[grizzles]

This really puts the whole Hillary Clinton email scandal into perspective, huh?

The message seems to be that if you leak classified data to the American people you get a big punishment, whereas if you leak classified data carelessly (Clinton) or for your girlfriend's book (Petraeus) the most you can expect is a slap on the wrist. That's f ed up.

[sparky_z]

To be fair, it's pretty standard for crimes to have differing punishments depending on whether they were accidental or purposeful. Sometimes they're even considered different crimes entirely (i.e., murder vs manslaughter).

(I'm not defending Chelsea's treatment here. I just think it's odd that grizzles has singled out this particular aspect of the situation as worthy of outrage.)

[grizzles]

Petraeus did it for sex. He got a fine, and no prison time.

[gozur88]

He also leaked far less data and had an idea of what he was leaking. Manning did far, far more damage to national security interests the law was designed to protect.

[ricksplat]

He was also in the military, which carries different expectations of behaviour, and a tougher system of account.

[DanielBMarkham]

The system of account should be stricter the higher you go up, no?

Otherwise you seem to be making the case for civilian leaders to not have access at all to sensitive information.

(Sidebar: Because of the way this played out, this is probably going to be an impossible topic to talk about for many years. And the system is going to suffer for it.)

[gozur88]

>The system of account should be stricter the higher you go up, no?

There's more than one dimension here. The "system of account", as you call it, should be stricter the higher up you go, and it should also be stricter if you're uniformed military.

[ricksplat]

Yeah but Hillary and the Petraeus are civilians no? Or at the very least not subject to military jurisdiction and standards.

[anonu]

It also ended his career...

[aetherson]

It is f ed up, but that's not the message.

The message is that if you're a powerful person in DC, and if your leaks are not intended to embarrass or shame the big power structures of DC, you can expect a slap on the wrist.

[grizzles]

That's exactly what I said, yo. Just formulated a different way. So much for the 14th amendment.

[les9]

No one want's the lion to kill the gazelle. But they do. Get over it Mr. Jefferson - as someone said before the declaration was drafted.

[sliverstorm]

I'm not a fan of her, but no one has showed Clinton leaked it, to my knowledge. She emailed it insecurely, but to people with appropriate clearance.

[thomasruns]

2 important clarifications: 1) Clinton did not "leak" anything, 2) Her emails did not contain anything that was classified at the time it was sent.

I'm not defending her decisions to use private email servers, but using the phrase "leak classified data" when speaking of her is not accurate.

[zackelan]

You're right about the "leak" distinction, but the "classified at the time it was sent" question is stickier:

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/clintons-handling-of-classi...

> More than 2,000 of the 30,490 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department contained classified information, including 110 emails in 52 email chains that contained classified information at the time they were sent or received. (Most emails were retroactively deemed to contain classified information by the U.S. agencies from which the information originated.)

> Some of the emails containing classified information “bore markings indicating the presence of classified information,” contrary to Clinton’s claims that none was marked classified. Comey did not provide a specific number.

> "Only a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information," Comey said. "But even if information is not marked ‘classified’ in an email, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it."

It's also entirely possible that of the thousands of emails that were not turned over, some of them contained classified information. We know there were a non-zero number of these:

> Among those several thousand work-related emails that were not provided to the State Department, Comey said, "three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received; one at the secret level and two at the confidential level. There were no additional top secret emails found."

[tunesmith]

Comey also admitted under questioning that the emails with "classified markings" were not marked classified as specified in the manual (with headers etc), and given that, it would be a reasonable for someone to not consider them marked classified.

[nickpsecurity]

That's not what it says at all. Manning dumped all kinds of unredacted, classified information on an organization that's an enemy of the United States. These actions say a random, Army private doing something that foolish and damaging will get punished severely. It's obvious that his intentional leaks of all the war files and State cables were far more severe than someone just getting email working despite policy.