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Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#51

Post by aspensmonster »

pinaceae wrote: post #47
zeteo wrote: post #35

>Manning, 25, was convicted last month [...] The government had asked [for] 60 years. “There is value in deterrence, your honor; this court must send a message [...] National security crimes that undermine the entire system must be taken seriously.” This is not the rule of law. It is a government that is increasingly relying on citizen ignorance to secretly make and implement policy, and on savage reprisals to terror…

No, this is the Armed Forces code of conduct. He broke the laws of his organization, was before a court of that same org. This is internal. Once you wear a uniform, other rules apply. secrecy has a different impact, loyalty as well. Civilians might not like it or even understand, but Manning hopefully did when he chose to join the Armed Forces. Snowden is different, just a contractor. But Manning joined the club, bro…

No. This is a matter of justice, no matter whose uniform you wear or what club you join.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#52

Post by rayiner »

clarky07 wrote: post #24
jamesroseman wrote: post #4

"He faced up to 90 years in prison." I think that, all things considered, this is the best possible outcome (realistically). There was no way he'd walk, because he did break laws. In this instance those laws were broken to get information out to the public, but one can easily imagine when those laws could be broken for more malicious purposes. If you leave this unpunished, they might think this opens up the floodgate…

That's silly. Motive is taken into account for everything else. If you kill someone by accident it's different than if you commit premeditated murder. The person planning to maliciously use classified secrets should expect a stiffer response than a whistleblower like manning. Edit: Intent, not motive is what I meant to say. Thanks. Point remains though. You can argue that he did deserve something for the reasons rayi…

Motive isn't taken into account, intent is taken into account, which is a narrower concept. "Intent" goes to whether you did something by accident or on purpose (or something in-between). "Motive" goes to the "why."

So killing a person with your car may be no crime at all if you were driving carefully and he jumped out of nowhere, if you do run over someone on purpose than it doesn't matter why you did so. Maybe he's a doctor who performs abortions and you believe that you're saving babies from being murdered by killing him.[1] That doesn't make it any lesser degree of murder.

[1] I purposefully use that controversial example to make the point that not everyone agrees on the purity of Manning's conduct, just as not everyone agrees on whether abortion is murder or not. Many people believe that indiscriminately leaking hundreds of thousands of documents goes far beyond "whistle-blowing" into conduct intended to maliciously embarrass the United States in diplomatic relations.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#53

Post by dkrich »

kevincennis wrote: post #22
monsterix wrote: post #2

Very sad. So the guys who murdered innocents in another country using machine guns sitting on top of a helicopter are yet to be tried. While the guys who stood up for humanity and true spirit of serving forces for good is sentenced 35 years. And I know a lot of people would troll me on this opinion itself.

I totally understand that sentiment, but at the same time, the whole concept of classified information breaks down pretty quickly if you start saying it's okay for people to exercise their own judgement and break the rules. There are always paths to responsible disclosure. From what I understand, many of them are pretty badly broken, and we certainly need to fix that. But ultimately, you really don't want to set a pr…

Anyway, I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion here, so I shall now let the sea of downvotes wash over me.

I actually think this is the popular opinion. Most people don't believe the government shouldn't be able to keep certain things secret or that any agent with classified knowledge has carte blanche to share whatever they deem fit.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#54

Post by simias »

jug6ernaut wrote: post #18
simias wrote: post #6

I must say I didn't follow this trial closely but: "According to the military, Manning is required to serve one-third of the sentence before he becomes eligible for parole." That's... brutal.

I have zero knowledge as far as sentence's go. So with that said, how is being required to only server 1/3 of a sentence brutal? What am i missing?

I should've been more explicit: it's not the one-third per-se that's brutal, it's just that when I read "35 years in prison" it seemed like a hell of a long time to me. I don't know how the american judiciary system works, so I was was wondering if he would be able to reduce his sentence significantly for good conduct or something. But a third of 35 years is still very long...

He's going to spend at least 12 years in prison. I don't know if whether he deserves it or not, but it is brutal.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#55

Post by belorn »

kevincennis wrote: post #22
monsterix wrote: post #2

Very sad. So the guys who murdered innocents in another country using machine guns sitting on top of a helicopter are yet to be tried. While the guys who stood up for humanity and true spirit of serving forces for good is sentenced 35 years. And I know a lot of people would troll me on this opinion itself.

I totally understand that sentiment, but at the same time, the whole concept of classified information breaks down pretty quickly if you start saying it's okay for people to exercise their own judgement and break the rules. There are always paths to responsible disclosure. From what I understand, many of them are pretty badly broken, and we certainly need to fix that. But ultimately, you really don't want to set a pr…

> but at the same time, the whole concept of classified information breaks down pretty quickly if you start saying it's okay for people to exercise their own judgement and break the rules.

Lawyers, priests, doctors, and psychologies who is all under strict confidentiality sometimes has to break that rule of secrecy when particular crimes is heard or observed. It doesn't matter how classified the conversation is, or the medical records. If they show child abuse, they must break the confidentiality and call the police.

The system has not broken down yet, even if those people has to make their own judgement calls when to break confidentiality. It is enough that they just suspect that a child might be in danger.

Shouldn't army personal who not only suspect, but can prove illegal activities be under the same scrutiny?

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#56

Post by jmduke »

revelation wrote: post #37
kevincennis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally understand that sentiment, but at the same time, the whole concept of classified information breaks down pretty quickly if you start saying it's okay for people to exercise their own judgement and break the rules. There are always paths to responsible disclosure. From what I understand, many of them are pretty badly broken, and we certainly need to fix that. But ultimately, you really don't want to set a pr…

What he leaked was available to 1.5+ million people in the USA. It is not by any reasonable meaning of the word classified, it is the proceedings of a seperate class of society.

1.5 million people is less than .5% of the population.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#57

Post by moron4hire »

kevincennis wrote: post #22
monsterix wrote: post #2

Very sad. So the guys who murdered innocents in another country using machine guns sitting on top of a helicopter are yet to be tried. While the guys who stood up for humanity and true spirit of serving forces for good is sentenced 35 years. And I know a lot of people would troll me on this opinion itself.

I totally understand that sentiment, but at the same time, the whole concept of classified information breaks down pretty quickly if you start saying it's okay for people to exercise their own judgement and break the rules. There are always paths to responsible disclosure. From what I understand, many of them are pretty badly broken, and we certainly need to fix that. But ultimately, you really don't want to set a pr…

Well, that's kind of the point that the Mannings and Snowdens are trying to make, that the "paths to responsible disclosure" are at best ignored, at worst mined for reprisals as well.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#58

Post by rwmj »

dubcanada wrote: post #11
monsterix wrote: post #2

Very sad. So the guys who murdered innocents in another country using machine guns sitting on top of a helicopter are yet to be tried. While the guys who stood up for humanity and true spirit of serving forces for good is sentenced 35 years. And I know a lot of people would troll me on this opinion itself.

I can go kill a few babies in cold blood and get out in less then 10. But releasing documents that are private... well now that's just not very nice.

I'm fairly sure if you killed "a few babies in cold blood" you would not be out within 10 years.

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#59

Post by caycep »

flexie wrote: post #14

This is a disgrace. They send a young man to prison for 35 years for uncovering possible war crimes and a bunch of diplomatic fiddle-faddle. He is not eligible for parole until he has served 1/3 of the time.

from what I read, I think there is still some level of appeals? The case could drag on for a long time...

Re: Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years

#60

Post by at-fates-hands »

flexie wrote: post #14

This is a disgrace. They send a young man to prison for 35 years for uncovering possible war crimes and a bunch of diplomatic fiddle-faddle. He is not eligible for parole until he has served 1/3 of the time.

>>>and a bunch of diplomatic fiddle-faddle.

Oh really?

http://www.wavy.com/news/military/evidence-of-damage-from-ma...

"The 250,000 diplomatic cables that Pfc. Bradley Manning disclosed through WikiLeaks endangered the lives of foreign citizens and made some international human-rights workers reluctant to seek U.S. help, a State Department official testified Friday."

"Kozak said some of the cables that Manning downloaded from a classified government computer network identified people as sources of information that would put them at risk of death, violence or incarceration if their involvement were publicly known"

"Kozak said the greatest damage to State Department human-rights efforts was a "chilling effect" on foreign activists seeking U.S. help."

"They can't be sure now whether what they say to us is going to remain confidential or whether it's going to be broadcast around," Kozak said."

He basically outed a bunch of foreign activists that were helping us and put them in danger. Not exactly what I would refer to as "fiddle-faddle"

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