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Comment by jmull | Hacker News Reader

> Parson said...the reporter was “attempting to embarrass the state and sell headlines for their news outlet.”

Literally a reporter's job.

The funny thing is, the reporter successfully embarrassed the state, then the state embarrassed itself further in response.

Color me surprised.

I really don't understand the whole "double down" approach to doing things.

you wouldn't; neither would most of us on this site. ~50% of the population wouldn't. They are targeting the 50% + 1 of their state population that voted for this man. They are probably doing a pretty good job of it too.

We won’t know it for sure. Most of the state is not technical so it’s whatever the popular media spins it.

Streisand effect, too. None of us would have heard about this otherwise.

I had already heard about it on a local security mailing list, but most of us on the list would have preferred to be spared the international embarrassment.

Parsons knew what he was doing, he won’t be embarrassed. It’s a Trumpian move to stir up resentment against the “liberal media” – not something meant to be evaluated critically.

This could actually become illegal in the UK. The official secrets act might be amended to make it illegal to embarrass the state...

-50 points from your profile

To quote Yes Minister: "The Official Secrets Act is not there to protect secrets, it is there to protect officials."

It is amazing how much truth they stuffed in to that show

A good faith reading of that statement interprets it to mean: the act isn't intended to keep pertinent information away from the public, but to protect the identities of officials who were tangentially involved.

Surely no official interprets it to mean: protecting the public image of officials by way of hiding pertinent information from the public, right?

...because being an embarrassment to the state is reserved for our government

The fact that journalists in the UK can and have been prosecuted for publishing leaks is completely absurd. Europeans think the first amendment goes too far a lot of the time, but this is the other side of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...

So nearly every pol will have to be locked up.

An Act of Parliament which would ironically embarrass the state in itself. Unsurprising from the same cast of muppets who wanted to use local newsagents to verify your age for internet pornography and make encryption illegal.

It’s not even a partisan thing, it seems like almost all our major parties seem to lose 40 IQ points when the internet is involved. Everyone from Blair onwards has been a tinpot authoritarian when it comes to digital rights.

I don't think they had the IQ in the first place.

More than half of sampled Maps couldn't calculate the probability of two heads in a row from a fair coin

“I’m going to weaponize the law because you embarrassed us.”

I can't imagine that a large, national organization like the ACLU or CPJ would want to dump tons of money into making this a massive national story should that happen...

Someone about to experience the Streisand effect in FULL force.

Somehow, I have the feeling the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's lawyers are thinking, "Bring it! We haven't had this much fun in ages."

I'm sure the judges likely to see this case are giggling over what they'll say to the state prosecutors.

Having read opinions by federal circuit court judges on technical matters, it's not clear to me that the judges who will see this case are likely to understand the matter any better than the governor.

In a state like Missouri getting sued by the ACLU is probably something that can be used to win an election and is seen as a badge of honor. They probably welcome it and all it costs them is tax payer dollars. They really just need to publicize any controversial party the ACLU represented and claim to be standing up to the sorts of people that would defend that behavior.

If they lose in court it turns into a two for one as they get to rail against 'activist judges' and whip their base to go out and vote.

And literally protected by the 1st amendment.

It was successful, because I, a non-Missourian now know about it, whereas in its initial state, this story would have been voluntarily witheld.

Those scheming reporters! /s

>Literally a reporter's job.

And the governor's helping!

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