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Gen. Petraeus To Be Sentenced To Two Years Probation and Fine
An anonymous reader writes: Petraeus, a now-retired U.S. Army General, has already agreed to plead guilty to a criminal misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. As part of the agreement with prosecutors filed in March, the government will not seek any prison time. Instead, Petraeus will agree to pay a $40,000 fine and receive two years of probation, according to court documents. The recommendations are not binding on the federal judge who will preside at the hearing Thursday afternoon in Charlotte.
I think this case should absolutely be used as precedent when and if they sentence Edward Snowden. I think a two year suspended sentence, followed by a Congressional Medal of Freedom would be an appropriate sentence.
Petraeus' case is generally contrasted with those of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Manning spent a long time in questionable conditions that some suggest were intended as duress, all for leaking computer data that exposed a US war crime. Snowden is in de facto exile for exfiltrating data that revealed the means by which the US government illegally spies on its citizens and the extent of their previous lies denying it. Petraeus got a slap on the wrist for leaking classifed information to a woman with whom he was having an affair. The two former leakers were punished for revealing the government's crimes, while the latter stayed out of jail despite giving classified info in exchange for sex.
We get a lot of articles here that people say don't belong on Slashdot, but I usually side with them being good articles. "Stuff that matters" and all that, personal freedoms, general interest to nerds, etc. But this one...no, I'm just not seeing it. Nothing to do with personal freedoms, nothing to do with computers, nothing to do with public policy, absolutely zero effect on any of us, even those of us in the USA. It's just political celebrity news.
Except that his indiscretions were discovered because his electronic cloak-and-dagger skills weren't what he thought they were, and that the FBI discovered this in an electronic dragnet, and that he, the director of the CIA, disclosed state secrets to his soon-to-be-jealous lover, which constitutes a greater potential breach of security than Snowden and Assange combined....
But aside from that, yeah, no relevance to the life of the average geek. None whatsoever.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Sensitive Compartmented Information, actually, which is far beyond the Top Secret information revealed by the whistleblower Manning. Guess which one is getting probation and the other is getting to spend 3+ decades in prison?