I don't agree. The traditional news outlet that broke this story (The Guardian) has a lot of advantages over WikiLeaks. It has experienced reporters who understand the issues involved. It has a well-known and respected editorial process that can weigh the consequences of a leak versus the potential value to the public. It has a process through which the public can contact the organization and correct errors. When WikiLeaks put out the cables I noticed that there was one cable where they redacted the names of people who had met with US diplomats from the body of the document but not from the title of the document. I looked very hard for any way to contact WikiLeaks to get the matter fixed and found nothing - their website suggested that people interested in providing feedback contact human rights organizations or a couple of law firms in the UK. On the other hand, traditional journalists typically post their email addresses and twitter handles and will often respond to queries.

Yes, the administration is aggressively challenging leakers, but newspapers have a long, successful history of defending their first amendment rights in the courts. Nor is it clear that a UK-based newspaper such as The Guardian would be subject to Justice Department subpoena's or prosecution.

WikiLeaks, particularly under Julian Assange, has demonstrated a complete lack of transparency and biased reporting (c.f. the Collateral Murder video). I have a lot more confidence in, say, The New York Times or The Guardian than Wikileaks.

Keeping the data available once someone leaks it has never been the problem (at least, not since the early 1990s). The only value of something like Wikileaks is in sourcing leaks, either by socializing the "whistleblower" values to make leaking more likely, or providing anonymous communications channels and scrubbers to make leaking safer.

In reality, Wikileaks actually set back government accountability -- PFC Manning going to get life, the whole drama related to Julian Assange, rape, and hiding in an embassy, the internal political strife within the organization, etc.

Doesn't anyone wonder HOW the Guardian got access to those documents? Not only classified, but also to not be shared with foreign allies.

Conspiracy theory: If I were a Chinese official whose team obtained a truckload of these docs - and given the recent rhetoric coming out of Washington, wouldn't that be the perfect punch in the nuts?

Lets look at the issue more deeply. Consider the other end of the spectrum: Say the govt collects no data, no surveillence at airports, no wiretaps, no monitoring of any online channels. Are we ok having our 'privacy' at the cost of security? The sad reality of our world is that there are terrorists, and they need/use things like email/chat/online forums/regular phones for communication.

So the question is where do you draw the line on what is acceptable/not.

The question needs to be looked at a deeper level. Sure, collecting data and having machines do data mining on it is not an invasion of privacy. Thats what these companies do anyway! What defines invasion is the usage. The Fourth Amendment needs a revision to account for the new reality.

Only acceptable use of data should be for detecting patterns that correspond to national/international terror threats.

Unacceptable uses of private data: - if you are evading tax and the government finds out, this data cannot be permissible as evidence in court and/or used to prosecute. - if you committed/planning to commit a crime, this data cannot be used as evidence or to prevent it - the data in general cannot be used as evidence in a court of law or for taking any form of civilian action against an individual

So there is a need to look past the blind 'down with big brother' attitude and decide as a society where to draw the line!

Or, the NSA story reinforces why limited government is important.

the article is full of links, but they're all to newspapers, not the actual sites discussed?! and it won't let me comment without digging up some ancient wordpress account. but the org referred to is "freedom of the press foundation" whose site is https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/

I don't agree with that statement at all.

I agree but I'm not sure I want to post that on a public forum (I assume the NSA is parsing HN).

Doh!

Curious....

I saw a BBC story about Assange that mentioned his mysterious original programmer. It stated that the original programmer and Assange's co-founders left him to create another Wikileaks-like site.

Does anyone have a URL for this new site?

Agreed. If this surveillance is going to happen, it needs to be a two way street. We should be allowed to know how it is being used and when we are individually being tracked.

Things could go either way. Wikileaks just a hipster. It opposes for sake of opposing and it embarrass for the sake of embarrassment.

For all you know wikileaks might be assisted by China.