Bradley Manning Convicted of Espionage, Acquitted of 'Aiding the Enemy'

crashcy sends word that a verdict has been handed down in the case of Bradley Manning. Quoting: "A military judge on Tuesday found Pfc. Bradley Manning not guilty of aiding the enemy, but convicted him of multiple counts of violating the Espionage Act. Private Manning had already confessed to being WikiLeaks’ source for a huge cache of government documents, which included videos of airstrikes in which civilians were killed, hundreds of thousands of front-line incident reports from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, dossiers on men being held without trial at the Guantánamo Bay prison, and about 250,000 diplomatic cables. But while Private Manning had pleaded guilty to a lesser version of the charges he was facing, which could expose him to up to 20 years in prison, the government decided to press forward with a trial on a more serious version of the charges, including 'aiding the enemy' and violations of the Espionage Act. Beyond the fate of Private Manning as an individual, the 'aiding the enemy' charge — unprecedented in a leak case — could have significant long-term ramifications for investigative journalism in the Internet era."

Comments

Re:NSA doesn't like the system it created???

[Anonymous Coward]

... for exposing the crimes of the US government

Re:ramifications

[tnk1]

I honestly don't see what Manning released that made me "safer". Or served my interests in any way. Or those of the people of the United States.

Snowden... I think you could make an argument since it affects citizens, but even that program was never presented with a list of things where it was used to harm citizens, it has always been just a "hey look at this stuff they could do!" In no way do I think the action he took was the only one he could have taken. It may well have been the quickest and certainly the most dramatic method, but there is a price for doing it that way. I hope it was worth it.