Using that logic, we could argue that defective search warrants should be ignored if they uncover a horrible crime. This idea that breaking laws in the pursuit of a supposed greater good could lead to some dangerous places. This kind of thinking leads to things like torturing people to uncover a terrorist plot: the law against torture is broken using the rationale of uncovering a potentially greater crime. As soon we go down the road of moral relativism, suddenly we have anarchy: any law become optional if the ends are justified to the person making the decision to break the law in question. What if hacking a computer yields nothing? Does that crime get excused because it might have uncovered something? Who decides when a law can be broken?
"This idea that breaking laws in the pursuit of a supposed greater good could lead to some dangerous places."
That's because your formulation of the principle is too general. If everyone acts on their own subjective law then collective law would break down. But no one is arguing for that.
Wikileak's defenders would do better to point to the particular conditions that have led to mass whistle blowing: permanent wars in the Middle East and North Africa (the US is in seven wars right now); the creation of a massively powerful surveillance state; and the lack of legitimate channels for political and military transparency and accountability.
The case for whistleblowing hinges on that reality.
> This idea that breaking laws in the pursuit of a supposed greater good could lead to some dangerous places. This kind of thinking leads to things like torturing people to uncover a terrorist plot
Given Gitmo and the practices disclosed from there the US government seems to follow that rationale
