Ellsberg was a civilian, employed by the RAND Corporation [1] when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, which was a political report commissioned by a politician (Sec

Ellsberg 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