On 01/20/2014 09:17 AM, John Young wrote:
This how Cryptome got its first contributions from this cave. And still does along with a long list of others. WikiLeaks and Snowden the best yelled about, but far from disclosing the most information which is done quietly and without "batshit" hyperbole and vulgar braggardy.
I'm talking about something slightly different here. With most of the information on Cryptome, it looks like someone came across some information and decided to exfiltrate it. They probably weren't deliberately looking for it or had joined the agency for the specific purpose of having access to and leaking such information. In this case, I'm talking about actual infiltration: going in with the explicit purpose of betraying the secrecy of the organization and getting valuable data out of it.
Claims of needing journalism and slow drips to hold public attention are merely monetizing justifications. Biblical fundamentalism.
I too wish the leaks would come at a faster pace. But I don't think Snowden posting the leaks to, say, an FTP server somewhere would have got any response. There are too many leaks with too much technical jargon. Joe Average would have given up after the first four pages. What the Guardian and other media outlets are doing is making the information more accessible to people. I wish they'd do it more quickly, yes, but I do think there is some value in what they're doing.
And may be much worse, as in the Snowden case, a rationale for not releasing information except to a few selected abusers, journalistic, technical and political "freedom of informaton." In the bogosity of "doing no harm to national security" just like secretkeepers who use that exact lingo.
I'll admit here that I am not someone who believes that there should be no secrets. I do believe keeping certain things secret, at least for a little while, has value. But those things should respect civil and human rights and adhere to the principles of the Constitution. In too many cases, Snowden and Ellsberg being prime examples, official secrecy was used for no other reason than to cover up wrongdoing. The "national security" bullshit was just that - bullshit because they could. That's why I think we need more deliberate infiltrators. People who are well versed in the Constitution with a strong bend for civil and human rights. People who don't buy into the bullshit but also see value in some of the work being done. Someone who can filter through that and find what needs to be exposed while still protecting what shouldn't be.