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By volunteering to join the military and obtain security clearance, Manning waived his First Amendment right to disclose anything he saw fit. If he only broke t

By volunteering to join the military and obtain security clearance, Manning waived his First Amendment right to disclose anything he saw fit. If he only broke the law to reveal evidence of government wrongdoing, then there might be a case that he was just a whistleblower. However, leaking hundreds of thousands of additional classified documents that demonstrate no government wrongdoing is indefensible. While some may believe that the incriminating leaks were excusable, the rest of his behavior should not be forgotten. Honing in on one aspect of Manning's actions does not justify making him a martyr or painting this trial as purely an assault on the First Amendment.

agorabinary 13y ago
And who is to decide whether the leaked documents demonstrate government wrongdoing or not? If not for whistleblowers, we wouldn't even know that these wrongdoings exist, which would preclude our ability to judge them as such. This is the fallacy behind government secrecy. Information must always be free --- non-disclosure contracts never take precedence over the First Amendment. Imagine if the Nazis were somehow able to cover up the Holocaust, would a non-disclosure contract prevent a German citizen from leaking the existence of the genocide? But you say, genocide is clearly wrong. But without the leaked information, how would we even know a genocide happened?
- hvs 13y ago
  Even if that information could get soldiers killed if released to the public? You waive certain rights when you join the U.S. military.
- mbreese 13y ago
  That's the risk for whistleblowers. You have to be careful what you leak, and make sure that it is relevant. That's one reason why this case and the Snowden case are very different. Manning leaked a ton of stuff, a lot of which wasn't applicable. Snowden leaked very specific things, so he has a better shot at being considered a legit whistleblower. Also - Godwin. Don't use Nazis as examples, it just diminishes your argument.
  - agorabinary 13y ago
    Reductio ad absurdum, a perfectly legitimate form of proof, begs to differ with Mr. Godwin. Anyone can leak anything, as anyone can say anything. This is the law as per the First Amendment. You could lose your job contract for leaking information, but you could also lose your job for no reason at all. Those that would argue that only criminality should be leaked --- who is to determine that criminality if no one knows about it in the first place? Evidence of the act before judgment of the act. And to those who say leaking information can lead to soldier casualties --- so can lying to a public about the motivations for countless aggressive wars, and then assuming the public "can't handle the truth". Jessup went to prison for that, thanks to a few good men. Unfortunately, Americans don't listen to their movies, only watch them.
    - mbreese 13y ago
      You can't just say anything. The First Amendment is not absolute - there have always been limits on it. Saying "fire" in a crowded theater is the canonical example. Do you know who is responsible for determining what is criminal and what isn't? A judge and/or jury. That's the way our system works. That's the risk for whistleblowers. They have to be prepared to go to trial to determine if they get protected. Seriously - in "A Few Good Men" Jessup went to jail for ordering the beating of a soldier. That has absolutely no bearing on this. Godwin's law came about for a reason - using Nazis as an example is overdone. Its like comparing software to cars - it's an overused analogy. Because of this, you lose most of the power your argument may have had. Pick something else if you want to point out how ridiculous something is.
      - agorabinary 13y ago
        Walter Block disagrees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPeqXcJqkeg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPeqXcJqkeg . His hypothetical situations at the end may seems unrealistic to you, but consider them as illustrative of the dangers of blanket prosecution over much more favorable voluntary solutions. Collecting and understanding the evidence of a situation may be up to a a judge/jury, but natural law is not. A judge cannot lawfully reject the First Amendment, which universally defends whistleblowers. "That's the way our system works" is not an argument. The issue at the heart of A Few Good Men was the notion that an enlightened minority can lie to a majority for the good of that majority. Jessup beats soldiers, our government drone-bombs children. And they both think they can withhold these acts from public view, because it's in the "public's interest not to know". Whistleblowers rightfully reject this view, as did the jury in A Few Good Men. Okay, I'll use Stalin and his genocides. Does it make a difference?
- bwaldrep 13y ago
  > Information must always be free --- non-disclosure contracts never take precedence over the First Amendment. This belief is very naive and unrealistic. There are some kinds of information that should obviously not be free. Credit card numbers, PINs, SSNs, identities of confidential informants, etc. In order for society to function there will be secrets. What we need is a healthy debate over what secrets should be allowed, how they should be kept, and how responsible oversight should be administered without publicly divulging everything. Statements like "information must always be free" provide nothing but straw men for those in favor of minimal oversight to knock down. Making such assertions is counterproductive.
djcapelis 13y ago
> By volunteering to join the military and obtain security clearance, Manning waived his First Amendment right to disclose anything he saw fit. Yes. And how soon is it that our government locks everyone into a similar deal? Over 3 million people have security clearances. (And many more who don't have active ones, but are still bound by many of the rules around clearances.) How soon until you need clearance to do serious work in any number of areas? How soon until giving up those rights is part of doing business? And is standard practice? It already is in some areas of my field. I know of other subfields where the same is true. Maybe it is time that we start protecting the rights of all and not pretending like those who have security clearances are an extremely rare exception whose rights can be waived without issue. I'm not saying the rules should be that anyone can disclose whatever classified information they like, because obviously that doesn't work. But I don't think because someone made a choice at some point in their lives to get a clearance means we shouldn't discuss what circumstances and latitude they should get to speak their minds.
- tptacek 13y ago
  We share a field. In what ways does that field demand that you surrender your rights? I don't have much of a problem with the idea that contributing infosec work to the government requires you to become a part of something that is bigger than you or your individual rights, and have resolved that conflict by simply not working for the government; that also eliminates some other moral hazards of working for/with the military/industrial complex.
  - djcapelis 13y ago
    It doesn't demand you surrender your rights yet. It is just becoming more and more encouraging that you do so and I know many young researchers who are opting to make that choice a lot more often than I used to see. The governmental sector in our field is the main area I was thinking of. And it is one that is only growing with time. A lot of avenues and research sub-fields require clearances if you don't want to be on the outside looking in. In particular, our ability to get realistic threat information on large scale actors is vastly limited and my research suffers from that lack of context. This is worse in some specific subfields than it is in others, crypto comes to mind. Though that is one area where academia seems to have actually maybe made that less true than it used to be. There are people in bio and other areas who are experiencing similar pressures. The scope of the work done by people with clearances is trending upwards and the subfields in which someone's ability to participate in them is more limited without a clearance seems to be expanding.
saraid216 13y ago
> By volunteering to join the military and obtain security clearance, Manning waived his First Amendment right Quoting this for importance. Soldiers do not have the same First Amendment rights as other citizens; they do not have the same set of rights at all. I can probably dig up something more credible than my own hearsay if needed.
- saraid216 13y ago
  I decided to actually look it up. Short form: I was technically wrong, but not inaccurate. Long form: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6130400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6130400
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Soldiers have also sworn to uphold the Constitution, so a soldier who sees evidence of gov't wrongdoing suddenly has a dilemma on his or her hands. "I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962). source: http://www.history.army.mil/html/faq/oaths.html http://www.history.army.mil/html/faq/oaths.html
  - saraid216 13y ago
    It's only a dilemma if and only if whistleblowing is the only possible route for upholding the Constitution in the face of government wrongdoing.
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      No, the use of a "route" that is known to be ineffective doesn't count.
danenania 13y ago
That Bradley Manning is in prison while many of the depraved murderers and corrupt officials he blew the whistle on remain free and employed is a disgrace. It's not a question of law. It's a question of basic morality and humanity. Laws that put people of conscience in prison while protecting murderers are not laws worth following, respecting, or defending.
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  We also try and imprison people for war crimes, although this process is slow and uneven, for a variety of reasons. It is a question of law, because there's no universal standard of morality. The Nidal Hassan trial is a classic example of that: by the fundamentalist religious standards that he adhered to, his actions were perfectly justified, but people who are not adherents of his religious or less extreme adherents of it think the exact opposite.
- lmickh 13y ago
  News flash: Laws are not about morality. They are about behavior. Being a "person of conscience" only means he was doing what he thought was right. Doesn't have anything to do with legal behavior. Many violent people are "people of conscience". If you don't want people to legislate morality, then don't be surprised when there is no morality in your legislation.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    >News flash: Laws are not about morality. They are about behavior. Well, they do call it the "Justice" system. They could change the name I suppose.
    - vowelless 13y ago
      Does "justice" really imply morality?
      - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
blendergasket 13y ago
He's a martyred saint for a new ideology that's just being born. May you live in interesting times.

agorabinary 13y ago

And who is to decide whether the leaked documents demonstrate government wrongdoing or not? If not for whistleblowers, we wouldn't even know that these wrongdoings exist, which would preclude our ability to judge them as such. This is the fallacy behind government secrecy. Information must always be free --- non-disclosure contracts never take precedence over the First Amendment. Imagine if the Nazis were somehow able to cover up the Holocaust, would a non-disclosure contract prevent a German citizen from leaking the existence of the genocide? But you say, genocide is clearly wrong. But without the leaked information, how would we even know a genocide happened?

hvs 13y ago
Even if that information could get soldiers killed if released to the public? You waive certain rights when you join the U.S. military.
mbreese 13y ago
That's the risk for whistleblowers. You have to be careful what you leak, and make sure that it is relevant. That's one reason why this case and the Snowden case are very different. Manning leaked a ton of stuff, a lot of which wasn't applicable. Snowden leaked very specific things, so he has a better shot at being considered a legit whistleblower. Also - Godwin. Don't use Nazis as examples, it just diminishes your argument.
- agorabinary 13y ago
  Reductio ad absurdum, a perfectly legitimate form of proof, begs to differ with Mr. Godwin. Anyone can leak anything, as anyone can say anything. This is the law as per the First Amendment. You could lose your job contract for leaking information, but you could also lose your job for no reason at all. Those that would argue that only criminality should be leaked --- who is to determine that criminality if no one knows about it in the first place? Evidence of the act before judgment of the act. And to those who say leaking information can lead to soldier casualties --- so can lying to a public about the motivations for countless aggressive wars, and then assuming the public "can't handle the truth". Jessup went to prison for that, thanks to a few good men. Unfortunately, Americans don't listen to their movies, only watch them.
  - mbreese 13y ago
    You can't just say anything. The First Amendment is not absolute - there have always been limits on it. Saying "fire" in a crowded theater is the canonical example. Do you know who is responsible for determining what is criminal and what isn't? A judge and/or jury. That's the way our system works. That's the risk for whistleblowers. They have to be prepared to go to trial to determine if they get protected. Seriously - in "A Few Good Men" Jessup went to jail for ordering the beating of a soldier. That has absolutely no bearing on this. Godwin's law came about for a reason - using Nazis as an example is overdone. Its like comparing software to cars - it's an overused analogy. Because of this, you lose most of the power your argument may have had. Pick something else if you want to point out how ridiculous something is.
    - agorabinary 13y ago
      Walter Block disagrees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPeqXcJqkeg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPeqXcJqkeg . His hypothetical situations at the end may seems unrealistic to you, but consider them as illustrative of the dangers of blanket prosecution over much more favorable voluntary solutions. Collecting and understanding the evidence of a situation may be up to a a judge/jury, but natural law is not. A judge cannot lawfully reject the First Amendment, which universally defends whistleblowers. "That's the way our system works" is not an argument. The issue at the heart of A Few Good Men was the notion that an enlightened minority can lie to a majority for the good of that majority. Jessup beats soldiers, our government drone-bombs children. And they both think they can withhold these acts from public view, because it's in the "public's interest not to know". Whistleblowers rightfully reject this view, as did the jury in A Few Good Men. Okay, I'll use Stalin and his genocides. Does it make a difference?
bwaldrep 13y ago
> Information must always be free --- non-disclosure contracts never take precedence over the First Amendment. This belief is very naive and unrealistic. There are some kinds of information that should obviously not be free. Credit card numbers, PINs, SSNs, identities of confidential informants, etc. In order for society to function there will be secrets. What we need is a healthy debate over what secrets should be allowed, how they should be kept, and how responsible oversight should be administered without publicly divulging everything. Statements like "information must always be free" provide nothing but straw men for those in favor of minimal oversight to knock down. Making such assertions is counterproductive.

djcapelis 13y ago

> By volunteering to join the military and obtain security clearance, Manning waived his First Amendment right to disclose anything he saw fit. Yes. And how soon is it that our government locks everyone into a similar deal? Over 3 million people have security clearances. (And many more who don't have active ones, but are still bound by many of the rules around clearances.) How soon until you need clearance to do serious work in any number of areas? How soon until giving up those rights is part of doing business? And is standard practice? It already is in some areas of my field. I know of other subfields where the same is true. Maybe it is time that we start protecting the rights of all and not pretending like those who have security clearances are an extremely rare exception whose rights can be waived without issue. I'm not saying the rules should be that anyone can disclose whatever classified information they like, because obviously that doesn't work. But I don't think because someone made a choice at some point in their lives to get a clearance means we shouldn't discuss what circumstances and latitude they should get to speak their minds.

tptacek 13y ago
We share a field. In what ways does that field demand that you surrender your rights? I don't have much of a problem with the idea that contributing infosec work to the government requires you to become a part of something that is bigger than you or your individual rights, and have resolved that conflict by simply not working for the government; that also eliminates some other moral hazards of working for/with the military/industrial complex.
- djcapelis 13y ago
  It doesn't demand you surrender your rights yet. It is just becoming more and more encouraging that you do so and I know many young researchers who are opting to make that choice a lot more often than I used to see. The governmental sector in our field is the main area I was thinking of. And it is one that is only growing with time. A lot of avenues and research sub-fields require clearances if you don't want to be on the outside looking in. In particular, our ability to get realistic threat information on large scale actors is vastly limited and my research suffers from that lack of context. This is worse in some specific subfields than it is in others, crypto comes to mind. Though that is one area where academia seems to have actually maybe made that less true than it used to be. There are people in bio and other areas who are experiencing similar pressures. The scope of the work done by people with clearances is trending upwards and the subfields in which someone's ability to participate in them is more limited without a clearance seems to be expanding.

saraid216 13y ago

> By volunteering to join the military and obtain security clearance, Manning waived his First Amendment right Quoting this for importance. Soldiers do not have the same First Amendment rights as other citizens; they do not have the same set of rights at all. I can probably dig up something more credible than my own hearsay if needed.

saraid216 13y ago
I decided to actually look it up. Short form: I was technically wrong, but not inaccurate. Long form: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6130400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6130400
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
Soldiers have also sworn to uphold the Constitution, so a soldier who sees evidence of gov't wrongdoing suddenly has a dilemma on his or her hands. "I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962). source: http://www.history.army.mil/html/faq/oaths.html http://www.history.army.mil/html/faq/oaths.html
- saraid216 13y ago
  It's only a dilemma if and only if whistleblowing is the only possible route for upholding the Constitution in the face of government wrongdoing.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    No, the use of a "route" that is known to be ineffective doesn't count.

danenania 13y ago

That Bradley Manning is in prison while many of the depraved murderers and corrupt officials he blew the whistle on remain free and employed is a disgrace. It's not a question of law. It's a question of basic morality and humanity. Laws that put people of conscience in prison while protecting murderers are not laws worth following, respecting, or defending.

anigbrowl 13y ago
We also try and imprison people for war crimes, although this process is slow and uneven, for a variety of reasons. It is a question of law, because there's no universal standard of morality. The Nidal Hassan trial is a classic example of that: by the fundamentalist religious standards that he adhered to, his actions were perfectly justified, but people who are not adherents of his religious or less extreme adherents of it think the exact opposite.
lmickh 13y ago
News flash: Laws are not about morality. They are about behavior. Being a "person of conscience" only means he was doing what he thought was right. Doesn't have anything to do with legal behavior. Many violent people are "people of conscience". If you don't want people to legislate morality, then don't be surprised when there is no morality in your legislation.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  >News flash: Laws are not about morality. They are about behavior. Well, they do call it the "Justice" system. They could change the name I suppose.
  - vowelless 13y ago
    Does "justice" really imply morality?
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

blendergasket 13y ago

He's a martyred saint for a new ideology that's just being born. May you live in interesting times.