Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 8th Dec 2010 12:16 UTC
Thread beginning with comment 452779
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If you think every single document in the US or your own country should be published to a website,
Who says that? What does this have to do with the story at hand?
Currently we do not have such a law.
Who claimed we did?
What we do have is the Freedom of Information Act.
And what you have is the First Amendment and rulings like the ruling by the Supreme Court that found the publishing of the secret Pentagon Papers legal. And a First Amendment and case law that lead the Congressional Research Service conclude regarding wikileaks:
"This report identifies some criminal statutes that may apply, but notes that these have been used almost exclusively to prosecute individuals with access to classified information (and a corresponding obligation to protect it) who make it available to foreign agents, or to foreign agents who obtain classified information unlawfully while present in the United States. Leaks of classified information to the press have only rarely been punished as crimes, and we are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it."
Edited 2010-12-08 21:51 UTC
"If you think every single document in the US or your own country should be published to a website,
Who says that? What does this have to do with the story at hand?
Currently we do not have such a law.
Who claimed we did?
What we do have is the Freedom of Information Act.
And what you have is the First Amendment and rulings like the ruling by the Supreme Court that found the publishing of the secret Pentagon Papers legal. And a First Amendment and case law that lead the Congressional Research Service conclude regarding wikileaks:
"This report identifies some criminal statutes that may apply, but notes that these have been used almost exclusively to prosecute individuals with access to classified information (and a corresponding obligation to protect it) who make it available to foreign agents, or to foreign agents who obtain classified information unlawfully while present in the United States. Leaks of classified information to the press have only rarely been punished as crimes, and we are aware of no case in which a publisher of information obtained through unauthorized disclosure by a government employee has been prosecuted for publishing it." "
Wikileaks is kinda new. First time for everything.
Also, most of the discussion here seems to be based on the idea that people think we should have 100% transparancy. I don't know how you missed that.
Edited 2010-12-08 22:03 UTC
Assange, yesterday, published the location of the world's only pharmaceutical plant that manufactures vaccines for particular diseases. Because of Assange's irresponsible act, that plant is now a high priority target for terrorists, and all because Assange didn't have the first clue as to what info he really had, nor the ramifications of releasing that info to the world (or, simply didn't care, which is just as bad, if not worse).
Edited 2010-12-09 06:59 UTC





Member since:
2006-09-18
If you think every single document in the US or your own country should be published to a website, find a representative and ask them to craft some law. Then ya'll can vote on it. Currently we do not have such a law.
What we do have is the Freedom of Information Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_Sta...)
Which provides a process for accessing government controlled documents and also exceptions.
ps. Regarding the first paragraph above, I think posting your exact military positions and locations to a public website would be a bad idea. Posting every interaction your military has is a bad idea. I would not vote for any act that allowed that. I'm probably in the majority, which is why there is no such law. This is the law of my countrymen. If you don't like it, you may be happier somewhere else. If you don't live here, I don't know why you think you have a right to my info?