Obama commutes Chelsea Manning's sentence.

#4
#4
Too bad he won't do the same for Snowden and reschedule marijuana. If he did those two things, I can almost forgive a lot of the other crap.
 
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#5
#5
Too bad he won't do the same for Snowden and reschedule marijuana. If he did those two things, I can almost forgive a lot of the other crap.

Snowden and Manning both committed acts of treason and both deserve a traitor's death. Not walking free here or in Moscow.
 
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#7
#7
While I can appreciate the principle behind Snowden and Manning, the fact remains that they both had security clearances. Therefore, they were entrusted with classified information and knowingly subjects themselves to the maximum penalties for disclosure of such information. People can and have died from the leaking of classified information. While that is not necessarily the case here, its the principle behind it. For me, I would view them in a different light if they were not in a position of trust. As such, I think both deserve the maximum penalty afforded under the law. I am biased in my thoughts behind this since I have worked in the same industry that they have for all my adult life.

YorkVol, Thoughts? I will defer to you Mr. Former G2.
 
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#10
#10
While I can appreciate the principle behind Snowden and Manning, the fact remains that they both had security clearances. Therefore, they were entrusted with classified information and knowingly subjects themselves to the maximum penalties for disclosure of such information. People can and have died from the leaking of classified information. While that is not necessarily the case here, its the principle behind it. For me, I would view them in a different light if they were not in a position of trust. As such, I think both deserve the maximum penalty afforded under the law. I am biased in my thoughts behind this since I have worked in the same industry that they have for all my adult life.

YorkVol, Thoughts? I will defer to you Mr. Former G2.

Position of trust?...how can we have whistleblowing if people in positions of trust who expose the government will be punished to the full extent of the law? The government has to be accountable and that means we have to protect whistleblowers, not punish them.
 
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#12
#12
Position of trust?...how can we have whistleblowing if people in positions of trust who expose the government will be punished to the full extent of the law? The government has to be accountable and that means we have to protect whistleblowers, not punish them.

Agreed
 
#13
#13
Position of trust?...how can we have whistleblowing if people in positions of trust who expose the government will be punished to the full extent of the law? The government has to be accountable and that means we have to protect whistleblowers, not punish them.

That's why I am at am impasse. We need whistleblowers but over the past 15+ years, I have been taught and trained that spillage and divulging classified information is a bad thing. What a lot of people don't see with the releasing of classified information is the unintended consequences. It's not so much the information itself that is classified but rather how it is gathered. Now, I have never worked with classified information involving US persons (Manning shouldn't have either given he was an Army analyst). So I wouldn't lump him/her in with that category (whistleblower). Snowden however, was a contractor working with the NSA (which can and does collect on us persons). He, by definition would be a whistleblower.
 
#14
#14
I just can't believe he would call for treason and death because raw truth was exposed, damninv or not.

Sure, revoke their citizenship if you must but no one should die over information.

Exposing SIGNIT, COIN tactics, the names and locations of Afghan translators, and Taliban informants are not "raw truths".
 
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#16
#16
Exposing SIGNIT, COIN tactics, the names and locations of Afghan translators, and Taliban informants are not "raw truths".

Agreed. And that's what Manning did. Snowden is a different story, though. That's why I reference that people can and do die when classified information is leaked.
 
#19
#19
Position of trust?...how can we have whistleblowing if people in positions of trust who expose the government will be punished to the full extent of the law? The government has to be accountable and that means we have to protect whistleblowers, not punish them.

I agree with you on whistleblowers. While Snowden was clearly a blower Manning only released classified documents. Snowden affected change Manning just gave the enemy classified documents to be used against America. My thoughts were Manning gets maximum Snowden some type of leniency.
 
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#21
#21
Snowden could have revealed the US was spying on its citizens and left it at that, but he chose to reveal what the US was doing in other countries as well. It's this part IMO that makes him a POS traitor..... had he not done this then he'd simply be a whistleblower.

Manning is also a POS
 
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#22
#22
Depends, if it shows bad actors or actions, it's a benefit to the citizenry of that country to have that info.

But its not about that country. It is about the US. I could not care less about any other country. What another country does is there business. If they attack us, we attack them. It doesn't mean that a Soldier with a security clearance release classified information to the general populace of the entire world, not to mention that country is a failed state and has an oppressive theocratic shadow government that intimidates the citizenry. Manning was no whistleblower.
 
#23
#23
Snowden and Manning both committed acts of treason and both deserve a traitor's death. Not walking free here or in Moscow.

You considering exposing government wrong doings to be treason?

If we any deserves a "traitors death" it's the government officials who violated the constitution
 
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#24
#24
Those are raw truths, by definition.

No that is the definition of aiding and abetting the enemy. I didn't know it was whistleblowing to leak how the U.S. Army and ISAF Forces in Afghanistan found Arms caches and the process they went about destroying them. Or leaking how Army intelligence used SIGINT to listen to Taliban radio chatter. Tell me is it whistleblowing to leak information about which Afghan village is providing intel on the Taliban and give that villages exact coordinates in the leak???
 
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#25
#25
You considering exposing government wrong doings to be treason?

If we any deserves a "traitors death" it's the government officials who violated the constitution

Are you really this dense? Snowden took it too far when he went global in his revelations.... period.
 
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