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Manning and Assange are both free today. Isn't that proof that whether it was reasonable to believe Snowden was correct at the time, history has proved him wron

by slg 5d ago

Manning and Assange are both free today. Isn't that proof that whether it was reasonable to believe Snowden was correct at the time, history has proved him wrong?

deleted 5d ago
[deleted]
unsungNovelty 5d ago
Not sure. You are talking about a Snowden in 2013 who looks around and see Chelsea and Assange NOT free. He made the decision based on that and what has happened before. I also think what Snowden exposed is far far far bigger.
marcus_holmes 5d ago
Assange is only free because he was not extradited to the USA, and effectively served ~10 years imprisonment anyway. Manning got a presidential pardon. I wouldn't hold either of these up as a shining example of how the USA treats whistleblowers and journalists.
- lern_too_spel 5d ago
  [flagged]
  - marcus_holmes 5d ago
    Why is the focus always on what these people did, and not on the crimes that they exposed? Why are you saying "if they had done it differently they would be treated better" instead of "I am ashamed of the evil and illegal acts that my country has done and want to change the system to make this impossible"? Why do you care what either of them did more than you care about what the government did?
    - varjag 5d ago
      Which crimes had Manning exposed? There has to be a list somewhere.
      - jll29 5d ago
        Two of my former colleagues (both Reuters journalists) were murdered by U.S. soldiers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=zYTxuW2vmzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=zYTxuW2vmzk Then all the civilians that took care of their bodies were also killed, including children. Then the Department of Defense then denied existing video coverage of the event (personal comm., Tom Glocer, J.D., former CEO and attorney, Reuters). -> So homicide, mult. war crimes and lying. I'll be eternally grateful to Manning and Assange for letting the truth come to light, and to all whistleblowers driven by their conscience and idealism. But the most disturbing thing about this all is the dirty laughter of that helicopter crew. Seeing that video makes one ashamed to belong to the human species.
        varjag 5d ago
        That was not a part of the cables released by Manning.
        linkregister 5d ago
        The "Collateral Murder" video of the unlawful killing of journalists was part of the archive that Wikileaks published that's been attributed to Chelsea Manning. All available evidence supports this was part of the material. Chelsea's leak was the contents of the shared drive, not just diplomatic cables. The release of the diplomatic cables themselves gravely harmed U.S. interests and is alleged to have led to the deaths of CIA collaborators.
    - lern_too_spel 5d ago
      Again, Snowden leaked a single extant program that was potentially illegal. All he had to do was blow the whistle on that program and the other possibly program that had already been shut down, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Instead, he told China what systems the US had compromised and additionally claimed the US was doing a bunch of illegal things that his documents did not support, causing hysteria and helping Trumpism. The thing that makes illegal programs almost impossible to hide are the reforms after the Church Committee, including SSCI oversight and whistleblower procedures and protections.
  - akk0 5d ago
    Your transphobia hardly makes you look unbiased, shill
    - lern_too_spel 5d ago
      It was an honest mistake, and I apologize for it to Chelsea if she is reading this. In my mind, I remembered her gender at the time she leaked the documents, which had nothing to do with whether she should be considered a whistleblower. She herself has said she should not be considered one. I will admit to shilling for literacy and common sense. You got me there.
- slg 5d ago
  No one was holding them up "as a shining example of how the USA treats whistleblowers and journalists." I was holding them up as history. History will judge Snowden differently because he chose exile and didn't give himself the opportunity for pardons or plea deals like Manning and Assange.
  - marcus_holmes 5d ago
    My point was that "both of these people are currently free" isn't the flex it appears to be. And again, why are we so focused on judging Snowden and not focused on judging the crimes he exposed? I would think that history will judge him very favourably considering that he was completely correct to expose those crimes.
    - slg 5d ago
      Once again, there was no flex. We aren't judging the morality or ethics of the situation in any direction. We are simply looking back on historical events with hindsight. We also don't have to flatten these historical events into one good side and one bad side. Reality tends to be more complicated than that. It's ok to recognize that Snowden maybe made some mistakes. That is neither an endorsement of the US government's spying or an accusation of ill intent against Snowden.
      - marsmaps 5d ago
        we also don't have to flatten these historical events (snowden maybe making some mistakes vs the US government's spying) so we can pretend that they're of equal valence, scale and severity. they are actually extremely dissimilar and one is very transparently worse and more serious than the other
        slg 5d ago
        >we also don't have to flatten these historical events (snowden maybe making some mistakes vs the US government's spying) so we can pretend that they're of equal valence, scale and severity In what way do you think this was done? Nothing I said here was condoning the government's behavior.
- CalRobert 5d ago
  Reality Winner got five years for showing Russian interference in elections, which seems like doing the right thing
  - deleted 5d ago
    [deleted]
- Arodex 5d ago
  Is Snowden... free, in Russia? Is he, really? Between his constant KGB handlers and the Ukrainian bombings?
- dhx 5d ago
  In the case of Assange, Australian politicians did a lot of work to get him released in the end[1], including: * Sending a delegation representing all major political parties to the US to argue for the release of Assange. Imagine picking the Republican and Democrat politician LEAST likely to want to cooperate on anything, and those two would have been Australia's equivalent representatives in this delegation. Reports afterwards of the meeting at DOJ HQ indicated it wasn't the type of meeting where the Australians would have brought Tim Tams to share around the room.[2] * The Australian parliament voted publicly 2:1 on a motion for Assange's release. * Repeated petitioning through ambassadors in the UK and US, official visits of Australian politicians, etc. Not in private either, as is typically the case for diplomatic affairs. * Australian politicians attending UK extradition hearings. * After getting agreement to a plea deal, flying Australian ambassadors for the UK and US to the court of a one-pub-town in the middle of the Pacific Ocean no one has heard of (Northern Mariana Islands) in support of Assange, then all of them flying back to the Australian prime minister's aircraft terminal for a welcome home bevvy. This was all at a time too where "Free Assange" posters and graffiti was _widely_ distributed across Australian cities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Plea_bargain_and_release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Plea_bargain_an... [2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-27/inside-the-us-australian-delegation-us-to-free-wikileaks-assange/104024172 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-27/inside-the-us-austral...
impossiblefork 5d ago
No. Assange didn't commit a crime, and was still forced by the Brits to confess in order to be released. Snowdens situation is completely different. His only hope was a much wider view of the legality of the acts he'd taken to be considered, taking into account the legality and constitutionality of what he released information about, and there was and is no chance of that.
- slg 5d ago
  >Assange didn't commit a crime Assange literally pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act. And if we're going to pretend that plea deals are coercion than we better rethink how the whole criminal justice system works.
  - impossiblefork 5d ago
    Yes, that he was forced to do so by the Brits in order to be release is what I referred to, so of course it is coercion. He is of not American and has no duty to be loyal to the US or to refrain from committing espionage against it.
    - slg 5d ago
      Your objection isn't to just Assange's case. It's with over 90% of criminal cases in the US. I was talking about a particular situation, so I'm not going to have the debate you seemingly want to have.
      - impossiblefork 5d ago
        My objection is absolutely with Assange's case. I don't particularly approve of the idea of these sorts of plea deals, but they are not the core problem. The core problem is that Britain pressured Assange to enter into a US plea deal over something which it was entirely legal for him to do, seeing as he was in Iceland when the acts were committed. Seeing as part of the information obtained related to black sites at which there is reason to believe that people were killed (we know that that a person released from the Polish black site were almost killed, so we can be fairly sure that a bunch of people died there), and Iceland has a law making it legally mandatory to help people who are in danger; and I think there's good reason to believe that he had reason to believe that the information would reveal such things, so that it wasn't just him doing good, but him doing his legal duty, once he had reason to believe that people were in danger. So my concern has very little to do with plea agreements. They have to do with Britain.

by slg 5d ago

Manning and Assange are both free today. Isn't that proof that whether it was reasonable to believe Snowden was correct at the time, history has proved him wrong?

deleted 5d ago

[deleted]

unsungNovelty 5d ago

Not sure. You are talking about a Snowden in 2013 who looks around and see Chelsea and Assange NOT free. He made the decision based on that and what has happened before. I also think what Snowden exposed is far far far bigger.

marcus_holmes 5d ago

Assange is only free because he was not extradited to the USA, and effectively served ~10 years imprisonment anyway. Manning got a presidential pardon. I wouldn't hold either of these up as a shining example of how the USA treats whistleblowers and journalists.

lern_too_spel 5d ago
[flagged]
- marcus_holmes 5d ago
  Why is the focus always on what these people did, and not on the crimes that they exposed? Why are you saying "if they had done it differently they would be treated better" instead of "I am ashamed of the evil and illegal acts that my country has done and want to change the system to make this impossible"? Why do you care what either of them did more than you care about what the government did?
  - varjag 5d ago
    Which crimes had Manning exposed? There has to be a list somewhere.
    - jll29 5d ago
      Two of my former colleagues (both Reuters journalists) were murdered by U.S. soldiers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=zYTxuW2vmzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=zYTxuW2vmzk Then all the civilians that took care of their bodies were also killed, including children. Then the Department of Defense then denied existing video coverage of the event (personal comm., Tom Glocer, J.D., former CEO and attorney, Reuters). -> So homicide, mult. war crimes and lying. I'll be eternally grateful to Manning and Assange for letting the truth come to light, and to all whistleblowers driven by their conscience and idealism. But the most disturbing thing about this all is the dirty laughter of that helicopter crew. Seeing that video makes one ashamed to belong to the human species.
      - varjag 5d ago
        That was not a part of the cables released by Manning.
        linkregister 5d ago
        The "Collateral Murder" video of the unlawful killing of journalists was part of the archive that Wikileaks published that's been attributed to Chelsea Manning. All available evidence supports this was part of the material. Chelsea's leak was the contents of the shared drive, not just diplomatic cables. The release of the diplomatic cables themselves gravely harmed U.S. interests and is alleged to have led to the deaths of CIA collaborators.
  - lern_too_spel 5d ago
    Again, Snowden leaked a single extant program that was potentially illegal. All he had to do was blow the whistle on that program and the other possibly program that had already been shut down, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. Instead, he told China what systems the US had compromised and additionally claimed the US was doing a bunch of illegal things that his documents did not support, causing hysteria and helping Trumpism. The thing that makes illegal programs almost impossible to hide are the reforms after the Church Committee, including SSCI oversight and whistleblower procedures and protections.
- akk0 5d ago
  Your transphobia hardly makes you look unbiased, shill
  - lern_too_spel 5d ago
    It was an honest mistake, and I apologize for it to Chelsea if she is reading this. In my mind, I remembered her gender at the time she leaked the documents, which had nothing to do with whether she should be considered a whistleblower. She herself has said she should not be considered one. I will admit to shilling for literacy and common sense. You got me there.
slg 5d ago
No one was holding them up "as a shining example of how the USA treats whistleblowers and journalists." I was holding them up as history. History will judge Snowden differently because he chose exile and didn't give himself the opportunity for pardons or plea deals like Manning and Assange.
- marcus_holmes 5d ago
  My point was that "both of these people are currently free" isn't the flex it appears to be. And again, why are we so focused on judging Snowden and not focused on judging the crimes he exposed? I would think that history will judge him very favourably considering that he was completely correct to expose those crimes.
  - slg 5d ago
    Once again, there was no flex. We aren't judging the morality or ethics of the situation in any direction. We are simply looking back on historical events with hindsight. We also don't have to flatten these historical events into one good side and one bad side. Reality tends to be more complicated than that. It's ok to recognize that Snowden maybe made some mistakes. That is neither an endorsement of the US government's spying or an accusation of ill intent against Snowden.
    - marsmaps 5d ago
      we also don't have to flatten these historical events (snowden maybe making some mistakes vs the US government's spying) so we can pretend that they're of equal valence, scale and severity. they are actually extremely dissimilar and one is very transparently worse and more serious than the other
      - slg 5d ago
        >we also don't have to flatten these historical events (snowden maybe making some mistakes vs the US government's spying) so we can pretend that they're of equal valence, scale and severity In what way do you think this was done? Nothing I said here was condoning the government's behavior.
CalRobert 5d ago
Reality Winner got five years for showing Russian interference in elections, which seems like doing the right thing
- deleted 5d ago
  [deleted]
Arodex 5d ago
Is Snowden... free, in Russia? Is he, really? Between his constant KGB handlers and the Ukrainian bombings?
dhx 5d ago
In the case of Assange, Australian politicians did a lot of work to get him released in the end[1], including: * Sending a delegation representing all major political parties to the US to argue for the release of Assange. Imagine picking the Republican and Democrat politician LEAST likely to want to cooperate on anything, and those two would have been Australia's equivalent representatives in this delegation. Reports afterwards of the meeting at DOJ HQ indicated it wasn't the type of meeting where the Australians would have brought Tim Tams to share around the room.[2] * The Australian parliament voted publicly 2:1 on a motion for Assange's release. * Repeated petitioning through ambassadors in the UK and US, official visits of Australian politicians, etc. Not in private either, as is typically the case for diplomatic affairs. * Australian politicians attending UK extradition hearings. * After getting agreement to a plea deal, flying Australian ambassadors for the UK and US to the court of a one-pub-town in the middle of the Pacific Ocean no one has heard of (Northern Mariana Islands) in support of Assange, then all of them flying back to the Australian prime minister's aircraft terminal for a welcome home bevvy. This was all at a time too where "Free Assange" posters and graffiti was _widely_ distributed across Australian cities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Plea_bargain_and_release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Plea_bargain_an... [2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-27/inside-the-us-australian-delegation-us-to-free-wikileaks-assange/104024172 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-27/inside-the-us-austral...

impossiblefork 5d ago

No. Assange didn't commit a crime, and was still forced by the Brits to confess in order to be released. Snowdens situation is completely different. His only hope was a much wider view of the legality of the acts he'd taken to be considered, taking into account the legality and constitutionality of what he released information about, and there was and is no chance of that.

slg 5d ago
>Assange didn't commit a crime Assange literally pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act. And if we're going to pretend that plea deals are coercion than we better rethink how the whole criminal justice system works.
- impossiblefork 5d ago
  Yes, that he was forced to do so by the Brits in order to be release is what I referred to, so of course it is coercion. He is of not American and has no duty to be loyal to the US or to refrain from committing espionage against it.
  - slg 5d ago
    Your objection isn't to just Assange's case. It's with over 90% of criminal cases in the US. I was talking about a particular situation, so I'm not going to have the debate you seemingly want to have.
    - impossiblefork 5d ago
      My objection is absolutely with Assange's case. I don't particularly approve of the idea of these sorts of plea deals, but they are not the core problem. The core problem is that Britain pressured Assange to enter into a US plea deal over something which it was entirely legal for him to do, seeing as he was in Iceland when the acts were committed. Seeing as part of the information obtained related to black sites at which there is reason to believe that people were killed (we know that that a person released from the Polish black site were almost killed, so we can be fairly sure that a bunch of people died there), and Iceland has a law making it legally mandatory to help people who are in danger; and I think there's good reason to believe that he had reason to believe that the information would reveal such things, so that it wasn't just him doing good, but him doing his legal duty, once he had reason to believe that people were in danger. So my concern has very little to do with plea agreements. They have to do with Britain.