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by toyg 4076 days ago
The difference is that the duties of government are clearly spelled in law, and are financed by everyone. You don't get a choice on whether to obey to your government or not, and in a democracy this is balanced by giving everyone a chance to influence such government, so that it can represent everyone's views as closely as possible (well, that's the theory at least).

With a private entity, that's not the case. If you don't like Wikileaks, you're free not to support them, or even fight them in court if you want. Wikileaks works under the umbrella of journalism/free speech laws, if there is a public interest in the matter then they should be left free to continue doing it.
3 comments
nemothekid 4076 days ago
>With a private entity, that's not the case.

Ah, so if the government had just contracted out the NSA's services and had them act as a private corporation rather than have the NSA be a government entity, then their actions would have been 100% a-ok.

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toyg 4076 days ago
No, because the money would still come from "everyone", and the government would still be "doing" something.

If the NSA was a completely privately-owned corporation without any ties to the government, yeah, the judgement would be different (likely still negative, since no private actor can legally compromise networks like they do).

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jasonwocky 4076 days ago
> The difference is that the duties of government are clearly spelled in law, and are financed by everyone

So if the government passed a law saying it was ok for them to hack private entities and make their records public, it would be ok?

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toyg 4076 days ago
I think we've already had this conversation. It would be legal, yes; it wouldn't necessarily be "ok" from a moral/ethical/philosophical/whatever point of view, in the same way as cutting a thief's hand is legal in Saudi Arabia.

It doesn't matter anyway, bringing in the NSA on this is a red herring.

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joopxiv 4076 days ago
> if there is a public interest in the matter then they should be left free to continue doing it.

But there's not. Public interest is not the same as a public being interested.

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