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It sounds like they're getting to him already. He's the next Philip Agee and the US government couldn't be happier about that. You say you're against warrantles

• JonFish85 13y ago
  "The only way Snowden can win now is to come home and let himself become a martyr." Even then, I'm not sure he "wins". People have a very, very short attention span. He'd be forgotten before the sentencing was handed down, most likely. From a legal point of view, the case is pretty simple: did you release documents you swore not to release? Yes? Penalty is X years in prison. I don't see much martyrdom there. He won't be killed, he won't be tortured (he may be in solitary, which may be for his own safety more than anything else, whether he's a suicide risk or at risk of being murdered in prison -- just my opinion), so there isn't much to be get all that enraged about (beyond what he's already leaked). The time would probably be taken to put together some evidence, figure out exactly what was leaked, and how. I'm sure there are many, many things he'd get charged with, so there's a lot of research to get done, and since it's sensitive information, there needs to be a lot of care taken to figure out what was accessed and just as importantly what wasn't accessed. By then, Kim Kardashian will be working on a divorce or another baby ("South", anyone?), Aaron Hernandez will be up for appeal or something and the public won't will care much about this.
  • thangalin 13y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement#Torture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement#Torture "Solitary confinement is considered to be a form of psychological torture when the period of confinement is longer than a few weeks or is continued indefinitely. Negative psychological effects have been documented, leading one judge in a 2001 suit to rule that 'Solitary confinement units are virtual incubators of psychoses—seeding illness in otherwise healthy inmates and exacerbating illness in those already suffering from mental infirmities.'"
    • JonFish85 13y ago
      If you're concerned about someone who is possibly suicidal, and who is at significant risk of being killed by other inmates, what do you suggest?
      • jessaustin 13y ago
        Release him from prison.
        • lttlrck 13y ago
          So suicidal inmates should be released from jail? Let me know how that goes.
          • Karunamon 13y ago
            >Non-violent political inmates should be released from jail? Fixed that for you. Yes.
          • jessaustin 13y ago
            Prisoners commit suicide all the time; the wardens keep stats so they can brag about how hideous they are. That's been true everywhere, forever. The innovation we've seen in the USA with solitary confinement, which is intended to break those who effectively oppose prison management when placed in the general population, is that the tax-paying public is actually dumb enough to believe it's about preventing suicides. If one really cared to prevent the myriad of societal pathologies that stem from our shameful prison system, the best way to do that would be to release those whose imprisonment causes those problems.
      • jellicle 13y ago
        There's no evidence that solitary confinement is being actually used to prevent suicide/harm in these political cases, and a great deal of evidence that it is simply punitive. For Manning, the prison psychiatrist repeatedly stated he was at no risk of suicide and tried, unsuccessfully, to have him taken off the naked sleep deprivation routine that he was on.
  • jivatmanx 13y ago
    "Americans have a short attention span, care more about Kim Kardashian's baby than their liberty" Isn't going to be an effective argument with patriotic Americans.
    • D9u 13y ago
      "The truth may be an offense, but it is not a sin."
  • perlpimp 13y ago
    Chemical lobotomy is always an option, somewhere in jail something happens - no one would know for sure. He wouldn't speak against the corrupt and perverted establishment and he wouldn't die. I think it is better option to be pain in the ass and be always there like a sore spot distracting the government.
• flyinRyan 13y ago
  Playing the martyr card hasn't worked for Manning. The US general public still doesn't care. Snowden would be sacrificing himself for literally nothing. The best thing he can do is keep all this in the news as long as possible.
  • jessaustin 13y ago
    Yeah this is how one actually participates in the public discourse, when one's opponents operate from cozy sinecures of secrecy and corruption. It's different than what we "learned" in junior high civics class, which assumed that "good people" exist, and that they naturally rise to positions of authority in a secret bureaucracy.
  • mpyne 13y ago
    Manning was not a good candidate for martyrdom anyways. His case had obvious ulterior motives, he didn't turn himself in (but did brag about it), made the barest of attempts to go to the media, leaked way, way more than was necessary, what he did leak wasn't even as bad as things like Abu Ghraib or the Mahmudiyah rape/killings in Iraq (which came out via normal whistleblower channels, btw), leaked things in a way to put Afghani informants and sympathizers at bodily risk, I could probably go on. I mean, there's a reason Snowden sought to differentiate his methods from Manning's, even if he had the same overall goal.