OSNews

Thom, stop trying to be mellow dramatic by dragging out the traditional red herring of the so-called '1984 state' if you don't get your own way.

It is not a red-harring; are you argueing that if the judge had sided with Apple, future parties would NOT have used this specific case as jurisprudence? And not to be pedantic, but it's 'melodramatic'-- just so you know .

There are laws already which protect whistle blowers; the issue isn't about unearthing corruption or missdeeds, it is about one individual who took it upon his or herself to break an NDA and disclose that privilaged information to a third party.

And again, that third party has complete freedom to do whatever the hell he wants with that information.

Other than that, legally speaking there is little difference between a new upcoming product, or misdeeds within a company. As I already epxlained a few times, if the judge had sided with Apple, any company being faced with a whistleblower could use THIS specific case as jurisprudence, forcing the press to reveal who this whistleblower is-- with all the consequences that come with it (ever saw 'The Insider'?).

One of those consequences would be that potential whistleblowers would think twice about going to the press with relevent information. And that would be the end of journalism.

Pepsi for example, received confidential information pertaining to a new Coca Cola product; Pepsi decided to do the honorable thing and notify the authorities and Coca Cola in regards to this finding, and are working to unearth the individual.

Great. However, you do realise that Pepsi is a company, and not a member of the press? Pepsi can be sued by Coca Cola, so Pepsi did not do this because Pepsi is somehow ethical; they did it out of fear and nescesity.

In the case of the issue at hand, the relevant sites had the opportunity to say no, we will no accept information sourced through people who have disclosed information in violation of NDA; they had that option, and I'm sorry, just because you find the idea of ethics something difficult to understand, doesn't mean that all of us in 'cyberspace' are willing to use every excuse in the book to justify our actions.

They had the opportunity to say no, just like the Washington Post had the opportunity to say no. They both did not, and you can argue, like archiesteel said, that they both did their job well as journalists-- one on the government, the other on their topic of interest, Apple.

I also know a lot of stuff that falls under NDAs. I do not publish that information; and the things I know relate to companies of all shapes and sizes. I do not publish this information because I do not want to jeopardise the people who I got the information from, because they told me the information knowing I'm a man of my word, and hence I will not 'betray' them.

The people leaking to the websites, however, knew perfectly well who they were dealing with. They did it on purpose, and they know that the people they were talking to could not be held accountable for the leak; only they themselves can.

If the leakers are real men, they step forward and be accountable. Because THEY, and THEY ALONE have crossed a line (and Apple of course, for going after the wrong people).