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Comment by mcphilip | Hacker News Reader

It seems the same argument you're making about it being distasteful to release the emails without any a priori evidence of wrongdoing could have been applied to the HBGary Federal incident, although Anonymous was provoked in that case since Aaron Barr claimed to be able to expose the "leaders" of the movement.

Was it distasteful to leak the 44,000 emails acquired? If so, was the important information gleaned from the emails exposing all manner of shady dealings in the white hat industry[1] not enough to vindicate the attacks?

[1]http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110209/22340513034/leaked...

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IMO the problem here is that this leak will probably make whistleblowers easily identifiable, thus causing legal actions against "the good ones" (think Bradley Manning). This makes the case more comparable to the cables (which were filtered before release) than to hbgary.

Bradley Manning was not one of the "good ones". Sorry.

I yield to your well-founded argument.

P.S: I consider publication of information about war cruelty and international political pressure as benefiting for mankind, ethically good and thus conforming to the "hacker ethics".

How about this...

Bradley Manning posted two types of information. War Footage and Diplomatic Cables. The War Footage was unpleasant to watch but didn't document anything that wasn't already well known (at least to anyone who paid attention to Iraqi Civilian Casualty Numbers). As such no change has been made by the government.

The second group, diplomatic cables, actually caused harm. The whole point of diplomacy is to avoid war. Manning leaked info (such as state department officials' personal opinion of other world leaders) that made it harder to deal with them. Hence making diplomacy harder and war more likely.

I think the larger point with the Stratfor hack and Manning's actions is it's dumb to release indiscriminately. Good reporting has always involved inside sources but those reporters targeted the actual corruption and only released that.

Much better.

> The War Footage was unpleasant to watch but didn't document anything that wasn't already well known (at least to anyone who paid attention [...])

It generated mass media attention and thus had an impact on previously uninformed people.

> The second group, diplomatic cables, actually caused harm.

It also made transparent how governments followed US pressure secretly, lying to the people, and they are said to have had an influence on the Arab spring.

Its all subjective. To some, such as myself, I don't give a shit if it cost our government to "lose face" and possibly have to back out of war, etc. I personally feel that are government is up to no good in a number of ways and that those in charge need to be taken down a few notches. The U.S. isn't some mindless borg, we all have different beliefs and feelings on what is right and wrong so saying something caused our government harm is really just saying it caused the people in charge harm, its up to the rest of the citizens to decide if it really caused them any harm.

Yes, the government is not above the law. If they are going to do things that are incriminating obviously we can't go through the normal channels to find out as they will cover their asses to no end. This sort of thing is literally one of the only ways to give the assholes in charge who abuse their power what they deserve.

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