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  3. Big crimes deserve tough responses. In any country the theft and publication

Big crimes deserve tough responses. In any country the theft and publication

游客2023-12-14  23
问题     Big crimes deserve tough responses. In any country the theft and publication of 250,000 secret government documents would deserve punishment. If the leak costs lives, let alone the careers and trust that have already perished amid the WikiLeaks disclosures, the case for action is even stronger.
    Nor should a government fear to act because its adversaries are popular and fight back. That the digital Jacobins of WikiLeaks have a cult following should not save them from condemnation or prosecution. Removing illicit material from the Internet is hard. But governments spend a lot of money, rightly, on chasing child pornography, bomb-making techniques and copyright breaches to the Internet’s margins. Similarly, discouraging WikiLeaks and those who give it financial and technical support is justified for elected politicians in a law-governed state.
    But calibrating that response raises questions of principle, practice and priority. Businesses will go their own way. Some, such as PayPal, Visa and MasterCard, which handled donations to WikiLeaks, and Amazon, which provided web-hosting services, have dumped it as a customer in response to American outrage. More may follow. They risk attacks from its fans, just as those that refuse face hostility from their customers in America. Too bad: business is full of hard choices.
    For the American government, prosecution, not persecution, offers the best chance of limiting the damage and deterring future thefts. The blustering calls for the assassination of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder now in custody in London awaiting extradition to Sweden on faintly mysterious charges of sexual assault, look both weak and repellent. If Mr. Assange has broken American law, it is there that he should stand trial, just like Bradley Manning, the alleged source of the stolen documents. If not, it may be some consolation that the cables so far reveal a largely flattering picture of America’s diplomats: conscientious, cool-headed, well-informed, perceptive and on occasion eloquent.
    If America sticks to those standards now it will display a strength and sanity that contrasts with the shrill absolutism and cyber-vandalism of the WikiLeaks partisans. Calling Mr. Assange a terrorist, for example, is deeply counterproductive. His cyber-troops do not fly planes into buildings, throw acid at schoolgirls or murder apostates. Indeed, the few genuine similarities between WikiLeaks and the Taliban —its elusiveness and its wide base of support—argue against ill-judged attacks that merely broaden that support. After a week of clumsy American-inspired attempts to shut WikiLeaks down, it is now hosted on more than 700 servers around the world.
    The big danger is that America is provoked into bending or breaking its own rules, straining alliances, eroding credibility and—because it will not be able to muzzle WikiLeaks—ultimately seeming impotent. In recent years America has promoted the Internet as a menace to foreign censorship. That sounds tinny now. So did its joy of hosting next year’s World Press Freedom Day. Russian glee at American discomfort are a sure sign of such missteps.
    The best lessons to bear in mind are those learned in such costly fashion during the past decade of the "war on terror". Deal with the source of the problem, not just its symptoms. Keep the moral high ground. And pick fights you can win. [br] It can be inferred from the passage that
选项 A、Julian Assange will be extradited to the USA.
B、Bradley Manning was prosecuted in the USA.
C、America’s diplomats have a pity for Julian Assange.
D、Bradley Manning used to make friends with diplomats.
答案 B
解析 推断题。由题干定位至第四段。第三句指出“If Mr. Assange has broken American law，it is there that he should stand trial，just like Bradley Manning，the alleged Source of the stolen documents．”，由此可以推断Bradley Manning在美国出庭了，故[B]符合文意。第二句提到“The blustering calls for the assassination of Julian Assange，the WikiLeaks founder now in custody in London awaiting extradition to sweden…”，这里只提到Assignee将被引渡到瑞典．[A]无依据；末句提到“If not，it may be some consolation that the cables so far reveal a largely flattering picture of America’s diplomats：conscientious，cool—headed，well—informed，perceptive and on occasion eloquent．”，这里只涉及维基解密曾对美国外交官有正面报道，没有涉及外交官的反应，排除[C]；文中没有提及BradleyManning是否与外交官有联系，排除[D]。
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