1) There is quite a bit of journalism that has nothing to do with exposing other peoples secrets. This would include reporting on natural events (storms, snow, earthquakes, politicians lying or accepting bribes), human activities (that a murder happened, who the police claim to be interested in etc., business information (stock prices, sales, etc.)) all of which and more require no subterfuge, burglary, or other morally or legally questionable activities to learn about and create a report of.
2) Almost no espionage (as a percentage of the total amount created) is intended for eventual exposure via “the press”, be that a real press, the internets, or various video outlets. I’ve been (tangentially) in the espionage industry (providing non-espionage (and non-interesting) support to people doing electronic intelligence gathering) and I have some feel for the amount of data gathered this way. I’ve also been (at a different time) in the Media Industry (providing similar non-interesting support to a much more interesting set of artists) and there really is NO similarity between the two, other than some journalists also providing some humint to military and civilian intelligence sources. (Note, I’ve never been on the humint side and know nothing of this that isn’t already out there. It could be disinformation, it could be real.)
Very few journalists are aware and disciplined enough to be intelligence assets. Most who are are egotistical f’wits (like the aforementioned Assange) who just want more money and fame and don’t care who they kill to get it.
What Assange did was neither espionage, nor journalism. He simply accepted material someone else had stolen (Manning was the one committing espionage with the Iraq documents.) and then published it (as far as I know) unedited.
The big fallacy being committed here is that Assange is not, or at least shouldn’t be subject to US law, and as such is not covered by the Constitution. I believe our constitution to be the least-bad construction of a government yet implemented in a pluralistic society, and that in general our government is at least as transparent (given it’s size and scope) as there is.
But we do not (yet) own the world and trying to try an Australian citizen for something that isn’t clearly a crime in America (vis the pentagon papers case) and didn’t actually happen in America (unless I missed something Assange isn’t here in the states and didn’t receive the materiel here) is really a fucking stretch folks.
A US citizen cannot be tried and convicted in an Australian court for the crime of owning a handgun IN THE US, even though it would be a crime in Australia (handwaving some legal details here, the point is jurisdiction). Now, if there is a statute in Australia that makes what Assange did illegal, then THEY need to try him, and I can tell you for certain that there ain’t no constitutional protections there.
I believe our constitution to be the least-bad construction of a government yet implemented in a pluralistic society, and that in general our government is at least as transparent (given it’s size and scope) as there is.
That is… interesting. Is that a commonly held belief among citizens of your country, personal patriotism or something that non-Americans can be expected to agree with? As an outside observer I’ve been given the impression that the construction of your government is a mixture of comical, quaint and scary. It isn’t terrible but ‘best’ is a big claim to make.
Is that a commonly held belief among citizens of your country,
It’s complicated.
A similar team-affiliation notion (e.g., “America is the greatest country in the world,” etc.) is pretty common, even among people who would never actually say that out loud, but is not specifically associated with the U.S. constitution… indeed, is strongly held among many Americans who don’t have a clear grasp of the difference between our constitution and various other elements of our government.
I suspect this is equally true for a great many countries. Team affiliation is something humans are good at.
OTOH, there’s a kind of fetishism that ensues around the Constitution as a document, wherein all endorsed things and no rejected things are attributed to it, even by people who have never read the document itself. So it’s not always easy to tell what people believe about the country, what they believe about the government, and what they believe about the constitution, or when they are even drawing a distinction.
There’s also a more narrowly targeted belief that the U.S. constitution is exceptionally least-bad as national constitutions go. My unreliable sense is that this is believed by many people who would not describe U.S. political institutions the same way (and indeed, many Americans will at the same time defend “America” and criticize “the government” in the strongest possible terms).
Wikileaks has published less than 1% of the diplomatic cables[1]. It goes thorough and removes sensitive and personal information before posting them online[2]. Except for a handful of exceptions, they only publish information that one of their newspaper partners has already published[2].
In the US we don’t say people are guilty until proven so—Manning has made no public confession, and has not been tried. He’s being held solely as the result of one man’s (Adrian Lamo’s) testimony, to the best of our knowledge[3]. That man was forcibly checked into a mental institution 3 weeks before said informing, and has made several inconsistent statements about his relationship with Manning, and what Manning told him to the press[4].
1) There is quite a bit of journalism that has nothing to do with exposing other peoples secrets. This would include reporting on natural events (storms, snow, earthquakes, politicians lying or accepting bribes).
Are you under the impression that a politician wouldn’t consider his accepting bribes to be a secret?
That’s nonsense.
1) There is quite a bit of journalism that has nothing to do with exposing other peoples secrets. This would include reporting on natural events (storms, snow, earthquakes, politicians lying or accepting bribes), human activities (that a murder happened, who the police claim to be interested in etc., business information (stock prices, sales, etc.)) all of which and more require no subterfuge, burglary, or other morally or legally questionable activities to learn about and create a report of.
2) Almost no espionage (as a percentage of the total amount created) is intended for eventual exposure via “the press”, be that a real press, the internets, or various video outlets. I’ve been (tangentially) in the espionage industry (providing non-espionage (and non-interesting) support to people doing electronic intelligence gathering) and I have some feel for the amount of data gathered this way. I’ve also been (at a different time) in the Media Industry (providing similar non-interesting support to a much more interesting set of artists) and there really is NO similarity between the two, other than some journalists also providing some humint to military and civilian intelligence sources. (Note, I’ve never been on the humint side and know nothing of this that isn’t already out there. It could be disinformation, it could be real.)
Very few journalists are aware and disciplined enough to be intelligence assets. Most who are are egotistical f’wits (like the aforementioned Assange) who just want more money and fame and don’t care who they kill to get it.
What Assange did was neither espionage, nor journalism. He simply accepted material someone else had stolen (Manning was the one committing espionage with the Iraq documents.) and then published it (as far as I know) unedited.
The big fallacy being committed here is that Assange is not, or at least shouldn’t be subject to US law, and as such is not covered by the Constitution. I believe our constitution to be the least-bad construction of a government yet implemented in a pluralistic society, and that in general our government is at least as transparent (given it’s size and scope) as there is.
But we do not (yet) own the world and trying to try an Australian citizen for something that isn’t clearly a crime in America (vis the pentagon papers case) and didn’t actually happen in America (unless I missed something Assange isn’t here in the states and didn’t receive the materiel here) is really a fucking stretch folks.
A US citizen cannot be tried and convicted in an Australian court for the crime of owning a handgun IN THE US, even though it would be a crime in Australia (handwaving some legal details here, the point is jurisdiction). Now, if there is a statute in Australia that makes what Assange did illegal, then THEY need to try him, and I can tell you for certain that there ain’t no constitutional protections there.
That is… interesting. Is that a commonly held belief among citizens of your country, personal patriotism or something that non-Americans can be expected to agree with? As an outside observer I’ve been given the impression that the construction of your government is a mixture of comical, quaint and scary. It isn’t terrible but ‘best’ is a big claim to make.
This belief is very common among Americans.
It’s complicated.
A similar team-affiliation notion (e.g., “America is the greatest country in the world,” etc.) is pretty common, even among people who would never actually say that out loud, but is not specifically associated with the U.S. constitution… indeed, is strongly held among many Americans who don’t have a clear grasp of the difference between our constitution and various other elements of our government.
I suspect this is equally true for a great many countries. Team affiliation is something humans are good at.
OTOH, there’s a kind of fetishism that ensues around the Constitution as a document, wherein all endorsed things and no rejected things are attributed to it, even by people who have never read the document itself. So it’s not always easy to tell what people believe about the country, what they believe about the government, and what they believe about the constitution, or when they are even drawing a distinction.
There’s also a more narrowly targeted belief that the U.S. constitution is exceptionally least-bad as national constitutions go. My unreliable sense is that this is believed by many people who would not describe U.S. political institutions the same way (and indeed, many Americans will at the same time defend “America” and criticize “the government” in the strongest possible terms).
In the national religion of the United States, the Constitution is like the Bible. Everyone reveres it, few read it, and none follow it.
Wikileaks has published less than 1% of the diplomatic cables[1]. It goes thorough and removes sensitive and personal information before posting them online[2]. Except for a handful of exceptions, they only publish information that one of their newspaper partners has already published[2].
In the US we don’t say people are guilty until proven so—Manning has made no public confession, and has not been tried. He’s being held solely as the result of one man’s (Adrian Lamo’s) testimony, to the best of our knowledge[3]. That man was forcibly checked into a mental institution 3 weeks before said informing, and has made several inconsistent statements about his relationship with Manning, and what Manning told him to the press[4].
LOL, how did I miss this:
Are you under the impression that a politician wouldn’t consider his accepting bribes to be a secret?
I think it was being classed as a “natural event”.
He says that natural events are included in the category of journalism that’s not about exposing other peoples secrets....