6 ms·

Whistleblowers do not deserve to be in prison. Exposing war crimes is good.

kpU8efre7r 7y ago
Manning should have used whistleblower channels then. They did not because Manning is not a whistleblower.
mariorossi666 7y ago
She wasn't technically a whistleblower, technically she stole classified documents and betrayed her country that she swore to protect. The military have a different way of dealing with justice, especially in U.S. She was in fact sentenced by court-martial not by a regular court.
- ComodoHacker 7y ago
  >betrayed her country that she swore to protect Hasn't she in fact protected her country from commiting further war crimes?
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Has she? https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/america-is-committing-awful-war-crimes-and-it-doesnt-even-know-why/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/america-is-committing-a...
- dependenttypes 7y ago
  > She wasn't technically a whistleblower How so? > technically she stole classified documents You can't steal online data. You can only copy it. > betrayed her country that she swore to protect Exposed crimes against the constitution by the government and the military to the people. This sounds like a very honourable (and whistleblow-y) thing to do. > She was in fact sentenced by court-martial not by a regular court. Which is an extremely corrupt move.
  - mariorossi666 7y ago
    > You can't steal online data. You can only copy it that's stealing a document in anyone's book. > Exposed crimes against the constitution by the government and the military to the peopl You're arguing with me, but I agree with you, I'm simply saying that a military court said that. That's why I said technically. The law is all about technicalities. Manning wore a uniform, she was subject to court-martial, and court-martial ruled against her. I'm just reporting it. > Which is an extremely corrupt move. Which is what happens when you're in the armed forces and have to deal with justice. It's the same for everyone who joins the military. She wasn't treated in a special way.
    - dependenttypes 7y ago
      > that's stealing a document in anyone's book. It would certainly be stealing if she deleted the documents in the server afterwards, which she did not. Stealing implies that the original is gone in everyday speech. Most people would be very upset if you stole their car, not so much if you copied it. > I'm simply saying that a military court said that. You might want to edit your previous post then. From "technically she stole classified documents and betrayed her country that she swore to protect." to "The military court claims that she stole classified documents and betrayed her country that she swore to protect", in which case I would claim that the military is corrupt and trying to cover their own asses. Anyway, whatever the military court said does not change the reality of the situation. > Which is what happens when you're in the armed forces and have to deal with justice. Yes, and I am against that as the objective of such "courts" is to do the military's bidding (which is to unfairly punish whistle-blowers and give lighter punishments to war criminals).
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        > Stealing implies that the original is gone in everyday speech. "Data theft" is understood to mean illicit copying, with no assumption that originals were destroyed. In everyday speech, "stealing data" implies unauthorized copies. There are advantages to controlling the terminology in a narrative, but the ship has sailed on this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_theft
- monocasa 7y ago
  How did she betray her country? During her trial, the prosecution couldn't actually point to any direct harm.
  - mariorossi666 7y ago
    I don't know why you're asking me, I'm just reporting what the trial was about and what the prosecutors said. The court ruled against Manning in favour of the prosecutors. She was "acquitted of the most serious charge, that of aiding the enemy, for giving secrets to WikiLeaks" under the spionage act, which means treason. If you want an explanation from me, they said that the fact that she stole classified documents regarding national security and gave them to wikileaks, which is foreign to U.S.A., is an act of treason. The central point is that Manning never denied to taking those documents illegally, at the time she (was still a he) said she wanted to spark public debate on the matter.
    - monocasa 7y ago
      Because you're the one saying that she > betrayed her country that she swore to protect And I mean, she was acquitted of aiding the enemy, ie. that charge didn't stick. All of the charges that did stick are around improperly storing classified data. And as I've said before, the prosecution couldn't come up with any actual harm at her trial, so "betrayed" is you embellishing the story.
      - kempbellt 7y ago
        Classic game of gossip going on here. "I heard it on the news/online. Even if it isn't true, I'm going to share what I heard, because WOW! What if?!" Furthering the cancerous distortion of the truth via willful ignorance.
      - jeremyfranco 7y ago
        Sorry, but int the appeal of May 31 2018 she was sentenced for violating the Espionage Act with this motivation "The facts of this case, leave no question as to what constituted national defense information. Appellant's training and experience indicate, without any doubt, she was on notice and understood the nature of the information she was disclosing and how its disclosure could negatively affect national defense." Manning, the judges ruled, "had no First Amendment right to make the disclosures—doing so not only violated the nondisclosure agreements she signed, but also jeopardized national security." apparently they did stick.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  Snowden demonstrated that the "technical whistleblower" channels are ineffective at ending illegal behavior by the govt. The assertion that whistleblowers must use official channels is just a paper-thinly veiled argument for silencing all whistleblowing.
  - jeremyfranco 7y ago
    I'm more inclined to think that Snowden and Manning case prove that whistleblowing it's effective only if the receiver is good at protecting the source, which wikileaks, and Assange in particular, is not. Deep throat identity has been a very well kept secret for over 30 years, Manning and Snowden have been exposed merely weeks after the material was published. It looks to me that Wikileaks is the real paper-thinly veil. If I was a conspiracy theorist I would think that wikileaks was created exactly with the purpose of exposing whistleblowers.
shadowgovt 7y ago
Whistleblowing is a focused revelation of wrongdoing. Scraping the secret-classified documents of the State Department, handing them over to a foreign organization, and saying "You'll make the best use of this, I trust you" isn't whistleblowing. At best, it's irresponsible; at worst, it's irresponsibility that walks right up to the edge of malicious treason. I'm very glad Manning wasn't convicted of treason, because she got dangerously close to it (apparently, her crimes are treason-equivalent in Canada).
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  > handing them over to a foreign organization, and saying "You'll make the best use of this, I trust you" isn't whistleblowing. So Snowden isn’t a whistleblower because he gave them to the Guardian?
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    There are two answers to that: technical (legal) and moral. Technical (legal): No, clearly not. There's a reason he's hiding from the US justice system in Russia. He didn't follow the legal process for whistleblowing (and he probably should not have). Moral: The major difference between Manning and Snowden's leaks is that Snowden read the documents he forwarded and only collected and forwarded enough to blow the whistle. Manning never read all the cables she extracted; she had no idea what the blast-radius of that declassification would be.
    - monocasa 7y ago
      As a contractor, there was no legal whistleblower process for him to follow. He did escalate internally as much as he could before the leaks though. Snowden also took a lot and leaked a massive dump, it was Greenwald, et al. that parred it down.
    - jcranberry 7y ago
      Snowden took and gave much more than he could possibly have read. In July 2014, The Washington Post reported on a cache previously provided by Snowden from domestic NSA operations consisting of "roughly 160,000 intercepted e-mail and instant-message conversations, some of them hundreds of pages long, and 7,900 documents taken from more than 11,000 online accounts." He did not read the 160k emails he provided to the Washington Post.

Manning should have used whistleblower channels then. They did not because Manning is not a whistleblower.

She wasn't technically a whistleblower, technically she stole classified documents and betrayed her country that she swore to protect. The military have a different way of dealing with justice, especially in U.S. She was in fact sentenced by court-martial not by a regular court.

ComodoHacker 7y ago
>betrayed her country that she swore to protect Hasn't she in fact protected her country from commiting further war crimes?
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Has she? https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/america-is-committing-awful-war-crimes-and-it-doesnt-even-know-why/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/08/15/america-is-committing-a...
dependenttypes 7y ago
> She wasn't technically a whistleblower How so? > technically she stole classified documents You can't steal online data. You can only copy it. > betrayed her country that she swore to protect Exposed crimes against the constitution by the government and the military to the people. This sounds like a very honourable (and whistleblow-y) thing to do. > She was in fact sentenced by court-martial not by a regular court. Which is an extremely corrupt move.
- mariorossi666 7y ago
  > You can't steal online data. You can only copy it that's stealing a document in anyone's book. > Exposed crimes against the constitution by the government and the military to the peopl You're arguing with me, but I agree with you, I'm simply saying that a military court said that. That's why I said technically. The law is all about technicalities. Manning wore a uniform, she was subject to court-martial, and court-martial ruled against her. I'm just reporting it. > Which is an extremely corrupt move. Which is what happens when you're in the armed forces and have to deal with justice. It's the same for everyone who joins the military. She wasn't treated in a special way.
  - dependenttypes 7y ago
    > that's stealing a document in anyone's book. It would certainly be stealing if she deleted the documents in the server afterwards, which she did not. Stealing implies that the original is gone in everyday speech. Most people would be very upset if you stole their car, not so much if you copied it. > I'm simply saying that a military court said that. You might want to edit your previous post then. From "technically she stole classified documents and betrayed her country that she swore to protect." to "The military court claims that she stole classified documents and betrayed her country that she swore to protect", in which case I would claim that the military is corrupt and trying to cover their own asses. Anyway, whatever the military court said does not change the reality of the situation. > Which is what happens when you're in the armed forces and have to deal with justice. Yes, and I am against that as the objective of such "courts" is to do the military's bidding (which is to unfairly punish whistle-blowers and give lighter punishments to war criminals).
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      > Stealing implies that the original is gone in everyday speech. "Data theft" is understood to mean illicit copying, with no assumption that originals were destroyed. In everyday speech, "stealing data" implies unauthorized copies. There are advantages to controlling the terminology in a narrative, but the ship has sailed on this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_theft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_theft
monocasa 7y ago
How did she betray her country? During her trial, the prosecution couldn't actually point to any direct harm.
- mariorossi666 7y ago
  I don't know why you're asking me, I'm just reporting what the trial was about and what the prosecutors said. The court ruled against Manning in favour of the prosecutors. She was "acquitted of the most serious charge, that of aiding the enemy, for giving secrets to WikiLeaks" under the spionage act, which means treason. If you want an explanation from me, they said that the fact that she stole classified documents regarding national security and gave them to wikileaks, which is foreign to U.S.A., is an act of treason. The central point is that Manning never denied to taking those documents illegally, at the time she (was still a he) said she wanted to spark public debate on the matter.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    Because you're the one saying that she > betrayed her country that she swore to protect And I mean, she was acquitted of aiding the enemy, ie. that charge didn't stick. All of the charges that did stick are around improperly storing classified data. And as I've said before, the prosecution couldn't come up with any actual harm at her trial, so "betrayed" is you embellishing the story.
    - kempbellt 7y ago
      Classic game of gossip going on here. "I heard it on the news/online. Even if it isn't true, I'm going to share what I heard, because WOW! What if?!" Furthering the cancerous distortion of the truth via willful ignorance.
    - jeremyfranco 7y ago
      Sorry, but int the appeal of May 31 2018 she was sentenced for violating the Espionage Act with this motivation "The facts of this case, leave no question as to what constituted national defense information. Appellant's training and experience indicate, without any doubt, she was on notice and understood the nature of the information she was disclosing and how its disclosure could negatively affect national defense." Manning, the judges ruled, "had no First Amendment right to make the disclosures—doing so not only violated the nondisclosure agreements she signed, but also jeopardized national security." apparently they did stick.
cwkoss 7y ago
Snowden demonstrated that the "technical whistleblower" channels are ineffective at ending illegal behavior by the govt. The assertion that whistleblowers must use official channels is just a paper-thinly veiled argument for silencing all whistleblowing.
- jeremyfranco 7y ago
  I'm more inclined to think that Snowden and Manning case prove that whistleblowing it's effective only if the receiver is good at protecting the source, which wikileaks, and Assange in particular, is not. Deep throat identity has been a very well kept secret for over 30 years, Manning and Snowden have been exposed merely weeks after the material was published. It looks to me that Wikileaks is the real paper-thinly veil. If I was a conspiracy theorist I would think that wikileaks was created exactly with the purpose of exposing whistleblowers.

shadowgovt 7y ago

Whistleblowing is a focused revelation of wrongdoing. Scraping the secret-classified documents of the State Department, handing them over to a foreign organization, and saying "You'll make the best use of this, I trust you" isn't whistleblowing. At best, it's irresponsible; at worst, it's irresponsibility that walks right up to the edge of malicious treason. I'm very glad Manning wasn't convicted of treason, because she got dangerously close to it (apparently, her crimes are treason-equivalent in Canada).

colejohnson66 7y ago
> handing them over to a foreign organization, and saying "You'll make the best use of this, I trust you" isn't whistleblowing. So Snowden isn’t a whistleblower because he gave them to the Guardian?
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  There are two answers to that: technical (legal) and moral. Technical (legal): No, clearly not. There's a reason he's hiding from the US justice system in Russia. He didn't follow the legal process for whistleblowing (and he probably should not have). Moral: The major difference between Manning and Snowden's leaks is that Snowden read the documents he forwarded and only collected and forwarded enough to blow the whistle. Manning never read all the cables she extracted; she had no idea what the blast-radius of that declassification would be.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    As a contractor, there was no legal whistleblower process for him to follow. He did escalate internally as much as he could before the leaks though. Snowden also took a lot and leaked a massive dump, it was Greenwald, et al. that parred it down.
  - jcranberry 7y ago
    Snowden took and gave much more than he could possibly have read. In July 2014, The Washington Post reported on a cache previously provided by Snowden from domestic NSA operations consisting of "roughly 160,000 intercepted e-mail and instant-message conversations, some of them hundreds of pages long, and 7,900 documents taken from more than 11,000 online accounts." He did not read the 160k emails he provided to the Washington Post.