secrets

Is it OK to reveal secrets?

Learning English - Words in the News - Wikileaks soldier reveals why he shared secrets
Learning English - Words in the News - Manning given 35 years for leaks
Learning English - Words in the News - Edward Snowden still in transit

There is an interesting difference:
Like Manning, Edward Snowden gave away a public secret, revealing that the National Security Agency does not just spy on foreigners, but in violation of the legal framework established after the Vietnam War, also harvests vast quantities of information on the communications of American citizens, including email messages, browsing histories, postal records, and telephone metadata. When public rather than military secrets are given away, the state always insists that military security has been damaged, so it should not surprise us that the Obama administration claims Snowden gave away military secrets that will help those bent on attacking the United States. But there is a reason the top leadership of Al Qaeda has communicated for years bypersonal courier, and it would be a terrorist or insurgent with a very short life expectancy who would communicate by cell phone or unencrypted email. Snowden’s real crime was to reveal incontrovertibly what some already guessed and others might prefer not to know: The US government has secretly created a massive apparatus of domestic surveillance on the edge of the law. Not all secrets are alike | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Do you agree?
.
.
.