4 ms·

I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization. Manning is whi

I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization. Manning is white-washing his actions a bit here. He doesn't mention divulging years worth of diplomatic cables, including cables with countries uninvolved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he divulged them en masse, without regard for their content.

redthrowaway 13y ago
>I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization. Define reputable. If his objective were to have talking heads bicker about it on CNN, then handing it over to WaPo or NYT would have been well-advised. If, on the other hand, he wanted real people to have access to the information so they could participate in an informed debate (which is what he said he wanted), then those outlets would have been a terrible place to go. Wikileaks could at least guarantee that the material would reach the public unaltered; the MSM could not.
- streptomycin 13y ago
  Also, it might not have even gotten to the level of talking heads. It could have been covered up. Assange said that WaPo had the Collateral Murder video for a year before WikiLeaks did, although WaPo has denied that.
205guy 13y ago
I don't think the I-would-support-Manning-if-he-had-selectively-released-info position is morally tenable. You're saying that some of his releases were vital and necessary (you'd support those). And then somehow, the perceived damage or liability of the other releases negates the "useful" ones? But I don't see how it's a zero sum game. More importantly, Manning did give a bunch of unredacted content to people whom he trusted to release it appropriately. And they did for a while, redacting names in the cables. But then, "[t]he rest of the cables were published unredacted by WikiLeaks on 1 September 2011, after David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian inadvertently published the passphrase for a file that was still online..." [1] Also, who's to judge the quality of each release of info? Divulging the name of operatives would be a bad thing (Wikipedia[1] says the state department had to relocate some people after the Cablegate leak), but not to pacifists who believe the US shouldn't be conducting secret ops overseas. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Diplomatic_cables.2C_Guantanamo_Bay_files http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Diplomatic_cabl...

redthrowaway 13y ago

>I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization. Define reputable. If his objective were to have talking heads bicker about it on CNN, then handing it over to WaPo or NYT would have been well-advised. If, on the other hand, he wanted real people to have access to the information so they could participate in an informed debate (which is what he said he wanted), then those outlets would have been a terrible place to go. Wikileaks could at least guarantee that the material would reach the public unaltered; the MSM could not.

streptomycin 13y ago
Also, it might not have even gotten to the level of talking heads. It could have been covered up. Assange said that WaPo had the Collateral Murder video for a year before WikiLeaks did, although WaPo has denied that.

205guy 13y ago

I don't think the I-would-support-Manning-if-he-had-selectively-released-info position is morally tenable. You're saying that some of his releases were vital and necessary (you'd support those). And then somehow, the perceived damage or liability of the other releases negates the "useful" ones? But I don't see how it's a zero sum game. More importantly, Manning did give a bunch of unredacted content to people whom he trusted to release it appropriately. And they did for a while, redacting names in the cables. But then, "[t]he rest of the cables were published unredacted by WikiLeaks on 1 September 2011, after David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian inadvertently published the passphrase for a file that was still online..." [1] Also, who's to judge the quality of each release of info? Divulging the name of operatives would be a bad thing (Wikipedia[1] says the state department had to relocate some people after the Cablegate leak), but not to pacifists who believe the US shouldn't be conducting secret ops overseas. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Diplomatic_cables.2C_Guantanamo_Bay_files http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning#Diplomatic_cabl...