Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

November 21, 2015

Leaking Classified Information

Filed under: Cybersecurity,Journalism,News,Reporting — Patrick Durusau @ 8:57 pm

I saw a tweet recently extolling the number of classified documents that could have obtained.

Not obtaining and/or leaking classified documents of any government denies the public information it can use.

Two suggestions:

If you can obtain classified information, do.

If you have classified information, leak it in its entirety.

Before some ambitious assistant US attorney decides I am advocating illegal activity, recall that some leaks of classified information are in fact authorized by the executive branch of the United States government. Read All Leaks Are Illegal, but Some Leaks Are More Illegal Than Others by Conor Friedersdorf for some example cases.

Classification is used to conceal embarrassing information or failures. No government has a right to conceal embarrassing information or failures.

Agonizing over what to leak creates power for those with leaked information from a government. Do you see yourself as that petty and vain?

Just leak it. Let the chips fall where they may.

The history of leaking is on the side of no harm to anyone.

Start with the Pentagon Papers (U.S. Archives), Watergate at 40, Public Library of US Diplomacy, which also includes Cablegate, the Kissinger cables and Carter cables parts 1 and 2, Afghan War Diaries, the Snowden leaks and count the bodies.

So far, I’ve got nothing. Zero. The empty set.

Over forty years of leaking and no bodies. If there was even one, it would be front and center at every leak story.

Doesn’t that tell you something about the truthfulness of government objections to leaks?

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