Chelsea Manning confirms health status with attorneys

Chelsea Manning confirms health status with attorneys(chelseamanning.org)

92 points by luizlopes 9 years ago | 45 comments

grizzles 9 years ago |

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 9 years ago | |

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 9 years ago | | |

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

aetherson 9 years ago | |

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 9 years ago | | |

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

sliverstorm 9 years ago | |

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 9 years ago | |

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 9 years ago | | |

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."

nickpsecurity 9 years ago | |

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.

rdl 9 years ago |

When you write a letter to someone facing 20+ years more in prison, who has just tried to kill herself, what do you say? I'm kind of at a loss for words -- "hope you get well soon?" "hope you are out of the hospital and back to your, uh, home soon?"

https://www.chelseamanning.org/learn-more/write-to-chelsea-m...

zackelan 9 years ago | |

The best-case scenario for the people keeping her in prison is that we forget about her, and she spends years there, forgotten by the rest of the world.

The letter I mailed to Chelsea this weekend said "you have not been forgotten". That's it. One sheet of paper and a sharpie. Nothing that could give whoever censors her mail an excuse to throw my letter out.

Her birthday is December 17th. I added a reminder to my calendar to send one each December 1st, to allow for processing time through the prison mail. One stamp and one letter can make a difference in someone's life, and Amnesty International has recommended mailing prisoners on their birthday.

http://blog.amnestyusa.org/asia/on-your-birthday-you-are-not...

droopyEyelids 9 years ago | |

When the whole official world is against you, it'd be comforting to hear that there are people, even if strangers, who believe in you and appreciate you.

DasIch 9 years ago | |

How about not touching on that at all? Surely she hears more than enough on that already and is confronted with it when she's not reading about it also.

Something that has nothing to do with her and her current situation, something that allows her to escape her situation at least in her mind for a little bit, would probably be welcome. If I were in that situation, I believe I would appreciate that anyway.

rdl 9 years ago | | |

Probably a good idea. Yan wrote about her visit and she seemed interested in current affairs/etc. (plus writes articles, including one which went out on 3 July)

themartorana 9 years ago |

Is anyone surprised she's suicidal? Locked in solitary confinement, for a minimum of 8 years (probably a lot more), at the hands of an obviously vindictive government - I imagine that by now I would have tried to kill myself too.

Swizec 9 years ago |

This part seems a little bit ironic "Though she would have preferred to keep her private information private".

Is that not why she's come into the public eye? For releasing private information that some people would have preferred to keep private?

This isn't a comment on whether her leak was the right thing to do or not, just the whole "Treat others like you want others to treat you".

lacksrigor7373 9 years ago | |

Ask yourself what value to society do Chelsea create with her leak?

Then ask, what value does broadcasting her health status everywhere provide society?

Hopefully this will help inform you of the differences in these separate acts, since it seems to have blown right by you at light speed.

alsetmusic 9 years ago | | |

> Ask yourself what value to society do Chelsea create with her leak? > Then ask, what value does broadcasting her health status everywhere provide society?

(Not who you replied to, but...)

I believe Chelsea Manning deserves privacy for an issue such as this, but also hope that the situation will (at least) make more people contemplate the extreme nature of solitary. I would be undone fifty times by now if I were isolated by force.

tunesmith 9 years ago | |

You are entirely overlooking the question of whether the public should have the right to know the private information, which was what drove Manning's motivations.

"Information that some people would have preferred to keep private" is a general statement that could be applied to anything from a teenage girl's diary to an impending nuclear attack. To handwave that away is to make the entire matter meaningless.

andrewchambers 9 years ago | |

The two cases are hardly comparable.

rhizome 9 years ago | |

You're getting plenty of feedback here, but you might want to read up on "category error" as to your sense of the privacy concepts you use.

gozur88 9 years ago | | |

The problem with this is that Manning released, along with some things you could argue the public has a right to know, all the other data diplomats and spies had collected.

Did we all need to know salacious details about Muammar Gaddafi's "voluptuous" Ukrainian nurse? That seems very much the same kind of data to me.

PhasmaFelis 9 years ago | |

You have confused human rights with governmental rights.