there are a few reasons - not all of them individually convincing, granted, why this might be viewed as OK: - public interest (not voyeurism, but clear relevan

there are a few reasons - not all of them individually convincing, granted, why this might be viewed as OK: - public interest (not voyeurism, but clear relevance to major international consequences, and a mass casualty incident) - as real, instant and broad a reaction as you might get, to a major incident. unfiltered and true (and resistant to network overloading unlike most other systems that day). there's interest and value in seeing that and learning a bit about the pager-using mob, no? - i don't want to get into the debate about the value of indulging conspiracy theorists, as I simply don't know which way the evidence points on the utility of that - noise v small chance they're right - it was more than 8 years ago. the chances that geeks poring through logs of messages limited to <200 characters (no idea what the real limit was) will somehow have effects on these persons lives is limited - existent, but should be weighed against upsides we have to wait and see what the effects will actually be - either way, it's a very good test case to see what the impact of something like this can be, and whether it ought to be controlled. I wonder if a tiresome 'national security' angle will be raised - giving terrorists insights into reaction times, etc... weak, imho. I do feel sorry for numbers and email addresses released here that will henceforth get spammed.