Firstly, Hillary Clinton really p**ses me off.
You know what, it may "jeopardize security". But who's fault is that? Maybe they should take more care with sensitive documents if they don't want them out in the open.
It's a crime to break into a building and steal information, or pass it on after you've signed to say you wouldn't. But Julian Assange did neither. He wasn't the one who sourced the information in the first place, and even if the person who first released it did so illegally, it shouldn't be a crime to circulate information which is now out in the open. If Hillary Clinton doesn't want secret documents on the Internet, take more bloody care of them in the first place.
Pennstate315 wrote:
How can he get prosecuted? He didn't do anything. He was given information and posted it on his website.
Exactly the point I was making. Go after the people who got their hands on the information in the first place (if they did so illegally), not some guy who runs a website. The information was compromised when it was taken from wherever it was being stored, not when it was put on the Internet.
Ranging God wrote:
I can see it both way.
He can easily been classified as a terrorist since the war documents the he has released could be gravely harmful to our military.
I agree, it probably will harm the military. But if this says one thing above everything else, it's the fact that the information isn't protected well enough in the first place. These people have got to get it into their heads that once something is made public, there's no going back. Sure, WikiLeaks might make it "more public", but that's all.
Shane wrote:
This just proves the internet needs regulation, it's 2010 and not 1993. The days of the wild wild web are over. Actions on the internet should be treated exactly as they would be treated in real life. He should be prosecuted. I'd even say you could classify wikileaks as aiding a terrorist organization since terrorist organizations can access the documents.
Let's put it this way:
You find a camera with surveillance videos/images on it from your country's spy agency (whatever it may be). I'm not up on my knowledge of legal proceedings in this area but I think if you find government property you have to return it? People had to return debris found from Challenger and Columbia when they found it (ie. government property). Publishing documents on wikileaks for terrorist organizations and other foreign governments to access would be the same as giving the memory card from that camera to a foreign government or terrorist organization.
This case is just showing us that the internet needs regulation. Let me just say that I do support net neutrality but the regulation I am speaking of is regulation of what kind of information can be published by law and what kind of websites can exist. Call it China or whatever you want but in this day and age it's needed.
From a technical standpoint it is possible to remove the DNS references to a website. This basically means that the website still exists but the domain name would no longer work. Governments could go a step further and enact laws that would prevent certain types of websites from being hosted on their soil. Would this work due to the mobile nature of websites? Not all that well.
For more stringent protection to happen internet filtering would have to be adopted by a worldwide body, maybe the UN?
This is just the tip of the iceberg and needs to be dealt with. I address this issue in one of my
past Informer articles about what a redesigned internet would look like taking into account modern issues.
I agree that actions on the Internet should be treated the same as in "real life", however I refuse to accept that what WikiLeaks is doing is illegal.
So let's go with your RL surveillance footage. Why should it have to be returned? Why is government property different from some random member of the public. If I find a wallet in the street, sure I'd attempt to find the owner if he's near, but not because that's what I legally have to do- just because I'm a nice guy.
Similarly, if I find government secret surveillance tapes in a street, would I return it? Yes, but again, not because I HAVE to. I wouldn't blame anyone who, in the same situation, keeps the tapes and sends copies to WikiLeaks or the press.
If something is THAT sensitive, the security measures taken to ensure that they don't get out into the open should be immense. Dropping a tape or a memory card in the street is careless, but for information that important, it should never have even been taken out of the building it's kept in.
I'm not one of these ultra-liberal people- I'm not one of those people who thinks all information should be made public no matter what, just for the sake of "freedom of information". I accept that plenty of sensitive military data should ideally be kept secret, but if it gets out into the open through the neglect, mistake or ignorance of the people looking after it, then that's their fault.
Shane wrote:
That's the problem, it's not hilarious. Lives are at stake. Lives of human beings are at stake because of his decisions.
@Duke and anyone else who is concerned about the leaker Of course the internet isn't secure but if you were presented with information like this would you do the same, that is publish information rather than returning it to the source?
Like I said before, I personally wouldn't do the same and spread it around- I
would return it to the source. But there's nothing wrong with not doing that. The incompetence of the government and military is at fault here- not WikiLeaks.
? If he is/was advisor to Harper, who is highly ranked in Canada, being an advisor to him must mean you are also of a high rank ? So to get the point across that it wasn't some random redneck calling for the lynching of obama (lol wasn't it an influential person in the US that said that though lmfao) but someone who is (or i guess has?? I said or something for a reason because who cares what he is or was but its the fact that he is influential .. therefore i didn't bother to look up what he actually was) in a high ranking influential position. "Loose his positions" is plural... not loose his position as adviser, but loose his positions of everything government or public related.
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