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You're right. I've always been under the impression that dissemination of classified material is illegal as part of the Espionage Act.

But a quick jaunt over Wikipedia is inconclusive. It seems the legality of these leaks is a lot less cut and dry than I thought.



If only we had courts and judges to handle this sort of thing! The government could file a complaint, a team of legal experts could take a look at the evidence, Wikileaks could present materials and arguments in their defense, and a final decision could be made. If Wikileaks' content was ruled illegal, then this court could send Amazon a letter asking them to remove the content. Amazon could, of course, appeal. Once the appeals process was exhausted, then they could be compelled to remove the offending material. (Not all of it, of course; only the material that the court deems "illegal", whatever that means.)

The whole process could be open and transparent, and nobody would have any grounds to complain or yell "conspiracy!"

Oh yeah, but they're terrorists, so they don't deserve freedom. Much better to punish them in private, so nobody knows what is and is not illegal. Then when the government doesn't like you, they can take whatever action they want against you, with no oversight! That would be a much better system! Potatolicious, you could say.




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