[ccmay]

I think the Sun handled this pretty well. There was no specific sensitive information disclosed, but they were not shy about giving the MoD a well deserved thrashing, and came off looking patriotic and sensible. Well done Sun. There are a few prominent American papers that could learn a lesson from them.

-ccm

[midnoon]

That's right! The Sun managed to further embarass their government and gloat about it! I guess they have learned from the mistakes of the NY Times. How patriotic and sensible.

[Stoat]

I think the Sun handled this pretty well.

Agreed.  Unlike some others here, it seems that you have actually read the article rather than just the title  :-)

You won't easily find someone who hates the Left, the MSM, the NYT and their tactics more than I, but there is occasionally a time and a place for some unpleasant yet non-damaging publicity when it can serve a good purpose, and this is one of those times. Although the MOD's spin control may indeed be true in that there wasn't a lot of supersecret stuff in the file, it would indeed have saved a terrorist or a sympathizer a whole lot of work and perhaps given them some new ideas on some very evil things that they could do if this file had fallen into the wrong hands.  Hopefully a public spanking like this will encourage the MOD to reevaluate their regulations and protocols pertaining to how various types of documents are handled.  The bottom line is that unlike the NYT's exposes of late, this event has released no specific information or detail to the public and will ultimately serve to improve Great Britain's security and the overall fight in the war on terror.  If the person who originally found the file had merely returned it to the owner or to the MOD, nothing would have been done about it and such an event could easily happen again, most likely with far more disastrous results.