Chelsea Manning on Shortlist for commutation by Obama

[Commodus]

I dunno about this move. I'm not sure what other options were available other than wholesale commutation or pardon, but I think a reduced sentence outside of Ft. Leavenworth (reduced security women's prison) would have been sufficient. I fear people will think the sole reason for letting her go was her trans status and nothing to do with the ridiculous sentence itself.

Pragmatically, it's likely a combination of acknowledging that the sentence was overly harsh with wanting to avoid a stain on Obama's legacy. Does a champion of LGBT rights really want to leave office knowing that a transgender convict might commit suicide due to abuse? I don't think I could live with that even if I thought Manning deserved the full 35 years.

 

[Chaotic42]

I agree, her life is going to be quite difficult after she gets out.

My guess is that she'll be able to get a book deal. I think there's enough sympathy out there that she'll be able to get by.

 

[pcgeek11]

Good. 35 years was grossly lopsided when weighed against precedent. For those thinking that she got off easy and is free and clear, I would not worry so much. Being a transwoman on the outside when you have a criminal record, everyone knows your face and millions of people hate you or want you dead is no picnic. She would live in fear even if not for the crime and controversy.

I agree, her life is going to be quite difficult after she gets out.

Well, You get what you sow. Boo Hoo.

I think he should do the entire 35 years. I will admit I am biased as retired military. I have no sympathy for this traitor that willfully spilled secrets and endangered others.

 

[Sonikku]

And for what reason do you justify her sentence being even longer in length then that of traitors that sold state secrets for actual profit?

 

[michal1980]

ahh, the new liberal get out of jail card. I'm transgender mr president please let me out sooner.

 

[brycejones]

ahh, the new liberal get out of jail card. I'm transgender mr president please let me out sooner.

You're in jail?

 

[Sonikku]

ahh, the new liberal get out of jail card. I'm transgender mr president please let me out sooner.

Damn trannies get all the breaks in life!

 

[dud]

This is so unbelievable ... it must be real. You steal state secrets ... pass them on ... get free gender changing surgery ... then get pardoned!

Wow, of all the things that (soon to be) ex-pres Obama has done ... this one will stick with me the most. What a moron.

 

[werepossum]

I see what you're saying and I'm conflicted by both issues, but I'm not sure we should consider punishment based on the individual's motivations in their actions. At least, I am not aware of either's intent to explicityly do mortal harm to citizens or soldiers through their actions.

Maybe not, but both certainly did very foreseeable mortal harm through their actions. A reasonable person could certainly foresee the harm.

Was about to share this. Frankly, it's good news. I don't condone the indiscriminate nature of the leak, but Manning wasn't trying to betray the US -- that 35-year sentence was clearly issued out of spite, not justice. A commutation strikes a good balance between acknowledging that a crime was committed and changing the punishment to better reflect what actually happened.

How on Earth was Manning trying to do anything but betray the USA?

Good to hear. Based on my reading of that article, Obama will not be pardoning Snowden, which is deeply disappointing.

Kind of understandable though. I have a LOT more sympathy for Snowden who took an action he thought necessary, but he took tons of stuff which, when he fled to save his life, became available to both Red China and Obama's personal nemesis, Russia. I understand why he did so, but that doesn't excuse it. He certainly had a better reason, but also did arguably more harm.

35 years might be too harsh, but seven feels too lenient. Just my personal feeling, not based on any historical precedents or anything.

Agreed. Way too lenient.

In my opinion, Snowden's useful disclosures were not limited to domestic surveillance, but included the NSAs attacks on encryption, the revelation that large internet companies like Facebook and Google were sharing user information with the government, and that the NSA had hacked into Yahoo and Google datacenters, allowing them to help themselves to user information contained in them.
(per the eff https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/...dentials-help-protect-us-government-overreach)

I wouldn't argue that the disclosure of the documents was purposeful, but I would argue that his purpose was altruistic.

Our disagreement may be rooted in the way we view intelligence agencies in general, and it may be related to our disagreement on the Russian hacking issue. I see state intelligence agencies as primarily benefitting the agencies themselves and the state, and see little benefit for a country's citizens, so I tend to see anything that limits or checks the security apparatus as a good thing, and treat their claims with a lot of suspicion. If you see these agencies differently, if you see them acting faithfully in service of the American people, I can understand you seeing Snowden's leaks in very different light.

As an aside, one thing I don't blame the intelligence agencies for is the Iraq war. It seems clear to me that they were pressured to produce the intelligence to justify the war, and were not the primary drivers.

Agreed, and well said. Still, Snowden also took lots of other stuff, which was then taken by the ChiComs and Russkies. A lot of benefit to America, but also a lot of harm to America.

 

[werepossum]

Good. 35 years was grossly lopsided when weighed against precedent. For those thinking that she got off easy and is free and clear, I would not worry so much. Being a transwoman on the outside when you have a criminal record, everyone knows your face and millions of people hate you or want you dead is no picnic. She would live in fear even if not for the crime and controversy.

I predict that Chelsea Manning will be every bit as fucked up as was Bradley Manning, but her life will not be hard at all. She's going to be a hero to the very far left. Book deal, talk show circuit, made for TV movie, lucrative speaking engagements at the major universities that won't allow conservatives to appear.

I have to wonder if Obama is pushing out the commutation so that Manning gets some very expensive surgery on the taxpayer's dime. Um, on the taxpayer's million dimes.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Man this is generating a lot of butthurt, it's a done deal. Get over it!

 

[Jaskalas]

Bradly Manning's actions via Wikileaks directly exposed the names, locations, and families of US allies in at least Afghanistan.
Blood is most certainly on Manning's hands.

• WikiLeaks Reportedly Outs 100s of Afghan Informants
  Hundreds of Afghan civilians who worked as informants for the U.S. military have been put at risk by WikiLeaks' publication of more than 90,000 classified intelligence reports which name and in many cases locate the individuals
• Afghan leaks expose the identities of informants
  ...put at risk by the leaking of 90,000 intelligence documents because the files identify informants working with Nato forces.
• Taliban Study WikiLeaks to Hunt Informants
  A spokesman for the Taliban told Britain’s Channel 4 News on Thursday that the insurgent group is scouring classified American military documents posted online by the group WikiLeaks for information to help them find and “punish” Afghan informers.
• Taliban Murders Afghan Elder, Thanks Wikileaks for Revealing "Spies"
  Over 70 other tribal elders receive death threats, U.S. Congressman calls on death penalty for leaker Manning

Assertions and Questions:

• David Leigh of England's Guardian newspaper has leveled a shocking accusation against Mr. Assange
  Assange: 'They're informants... if they get killed, they deserve it'
  A silence fell on the table as the reporters realised that the man the gullible hailed as the pioneer of a new age of transparency was willing to hand death lists to psychopaths.
• Assange has always maintained he never said this
  John Goetz provided a signed witness statement affirming that the remark was not made.

This case / story is not so simple nor innocent as people like to claim.

 

[Commodus]

How on Earth was Manning trying to do anything but betray the USA?

I mean in terms of intent. Manning was not trying to make life easier for Islamic extremists, or Russia, or other groups. The goal was ostensibly "removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st Century asymmetric warfare." Whether or not it ultimately helped the US' enemies, that wasn't the plan.

 

[superstition]

How on Earth was Manning trying to do anything but betray the USA?

I assume you have the same opinion about all whistleblowing, like the guy who leaked a lot of Top Secret documents (The Pentagon Papers) and who has been praised by the elite political establishment.

If it embarrasses or inconveniences the government then it must be traitorous, right?

Yeah, Manning clearly threw away his career and his life to simply be mean to the US government. There was no nobility at all.

This attitude is common among people who believe altruism is insanity and that truth, in terms of what the governors are doing — ostensibly on behalf of the governed — isn't owed the governed. Anyone who demands any amount of transparency and accountability from that is a nasty dim-witted traitor.

 

[superstition]

As for this rumor about Manning... Why would Obama dramatically constrict us, in terms of transparency possibility, with the vast expansion of the spying apparatus as he just did with his executive order and pardon Manning as well? Mixed messages for PR purposes?

 

[fskimospy]

I predict that Chelsea Manning will be every bit as fucked up as was Bradley Manning, but her life will not be hard at all. She's going to be a hero to the very far left. Book deal, talk show circuit, made for TV movie, lucrative speaking engagements at the major universities that won't allow conservatives to appear.

I have to wonder if Obama is pushing out the commutation so that Manning gets some very expensive surgery on the taxpayer's dime. Um, on the taxpayer's million dimes.

Why on earth would any sane person wonder that? You have seriously lost it.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Haven't read thru the thread but is Assange going to give himself up now?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

She'll be freed on May 17 on International LGBT day.

Pragmatically, it's likely a combination of acknowledging that the sentence was overly harsh with wanting to avoid a stain on Obama's legacy. Does a champion of LGBT rights really want to leave office knowing that a transgender convict might commit suicide due to abuse? I don't think I could live with that even if I thought Manning deserved the full 35 years.

That says it all. Identity politics = king. Obama's legacy must remain strong.

 

[werepossum]

I assume you have the same opinion about all whistleblowing, like the guy who leaked a lot of Top Secret documents (The Pentagon Papers) and who has been praised by the elite political establishment.

If it embarrasses or inconveniences the government then it must be traitorous, right?

Yeah, Manning clearly threw away his career and his life to simply be mean to the US government. There was no nobility at all.

This attitude is common among people who believe altruism is insanity and that truth, in terms of what the governors are doing — ostensibly on behalf of the governed — isn't owed the governed. Anyone who demands any amount of transparency and accountability from that is a nasty dim-witted traitor.

I don't believe that Manning had any noble intention whatsoever. He admitted that he did not fit in; he HAD no career, no future in the military. His leak wasn't altruistic, it was a tantrum punishing the people with whom he did not fit in. That tantrum undoubtedly cost some people their lives, people who quite literally risked their lives in the hope that America would be honorable. In return, Manning gave up seven years. To me, that is unbearably light.

I assume you have the same opinion about all whistleblowing, like the guy who leaked a lot of Top Secret documents (The Pentagon Papers) and who has been praised by the elite political establishment.

If it embarrasses or inconveniences the government then it must be traitorous, right?

Yeah, Manning clearly threw away his career and his life to simply be mean to the US government. There was no nobility at all.

This attitude is common among people who believe altruism is insanity and that truth, in terms of what the governors are doing — ostensibly on behalf of the governed — isn't owed the governed. Anyone who demands any amount of transparency and accountability from that is a nasty dim-witted traitor.

I simply cannot fathom someone believing that anything about Manning grabbing everything he could get and releasing it without any thought at all about the lives he would ruin could possibly be considered altruistic or noble. One might as well speak of the altruism and nobility of Jeffry Dahmer sacrificing his career and life to fight overpopulation. It's simply nonsensical.

 

[superstition]

I don't believe that Manning had any noble intention whatsoever. He admitted that he did not fit in; he HAD no career, no future in the military. His leak wasn't altruistic, it was a tantrum punishing the people with whom he did not fit in. That tantrum undoubtedly cost some people their lives, people who quite literally risked their lives in the hope that America would be honorable.

I read the transcript of his conversations with Adrian Lamo. It doesn't fit your narrative. I'll take what he said before he was under duress at greater face value.

As for the claim that his leaks cost lives, everything I've read debunks that.

Bradley Manning leak did not result in deaths by enemy forces, court hears

Counter-intelligence officer who investigated WikiLeaks impact undermines argument that Manning leak put lives at risk

The US counter-intelligence official who led the Pentagon's review into the fallout from the WikiLeaks disclosures of state secrets told the Bradley Manning sentencing hearing on Wednesday that no instances were ever found of any individual killed by enemy forces as a result of having been named in the releases.

Brigadier general Robert Carr, a senior counter-intelligence officer who headed the Information Review Task Force that investigated the impact of WikiLeaks disclosures on behalf of the Defense Department, told a court at Fort Meade, Maryland, that they had uncovered no specific examples of anyone who had lost his or her life in reprisals that followed the publication of the disclosures on the internet. "I don't have a specific example," he said.

It has been one of the main criticisms of the WikiLeaks publications that they put lives at risk, particularly in Iran and Afghanistan. The admission by the Pentagon's chief investigator into the fallout from WikiLeaks that no such casualties were identified marks a significant undermining of such arguments.

 

[superstition]

US Military Admits No One Died Because Of Manning's Leaks

One of the key talking points against Bradley Manning was how his leaks "put people in danger" and we've even seen some of the defenders of his prosecution claim that people had lost lives because of them. In fact, Army Chief of Staff Mike Mullen had directly stated that Manning (and Wikileaks) "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." Guess what? That was all FUD.

As Manning's sentencing hearing kicked off, a key government witness admitted that there were no deaths that were attributable to those leaks. That came straight from Brig. Gen. Robert Carr, who was in charge of the response to the leaks. Among other things, he also noted that since the names did not appear in Arabic, it was unlikely that our enemies would have figured out who they really were anyway.

Carr acknowledged that none of the names of Iraqi and Afghan contacts appeared in the original Arabic.

To this point, Manning's military defenders, Maj. Thomas Hurley, asked: "We don't share an alphabet with either of those countries, do we, Sir?"

"No," Carr replied.

The retired general added that some of these contacts could not be found, others had died before the WikiLeaks disclosures, and others had been insurgents rather than cooperators with coalition forces.

Hurley also prompted Carr to concede that Iraqi and Afghan nationals tend not to be "not as plugged in" as Westerners. The report also notes that while, in the past, some have claimed that an Afghani man killed by the Taliban was a result of those leaks "the supposed informant the Taliban claimed to have executed was not in fact named in the leaked materials." In other words, all the talk of people dying because of his leaks? Not true.

 

[pcgeek11]

And for what reason do you justify her sentence being even longer in length then that of traitors that sold state secrets for actual profit?

You mean like these?

Aldrich Ames American Convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia 1994 Life sentence (without parole)

David Sheldon Boone American Sold secret documents to the Soviet Union and is estimated to have received $60,000 from the KGB February 26, 1999 24 Years and 4 Months

James Hall III American Signals analyst who sold eavesdropping and code secrets to East Germany and the Soviet Union from 1983 to 1988 July 20, 1989 40-year sentence

Robert Hanssen American Spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001 July 6, 2001 Life sentence

Ana Montes American Convicted for conspiracy to commit espionage for the government of Cuba October 2002 25-year prison term followed by five years probation

Harold James Nicholson American twice-convicted spy for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service June 5, 1997 23 years 7-month sentence

Stewart Nozette American Attempted espionage and against the United States 2009 13-year sentence

Ronald Pelton American Spied for and sold secret documents to the Soviet Union. Was known to have a photographic memory and as such never passed any physical documents on. 1983 Life sentence

Earl Edwin Pitts American Accused of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia, and pleaded guilty to conspiring and attempting to commit espionage 1997 27-year sentence

Jonathan Pollard American Passed classified information to Israel while working as an American civilian intelligence analyst 1987 Life sentence

George Trofimoff American Convicted for spying for the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s September 27, 2001 Life sentence

John Anthony Walker American Convicted of spying for the Soviet Union from 1968 to 1985 1985 Life sentence

 

[superstition]

Pentagon Papers Leaker Daniel Ellsberg Praises Snowden, Manning

Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who in 1971 leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers detailing the history of U.S. policy in Vietnam, tells NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday that unlike Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, he "did it the wrong way" by trying first to go through proper channels — a delay that he says cost thousands of lives.

"I really regarded [it] as anathema ... leaking as opposed to working within the system," Ellsberg says, speaking to NPR's Linda Wertheimer. "I wasted years trying to do it through channels, first within the executive branch and then with Congress."

"During that time, more than 10,000 Americans died and probably more than a million Vietnamese," Ellsberg says.

"That was a fruitless effort, as it would have been for Manning and Snowden," he says.

Ellsberg was eventually charged with espionage, theft and conspiracy, but the charges were later dismissed, unlike the case of Army Private Bradley Manning, who was convicted on similar counts last week for releasing secret diplomatic cables and other material to Wikileaks.

"The public has been very misled about Manning, I would say," Ellsberg says. "They talk about his being indiscriminate. That's simply false. Like me and like Snowden, he had access to communications intelligence higher than top secret. He gave none of that out."

Since The Guardian's exposés, based on information obtained from Snowden, first broke in June, "the whole focus has been on the risks of truth telling, the risks of openness, which are the risks of democracy, of separation of powers," Ellsberg says.

"I've really heard nothing at all about the risks of a closed society, of silence, of lies," he says.

So, werepossum, that is 0-4 for your claims.

Indiscriminate? Nope.
Loss of life? Nope.
Likely to result in loss of life? Nope.
Not altruistic? Nope.

Maybe you should stick to talking about topics you know something about.

 

[pcgeek11]

I would like to add that it doesn't matter what his intentions were or were not. He was working with secrets and knew better. He broke the law. Was tried and convicted and sentenced and should serve that time.

I also agree that Chelsea will be just as screwed up as Bradley.

 

[mikeymikec]

This is so unbelievable ... it must be real. You steal state secrets ... pass them on ... get free gender changing surgery ... then get pardoned!

Yeah it does sound unbelievable doesn't it, just skip the ~6 years of prison and long periods spent in solitary confinement, which is known to be an exacerbating factor for suicides, then when she attempted suicide, they punished her with some more solitary confinement. Once you've ignored those bits, you've got some decent tabloid outrage right there!

Man this is generating a lot of butthurt, it's a done deal. Get over it!

The "every thread critical of Trump" bot seems to be malfunctioning.