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I feel obligated to point out that you are ranting so passionately that you repeatedly leave reason behind. It isn't accurate to say that any leak is "aiding t

by pekk 13y ago

I feel obligated to point out that you are ranting so passionately that you repeatedly leave reason behind. It isn't accurate to say that any leak is "aiding the enemy" or "the enemy is the whole world". The US does not have a dictator. Laws are still passed by the legislature in the same old way they have been, and are not being applied ex post facto. It isn't actually true that "they could arrest pretty much anyone over anything at this point."

nickff 13y ago
Law is different from legislation. While the latter is passed by the legislature, the former can grow and evolve without any democratic input, through regulation and court rulings.
- mpyne 13y ago
  Though this is true, the point still remains that there is nothing noteworthy in classifying tactical-level detail of military operations, nor in classifying diplomatic cables. If a government had wanted every other government to know what they were saying they were make a public announcement, not send a diplomatic cable. As far back as 1929 Secretary of State Henry Stimson had said that "gentlemen do not read each other's mail", so there was certainly an expectation of privacy. As it turns out the world is not full of gentleman; code-breaking became the norm, and was directly responsible for much of the Allied success during World War II, both against Germany and against Japan. This should further reinforce why nations take such care even nowadays to protect their diplomatic communications. So for Manning the stuff he's getting in trouble for is not new, and it's not ginned up just for him. If he'd done anything approaching what he did in WWII, for instance, he'd have been actually executed. Any later decade he'd have been imprisoned for life, just like the Navy radiomen in the Walker ring who leaked secrets to the U.S.S.R. We'll see what happens to him in 2013 but the charges are very serious, and it's disappointing to me how much people are treating this as a tribal issue, where they support Manning for no better reason than that he has embarrassed the U.S. government that they hate so much. This is a tech website after all; if you knew that somewhere in YourEmailSite.com was evidence that "the public deserved to see", would you leak every email that you were hosting to the public? Would you leak just the ones of public interest? Or would you keep your promise to your customers and not leak any at all?

by pekk 13y ago

nickff 13y ago

Law is different from legislation. While the latter is passed by the legislature, the former can grow and evolve without any democratic input, through regulation and court rulings.

mpyne 13y ago
Though this is true, the point still remains that there is nothing noteworthy in classifying tactical-level detail of military operations, nor in classifying diplomatic cables. If a government had wanted every other government to know what they were saying they were make a public announcement, not send a diplomatic cable. As far back as 1929 Secretary of State Henry Stimson had said that "gentlemen do not read each other's mail", so there was certainly an expectation of privacy. As it turns out the world is not full of gentleman; code-breaking became the norm, and was directly responsible for much of the Allied success during World War II, both against Germany and against Japan. This should further reinforce why nations take such care even nowadays to protect their diplomatic communications. So for Manning the stuff he's getting in trouble for is not new, and it's not ginned up just for him. If he'd done anything approaching what he did in WWII, for instance, he'd have been actually executed. Any later decade he'd have been imprisoned for life, just like the Navy radiomen in the Walker ring who leaked secrets to the U.S.S.R. We'll see what happens to him in 2013 but the charges are very serious, and it's disappointing to me how much people are treating this as a tribal issue, where they support Manning for no better reason than that he has embarrassed the U.S. government that they hate so much. This is a tech website after all; if you knew that somewhere in YourEmailSite.com was evidence that "the public deserved to see", would you leak every email that you were hosting to the public? Would you leak just the ones of public interest? Or would you keep your promise to your customers and not leak any at all?