The latest WikiLeaks flap raises, once again, the problem of revealing classified information. Some of the WikiLeaks Afghanistan material—the names of individual Afghans who are working against the Taliban, some of whom are now sure to die as a result—represents exactly the sort of stuff that any government would reasonably try to keep secret. The other classic examples are "order-of-battle" information, negotiating instructions, intelligence sources and methods, and technical details about the capacities and vulnerabilities of specific weapons and about how to create them.
I'm just glad its getting noticed. My fellow Liberals on the blogosphere have been too quick to paper this over.
Once again, if you're going to release classified material, fine...but do your due diligence and redact all the names of those involved. If you can't do that, don't release the stuff. Period.
