Wiki Worries

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Hellooo, dudes and dudettes! Here's our new installment of ridiculously oversimplified and impossibly polarized hypothetical situations, inspired by the NationStates online game, where you're the enlightened supreme ruler of a non-existing, but otherwise highly prosperous and demographically gargantuan imaginary country. One that you're totally free to shape to your liking. Last time we were presented with a tricky case of rampant hijackings and snake attacks aboard airline flights, and the option you guys overwhelmingly chose as a solution to the problem featured enhancing security through putting armed police officers on every flight. So much with liberty, I suppose! :-P

This time, the issue is again somewhat related to security, but the security of state secrets.

The Issue

State department officials are in an uproar over the leaking of key government cables by the website WikiSpills. The site's owner, under the nom de plume "El Denunciante," is operating from an anonymous location in neighboring Bigtopia, where the government can't reach him. Insert Country Name's leaders are sharply divided on how to respond.

The Debate
1. "This man has done no wrong!" says Buffy Smith, who also happens to be the head writer of The Megapolis Times Magazine. "The people have a right to transparency of government. El Denunciante is a hero who has revolutionized my magazine sale-er-Freedom of Speech for this country. No state action must be committed that would infringe upon our right to disclose government information, regardless of the effects on diplomatic relations. Besides, it isn't as though you've got anything to hide... do you?"

2. "El Denunciante is a terrorist and has committed treason," argues reactionary talk radio host Roger Fellow. "The fact is, he has consistently presented an anti-Insert Country Name agenda, and people like him need to be stopped from propagandizing their filth. What we need is to block this website and any others which threaten the security of this great nation. Like those opposition party blogs that keep popping up! I mean, what use is personal freedom if you don't have security and peace of mind?"

3. "This seems like a lot of needless work, if you ask me," says Chris Clinton, your brother-in-law, while enjoying a foul-smelling beverage in your office. "Why should the people get to discuss you and your government anyway? Seems to me things would be much easier if you just told them what their opinion was and blocked out all others. After all, who knows what's best for them better than you, am I right? Cheers!"

The legislature of Insert Country Name is preparing to adopt a decision.

[Poll #1957009]

I'm sure you've learned by now why the options are so terribly extreme.

Comments

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Rand Paul's farcical suit against President Obama and the NSA aside, America needs whistleblower protections against government abuse & constitutional violations.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Let's be clear. The publisher is not the same thing as the leaker. The leaker, the person who stole the documents and provided them to WikiSpills, may or may not have broken the law or even committed treason, we can put that to one side for now. The publisher, under US law, is not obligated to keep the secrets. So, even if it is stupid and harmful and reckless, WikiSpills is free and clear. That won't cut much ice with the Predator drone, but at least they will be incinerated with a clear conscience.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

however does the publisher have the right to print those documents?

Just because the data comes from the government, those documents are still stolen and that does not mean they automatically belong to the public domain.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Isn't it curious how somehow the focus always falls on the messenger rather than the message? The things the leaks tend to expose don't seem to matter as much as the very act of leaking itself. Very convenient distraction indeed.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Depends who's looking.

Apparently, Germany has got the memo and has had enough (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26210053) of all this.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Given that there wasn't much of a leak (these stories have been known since 2005, including the government spying overseas and the degree to which telecommunications countries were involved, after all), the whole thing seems to be almost a deliberate Pavlovian test of how willing Americans are to forfeit liberty for safety and show they deserve neither. Same thing with 'Wikileaks.' Americans deliberately gunning down civilians and covering it up? Happens in every single war, so the only surprise is how long it took such a story to happen. That China loathed North Korea and props it up chiefly to avoid a refugee crisis? Already known. Israeli-Arab collaboration against Iran? Already known.

The most bizarre thing here is literally how demented the reaction is to the 'discovery' of things that have been known for years.