All governments lie

The contents of the US State Department diplomatic cables released yesterday by Wikileaks offer a convincing reminder of the dictum of the late iconoclast and journalist, I.F. Stone, that "all governments lie." Especially imperial governments.

I was particularly interested by the numerous requests for American "diplomats" to supply DNA and other biometric and electronic data that would assist intelligence agencies in monitoring the behavior and actions of the various ambassadors and other officials targetted by their snooping. It gives you some idea of the totality of information awareness these intelligence agencies are doubtless exercising domestically as well.

Here's a link to the Wikileaks home page, which doesn't seem to include the diplomatic cables yet, but which you can find at the New York Times, the UK Guardian, al-Jazeera and Der Spiegel, who all have stories on the document dump.

http://wikileaks.org/

--Michael Hasty