wise to do so. Forthwith. This ride is going to get wild.

And I'd also like everyone to keep track of who is celebrating.
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Here's how the communications became available to someone like Bradley Manning, according to the Guardian UK:

An embassy dispatch marked SIPDIS is automatically downloaded on to its embassy classified website. From there, it can be accessed not only by anyone in the state department, but also by anyone in the US military who has a security clearance up to the 'Secret' level, a password, and a computer connected to SIPRNet - which astonishingly covers over 3m people. There are several layers of data in here - ranging up to the "SECRET NOFORN" level, which means that they are designed never be shown to non-US citizens. Instead, they are supposed to be read by officials in Washington up to the level of current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The cables are normally drafted by the local ambassador or subordinates. The "Top Secret" and above foreign intelligence documents cannot be accessed from SIPRNet.

This system was instituted after 9/11 so that information could be accessed across agencies, and by the military. This was supposed to make it less likely that information about known terrorists would be closely held.

The system has been refined and updated to the point where all or almost all embassies are now connected and millions of personnel have access to the information.

What a complete clusterfuck.

I understand the need for some information sharing, of course, but the idea that all State Department correspondence below the level of Top Secret should be accessible to anyone with the right clearances and a password (3 million people!) is just absurd. Do the Powers That Be have no idea what the State Department IS, and what it's for?

My doG in Heaven. This was all put in place by the Busheviks (I wonder what DemonSpawn-Liz Baby Dick Cheney had to do with it, given her State Department position under her Dad) and expanded under the Obamanauts, and as I have said, and will say again, this is Governmental malfeasance on a massive, unprecedented scale.

Heads will roll, but whose and under what circumstances remains to be seen.

My queasiness continues.

Milk of Magnesia! Hemlock!