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Comment by ErrantX | Hacker News Reader

Yes, and no. Because while clearly there are parallels in that they feel threatened I think that, ultimately, there is a line which the US currently hasn't crossed (e.g. stifling media reports about wikileaks, snatching them and imprisoning them on fluff charges, human rights abuses etc.).

Additionally what scares them is the handing out of classified material; which isn't quite the same as stifling criticism of the government etc. Whatever your feeling on whether it should be classified or not they have an obligation to reasonably mitigate information they consider secret.

There is a very very fine line and, if true, I feel it's being extremely closely tread on this occasion.

(just to add: I support both sides in this, so sorry if I am sat on a fence somewhat :D)

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> Ultimately, there is a line which the US currently hasn't crossed

If US government is killing civilians in various countries and is orchestrating arrests of minors, morally it is not really rising above China by much. Yeah, it is not sending 'guidelines' to the media, because there are other methods of influencing what gets published and what doesn't -- namely intimidation of journalists and sources, appeals to the owners of media corporations and so on.

> Additionally what scares them is the handing out of classified material;

Well what kind of classified material? Yes, if these are nuclear launch codes, or frequency hopping codes of military radios, they would have a valid reason to detect the source of the leak. I think most of us and most US citizens would agree with the government doing that. But these are videos of slaughtering of civilians. At this point, the CIA should be appologizing and not running around arresting and following people. There are now showing their true face (well to the rest of us who didn't know it yet).

> Whatever your feeling on whether it should be classified or not they have an obligation to reasonably mitigate information they consider secret.

That is what I have a problem with -- "an obligation". Obligation to who? Government? Why should we have an obligation to them that trumps our moral sense of right and wrong? Luckily there is someone there, who is an actual human being, with a moral sense, that knows that killing innocent people is wrong no matter how many classification layers get slapped on top of it. That is why these leaks happened. Someone put their job, freedom (and life?) at risk because they felt that the "obligation to hide murder under the carpet" is wrong.

> Well what kind of classified material?

Any classified material. I don't think they should be discriminative based on some ill specified metric; if they feel the material should be classified then they should attempt to keep it so. If Wikileaks feels it should be public then they should attempt to make it so. Therein we have the makings of balance.

> Obligation to who? Government? Why should we have an obligation to them that trumps our moral sense of right and wrong?

We certainly don't have an obligation, that's silly. They have an obligation to stand by the laws they impose. Otherwise whats the point :)

And They have an obligation to do what's in the best interest of the citizens of this country.

Classification is useful only so far as it improves our well-being. Nuclear launch codes and radio frequencies fall under this. Keeping something classified because it embarrasses a gov't official or maybe costs him a job is not.

Reality is not so clear cut. There is a huge span of information which is useful to potential enemies without directly being a risk to people's lives.

For instance, in the Army counterintelligence report that Wikileaks recently published one of the classified items (much of the content of the report was actually unclassified information) lists certain countries that were believed to have the capacity to hack Wikileaks. Now, if you were (say) North Korea, then your presence or absence on that list tells you something about what the US knew about your cyberwarfare capabilities. If you were the US, leaking this information undermines your desire to not reveal all you know, and might even reveal something about your own intelligence capability.

I've intentionally chosen a fairly benign example because my point is not that this information is so valuable, but that classification of information does not simply break down into "nukes" and "embarrassing".

> Well what kind of classified material? Yes, if these are nuclear launch codes, or frequency hopping codes of military radios, they would have a valid reason to detect the source of the leak. I think most of us and most US citizens would agree with the government doing that.

I think the point is that they don't know what information is being stolen and how deeply they have been penetrated, and this scares them. What is released to the public is not as relevant as what information wikileaks actually has. Why should they trust wikileaks not to sell that information to other nations? Their reaction is understandable. On the other hand, as always, I'm curious what wikileaks has in store for us.

> Why should they trust wikileaks not to sell that information to other nations?

I think in this case they realized the leak is probably from an insider. So the issue for them is not being able to trust their own people. Unfortunately whistle-blower laws and protections don't work for classified material. Whoever leaked this was either an agent working for another country or someone who had a strong moral sense of right and wrong. They most definitely put their job and freedom on the line. I would guess that they were morally motivated. Government agents and even CIA operatives and analysts are still human beings and (luckily) some of them hold basic human rights and moral values above agency's classification levels.

> ... how deeply they have been penetrated, and this scares them.

That is an interesting phrase because it assumes someone from outside penetrated them. I would guess it is just one of their employees. They don't necessarily plan on quitting or getting exposed, but rather they want to keep working but they are seeing this exposure as helping shed light and getting the record straight. With ultimate good results for US and the CIA.

> Their reaction is understandable.

Yes it is -- from their point of view. But I look at understanding their position as one would understand the position of a serial killer. There is some internal logic of course. But it is rather insane and wrong to the rest of the world. Given that US taxpayers are funding both the alleged killings of civilians and the cover-up, they should probably become aware of what's happening.

One way to stay away from such controversies is to simply not commit things that would bring them about.

So we'll supposedly see soon enough what this is all about. If it is just baseless hype from wikileaks, then they will lose all their credibility and will become as believable as a tabloid magazine.

> But these are videos of slaughtering of civilians.

Unless I've missed something, the evidence Wikileaks claim to have hasn't been released yet (that's the 5 April date they keep mentioning). And yet, they describe it as a "massacre" and you echo this by using the word "slaughtering".

I have little sympathy for governments who try to do dubious things claiming national security/terrorist threat/whatever as justification without presenting any real evidence. I have equally little sympathy for Wikileaks, trying to drum up publicity at a time when it is desperately short of money, doing the same thing with just as little evidence shown. If it's that important, why are they waiting to reveal it, and practically daring the security services to stop them?

Out of interest, what do you believe the opposing arguments to Wikileaks are?

You mean how can I support both sides?

I fully support the need for whistleblowers like Wikileaks. But I am also fine with stuff being secret or not known. shrug the world just works like that.

Wikileaks has the right to try and dig up secret stuff (though I dont fully agree with the way some of it is presented) and governments have the right to try and stop information escaping with reasonable measures.

When got right there is a nice balance which should help in the effort to keep governments on the "straight and narrow".

If government in a democracy can only hold those powers the people have ceded, why are they allowed to withhold material information from the people? Sunshine is surely the best disinfectant.

It would be dangerous for governments to have no secrets. I'm perfectly fine not knowing where our nuclear subs are or the specs of Air Force One. The issue is deciding what's classified and having whistleblowers are a good way to keep a balance (governments won't feel like they can get away with something just because it's classified) without risking tons of lives.

I think it could be claimed that a PAST action often should not be classified unless it directly affects an ongoing directly related incident. If it needs to be classified, then maybe the US population as a whole would not have agreed with the action (and rightfully so). I think it does stoop to a low I feel we (as the US) should not venture down. Are individuals not able to make judgment calls based on evidence compiled?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/us/politics/30secrets.html

"President Obama declared on Tuesday that “no information may remain classified indefinitely” as part of a sweeping overhaul of the executive branch’s system for protecting classified national security information."

It's getting closer to that goal.

I will respect you more if you'll start a perfectly transparent democracy which makes every piece of information public, and then see how well that works in a war.

Forget war, what about painting the bikeshed?

I'd happily discuss my thoughts r.e. this (I have a few) but HN is probably not the place for involved political discussion.

ErrantX put it best. In general, their mission of exposing any leaked document can actually decrease freedom rather than increasing it.

Examples:

1) If they ever leaked witness protection documents - the witnesses are now less free (more at risk).

2) Their actual leaking of the membership of the British National Party. You and I might disagree strongly with their platform, but, leaking that membership does harm discourse coming from a minority group (admittedly, an extreme one).

I think the key as you said that some team at wikileaks ultimately controls the the editorial review of the information (intell) flow...

Wikileaks makes editorial decisions, a lot of governments are going to be interested in the information that wikileaks receives but decides not to publish.

Sorry, but that's what intel agencies world wide are going to do...accumulate information. In many ways wikileaks is simply a similar intel agency unless they begin to publish all the information they receive and become completely transparent.

Of course, due to the nature of what wikileaks does, it seems that they can not afford to be transparent in their operations... somewhat ironic huh..

Wikileaks _needs_ secrecy in order to function.

> stifling media reports about wikileaks, snatching them and imprisoning them on fluff charges

it is well known that in the US mainstream media imposes self censorship on such issues

> it is well known that [...]

It's news to me. References?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Poli...

I'm not the parent poster, but in the UK there are DA-Notices:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DA-Notice

I'm wondering if there's a US equivalent?

Are you really equating government censorship to self censorship?

Because as far the consumers of media are concerned, there is no difference -- they end up not getting the information.

It's a point. But ultimately there is only a moral problem with media companies self-censoring rather than necessarily a legal problem.

We can dislike and declaim the media establishments that do self-censor but we can't decry their right to do so.

I fully agree that freedom of information also means freedom to not publish things the entity(publisher) does not see fit.

On the other hand...

Should the government be allowed to intimidate an entity into self-censoring? Should a corporation/entity be allowed to intimidate an other entity (with legal actions or other means) into self-censoring? Should a group of people/corporations (majority or not) be allowed to intimidate a minority group/entity into self-censoring? Should social norm of "We do not do business with entities deemed immoral (publishing anti-xxx materials)" be allowed to force entities into self-censoring?

Where do you draw the line?

The first creates the second.

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