Is the case against Bradley Manning going south?

[loCAtek]

How? When

printed as originally written by the author.

... was the point; or are you trying to hijack the thread, while blaming it on me, again?

BTW Tell me what this has to do with Manning, 'eh?

[Lord Jim]

He was making fun of your typo when you wrote "college", LoCa...

[BoSoxGal]

'shown in context' does not equal printed exactly as written in the original.

'Collage' didn't do much in opening your mind to other views, did it lo?

[loCAtek]

Cool, I learned that using 'I think' and 'I believe' in its proper form to designate uncertainty or ambigunity, is lost on some folks. Oh well, BFD.

[Grim Reaper]

And now he's been nominated for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize.

[Crackpot]

The Nobel commitee has lost the plot.

[Scooter]

The Nobel committee had nothing to do with this. Anyone can put forward a nomination (in this case it was an Icelandic parliamentary group), it doesn't imply any sort of endorsement by the committee.

[Lord Jim]

Adolf Hitler was nominated several times.

[Grim Reaper]

Yeah, the odds of him coming even close to winning are slim to none, it's just an interesting publicity stunt.

[Andrew D]

Adolf Hitler was nominated several times.

The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize:

Adolf Hitler was nominated once in 1939. Incredulous [sic, incredible] though it may seem today, the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939, by a member of the Swedish parliament, an E.G.C. Brandt. Apparently though, Brandt never intended the nomination to be taken seriously. Brandt was to all intents and purposes a dedicated antifascist, and had intended this nomination more as a satiric criticism of the current political debate in Sweden. ( At the time, a number of Swedish parliamentarians had nominated then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin for the Nobel Peace Prize, a nomination which Brandt viewed with great skepticism. ) However, Brandt's satirical intentions were not well received at all and the nomination was swiftly withdrawn in a letter dated 1 February 1939.

Simple enough to check facts. If one cares.

[Gob]

FORT MEADE, Maryland: Lawyers for the WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning scored a partial victory when a judge ruled his defence team should be given access to government documents on the scandal.

Private Manning, 24, is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of military logs from Iraq and Afghanistan - as well as US diplomatic cables on a wide range of issues - to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks while serving as a low-ranking intelligence analyst.



He could be jailed for life if convicted of ''aiding the enemy'', one of 22 criminal charges that judge Colonel Denise Lind let stand at pretrial hearings in April at Fort Meade, a military base north of Washington.

On the first day of a further round of hearings that began on Wednesday, Colonel Lind ordered that a report by the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency evaluating the consequences of Private Manning's alleged actions, be turned over to his lawyers.

The decision came after David Coombs, one of the lawyers, complained that US government agencies were dragging their feet in providing documents he and his colleagues had requested to build their case.

''They have an obligation,'' Mr Coombs said. ''At this point we received less than half of the 63 documents.''

The 28 that had so far been made available suggested there was minimal fallout from Private Manning's alleged leaks. ''They basically say there's no damage, no impact,'' Mr Coombs said.

A military prosecutor, Army Captain Ashden Fein, acknowledged that of the more than 40,000 pages prepared by the FBI on the leaks, a mere 8741 had been provided to the defence.

Meanwhile, a CIA document was under revision, Mr Fein said.

The baby-faced Private Manning, who was formally charged in February and looked frail on Wednesday, faces trial on September 21. He has yet to enter a plea.

[Scooter]

If the stuff they released is downplaying the effect of the leaks, I can only imagine that what they are holding back is even more exculpatory.

[rubato]

I'm conflicted about Bradley Manning.

On the one hand I have seen no evidence that he has hurt us at all. And he has certainly helped us by making government more open and accountable.

On the other, I would like to see him locked up for a couple of decades for releasing confidential information. He isn't fucking god.

Its a tough call.


yrs,
rubato

[Jarlaxle]

If it is proven he did release confidential information, there is only one appropriate punishment: a firing squad, ideally within 24 hours.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Yes I rather think the main point is not whether what he did "hurt us or not" but that he did it at all. So I agree with rubato's second thought.

What kind of mitigation is it that argues the leaker shouldn't be penalised by law because he/she took a shufti at some secrets and judged them publishable on the grounds that the revealed secrets weren't such a big deal as it turns out.

Now the excuse of potential leakers will be that they judged - they judged - that the stuff they leaked would not be harmful. Who are they, subordinate soldiers subject to military discipline, to decide which of the nation's secrets should be publicised? Who are they to determine that no harm will come?

The relative harm done by or importance of the revealed secrets should be neither here nor there. The leaker has taken on a responsibility specifically barred to him/her and has no notion in any case of whether harm will result. Being wise after the event is not a defense.

In reverse, can you imagine if the same standard was applied by some State to shooting down a person who was actually doing nothing but was thought by the shooter to be intent on evil?

Meade

[rubato]

On the other hand, to have meaningful symmetry here there should be a punishment which is equally severe for hiding information from the public which they must have in order to govern themselves.

About 4 presidents should have gone to prison for hiding what was in the Pentagon Papers.

yrs,
rubato

[Andrew D]

Now the excuse of potential leakers will be that they judged - they judged - that the stuff they leaked would not be harmful. Who are they, subordinate soldiers subject to military discipline, to decide which of the nation's secrets should be publicised? Who are they to determine that no harm will come? Meade

And the alternative is that filth like Dick Cheney will make those decisions.

Let's keep a fact in mind:

wikileaks offered the DOJ the opportunity to review everything before Wikileaks released it. The DOJ declined that opportunity.

So now the DOJ is whining because information which the DOJ was hiding from the Americans whose servant the DOJ is.

Aww.

Waah, waah, waah.

[loCAtek]

Source?

[MajGenl.Meade]

I thought this was a nice thread about a young quarterback being selected by the Browns. He might compensate for the way their defence leaks

[rubato]

"...
Let's keep a fact in mind:

wikileaks offered the DOJ the opportunity to review everything before Wikileaks released it. The DOJ declined that oppotunity.

... "

Interesting. But this happened after BM had leaked the information and I don't see how it effects his guilt.

Can he mount a positive defense? Claim that leaking was the only way to prevent a worse crime, such as the DOJ keeping information from the public which we must have to call this a 'democracy'.

yrs,
rubato