4 ms·
He wasn't a whistleblower: he was a leaker. He permitted national-security information to fall into the hands of someone not cleared to handle it. Moreover, h
by zeveb 10y ago
He wasn't a whistleblower: he was a leaker. He permitted national-security information to fall into the hands of someone not cleared to handle it.
Moreover, he shows not one whit of repentance for his crime.
- 3chelon 10y agoTo be fair, very early on he says, "I was charged with, and a jury convicted me of, leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter." He doesn't try to protest his innocence.
- zeveb 10y ago> He doesn't try to protest his innocence. No, but neither does he seem to have any real recognition that he did wrong. Indeed, reading his article I get the sense that he's a narcissist.
- zzzcpan 10y agoMaybe don't assume that he's wrong. You only see what government presents to you about him. And you know, government would never make itself look bad.
- nl 10y agoIt's an article in The Intercept. That isn't a publication that is known for making government look good.
- 3chelon 10y agoYeah. I have to turn my propaganda shades the other way round when I read that site - if you mix it up with Fox News you get a nice balanced world view!
- M_Grey 10y agoFor a view from the other side of political spectrum: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/twisted-view-of-cias-operation-merlin/2015/01/26/dc107fd6-a3e7-11e4-9f89-561284a573f8_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/twist...
- drivingmenuts 10y ago> No, but neither does he seem to have any real recognition that he did wrong. That's not what the article is about. He provides enough information to establish where he is and why. You're looking for something that the author is apparently not interested in writing about. Why? No idea, but it's not terribly pertinent to the remainder.
- 1024core 10y agoHmmm... sorta like Petraeus, then?
- fucking_tragedy 10y ago> He wasn't a whistleblower: he was a leaker. So were Manning and Snowden.
- elif 10y agoIn the end he was partly vindicated by the fact that Merlin (if other comments here are accurate) eventually put an operational weapon in the hands of Iran, a scenario he saw and presumably tried to avoid. We will probably never know if anyone responsible for this program actually intended to arm Iran, but intentionally arming our enemies is not an unheard of tactic used by covert elements of our government to later justify use of force.
- jellicle 10y agoYou're talking about Daniel Ellsberg?
- kafkaesq 10y agoHe's also a legitimate whistleblower, for his disclosures to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2003 (which the government concedes went through proper channels). Moreover, he shows not one whit of repentance for his crime. I haven't looked into Sterling's own statements about the matter; but I would imagine that it had to do with his assessment that the operation he was exposing was so reckless (not just in execution; but in the very conception of the idea of attempting to spoof the Iranians with flawed weapon design plans that they can easily cross-reference with other sources) that he felt the general public had a right to know about it, which trumped the proscriptions of the various statutes which he is alleged to have violated. You don't have to agree with with this stance. But arguably the public does benefit greatly from having this information become generally known.
- okwhatthe2 10y agoI hope you change your mind one day.