Re: Wikileaks

On 01/12/2010, at 3:51 PM, Doug Pensinger wrote:

> There seems to be overwhelming sentiment against Wikileaks' release of
> confidential documents and I was wondering how people here (some of
> whom may have read Brin's Transparent Society) felt about it.

Judging by how they do it - letting the powers-that-be know quite a while in advance what they have and what they're planning to release, and giving time for operations to be moved/ended and some redactions to occur, I think it's a good thing that this material gets released.

Also, it's not top secret - about 3 million US govt employees would have had access to most of this anyway, according to an article I was reading earlier.
> 
> I'm generally for transparency and haven't heard of anything yet that
> is beyond mildly embarrassing to the U. S. government.  I do think
> where the safety of our troops is concerned confidentially is
> important, but that government secrets should have a relatively short
> shelf life in all cases.

Precisely.

Situations like here in Victoria where the contracts for building the new railway station in Melbourne are sealed for FIFTY YEARS are ridiculous - they're anti-democratic and foster corruption.

Charlie.