> Every line of pro-prosecution rationale cited by Feinstein applies equally to journalists — including especially the newspapers from around the world which are publishing all of the same diplomatic cables as WikiLeaks is, and which are publishing them **before WikiLeaks even does.**   How can it possibly be that WikiLeaks should be prosecuted for espionage, but not *The New York Times*, or *The Guardian*, or any other newspaper that publishes these cables?  > > In 2006, Alberto Gonzales [threatened to prosecute *The New York Times*](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/21/AR2006052100348.html) for revealing Bush’s illegal NSA program, and [*The Weekly Standard* ran numerous articles calling for the prosecution of *NYT* journalists and editors](http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/385jqmfk.asp) under the Espionage Act for having done so.  Bill Bennett [demanded the prosecution](http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2006_05_21-2006_05_27.shtml#1148648350) of *The Washington Post*‘s Dana Priest for revealing the CIA black sites.  How can all the Good Democrats who condemned that mentality possibly not condemn Dianne Feinstein and those who think like her?  What’s the difference? “I am… for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents.” –Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78

That quote from Jefferson is most poignant to the Wikileaks discussion.

A disturbing number of people seem to think that journalists in this country should be legally obligated to hold back information at the behest of their government. That’s insane to me. The government can request that a story be held for “national security” reasons, but no journalist is legally bound to obey that request. It’s a professional courtesy, one that can be denied, if the journalist judges that people have a right to that information.

As far as I can tell, the New York Times, Guardian, and even Wikileaks itself made every effort to redact whatever information they may have felt could cause legitimate security issues. They requested help with that from their governments, but didn’t get it. So they used their best judgement.

Ultimately, if you think that your government should be able to arrest people for publishing information that was leaked in whatever fashion, then you are placing far too much trust in your government. A free press is a crucial part of the checks and balances system that has served us pretty well thus far. Start questioning whether or not the government can actually prosecute you for publishing something, no matter how sensitive, and you hand a tremendous amount of power over a very small group of individuals, who, let’s be honest, have not come close to proving themselves to have our best interests at heart.

What if one of our senators decided to murder someone in cold blood, just for spite? Then he or she declared it was a matter of national security. Are we no longer entitled to that information? Who gets to decide what constitutes a national secret, and who doesn’t? How do I know it’s in my own best interest not to know something?

It’s an awful lot of trust to put in another human being you don’t even know.

Put down the flag for a minute and use common sense. Particularly since 9/11, our government has been systematically usurping more and more power without a peep from us. Don’t fall for the patriotic nonsense that we should allow our government to do as it pleases without any consequences.

And to those in the government, you have two options: Plug the leaks in your boat, or STOP DOING EMBARRASSING, ILLEGAL, AND POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC THINGS. This stuff is leaking for a reason. Clearly, some people on the inside feel that you are doing some things you shouldn’t be doing. So much so that they are risking their lives to leak it.

We’re not all uneducated children. If you honestly think there’s a good reason why you have to break the rules every once in a while, level with us. Explain it to us. Because ultimately, no matter what you may think, YOU ANSWER TO US.

> But even more, why be so rude to your own guests? What writer or actor is going to go to the 92nd Street Y for a public interview knowing that the next day, the institution might say, “We realize that was a totally boring discussion and are happy to give you your money back”? > > This is what makes the world boring, quite frankly: the absolute refusal to risk that anything might be disappointing, and the accompanying conviction that if you are disappointed, you’ve been wronged. It’s the entitlement of the incurious, and it does nothing good for anyone. Linda Holmes basically echoes [my sentiments from earlier today](http://jcieplinski.posterous.com/the-stupid-is-spreadingeven-as-far-as-new-yor), only much more eloquently.

This notion of risk avoidance in our entertainment is very disturbing. It has to potential of completely destroying some forms of performance. You have to take a chance as an audience, or artists won’t ever be able to innovate.

My guess is this probably stems from the depressed state of America’s modern middle class. Going out for a night of entertainment is a pretty expensive proposition for today’s “in-debt-up-to-our-ears” middle class professionals. We’re also burnt out from working 80-hour weeks for no overtime pay. So when we do go out to escape, we want something safe and familiar. We want guarantees. And the more the entertainment industry tries to give us that safe and familiar guarantee, the more we are robbed of any truly new experiences. All art gets watered down to the least common denominator. The safe and familiar gets to be a smaller and smaller range of options over time.

This is how Reality TV happened.

Artists and venues and entertainment executives should be FIGHTING this entitlement of the incurious, but instead many seem to be capitulating, betraying each other to gain our favor. And that’s definitely not a good thing. When the general audience gets to rule over which art is worthy or not worthy, that’s the beginning of the end.

> [Google](http://topics.sfgate.com/topics/Google), stepping up competition with Amazon.com, will open an online store for electronic versions of books in the [United States](http://topics.sfgate.com/topics/United_States) this year and internationally in 2011, according to a person familiar with the company’s plans. > > The Mountain View company is working with book publishers to sell hundreds of thousands of e-books, said the person, who asked not to be identified because details of the project haven’t been made public. > > Google intends to use its position as the world’s most popular search engine to erode Amazon’s dominance of e-books, while Apple harnesses the iPad tablet and iTunes online store to make its own inroads. The competition means Amazon’s share of digital books will decline to 35 percent over the next five years from 90 percent in early 2010, Credit Suisse Group AG estimated in February. Three things. First, is there anything Google isn’t trying to get its paws into these days? How many products are they going to fail at before they hit on another success?

Second, look at how that last sentence I just quoted states that Amazon will go from 90% to 35% in e-book sales. It’s stated there as if it were definitely going to happen, just because some analyst group suggested it back in February. How about some follow-up on what’s actually happened since February? So far, Apple’s iBooks is the only serious competitor to Amazon in the e-book market, and by all indications, Apple is doing fine with iBooks, but not really threatening Amazon at all. So where’s the 35% part come in? Are we supposed to believe that Google will set up a bookstore and AUTOMATICALLY a huge chunk of Amazon customers will just flock to Google? As long as Google doesn’t block Amazon’s Kindle app from Android devices (wouldn’t THAT be ironic?) I don’t see why anyone would choose Google’s bookstore over Amazon’s anytime soon.

Last, does anyone remember back in the good old days, when Google claimed it was scanning all those books to promote the free spread of information? They were creating a digital library, so people could read whatever they wanted for free. Google was so nice, after all. It would never do evil.

Now they’re setting up a bookstore for profit. Which would be just fine. It really would. But once Google Books goes live, and you do a search on an author or a book title, what are the chances that the first link that pops up is going to be an Amazon link?

Keep tainting those search results, Google.

> So this latest report, in which Gene apparently just polled the families living on his block, seems beyond disingenuous. The margin of error on a group of 65 people is so high that it makes the results of the iPad vs. Galaxy Tab study all but meaningless, and further demonstrates the insidious, dangerous power of some analysts and their fantasy football stock manipulations. The moral of the story? Next time you see the names Gene and Munster in the same sentence, don’t just take the news with a grain of salt — use the whole shaker. This is what I mean by lazy statistics. Topolsky was absolutely right to point out this incredibly dubious poll by Gene Munster. It’s far from the first time this particular analyst has pulled stats out of his behind, too. But several other news agencies are repeating this statistic as if it were established fact.

Readers of my blog will no doubt know that I personally prefer the iPad to any Android device. But I don’t need a fake poll to reinforce that notion.

The moral, once again, is be wary whenever you hear someone citing ANY poll—even the ones that support what you already believe to be true. Especially those that reinforce your already established beliefs, in fact. Ask the important follow-up questions. Who conducted the poll? Whom did the poll ask? What was the poll question? Etc.

Personally, I think if you did a real poll asking a true sample of people which device they prefer, the iPad or the Galaxy Tab, 85% of the respondents would most likely say “What’s a Galaxy Tab?”

But no one is conducting that poll.