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For those people who are curious about the act of disseminating information like Manning did, allow me to summarize. When you get a clearance, and often even w

For those people who are curious about the act of disseminating information like Manning did, allow me to summarize. When you get a clearance, and often even when just working with confidential documents, the DoD has you sign an SF312, which is a classified information non-disclosure. When you join the military, one of your first acts is to be sworn in, and you swear an oath, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. That I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." Now let me say this as clearly as possible: The Constitutional oath outranks the NDA. Period. If in doubt, the oath wins, every single time. That being said though, there is more room for nuance in the stories, primarily due to what kind of information is revealed, what it's intended purpose was, and who is was distributed to. In my opinion Snowden was more aware of this than Manning, because he did due diligence to review the documents before sharing them, and then making sure to limit damaging information that was actually vital to actual national security, and was very specific with the organizations he shared the information with about these requirements. Manning did a huge document dump, which I think was well intentioned and had the right reasons behind it, but he didn't think it through in detail enough or take the time to redact the information. So even if the constitutional oath outweighs the SF312 NDA, it's still breaking the law, but we need to draw very clear distinctions between breaking an NDA and the too oft-cited charges of "treason", which by definition is aiding and abetting the enemy during times of war. I would also like to point out the hypocrisy of the establishment when it comes to classified leaking, because people in the White House and on the Hill leak all kinds of classified material whenever it happens to be expedient to them politically. A good example of this is the Cheney leak that outed Valerie Plame. Where are the cries about treason against Cheney? (whom I personally think is demonstratively more of a traitor than any of the aforementioned names...) To me, one of the primary problems DoD faces these days is that there is little to no punishment for being openly unconstitutional, and people have not only forgotten their oaths and their importance, but have failed to call out others who have acted against theirs. To me, an oath still means something, but I want to know... if I could prove someone broke their oath with knowledge, what is the legal punishment offered? Whatever it is, that is what we need to be doing against those in positions of power who spend more effort undermining the constitution than defending it. (and personally, I think the true enemies of the constitution wear business suits and ties, not thwabs...looking at you wallstreet)

joesmo 10y ago
"if I could prove someone broke their oath with knowledge, what is the legal punishment offered?" I think you answered your own question. It depends on who that person is and whether the people in charge like what he or she does. Manning gets 35 years while Cheney goes free. The answer, to be clear, is impossible to know. When charges and trials are dished out arbitrarily like this, the idea of the rule of law becomes completely laughable. It simply boils down to arbitrary persecution of people for arbitrary reasons, no different than a king or other authoritarian tyrant's rule.
wamsachel 10y ago
I think it's telling that we discuss Manning's violation to oath way more than the war criminals she exposed. But I'm sure everyone is correct in that the people living in the middle east are pouring over the wikileaks looking for data instead of just looking out their window at the smoldering ruins left behind by a bomb
hendersoon 10y ago
I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance. The only effect of those leaks was to hurt the interests of the United States. Her case is certainly much less clear-cut than Snowden's, as she was not a contractor and was more likely to be covered by whistleblower protection going through channels. But realistically, we all know that the US government was never, ever, going to release that "Collateral Murder" video. The great shame of all this is that whistleblower protections and mandatory escalations haven't been expanded so the next generation of do-gooders can work within the system to right these wrongs.
- EdHominem 10y ago
  > I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance. Documents of illegal behavior were intermingled with the rest. It's not a whistleblower's responsibility to sort through the data, nor would we want it to be. They aren't qualified to know if those other files contribute to the understanding of the situation Imagine if someone leaked documents of child molestation but didn't leak all of them, allowing the culprits to escape justice because of a weak case. > The only effect of those leaks was to hurt the interests of the United States. That's our fault for letting our soldiers break the law, and for not having any procedures in place to stop this before it got this far. (ie, a whistleblower hotline that actually got stuff done.) Chelsea witnessed people in the US Armed Forces faking (and cooperating with external faking of) evidence, knowingly sending innocent people to US military prisons where we now know (and she and they knew at the time) they being were tortured and murdered. Any delay in whistleblowing to sort through thousands of files would simply get more people killed. Delaying for even a minute would have been the morally irresponsible answer.

joesmo 10y ago

"if I could prove someone broke their oath with knowledge, what is the legal punishment offered?" I think you answered your own question. It depends on who that person is and whether the people in charge like what he or she does. Manning gets 35 years while Cheney goes free. The answer, to be clear, is impossible to know. When charges and trials are dished out arbitrarily like this, the idea of the rule of law becomes completely laughable. It simply boils down to arbitrary persecution of people for arbitrary reasons, no different than a king or other authoritarian tyrant's rule.

wamsachel 10y ago

I think it's telling that we discuss Manning's violation to oath way more than the war criminals she exposed. But I'm sure everyone is correct in that the people living in the middle east are pouring over the wikileaks looking for data instead of just looking out their window at the smoldering ruins left behind by a bomb

hendersoon 10y ago

I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance. The only effect of those leaks was to hurt the interests of the United States. Her case is certainly much less clear-cut than Snowden's, as she was not a contractor and was more likely to be covered by whistleblower protection going through channels. But realistically, we all know that the US government was never, ever, going to release that "Collateral Murder" video. The great shame of all this is that whistleblower protections and mandatory escalations haven't been expanded so the next generation of do-gooders can work within the system to right these wrongs.

EdHominem 10y ago
> I completely agree. Manning was clearly well-intentioned, but she leaked information including diplomatic cables that was not relevant to war crimes or any such malfeasance. Documents of illegal behavior were intermingled with the rest. It's not a whistleblower's responsibility to sort through the data, nor would we want it to be. They aren't qualified to know if those other files contribute to the understanding of the situation Imagine if someone leaked documents of child molestation but didn't leak all of them, allowing the culprits to escape justice because of a weak case. > The only effect of those leaks was to hurt the interests of the United States. That's our fault for letting our soldiers break the law, and for not having any procedures in place to stop this before it got this far. (ie, a whistleblower hotline that actually got stuff done.) Chelsea witnessed people in the US Armed Forces faking (and cooperating with external faking of) evidence, knowingly sending innocent people to US military prisons where we now know (and she and they knew at the time) they being were tortured and murdered. Any delay in whistleblowing to sort through thousands of files would simply get more people killed. Delaying for even a minute would have been the morally irresponsible answer.