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Bin Laden Raid Member To Be WikiLeaks Witness
the simurgh writes in with the latest in the court-martial of Bradley Manning. "A military judge cleared the way Wednesday for a member of the team that raided Osama bin Laden's compound to testify at the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning charged in the WikiLeaks massive classified document leak. Col. Denise Lind ruled for the prosecution during a court-martial pretrial hearing. Prosecutors say the witness, presumably a Navy SEAL, collected digital evidence showing that the al-Qaida leader requested and received from an associate some of the documents Manning has acknowledged leaking. Defense attorneys had argued that proof of receipt wasn't relevant to whether Manning aided the enemy, the most serious charge he faces, punishable by life imprisonment. 'The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the intelligence is given to and received by the enemy,' Lind said. The judge disagreed."
True. And it is happening right under all your noses, and the press is still able to report on it, so it's not like you are all caught by surprise... and despite the fact that you can all vote in a democratic system, this has been going on for well over a decade now.
Americans, you've got nobody to blame but yourselves.
This would basically mean that nobody could report on wars, because anyone doing so could be accused of aiding the enemy. Imagine a version of this where Bin Laden said, "Get me a copy of the New York Times!" and the government accused reporters of aiding the enemy.
Palm trees and 8
...for now.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
The prosecution is alleging that the document leak perpetrated by Bradley Manning directly aided the enemy (al-Qaeda) in their operations against the United States. So what's the problem with including testimony that documents leaked by Bradley Manning were present during the Bin-Laden raid? It's common sense.
You can harp on for days about how "the documents revealed war crimes" or "it was the right thing to do." Ultimately, the documents were classified, Bradley Manning signed a document stating that he would not reveal classified information when he enlisted in the Army, and did it anyways. He did not release the information the the DOD Inspector General, to a member of the House or Senate intelligence committee, or even to a legitimate member of the press corp. He released it to some foreign website with no press credentials. That makes it a crime. He's not a protected whistle-blower because he did not send the information to any of the above whistleblower channels. Even the NSA warrantless wiretapping whistle-blower had enough common sense to go through the New York Times, which meant he was protected as a whistle-blower.
sudo make me a sandwich
Or The Guardian?
No.
Hell, OBL probably got some leaks from normal every-day espionage from personnell in the US armed forces. Sometimes even senators (cf Libby) do so for political reasons. Are they aiding the enemy too?
Hell, since there doesn't seem to be a need for this information to have given any actual AID to "the enemy", the reports from the US armed forces to the US public itself can be requested by and given to "the enemy". So the entire US government and the entire armed forces are guilty of this act.
There's a big difference between 'whistleblowing on a crime' and 'leaking every single thing you have access to in the hope that some of it may be criminal'.
He swore to uphold the laws of the United States and the international law the government have treaties to uphold.
NO Non-Disclosure agreement or secrecy act can be used to force the concealment of the commission of a crime. And trying to do so makes you an accessory before and after the fact.
This is far-fetched and paranoia until it happens to you. :)
Truth is that we live under a totalitarian regime with some privileges. Our ongoing maltreatment of foreign people should have been a warning, now they are coming for us. No conspiracy here, man's self-perpetuating thirst for power has brought us here. My advice is to never grab the attention of your government and it's long-reaching arms. Stick to the masses and stay low.
There's a big difference between classified documents that are meant to be secret and classifying every single thing in case something embarrasing is in them.
"He is not being prosecuted for releasing weather reports, stock values, or a crossword puzzle"
What he HAS released hasn't been shown to be of any more aid to OBL than these would be.
Classified information cannot, repeat CANNOT, be used to hide criminal acts.
Classified information incorrectly classified is NOT validly classified and almost all classified information SHOULD NOT be classified. If the rules for classification AS APPLIED are "Classify everything", then the classification cannot be of any guide as to whether the information SHOULD be classified and kept secret.
Manning is on trial for exposing the criminal acts of his superiors.
Something his superiors predecessors insisted should be done in all cases. cf Nuremberg.
Who cares about his motivation? He's done a right thing and now he risks his life, as if he lived in Iran.
There's a big difference between 'whistleblowing on a crime' and 'leaking every single thing you have
Unless "everything you have" is so illegally outrageous that the story needs to be told.
Furthermore, If Manning is going to be held accountable for information Al-Queda obtained, then the Pentagon and CIA should be held accountable in the same fashion when an unencrypted laptop with sensitive dat is lost, or a website database is compromised* due to gross negiligence. Right now, the only consequences are "whooops, lol sorry bro. have a free 6-month credit inquiry"
* http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/03/nasa-inspector-gen-says-stolen-laptop-contained-space-station-control-codes.php
http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2007/02/8821/
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2007/02/hundreds_of_fbi/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/01/malware_pentagon_usb_ban/
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As a former secret 3 letter agency drone I'd like to point out that the internet is the metaphorical iceberg. Time to loosen the tinfoil I think : ) Your 'probably' may (or may not) scale more appropriately as the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Some perspective; A single satellite can relay several thousand unique transmissions. A single piece of fiber can convey orders of magnitude more data again. How much data do we push around daily, not just via the internet, but all networks combined? The NSA has a finite budget, a finite number of people, finite capability, finite everything.
The problem though is that the NSA has been caught red-handed on multiple occasions. Then we hear about NSA's massive new data center that is under construction. So we want to know what they're up to and what they're doing. They won't tell us. The courts refuse to do their jobs when we try to sue and discover the information. Even NSA's budget is a state secret. So maybe what the NSA is doing is totally above board (or maybe not) but they refuse to have any level of accountability so as far as I am concerned, and many other people are concerned, they are guilty until they can prove their innocence.
Given the history of our government misusing its powers, I don't think it is unreasonable at all to assume that the NSA is up to no good.
I have read the Bradley Manning was an E2 in rank. I was in the military and it took only a couple of months to reach E2 in rank. So the army has so little amount of people with rank of E6 and above or an officer that they have to entrust that much power to an E2. To me that is the same as a bank manager giving someone in the bank who was hired just a couple of months ago with the responsibility of closing the safe, locking all the doors and setting the alarm. I once had access to top secret information but the rule was that the information was never accessed without someone else being present. So there is no way Manning should have had access or at the least have had access without someone else being there. The officer in charge should bear more responsibility than Manning. To me it is the same as someone leaving their money in a bag on their front lawn and wondering why it was stolen.
What the helicopter did WAS A WAR CRIME.
If you DO NOT have positive ID of a hostile, shooting anyway IS A CRIME.
Shooting ANYONE, military personnel or not, who are giving aid to the wounded IS A WAR CRIME.
Shooting children (and they KNEW it was children: "Serves them right for bringing their kids to a war zone") IS A WAR CRIME.