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Agree (and voted up). Down voting should be about the quality of the post/argument, not whether you like the opinion. Having said that, I think you might want t

by Alex63 17y ago

Agree (and voted up). Down voting should be about the quality of the post/argument, not whether you like the opinion. Having said that, I think you might want to revise your argument a little. Regardless of whether it is legal, is it always wrong to post classified information? If the government is found to use classification inappropriately, to hide something it might find embarrassing, it weakens the value of classification in general and weakens the trust of citizens. In such a case, it might be desirable to post such information, if one could be sure that doing so did not jeopardize people's safety, etc. Maybe there should be a special court where such materials could be examined and a determination made as to whether they had been appropriately classified, with the onus being on the government to prove that the classification was warranted.

stan_rogers 17y ago
The thing about civil disobedience is that it is disobedient, and people ought to be willing to risk the consequences in order to bring about the changes they desire. It wasn't the concept of fundamental rights that made the human rights marches and so on work in the American south in the '60s, it was the brutality of the police response to the marchers. It is the consequences, and the willingness of people to do what is right despite those consequences, that is the agent of change. So, yes, the laws in place ought to be enforced, and if they are wrong, let the law be changed. Laws should not invite or be subject to invite arbitrary application, and in this case the matter under consideration is the very nature of what can be classified and what actually constitutes national security.
- crosvenir 17y ago
  Yes, exactly. I feel I have been very bad at saying that the content should never have been classified to begin with (though due to the nature of how it was gathered it must be), and that it is the protection of our communication security which is of much greater importance in this case.
crosvenir 17y ago
Totally agree with you on all points. Good suggestions too. This instance is a little different because they hacked a DoD communication encryption algorithm. Even if this was used to cover up something, how much other data has been sent using this method. Was the hack specific to the key used or will it work regardless? Will the hack be release in addition to the video? It's pretty easy for our enemies to set up scanners in the field and capture streams of data to analyze later. If the hack is generic enough and the method was used enough I can see how this could be potentially VERY bad. That being said, I think we're using very simple encryption on our UAVs video feeds. So it's probably the equivalent of locking the front door and not as big a deal as I've made it out to be.

by Alex63 17y ago

stan_rogers 17y ago

The thing about civil disobedience is that it is disobedient, and people ought to be willing to risk the consequences in order to bring about the changes they desire. It wasn't the concept of fundamental rights that made the human rights marches and so on work in the American south in the '60s, it was the brutality of the police response to the marchers. It is the consequences, and the willingness of people to do what is right despite those consequences, that is the agent of change. So, yes, the laws in place ought to be enforced, and if they are wrong, let the law be changed. Laws should not invite or be subject to invite arbitrary application, and in this case the matter under consideration is the very nature of what can be classified and what actually constitutes national security.

crosvenir 17y ago
Yes, exactly. I feel I have been very bad at saying that the content should never have been classified to begin with (though due to the nature of how it was gathered it must be), and that it is the protection of our communication security which is of much greater importance in this case.

crosvenir 17y ago

Totally agree with you on all points. Good suggestions too. This instance is a little different because they hacked a DoD communication encryption algorithm. Even if this was used to cover up something, how much other data has been sent using this method. Was the hack specific to the key used or will it work regardless? Will the hack be release in addition to the video? It's pretty easy for our enemies to set up scanners in the field and capture streams of data to analyze later. If the hack is generic enough and the method was used enough I can see how this could be potentially VERY bad. That being said, I think we're using very simple encryption on our UAVs video feeds. So it's probably the equivalent of locking the front door and not as big a deal as I've made it out to be.