Senate The 2nd Term of the Obama Administration: Facts, Opinions, and Discussions

The lens of history will show that Ms. Chelsea Manning, Mr. Edward Snowden, and Mr. Julian Assange were heroes.

Obama did the right thing by showing some kindness to Chelsea.

 

No, Obama should not have pardoned a reckless, self-aggrandising POS like Manning.

 

A good article comparing what Obama, Bush, and Clinton have said were their biggest mistakes as President:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-last-100-days-obamas-biggest-mistake-edition-090004099.html

 

Tbf, regardless of the politics here, Chelsea Manning was being severely mistreated by her jailers here. Maybe we could have her serve out the full sentence if our military wasn't filled monsters. They've poisoned the well, and should be blamed by those who wanted her to have served a full sentence.

 

This guy is going to be very missed.

 

There probably was mistreatment; but you have to understand, REFTELs (or cables in vernacular) at the TS level, which Manning leaked, actually do have the potential to compromise peoples lives. You know I don't normally use that sort of rhetoric, so assume that based on my experience with S/TS REFTELs I am being not only serious but accurate. She and Assange both recklessly endangered lives for their own public image. Indefensible; the best option would have been a quick shot in an alley.

 

That's kind of harsh.

Besides, I'm giving you an opportunity to both hold the position that she did something wrong AND hold the position that America sucks and you can't see her punished because of how much our prisons suck. It's a double win for you!

 

My understanding was that the practical segregation wasn't enforced?

 

Lord Vivec - it's a complicated position and I suspect anyone who has held the clearance/dealt with REFTELs will get it. I don't dispute the necessity of leaking Collateral Murder; but distributing unredacted information, which Manning did to WikiLeaks, and WikiLeaks did in 2011, is irresponsible.

For example, if US intelligence have an asset in place that is providing them HUMINT on say, Islamic State the real identity wouldn't be in cables. What would be included say is the asset's handle/codename confirming information, i.e. <ASSET X> confirmed SIGINT intercept on Y.

That can be redacted. It's irrelevant and cavalier with a human life. And Manning, as an analyst? She had to have known this.

 

I don't think that was a determining factor, but I'd have to go back and look.

I assume you mean between the Secret, TS, and TS/SCI. Based on what I know, I think that pertained largely to Snowden but it wouldn't necessarily surprise me if it was also the case for Manning as well.

Pretty doubtful.

 

Well from memory Manning was able to pull most of those cables off a group drive, burn them to CD (which she labelled as Lady Gaga right? Am I remembering correctly?), and smuggle them out. Jesus H Christ, America, way to maintain OpSec. If I even tried to save the Protected/Classified daily distribution of REFTELs to my HDD I'd be in trouble. Anyway.

But I also recall she was able to find a DOD copy of collateral murder in someone's private folder, hence how it was leaked. So I mean, again, do you even opsec USA?

I couldn't even take my phone into the SATIN terminal room. Murica pls.

 

I was at a Civil Affairs Brigade the other day, couldn't even take my phone into the building. I'm not sure how Manning was allowed to do what he did in the first place since USB usage has been pretty well done away with, and copying media to CD drives is usually handled by someone else.

You realize that most of those are because of the equipment those individuals are around and not because of the information they handle, right?

 

So then there is a need. We give TS's to HUMINT's and LRP's all the time for the same reason, and a good portion of those guys are under 21 years of age.

 

That's irrelevant. A good bit of this equipment is proprietary for the U.S. even though it may find its way to foreign sales years down the road.

 

It's more you just don't, I think, fundamentally take secrecy as seriously as you should. I've said this before, and I'm still not going to say where, why what etc, but we used to just take some of your state dept people out for dinner, get drinks into them and they'd reveal everything we wanted to know. You could also do similar to the secret squirrels. Our secret squirrels loved it.

But yea I mean, I sort of feel - collateral murder needed to be leaked. The rest of it had no evidence of coverup and just fed the ridiculous affair with transparency for no good reason. People don't have a right to know everything, and I know you two at least will agree with me on that. But all Manning and Snowden mostly did was undermine America's position for petty reasons.

 

Looking at it from a national security stand point, the level of classification is what is given. Whether it's more than what you, me, or private joe snuffy might believe it should have is irrelevant. To access that, you have to meet the requirements to be allowed to access it. Largely, the authority classifying it understands how it may relate to other more sensitive areas.

The State Department..... Yeah enough said there.

Anyways, that street does flow both ways.

 

Great, then whether it's common place or not is irrelevant. The classification that it's given is what it is.