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Old 07-31-2013, 03:58 PM   #1
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Bradley Manning Found Guilty, and Whistleblowing

So, I believe yesterday, Bradley Manning was found guilty of 18 of his charges, though not aiding the enemy, as the judge didn't want to set a dangerous precedent.

That said, it's disheartening in my opinion. The crackdown on whistleblowers who expose the crimes of the powerful (as someone who has studied state crime, I can tell you that whistleblowers are treated just as badly by corporations and whatnot too) is frankly, terrifying, and only proves the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished in my view. What do the rest of you feel about whistleblowers? Not just the Manning Case, but the likes of Edward Snowden too?
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Old 07-31-2013, 04:17 PM   #2
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Old 07-31-2013, 05:50 PM   #3
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Difficult to talk about all whistleblowers in the same breath. Needs to be a case by case basis sort of thing.

For example, leaking military maneuvers can easily lead to an increase in human suffering and death. PRISM? Not so much with the suffering and the death.

That said, I agree with Kush.
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Old 07-31-2013, 07:51 PM   #4
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As Amras said, it's got to be a case by case basis, but if one's going to make generalizations, whistle-blowing over a corporation is probably better than the government, since corporations are optimized for profit while governments seek to serve the citizens. Obviously, it's not black and white, but I couldn't even imagine someone leaking something for a for-profit corporation that would hurt the general public.

Manning's decision doesn't really surprise me. He did a great thing in leaking those documents, but it was effectively martyrdom. The world needs both martyrs and survivors, so the only tragedy here is he's so young he'll bear most of his prison sentence. If he was a 60 something military lifer with a rank of Colonel, things would be a lot less grim for him.
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Old 08-01-2013, 01:00 AM   #5
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Echoing what others have said...

Manning isn't 100% right. He leaked what, over 700,000 documents? That's not acceptable. The things he did whistleblow I commend him for. But he went overboard. The thing we need to be talking about is how unacceptable is treatment is and has been in confinement, he has been abused and not treated humanely. THAT is the problem.
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Old 08-11-2013, 04:45 PM   #6
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Blowing the whistle isn't inherently bad when illegal activities being performed by either corporations or the Government is what is being exposed, but if the information being revealed is sensitive in nature and having it available to the public could put the safety or health of civilians in jeopardy then it shouldn't be exposed.

Government shouldn't be to harsh on the first category and some form of punishment like charging them with theft would be acceptable, but charges like "treason" and "aiding the enemy" should not be applied to these people. The second category however, can be accurately labeled as traitors and acceptably have the charges of "Treason", "espionage", "aiding the enemy", and even "murder" applied to them if their actions result in deaths.

Snowden falls into the first category as his actions were exposing illegal activities being performed by his government, and while a punishment may be appropriate for him he should not be labeled as a traitor to his country. Manning however, falls in both categories and, by default, can be labeled as a traitor since I believe that his actions provided one of the immediate causes of the Arab Spring revolutions, which resulted in several Civil Wars and thousands of deaths.*

*My analysis may be biased due to my beliefs of pacifism.
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Old 08-11-2013, 04:57 PM   #7
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What's your proof that Manning's leaks triggered the Arab Spring? Evidence? And I am not an expert on the Arab Spring stuff, but was under the impression that most of that was people trying to overthrow corrupt governments.

In your opinion, as a pacifist, should people therefore never attempt to rebel, just because people might die?

And seeing as you think Manning did in fact "aid the enemy," which probably entails the death penalty, do you think Manning should be put to death for his actions?

You seem to be trying to lay the deaths of thousands of people on one man. That seems extreme. Those people decided to use that information that way, Manning didn't intend for thousands to die.
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Old 08-11-2013, 07:37 PM   #8
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Old 08-11-2013, 08:45 PM   #9
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What's your proof that Manning's leaks triggered the Arab Spring? Evidence? And I am not an expert on the Arab Spring stuff, but was under the impression that most of that was people trying to overthrow corrupt governments.

In your opinion, as a pacifist, should people therefore never attempt to rebel, just because people might die?

And seeing as you think Manning did in fact "aid the enemy," which probably entails the death penalty, do you think Manning should be put to death for his actions?

You seem to be trying to lay the deaths of thousands of people on one man. That seems extreme. Those people decided to use that information that way, Manning didn't intend for thousands to die.
Many of the diplomatic communications he released were discussing corruption in carious arab countries such as Tunisia and Egypt which were made commonly available there and helped to enrage the population. And there's also this. I'm not saying that he was THE cause of the revolutions but that he was likely a part of the Tunisian one, which led to the others.

He didn't intend for thousands of people to die but he was still an indirect cause in their deaths. At this point we are getting into butterfly effect territory which you can read about here. Basically it explains how the actions of a single individual can have massive consequences down the line if the appropriate conditions are met.

As a pacifist I believe that everything should be done to prevent war, but when a people are being oppressed and they have exhausted every other means of attempting to fix that then rebellion is necessary. I am against war in all of it's forms but I still acknowledge the fact that violence is part of the human nature. I know I sound like a hypocrite here but I also don't want people to have their basic rights denied them.
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Old 08-12-2013, 02:04 AM   #10
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Obviously none of us can say whether or not Manning's leaks influenced Tunisia to riot or not (which in turn influences surrounding countries to do the same), but I highly doubt that. Tunisia was in a downward spiral of corruption and distrust in the government, it was only a matter of time before people took to the streets. The corruption wasn't a secret, in fact the first protest occurred BECAUSE of the fact that they were disgusted with how the police treated them, and because someone immolated themselves to make their point, the movement gained quick momentum.

Regardless, I don't disagree with what you're saying. I believe there are things Manning blew the whistle on that were important and deserved to be known, but I also think he went too far. He abused his opportunity. Hundreds of thousands of classified documents leaked, that's too great a risk. I refuse to believe that each and every one of those needed the whistle blown on them. At that point it truly is a matter of treason and espionage. I don't disagree that what the fat cats and the bankers are doing and the crimes they are committing behind closed doors (even with government knowledge) should go unpunished, but I feel like it's irrelevant to the issue at hand, unfortunately. Again, I think the one thing that needs to be addressed that hasn't been, though, is Manning's treatment in solitary confinement. Starving someone and forcing them to sleep nude is unacceptable.

As far as Snowden goes, I've talked to a lot of people about it. I haven't heard a single person yet say "what he did was wrong". And yet Obama thinks otherwise and even went so far as to say something like 'if I wasn't President, I'd be worried, too. But because I am, and I'm in the know, I understand the situation better than you do, and I'm not worried and neither should you be.' Which of course sounds like a bunch of crap, but whatever.
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Old 08-12-2013, 02:15 AM   #11
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It's kind of the presidents job to worry about this though since it's his administration that this leaked under. I would also like to note that this was actually public knowledge before prism was leaked if one actually searched for it. In fact, there was a magazine sitting in my school library last year with prism on the front cover.
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