Journalist first have to determine if the information they have gotten is true, then they have to decide for themselves the morality of how it was obtained and weigh that against the public's right to know.

Assange was persecuted by the trump administration, there is no doubt about that, but he was no journalist. Glad he is back home.

@glennlab I do believe the real hatred started at the DNC hack. RIP Seth Rich. Clinton hated Assange because she seems to encourage whistleblowers for some reason. Benghazi and Syria. Then not a hack, just some space cadet forfeiting their laptop due to failure to pick it up.
But how different your reaction to these hacky like things? Is all the info contained in the public interest? That is a journalists only concern, not the morality of how it was obtained. That is law enforcements concern. Today, journalists are cowered by law enforcement, unable to report in the public interest freely.
I learnt in the spook game, if you deem certain information is sensitive then it is up to you to secure your own information. If it gets out, then it is a direct failure of your own security. Blaming others is covering up your own flaws and not fixing the problem ie your own security..

@glennlab Wikileaks also released a recording of Victoria Nuland discussing with the US embassy in Ukraine on whom they should put in power after the coup in 2014, prior to any public talk of coup in Ukraine.

He was the best of journalists, creating a space for whistleblowers using new technology as media had become compliant to government power.

@puff It started way earlier than the DNC hack, it started during Vietnam with the Pentagon Papers and the NYT, republicans have been trying to criminalize journalism ever since. You conflate too many unrelated incidents each with their own set of facts. Journalist (as someone that had to oversee them for 10 years) must concern themselves with the weight of the morality of how information was obtained versus the public's right to know. Editorial boards make that decision on a daily basis and they are not always in agreement with each other.

I still tell people that the most secure system has an air gap, then I have to explain that.

@SpikeTalon It is, but the fact it got out really pissed off the CIA. But rather than blame Nuland for a lack of security awareness in using an unsecure line, or determine how their supposed secure line was compromised, they chose to shoot the messenger. And shoot that messenger so badly that other messengers thought twice before doing their job aka delivering messages. The general media.
If Assange is guilty of anything, it is advising on how to download information quicker or something like that. How to get it to him online. The whistleblowers would have whistleblown anyway.
Foreign interference in politics. Glass houses.

@glennlab I was talking wikileaks specifically, formed 2006. The computer age has changed the handling and distribution of classified material massively eg I spent hours at an incinerator burning documents prior to personal computers.

@puff Talked to some guys still on active duty, they still have to burn, but now they also have to de-mil the hard drives and make sure that no one takes thumb drives out. I hated burn day, except you got to go home early to shower.

@glennlab we had to crush the ashes then hose it all too. I remember thinking Trump with twitter, what a f'n security nightmare. Not only that he may let something slip, but that unknowns had access to him and thus may influence his decision making. I'm amazed they let him have it so long. Was entertaining though

@puff Kissinger was almost as bad, the difference was he had so much classified information memorized that he would forget what was and what wasn't classified. They had to cover for him numerous times. The problem with trump is that he didn't care and treated classified as casual information. Comsec meant nothing to him.

@glennlab They over classify too. I think psycho types, narcs, those that lack empathy basically love the online world because it is 2 dimensional. No direct human interaction ie can lie, not hide body language etc etc and it feeds vanity.
Even when I was in the military late '80's, it was known don't tell politicians anything sensitive as they like to big note themselves. Security can be paranoid eg I worked with radar and we were told to not talk ie assume the "enemy" didn't even know the Aust army had this kit. Don't even talk about it with family and friends we were told. Then lo and behold a few weeks later; "Get ready lads, we are having demonstrations on the base open day next week". There was pictures of us and our kit on the news that night.