WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if?

[Theige]

Leaks to mainstream media are also anonymous though. Every time you hear a "senior white house official" or "source close to the president", that's an anonymous leak.

Lord Baal's point about it being harder to prosecute makes sense I suppose, though you hear about leaks to mainstream media all the time, with no repercussions for the media company involved.

There have been recent instances however where individual journalists were ordered by the government to give up their sources.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Lord Baal's point about it being harder to prosecute makes sense I suppose, though you hear about leaks to mainstream media all the time, with no repercussions for the media company involved.

Wikileaks doesn't bake small potatoes. This kind of insider information definitely can get any news paper in trouble. Not necessarily legally, but most likely through other means. The government can give the press a hard time without suing them or sending a police force. Just think of how dependent journalist are on the government in their "embedded journalism". Or consider some politician wanting to give an exclusive interview. Guess who won't have the honor. Etcetera
Wikileaks takes the blame and thus allows the media to make us of the info without fear.

 

[Dachs]

It's not that people are always incompetent all the time. All it takes is one person being very stupid, and humans are very good at acting very stupid.

Also, stupidity is invariably way more obvious in hindsight.

 

[Mise]

Wikileaks doesn't bake small potatoes. This kind of insider information definitely can get any news paper in trouble. Not necessarily legally, but most likely through other means. The government can give the press a hard time without suing them or sending a police force. Just think of how dependent journalist are on the government in their "embedded journalism". Or consider some politician wanting to give an exclusive interview. Guess who won't have the honor. Etcetera
Wikileaks takes the blame and thus allows the media to make us of the info without fear.

Didn't the founder of wikileaks get arrested for possessing child pornography or something?

Good point though.

 

[useless]

Didn't the founder of wikileaks get arrested for possessing child pornography or something?

Good point though.

I believe he was accused of rape, not for possession of Child Pornography.

 

[Mise]

Ahh yeah, that was it. What happened with that? He was released right?

 

[useless]

He was aquitted of the charges, I believe.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Wikileaks is a more significant avenue for leaks because of the depth of information they can put out that wouldn't be put out by the media for various reasons, and the potential connections that can be made when this depth of information is put into the hands of a much wider audience than the closed, and sometimes incompetent cirles it usually remains held in. It's perhaps optimistic to suggest that 9/11 could have been prevented, but it's certainly not fanciful. We know that the information necessary to prevent the attacks was out there. If enough of that information was put out to a significant enough audience, someone might have realised what the security services apparently failed to.