Obama Takes a Hard Line Against Leaks to Press | Hacker News Reader

Obama Takes a Hard Line Against Leaks to Press

nytimes.com

37 pointscredo20 comments

His administration has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press.

Now there's a sentence which could appear in a lot more articles...

Probably true, but if you're implying that the left is happy with Obama even though he has not quite lived up to their expectations then I think you're mistaken.

No, in fact I have seen a lot more articles to the opposite. I do think that wikileaks is the wrong way to do it.

What's so hard to understand about this? Regardless of your intentions, classified information is classified information. Belief that a program is inefficient, no matter how well founded, probably does not outweigh that fact. The system simply doesn't work if everyone in it gets to exercise their own judgement about when to honor it.

Sometimes, people are going to have to step outside the system. Many of those people are legitimate whistleblowers, and many of those people are patriots who are serving the good of the nation. That they're stepping outside the law and risking sanction increases the heroism of their actions. But that doesn't mean that the system itself should change.

It's more important to be just than consistent.

Edit: Are there many cases of misguided whistleblowers that caused significant unintended harm while doing what they thought was right? It seems that in most cases the whistleblower feels strongly that something unethical is happening before they come out. I think that shows there is a strong enough deterrent against whistleblowing to prevent it being done casually. The administration does not need to punish this man for doing what was obviously the right thing to do.

This article discusses policy. All manner of principles are at play in policy. Fairness is an important principle. So is security. So is liberty. Many of these principles are in tension. It is unlikely that any formal policy will resolve those tensions in all cases.

Meanwhile, you have a system in which many tens of thousands of people are necessarily exposed to sensitive, confidential, or classified information. Some of it impacts national security. Some of it impacts the economy. Some of it jeopardizes the fairness of government proceedings. Some of it conceals government malpractice.

We can't manage that system that presumes to honor people's personal judgement about what is or isn't worth classifying.

And not for nothing, but "these programs are a waste of money" doesn't sound like a valid reason to break the faith on classified material involving intelligence operations.

Was he merely concerned with financial waste or is that how he sold the problem to his superiors?

Consistency is the very cornerstone of justice. I don't see how it's even possible to be just without being consistent.

It depends on what your ethical framework is. I'm a consequentialist, so whichever action produces better consequences I think is the right action regardless of the rules. You sound like a deontologist, to whom following the rules (not necessarily the law) is what it means to be ethical.

It's more that I make a distinction between justice and ethics. Ethics is the philosophy of how rules should be made. Justice is sort of a meta-rule, mandated by the most popular ethical systems (utilitarianism, Rawlsian ethics, among a few others). Justice mandates that neither a rule nor its application unduly advantage any party over any other. Therefore, there should not be a rule that prohibits people with a particular skin pigmentation from using a particular seat on a bus. Likewise, enforcement of rules that prohibit actions that victimize others should not be suspended when local law enforcement doesn't like the victim.

I suspect I don't need to explain why it's difficult to get such equitable enforcement without consistency.

If justice is just a meta-rule which says that all rules in an ethical framework should be followed then the only rule in consequentialism is: "do whatever leads to the best outcome." Doing whatever leads to the best outcome can involve breaking laws or applying other rules only at certain times and to certain people. As long as you are acting to produce the best consequences you are acting justly.

You aren't considering the externality of blowing the whistle on bad contracts by leaking confidential information: that you are setting the stage for other people to exercise their judgement poorly as well with information that is much more hazardous to leak.

This makes me recall an old cliche..."the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

This is precisely where our definitions of justice differ. I think something can be beneficial without being just, and vice versa. Justice is just sort of beneficial overall, so we shouldn't violate it without having a really good reason. This "really good reason" thing is what executive pardons (and similar powers) are for, and even that is abused pretty heavily.

Justice does not mandate that all rules be followed. It mandates that all rules be equitable, and be enforced equitably.

Finally, while using the rule "Do whatever leads to the best outcome" is a perfectly good way to operate as an individual, it is unenforceable on a societal level. This is why we have other rules. It's impossible to figure out just what has the best consequences, so we try to produce more concrete rules that improve consequences overall (hopefully which don't have too many consequences of their own).

Following the personal rule "Do whatever leads to the best outcome", even when it goes against society's laws, is called civil disobedience. When done for a good cause, it is not generally vilified. The catch to civil disobedience is that you must accept the consequences of your actions.

You are precisely right. By exercising their judgment, they risk everything. Even when morally "right," they will still suffer punishment for having committed a crime, and I agree that this is probably as it must be. Casual disclosure must be aggressively fought. But when right, these men and women become patriots; heroes.

But embarrassing information that is plainly not a threat to national security is routinely classified and hidden. Isn't that a system that should change?

I think overclassification is the real problem here. There would be both less reason to leak AND more respect for security classification if they were only used to protect things that are legitimately sensitive.

Yes. There should be consequences for abusing the classification system. That's a real issue, but it's orthogonal.

"I think this administration, like every other administration, is driven to distraction by leaking,” Mr. Aftergood [the head of the FAS project on government secrecy] said. “And Congress wants a few scalps, too. On a bipartisan basis, they want these prosecutions to proceed." (my brackets and italics)

Always beware bipartisan efforts when your nation's two parties distinguish between each other on the basis of identity politics, rather than ideological differences. The only efforts both parties could jointly support are either political platitudes or mutual self-preservation.

Bring back the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans!

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