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The flaw that you keep hitting is that you assume the government is just. You say that if someone exposes something confidential that they are bad because they

The flaw that you keep hitting is that you assume the government is just. You say that if someone exposes something confidential that they are bad because they broke the law. Law is an abstract thing created to better society and strive for justice, but it is anything but just. Often, it is used for personal/corporate benefit as well as political agendas (or even favors). Doing nothing results in no change - this is probably the most illogical argument of all. You also cannot say the government should go after them for releasing information that the government said shouldn't be released without explaining what exactly Wikileaks is harming in doing so. Lastly, you cannot go to war with the government over this because just as voting doesn't work, neither would rioting unless it were national (or say >= 20 states).

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
"he flaw that you keep hitting is that you assume the government is just." The heck if I do. I'm saying that I personally support the system of voting to enact change, that I believe the only arbitrer of whether something was justifiably held secret or not are my fellow voters, and that by denying us the right to participate in that agreed-upon state of affairs, it is a form of attack. It is not denied by keeping too many secrets -- secrets leak and we make choices. But it is, oddly enough, denied by dumping entire boatloads of secrets. A just government has nothing to do with it.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  Daniel, I think this has been a very productive discussion. However, I believe the only arbitrer of whether something was justifiably held secret or not are my fellow voters How can this ever happen if we the voters are never given any view into what is being kept secret? We may as well vote on "should we continue black ops project X-123?". No voter can have any opinion on the question by its very nature. It seems like this is getting us into a Catch-22.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    Instead of going deeper in this thread, I tried to wrap up and recap all of this in another article. Hope that is okay. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1979866 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1979866

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

"he flaw that you keep hitting is that you assume the government is just." The heck if I do. I'm saying that I personally support the system of voting to enact change, that I believe the only arbitrer of whether something was justifiably held secret or not are my fellow voters, and that by denying us the right to participate in that agreed-upon state of affairs, it is a form of attack. It is not denied by keeping too many secrets -- secrets leak and we make choices. But it is, oddly enough, denied by dumping entire boatloads of secrets. A just government has nothing to do with it.

CWuestefeld 16y ago
Daniel, I think this has been a very productive discussion. However, I believe the only arbitrer of whether something was justifiably held secret or not are my fellow voters How can this ever happen if we the voters are never given any view into what is being kept secret? We may as well vote on "should we continue black ops project X-123?". No voter can have any opinion on the question by its very nature. It seems like this is getting us into a Catch-22.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  Instead of going deeper in this thread, I tried to wrap up and recap all of this in another article. Hope that is okay. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1979866 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1979866