Center for a New American Security

I am now back in Tennessee. Apologies to anyone in DC I failed to meet on my brief trip -- I'll be back in January.

People like to sneer at the "MSM" for being too close to the powers that be. The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and other media often hold off on reporting stories that might endanger national security. (Seriously -- I know some of you hate the left-leaning Times, but they do this a lot in the name of the national interest.) The problem with jackassess on "teh internets" is that we don't have the same editorial filter. So when a website like wikileaks publishes a classified report on a super-secret IED countermeasure that has saved countless lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, that's a problem. Right?

From our friend Noah at Wired:

In July, 2005, I asked a member of a Baghdad-based military bomb squad about the radio-frequency jammers his team was using to cut off signals to Iraq's remotely detonated explosives. His response: "I can't even begin to say the first fucking thing about 'em." A few days later, one of those jammers seemed to save me and him from getting blown up. Months after that, David Axe was thrown out of Iraq by the U.S. military, for a blog post which mentioned the Warlock family of jammers.

So I was more than a little surprised, when I saw that Wikileaks had posted a classified report, outlining how the Warlock Red and Warlock Green jammers work with — and interfere with — military communications systems. The report, dated 2004, gives specific information about how the jammers function, their radiated power and which frequencies they stop. That Baghdad bomb tech would've put his fist through a wall, if he saw it out in public.

Gang, this is not good. But what is the appropriate response? Sound off in the comments section.