Who would have expected that Adrian Lamo would outlive Chelsea Manning? Did he commit suicide — as she nearly did?
I used to agree with this but honestly, the second Manning contacted him, he was complicit with the crime being committed and would have been sent to the same horrible hole Manning was sent to. It was irresponsible of Manning to put Lamo in this situation, as an ex-convict he would have gotten life in prison, probably solitary confinement if not worse. I don't think I can blame Lamo for doing what he did. It was a horrible situation for both of them. When you're about to commit a crime as severe as treason or murder, you don't call a friend or let alone a stranger and tell him "I'm about to commit the most severely punished crime in the country, could you advise me please?" and expect that person to be complicit.
Are you sure this is true? You don't have a duty to report anything just because you become knowledgeable of it. Mere knowledge doesn't make you complicit.
In not all cases will knowledge alone necessarily be enough to convict you, but that doesn't mean a prosecutor might not try. An ex-con should probably not take the chance that a prosecutor will ignore prior knowledge of a criminal act.
Edit: I shouldn't say "knowledge alone." I should rather say that knowledge alone plus a zealous prosecutor. And then throw in prior conviction... Just a risky proposition. Knowledge alone with no other factors to tempt a prosecutor will probably not put you at any greater risk.
https://www.salon.com/2011/07/14/wired_7/
> MANNING: uhm, trying to keep a low profile for now though, just a warning
> LAMO: I'm a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection.
Lamo didn't stumble upon evidence of a crime. He got it by claiming to be a journalist. And as a journalist, he would've had plenty of leeway in not revealing a source, even a source that admits to a crime.
This is incorrect. Being an accomplice generally requires active counsel or assistance to a crime before it happens (the usual “accomplice before the fact”, or “aiding and abetting”) or active concealment (which goes by a number of terms, including “accomplice after the fact”.).
There are a few special cases where particular people have special duties to report specific crimes, but that is not the norm in general.
I said generally. You said generally. I made edits before you quoted that to clarify that knowledge alone isn't likely going to make you a target of prosecution in the majority of cases. Maybe not even in 1 in a million cases.
I've had clients be targeted for prosecution on weak facts plenty of times.
If I were a lawyer for the ex-con, and he came to ask me whether to contact the FBI given the facts that seem to be stipulated, I certainly would not recommend not contacting the FBI.
Who does and does not have a duty to report is not really relevant in a whole lot of real world cases, unless you think that no ex-con has ever been railroaded on flimsy or fabricated charges.
I've had clients plead guilty when they probably could have fought it just because they can't risk doing long-term jail time, and I'm not even a dedicated criminal defense lawyer.
I've heard about, and read about, much worse. Surely, you have as well.
Edit: Just for example, say Lamo doesn't contact the FBI, and after Manning is prosecuted, they come after Lamo claiming that he advised Manning on how not to get caught, given Lamo's previous experience. Does Lamo beat the charges or go to prison? The system is not rigged in favor of ex-cons. Given the risk, I'd contact the FBI, too.
On its face, the federal misprision statute might appear to require exactly that, but it requires active concealment, not mere failure to report.
Snowden is a better example of how to handle responsible disclosure than Manning, however.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/us/bradley-manning-admits-...
> Private Manning said he first called The Washington Post and spoke to an unidentified reporter for about five minutes. He decided that the reporter did not seem particularly interested because she said The Post would have to review the material before making any commitment.
> He said he then tried to reach out to The New York Times by calling a phone number for the newspaper’s public editor — an ombudsman who is not part of the newsroom — and leaving a voice mail message that was not returned.
You should provide your argument rather than waving your hands non-specifically at federal criminal law.
¹ Whether it should be a serious crime or not is irrelevant here.
Accomplice liability only comes into play when a person intentionally, actively aids a person to commit, conceal or profit from a crime, or to escape prosecution. Inaction doesn't count.
Like, discovering that a friend of yours committed a serious crime and then keeping it a secret is the very definition of corruption. If we, as a society, are going to move past corruption and cronyism, then we have to accept this kind of snitching, because it's the only way to defeat corruption.
For that matter, do you want to end a culture of people being sexually assaulted at frat parties in full view of dozens of people because none of the witnesses will go to the authorities? Then normalize snitching.
It was a fun story to tell until the news came out, at which point I stopped.
So by sticking her neck out and releasing the Collateral Murder videos, she is most definitely my hero.
(EDIT: s/Damage/Murder/ - this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0)
If she's a hero "if someone says she is", the same logic canonizes Lamo.
You can be a hero to some and a villain to others.
I don't know. I have a hard time with calling Chelsea Manning a true hero. While some of the information that she leaked was useful in exposing war crimes, there was a lot more that wasn't particularly relevant exposing military abuses, but was used by enemies to track down and kill those who were collaborating with the US.
> in order to put more unaccountable government power in the hands of people like Donald Trump
I'm not sure how what Adrian Lamo did would have given more power to Donald Trump. In fact, it's Wikileaks that ultimately wound up being critical in the election of Donald Trump; by dumping a lot of not particularly noteworthy private campaign emails, but which could be picked through and made to extend some controversies and conspiracy theories around Hillary Clinton, it was one of the key factors in getting Donald Trump elected.
While there has been some good, newsworthy information released on Wikileaks, it seems to have been corrupted by Russian influence, has a lot of alt-right tendencies including antisemitism (https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks... ); I think that overall, it has become a net negative on the world.
From what I can tell, Chelsea Manning meant well, did some good, but also did a lot of damage, including substantially raising Wikiseaks' profile. I think that whether to report the conversation with Manning to the authorities was likely a difficult one, but the concern about leaking significant amounts of non-newsworthy but potentially quite dangerous information was well founded.
> Did he commit suicide
I don't think that's been revealed; but his Wikipedia article reports on several past struggles with substance abuse. Based on that, and general statistics on causes of death at that age, suicide, overdose, or motor vehicle accident seem like the most likely causes (https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_o... for the leading causes of death, https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_o... for the breakdown of the injury deaths by cause).
I like freedom of information, but what Manning did was simply irresponsible. There was no filter on the documents released. Release all the reports of us torturing and murdering, sure. But don't go around telling the Taliban exactly which families risked their lives to help the counterinsurgency.
[1]: http://www.newsweek.com/taliban-says-it-will-target-names-ex...
He has been incarcerated. He might have faced further incarceration by not disclosing. He was also hardly alone in his view.
Chelsea, meanwhile, knew that what she was doing had risks. She ended up having to face the consequences of her actions.
I'm glad she's released. But ultimately she is responsible for her actions and the outcome of her actions.
That said, I think it's inappropriate to speculate, particularly when the circumstances likely involve mental health. We should really just celebrate Adrian and send our best to those who survive him, as well as take the opportunity to mention that mental health is extremely important in our line of work (and not!) and you should never feel bad for seeking help or fall victim to the stigma. Code can wait; you and your brain can't.
Tragic loss, way too young.
https://gizmodo.com/5591905/wikileaks-critic-adrian-lamo-def...
> He told the audience that he, like Manning and WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, had acted out of conscience. Lamo believed the cables were dangerous. "Holy fracken crap, there's 260,000 documents," he said, "Do you think you could look through those and make sure they wouldn't cause anybody's life to be lost?"