One refrain we keep hearing against Wikileaks is that the cable releases aren't really "whistleblowing," because they're not really revealing anything. However, it seems like each day there's another big revelation of rather horrible things being done (and covered up) by the US government. The latest, pointed out by Boing Boing, involves a report from a cable that US-based private security contractor DynCorp, who was hired by the US to train Afghani police, was apparently supplying drugs and young boys for a sort of sex party.

The details are horrifying. The Afghani interior minister apparently went to US officials to warn them that reporters were sniffing around this story, and urged them to try to kill the story. He specifically warned that this would look bad if the connection to DynCorp was made clear (he called them "foreign mentors"). Apparently, US diplomats told him not to worry, and the eventual story was in fact watered down greatly (until now, of course) calling the whole thing a "tribal dance," rather than a party where young boys wear "scanty women's clothes" and "dance seductively" before being "auctioned off to the highest bidder" for sex.

Oh, did we mention that DynCorp makes $2 billion per year -- 95% of which comes from American taxpayers.

And US government officials are declaring Wikileaks as an organization to shun and not to work with? What about DynCorp? Are their DNS providers pulling the plug? Are their banks shutting down their accounts? Are they being denounced by Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman? No? Why the hell not?

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Sydney Morning Herald

Globe and Mail

As the whole mess with the TSA scanners has received a lot more attention in the last week or so, a few folks are noticing that ex-Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff, who's been quite busy defending the naked scanners, happens to be making a ton of money from one of the main ones, Rapiscan, made by OSI, a client of Chertoff's consulting firm. Of course, similar concerns were brought up a year ago when Chertoff was busy promoting the scanners, but it appears that many in the mainstream press continue to highlight his old Homeland Security title, while downplaying his current role making money from seeing those scanners sold.

However, perhaps even more interesting is the news that President Obama was finally asked to address the whole thing this weekend, and (not surprisingly) defended the scans and the pat downs as "the only [procedures] right now that [the TSA] considers to be effective," to prevent terrorism (while also admitting that he doesn't have to go through security to get on airplanes, so he hasn't experienced the scans.

No surprise there. Of course, what he didn't mention is that he just got done traveling with the CEO of OSI, the parent company of Rapiscan, the makers of the main naked scanner that is being purchased and put into all these airports. Apparently, OSI CEO, Deepak Chopra (no, not the new agey guy), "was selected to accompany US President, Barack Obama, to Mumbai and attended the US India Business Entrepreneurship meeting..."

Now, of course, all of this may be perfectly legit and reasonable. There may be plenty of reasons why all of these things happened. Chertoff and Obama may really believe these scanners are the best way to protect us. But, as Larry Lessig has been fond of pointing out lately with his anti-corruption project, it's these kinds of "connections" that make the American public lose trust in their government, since it can certainly be read in a rather corrupt manner.

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