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Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

nytimes.com

321–330 of 797 posts

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#321

Seven years is still a long time for whistle blowing. I'm glad to see she is still getting released though. It's important to note commuting the sentence is not a pardon. Chelsea will still have this conviction for the rest of her life. I know there is a lot of controversy with Manning compared to Wikileaks et. al. as far as not redacting documents or using a discriminating news source to filter them. Still, I oppose…

"the Hillary e-mails are actually very chilling when you start reading through them" What chilled you, specifically?

Collusion with the media and a debate moderator should chill anyone. Add to that the fact that the DNC basically anointed her by not giving Sanders a fair shake... democrats were told who to vote for using the media to give them the illusion of free choice.

Put another way, the emails revealed that it's very possibly that Trump will be President because Clinton had corrupted the DNC.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#322
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're knowledgable enough to censor the documents yourself before release, that's the way to go. Not everyone has perfect knowledge. Releasing only to journalists and stuff is a fairly good method too, but maybe create unnecessary exposure. Manning also went for a bulk dump strategy rather than being selective. Ultimately when you're dealing with a lot of data, that might be the only reasonable way to get it, but…

Snowden was very selective, and look where that got him...

Snowden wasn't selective, the journalists he chose were.

As to where it got him-- he actually accomplished his goal, to start a conversation about privacy, government outreach, and secret courts.

Also he's living in Moscow with his girlfriend while Manning rotted in solitary for seven years and attempted suicide several times.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#323
post #168
post #131

Off-topic but.. "they"? Manning isn't a group of people. Just say "she", it's really easy.

I love it when people pronoun-bully other people. It shows how progressive they are

Please don't post unsubstantive comments like these. We're all here to have a civil conversation in which we can hope to learn something, and this kind of participation gets in the way of that.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While he isn't blameless, the ACA helped a lot of people, the economy recovered greatly (admittedly all he had to do was not fuck it up), permitted states to legalize weed. For me I have to say the ACA is probably the biggest reason why I liked him well enough. I was able to stay on my parents insurance until I was 26, and then since I was self-employed I was able to easily get insurance through the marketplace. Now…

There as been more marijuana prosecution under Obama than under Bush. The idea they have been less hostile is a myth. States have simply been doing better at fighting back. http://www.theweek.co.uk/crime/47303/why-barack-obamas-marij...

That's overly simplistic, usage would naturally initially rise due to legalization so naturally so have busts, and prosecution has been more targeted to those who aren't following the state laws and took legalization to mean no rules. In a sense you can look at the DOJ actions as hammering those who thought they could just openly deal drugs without paying attention to the minutia of actually being legally allowed to and following all the necessary rules.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowden released a large volume of information to well qualified journalists who very carefully combed through the data to find the things most relevant and important for the American public to know. Information that was legitimately classified and had no whistleblowing value simply wasn't released. Manning released a large volume of information to the public en masse with no regard to it's whistleblowing value. Some…

> Manning released a large volume of information to the public en masse No. She leaked the documents to Wikileaks, who decided to publish them uncensored. She had no control over what Wikileaks would do. Other media outlets opted not to release information they considered dangerous. And, as @mhurron pointed out, there is no record of someone who was harmed by that information being released.

> She had no control over what Wikileaks would do

Then she should've released it to someone else. She is ultimately responsible for deciding to give it to Wikileaks.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#326
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ (US Department of Justice) case," WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter.

convenient for him to agree to be extradited to a country that hasn't requested his extradition, not the one that has...

That can be changed

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#327

What exactly did Manning blow the whistle on? While Snowden exposed what he believed was illegal spying on Americans, Manning just leaked a bunch of classified information about war that he/she believed was immoral .

She didn't blow any whistle, much less evoke the Whistleblower Act.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#328
post #66

It's been said that one person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. > 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 othe…

There was no collateral damage to people in the field due to the Manning leaks, so I guess she figured it out.

From the NYT [0]:

"The disclosures set off a frantic scramble as Obama administration officials sought to minimize any potential harm, including getting to safety some foreigners in dangerous countries who were identified as having helped American troops or diplomats. Prosecutors, however, presented no evidence that anyone was killed because of the leaks."

So no one was killed, but it does seem to have put people at risk.

0: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/us/politics/obama-commute...

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#329
post #93

It's been said that one person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. > 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 othe…

It has been argued that the diplomatic cables had a strong influence on the uprising in Tunisia after they spread on Facebook and when Bouazizi lit himself on fire the stage was set for their revolution, which was the first domino of what we later called the Arab Spring, which Syria became a part of, but has not resolved for six years.

One of the largest takeaways that I had from most history classes that I took is that events rarely have a single cause--and complex events such as the Arab Spring and Syrian civil war typically have many, many layers of causes (even if they aren't all clear at the time). Insinuating that all of that happened because Pvt. Manning released secret documents does a disservice to any attempt to understand the complex events that we see in the world today.

Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

#330
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incident had been reported and covered by the press, there was no 'government cover up'. The new bit was the video itself.

The new bit was the video itself. Saying "X happened", and offering "Here is video that demonstrates X happened" are very different things. A video of an event can be of such overwhelming significance that its importance is impossible to calculate.

Not the case for this incident. You don't have to speculate, you can just read the wikipedia page. For instance, a reporter for the Washington Post was able to reconstruct the incident and write a book about it without seeing the video. 'Collateral murder' is much more notable for the Wikileaks editorializing than for its actual news value.
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