Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
Not sure what the point is here. A president is advised by his lawyers and staff that an action is a legal interrogation technique and gains his authorization to employ it in good faith reliance, vs. a man who knowingly violates the law in publishing classified information with the intent of damaging the state whose information he is releasing.

The whole "secret" vs "Top Secret" is a red herring; as it is a violation to release "Confidential" or "Official Use Only" material as well.

No one knows how many lives will be saved because of the moral courage of a President to make a hard decision he reasonably believed to be within the law. No one knows how many lives will be lost because of the moral cowardice of a guy believing himself to be above the law in the release of this protected information. Your comparison of the two is ludicrous.
Bob I have some problems with your take.
Firstly I worry about the lawyers and staff that are appointees of the President. Some regimes are apt to appoint those who are going to give the advice their masters want to hear. I am British and watching the iterations of the advice that Lord Goldsmith went through until PM Blair got the answer he wanted, re the legality of invading Iraq did not inspire confidence. I have even less confidence in the impartiality of US Presidential appointees and in President Bush’s in particular. Had he gone to an impartial civil rights lawyer I suspect he would have got rather different advice.

The protected information is not very secure if it is available to about one percent of the population and as Wikileaks is not American what law have they broken by releasing some low grade tittle-tattle? Assange is a convenient scapegoat but is not Wikileaks. As to lives lost or put at risk I wholeheartedly agree there is no contest between a slightly embarrassing leak and the damage done by the Bush administration in destroying decades of hard fought gains in demonising the use of torture to the current situation where every sadistic despot just plays the ‘terror threat’ get out jail free card.

Bob I usually think you write a lot of good sense but think you are long way off the mark here.