[WikiEN-l] For your consternation...

[Andrew Gray]

On 07/02/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> For your consideration and consternation...
>
> Is it:
> A) Ilegal
> B) Immoral
> C) Fattening
>
> ...if US Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Agency
> staffers remove an image repeatedly from a Wikipedia article, which
> came from a Department of Energy press photo, showing the Q clearance
> badge of the now-former head of NNSA.  The claimed reason for deletion
> is that it's illegal to show the badge, despite the fact that Linton
> Brooks wore it in public all the time, there are numerous public press
> photos of it, and that the image in question came from an unclassified
> government press image freely released (though, they subsequently
> erased that section of the image with photoshop)...
>
> Several of us have asked the people removing it to identify themselves
> and explain whether the image was subsequently classified or tell us
> what law prevents us from legally hosting it, if there is one, and
> have heard nothing back.  All they are doing is deleting it over and
> over again.

I am reminded of a nice chap, editing from somewhere deep in *.mil,
who kept trying to remove a map of the Green Zone, citing "operational
security" reasons. The fact that we had obtained the map from the
website of a US Congressman didn't seem to faze him...

(On examination, that claim boiled down to the user not understanding
that a rule which said *he* couldn't talk about something didn't have
to apply to everyone else)

In this case... if there is a legal issue, please direct him to Brad
and ask him to cite chapter and verse.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk