I’m dealing with an acute cold plus insomnia so the helping of weak sauce that I wrote is pretty much all I’ve got. I applaud your point though and wish I had the mental energy (and faculty) right now to follow through on it.
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You’re right. She should be locked up in a military prison for the rest of her life while people like General Patraeus, who did real damage to the USA, get a complete pass and are walking around free, probably with a future in politics and high paying private lobbying.
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What your post highlights is not that Manning did something illegal (she did, and paid arguably too harsh a price), but that Petraeus paid almost no price whatsoever when motivated by pure avarice.
It highlights the fact that the powerful will always be punished less for the same crimes compared to the less powerful. Edward Snowden I believe to be similar parts hero and villain (an opinion informed by govvie friends of mine who actually have worked for the NSA and FBI), and may well face the death sentence for treason if he ever returns to the USA. I’m not sure if that would be earned or not, since the materials he released indeed may have caused the death of operatives abroad.
What I can assure you, however, is that the death sentence would be off the table if he was a congressperson or president elect.
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Well, he was getting laid. He gave the data to his biographer, with whom he had an affair.
I unapologetically consider Snowden a hero. He didn’t make perfect decisions but I think he did the correct thing overall.
Except it didn’t. The government backed away from that and no one can point to a single person harmed in that way by his revelations. It’s propaganda with no evidence.
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Ehhh, I suppose this now highlights my improper use of the word “avarice”.
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“Greed” is a different deadly sin than “Lust,” said my padre as a child.
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“It didn’t” is not the same as “no evidence”, which Mr. Carl Sagan would be in agreement with. I could easily see why compromised agents’ deaths wouldn’t be publicized (because then they’d have to publicly own them).
Do we agree that the released information may have put agents in danger, and that Mr. Snowden should have been mindful of that in curating the information release?
It would be great propaganda and strengthen public claims if the US government could point to a single person harmed by Snowden’s revelations. They haven’t ergo they can’t. How many years later is it and they still can’t.
Various reports have danced around it but have basically backed away from such claims, which were made early on. Snowden flat out says that it didn’t happen and has publicly challenged the government to contradict him. They haven’t.
Given the information released, no, not really.
He didn’t curate it at all. That was the entire point. He gave it to journalists to curate, not feeling in a position to judge what they should or should not print and not wanting to be the one making that decision. When he left Hong Kong, he no longer even had the data. He handed it to Poitras and Greenwald.
The same people, generally, who claim he got people killed have, historically, also pointed to him being in Russia as part of his plans, ignoring the fact that the US knowingly and willfully revoked his passport while in transit, stranding him in Moscow (in the airport for a month, as I recall).
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Basically, I’m not going to take the US government, in an administration that has been the most hostile to whistleblowers in history, at face value when they say “People were hurt. We can’t tell you who they were but people were hurt. Trust us.”
If they want people to believe them, they can tell us who was hurt and how. Otherwise, it’s just a tactic to paint Snowden as a traitor, just as they did (returning to the subject of this thread) of Manning.
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I wish I could say it’s funny to watch the right wingers flip flop on this one.
“Leaks are always bad”
“Except when it exposes information on Hillary”
“Oh, Obama just did it to hurt Assange!”
And as far as I can tell they don’t know how to process Assange congratulating Obama for commuting Manning’s sentence, so they move on to,
“Oh, so leaks are bad when it hurts Democrats, but they’re okay the rest of the time???”
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At the same time, this administration has been the least transparent about cases of domestic terrorism that were shut down. (Not that you’d know reading the news, again, seems to be from my govvie friends)
I’m not convinced that no harm was done, because I can’t imagine this administration with all the cloak and dagger stuff would ever own up to it. In terms of arguing on the internet about it… ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Continue to believe what you will, and so will I. Not a great subject for anyone to be able to divine the truth.
Mythical cases?
Sorry, I don’t trust your spook friends. They’re your friends, not mine.
No evidence, no cases.
I don’t have to imagine anything. Harm was done if they show evidence of harm. I go by evidence. Full stop. Otherwise, it is just government bullshit and why should I believe the least transparent, most anti-whistleblower administration in history when they say “Trust us”?
All of this reinforces Snowden’s point that he’d never get a fair and open trial and would be tried under a law that leaves him no way to defend himself.
Damn straight. As long as Manning and Lynndie England are locked up the nation can rest knowing that the evil doers have been captured. No need to look any further. Definitely not higher up the chain of command. Nope, responsibility is always with the lowest ranks. (Damn them for starting the war, too!)
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You forgot to quote this part:
Once again, time to celebrate the Democrats for approaching a bare minimum standard of decency.
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Yeah, it’s bs, but… consider who Obama is… a law and order constitutional scholar, lawyer… by the book. He’s got a lot of the same personality traits as an accountant who won’t let anything slip past their notice, and he’s not going to just bend the rules for the sake of pity. If he did, it would be out of character. So, I expect no action from Obama towards Edward Snowden.
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This is what he said in Nov:
I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns. How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community. If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system.
At the point at which Mr. Snowden wants to present himself before the legal authorities and make his arguments or have his lawyers make his arguments, then I think those issues come into play. Until that time, what I’ve tried to suggest – both to the American people, but also to the world – is that we do have to balance this issue of privacy and security.
Also, there was something yesterday saying Snowden had to apply for clemency first?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/17/politics/snowden-no-clemency-request/index.html
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Except the crime wherein the US military drops fire on journalists and civilians in foreign countries.
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But, I thought we were bringing those people freedom? /s
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Exactly how big was your smile as you typed this?
She served seven years time, she sees no reward for her actions.
Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of “conscience” to applaud over the next four years for those supposedly better than your average centrist Democrat!
Alternate universe President Stein sure is doing a great job.
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