Taliban Study WikiLeaks to Hunt Informants: http://nyti.ms/bGNPIh. Failure by @WikiLeaks to redact those names is utterly beneath contempt.
The @WikiLeaks response is cartoonish moral relativism. They DO have blood on their hands, whether or not Gates/Mullen also does. #assholes
I hope the scumbags at @WikiLeaks sleep well tonight in their cocoon of moral superiority & relativism, while brave Afghans pointlessly die.
And again: the foregoing is true REGARDLESS of whether you think the entire war involves Afghans pointlessly dying. #moralityisnotrelative
Curious: Can Wikileaks be prosecuted either criminally or civilly for this damage? I thought Pentagon Papers-style legal immunity only worked insofar as you weren’t putting anybody in harms way.
I’m thinking back to stuff I learned in journalism school rather than in law school, but I believe the language you’re thinking of from the Pentagon Papers case was describing the circumstances under which a prior restraint may be imposed: to prevent the publication of information akin to troop locations, ships at sea, etc. However, in general, the prior restraint standard is the highest bar in First Amendment law (because prior restraints are a more direct infringement upon free speech than after-the-fact punishment) — for instance, defamatory content should never be subject to a prior restraint on the basis of potential defamation alone, but can be punished after the fact. So yeah, if this meets the “ships at sea” standard, some form of punishment certainly seems constitutionally permissible. There might even be a lower standard. But there is probably more pertinent caselaw that I don’t know about, or am not remembering from Professor Garnett’s class at ND. Would have to do some refresher research. Maybe the folks at Volokh or someplace will tackle this?
These jabrones should be ashamed of themselves for what they have done. I’m not huge fan of our continued long term presence in either Iraq or Afghanistan, but this is not the way to go about changing it. This is reckless and shameful and I agree with Brendan, these assholes DO have blood on their hands.
Indeed. And it really detracts from the purpose. At first, the story was about “Dude, should we stay in Afghanistan?” Now, it is about whether or not Wikileaks are a-holes. Even if they weren’t, doesn’t this totally undermine the point Wikileaks wants to make? But that’s being cheritable to those who have earned no charity.
Indeed. And it really detracts from the purpose.
Only if you think the purpose was to spark debate on the war. If those of us who think it was nothing more than an attack on the US, are correct it succeeded.
gahrie, this was not an attack on the US. That is ridiculous. The guys at Wikileaks want the US out of the wars. They aren’t attacking the country. Sheesh.
You somehow made me defend Wikileaks. Don’t ever do that again.
And after hearing the Wikileaks head on the BBC, I take back my harshness. I’m still a bit dubious, but they seem to have tried to get Afghan sources off of their documents, and had the NYT contact the White House in order to have the government coordinate what stuff should be left off. It seems to be a good faith effort to me.
A good faith effort would have been to remove everything. There’s no excuse.
A good faith effort not only redacts potentially-sensitive information, it also tries for what used to be understood to be journalistic integrity …
Of course, for the past few years, journalistic integrity has consisted mostly of not criticising The One in any meaningful way while trashing pretty much any opposition without fact-checking lest contradictory facts be found …