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Comment by mpyne | Hacker News Reader

Well you don't get to complain about official channels when you don't make any attempt to use them. I mentioned how Pfc. Watt didn't trust his superiors on purpose to show that you could still blow the whistle with a non-sympathetic chain-of-command.

For Ellsberg I'll just paste my comment from below:

My opinion is that Daniel Ellsberg supports Manning for the simple reason that it aids his own activism, even if the facts are not 1:1 the same as his case was.

And that's kind of an important point: Ellsberg helped author the Pentagon Papers and knew full well the import of what he leaked (to an American paper, btw, not Soviet, N. Vietnamese, or neutral party). Despite having a Top Secret clearance Ellsberg didn't leak other classified information that he may have had access to, as it didn't pertain to the lies that the government was feeding the public at the time.

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So you lose the right to object anywhere if you do not try the channels provided by the wrong doer to begin with? That makes no sense.

If I see a company engaging in illegal/unethical activity, by your logic I can only go elsewhere after I try to resolve it with them. However what trust do I have that my complaint will be handled well? Moreover if they are in a position of authority over me my only guarantee of protection is a weakly enforced whistle blower law that can be disregarded in cases of national security.

Also, what is your test for acceptable outlet? The NYT is okay but a media outlet without the history of the Grey Lady is not? And Ellsberg gets a pass because he was selective in what he passed on? Honestly if Ellsberg knew about atrocities NOT associated with Vietnam then he should have opened up about those as well.

We're not talking about "company policy" here, we're talking about U.S. law, and the international military concept in general.

Among the many other elements that go into signing away a few years of your life on a DD-2, is that you do in fact swear or affirm that you will use official channels where available, especially in the context of divulging information relative to the security of the 300+ million other citizens you've sworn to defend.

He didn't even bother to try, and this was only some scant years after Pfc. Justin Watt proved it could be done.

Please don't compare your Initech Employee Handbook to life and death conflict as if they're exactly equivalent.

Those 300+ million citizens he swore to defend deserve the truth and there is no law which justifies them not knowing it. We've lost too much to find so little:

http://costsofwar.org

According to Kohlberg's theory of moral development, recognizing rule of law as the authority is only the fourth of six stages. Manning's actions and stated intentions are consistent with the fifth or sixth stages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of...

One could take the position that his stated intentions were lies and that he was actually acting consistent with the second stage (self-interest). But all we can do there is speculate unproductively.

In any case, law seems like a silly standard to base a moral argument on, and there is no shortage of obviously dumb laws, in addition to outright malicious laws.

This misses the important fact that, as pointed out by mpyne, soldiers do indeed swear specifically to uphold certain rules. The law is not always just, but if you mostly-voluntarily swear to uphold it you'd better have good reasons to go back on your promise.

> According to Kohlberg's theory of moral development, recognizing rule of law as the authority is only the fourth of six stages.

Where does "I will keep the promises I make to other people" fall into there?

Well you don't get to complain about official channels when you don't make any attempt to use them.

I guess that's right. Maybe the more salient point is that obviously official channels would not want to send such a huge volume of documents to journalists, so it would have been a useless exercise to try to go through official channels. Worse than useless, actually, as after that he would never have had the opportunity to leak the material again.

even if the facts are not 1:1 the same as his case was.

No two things are 1:1 outside of mathematics. For instance, Ellsberg leaked material classified as "top secret" while Manning didn't leak such sensitive material. But overall, these things are pretty close, though. Manning knew full well the import of what he leaked as well: a lot of import. Neither Manning nor Ellsberg knew every detail in what they leaked, as the volume was tremendous.

to an American paper, btw, not Soviet, N. Vietnamese, or neutral party

Not sure why it matters if you leak it to an American journalist or an Australian journalist or whatever. What if he leaked to a French national working for the NY Times, or an American living abroad? Would that change things?

Well you don't get to complain about official channels when you don't make any attempt to use them.

Why not? As long as he isn't saying that he did try the channels and they didn't work, that doesn't invalidate the observation that they don't tend to work (or whatever).

I linked in an example of where they did work... you've said only that people claim they don't work in general... I have data and you have anecdote. Can you try to do better before declaring victory on that point? :P

> I have data and you have anecdote.

That's not true. You have anecdote and GP has speculation.

It's cool, I'll just re-link it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_killings

I think we're in "exception doesn't prove the rule" territory.

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