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I have to hand it to the whistleblower in this case, he leaked what he thought was objectionable, leaked nothing else, leaked it to a very few other reputable p
by mpyne 13y ago
I have to hand it to the whistleblower in this case, he leaked what he thought was objectionable, leaked nothing else, leaked it to a very few other reputable parties instead of INTERNET at-large, and what he did leak had an obvious public interest and little threat to national security otherwise. This is both because any foreign operatives worth their salt should already be assuming that their naive electronic comms are available to Ft Meade, and because the program is so similar to prior programs which have been known to posterity.
Thanks, "career intelligence community worker" for showing how it's done.
- xtrumanx 13y ago> leaked it to a very few other reputable parties instead of INTERNET at-large What difference would it make if he leaked it to the internet at-large?
- randall 13y agoThe theory is by risking complete classified documents, one could put others at considerable risk. Whereas the post / guardian would probably be smart enough to redact things that could risk lives.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- bandushrew 13y agoOr just not release the stuff at all if that was their decision :) Any whistle blower who has made the moral choice to make certain information public has a choice around whether to take responsible steps to ensure that the information is released to the public as they intended. Releasing it only to the media companies is an odd decision, if you want to be sure the information will be made freely available.
- darkarmani 13y ago> Releasing it only to the media companies is an odd decision, if you want to be sure the information will be made freely available. Because journalists are known to sit on earth-shattering news. Journalists have the greatest incentives for making the information freely available.
- mpyne 13y agoIt's about the same difference between leaking your banking PIN to the Internet vs. leaking your banking pin to your best friend from high school 10 years ago. If all information were truly meant to be free we wouldn't demand corporations employ strict privacy policies...
- xtrumanx 13y agoI really don't understand your analogy. The whole point of releasing to the few reputable parties in the current case is so that they go on to release it to everyone else including the internet. randall's comment makes more sense regarding the Guardian and the Post would be more responsible to only publish information that wouldn't risk lives although I don't think it's right to push the responsibility on to them.
- ceejayoz 13y ago> The whole point of releasing to the few reputable parties in the current case is so that they go on to release it to everyone else including the internet. The media reports on the information they obtain, but they don't always release the raw information as it was received.
- gaius 13y agoConsider this from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22811002 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22811002 I'm of the view that life is too short to worry about whether the FBI is reading my emails I sure as hell hope he didn't leak anything to the BBC as they have abandoned the notion of protecting their sources!
- logn 13y agoHe's right. Let our kids worry about it... no. If you think stopping the inertia of post-9/11 is hard now, wait 50 years. It will get worse and it will not be stopped, except with extraordinary civil unrest.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]