[bwaldrep]

By volunteering to join the military and obtain security clearance, Manning waived his First Amendment right to disclose anything he saw fit. If he only broke the law to reveal evidence of government wrongdoing, then there might be a case that he was just a whistleblower. However, leaking hundreds of thousands of additional classified documents that demonstrate no government wrongdoing is indefensible.

While some may believe that the incriminating leaks were excusable, the rest of his behavior should not be forgotten. Honing in on one aspect of Manning's actions does not justify making him a martyr or painting this trial as purely an assault on the First Amendment.

[djcapelis]

> By volunteering to join the military and obtain security clearance, Manning waived his First Amendment right to disclose anything he saw fit.

Yes. And how soon is it that our government locks everyone into a similar deal? Over 3 million people have security clearances. (And many more who don't have active ones, but are still bound by many of the rules around clearances.) How soon until you need clearance to do serious work in any number of areas?

How soon until giving up those rights is part of doing business? And is standard practice?

It already is in some areas of my field. I know of other subfields where the same is true.

Maybe it is time that we start protecting the rights of all and not pretending like those who have security clearances are an extremely rare exception whose rights can be waived without issue.

I'm not saying the rules should be that anyone can disclose whatever classified information they like, because obviously that doesn't work. But I don't think because someone made a choice at some point in their lives to get a clearance means we shouldn't discuss what circumstances and latitude they should get to speak their minds.

[tptacek]

We share a field. In what ways does that field demand that you surrender your rights?

I don't have much of a problem with the idea that contributing infosec work to the government requires you to become a part of something that is bigger than you or your individual rights, and have resolved that conflict by simply not working for the government; that also eliminates some other moral hazards of working for/with the military/industrial complex.

[djcapelis]

It doesn't demand you surrender your rights yet. It is just becoming more and more encouraging that you do so and I know many young researchers who are opting to make that choice a lot more often than I used to see.

The governmental sector in our field is the main area I was thinking of. And it is one that is only growing with time. A lot of avenues and research sub-fields require clearances if you don't want to be on the outside looking in. In particular, our ability to get realistic threat information on large scale actors is vastly limited and my research suffers from that lack of context.

This is worse in some specific subfields than it is in others, crypto comes to mind. Though that is one area where academia seems to have actually maybe made that less true than it used to be.

There are people in bio and other areas who are experiencing similar pressures. The scope of the work done by people with clearances is trending upwards and the subfields in which someone's ability to participate in them is more limited without a clearance seems to be expanding.

[tptacek]

You should encourage your peers not to go work for the government. There's a misconception on HN (I don't think you hold it) that GSA work is a major feeder for infosec, for vulnerability research, and for defensive security work. It isn't. Most of the researchers anyone here has "heard of" don't do any work for the government at all.

I talk every once in awhile about how Matasano chooses not to do government work, which makes it sound like we're taking a difficult principled stand. In reality, it's a very easy principled stand; our calendar is uniformly packed, we have no sales team, and I don't even remember the last time we needed to think about the the USG.

I personally have no problem with offensive security people working for the USG. It's not a choice I would make, but I see how other people might decide differently. But if you decide to do that, to make your work part of the national defense, it makes sense to me that you're going to lose some control over that work and over some of what you learn as you do that work.

Let's be honest: people doing "cyber" work for the government aren't poor kids from the suburbs trying to pay for college by doing a tour of duty. Relative to the market as a whole, they're immensely well compensated.

[dfc]

Its funny that you say "people doing "cyber" work for the government aren't poor kids from the suburbs trying to pay for college by doing a tour of duty." This is essentially what the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service is sans combat. The program has been going on for a long time now, Mudge played a part in the creation of the program.

https://www​.sfs.opm.gov/

[ballard]

Qui tacet consentire videtur

And more selfishly, .gov/.mil rarely pays on time.

[rayiner]

> I'm not saying the rules should be that anyone can disclose whatever classified information they like

But that's exactly what Manning did. If he were being prosecuted for discretely releasing specific information about specific crimes, we'd be talking about a different case.

[djcapelis]

> we'd be talking about a different case.

Yet people say the same thing about Snowden, who seems to have "discretely released specific information about specific crimes" to a larger extent than Manning did.

And while we're talking about it. It wasn't like the Pentagon Papers were all that specific. Ellsberg leaked the 47 volumes wholesale.

[saraid216]

I'm too unfamiliar with the specifics to respond with precision, but I will point out that "47 volumes" is not necessarily unspecific. Nor does it necessitate quantity of specific crimes.

All it really says is that it was useful, for some reason or another, to divide the information into 47 parts.

[ororlrlrlylyly]

At what point do you just say, you know what? US imperialism is just so fucking out of control, that we need to do whatever it takes to resist it, not get caught up in anal retentive legalism, or analyzing what the implications of various legal reforms would be, and just do whatever needs doing to support those who have taken courageous steps toward undermining the regime?

Do you really not believe that a revolution is called for?

[bwaldrep]

Sure, you are free to discuss what circumstances and latitude people bound by the UCMJ should have to speak their mind. You might be able to argue that the portions of Manning's leak that show evidence of wrongdoing were justified. That does not change the fact that he recklessly leaked hundreds of thousands of other classified documents, and is therefore guilty of espionage.

My point about Manning waiving his rights was primarily in response to this quote from the parent post:

> Government employees who blow the whistle on war crimes, other abuses and government incompetence should be protected under the First Amendment.

Waving the First Amendment around is meaningless when the affected parties have agreed to not reveal classified information and waive their rights as citizens. Arguing that the First Amendment broadly trumps the UCMJ and classification leads to nonsense. As you said, doing so obviously doesn't work. You can make a case that leaks are justified under some circumstances. That case does not involve appealing to the First Amendment.

[djcapelis]

> That case does not involve appealing to the First Amendment.

I think it must. You can make a case that UCMJ and waiving of rights are limited exceptions that must be allowed under the first amendment for the government to do its work, but as these rights are fundamental, I think it is the government that must justify restrictions on any citizen's right to free speech. And it is our system which requires that those restrictions be as limited as possible.

IMO, the First Amendment is in play because any restrictions on speech must be justified and limited.

[saraid216]

So I decided I ought to actually look it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_expression which cites http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/19...

The most useful section appears to be "freedom of the press", in which military personnel published information against the wishes of security review.

"On appeal, the USCMA concluded that a regulation requiring security review was valid and, therefore, did not violate the military member's first amendment rights, noting that the right to free speech is not an indiscriminate right and is qualified by the requirements of reasonableness in relation to time, place, and circumstances."

My short interpretation is that: (1) the vast majority of people waving around the First Amendment flag have no idea what they're talking about, but (2) I have been incorrect in the blanket claim that there is no First Amendment protection for soldiers.

[djcapelis]

I think I can say we agree on both those points. And those are both really relevant citations, thanks for looking them up!

[anigbrowl]

The Constitution also gives Congress the power to 'make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces'. You seem to think the Bill of Rights trumps the rest of the constitution. It doesn't, but rather stands on the same plane as it, and where there are conflicts between different parts of the Constitution the matter typically ends up in the Supreme Court sooner or later.

There's a lot more to the Constitution than just the Bill of Rights, but most people only seem to remember the latter.

[djcapelis]

Yes. There's a bunch of clauses that allow a bunch of things. None of them involve tossing the first amendment out the window and all of them involve an analysis where the fundamental right to free speech is in play, but also often balanced by other legitimate governmental concerns.

Which is pretty much exactly what I said in my post.

[anigbrowl]

That's not what you said at all. Your stated position is that rights are fundamental and government has to justify any imposition on those, yes? So you're saying that the bill of Rights > the Rest of the Constitution.

Go read the Federalist Papers, there is no way the founders intended it to work that way and courts have never interpreted it that way either. James Madison explains it beter than I can:

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

[danenania]

That Bradley Manning is in prison while many of the depraved murderers and corrupt officials he blew the whistle on remain free and employed is a disgrace.

It's not a question of law. It's a question of basic morality and humanity. Laws that put people of conscience in prison while protecting murderers are not laws worth following, respecting, or defending.

[anigbrowl]

We also try and imprison people for war crimes, although this process is slow and uneven, for a variety of reasons. It is a question of law, because there's no universal standard of morality. The Nidal Hassan trial is a classic example of that: by the fundamentalist religious standards that he adhered to, his actions were perfectly justified, but people who are not adherents of his religious or less extreme adherents of it think the exact opposite.

[lmickh]

News flash: Laws are not about morality. They are about behavior.

Being a "person of conscience" only means he was doing what he thought was right. Doesn't have anything to do with legal behavior. Many violent people are "people of conscience".

If you don't want people to legislate morality, then don't be surprised when there is no morality in your legislation.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>News flash: Laws are not about morality. They are about behavior.

Well, they do call it the "Justice" system. They could change the name I suppose.

[lmickh]

Many people like to have justice in their legal system, but it doesn't make so just because you called it that.

Laws and morality are not mutually exclusive, but the presence of one doesn't require the other. Justice is where laws and morality meet. Did we apply the laws and was the outcome morally fitting? But if you don't have both, you can't have justice.

[vowelless]

Does "justice" really imply morality?

[fnordfnordfnord]

A lot of people think it does.

[mpyne]

A lot of people think the Earth is 6000 years old. Of that a fan left running in a room with the windows shut can kill you.

[agorabinary]

And who is to decide whether the leaked documents demonstrate government wrongdoing or not? If not for whistleblowers, we wouldn't even know that these wrongdoings exist, which would preclude our ability to judge them as such. This is the fallacy behind government secrecy.

Information must always be free --- non-disclosure contracts never take precedence over the First Amendment. Imagine if the Nazis were somehow able to cover up the Holocaust, would a non-disclosure contract prevent a German citizen from leaking the existence of the genocide? But you say, genocide is clearly wrong. But without the leaked information, how would we even know a genocide happened?

[mbreese]

That's the risk for whistleblowers. You have to be careful what you leak, and make sure that it is relevant. That's one reason why this case and the Snowden case are very different. Manning leaked a ton of stuff, a lot of which wasn't applicable. Snowden leaked very specific things, so he has a better shot at being considered a legit whistleblower.

Also - Godwin. Don't use Nazis as examples, it just diminishes your argument.

[agorabinary]

Reductio ad absurdum, a perfectly legitimate form of proof, begs to differ with Mr. Godwin.

Anyone can leak anything, as anyone can say anything. This is the law as per the First Amendment. You could lose your job contract for leaking information, but you could also lose your job for no reason at all. Those that would argue that only criminality should be leaked --- who is to determine that criminality if no one knows about it in the first place? Evidence of the act before judgment of the act. And to those who say leaking information can lead to soldier casualties --- so can lying to a public about the motivations for countless aggressive wars, and then assuming the public "can't handle the truth". Jessup went to prison for that, thanks to a few good men. Unfortunately, Americans don't listen to their movies, only watch them.

[phaus]

The constitution has provisions for government secrets, you should read it in it's entirety.

I won't link to a single section, but rather the entire document, because everyone should read the whole thing on a regular basis.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_trans...

[MartinCron]

Reductio ad absurdum, a perfectly legitimate form of proof, begs to differ with Mr. Godwin

Godwin's law isn't about legitimate forms of proof, it's about the level and quality of discourse. It's not saying you're wrong it's saying that your point would be stronger without Nazi references.

Look at it as help, not refutation :)

[mpyne]

Your meandering Chewbacca defense kind of falls flat at the beginning, when you claim that the First Amendment allows one to say anything they wish.

Try using that argument to leak persons' sensitive personally-identifiable information someday and see how well it works for you.

[mbreese]

You can't just say anything. The First Amendment is not absolute - there have always been limits on it. Saying "fire" in a crowded theater is the canonical example.

Do you know who is responsible for determining what is criminal and what isn't? A judge and/or jury. That's the way our system works. That's the risk for whistleblowers. They have to be prepared to go to trial to determine if they get protected.

Seriously - in "A Few Good Men" Jessup went to jail for ordering the beating of a soldier. That has absolutely no bearing on this.

Godwin's law came about for a reason - using Nazis as an example is overdone. Its like comparing software to cars - it's an overused analogy. Because of this, you lose most of the power your argument may have had. Pick something else if you want to point out how ridiculous something is.

[agorabinary]

Walter Block disagrees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPeqXcJqkeg . His hypothetical situations at the end may seems unrealistic to you, but consider them as illustrative of the dangers of blanket prosecution over much more favorable voluntary solutions.

Collecting and understanding the evidence of a situation may be up to a a judge/jury, but natural law is not. A judge cannot lawfully reject the First Amendment, which universally defends whistleblowers. "That's the way our system works" is not an argument.

The issue at the heart of A Few Good Men was the notion that an enlightened minority can lie to a majority for the good of that majority. Jessup beats soldiers, our government drone-bombs children. And they both think they can withhold these acts from public view, because it's in the "public's interest not to know". Whistleblowers rightfully reject this view, as did the jury in A Few Good Men.

Okay, I'll use Stalin and his genocides. Does it make a difference?

[notahacker]

I'm assuming the video is equivalent to the text here: http://mises.org/books/defending.pdf

In which case even Block, an academic anarcist prepared to go to the extremes of defending one's right to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre is pretty unequivocal about the enforceability of voluntarily-agreed contracts against such speech. Such as by those who contracted to work for the military, for example?

Love or loathe what Manning did (and it's possible to do both: to believe he is both a whistleblower and someone who disclosed a lot of other information with no justification), the First Amendment was never intended to protect his course of action. Which leaves us with whether his course of action was ethical, and ethics and the military have never been easy bedfellows.

[anigbrowl]

Collecting and understanding the evidence of a situation may be up to a a judge/jury, but natural law is not. A judge cannot lawfully reject the First Amendment, which universally defends whistleblowers.

Natural law doesn't come into it, and is usually the refuge of people who don't have an argument. A judge can't just reject the First Amendment, but there are well-established limits on it, and your claim that it 'universally defends whistleblowers' is strictly imaginary. It doesn't say anything about protecting people who reveal government misdeeds.

[gte910h]

This is something I think people really don't appreciate about the Snowden case: He's been extremely shrewd about the tiny amounts he's leaked. It's all gold and no dross, so is pretty damn credible, and very possibly legal. He may be a free and clear, able to come home, free man, by his 40th birthday.

[bwaldrep]

> Information must always be free --- non-disclosure contracts never take precedence over the First Amendment.

This belief is very naive and unrealistic. There are some kinds of information that should obviously not be free. Credit card numbers, PINs, SSNs, identities of confidential informants, etc. In order for society to function there will be secrets. What we need is a healthy debate over what secrets should be allowed, how they should be kept, and how responsible oversight should be administered without publicly divulging everything. Statements like "information must always be free" provide nothing but straw men for those in favor of minimal oversight to knock down. Making such assertions is counterproductive.

[hvs]

Even if that information could get soldiers killed if released to the public? You waive certain rights when you join the U.S. military.

[saraid216]

> By volunteering to join the military and obtain security clearance, Manning waived his First Amendment right

Quoting this for importance. Soldiers do not have the same First Amendment rights as other citizens; they do not have the same set of rights at all. I can probably dig up something more credible than my own hearsay if needed.

[fnordfnordfnord]

Soldiers have also sworn to uphold the Constitution, so a soldier who sees evidence of gov't wrongdoing suddenly has a dilemma on his or her hands.

"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." (Title 10, US Code; Act of 5 May 1960 replacing the wording first adopted in 1789, with amendment effective 5 October 1962).

source: http://www.history.army.mil/html/faq/oaths.html

[saraid216]

It's only a dilemma if and only if whistleblowing is the only possible route for upholding the Constitution in the face of government wrongdoing.

[fnordfnordfnord]

No, the use of a "route" that is known to be ineffective doesn't count.

[mpyne]

The correct "route" has worked just fine in many other cases (Abu Ghraib, Mahmudiyah killings in Iraq).

Regardless though, there were many other routes Manning could have taken that would have been more proper.

And whatever route Manning took, he could have limited his disclosures to those detailing war crimes instead of a mass disclosure of classified operational information.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>The correct "route" has worked just fine in many other cases (Abu Ghraib, Mahmudiyah killings in Iraq).

On the contrary, there is no scarcity of examples of whistleblower protection failing miserably at protecting the whistleblower. It is a defective system that one would be a fool to put any trust in. Advocacy of that path is naive or ignorant at best.

>Regardless though, there were many other routes Manning could have taken that would have been more proper.

That is speculation, but I agree it is possible. Manning himself would probably agree with that. Hindsight is 20/20, and all that.

>And whatever route Manning took, he could have limited his disclosures to those detailing war crimes instead of a mass disclosure of classified operational information

That appears to be true, though the importance of the "classified operational information" appears to be wildly exaggerated for the most part. Lots of the material which is classified arguably shouldn't be.

Personally, my opinion is that the disclosures have been overall beneficial to US citizens and therefore to the US gov't. Far more useful to people all over the world who are interested in honest and just discourse, and foreign relations than to US enemies as operational intelligence.

[saraid216]

I decided to actually look it up. Short form: I was technically wrong, but not inaccurate.

Long form: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6130400

[blendergasket]

He's a martyred saint for a new ideology that's just being born.

May you live in interesting times.