>>>>>>>>>>>>Kind of suspicious timing, isn't it?
>>>>And what gives you the right to differentiate between CLASSIFIED documents as okay to publsh and others that are not okay to publish. Once again, you bias is howing clearly regardless of what your mouth is saying...
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My bias? Excuse me, but wasn't it you who called him a criminal? You seem to have differentiated between what was okey to publish and what wasn't.
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>>Sure its easy. Classified Government Documents = no publish on public website . Period...
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>As far as that goes, I disagree with you and agree with Julian Assuage. Documents can and have been classified for no purpose other than to keep embarrassing information from the light of day. WikiLeaks publishes things it believes the public has a right to know.
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>My words have been twisted some in this thread so let me make this crystal clear. I do not advocate publication of documents that really are secret for a reason, for instance national security. (One of the most overused phrases in the language, along with "What the American people want is....") And if WikiLeaks put the lives of informants in danger by publishing their names, that is wrong. Tracy convinced me on that point. Even if nothing has happened to them, exposing them to retribution is indefensible.
Do you really not see a problem with "WikiLeaks publishes things it believes the public has a right to know." and "I do not advocate publication of documents that really are secret for a reason, for instance national security" ? And so the decision of what is "really secret" is to be made by a junior grade cipher clerk? If he were giving documents to the North Koreans for money is that okay too?
I have no doubt classified status is often used to hide information that is just bad PR, but the idea that somehow Wikileaks is a better arbiter and that our security should in any way be subject to their getting it right is stunning in its naivete. Wanting ammunition for political purposes is not a justification for allowing people who have received a security clearance and taken an oath to violate that oath by "leaking" information they think "the public has a right to know"
"The public" isn't clamoring for the information. The people who want talking points for political advantage are.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
