4 ms·
If by 'helping publish' you mean 'linking to and talking about what was already published,'[1] sure. What's the difference between Brown (the "crazy heroin add
by intslack 13y ago
If by 'helping publish' you mean 'linking to and talking about what was already published,'[1] sure.
What's the difference between Brown (the "crazy heroin addict" journalist, your words) and Gellman, who helped publish a dump of secret documents on behalf of the person who stole them?
[1] http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Stratfor http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Stratfor
- tptacek 13y agoI see a pretty clear distinction between publishing documents that are clearly in the public interest and publishing credit card numbers in an effort to trouble and shame people whose politics don't comport with my own.
- intslack 13y agoSnowden's motives are political, and they could also be construed as an effort to trouble and shame the people who didn't agree with his interpretations. And whether any of it is in the public interest is also debatable in some circles. Of course, I'm just playing devil's advocate. In my view there's a pretty clear distinction between simply linking to an e-mail dump containing credit card numbers and publishing an e-mail dump containing credit card numbers. Brown was interested in those e-mails because he actually had a journalistic endeavor in Project PM, an "actionable data set regarding the intelligence contracting industry, the PR industry's interface with totalitarian regimes, the mushrooming infosec/"cybersecurity" industry." You can keep calling him a "crazy heroin addict" if it makes you feel better, there's bias on your part for obvious reasons, but it only makes you look silly.
- tptacek 13y agoI'm comfortable with what my reaction to Barrett Brown's case says about me and my beliefs, far more than I am comfortable with what my beliefs about the Snowden case might connote.