WikiLeaks

Personally, yes, they were right to release them. It's always easy to trot out the "It will endanger lives" argument whenever some one does anything like this. In truth it is more likely to be embarrasing to have the double standards brought into the public domain.

I still cant believe the part about spying on U.N diplomats especially Ki Moon. How can you trust a country if they don't trust their "allies"?

There are reasons that things are confidential. Just because I don't 100% agree with the governments decisions I think that the leaking of classified information can be more dangerous than you'd think.

I grew up in an Air Force town, where it was a frequently heard conversation "What does your husband/dad/wife/mom do?" "They work for the government." "Oh doing what?" "I'm not allowed to know."

I'm in that situation now. He can't tell me what he's working on. I would never ask. They have decided that the general public doesn't need to know these things. I'm going to assume that there's a reason. He can't take his phone into work with him. He can't take any device with a camera or that can obtain a network connection with him. THERE ARE REASONS FOR THAT!

I don't think that government secrets are going to "hurt" the general public. Most people just can't process the things that come across these peoples desks on a daily basis. I know about things now that they're no longer classified (I figure once it's on a tv commercial it's not classified any more) but there are some things that my other half worked on that could have allowed soldiers to be harmed if it had been public knowledge, cause SOMEONE would have found a way to make a buck on it.

Individuals are smart, people are dumb.

Agreed... just because you don't agree does not mean that it should be made public... if the kid is accused of doing it really did do it then holy shit is he in for a bad day... plus w mounting tension in Korea, Iraq, Iran, etc do we need reasons for countries to stop listening to us? And remember keep your friends close but enemies closer

Sapphire Gypsy wrote:There are reasons that things are confidential. Just because I don't 100% agree with the governments decisions I think that the leaking of classified information can be more dangerous than you'd think.

Wikileaks last round of leaks revealed information about the torture of Iraqi detainees by the Iraqi police. Americans knew about it but lied.

Anything that shines a light on torture, is a step in the right direction.

Also, myself, if I were an American, I'd be less concerned about tarnishing America's image, than about America behaving in a way that is consistent with her stated values.

Do you honestly believe that the Canadian government is telling you absolutely everything?

There are reasons that there are state secrets. Our country already has a bad enough reputation and image with the rest of the world. We don't need some idiot who thinks that there should be no secrets ruining things and opening us up to another 911.

I'm not condoning the things that are happening but it's not MY decision. I don't get to be the one to make the determination on what belongs in the public or not. It's easy to pass judgment when you're not looking at all the facts. Would you be able to make the decision to lie about one person being tortured to save 100's or 1000's of people?

Some of the leaked documents:

Sapphire Gypsy wrote:Do you honestly believe that the Canadian government is telling you absolutely everything?

The Canadian government is a fucking joke. End of story.

Sapphire Gypsy wrote:
There are reasons that there are state secrets. Our country already has a bad enough reputation and image with the rest of the world.

Torture, the killing of innocent civilians, yeah I can see why you'd want to hide that.

Sapphire Gypsy wrote:
We don't need some idiot who thinks that there should be no secrets ruining things and opening us up to another 911.

Media outlets have a First Amendment right to publish information that they have legally obtained, even if another party may have obtained that info illegally itself.

Sapphire Gypsy wrote:
I'm not condoning the things that are happening but it's not MY decision. I don't get to be the one to make the determination on what belongs in the public or not. It's easy to pass judgment when you're not looking at all the facts. Would you be able to make the decision to lie about one person being tortured to save 100's or 1000's of people?

Are you saying this information is false and that it's all lies?

Paroxysm wrote:

Sapphire Gypsy wrote:Do you honestly believe that the Canadian government is telling you absolutely everything?

The Canadian government is a fucking joke. End of story.

So that makes it ok for them to hide things from you, but the government fro a country you don't even belong to, you give a shit about being 100% honest.

Paroxysm wrote:

Sapphire Gypsy wrote:
There are reasons that there are state secrets. Our country already has a bad enough reputation and image with the rest of the world.

Torture, the killing of innocent civilians, yeah I can see why you'd want to hide that.

Yeah, I meant more like the pictures posted above. People think that the general populous of the US is full of yahoo's that think this is the greatest country in the world without ever having stepped outside of it.

Paroxysm wrote:

Sapphire Gypsy wrote:
We don't need some idiot who thinks that there should be no secrets ruining things and opening us up to another 911.

Media outlets have a First Amendment right to publish information that they have legally obtained, even if another party may have obtained that info illegally itself.

So it's ok to publish state secrets as long as YOU'RE not the one stealing them. That makes perfect sense. First amendment rights or not, it's confidential information. You can't tell me they don't know that, it's stamped on every damn page that is confidential that my other half sees. They KNEW it wasn't legal information to be released but they simply don't give a shit.

Paroxysm wrote:

Sapphire Gypsy wrote:
I'm not condoning the things that are happening but it's not MY decision. I don't get to be the one to make the determination on what belongs in the public or not. It's easy to pass judgment when you're not looking at all the facts. Would you be able to make the decision to lie about one person being tortured to save 100's or 1000's of people?

Are you saying this information is false and that it's all lies?

[/quote]

Oh I don't doubt that there's truth to it I'm saying that we don't know the whole story now do we?

That's the beauty of that lovely first amendment right. We can publish whatever we want... we don't have to publish ALL of it. It can be spun into anything we want it to.

The simple fact of the matter is that you're not going to change my mind on this and I'm not going to change yours. I'm not going to argue it any more.

I wanna be where the dragons are

According to melvinlikechris's map, South America and Africa.

*packs bags*

Awwww yeah