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Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years
An anonymous reader writes with bad, but not unexpected news: "The U.S. soldier convicted of handing a trove of secret government documents to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. Pte First Class Bradley Manning, 25, was convicted in July of 20 charges against him, including espionage. Last week, he apologized for hurting the U.S. and for 'the unexpected results' of his actions. He will receive credit for three and a half years, but be dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army."
Considering today news is breaking about the NSA monitoring 75% of all domestic US internet traffic, and logging all domestic emails, as well as their plans for a national facial recognition system (as in live video feeds), it seems obvious to me that they sentenced him today and announced it in this way in an effort to distract us from what really matters.
Sources: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/nsa-has-access-75-percent-us-internet-traffic-says-wsj-6C10967780
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/21/us/facial-scanning-is-making-gains-in-surveillance.html?_r=0
Reporting on war crimes should be considered a service to his country.
Meanwhile Bush, Cheney, and a whole line of people that authorized or performed torture remain free. People who murdered innocent civilians and laughed about it, free. It's all a big joke.
William Calley, the officer in charge of the My Lai massacre (murder of 304 civilians) server 3 1/2 years house arrest.
Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years, and must server 1/3 to get parole which they will of course deny him.
President Obama authorized the killing of Americans without trial, something illegal under the very rules of the U.S. (constitution)
One of those Americans killed was a 16 YEAR OLD BOY who was murdered by his own government, without trial.
The United States no longer pretends to be the land of the free, it now openly favors corporations (Apple given presidential override of import ban), rich individuals and political cronies.
Today is a very sad day. The truth is the enemy, justice inconvenient, and money/power the one true ruler of this country.
if the government's idea of "secret" weren't complete and total BS. Today, "secret" simply means "stuff that would embarrass us". The only context that getting most of today's government "secrets" into the public's scrutiny would qualify as "aiding an enemy" is if they consider the American people to be their enemy. Which is, sadly, closer to the truth than it ever should be.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
"Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process."
The United States government is the largest criminal organization in the world. Bradley Manning exposed some of the war crimes routinely committed by the United States. That, in and of itself, makes him a hero. It takes no courage to invade another country that is drastically weaker than you are and to then shoot people (mostly civilians) who are simply defending their country from foreign invaders. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to the Imperial US Government.
ACLU's Ben Wizner: "When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system."
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Why people have such a problem with the fact that he was in the army, supposedly serving his country, and did something that he was forbidden to do, and so should face the consequences? .
Because "I was just following orders" should never, ever, ever be a legitimate reason for committing crimes against humanity.
It's not a legitimate secret. It's a coverup of war crime. They are not the same thing.
Manning released over 10,000 documents. Are you sure he read them all and confirmed that every single of the 10,000 documents contained evidence of a war crime and made sure that the release would not help the enemy?
Don't get me wrong, if he read and verified every document he sent out, fine. That's not the case here.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Serving your country and serving your government are not necessarily the same thing. I think Manning was serving his country but not his government.
I have respect for this man. He broke the law for the sake of what is right.
You feel that because of some twisted nationalistic pride and unquestioning faith that the overlords are benevolent, know what they're doing, and are above the vast swaths of historical abuse by similar authority figures. We feel he's been unfairly treated because of a lot of things.
1) He exposed a whole hell of a lot of people doing "forbidden" things. Most of whom are never going to face prison time, courts, fines or even a slap on the wrist.
2) The people he's exposing have previously concealed their wrongdoing. Gaming the system of justice is serious infraction. It's often worse than what they're hiding.
3) The people he's exposing have a vast amount of political power and very much have control over his punishment. I don't think it's a stretch to say that they're abusing their power and being vindictive.
4) He's been tortured. Not the sort of torture with massive blood loss, hideous scars, and severed limbs, but the sort of torture you get in a lab setting. And it looks like it was enough to break him.
Yes, he should face consequences for violating orders and exposing secrets. And he should face praise and leniency for making the USA a better place and upholding his oath. You know, to protect the nation from threats from within.
Whether Bradley Manning deserves to be punished is something reasonable people can disagree about. What reasonable people cannot disagree about is that those responsible for the crimes he did expose deserve to be punished.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Manning.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Snowden.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Kiriakou.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Binney.
No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Drake.
All these people reported on crimes committed by the government and government officials. Crimes ranging from fraud, to wiretapping, to murder. In none of these cases have any of the true criminals been tried, and in every one of these cases the whistleblowers have been the subject of harassment by the government, or worse.
If you're going to fall back on the "it's the law" excuse for prosecuting whistleblowers, you have to apply the law to everyone. Anything else is despotism.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
IIRC Wikileaks was initially releasing the documents a bit at a time, working with journalists to, among other things, redact anything that might put anyone in danger. It was only when the US government started attacking Wikileaks on every available front (forcing CC processor to stop taking donation, getting Assange extradited etc.) that the entire thing was made public.
I suspect that if the US government had accepted the leak as fait accompli and honestly tried to work with Wikileaks to redact information that could cause actual harm to informants etc. they could have significantly limited the damage. None of this would have prevented them from prosecuting Manning, btw.
But no, instead of trying to ensure that reporters of leaks (Wikileaks included) acted responsibly, the US government decided that those reporting on leaks were criminals themselves. That is complete nonsense and a dangerous attack on western democracy.
I'm unsure if Manning deserves to spend time in prison for his actions. I am sure that the US government has done things in response to Manning's actions that are way worse.
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Manning."
what crimes?
Child prostitution -SOMEONE at Dyncorp and the US government for employing them to do so.
Blackmail -SOMEONE at Pfizer.
Smuggling -SOMEONE at Chevron.
Espionage Hilary Clinton and the State department.
It goes on and on. It's almost as if there's a systematic flaw that's so pervasive it's hard to see the trees for the forest. Seriously, haven't you looked at any of this?
"No one has been tried for the crimes uncovered by Snowden."
it's on going, and he uncovered very few crimes.
Perjury - James Clapper.
Illegal warrantless espionage against US citizens on US soil. And no, FISA is not looking over their shoulder.
As a culture we haven't even decided if information sent though multiple servers around the globe IS private.
Yet as a legal body we HAVE decided that email is private for the first 180 days. At least by US law. And we're pretty damn sure even as an amorphous cultural body of billions of people that encrypted communications is private, so suck it.
You can try to refute all that citation (and hey, some of it might even be off), but you'd best bring a big-ass list of citeable sources and have a DAMN good argument for why I shouldn't believe what appears to be really bloody obvious to me.
You and I may not like it but torture was in fact not illegal.
Yes it was. The US is signatory of several treaties saying so, and that makes it the "law of the land" according to the Constitution. We executed Japanese and Germans in 1945 for doing the same things that you are saying we don't consider illegal.
I am officially gone from
Yes, bribery of foreign officials is an offence under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Bribery of American officials is not illegal.
Manning didn't release over 10,000 documents. He handed them over to established news organizations who then WORKED WITH THE GOVERNMENT TO DETERMINE WHICH DOCUMENTS SHOULD NOT BE RELEASED.
Convenient how people overlook that very important piece of information, isn't it?
If you had so much access, then why is Bradley Manning the only one who did the right thing with that access?
In no uncertain terms, as far as I am concerned, the only people who ere betrayed were the American people's enemies. The enemies who take our money with lies of necessity, and then turn around and use it for their wars, even lieing to us about the purpose of those wars.
He is a hero, and this sentence only makes it more so, and sets him apart from everyone else who works for these traitors.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Mistakes are forgiveable. The scandal is that war crimes are US policy. Torture is US policy. We suspected it but thanks to Manning we have proof.
No-one expects perfection from the US, they just expect it to at least try to act lawfully. Not just under US law, but international law.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Everyone forgets the minor detail that Manning dumped everything to Wikileaks, not the internet, and Wikileaks repeatedly asked for help from the US Govt to redact and vet for safety the documents, and the US Govt refused.
Then the Guardian's reporters revealed documents, and Domscheit-Berg betrayed Wikileaks and then, after everything was already out in the open, Wikileaks dumped the unredacted cables.
And then, maybe, some Afghan informants died.
While all the time you forget that had there been no fabricated war in Iraq, had Manning's chiefs just listened to his repeated requests to be sent home, he would not have even been able to see those documents, let alone dump them.
So for your own mistakes in strategy, and to divert attention from your own crimes, you sentence a sincere young whistleblower soldier, who does the right thing - as he is taught as being the American way - you sentence him to 35 years after 3 years in torture - solitary, sleep deprivation, waterboarding and everything else you can try without permanently damaging him in an obvious way.
And there are idiots out here who sound informed while defending this continuing travesty of justice.
"We don't do X because it is bad and wrong. Is is BAD. It is WRONG. Whoever does it must be condemned."
"OK, we did X, but at least we admitted it"
"OK, we sort of didn't tell the whole truth, but at least now it's out there"
"OK, we actually shot the messenger, but hey look, just look at this loser. Country Y is worse than us, they did bad things before. Like 30 years ago."
"OK, Country Y may not be doing that now, I mean, what we did even makes them look good in comparison. But, you know, they're really the Bad Guys, trust us. We even made a dozen movies about how bad they are."
"OK, the whole world disagrees. So what? They are all against freedom and democracy. They are all terrorists. We are the good guys. All the good guys are on our side. It's not like the other side matter anyway. What can they do about it? We'll just invade whoever dares stand up against us. IN YOUR FACE LOSERS!!"
Plusgood. He is given 35 years helpwise for Big Brother.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Giving little boys over to Afghan warlords to be raped is just the "way to get things get done over there" and should be an acceptable action to take, with US tax dollars no less? Well...shit man... <:-(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel