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Comment by ANPEQ-1 | Hacker News Reader

Thank you. There is such thing as legitimate secrets. The threat of jail for wholesale and thoughtless release of top secret information... is a good threat. Professional journalists know this and shouldn't jump on the Assange bandwagon; they understand that their power comes a duty of care.

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Secrets are just that, secrets. Not some legally protected object. If you don't want your secrets getting out, then don't tell people them, or better yet - don't do bad things. Making secrets legally protected for those that have not signed an NDA and do not participate in government inner-workings or aren't even citizens of that country is a dangerous precedent that erodes the first amendment.

What would stop a government from making something "classified" ex post facto just to silence and/or jail nay-sayers, political opponents, or oppressed peoples? The answer is nothing, and this is exactly why this cannot stand.

So, a journalist could publish the design documents for the F-35? The newest hydrogen bomb? Information on how we are spying on the North Koreans? Proof that military intelligence isn’t always 100% correct and has bombed groups incorrectly? Proof that we are spying on suspected terrorists who have recently been granted US citizenship? I believe there is a line somewhere in the above scenarios, and journalists are responsible for determining where that line exists. Assange appears to have a different interpretation of where that line is from the US government officials.

If a secret is legitinate nobody should need threats of jail to keep it but its own merits.

Even the damnable rhetorical justification for abuses "fire in a crowded theater" standard of nuclear launch codes this applies to - since if they were compromised let the whole goddamn world know it is 1-2-3-4-5 so that they can have actual security instead of illusion of security and the fuck ups responsible being safe from any deserved backlash.

If I am a non US journalist why should be illegal for me to publish an US secret especially war crimes and not weapon or defense designs ?

This is why there are countless indictments against sources. Editorial work [the very things he is accused of] should not be viewed as illegitimate -- even if you think that the sources should be jailed -- they have made the information public...

However that may be, sloppy/negligent editorial work i.e. the release of names (uncensored) can very well be a judicial issue -- but that is not what he is accused of. And it should definitely not be persecuted with the remnant of a war-time power grab [espionage act].

Secrets need to be justified. Otherwise you cannot hold your allegedly democratic government accountable.

War crimes are no valid secrets and there was no legitimate channel. You would be ethically required to act and leak the information.

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