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Comment by talon88 | Hacker News Reader

I find the drip-feed of information a really interesting choice, though I'm curious of its efficacy versus the wikileaks style dump.

It keeps the news alive for a longer period of time, sure, but it also means fewer eyes are looking over it and connecting the dots between various different pieces of the revealed information.

Wouldn't it be better if everything was revealed at once, and the various investigative reporters out there all got to go through it independently and write up a cohesive summation of the results, instead of this two-three page exposé per day?

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No, I think this is incredibly clever. Imagine how this release would have looked if the Australian government had thrown a fit and tried to make an example of the USs bad behavior[0].

If you're dealing with a criminal, having a slight upper hand in information while playing it as though you know everything is a proven tool. Like a police interview where an accused gets presented with a crime so you can watch him or her come up with an excuse, which, in turn, might reveal information that you didn't even know before.

In fact, one minister in Germany made a pretty grave statement about how the US behavior was "monstrous". So now I'm kind of waiting for the Snowden story to get to the part where things about Germany are revealed.

[0]It seems like they did the opposite, as they usually do, doubling down in 'Merica adoration. Which is still similarly funny.

Would Breaking Bad be as good if every episode were released at once?

this isn't for the same reason, its because they learned from wikileaks that the publics ability to absorb information is limited. a lot of important issues were burried in the wikileaks' releases.

Maybe it's done in view of personal security? Maybe he doesn't want to make all his enemies at once.

He's also in the middle of finding out who his enemies already are. I'll be _very_ surprised to see Bolivia, Venezuela, or Nicaragua show up on the leak schedule.

If he leaves out that data specifically then he'd being doing a great injustice to those countries.

A more favorable interpretation might be that the countries who are offering asylum quite likely have nothing to hide.

Russia's conditions are kind of telling.

News seems to last 5 seconds these days so I'm all for this choice.

I'm curious of its efficacy versus the wikileaks style dump.

How do you propose to measure such a thing?

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