What If Manning Had Leaked To the New York Times? 348
New submitter minstrelmike points outs a two-page editorial in the NYTimes "about what would have been different legally, morally, and security-wise," had the military information released through WikiLeaks been published by the Times instead.
"'If Manning had delivered his material to The Times, WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein. In fact, you might not have heard of WikiLeaks. The group has had other middling scoops, but Manning put it on the map.' The writers also discusses what the Times would and would not have done, admitting they probably wouldn't have shared with other news outlets, but also admitting they would definitely have not shared everything."
all well and good after the fact (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Assumptions (Score:2, Interesting)
Came here to rage about this. Holy bloody hell, you'd think that as a journalist Bill Keller would have done even rudimentary research into how Wikileaks operates. Actually, no, since it was such a big story directly in their field you'd kind of expect him to be cognizant of the basics.
Seriously, what kind of revisionist history is this? Is Bill just being a bitter old fool?
Re:Manning is a Hero and a Traitor (Score:2, Interesting)
He's not a hero. He violated his contract with the US government. All claims to moral superiority on his part are void since he had no authorization to handle the materials in the first place and the indiscriminate nature of what he collected.
That being said I'd like to know who in the chain of command is going to be held responsible for the utter lack of operational security that made it possible for Manning to copy the files in the first place. Obviously nobody will because the higher ups are all going to have their asses covered by the Manning / Assange shitstorm that's been concocted to distract everyone.
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure you can tax into prosperity... Tax pays for services needed for prosperity, like security (police, defense), libraries, transport and communication infrastructure,
education, a legal system etc at a minimum. This obviously doesn't mean that "more tax is always better", but some level of tax is needed. Providing care for the elderly and children increases the workforce and thus prosperity, but also requires funding.
One of the clearest indications that political thought is an oxymoron is the idea that everything must come in only 2 flavors and nothing between, and that all lines must be straight lines.
Reality isn't that tidy. There is a point where too little taxes fail society and a point where too much tax crushes. There's also a spot in between. Or actually, more of a blob, since there are a lot of variables in the equation. The blob can be larger or smaller or even inside-out depending on whether your demands exceed supply.
We are the most spoiled generation in all human history. We have all - even the eldest - spent all, or nearly all of our lives expecting things to become cheaper every day. Sure, we howl about inflation, but the truth is, anything electronic has been chasing Moore's law for decades, and almost everything we do any more ties into something electronic, even if it's just just sitting down at the PC and figuring out when to plant the South 40.
Matters only got worse when offshoring became economically viable. We've come to expect that Lower Prices Every Day is a right, and not simply being in the right place at the right time. No 16th-century farmer expected next year to require less effort or money to survive than last year.
So we do foolish things like lower taxes right before a recession is due when we should have been saving the money for when the rains came and lowering taxes afterwards. And compound it, by fighting to keep the taxes low even as we embark on expensive campaigns.
There's almost always something that isn't really necessary in any budget, whether it's personal, corporate, or government. And tough times help provide incentive for getting rid of it. Still, historically, we are used to being able to prosper while paying far more tax than we have for the last 10 years. And, frankly, the last 10 years have mostly been pretty miserable, so I don't buy the whole "lower taxes = more prosperity" line. If it can't work in a period that long, I'll likely die before it works at all - if it ever does. Ergo, it's useless for my purposes.
The one thing that more government money can do that no one else can, is spend money when no one else dares to. Governments don't have to show a profit (and shouldn't!), nor do they have to be concerned over-much about daily expenses. They can keep on cranking regardless, and if it isn't very efficient, nonetheless, it keeps money in circulation instead of being hoarded. Hoarded money doesn't really do anyone any good. Not even the hoarders. Until you spend it, money is just potential.
Re:Manning is a Hero and a Traitor (Score:4, Interesting)
He violated his contract with the US government.
- OMG and the US government has violated its contract with the entire USA, with all the people and all the States.
USA government was supposed to protect and defend the Constitution and the principles of individual rights, instead it's killing off individuals and is taking a long, stinking dump on the Constitution. It doesn't matter that somebody who signed up TO PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION is not following the orders of the system, that is clearly is violating its own oath to do the same.
He did not sign up to protect the government, he signed up to protect the Constitution.
Manning is doing his job, the rest of the government is not.
Re:Why he didn't submit to the NY Times (Score:3, Interesting)
exactly. This would never see the light of day with the NY times, because the NY times is not a press/journalism organization. It's a media-spin government friendly organization which refuses to cover actual issues.
If this is true, how do you explain their willingness to work with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers? You could argue that the organization has changed, but simply asserting that the newspaper that published the Pentagon Papers "is not a press/journalism organization" without any evidence is not an argument.
Oh please the NYT of today wouldn't be able to find the the words "investigative journalism" even if they were printed right in front of them. A good portion of classic american press went AWOL at the minimum during the last decade.
Good journalism is done by ProPublica, but I don't know wether they were online when Manning leaked all the documents. And it is still possible that had ProPublica gained access to those documents and published them online, the journalists would have been detained and tortured because oh yeah because ProPublica is not a "traditional" news organization.
A good quote for this whole affair is :
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
- Hamlet (1.4.90), Marcellus to Horatio
That is the situation in the US right now, and most americans are oblivious to it.