The documents Manning leaked weren't really conspiracies. Nothing that I've seen so far is illegal, and most of it isn't even interesting.
3 million people didn't leak it because there was no compelling reason to leak them.
3 million people didn't leak it because there was no compelling reason to leak them.
The best analogy I could come up with is if someone leaked all the private Facebook messages from all the students at a high school. Sure, feelings would be hurt, but at the end of the day it's really no big deal.
To argue otherwise is anti-democratic.
My guess it's because the cables regarding Russia are ridiculous beyond any recognition, they don't have ANY hard data and consist mostly of hoax and whatnot, there isn't anything there what you couldn't read in opposition media.
Public reaction here is more like:
Cable: Russian government is mafia
Russian citizen: ha-ha, oh wowOf course none of this applies to people like Assange because they don't have any money or come from countries the US doesn't like.
Or more likely dozens of people leaked them, but they weren't made publicly available until WikiLeaks got them.
While we're at it: here's the legal definition of conspiracy: http://www.lectlaw.com/def/c103.htm
WikiLeaks documents many such conspiracies.
I'll admit this is probably the closest item I've seen to passing the test of something that might actually be worth whistle-blowing on. To fully pass the test, I'd need to see something that detailed who from Dyncorp was involved and to what extent.
My main complaint with the leaked cables, and the reason I have zero qualms about Manning being court marshaled (or even tried for treason) is that he in no way was discriminant about what he released. A whistle-blower needs clear concise evidence of real wrongdoing. Manning lazily dumped a huge archive of classified information without any real item to point to say this is wrong.
Yes, thats where the "conspiracy" bit comes in. We know these things are happening. We know they are being funded by Dynocorp which is itself funded 95% by US tax dollars. But who exactly organized it, well, gosh, nobody actually wrote it down. Yet we are to believe that nobody knew. Like, "who could have imagined people would fly planes into buildings?", as our Secretary of State blathered. (Answer: NORAD. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.h...)