Any bit of classified information can be reasonably considered in the interest of someone in the public.

Public interest can only mitigate the illegality of what you're doing, it doesn't just magically make the act illegal.

> Did he actively encourage people to do things they didn't want to do, or did people actively seek the necessary advice from him?

False dichotomy.

If you want to rob a bank, and you come and ask me to be the getaway driver, we're both going to hang. It doesn't matter who had the idea for the crime, what matters is that he materially assisted in carrying it out.

Now, if you robbed a bank, and just dropped a million dollars on my porch, that would be a different story. That's the defense journalists use when they receive illegally obtained information.

And so, in your world, if I rob a bank and give all the money to really good charities that measurably make peoples' live better, it's not illegal?

Or if I kill a known pedophile/child rapist to keep them from hurting more children, is that not illegal?

Is that what you believe? If so, why bother having laws at all? We just need to ask our modern-day Solomon -- akira2501, that is -- if something can be justified, and as such, is legal. Or am I missing something?