The Scariest Quote You'll Read From the Trial Nobody Is Talking About (Manning trial)

[icymist]

<snip>
“Pfc. Manning was not a humanist; he was a hacker,” Major Fein noted.

“He was not a whistle-blower. He was a traitor, a traitor who understood the value of compromised information in the hands of the enemy and took deliberate steps to ensure that they, along with the world, received it.”

The quote is scary.

Critics of this case have warned that a Manning conviction of “aiding the enemy” would criminalize journalism. Even here in this quote, Fein alludes to journalists as being "the hands of the enemy."

http://www.policymic.com/articles/56677/the-scariest-quote-you-ll-read-from-the-trial-nobody-is-talking-about

[PDJane]

1. Yes. It is scary.

And it is just wrong on so many counts. It seems that telling the truth is a step too far, and the current atmosphere is reminiscent of a fascist state.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

2. +1 and a K&R nt

[Rex]

3. I'm sure he will go on Foxnews to explain how the people

in the Mainstream Media (mostly Left of course because you know how we control mass media) helps the enemy. Foxnews agrees, I can already see the headlines.

[brooklynite]

4. In what way is "nobody" talking about the Manning trial?

...or is your concern that the comments aren't that same as yours?

[delrem]

23. fer cryzake, this trial isn't getting time in the MSM.

Are you actually denying that?

[MineralMan]

41. I don't know. I heard the verdict on CBS Radio news.

In fact, it was so early that I got the first post on the verdict on DU.

The trial is being covered to the extent that it interests the public. Every important thing about the trial has been in the MSM. What has not been presented is all of the extraneous stuff you'll find on the Internet, thank goodness.

[delrem]

47. yes, the verdict is getting some air time.

[magical thyme]

33. you do realize that the title of the thread comes directly from the article, don't you?

Or are you claiming that icimyst is the editor or reporter that wrote the headline?

[Pelican]

5. That implies....

... that we shouldn't do anything to people who held security clearances and used them to distribute information to the world at large.

It's already out there right? Nothing to be done about it?

What kind of sense does that make?

[limpyhobbler]

10. That depends whether the government is abusing its secrecy powers.

There are legitimate reasons for the government to keep some secrets.

But sometimes they abuse the authority and keep secrets just because they think something might make them look bad, or just to increase their own power, or because they don't want to be held accountable for their actions.

If the government abuses its authority to keep secrets, then the only way we can find out what the government is doing, is through leakers like Manning, Binney, etc.

In that case, yes they have broken the law. But if people are glad the information was revealed, then people should support and defend the leaker to encourage more good leaks, and to let the government know they should not continue to abuse the secrecy authority.

[rhett o rick]

15. I sympathize with your dilemma. It would be so nice if everyone just let Big Daddy government

take care of us. Those pesky whistle-blowers are always trying to enlighten us but maybe we dont want to be enlightened.

It is so comfortable living in the authoritarian state.

[Pelican]

18. I'll look back later ...

... after you crack a book and find out the definition of the word "whistleblower" to check for your apology.

Hint - It does not involve dumping everything one can get their hands on while hoping there might be something in there to hurt the organization that you've failed spectacularly at.

[kelliekat44]

26. ++++1000 nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. I have known for a while I am an enemy of the State

Don't worry, none of this will filter down, ever...nope.

[pnwmom]

7. Manning is not a journalist. He is a soldier who had a special responsibility

to the classified data he was entrusted with. Instead of taking his concerns to someone like Senator Bernie Sanders, he took it to Wikileaks.

Wikileaks has a basis for calling what it does journalism -- but Manning is not a journalist, he's just a leaker.

[rhett o rick]

14. Your lack of compassion and empathy is scary. Are you "politically liberal"????? nm

[delrem]

24. According to a lot of people

this isn't a crucial or "crux" period of history w.r.t. communications.

These people haven't noticed that there's been a computer revolution coupled with a corresponding communication revolution. These people don't make the connection, how one wouldn't exist without the other, and that both exist.

These people don't want to talk about complex matters such as "freedom" in this new milieu, because they don't even understand the milieu. In a sense I have my sympathy, because matters such as "freedom" in earlier milieus weren't easier. A *lot* of people didn't catch that movement either.

[arely staircase]

36. because no true liberal could disagree with you, right

Google "no true scottsman"

[JoeyT]

38. That's not actually what no true scotsman means.

No True Scotsman is only valid when what you're referencing isn't actually central to the definition of the term. Otherwise all definitions become meaningless and we can all just burn our dictionaries. To use the most extreme example, Rush Limbaugh is now a liberal because any counter-example becomes "No True Scotsman".

There are plenty of people on here that adamantly insist they're liberals or progressives while constantly worrying that the powerless might disrupt the status quo. We already have a word to describe that. "Conservative".

I'm not referring to pwnmom, who I actually sort of agree with to an extent (I consider Manning a whistleblower, not a journalist) just the increasingly prevalent attitude of "How dare you say I'm not a liberal?!" when people are making arguments that are anything but.

[arely staircase]

40. and my assertion you are engaging in that fallacy is valid

Nothing in the post you replied to that is illiberal. Supporting/not supporting Manning is not central to the concept of liberalism.

[arely staircase]

43. also sorry

Not you. On my phone these threads get confusing.

[rhett o rick]

39. It has nothing to do with me. I someone disagrees with the left on everything then

how can they be considered "liberal"? I would hope liberals would understand that there may come a time in human events where some laws need to be broken to expose tyranny. I would hope liberals would show compassion and empathy for anyone that is the brunt of a strong-armed government that has prosecuted more whistle-blowers than previous administrations. In general I would think that liberals would side with whistle-blowers over the authoritarian state.

[arely staircase]

42. i dont agree with the premise

that Manning's was a whisrle blower except in possibly the case of a tiny fraction of the documents he released. The airstrike cover up allegation was possibly one. It is less than a fraction of a percent of what be gave Julian Assange. Justifying the release ofvthousands of classified documents he didn't even read may make sense within some sort of anarchistic burn it all down point of view but not a liberal one.

[rhett o rick]

44. When our government is operating in secrecy to keep us from knowing

what they are doing to us instead of for us, it will be necessary to break some of the laws they have erected to protect themselves. Granted we are a country of the rule of law but it has to apply to both the 1% as well as the 99%. Releasing classified documents sounds terrible, but not so terrible if those documents were illegally classified.

The bottom line for me is that Pfc Manning exposed an atrocity that our government intended to keep from us. An atrocity in our name. Those responsible for the atrocity are not being prosecuted. Our government blatantly let those responsible go free and subjected Pfc Manning to harsh treatment. This is in our face. This is terrorism intended to terrorize us into yielding to the great authoritarian state. The message is clear. Do not speak out against the State.

[Hydra]

17. Ya, cuz going through the "established channels" is safe and effective.

Especially when the President, from our party mind you, is covering for the Bush Admin at every turn.

Manning could just have done nothing and left to work at someplace like Xe, just as Snowden could have kept his mouth shut...and we'd have no documentation of any of this stuff. Would you have preferred that?

The Gov't is making leaks necessary, and they're making the people with information we need have to be more clever and less trusting of everyone.

[icymist]

8. The outcome of this trial could set a precedent in what is considered journalism.

This is my take on this trial; that journalists must be careful of what they release into the world, regardless of the vehicle, that their information will fall "into enemy hands". This is an enemy that the Pentagon even refuses to identify upon the grounds of 'national security'. I will be watching the outcome with interest.

[kenny blankenship]

16. It's like poker: if you have to ask who The Enemy is

It's probably you.

[FSogol]

37. How is Manning a journalist?

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

9. He & Snowden are modern day Paul Revere's with a thumb drive full of news that Tyranny is coming!

Edward Snowden is a modern day Paul Revere with a thumb drive full of news that Tyranny is coming!

Edward Snowden's Dad Calls Him 'Modern Day Paul Revere'
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/edward-snowdens-dad-calls-modern-day-paul-revere/story?id=19554337

Hmmm... who knew who influential a DU meme could be

[arely staircase]

13. you betcha

wink

[reformist2]

11. This is what I don't like about our adversarial court system. One side usually engages in lying.

Both sides engage in exaggeration. I have no suggestion for an alternative, I'm just saying I don't like the lying that goes on in the name of justice.

[arely staircase]

12. the enemy he referrenced wasn't journalists

It was osama bin laden. And maybe others. The government presented evidence that some of the wikileaks stuff was found in his abbotabad home by the US military in may 2011. And why wouldnt he have it? The stuff was available on the internet. All he had to do to get it was have ahkmed al kuwatie print it out on his next trip to Rawalpindi. Question in Manning's case is whether he could have foreseen such a thing.

[Hydra]

20. There's no question about OBL

Because he's not the issue. BTW, the Defense did a brilliant dustup of that charge, since OBL was not into wikileaks until the gov't started screaming about it.

The Gov't is trying to set 2 precedents: That any kind of release of information in an unauthorized fashion is "aiding the enemy" and will get you screwed for life(or death). The Second is criminalizing journalism- they've tried to set the stage for declaring wikileaks to be a terrorist organization.

The fact that they did a poor job of proving either was both laughable and probably irrelevant. The deck is heavily stacked in their favor in this particular court framework, so we may well see Manning charged with aiding the enemy and the bridge built to get Assange and Wikileaks as part of a vast "plan" to get the information to the "terrorists."

Long/short- exposing gov't crimes will be impossible to do soon.

[arely staircase]

21. problem with the exposing crimes argument

is that Manning didnt limit what he released to things related to crimes. If be had limitted himself to that he might be more sympathetic.

[Hydra]

22. Latest evidence says no

Look at what happened to Snowden. He asked Greenwald to be beyond careful about what was released. Nobody cared- they still called him a traitor, and the naysayers who are covering for the Gov't are demanding faster and bigger releases, not careful and focused items.

Manning may have made a mistake in giving the info to Wikileaks, but he attempted to go the NYT first, and they wouldn't report on the helicopter attack or anything else he had.

The Gov't overkill is leading to bigger leaks done anonymously. Maybe that's the best way for us to get them anyway.

[Pelican]

31. Maybe there was a reason that they didn't report on it...

A helicopter attack that look scary to the layman but is absolutely within legal and ethical boundaries... What's to tell?

[Hydra]

32. Legal and ethical?

The Military buried it. Their gloss over is laughable. The independent people who reviewed the leaked video believe there are grounds for war crimes charges, but we know that won't happen. We can't even get Cheney in court for ordering torture, and he admitted it on national TV!

I suppose anything the US does is "Legal and Ethical" now? And anything anyone does to investigate that is a high crime?

[Pelican]

34. Read the 15-6 investigation...

... and it's pretty clear that it fell neatly within the bounds of law.

I don't know who the "independent people" are that you are referring to but I'll bet you Dollars to Afghani that they had an agenda.

[arely staircase]

35. in snowdens case

None of the stuff (that we have seen so far) regards any crime. At least in Manning's case a tiny fraction of it did. And how would Snowden have affected Manning's decisions anyway, given that snowdens leaking camebtwo years later.

[OnyxCollie]

19. Journalists ARE the hands of the enemy.

See: Miller, Judith.

[struggle4progress]

25. Do the arithmetic. Divide the number of documents Manning released by the total time he was in Iraq.

It comes out to about two documents per minute

That is, if Manning read documents 24/7, without any time allotted for eating or sleeping or showering or actually doing his job or anything else, maybe he could have read all 700K+ documents in that time, if he read a document every 30 seconds

It's not physically possible for him even to have known what exactly he was releasing, let alone for him to have had an informed opinion about his releases, and even less possible for him to have gone through more documents than he released and carefully chosen the ones he actually released because he was convinced that those documents really showed some criminality that needed to be exposed

The only possible conclusion is that he simply dumped data, without any clear idea what he was dumping, possibly for purely ideological reasons, possibly because he was confused or depressed or angry, possibly because he wanted to impress somebody: I don't know what

Claiming this has something to do with journalism is risible. It's like a guy backing a truck up to a newspaper office and unloading 1400 reams of paper documents with the comment that maybe there's a story somewhere in there: if you set crack reporters reading the paper stack, at 2 minutes a page, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, it's going to take several years to get through it all. Nobody does journalism that way, on the off-chance maybe you'll find something in the stack

[loli phabay]

30. this for me shows blatant disregard for the info he qas entrusted with

There was no way he could have known what was on the majority of the stuff he gave away, so my presumption is he didnt care so i dont have much sympathy for him now. Pretty much what he had for anyone who may have beeen named and placed in danger dangerdue to his actions.

[Fire Walk With Me]

27. K&R

[Enthusiast]

28. K&R..........nt

[Smarmie Doofus]

29. Rec Kick..... n/t

[bvar22]

45. Pfc Manning exposed WAR CRIMES.

He is NOT the one who should be on trial.
The fact that he IS On Trial and the War Criminals are NOT on trial
should SCARE every American.

[cascadiance]

46. This is a pattern that is happening everywhere now where the messenger is punished INSTEAD...

... of the criminals in our society!

More examples:
- John Kiriakou (torture whistleblower now in prison)
http://www.juancole.com/2013/05/whistleblower-revealed-torturers.html
- Deric Lostutter (Stuebenville rape whistleblower faces 10 years, while "poor rapists" face 1-2 years)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/11/1215304/-Steubenville-Whistleblower-Facing-10-Years-in-Prison-Needs-Your-Help

And of course, we know why Snowden wants to be more effective by working around this CRIMINAL system that rewards criminals and penalizes those that want to bring criminals to justice!