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bobw's avatar

There is a difference between being an intelligence officer and and being an agent. An agent can have many different motives, from idealism through mercenary and being a blackmail victim.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Ordinarily, we would use a market test to determine relative value. In an auction, we generally presume that the winner valued the item more than either the seller or other bidders. But when the auction is between newspapers and the blackmailed, the newspapers cannot capture the full value of the information to everyone who eventually learned the information directly or indirectly. The presumption when it comes to such information is that the benefits to the public outweigh the cost to the individual.

So we have a different test from cost/benefit: Is the information printed by the newspapers true or libelous?

When it comes to providing information about building atomic bombs, the opposite presumption is held. The cost of disseminating the information to the public (or enemy) is presumed greater than the benefit.

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