View at Big Sur, May, 2010
 Responsible Editorship
an editorial-ish rant
I wonder around and photograph things just for the fun of it.  I go all over and
take pictures of buildings, light on the water, shimmers on metal, the sheen of
the twilight, etc etc.  Sometimes I might take photos at a political event.
At a political event, where there are famous and important politicians, there
are also always important security folks hovering around and making sure that
things are cool.  I can capture some of these folks incidentally in the frame of
my lens.

If I did this would it then be OK for me to  'out' the people in the photos as
Security agents of some government?  Does this help anyone?  Does the public
really have a right to know everything about everything?  History answers this
question as follows:  If things are too open than it is easy to plot to harm. 
If details are available then they will be used by others to . . . plan their
one operations.  So there are obviously types of photos that are necessary to
keep with restricted access.

Imagine a website whose purpose is for the construction industry.  The
independent photoer goes out and takes detailed photos of the infrastructure of
power plants, highway bridges, roads, railways, and other important complexes. 
Suppose then that the  website provides these photos, on-line, for a fee to
clients.  Suppose the clientele is to be the construction industry.  And then
the weblogs reveal that there is a lot of interest about construction and
highway infrastructure from unexpected sources.  

We can then ask the question:  Do people in Australia really need to look at
detail photos of the underpinning of a bridge from Michigan?  Do folks in
Malaysia need to see images of the power-lines in Vermont?  Some would argue
'free and open society, let them see what they want.'  Others would say 'viewing
only on a need to know basis'.  And so, even though things are not necessarily
secret, and people from Malaysia could travel to Vermont and take their own
photos, there ought to be a level of access restriction to keep detailed
infrastructure details for what they are intended.  If photos of a bridge are
for the construction industry, why would people in unrelated fields in other
parts of the world need to download all the pictures?

Maybe the person is a student of engineering and construction?

OK, fast forward to today's news.  We have a guy who thinks it is OK to post
classified military documents live on the web.  He seems to have no clue about
how much harm this might cause.  Even if you don't see virtue in  current set of
wars that seem to be at the behest of extra-American interests (the wars in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia) does that give you license to then publish
classified documents that may put innocent people into harms way?  Or if you
really don't believe in the war how do you know that the documents that you
publish are real or not just counter-intelligence?  Maybe someone would publish
documents that make it look like someone is a so-called collaborator just so the
idiots on the other side would suspect those people and then do away with them,
and thus harm themselves because those people aren't really supporting the other
side but are loyal to the folks who then kill them.  So we don't know.  So
someone who does publish this 'leak' material is possibly a dupe.  In any case
the publishing of said material does put very many people into harms way.

If you believe that a criminal is guilty do you put out information that allows
someone to go and kill them?  Even if you thought that the soldiers who produced
the documents in question were war criminals, is it just to publish materials
that 'out' these soldiers and their accomplices?  It is persumptuous to imagine
that everyone on one side of a conflict is a war-criminal.  It shows a contempt
for the point of view of others.  “I believe in non-violence so, even given the
fact of violence in the world, and its long history, I will pretend that anyone
who supports any kind of violence is seriously derranged.”  Even you really were
into the theory of non-violence wouldn't you then try to follow the philosophy
of least harm?

So what then are the modivations of the fellow at the full-disclosure web site? 
Is he one of those folks who wants to 'effect change, damn the costs?'  Does he
see himself as heroic to take things that are stolen and give them to the whole
world?  How is this heroic.  He pushes send and then thousands of Afghans,
listed in the documents, are hunted down and slaughtered?  How is that heroic? 

I don't see it as heroism.  What do we call it?

Do we need to classify such behavior with words?  shall we call that
web-editor's behavior false heroics?  Wreak-less and self-righteous narcissism? 
Hey, I know what it is like to have a blog and want to make something that will
benefit the world.  I like to imagine that I am doing that here.  But, sad fact,
it is hard to make any impact.  And I'm not looking so much for an impact, like
from a meteor, metorites laying around, big crater.  I'm looking for more like
subtle effect of blooms on the vine.

There are blooms on the vine.  They are all around you.  You walk in the magic
garden.  You don't notice the blooms.  You haven't caught a whiff of their
fragrance.  Then a breeze.  The fragrance of the blooms comes to your nose.  Ah,
what an awesome smell.  That wind has brought an awesome smell.
So what kind of wind does the full-disclosure website bring?  Like a sudden
downburst, breaking trees in half, ripping off the side of a barn.  It's a
class-5 tornado of a thing this disclosure of war-operations and names of
contacts.  Not a nice breezey thing that brings serenity.  And now this guy,
this wiki-guy, he is part of it.  His behavior makes him a warrior of sorts. 
and he has foolishly taken sides (Not the American side, he violates our laws by
putting that stuff out there).  So now, as a soldier, he must face what every
soldier faces.  He is not anymore the enlightened philosopher sage, happy with
wisdom and his brainiac invention of websites, etc.  He is part of the war, in
it, up to his neck.

Yes, it is quicksand, this full disclosure thing.  Try to publish photos of
certain places where . . . illegal transactions occur.  The edges of
parking-lots at a grocery store somewhere by a river.  You put the two hundred
dollars on the seat of the truck and they let you take the satchel from the back
seat.  And if you publish pictures of such a transaction and post it on the
Internet naming names . . . you better know that you, then, will be visted by
three outlaws.  “We are the ghosts of your dread, you moron.” they may say to
you as they pummel you for ratting them out.

That is how it would be locally.  On a global scale I fear that it must be far
more dire.  Mister leaks will now have to worry that at any time some agent of
the US government will arrest him and bring him to trial for violating privacy
laws.  He is now a marked man.

And the people from Afghanistan who have family members that get off'd because
of the disclosures?  Well, we can imagine what they might do . . . following
their own codes of justice.

And so, in conclusion, there is nothing inherently heroic in publishing leaked
classified documents.   And that the wiki-dude doesn't understand that  . . .
does shine a light onto his intellect.  
 
9:44 AM
Aug 14, 2010