@draug: is justice also irrelevant?

Is the point of this conviction to send a message to other would-be whistleblowers? Also how many convictions have been made on the basis of the crines he revealed?

Which is more important?

And lastly, joining the army and going to Iraq puts your life in danger - the US government executing policy puts those lives in danger. The torture of prisoners puts Human rights everywhere in danger.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but not acting to prevent evil is the best way to allow it to thrive.

Since Manning couldn't have read a majority of the documents he leaked, I don't see how it can be said it wasn't, to some extent at least, random.

I'll ask the question, an honest one, just to clarify--

Did Manning's leaks (or the nature of those leaks) put anyone, military or otherwise, in jeopardy?

I understand that we're in an age that idolizes whistle blowers...and I won't say that's even completely without good cause, either...

At the same time, I do dislike how the supporters of leakers and the Snowden-ites seem to have (in my view at least) a narrowed and naive view of the deck as stacked.

Yes.
Truth is a wonderful thing...governments SHOULD operate based off of truth...
But there are a lot of "shoulds" that simply aren't or can't be...
And what's more, the sad reality is, morality and the best political reality are not the same thing--AT ALL.

I'm sorry, but I agree with Machiavelli--politics is a Dirty Hands game.

If you're not prepared for that (and you're not prepared to face the facts that the leaders of your country might have to engage in less-than-savory action for what they feel is "the greater good") then you might want to stop paying attention now, because that's how politics have always been, are, and shall always be.

I'll say something else--

Leaders should be held to different standards than you and I--higher standards in some respects, in my opinion, but with that higher standard, like it or not, come certain perks, and one of them is being privy to information the general public doesn't get (I'm sorry, but even though you might--rightly--feel oh-so-entitled to every scrap of information the government has and want a completely transparent government...that simply isn't feasible in the 21st century, not in a superpower like the United States...or even the United Kingdom, really.)

And if you're indignant that your government lies to you...really?
What government HASN'T lied to its people?
In one respect or another, I'd argue just about every modern government has pulled a fast one here or there on the people.

Sorry, that's what governments do.

Be it Bush, Obama or Nixon's Head in a Jar, leaders have to care about the interests of hundreds of millions of people...

And sadly, that sometimes means trespassing on some moral principles and rights for their view of that "greater good" for the greatest amount of those hundreds of millions.

Don't like it?

DON'T VOTE THEM IN.

Taking personal responcibility for improve your own state, that is pretty heroic.

@ckroberts - what you are saying seems to indicate that he didn't hand pick the data he released - he wrote a query to grab data which looked relevant and the data was automatically transfered - how such a large quantity of data is stored, analysed, and accessed is not a trivial question. Benefit of the doubt leaves me assuming he tried to get relevant stuff out without taking everything.

Are his 'crimes' comparable to these : m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23761106

@'Since Manning couldn't have read a majority of the documents he leaked, I don't see how it can be said it wasn't, to some extent at least, random.'

Because he had a computer, which he probably used to filter based on, maybe some keywords/other content management things that were standard at the time.

Probably not random, imho.

Justice was served. Had he done lile Snowden and read then released in limited quantities, I could be more forgiving. That said, when you work in the intelligence community, you should realize some nasty shit's gonna go down and you will be privey to it, possibly even called upon to do it yourself. Snowden failed on that account. And before anyone goes there, Valerie Plame's exposer(s) should have gone to prison too.

I mean this in the most literal, non-derogatory way: several of you are un-American. That is, you are advocating for things that go against the founding documents and ideals upon which the United States of America was built. You cannot call this justice and believe in anything like the most basic American conceptions of liberty or justice.

This doesn't mean you're wrong. Maybe America doesn't work. Maybe self-government isn't possible for an extended period of time, and future generations will see the couple of centuries following the American revolution the same way we look at republican Rome or Greek democracy: failed experiments. But you can't look at great wrongdoing by a government and at a person who technically breaks an unjust law to bring those crimes to light, and decide that the greater blame falls on the whistleblower, while simultaneously claiming to adhere to American principles specifically or self-government generally. The two are mutually contradictory.

Sure we can. Just as we can look at a guy who murders another guy who murdered the first guy's family while forcing the first guy to watch but happened to get away with it on a technicality and say "he committed murder and must pay". Is it fair? No. Is it justice? Absolutely. Like it or not, you cannot take the law into your own hands. Whistleblower laws do not apply in cases of government secrets (serioudly, look it up, they don't) so breaking the law by revealing classified documents and violating your oath to expose the government's activity is not protected.

Manning got 35 years. He's lucky no deaths can be directly tied to any of those documents or he could have gotten the needle.

Snowden will likely get a much lighter sentence as he didn't just dump 700,000 documents on a foreign news agency. He released them in much smaller amounts after having reviewed them himself.

@Draug - on Valerie Plume, it sounds like you are saying that in the past the actions of the white house leaking information were not punished because, em, they hold lots of power - and you are of the opinion that this is wrong.

Well i don't see how this is directly relevant. Other than demonstrating that a prosecution depends largely on who the powers that be (TPTB) happen to be.

Snowden managed to move to a place where TPTB are merely anti-gay, not anti-NSA leaks... Again, well done for escaping 'justice'

Yeah, you're right, I'm unAmerican. I'll go hand in my passport.

@Ora - of course not prosecuting the Plame (that is her name, not Plume) leaks was a travesty of justice. It was wrong.

Ads far as Snowden, I feel his position gave him access to something and he used it crimnally and is escaping justice. Had he been a regular Joe whjo happened across it, I woul dbe very forgiving, but he was part of our spy network and should never have gotten in the business if he felt he couldn't deal with the shit.

See, I have no problem with the government keeping secrets and doing what it takes to protect it (and therefore our) interests, including spying on our allies, killing those who are convicted in abstentia via drone on foreign soil, and waterboarding suspected terrorists. These things don't bother me. Hell, the shit that Vietnam and China did to our POWs makes Gitmo look like fucking Club Med. and if "torturing" a few terrorists gets information that saves thousands of lives, fuck 'em. they choose to conspire against innocent people to begin with. They have no civility therefore they have no civil liberties.

"That is, you are advocating for things that go against the founding documents and ideals upon which the United States of America was built."

1. Well, the 13th and 19th Amendments go against those "founding ideals"...

2. Those "original ideals" were written by wealthy white men nearly 250 years ago. Now, they were SMART wealthy white men insofar as they knew they didn't have the answer to everything and that even their own ideals COULD, maybe, possibly, perhaps be shown to be dated or wrong in time, hence leaving the door open to change.

3. "You cannot call this justice and believe in anything like the most basic American conceptions of liberty or justice."

Like "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness"--so long as you're a wealthy white guy (at least for the first 100 years of our government or so...we won't even go into the irony of either this "basic American conception of justice" being derived from an Englishman's philosophy almost word for word AND that both Locke and Jefferson said these things but supported slavery...yeah...that "basic concept of justice" CHANGES, ckroberts, it changes with time--just like all sensible governments do.)

"But you can't look at great wrongdoing by a government and at a person who technically breaks an unjust law to bring those crimes to light,"

1. He didn't "technically" break the law, he broke the law. Right or wrong, he broke the law--full stop.

2. AGAIN, and I cannot emphasize this enough...

I *EXPECT* MY POLITICIANS TO DO LIE.

I'm sorry, but that's what they do! Politicians are mini-Machiavellis, that's all!

That doesn't make them bad...but I'm sorry, ckroberts...

You can't be a great moralizer AND a great leader in an age when the line between right and wrong is so incredibly blurred, ESPECIALLY when protecting some basic liberties comes at the cost of harming others. It's not right--it's not. But politics isn't a moral game...

Frankly, you come across as highly naive to me...

Greece and Rome were NOT failed experiments.

They had a good run...the government got corrupt...dictators came into place...

That's what happens with governments, I'm sorry--they either get more authoritarian over time, they fall, or both.

To close, ckroberts, I want to point out one more little "American ideal"...

"All men are created equal ." (We'll again ignore Locke wrote it first.)

This was written by a man who practiced slavery!
At a time when women couldn't vote and could rarely hold property!
Written at a time when the wealthiest Americans were the ones calling the shots!
(Well, that hasn't changed.)

I'm sorry...it's the sad truth--all men (and women) are NOT created equal in an economic or talent-based sense.

Legally?
Yes...and yet still "no," because, well, who writes the laws?
The rich?
And who gets around them the best?
The rich?
Who suffer most by the laws?
The not-rich.

And that's not at all to knock the rich--you know what, as long as you're not a Paris Hilton and you've WORKED for your money, in whatever field you've excelled in...

Good for you!
Be rich!
Enjoy it!
...I still think you should pay far higher taxes and help support the poor...
But still, good for you!

But that being said--your naive idealism and moralizing fails when put into practical social, economic, and political practice, ckroberts.

We are NOT created socially or economically equal...and that arguably means more than our being legally equal, since the first two mediate the third.



Right or wrong, Obama's not a moralist. He's a pragmatic politician who's doing the best he can to serve he interests of the groups and people he wants to serve.

SHOULD he serve the whole of the American people?
Yes.
Does he?
Depends on the case, in my opinion.

Ordering Bin Laden killed...whether that "benefited" anyone or not, that wasn't biased towards one group of Americans or another...

Things such as Obamacare?

Yeah--that's geared more towards some rather than others.

Imagine, a politician playing to his base!

THAT is the one instance where I'll say you're right insofar as the Founders didn't want political partisan groups or bases and (for the most part) were relatively un-hypocritical about that. They didn't only serve the needs or interests of their political machine.

...That being said, that may have been helped by the fact that...well...

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison--they really didn't NEED political parties.

They were so enormous in terms of their political presence following the Revolution that they were almost political parties unto themselves in a way.

(This likely would have gone for Hamilton as well had he lived to run and likely win.)

"you can't look at great wrongdoing by a government and at a person who technically breaks an unjust law to bring those crimes to light, and decide that the greater blame falls on the whistleblower, while simultaneously claiming to adhere to American principles specifically or self-government generally"

Which American principles--the ones the Founders themselves directly contradicted in their own actions, or the ones we've added since?

If the former--well, if they can contradict themselves, why can't we?

If the latter--well, if American principles change by the century, decade or even year (and I think they do..."American Principles" in, say, the slave-holding time of Huck Finn are a LOT different than the "American Principles" as shown in "The Color Purple" in a social sense and "The Great Gatsby" in an economic one) then why are you so fixated on the past.

The Founders were just that--founders...not Eternal Presidents We Must Always Adhere To.

They were smart enough to realize things would change...why can't you accept change?

(I'd make a joke about "Change You Can Believe In," but that's just not funny anymore.)

:p

I would just like to say that although I don't support Manning, I agree with almost nothing Draug or Obi have said in this thread.

@abge - :-)

Draug, again, if you're willing to torture in violation of the law, you don't believe in a government of laws and not of men. If you're going to break the law, it must be an unjust law -- that's how America got here, in fact. Breaking the law so you can torture someone doesn't count. And the Constitution and Bill of Rights don't say anything about the government giving people civil rights; God gives people civil rights, and governments are bound to respect that at all time. You disagree, and that's your right, but it means that you cannot pretend to be some patriot or that you are protecting American ideals. You're subverting them in the worst way possible.

Orathaic, to be honest I don't know about that kind of filtering but it sounds like you might. How much would it be possible for Manning to grab files selectively?

Obiwan, I am not naive, or at least I don't think I am. I'm a professional historian; I know all about the sins and misdeeds of America over its history. And we're not talking about Obamacare or gun control or something like that, which can go through the courts and a legal process. We're talking about a subversion of constitutional government.

I know that the founding fathers, as astute as they were in recognizing the nature of government and of men, didn't live up to what they understood. The failures and limitations of those who fight for liberty don't undermine the ideals themselves. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams -- they were only men, and their weaknesses and the limitations of the time in which they lived meant that they failed either to realize the great sins which they committed or they lacked the ability to change their ways. What's your excuse?

@Draug, well we can all agree you are consistant (and yes Plame, my bad)

I guess 'right' depends on your perspective - punishing whistle-blowers increases the power of the US government (except Plame, because someone decided to order that leak, so they must have wanted it to happen)

Snowden didn't leak to increase his personal power, but to benefit (what he saw as) the american people (or humanity as a whole, perhaps, maybe he's just less nationalistic) The fact that it might cost the US intelligence wing some power (if it undermines their ability to spy) obviously hurts the US government, while helping privacy of citizens globally.

What is 'right' depends on what you believe in - CK mentions what America stands for - i'm more interested in the ideals we *should* be striving for, rather than ranting about dead men (who's looking at you ObiRant, making my rants look positively concise and reasonable ;) I am not American, so i will entirely refrain from telling you what it means to be 'American'...

But what kind of world i would aspire to live in - that's a different question.

I don't want to get too involved in this thread, but JECE, CK and orathaic, along with Manning himself of course, have my full support.

@CK - gmail filters your email, trying to automatically find spam - it is not clear to me what filtering/tagging etc was available to the US intel services, or how good it was, but (and this is just off the quote you posted) it sounds like manning used some form of automatic filtering.

That means he didn't necessarily need to read everything (beyond that is complete speculation, even to that point)

@ckr - Waterboarding isn't torture. The definition of torture requires physical harm to be inflicted. Waterboarding causes no physical harm. so no law broken.

Draug, do you think rape is torture? That doesn't cause physical harm, or at least it doesn't have to.

Rape always causes physical harm. It may be temporary, but there is a physical stretching of a hole somewhere.

And you'll note in my first posting, I specifically said "waterboard". I don't believe in sleep deprivation because the mental duress results in physical harm as well. I don't believe in using sodium amytal or other hallucinogenics because they can have damaging effects on the body as well.

And back on rape, even if yuour statement about not having to cause physical harm were true, the fatc that the potential is there makes it just like the drunk behind the wheel: illegal. Waterboarding has *zero* potential for physical harm. It simulates drowning *only* and does not actually risk the person drowning.

'so breaking the law by revealing classified documents and violating your oath to expose the government's activity is not protected.'

So breaking a bad law isn't ok?

Does that logic also apply to the founding father's and their war of revolution? I'm pretty sure it was treason against the King of England.

Also, on Torture, does psychological damage not count? And if not, please justify.

And lastly, you said 'if "torturing" a few terrorists gets information that saves thousands of lives, fuck 'em.' - IF being a big part of that, what if it just makes them lie - saying anything that will get the torture over as fast as possible.

I suspect there are people in Gitmo who knew nothing about attacks on America (because theywere Chinese Uyghurs, hoping to for a pro-Islamic rebellion in the Xinjiang province of China - of course your answer above on rebellions may affect what you think of this behaviour...)

"Also, on Torture, does psychological damage not count? And if not, please justify."

Permanent psychological does count. Waterboarding doesn't cause that. Sleep deprivation may and I do not support it. Rape absolutely does cause permanent psychological damage and I do not support that either.

As far as rebellions, the winners write history so if they pull it off, they are to be commended and can put their own set of laws in place. that's how governments have changed through out history. The French followed the Americans with their own revolution a mere quarter century later.

And please note that I put the torture in quotes. You even copy pasted it. so I was being rather specific in that usage and not referring to actual torture, just perceived torture (i.e. a person in discomfort and temporary psychological duress).

fuck manning.

he took an oath. he's a stupid activist shit.

back in the day he would have been executed by firing squad.

and, as for OP,

"page not found"

@Dirge, try replacing the 9 in the link with a letter D.

Okay. Thanks ora

still, I have to opine that manning is lucky. It could have been worse for him.

to disseminate that amount of military information to the public at large in a time of war is pretty close to treason, no matter what he claims as his motives.

I don't buy the argument that he shouldn't get prison time because someone else did something worse.

So f-ing what? Does that mean no one in the continental united states can ever go to prison for murder just because Orenthal Simpson got away with murder?

"OJ was set free, so why should my client spend a day in prison for raping and murdering those children?"

Sorry, but that logic doesn't work for me.