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This logic would render all national security reporting illegal. The job of national security reporters is to convince people in government to divulge informati
by DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
This logic would render all national security reporting illegal. The job of national security reporters is to convince people in government to divulge information they're legally barred from divulging.
- reallydontask 6y agoI'm sure there is a joke there somewhere as to how it was meant for them not us
- cmiles74 6y agoIn this case we're not talking about documentation of wrong-doing on the part of the US government. In this narrow instance, we're talking about a government employee providing the hash of a password to a journalist who will then try to find another person capable of "decoding" that hash to yield the clear-text password. To me, that seems very different then what I normally think of as investigative journalism. In my opinion I'm not sure how much or how heavy a book should be thrown at someone trying to decode a hashed password, but that's not really what is at issue. Perhaps the issue is, "is this a crime in the UK".
- nitrogen 6y agoJournalists will themselves sneak into physical venues if they can. The example I can recall is of a reporter crashing a meeting/party of a financial fraternity in NYC.
- mrguyorama 6y agoAnd trespassing is a crime and those people could probably press charges if they want
- ineedasername 6y agoWhat you describe isn't necessarily a crime. But if the physical venue happened to be a secured area on a military base or intelligence installation, there's a good chance they'd go to jail. And even if the didn't, it would still be a crime.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoThis sounds like an extremely weak and contrived excuse to go after someone who reported something that embarrassed the government.
- ineedasername 6y agoJust because the government pushes harder due to being embarrassed doesn't mean it wasn't a criminal act.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoIf you're okay with politically motivated persecution of journalists, using extremely contrived charges...
- LadyCailin 6y agoHitler did nothing illegal!
- ineedasername 6y agoConvincing people to leak stolen information to you is one thing. (And legal). Attempting to use your own tools to help that person steal more stuff is another thing entirely. (And illegal)
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoHe didn't do the latter.