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Comment by skilled | Hacker News Reader

But of course it is positive. This is a huge deal, even if only one that will benefit himself. I don’t know anything about any secrets that he showed any lack of regard for, but I definitely know about the files he exposed that showed the US government is a bunch of cowards who manipulate people and then use the full force of the law to defend themselves when caught with their pants down.

Instead of making people guess what you mean by nuanced, you simply should go ahead and provide that nuanced perspective and see if anyone wants to engage it.

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The US government needs to prosecute actors who infiltrate secure systems with the aim to leak state secrets as a way to prevent this type of behavior from happening in the future. Say what you want; even if the premise of leaking is seeking to enrich the interests of the public--there are many state secrets that are secret for very good reasons, such as protecting the lives of informants, diplomats, etc.

There were many documents that WikiLeaks released that seemed to have been released under the auspice of "full transparency" but really served no public good and inflicted a lot of harm. Releasing the names of afgan informants, cablegate, that airstrike video where journalists were killed (can't remember the name specifically), etc. I just don't know if I agree that the public should know everything.

Think about the case of the NSA--yes they were spying on Americans in egregious ways and overextending the scope of their mission and authority. But at the same time, we do want a lot of their methods to remain secret. They have thwarted many potential terrorist attacks since 9/11; and if we, and our adversaries, knew exactly how and who they were spying on--I'm sure Americans would be less safe.

> They have thwarted many potential terrorist attacks since 9/11

Is there a source for this claim that isn't just the NSA saying "trust us"?

Yes. There was a 60 minutes episode that went into pretty deep detail on the different types of attacks that have been attempted since 9/11; most of which the NSA and/or the FBI were involved in thwarting. There was a very high profile train bombing that was would have been successfully executed if not for the power of some of these 3 letter agencies.

The same three letter agencies which routinely give fake bombs to heavily egged on idiots incapable of building them on their own?

That information has been leaked and has the US been any less safe because of it. I would argue there is nothing to suggest it. Governments aren't above the law and the journalists that were killed and the spying was rightfully publicised. As was the Guantanamo Bay leaks. The public shouldn't know everything but if the public find out because the government act illegally and need to be held to law like anyone else, it is an unlucky consequence of the governments actions.

The US used to only prosecute the government employees who leaked the information.

Charging journalists with espionage for publishing classified information is completely new in the US. Trump and Biden's prosecution of Assange is the first time it has ever happened. It's also almost certainly unconstitutional.

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