Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

> The files she copied also included about 250,000 diplomatic cables from American embassies around the world showing sensitive deals and conversations, dossiers detailing intelligence assessments of Guantánamo detainees held without trial, and a video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad in two Reuters journalists were killed, among others.

Has there been any sort of "ethical" system designed to show a person how they are supposed to whistle blow? I'm only familiar with the SEC's guidance, on what they expect you to do and going public isn't one of their main points.

How should a person become a whistle blower like Manning or Snowden while making sure there is no collateral damage to people in the field?

I mean, the main point against Snowden and Manning seems to be that they released way too much information to the public that could be seen as doing more harm than good depending on your point of view.

Quote from the article:

the White House spokesman, Joshua Earnest, discussed the "pretty stark difference" between Ms. Manning's case for mercy with Mr. Snowden's. While their offenses were similar, he said, there were "some important differences."

"Chelsea Manning is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she acknowledged wrongdoing," he said. "Mr. Snowden fled into the arms of an adversary, and has sought refuge in a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy."

He also noted that while the documents Ms. Manning provided to WikiLeaks were "damaging to national security," the ones Mr. Snowden disclosed were "far more serious and far more dangerous." (None of the documents Ms. Manning disclosed were classified above the merely "secret" level.)

EDIT: See follow-ups. I may be mistaken here, and need to run to a meeting, so I can't dig any more now.

EDIT 2: http://swampland.time.com/2008/12/25/more-on-pardons/

Relevant quote, "Ulysses S. Grant’s first clemency decision, on his third day in office, was to revoke two pardons granted by Andrew Johnson. Both men challenged Grant’s power to do so, and lost their case in federal court."

EDIT 3: Here's the link to the blog post linked from the Time article, in edit 2, from the Wayback Machine, for sake of completeness.

http://web.archive.org/web/20090212091707/http://pardonpower...