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posted by on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the she's-not-out-yet dept.

In one of his last moves in office, President Obama has commuted the 35-year prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army private who leaked a massive trove of military secrets to WikiLeaks.

The former intelligence analyst's prison sentence has been shortened to expire on May 17, 2017, according to a statement from the White House.

Her lawyers at the ACLU expressed relief after the decision, saying that Manning has already served more time behind bars than any other whistleblower in U.S. history, and under difficult conditions.

Also at the BBC and the New York Times.

Previously: Chelsea Manning Reportedly on Obama's Short List for Commutation; Assange Offers Himself in Trade


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2Original Submission #3

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @12:59PM (#455360)

    Why not give Snowden a full, free, and absolute pardon?

    The story around Snowden has been painted that rather than seeking asylum in Russia after his passport was revoked, he instead intentionally went there as a defector and brought vital US intelligence with him. I find it unlikely he'll be let off the hook any time soon.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @02:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @02:51PM (#455417)

    Painted that way because it was mostly done that way. Don't forget, he ran to the Chinese first.

    The story painted around here is that he walks on water and his shit doesn't stink. That in and of itself doesn't mean he should get off with no consequences. His revealing of sources and methods against foreign powers had nothing to do with domestic surveillance, and they should be treated and considered separate from his other actions. You can't always have the ends justifying the means only when it comes to the particular ends that you care about and not to others.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:23PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:23PM (#455438) Journal

      His revealing of sources and methods against foreign powers had nothing to do with domestic surveillance, and they should be treated and considered separate from his other actions.

      But it still revealed some relevant information, such as Obama vowing [usatoday.com] that the US wasn't spying on Merkel while such spying, authorized [telegraph.co.uk] by him, was going on.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:52AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:52AM (#455835)

        Relevant to whom? The argument is about the US and US interests. Your comment is irrelevant to the argument.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 19 2017, @07:41AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 19 2017, @07:41AM (#455941) Journal

          Relevant to whom? The argument is about the US and US interests. Your comment is irrelevant to the argument.

          Well, it's quite relevant to my interests when my president readily lies to another head of state without first figuring whether the lie could be easily revealed. Look at the dates of the denial and the reveal that I linked in my previous post. A mere four days later, Obama was shown to be a crass liar. Even for the notorious amorality of international politics, that was quite incompetent and unprofessional.

          And what are "US and US interests", if not the interests of its citizens? The US is a democracy for a reason.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:56AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:56AM (#455980)

          So, you're saying that we shouldn't be trying to get on friendly foot with our largest enemy, Europe, but keep focusing on our good old friend Russia?

          Seems you elected the right guy for that.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:07PM (#455762)

      The American people have no say in foreign policy!

    • (Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:53PM

      by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:53PM (#455780)

      Don't forget, he ran to the Chinese first.

      You realize that he had an escape route that he was taking and that Russia wasn't his intended final destination, right? Buying into blatant propaganda--propaganda that has been debunked a billion times over--just makes you a moron.

      His revealing of sources and methods against foreign powers had nothing to do with domestic surveillance

      Guess what? Domestic surveillance wasn't the only important issue, you bootlicker. Revealing how they were conducting mass surveillance on foreign countries could also help us protect ourselves form the same exploits. Also, I think we should respect people's rights even if they are in other countries, so it's easily morally justifiable to leak that information. I would have liked to see everything leaked, as a punishment for conducting mass surveillance in the first place. If you don't like that possibility, then don't engage in heinous acts that necessitates it.

      You can't always have the ends justifying the means only when it comes to the particular ends that you care about and not to others.

      Then you can't justify mass surveillance, even against people in foreign countries. I for one believe that freedom is well worth the risks. It's when you're taking away people's freedoms that the 'the ends justify the means' argument doesn't work, and revealing what is happening is certainly not an unethical thing to do.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @02:08AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @02:08AM (#455844)

        You shouldn't buy so much into Snowdens propaganda, hastily thrown together after dumping the data to foreign intel ("look, look, see, see, look at all this domestic surveillance! See, I'm doing this for you!!!!! (You don't mind if I hand over the remaining 99% of the info to these nice Chinese and Russians, do you?).

        So he has this grand and carefully planned out escape plan. And it was almost foolproof as well, except for holding a press conference in Hong Kong in the middle of his "freedom escape". Geez, who's the fucking idiot? Perhaps you should extricate your nose from where it is buried (I think it is plenty brown enough) and look at what really happened from 30,000 feet and get out of your bobby soxer hero worship state.

        Revealing how they were conducting mass surveillance on foreign countries could also help us protect ourselves form the same exploits.

        LOL. Yeah, sure, we'll set up a github and gofundme to do our intel collections.

        Bootlicker, huh. Ok, maybe I have erred in my opinion and it isn't Snowden's anus you have your face buried in, it is Putin's. Or are you one of those "there should be no secrets" idiots? You know, it is a VERY short step from "there should be no secrets" to "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide."

        Holy fuck. Hipster Intel. Maybe when you're president you can give out participation trophies to the CIA and NSA employees. "Great job guys! I know you weren't allowed to do anything, but I'm proud of you because you have so much spunk!"

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:28AM

          by Anal Pumpernickel (776) on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:28AM (#455872)

          (You don't mind if I hand over the remaining 99% of the info to these nice Chinese and Russians, do you?).

          More baseless assertions, unless you mean that the Chinese and Russians can see the leaks as well. But if that's what you mean, then of course they can; the information is being released publicly.

          So he has this grand and carefully planned out escape plan.

          It doesn't matter how good your plan is if you're up against a country as powerful as the US.

          I don't know why we're still going over events that happened years ago that have long since been resolved. Maybe next you'll tell me that the NSA isn't "wittingly" collecting people's metadata, or repeat another lie straight from the intelligence agencies that have shown themselves to be generally untrustworthy. There are just so many lies and baseless assertions to choose from, and smearing and speculation is all too easy.

          Or are you one of those "there should be no secrets" idiots?

          I'm one of those rare "the government shouldn't do evil" people. I'm also one of those people who think there should be consequences if the government does do something evil, and one of those consequences may be that your secrets get revealed, and maybe more secrets get revealed than you would like. So be it.

          You know, it is a VERY short step from "there should be no secrets" to "you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide."

          There's a difference between violating individual rights and using 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' as an excuse and having a transparent government. Whistleblowers are sometimes necessary for transparency. Revealing a government's wrongdoing has absolutely nothing in common with a government violating individual liberties. The 'nothing to hide, nothing to fear' argument is always used to trample upon liberties.

          The intelligence agencies have not only repeatedly shown that they are filled almost entirely with unethical scumbags, but that they are untrustworthy as well. To me, anything they say is suspect, because it's just far too easy for them to smear whistleblowers while claiming that all the damning evidence is top secret.

          At any rate, it's blatantly apparent that you're a gullible and/or disingenuous bootlicker.