Guardian - Treason or Reason?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2453374/Calls-grow-prosecute-Guardian-spy-leaks-Now-Clegg-May-join-condemnation.html#comments

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/oct/11/guardian-correct-publish-nsa-vince-cable

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/10/guardian-democracy-editors

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/11/skype-ten-microsoft-nsa

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10371769/Lib-Dems-at-war-over-whether-Snowden-leaks-entirely-right.html

You've probably read it all anyway. Your take please

Haven't read much of the stuff that the Guardian has published but, as far as I'm aware, it's been pretty general ie. that the NSA and GCHQ have been monitoring certain things in certain ways.
Those criticising the Guardian all appear to be establishment figures who are saying that disclosure threatens national security but aren't (again, as far as I'm aware) giving examples of exactly how.
Appears to me that the Guardian has caught the powers that be doing stuff they shouldn't, and the authorities have responded with the 'Well we're only doing it to protect you' gambit.
As for the Mail, well they're peed with the Guardian for any number of reasons. That the Guardian isn't massively right-wing, that it sided with Ed Miliband when the Mail attacked his father, that it supported the Levenson inquiry findings. So the Mail has reported every accusation against the Guardian as gospel, without even questioning the source, and has, as usual, gone completely over the top in terms of rhetoric.
If it can be proved that the Guardian's revelations have helped terrorists then, of course they should stop. Until then, however, they should continue uncovering the ways in which our government is acting.
Personally, I would have thought that terrorists were more likely to benefit from our porous borders and our constant attempts to meddle in the middle-east, than by revelations that GCHQ monitors facebook or whatever.

I am of course not surprised at the sheer hypocrisy of the Mail on this issue.

In principle, I believe it is hugely important that newspapers have every right to publish this kind of information; suggestions that the government could ban it, and/or people be prosecuted for publishing it, should scare us all a lot more than the thought of independent scrutiny of the press, even enshrined in law.

In practice of course journalists have to show restraint on some things which could affect national security. In this particular case it is impossible to prove that the guardian has caused any harm, but equally it is impossible to prove the contrary. Depending on who you talk to, the secret services are covering behind the "national security" excuse, or the guardian behind the "free press" one. In both cases the well versed "he would say that" argument seems to fit.

For what it's worth, I believe that in opening the can of worms and hopefully forcing a genuine debate over the rights and limits of secrecy and surveillance the guardian has on the whole done us a service.

Does it bother me that the government (and possibly others around the world) may know all my history of emails, facebook, etc.? I'm not sure on the whole, but I am sure it is a debate worth having. I can't help but feel that a lot of noise is being made (after all, on the whole this is just a typical example of a newspaper publishing confidential leaked material, which is hardly a first) with the objective of ensuring this debate doesn't happen...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2455256/PAUL-DACRE-Editor-Mail-answers-papers-critics.html#comments

The pip squeaks

ShahenshahG wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2455256/PAUL-DACRE-Editor-Mail-answers-papers-critics.html#comments

The pip squeaks

And having read it, it's just another bombastic, hyperbolic piece that plays fast and lose with the facts. Much like the rest of the Mail's output.

Agreed - Channel 4 are camped outside Dacres house trying to get him to answer a few questions in person