"...and as long as they don't violate the security rules, I am for it."
Rules are made for reasons. The "rules" told these men to delete that info. Rules were used to endanger the Free World, weren't they? In short, rules are no better than the SOB who comes up with them.
Remember the Venona Project? FDR ordered it shut down. Thank God those brave, red-blooded American heroes broke the rules and kept Venona humming along. The witless Stalin-lovers didn't even know about it. Too bad another rule wasn't broken. Too bad those heroes didn't go public with the information they found, including the orders to shut down their project, and step forward in a joint press release with Joe McCarthy.
Maybe that was impossible back then. The Old Media was very, very powerful. But maybe it would have worked, too. I'm not dissing them for keeping quiet. I'm just saying, breaking their 'code of silence' may have been an even better move, in hindsight.
"In short, rules are no better than the SOB who comes up with them. "
Or in this case, the SOBs enforcing them.