The Official Secrets Act is not there to protect secrets; it is there to protect officials.
– Sir Humphrey Appleby, Yes, Minister.
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forget petitions, this needs to be sent to MSNBC and CNN on every social media contact possible, every anchor, etc.
if Maddow picks it up, maybe she’ll get the legal team she needs
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Don’t use Western Union to send Winner money. I tried to send her some cash, but they refused to forward it after they called me & asked if I personally knew her. When I told them I didn’t but was sending her money because I thought she was a political prisoner, they cancelled the transaction. @#$! you, WU.
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It is possible to undermine investigations and sources by leaking, though. How many sources disappeared because of her? How many will not be sources in the future because our secrets can be leaked by low-level techs with god complexes?
Trump’s cronies are pleading guilty to low crimes and cooperating with the investigations. She undermined the investigations.
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The crime wasn’t telling us something we needed to know. It was leaking classified information, which she knew she wasn’t supposed to do. I have some sympathy for her, but you guys act like these laws serve no purpose.
The fact that you agree with the political motive she had for leaking it, (and I do too) doesn’t change the fact that classified information should not be leaked in this matter, by low-level functionaries that cannot possibly have the full intelligence picture and thereby the wherewithal to evaluate the full impact of their leaks.
Political conservatives have leaked info for their purposes and should also be punished for it. (Valerie Plaim) The plain fact is that political states have enemies that mean to do them harm and keep secrets to help protect themselves. Over-classification is a huge problem, but it needs to be solved at the ballot box, not by rogue individual actors undermining the defense of the country. Additionally, that the wealthy have access to a completely different system of justice to the rest of us is a separate problem, that should also be addressed, but it is a separate issue.
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Yes, to keep the rest of us from knowing what our government is doing that is harmful to us and others.
Just because it’s a law doesn’t mean it’s good.
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If you’re thinking of donating to a “Free Reality Winner” defence fund or somesuch, consider making a matching donation to another victim of America’s injustice system:
Also serving a five year sentence, but with much less publicity and nowhere near the resources.
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You do know that they could just as easily leak forged or doctored documents, right?
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If we’re going to start sentencing based on worst case scenario ‘what ifs’, we should start sentencing speeding like vehicular homicide. We know that harm is done by the incarceration (any time you lock someone in a cage it is harm). We know that over classification and classification is frequently used to manipulate public opinion and avoid embarrassment. So, no, I don’t automatically assume someone disclosing classified material is proportionate. The CIA operation to hack the Senate was classified after all.
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The fun thing about hypotheticals is that they cut both ways. How many crimes have been covered up by classifying material?
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Do I really want a state where whistle blowers are protected? Yes.
Don’t make this about someone’s theoretical beef with trump.
It’s about the GOVERNMENT being held accountable.
It’s about NOT being the baddies.
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I’m sure they are, but I’m also quite sure I don’t want low-level employees and enlisted military making the decision.
In her case, she wasn’t leaking information about NSA wrongdoing, she was leaking NSA reports on Russian wrongdoing. It’s not like we weren’t already talking about it, she just let the Russians know the specifics of our intelligence gathering.
She could of course have gone through the official channels, which notoriously don’t work. Here’s an example. The CIA would rather burn 70% of their agents than reassess strategy when someone points out a problem. https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/tech/cias-communications-suffered-catastrophic-compromise-started-iran-090018710.html
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Does anyone here even remember what she leaked? Or have we just turned it into “confirmation of 2016 Russian election meddling”? Cause I’m fairly sure it was the same information we learned from forensic analysis of the DNC hacks. At this point, I’m sure she acted out of patriotism, but not with any kind of wisdom.
Also, Jeremy Hammond just got put into solitary. kicked out of the education program, had his release date pushed back a year, and is no longer allowed to receive books or use the phone because he bumped a guard when opening a door.
Jeremy In Solitary Confinement and Facing a Transfer: Update, 17 December 2018
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Whistle blowers for the most part are doing the right thing: They are revealing criminal activities on the part of the Gov, politicians, banks or businesses. So whether or not a particular whistler blower dislikes his or her boss is not important. Or do you believe that laws only apply arbitrarily? NSA, soldiers, politicians, bankers, TOO BIG TO Fail should all get a pass? Should someone like Manning or Snowden or other whistle blowers have to serve time? I would say yes, because they broke the law or their agreements,But this doesn’t meant that their actions were by bad. On the contrary their actions were good – from a humanistic perspective.
Kinda off topic:
I wondered who negotiated this, and what their cut is:
“only books sent direct by Amazon, due to prison rules”
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No. Drunk drivers are punished severely because that is the sentence provided for by law. If their sentence is out of line with precedent they will appeal and win.
Society sets this high sentence as policy. Is winners sentence out of line with criminal colluders? Why yes, I think it is.
Also couching the questions in the manner “do we know she didn’t?” is the opposite of how law is supposed to make. If prosecution is seeking a higher sentence due to damage caused they have to show she did.
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You know the way everyone accuses social media commenters who have certain biases of being paid Putin or Turkish trolls/bots? Well maybe in America the Love of Freedom makes people voluntary social media soldiers for evil. A lot of the things said on these threads are nauseating and would be called out as such if it wasn’t for USA! USA! USA! drowning out the possibility of thinking.
The US is busted beyond repair. Time to start again.
