Wow. NY TIMES Slams Manning Verdict AND Prosecution

[Smarmie Doofus]

"a national-security apparatus that has metastasized into a vast and largely unchecked exercise of government secrecy and the overzealous prosecution of those who breach it."
Hmmm... "metastasized", eh? Like a cancer, I guess they mean. Stage 4. That's actually what *I* would have said.

"...the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that has become the Obama administration’s hobbyhorse to go after government workers whose actions look nothing like spying. "

My, oh my.

I dunno... Techno-Security State DEMS; If even the Old Grey Lady is turning against you, ya might want to consider the possibility that maybe you're overreaching *juuuuuuuuuust* a little bit.

A Mixed Verdict on Manning
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Published: July 30, 2013 277 Comments

Lurking just behind a military court’s conviction of Pfc. Bradley Manning, on charges that included multiple violations of the Espionage Act, is a national-security apparatus that has metastasized into a vast and largely unchecked exercise of government secrecy and the overzealous prosecution of those who breach it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/opinion/a-mixed-verdict-on-manning.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130731


Private Manning, a 25-year-old former intelligence analyst who served in Iraq, was arrested in 2010 and charged with the largest military leak in United States history. Private Manning shared 700,000 documents with the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks, and several international news organizations, including The New York Times, published extensive excerpts and articles on the documents.

Private Manning’s original leaks seemed careless in some ways, including names and details of American operations that The Times and other organizations did not publish. But there was also real value for the public in the documents about the conduct of the war in Iraq, including a video of a military helicopter shooting at two vans and killing civilians, including two Reuters journalists.

The judge in the court-martial, Col. Denise Lind, was wise to acquit Private Manning on the most serious charge against him — that he had “aided the enemy,” in this case Al Qaeda, by uploading the documents to the Internet, where he should have known Al Qaeda would be able to get them. Aiding the enemy is punishable by death. To convict under this law without requiring at least an intent to communicate with an enemy would have severely chilling implications for free speech, particularly in the age of the Internet.

There is no question that Private Manning broke laws. In February he pleaded guilty to 10 of the less serious charges against him, which exposed him to up to 20 years in prison. But prosecutors continued to press the more serious charges, which included violations of the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that has become the Obama administration’s hobbyhorse to go after government workers whose actions look nothing like spying. Under President Obama, the government has brought espionage charges more than twice as often under that particular law as all previous administrations combined.

Americans accept that material must be classified in the interest of national security. But that acceptance is severely tested when the government classifies more than 92 million documents in a year. In addition to the administration’s overuse of the Espionage Act and its overly aggressive leak investigations, the trust between the government and the public has been strained by the National Security Agency’s indiscriminate collection of all Americans’ telephone logs, based on a spurious reinterpretation of the Patriot Act.

The administration’s effort to chill connections between the news media and confidential sources in government did not work with Edward Snowden, who revealed the phone records sweep last month. And there are 4.2 million people who have security clearance to view classified information. But investigative journalists are reasonably concerned that prosecutions will cut off their access to critical sources of information.

When he entered his guilty plea, Private Manning said he was trying to shed light on the “day-to-day reality” of American war efforts. He hoped the information “could spark a debate about foreign policy in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan.” These are not the words of a man intent on bringing down the government. On the contrary, Private Manning continues to express his devotion to his country, despite being held without trial for three years, nine months of which amounted to punitive and abusive solitary confinement.

Private Manning still faces the equivalent of several life sentences on the espionage counts regarding disclosure of classified information. The government should satisfy itself with a more moderate sentence and then do something about its addiction to secrecy.

Meet The New York Times’s Editorial Board »

[The Magistrate]

1. Lays It Out Very Well, Sir

Any sentence much over time served would be a serious miscarriage of justice.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Hey... go ahead. You can call me "Mr. Doofus." Welcome back. n/t

[theHandpuppet]

6. Manning's sentence had nothing to do with "justice"

It was a warning shot to all American citizens.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

17. Been firing those warning shots for a long time

and at a lot of different targets.

[RobertEarl]

7. That is what I am thinking

Time served. Punishment done. Leave him alone.

I look forward to him joining DU.

[forestpath]

2. K&R

[stevenleser]

4. The same NY Times that published this article with the misleading title?

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/politics/12VOTE.html

"Study of Disputed Florida Ballots Finds Justices Did Not Cast the Deciding Vote"

Acomprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward.

Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore. A close examination of the ballots found that Mr. Bush would have retained a slender margin over Mr. Gore if the Florida court's order to recount more than 43,000 ballots had not been reversed by the United States Supreme Court.

Even under the strategy that Mr. Gore pursued at the beginning of the Florida standoff — filing suit to force hand recounts in four predominantly Democratic counties — Mr. Bush would have kept his lead, according to the ballot review conducted for a consortium of news organizations.

But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium's independent observers did. The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to "count all the votes."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most people never got to the fourth paragraph above.

Thanks to the NY Times' misleading title, many folks think the NY Times, that "Liberal Old Grey Lady" to which you refer, justified and made 'OK' what ended up happening.

[leveymg]

5. Must Read - Paradigm shift at The Times.

It's hard to imagine this is the same NYT editorial board that was part and parcel of the Judy Miller Show. Quite extraordinary turn-around on this issue.

[ProSense]

8. Interesting read. It seems

to me the editorial is more critical of the espionage charge and what it deems is the government's "addiction to secrecy."

On the other charges, the NYT editorial board seems to conclude they have merit, but is advocating for a moderate sentence as opposed to "several life sentences."

The judge in the court-martial, Col. Denise Lind, was wise to acquit Private Manning on the most serious charge against him — that he had “aided the enemy,” in this case Al Qaeda, by uploading the documents to the Internet, where he should have known Al Qaeda would be able to get them. Aiding the enemy is punishable by death. To convict under this law without requiring at least an intent to communicate with an enemy would have severely chilling implications for free speech, particularly in the age of the Internet.

<...>

There is no question that Private Manning broke laws. In February he pleaded guilty to 10 of the less serious charges against him, which exposed him to up to 20 years in prison. But prosecutors continued to press the more serious charges, which included violations of the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that has become the Obama administration’s hobbyhorse to go after government workers whose actions look nothing like spying. Under President Obama, the government has brought espionage charges more than twice as often under that particular law as all previous administrations combined.

<...>

Private Manning still faces the equivalent of several life sentences on the espionage counts regarding disclosure of classified information. The government should satisfy itself with a more moderate sentence and then do something about its addiction to secrecy.

It seems to me that is why the editorial is titled "A Mixed Verdict on Manning."

[Vietnameravet]

16. Agree prosense

The OP really put a very misleading headline on this one...This editorial is hardly slamming the verdict..

[99th_Monkey]

9. HUGE K & R!!! ~eom

[WillyT]

10. K & R !!!

[Quantess]

11. Oliver North...

he got off scot free, right? The comparison is disappointing.

[Rex]

12. Yes, why did Ollie get off scot free? He sure did commit

high crimes against the state. Oh right, Repuke NEVER are held accountable for high crimes. Only lowly whistle-blowers.

[Aerows]

13. Too much drug money

passed through Ollie's hands to the right people for him to ever get convicted of jaywalking.

[Rex]

14. True. He probably knew where all the bodies were buried

since he was the one burring them. You would think that moving drugs for the sale of weapons for a known enemy would cause patriotic GOPers to call for action! Of course they didn't and it was my first real lesson growing up that the govt didn't follow its own laws, yet expects us to on a daily basis.

I guess that was my first taste of cynicism as a young man.

[Catherina]

15. K&R n/t

[adirondacker]

18. I'm having a feeling that the Times is finally paying attention to commenters on their articles.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the empathy towards Manning on several news articles including MSNBC. There was a huge outpouring of Support For Brad.

It may be advantages to their subscriptions and profits to start listening to their main audience. I'm wondering how many millions they lost with their support for the Iraq invasion.

[sabrina 1]

19. There is a shift in the thinking now about the 'security state' and it's about time.

Congress appears to be ready finally to put an a stop to the predictably out of control abuses which most sane people knew would be the end result of all these laws.

Manning should be released. But we are still deep in a very dark period and it may take a while before he is given the justice he has been denied.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

20. This is the money quote for me -

"Under President Obama, the government has brought espionage charges more than twice as often under that particular law as all previous administrations combined."

Let that sink in for a moment and then tell me we do not have an Executive Branch that is out of control on this issue.

[felix_numinous]

21. The larger the intelligence community becomes,

and the greater the number of people with high clearance, the LESS control they will have over keeping secrets.

They have ALREADY hit critical mass in their failure to contain these leaks, so they better get used to whistleblowing.

This is a sign that the surveillance state should DOWNSIZE, not expand for Gods sake!! We need some classification but this level of secrecy is pathological. They have reached their limits in competency.

[Smarmie Doofus]

23. 4.2 million people have clearance equivalent to Manning/Snowden.

Or so I read somewhere today.

[felix_numinous]

26. Amazing, right?

Thanks for the number. NO amount of surveillance or intimidation is enough to assure secrecy. In fact I would BET there have been countless leaks and double crosses already that have also become---classified!!

[Faryn Balyncd]

22. Maybe American journalism is not totally dead after all. Bravo!

[Liberal_in_LA]

24. k&r

[L0oniX]

25. NSA needs people with no morals and blind obedience.

MLK: Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal

Blind obedience to authority is the enemy of the truth. - Albert Einstein

That pernicious sentiment, “Our country, right or wrong.” – James Russell Lowell

My country right or wrong” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother drunk or sober.” – G. K. Chesterton