Remember the Iraq Wikileaks whistle blower from the Army?

Fido wrote:

The FoIA is not pointless, people use it every day to get info about the government's workings. You can't not have secrets for national defense...

Sin-saturated? Oh God you really are one of those retards.

I'm done arguing with you now... Before this I thought you were at least somewhat human but you might just be the dumbest guy on this forum... or a troll. Either way worth ignoring.

The third time I request unto thee, for what purpose does the FoIA act serve in this topic?
Ouch, Fido. Hurts that you don't want to repent from your self-righteousness and instead mindlessly fling verbal fecal matter because I have a different opinion

Fido wrote:

If someone's completely honest and has no subterfuge going on, everyone else will just walk over them.

How will they walk over them? You seem to put secrets and amount of power together with no clear basis.

I've already explained the FoIA act and the no secrets = these boots correlation twice now... feel free to actually read my posts, you've had trouble with that in the past.

Which holds no relevance to this thread, as you stated. So why bring it up?

Check a few posts back. You've asked that like 3 times now and I answered the 1st time you asked.

Fido wrote:

EXCEPT on matters of National Defense, which all of these leaks were about.

I still don't see your point.

Fido wrote:

I already explained why secrets are necessary for diplomacy.

If someone's completely honest and has no subterfuge going on, everyone else will just walk over them. You gotta have something hidden to bargain with, the ability to bluff is a must for all nations that want to be taken seriously. If the US was omnipotent with no competition in sight you might have an argument for a decrease in secrecy.

The leaks included those diplomatic cables which caused the US to have to run around and do damage control around the world. Among of course many other things, which do include troop movements, actually. The major news organizations of course chose not to publish them because they have the common sense to not try to get people killed. There was released a list of the most vulnerable facilities in the US, which included a nuclear reactor, a few dams, and some other key infrastructure that would cripple some sections of the US if attacked. The leaks put that information out there. It also exposes some minor strategy in Afghanistan that the enemy could easily use against us.

I too would love to see a completely see-through bureaucracy in the US, but this was all related to diplomacy and national defense. If the guy had said "oh hey, Welfare is failing and here is why" it would be different. But that information is already available to everyone and every branch of the government can basically be audited by any random civilian if they chose to.

Here you go, there it is. Not national defense-related stuff (which inherently needs to have some secrecy surrounding it). That's why I brought up the Freedom of Info Act. Lets people get the information they deserve, the info that matters, about whether government is being run efficiently.

The leaks were not material that would have been available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. They were secret for a reason, and a good reason, even if you don't agree with the morality of the actions taken by the government (like the heli slaying of journalists mistake, or the no-surrender incident), some government actions need to be secret for the benefit of national defense, as I've explained several times in this thread (but you seem to ignore all the parts of my post that shatter your arguments, conveniently). Therefore this guy committed treason and is most definitely in danger of the death penalty.

problem with the FoIA is that anything really bad will just get concealed under the guise of national defense... until of course sacrificing the political life of some pawn becomes advantageous as a distraction

Like I said, there's checklists and protocol they have to go through before rendering things classified, and automatically anything to do with bureaucracy (like spending, etc) is not national defense. People can actually see how much money goes into research for national defense, you just can't see WHAT they're researching. Which makes sense.

There's gonna be crooked stuff going on no matter what but that's why most politicians have a short political lifespan - president 4 years, senate 6 years, representatives 2 years. This makes it relatively easy to get rid of corrupted officials when they are discovered, and everything necessary to discover them falls under the Freedom of Information Act.

The military is an organization made to kill and use violence, threats, and coercion to get what it wants on a global scale. The military is controlled by civilians in the US, as it has been since (I believe) independence. For military secrets relating to national defense, it's logical that not every random civilian can have access to them so people are again elected (or appointed by elected officials) to manage those secrets.

Quote :

The military is controlled by civilians in the US

lol wut?

I think 8mo of solitary has been enough already....

http://uruknet.info/?p=m75688&hd=&size=1&l=e

Ronin0ni wrote:

lol wut?

Here you go

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_control_of_the_military

It means the generals of the military have no actual control over where it goes in big moves. It can't decide to invade Iran without congress (civilians, elected) approving. It also means the military has no power to take over the government in a coup.

Ronin0ni wrote:

I think 8mo of solitary has been enough already....

http://uruknet.info/?p=m75688&hd=&size=1&l=e

He waived those rights when he broke the law. We have a right to life too but if you commit enough criminal acts they'll take that from you. Freedom is taken all the time.

Treason is one of the most serious crimes. If he needs to be in solitary there's a reason for it - danger to himself or others, or severity of crime. In this case he's in the military and they have their ways of dealing with errant soldiers. There's zero tolerance for any kinda shit like that anyway, he knew what he signed on for and he knew what he was getting into when he released the information. I would wager there's some nuts out there who would vigilante the hell out of this guy if he was released on bail or something - if that's even an option in military detainments, I don't know.

Quote :

In 2005, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member [in Iraq], if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to try to stop it."

^^^THIS

Quote :

Chase Mader writes in HuffPo that soon after deployment to Iraq, Manning:

"soon found himself helping the Iraqi authorities detain civilians for distributing "anti-Iraqi literature" -- which turned out to be an investigative report into financial corruption in their own government entitled "Where does the money go?" The penalty for this "crime" in Iraq was not a slap on the wrist. Imprisonment and torture, as well as systematic abuse of prisoners, are widespread in the new Iraq. From the military’s own Sigacts (Significant Actions) reports, we have a multitude of credible accounts of Iraqi police and soldiers shooting prisoners, beating them to death, pulling out fingernails or teeth, cutting off fingers, burning with acid, torturing with electric shocks or the use of suffocation, and various kinds of sexual abuse including sodomization with gun barrels and forcing prisoners to perform sexual acts on guards and each other...

Like any good soldier, Manning immediately took these concerns up the chain of command. And how did his superiors respond? His commanding officer told him to "shut up" and get back to rounding up more prisoners for the Iraqi Federal Police to treat however they cared to..."

^And this

Trying to stop it doesn't mean releasing 250,000+ files related to military and diplomacy to the public. That's like treating dandruff with decapitation.

He tried to go through the proper chain of command... they snuffed him, he didn't have many options left.

You're repeating yourself now, I already answered that.

Let's just agree to disagree for now, we'll never get along about this stuff, we just have different ways of looking at the world. The guy is being treated inhumanely but that's what you get when you commit crimes like that. He knew what he was getting into. That's how I see it.

I give up. I know jack shit about the government or anything relevant to it, and I submit my ignorance to your well-dictated logic, even if I find the moral implications highly objectionable and downright wrong.

Fucking finally.

I really agree about it being morally awful by the way. But individual morality really doesn't matter and life's more fun when you realize that.

you mean willful ignorance....

that is ALMOST as bad as willful malicious intent

Not ignorance. I just mean that for the world to run somewhat decently you gotta shelve your individual opinions and accept the laws of planet earth. It doesn't mean I choose to stay ignorant. I don't. I just put up with what might be considered moral injustice on an individual level. In your day to day life it's okay to be selfish, and it's in fact encouraged, but when you look at society and law and order and keeping the world running as fluidly as possible, you gotta put up with some bullshit. Keep looking for a way to improve it but don't start touting morals over cold hard laws.

It's like abortion... I don't like it but it's basically a necessity. You gotta understand its place in our world.

except they aren't laws of planet earth... you are talking about laws of man... which is totally different, and something I have NO problem standing against.

Space, NOW would have been the right time.

Ronin0ni wrote:

except they aren't laws of planet earth... you are talking about laws of man... which is totally different, and something I have NO problem standing against.

They're natural laws though. Human behavior. Collectively, you can't change it, because it's instinctual.

yes you CAN change it... sh*t, we HAVE been changing it over thousands of years...

If we actually intentionally tried to adjust our human behavior in a positive way... oh i dunno... by maybe properly raising kids with morals and love and compassion... then we could make great leaps and bounds in the human psyche in a very short period of time....

but of course, we can just fall back on the excuses we've all been told about "just being human" and continue on our merry way of needlessly slaughtering each other.

Most kids are raised with love and compassion. Morals differ from person to person so again I think what you mean is that you believe your morals are the correct ones and other people should adopt them.