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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."
The mass surveillance and mass interception that is occurring to all of us now who use the internet is also a mass transfer of power from individuals into extremely sophisticated state and private intelligence organizations and their cronies like Google. The Pentagon is maintaining a line that WikiLeaks inherently, as an institution that tells military and government whistleblowers to step forward with information, is a crime. They allege we are criminal, moving forward. Now, the new interpretation of the Espionage Act that the Pentagon is trying to hammer in to the legal system, and which the Department of Justice is complicit in, would mean the end of national security journalism in the United States.
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
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
And they give out information to the public. Which would have been requested by OBL and recieved by him, ensuring that the entire public relations arm and the command structure who make them do this (all the way up to the CIC) are subject to court matial.
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.
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.
No, that's not called entrapment. Entrapment requires someone getting you to do something you wouldn't have otherwise done in the normal course of things. If an undercover cop sells you cocaine, that's not entrapment. If they coerce you into buying cocaine by threatening to bomb your family, that's a little closer to entrapment.
"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.
> The guy is guilty of having no brains, but wasn't he an intellegence clerk? Here is why I say honeypot, a simple clerk, by the definition of his job, would not have had the security clearance to get to that information, no matter what the system 1) A friend of mine couldn't get into a college because he had terrible grades and wasn't terribly bright. So what did he do? Enlist out of high school into Army intelligence and became some type of intelligence clerk. 2) Intelligence clerks have security clearances and can get access to that information.
Sparticus? If that is your *real* name. Sounds like a terrorist name to me!
I am a terrorist, if you are the Roman Senate circa 72 B.C.
sudo make me a sandwich
BS.
His conversations with that douchebag LAME-O were mainly a discussion about his personal moral dilemma. He wasn't bragging about his "hacking skills" one bit. He had access to the information so there was no technical prowess required.
He recently made a statement in court (which of course the government didn't want the public to hear) that was surreptitiously recorded. You should listen to it.
Who cares about his motivation? He's done a right thing and now he risks his life, as if he lived in Iran.
If everyone know teh secrets ... then the secrets are not secrets and as such become null and void of any value in being secret.
So how do you aid an enemy with a secret that is not secret? You don't, but only fool those who believe its a secret.
I do recall that some judge ruled that the US government, though the secrets are no longer secret, can still pretend they are.
So who is fooling who here?
That definition applies to information that they want to access, not to information that they want to keep secret.
While I think it is the right decision to allow testimony on whether they found the documents at the compound, it seems to be missing a key component. They charge is "aiding the enemy". Shouldn't they also have to prove it actually aided them? What if Bin Laden read through the documents and they were all stuff he didn't care about? Or what if he just was interested in them and wanted to read them (as many people did). Possession of the documents doesn't prove that they aided the enemy anymore than a copy of Twilight would.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
This is how America treats it's patriots, those who swore to protect the nation against domestic threats. The corruption that eats away at America is almost complete. The fear of the government in America has turned most of the population in to unquestioning slaves that beleive whatever they are told.
Greed and the desire for material gains has turned that beacon of democracy into a parody of it's aspirations. Anyone who tries to fight this corruption and greed will have their unalienable rights trampled.
How long will the average American citizen tolerate this bastardisation of ideals that the rest of the world looked up to and once America sinks into despotism (as Benjiman Franklin said of the constitution) which world power will take it's place?
I don't really like the alternatives.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
...Manning is a traitor, aided and abetted the enemies of our country..... He deserves the firing squad.
Hmmm. Perhaps you should visit a pharmacist and ask for something for redness around the neck area.
Truth?
... said the Anonymous Coward.
No, that was Spartacus. Seriously, you tacked a number on the end and didn't even get the spelling right? How sad.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
Bradley Manning a complete dumbass. Why risk prison or even death? we all know our government is crooked run by corporate puppet whores. We know the past atrocities this government has committed against other nations in the name of freedom and liberation. Regardless of somebody proving u.s government is a genocidal maniac killing for resources nothing will be done, because the people of this country are too weak and too busy playing with their Nintendo to really do anything to stop them. Where is the financial disaster accountability? Iraq invasion accountability? 17 trillion debt accountability? NONE!
"The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets, it is to protect officials." - Sir Humphrey.
It doesn't need to proven that Manning personally handed a copy of the release to an al Qaeda agent to make him guilty. This charge should absolutely stick. Let's say John Doe is a disgruntled Armed Forces intel agent working in Afghanistan. He's sick of his job, and takes a huge stack of classified targeting mission profiles and drone photos and scatters them in the air in Kabul's marketplace out of protest. Agents of the Taliban or al Qaeda collect the papers and peruse it. Regardless of the timeliness or utility of the info, he's (unwittingly and stupidly) gone against explicit orders and policy and aided and abetted the enemy efforts. Trying to draw a ridiculous line of causality for "proof" between release and someone getting killed is not needed at that point.
Quit idolizing Manning. Just because Manning exposed some of the seedy underpinnings of international diplomacy doesn't make him a hero. No, there were no explicit war crimes that weren't already being exposed by the MSM (Abu Ghraib being the best example). I've read through the wiki leaks releases, and there is little to nothing within them that couldn't be found in the MSM or inferred through a basic knowledge of international affairs. He's a Kevin Mitnick of this decade.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
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.
It's funny. The man sheds light on the atrocities of our government and all you can do is launch personal attacks on him. What's your agenda? Why are you so desperately trying to discredit an American hero? Are you related to those savages who gunned down civilians, reporters and children?
> IMHO, the Navy Seal is a hero for being one of the team that killed Bin Laden. But Manning is the
> bigger hero of the two. In the 'makes America more free' score table, Manning is right there in the
> top 10.
I would actually agree if he was on the Seal team that brought Bin Laden in for a fair civilian trial for thousands of civilian murders.
I have little to no respect for anyone involved in extrajudicial killing. I may take a lot of umbrage with our so called "justice system" but, these people are supposed to be its champions and uphold it. It should matter deeply to them that Bin Laden died at their hands: an innocent man, having never been convicted in a court of law. They should hang their heads in shame for that.
Justice is only as good as what we offer the most vile amongst us. The more vile, the more important it is.
Manning is a hero, this man, is just a tool.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
...Manning is a traitor, aided and abetted the enemies of our country.....
He deserves the firing squad.
One man's traitor is another man's patriot.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
but what about my second amendment? or fourth? I want those too.
Cite your source or shut the fuck up. Seriously.
The alleged chat logs between him and Lamo are pretty clear as to the intent of the leaks. The public need to know of the atrocities that his government was engaging in.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
He deserves the firing squad.
If by he you mean everyone in the government who lied to start a war with Iraq under false pretenses or those who enabled and carried out "collateral murder" I would agree with you.
That's why they and the rest of the security organs take great pains to prosecute / persecute the most well-known 'criminals' like Aaron Swartz beyond any semblance of justice in high-profile show trials, in order to keep the 'rabble' compliant.
What a free country we have.
...they are inferring guilt on anything AND everything bin Laden downloaded --- so what about all the other sites, vids, TV shows, they are equally guilty by this unholy specious illegal "legal" reasoning by yet another American hack judge/shyster.
I hope there is a great Karmic reckoning for Adrian Lamo and right soon. Even he doesn't believe his BS reasoning for backstabbing a person exposing Imperial evil.
Beyond the obvious bullcrap ruling by the corrupt, shyster judge (anything and everything downloaded could be placed within the same category), how does anyone really know that this squid dood, the SEAL team member, actually had anything to do with any killing of any terrorist, let alone OBL? Has anyone viewed OBL's dead body? Did anyone actually witness OBL's burial at sea and verify that it was indeed OBL? Too many unproven and unanswered questions to begin with......
I think this:
or even to a legitimate member of the press corp. He released it to some foreign website with no press credentials.
is the bit in your post that _implies_ a registered, official press.
He was not a simple clerk, he was a trained, qualified and cleared Intelligence analyst. Their very job by description requires rather free access to a wide range of classified information. As part of his qualification process he had to submit to a very in depth background investigation, as the Analyst MOS requires a TOP SECRET clearance to be considered qualified to work in the field. Further the military rank structure has most the actual work being done by the junior enlisted. Manning was a PFC, PFC's and SPC's do most of the actual work, the higher ranks are managerial levels. When it comes to doing the analysis the PFC's and SPC's in the various HQ intel offices as Manning worked in do perform most of the actual work and more senior ranking individuals out in the remote bases can often be found reporting to such Jr. enlisted personnel and meeting requirements for information established by the Jr personnel.
contrary to your claim about your friend the intel fields actually do require a higher level of intelligence to get into. A high ASVAB test score is required to be an Analyst, and the course is not easy for the academically challenged. Now your friend may have just been lazy in HS and actually had the intelligence to get into the field while having grades bad enough to prevent him from getting into college, but that's more on his laziness in HS resulting in bad grades rather than actual abilities.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
The laws of war are not that massive or complicated. If you claim a violation, you should be able to hunt through the appropriate treaties and find violations. (Hint: the basis of the modern law of war is the Hague conventions, which have been replaced in certain areas by some Geneva Conventions.
Having been through a good deal of that material, (a) shooting does not require positive ID, (b) shooting random people who are giving aid to the wounded isn't a war crime unless they're showing appropriate uniforms/signs/symbols/whatever, and (c) when legitimate targets and illegitimate ones are mixed, it usually isn't the responsibility of the shooting party to make sure the illegitimate targets aren't hit (there are exceptions, but I don't believe any apply here). If you actually think about what effect your proposed laws of war would have on waging war, you'll realize why you're wrong.
And, yes, anybody who brings children into a war zone is morally responsible for their safety.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes