On Mar 18, 2011, at 10:44 PM, Tim Bray wrote: > Some of what Wikileaks is doing is open to question on ethical > grounds. On the other hand, many of the people screaming about it > are, arguably, war criminals.
I know of no convicted or indicted war criminals who have commented on wikileaks. The left bandies the "war criminal" tag about rather recklessly. > What Bradley Manning is alleged to have > done is ethically and legally questionable. What is being done to him > is nauseatingly abusive. He's incarcerated. That's not abusive. It's necessary. There is absolutely no evidence that he has been treated poorly. > The Obama administration is eager to > prosecute whistle-blowers while flatly refusing to prosecute those who > ordered and subsequently condoned torture. Manning isn't a whistle blower. He's a member of the United States armed forces who turned over classified documents. That's treason, not whistle blowing. If you take the oath, you do your duty. > Maybe I'm old-fashioned > but that bothers me. You're not old fashioned. > > That's the tl;dr version. For more exposition, see > http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/12/05/Wikileaks and > http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2058340,00.html and > http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51197.html > > -T > > On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 7:28 PM, Paul Stenquist <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> On Mar 18, 2011, at 10:20 PM, steve harley wrote: >> >>> On 2011-03-18 19:44 , Paul Stenquist wrote: >>>> I find the left's enthusiasm for wikileaks to be rather simplistic. >>>> >>>> Privacy is necessary in personal life, in business dealings, and -- yes -- >>>> in government as well. Government officials have to be able to correspond >>>> in confidence at times. Strategies to defend against terrorism have to >>>> remain confidential. And don't forget that wikileaks released the names of >>>> Afthan citizens who had tried to help defeat the Taliban, putting them in >>>> grave danger. Even Assange's cohorts said that action was despicable. >>>> >>>> Earlier, someone said it's only the U.S. that has a problem with wikileaks >>>> . That's not at all true. Almost all European nations have spoken out >>>> against the groups actions. There are government officials both in the >>>> U.S. and other countries who have and will violate the people's trust. But >>>> when exposing the few puts the many at risk, it's a bad deal. >>> >>> all governments have to drink the kool-aid; i suspect what was being >>> expressed was that European public opinion has a significantly different >>> statistical spread than US opinion >>> >>> regarding putting people at risk, the US government and others have been >>> shown to be willing to exploit secrecy for things that put people at risk: >>> torture, killing, starting wars, run-of-the-mill exploitation ... >>> >>> so it seems to be both a question of gradation and trade-offs; exposure of >>> secrets is (thankfully) far from the exclusive domain of wikileaks >>> >>>> If wikileaks has accomplished anything good, it would be that it has led >>>> the government to tighten security. The U.S. serviceman who provided much >>>> of the classified information that was released will spend most of his >>>> life in jail. >>> >>> we can guess the outcome, but at the moment he's undergoing pre-trial >>> torture, so he may lose the capability of rationally describing his actions >> >> He's not being tortured. They took his clothes away and gave him a velcro >> sheath for night use, because he was considered a suicide risk. >> >> He's Obama's prisoner. Are you trying to say that our liberal democrat >> president is torturing a U.S. citizen? >> >>> >>> -- >>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>> [email protected] >>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>> follow the directions. >> >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. >> > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
