What I admire about Edward Snowden was that he leaked documents that revealed secrets that are important for the public to know. But most importantly, his leaks did not contain secrets about the whereabouts of American personnel. No one was put in immediate danger because of his leaks. And Mr Snowden has stated himself that was his intent; he had come across documents that revealed a far reaching system that he simply could not justify not revealing.
However, while Mr Snowden's conduct was admirable, there will be some people out there interested in state secrets, with the intent of malice. With the intent of doing harm to the government, the state, people working for the government/state or the people of that state.
I agree that secrecy is bad, but I feel we must at least have some secrecy, but clear and public requirements for when something can become (or remain) secret.
Sweden has a relevant law to define a public requirement for when someone can become liable for publishing secrets¹. It demands evidence that shows that the information was correctly classified, and that some damage actually happened from the publishing. Simply having a seal on the document is not enough.
The precedent case for this law happened during the cold war, and was about a newspaper that published a counter-espionage report (Case: NJA 1988 s. 118²).
The military argued that the national safety was damaged by the publishing, but would not give any details because of the nature of doing national security work.
The court made two tests to decide the case. Did the information deserve to be classified under secrecy, and was the damages reported by the military believable. On the first, they said it was doubtful, and on the second they said a straight no. Case dismissed.
To me it sounds as very clear and public requirement, which would work fine in both Snowden's and Manning's cases.
1) Please note that this is only about publishing secrets. Breaking a contract or an oath can and is likely to be punished under different laws.
Was the law used in the 1988 ruling? Or was the law created following that ruling? I assume it is the former, as Sweden is a Civil Law countries and judgements don't make something enforceable.
But regardless, that is a decent enough requirement system. The military refusing to present evidence in the case also hurt their argument, which is how it should be.
Funny that you should say that. I read HN every day and I don't know what's in the documents that Snowden leaked. Granted, I usually only skim these types of posts trying to glean any insightful comments.
Anyway, the point is that if I don't know what Snowden leaked, I bet most people don't know either.
However, while Mr Snowden's conduct was admirable, there will be some people out there interested in state secrets, with the intent of malice. With the intent of doing harm to the government, the state, people working for the government/state or the people of that state.
I agree that secrecy is bad, but I feel we must at least have some secrecy, but clear and public requirements for when something can become (or remain) secret.