[trevelyan]

There is no copyright on government documents. Once you know something it is no longer a secret by definition and you are free to discuss and report on it. It seems with Wikileaks that this is no longer the case, making this a stunning attack on freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

If you want to get uptight about the security implications of the leaks, a better place to start is wondering who setup the system that allegedly allowed a mentally unbalanced soldier to carry evidence of war crimes and private diplomatic correspondence out of a military facility on a USB key. Assuming it was Manning who leaked the information AND it constituted any real security threat, it seems clear he should never have had access to that sort of material.

[magoon]

Now I'm uptight?

I raise a valid point -- journalists don't capture and disseminate private conversations, they report. I have never seen a journalistic article from Wikileaks, much as I have never seen a journalist simply distribute a bunch of private conversations with no story.

[glesica]

Seems like a meaningless difference to me. You're saying that if Wikileaks had carefully summarized each document instead of releasing the actual documents then it would be journalism?

Wikileaks presented information, just because that information wasn't in a form that you are comfortable and familiar with doesn't make it not journalism.

No one had ever seen a journalist who published exclusively online until a few years ago and many people claimed that wasn't "journalism". Now bloggers are pretty well-recognized.

The volume of information is so large today that a new form of journalism is required. Wikileaks has provided that, or at least led the charge to provide it.

Wikileaks acted as a clearinghouse for raw information. Then others read it, interpreted it and wrote about it. I don't see the problem.

[magoon]

> You're saying that if Wikileaks had carefully summarized each document instead of releasing the actual documents then it would be journalism?

Um...yeah

[glesica]

But what's the difference? We're big kids, we can read the documents for ourselves. Or we can wait and let another news outlet read them and interpret them for us. I just don't see this as being a meaningful difference.

[natrius]

Sorry, you're wrong. Getting information to the public is journalism. It's usually better to go beyond raw information to do so, but making the information itself more accessible than it was before (because it was secret, for instance) is very valuable. I spent a couple of years doing that in a newsroom.

[trevelyan]

> journalists don't capture and disseminate private conversations

Perhaps you have heard of the terms "public service" and "public sector"? Government documents are not private conversations and I am genuinely appalled you believe yourself entitled to speak on only those matters your government deems fit for public discourse.

[magoon]

> Government documents are not private conversations.

huh? if they weren't private, then why were they newsworthy?

[trevelyan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

[throwMeAway576]

And he is one more than 4 million who have such access, by the way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet