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Really, they haven't. Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers (1971), was also also charged with espionage. In his case all the charges against him w
by necubi 13y ago
Really, they haven't. Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers (1971), was also also charged with espionage. In his case all the charges against him were dismissed. Not, to be clear, because of any contriteness on Nixon's part. Instead, it was because the government was found to have illegally bugged his phone and broken into the office of his psychiatrist in order to find material with which to discredit him. Several of those involved were later convicted as part of the watergate trials [0].
If you think things were better in the 70s, you really weren't paying attention.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Trial_and_mistrial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Trial_and_mistr...
- samstave 13y ago>"because the government was found to have illegally bugged his phone and broken into the office of his psychiatrist Can this not be actual legal precedence AGAINST the entire NSA debacle to begin with? Seriously, can an IAMAL comment on if this could be used?
- rosser 13y agoIANAL. My understanding of how these things work, however, is that the case against Ellsberg was dismissed by the trial judge, and therefore does not establish any precedent. If he'd been convicted, and the conviction overturned on appeal (and the conviction's having been overturned was upheld in any appeals thereof), then precedent would have been created. The reason it works this way is that trial courts are venues for finding facts, while appellate courts are vehicles for addressing questions of law surrounding those findings of fact. It's how those questions of law are resolved, so-called "case law", that creates precedents. IANAL; corrections welcome.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- genwin 13y ago> because the government was found to have illegally bugged his phone Man, how times have changed. Now espionage charges apply when someone leaks that the government bugged everyone's phone.
- chid 13y agoBecause the lovely government has declared it legal under secret 'patriot' laws.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ims 13y agoUh, here you go: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ56/pdf/PLAW-107publ56.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ56/pdf/PLAW-107publ...
- fakeer 13y agoYes. And that is unfortunate. I wonder where the Govt found this opportunity and grabbed it without delay..was it the new way of terrorism? First propagating Islam-phobia and then bring in the restrains slowly - one by one? What was it exactly?
- enko 13y ago> If you think things were better in the 70s, you really weren't paying attention. Yeah, well I was 3. Even so I don't seem to recall Ellsberg fleeing the country to escape absolute certain injustice. I don't recall his video interview with a foreign paper while he hid in China. Do you? Something has definitely changed.
- regal 13y agoYou're basing all this on a sample size of two.
- nitrogen 13y agoHow many famous whistleblowers are there?
- markvdb 13y agoFor a broader sample base, you just widen your category a tiny little bit to Edward Snowden, Jeremy Hammond, Aaron Swartz, Bradley Manning and Jacob Appelbaum.
- WeirdSemantics 13y agoI think the point is not that one should use larger samples, but rather than the conclusion is wrong since the sample is too small. Iow, there's no proof that the situation really changed in the US on the discussed topic.
- fieryeagle 13y ago
- DennisP 13y agoEllsberg has been saying that things were in fact better back then. He was arrested, released on bail, and spent the next couple years able to tell his story to the media. Manning was arrested and kept in solitary for almost four years before his trial, isolated from the outside world.
- prewett 13y agoEllsberg was a civilian, employed by the RAND Corporation [1] when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, which was a political report commissioned by a politician (Secretary of Defense McNamara). [2] Manning was serving in active military duty when he leaked actual military data (albeit historical). There is a huge difference there. When you do something like that in the military, you get court-martialed, which is a different set of rules than civilian court. I do think that 4 years of solitary confinement is beyond excessive, but the military has to court-martial him. I'm guessing it's all spelled out in the military handbook, and I don't think anyone would have expectations otherwise. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_papers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_papers
- DennisP 13y agoSnowden was a civilian contractor. If caught, do you think he would be treated more like Ellsberg or Manning? I know how I'd place my bet.