3 ms·

That includes the old dogmatic 'access on need to know basis only' and items like that. You really have to wonder how a single individual gained access to 90,00

That includes the old dogmatic 'access on need to know basis only' and items like that. You really have to wonder how a single individual gained access to 90,000 documents, he couldn't possibly have a 'need to know' the contents of all of those, in fact he couldn't have read that many documents even if he wanted to. Yep field commanders don't need to know what is going on, guys back home doing intelligence analysis don't need to know what is going on in the field, Generals in charge of the situation don't need to know what is going on. Yep, no need to know there. And no one person isn't expected to sit down and read all 90K documents but they need to be available just in case some one who read the high level report needed more detail. They could go back to the original field reports that went in to the high level report. While wikileaks isn't the only responsible party their hands are not clean in this situation, innocent people are going to be hurt because they don't care.

jacquesm 16y ago
An informant is not an innocent but a participant.
- mcknz 16y ago
  True, but not always a willing participant -- an informant may be providing information out of necessity, say, if the informant's living conditions are intolerable because of hostility. I have no problem with the release of the documents, but they should be responsibly redacted with the aid of experts, and truly edited rather than dumped.
- stonemetal 16y ago
  An informant's wife, cousin, neighbor, any one who is hurt to get back at the informant besides the informant is an innocent.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Yes, and the informant carries full responsibility for putting his family members in danger.
indrax 16y ago
Innocent people are going to die because of every action you take. It's not usually nearby and it's not usually predictable, but that's what happens every time you change history. Wikileaks intent and (I think) a reasonably probable outcome of this is to lower the number of innocent people being killed. (Probably on all sides, in the long run.) I don't see any value-of-life argument that this leak is a bad thing /at all/, or that wikileaks has anything to justify on other grounds.

jacquesm 16y ago

An informant is not an innocent but a participant.

mcknz 16y ago
True, but not always a willing participant -- an informant may be providing information out of necessity, say, if the informant's living conditions are intolerable because of hostility. I have no problem with the release of the documents, but they should be responsibly redacted with the aid of experts, and truly edited rather than dumped.
stonemetal 16y ago
An informant's wife, cousin, neighbor, any one who is hurt to get back at the informant besides the informant is an innocent.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Yes, and the informant carries full responsibility for putting his family members in danger.

indrax 16y ago

Innocent people are going to die because of every action you take. It's not usually nearby and it's not usually predictable, but that's what happens every time you change history. Wikileaks intent and (I think) a reasonably probable outcome of this is to lower the number of innocent people being killed. (Probably on all sides, in the long run.) I don't see any value-of-life argument that this leak is a bad thing /at all/, or that wikileaks has anything to justify on other grounds.