Every government has its secret operations and certainly the American government as the world’s largest military institution is the one with the most to hide, but it is not alone. For this reason every government also has programmes to uncover its opponent’s secrets and try to counteract them. Wikileaks has become a mysterious third player with a hidden agenda that nobody as yet understands.
From sci-fi to reality
In itsleatest reincarnation the classic British sci-fi television programme has produces an evil enemy that quickly became a fan favourite.
Weeping Angels are a race that only moves when the enemy does not watch, so the saying “Don’t blink” became a catch cry amongst Whovians about hidden dangers. Yesterday the world discovered that Weeping angels truly exist.
Amongst the hacking tools mentioned in Tuesday’s #Wikileaks dump of thousands of highly classified documents one was called “Weeping Angel” with which American operatives could use an apparently switched off television set to monitor a room and spy on any conversation taking place. The material was released through two important European newspapers, Germany’s Der Spiegel and Italy’s La Repubblica.
The details will be fascinating for many, certainly frustrating and angering for America’s intelligence community, but the timing of the release once more raises doubts of Wikileaks’ true aims.
Unlikely coincidence
The United States is currently embroiled in a scandal and uncertainty regarding allegations of Russian hacking in the presidential race won by President #Donald Trump. The campaign was subject to the release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee which embarrassed its candidate Hillary Clinton and like this week the release seemed to be at times of difficulty in the Trump campaign.
At the time Russia’s security services were indicated as a probable source for the leaks.
Yesterday’s release comes in a period when the White House is under pressure on alleged contacts with Russian agents by the Trump team in the campaign and which continued after the election. As a result National Security Advisor Michel Flynn was forced to resign and Attorney General announced his decision to recuse himself from the investigations into these leaks.
These were the reasons that led to President Trump releasing a storm of tweets on the weekend accusing the Obama Administration of improper behaviour during the election and planting further discord into American politics. Thus it is unlikely that the release date for the material by Wikileaks was a coincidence.
Hiding
According to the Guardian Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange declared from his refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London where he is avoiding extradition proceedings from Sweden that he did not know the sources for the documents and could not deny that they may have come from Russia. At the same time he praised the high quality of the material and its importance for revealing covert activities by governments, but this role is now coming under increasing suspicion.
Some believe that the release may be a black flag operation by the United States government to divert attention away from the Oval Office’s current difficulties, but Assange’s declarations would seem to deny that. In any case, the apparent preponderance of material about American activities and the lack of such releases about Russia, China, or other countries raise doubts to Wikileaks’ supposed political neutrality.
Results
There is no doubt that Tuesday’s revelations caused embarrassment for the American intelligence community, but in the long run it may cause many more problems for Wikileaks as it will direct the ongoing investigations into the Russian interference into new directions and Julian Assange may well rue this latest step.
Undoubtedly the results will have major effects on American politics, but as we have seen in recent months they are already occurring which is assuredly the intention of Wikileaks and those who provided the material.
