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I say "fair", because the output obviously changes with the amount of money you feed the system. Too little money and the outcome will be biased against you, too much money and the outcome will be biased in the other direction. Which amount will give an unbiased output? $50k? $100k?
How can this be considered normal?
"All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law." - Universal Declaration of Human Rights §7
"If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way" - Pericles (431 BC)
It's not acceptable, but nobody has any better ideas.
Of course, there are some glaring issues here, such as the fact that unfortunately there's a strong correlation between socio-economic status and the odds of you needing legal counsel... Something which also occurs in healthcare but to a much lesser degree I'm inclined to believe.
In this context "afford" typically means you can still keep your home/apartment and go grocery shopping.
there is a reason why non automatic appeals are not free, else those convicted could simply keep their cases open at cost to the tax payer when guilt had been properly assessed.
Neither are automatic appeals, or this whole thread wouldn't be happening. The appeal here is automatic.
That also has the added bonus of making people think twice about engaging people in civil suits and prevents people and bad prosecutors from using the legal system for blackmail.
If I were to barely break even at the end of each month, and was tried for a crime I didn't commit I might still consider pleading guilty because the actual punishment would be less than the results of the financial penalty incurred by defending yourself and losing. If I were rich enough to easily pay the fees should I lose, I would risk it.
A better idea is common throughout the world.
Look, I'm fine with people advocating through the judicial process, but all things considered, of all people who are 'disadvantaged' in their legal proceedings and should 'deserving' of receiving government-sponsored legal aid (because there already is legal aid in this case, to the tune of <however much this amount in OP says right now>), this case's (and defendant's) scorecard looks pretty weak.
Would having to pay if you lose help, too? I imagine there would be fewer lawsuits then. I don't have any data to back it up, but it feels like the U.S. has the most lawsuits/capita. Other countries where you have to pay if you lose don't have that many.
Anyway, it definitely doesn't feel fair that you need hundreds of thousands of dollars for a good defense. That's why most people tend to take the plea deal even if they are not guilty of the charges they bring, or if they are "guilty" but only through some twisted interpretations of the law and the prosecutors, which could be invalidated in a Court, but they can't risk it (especially when the prosecutors tend to charge them with 10 different offenses and 30 years in prison for the least violent of crimes just to scare them into taking the 6 months in prison plea deal).
The U.S. prosecutors seem to be acting exactly like patent trolls - or the mafia: "We won't take you to Court if you just pay this small sum - or go to prison for this small amount of time."
So, I guess your idea won't work. Either the legislature thinks up front and publishes 500 pages, or the courts have to fill in the blanks between page 5 and page 500 themselves.
At this point one might object that lawyers make too much money, but then I'd like to say that most everybody on this site working for a big company, or working for their own, costs this much or charges this much (or should charge as much, if they're 'professionals' and not 'I can set up Wordpress'-style workers).
Also, let's say that there are no expenses, i.e. only lawyers who live close to wherever the cases are heard (no plane tickets, no hotels), that all proceeding are in the same location, that the defendant is held somewhere close as well, that everybody working the case drives cars that run on air etc.
So then we have ~ 6 months, for a single person with some part-time help to do the menial stuff, to research the case, prepare all briefs, do all trial prep work (I don't know anything about this case but let's say you want to call 3 character witnesses. That's a week right there just selecting them, convincing them to come, prepping them, filing the paperwork etc.); to do the PR; to work with other stakeholders; the actual proceedings (which might span several court sessions - motion for this and that, pre-trial hearing(s), the actual trial, etc. I think it's clear that a single person can't do all of this in 6 months.
It's just what things cost in the real world. But hey, it could have been worse, you could've gone to court in Europe - in which case you'd get to pay between 15 and 25% VAT on top of it (probably not in all European countries, before someone jumps on that).
There is no dispute that Manning actually did most of the things she is accused of doing. I don't think she's contending that it was someone else who leaked those classified materials. The defense is in a position of arguing that, despite those things, for various reasons Manning should nonetheless be found not guilty, or at least her sentence should be reduced. They will try to make the case not about straightforward factual events, but about Manning's intentions and motivations, the nature of the information involved, the impact of the disclosures, the broader social and political implications of finding her guilty, etc.
A straightforward legal procedure would certainly be cheaper. It'd also be one that would find Manning guilty without even considering the mitigating factors she's relying on for her defense.
To me this sounds close to saying that there is the law of the common person - where you are sent to rot in jail if you break the rules, and the law of the people who are wealthy enough to pay for complicated defense strategies.
I'm not trying to build a straw man here, just trying to figure out where the difference in our (moral?) thinking lies.
Isn't it close to the idea that the state should provide a humane living standard for those who can't provide for themselves. Such as not starving, basic healthcare etc - but anything beyond that is something that every person has to earn themselves. This seems like something close to a moral conviction to liberal-minded people, sometimes. "If you can afford it, you deserve it."
I'm wondering if it's the same thinking that guides you here. A basic "throw them in jail if they did it" law that doesn't allow for complicated cases, and a deluxe version that takes into account other things than "straightforward factual events", for those who can afford it?
I'm not convinced, but maybe I'm just not getting your point.
More like, it doesn't apply for cases where your defense is "I totally did it, but I'm not guilty because..."
in such a circumstance, you're essentially hoping to convince a judge or jury that your law-breaking was OK, which is significantly more difficult and requires significantly more research than if you merely needed to convince the jury that you hadn't broken the law.
The law is complex, and the interpretation of it is a skill we pay people a lot for.
For example. Let's say I confess to killing someone, but I claim it was self defense. I "totally did it", but the self-defense is a complication. Maybe my lawyer sucks, and maybe I killed this person in the wrong state and I'll get a lethal injection. Maybe I can afford a great lawyer and I'll get out of jail (although not for free...).
If the court decides that I acted in self defense, I didn't break the law, right? Or would you say that I broke the law and got away with it? The way I see it, my actions may be clear, but the legality of them are in a kind of dual state which doesn't collapse into a "guilty" or "not guilty" until there is an actual verdict. And even this is an oversimplification, of course.
Right -- and that's written in the law. There are a number of similar laws which hold that X is illegal except in circumstance Y. I'm not aware of exceptions of that form in this particular case, though, which is what makes the defense complicated -- it's not "I did it but it's not illegal", it's "I did it, it's against the law, but don't convict me because the law was wrong for this reason" which is actually a pretty difficult defense.
Consider that most of our criminal laws have a "mens rea" (i.e. mental state) requirement in addition to the "actus reus" (i.e. culpable conduct). Cases would be a lot cheaper to prosecute and defend without those mental state elements. It's very time consuming, and therefore expensive, to litigate the question of what someone was thinking when they took certain actions. Did Manning leak that information? Was that information classified? If so, she's guilty. No need to spend lots of time and money arguing about what she was thinking or what motivated her to leak the information.
What you're talking about is a slightly different issue--who should bear the cost of allowing ordinary people to mount complicated and expensive legal defenses? That's outside the scope of what I'm talking about above.
At the very least, having a fund or pool of some sort might not be a bad idea, and it would not cost us much.
Ordinary people sometimes require extraordinary legal defenses. Sometimes they deserve them too. We hear about the ones who didn't get what they deserve in the news.
We do prosecute on intent, and we often make judgements on intent too. Spending that time and money to determine intent is warranted.
You've made a good case against that solution. But I remain far from convinced that there's not another solution, like having the lawyers of both sides be salaried employees of the state.
In fact, today, for poor defendants, the lawyers on both side are already salaried state employees. Moreover, federal defenders and some state public defenders (particularly in big cities) are actually very good. Believe it or not, these are highly coveted jobs, despite the dismal pay and stressful work. But that doesn't mean it isn't still possible to go hire an even better lawyer. And, when your life is on the line, this is just what people will do if they can possibly afford it.
This will result in disparities, but it's unclear how we could prevent this short of preventing people from hiring private attorneys. This seems like a non-starter, so it's probably better to focus our resources on making sure everyone's representation is adequate, than on making sure everyone's representation is the same.
But the other problem, of course, is that, although many public defenders are actually extremely gifted, their offices don't receive nearly enough funding. This means that, although it is possible for a given defendant to receive good representation (and some do), in the aggregate public defenders offices simply cannot properly do all the work that needs to be done. This is, in theory, an easy problem to solve, but unfortunately, there is little public interest in solving it. Prosecuting criminals is popular. Defending them is not. (Of course, the whole point is that not all defendants are criminals, and we need good lawyers to help the system distinguish between the two. But that's not the message that sticks with people, for some reason.)
This hints at some sort of rule that requires budget parity between the government's expenditure on the prosecution and on the defense in a given case, but I really haven't thought such an idea through sufficiently to suggest it as a solution.
It's also worth considering that, as with many other things, diminishing returns kick in at some point in one's legal defense. The objective reality of one's guilt or innocence does also, of course, play a role. Even a team of expert attorneys will have a hard time securing an acquittal with bad enough facts. So concerns about "buying justice," while real and important, are also often a bit hyperbolic.
The independent legal profession is a cornerstone of our free society. My lawyer shouldn't have to be on the payroll of the people trying to imprison me. Lawyers try to do a good job because it improves their reputation and wins them more clients.
You don't make society better by reducing the quality of everything to the lowest common denominator.
A common denominator is the only way to make things fair. You pointed out the conflict of interest; very well, that's a good point. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The system we currently have is so vulnerable to corruption, that it wouldn't be hard to make something more fair.
This is how you destroy civilizations. The Soviet Union and Cuba come to mind as places that tried to make society more fair by equally distributing poverty and oppression. You make society better by pulling the bottom up, not by pushing the top down.
Lots of ideas look ridiculous if you take them to ridiculous extremes. I'd feel silly if I had suggested a contitutional amendment requiring absolutely everything in the world to be absolutely fair in every way. Boy, I'd have egg on my face then.
It's easy to mock a straw man for looking silly, but it says a lot more about the one doing the mocking.
> How does what I spend on my lawyer affect the services that a public defender provides for someone else?
That's idiotic. In a contest between two people, one person having an unlimited budget absolutely makes a big difference. And you know this, because that was the point of your second sentence.
> Your argument is rooted in envy
Grow up. As someone who is actually pretty well off, and who has never been to court, I'm pretty confident in saying you don't know what the hell you're talking about. A desire to help the downtrodden doesn't mean I'm green with envy. You're just insulting a caricature you've drawn in your own mind with no relation to reality.
Your solution works if all lawyers are the same OR if the whole system is clean of corruption. First is impossible, second is impossible.
If you start thinking "we can make assignments fair/automated/etc." you already lost because the argument just switches to "who manages the control of assignment's fairness".
Who watches the watchmen? The answer is: no one. The world is not fair. Deal with it.
I do deal with it. I have a pretty fulfilling life. But I'll never accept someone saying "The world is not fair. Don't ever try to make it more fair."
Here's a thought- Let one party pick a pair of legal representatives, and let the other party pick who is represented by whom.
Side A picks a pair. Side B picks the representation. Both lawyers are equally mediocre. Side A's lawyer gets the materials analysis/arguments/speeches written by "Lawyer A", best in the country, now retired and working as the consultant.
Do you know why "Layer A" is working as a consultant (for $$$) and the representation lawyers are mediocre mouthpieces? Easy: as soon as Lawyer A distinguished himself in a court a few times, nobody picked him as a part of the pair at the first stage anymore (out of fear of loosing him at the second stage of selection).
Pardon me for misinterpreting "deal with it".
There are rules governing ethics for legal professionals. Those who break the rules risk their careers. This seems like a problem that could be addressed, or at least drastically mitigated.
I'm not saying that a solution rattled off the cuff in a forum on HN is what should be enshrined in law. But there's a reason everyone agrees Citizen's United is an insult to democracy. And we have the exact same problem in place in our courts, and that's an insult to justice. Unlimited money buys results. That's fucked up, and you'll never convince me otherwise.
FWIW I think the gradual curbing of the limits of power and hoping for human nature changing (or an alien invasion) is the way to go.
And regarding "whatever means necessary"- just because I can't invent something off-the-cuff to satisfy a random stranger on the internet, doesn't mean that human ingenuity, and well-thought-out legislation can't find a 90% solution. And no amount of cynical pessimism is going to change my mind about that.
As for being able to come up with some "well-thought-out legislation", maybe you don't live in the same world as me, but the 20th century is strewn with the folly of those who think they can engineer society. I don't understand why so many of us are eager to repeat their mistakes.
No, the hatred of CU is not absolutely unanimous. But it's pretty widespread, and no amount of word juggling will change the fact that it effectively allows unlimited amounts of anonymous untraceable money to influence elections.
When multiple people share an opinion and want to advocate for it, they have to spend money to get heard. Printing pamphlets, making videos, paying people to stand on the corner. You can't have freedom of speech without the corresponding freedom of advocacy.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bradley-manning-ex...
[1] He's still Bradley in this article.
I'd be fairly surprised if two of the key points on which the defense will assert that legal errors were made at trial are not:
(1) the trial court inappropriately denied the motion to dismiss all charges with prejudice due to the government's denial of Manning's Constitutional right to due process by way of unlawful pretrial punishment, and
(2) the trial court inappropriately denied the motion to dismiss all charges with prejudice due to the government's denial of Manning's Constitutional right to speedy trial.
(Note that both of these trial-court legal decisions preceded, and formed part of the context for, the guilty plea; prior to those events, Manning had not entered a plea.)
The idea that the appeal will focus only on sentence seems to me to be quite unlikely.
("According to your mighty or miserable position, The judgment of court will render you white or black.")
- Jean de la Fontaine, 1678
I love the principle of complete fairness, but how is this technically possible? Moving to a purely fact-based society may come at the expense of liberty.
1) At the beginning of the case, each party proposes how much money they would like to be spent on their side of the case.
2) The Spending Limit is set to the greater proposal. They then must pay the other party the difference between what they proposed and what the other party proposed (to be spent only on legal expenses for this case).
3) Both sides are prohibited sprom spending more than the Spending Limit on legal expenses for this case.
For example, if A and B are going to court, A proposes a $10k Limit and B proposes a $100k Limit; B has the larger number, so the cap is set at $100k, and B must pay for up to $90k legal expenses for A.
Clearly there are some details that must be worked out (eg what if someone wants to raise the limit halfway thru the case? What about money spent on preparation before going to court?) but i think this would be a good start. This proposal achieves substantive equality without sacrificing procedural equality and without preventing either party from spending as much as they want.
I contend that's a very slippery slope, because where do we draw the line and say: If you break only these laws, it's ok so long as you're "doing it for America" but if you break these other laws, that's going to far. America should not be an excuse for unlawful behavior.
Laws exist, morally right or wrong, so that they can hopefully be applied equally to everyone. That never happens, but we cannot just turn a blind eye to some crimes versus others because of morality, or "doing what is right" for America. Ms. Manning broke a law willingly, knowingly, with full appreciation for her actions. She has admitted doing so in response to American policy towards gay marriage. She's guilty, and she should be punished.
Those who do not view her actions favourably use the wrong name and pronouns.
That suggests that there's overlap between those who do not view her favourably and people who do not view transgender people favourably.
Of course, if your respect for someone's trans status is revocable, then you probably weren't that strongly in favor of trans rights to begin with.
And I've noticed that some of Edward Snowden's more vocal supporters also support Putin's actions across the board, including his hateful anti-LGBT stance.
I'm sorry but this is utter nonsense.
It sounds like you are insinuating that he was some kind of Russian agent or defector, and his supporters are have a pro-Russian agenda.
In my personal situation, I feel that while some of the leaks were very justified, a lot of the material had no reason to be released [1]. Anyways, I don't pay much attention to the case, and wasn't aware that Manning was no longer a "he". If I had just skimmed the page before commenting I might have made the same mistake. I'm sure some people are doing it on purpose, but it's important to remember that for the highest-profile parts of the case Manning was still a "he".
[1] I'm not sure what camp that puts me in - I'm not opposed to the leak of a certain subset of the leaked material, but I do feel that by not redacting anything what Manning did was irresponsible.
Side note: is there no way to escape asterisks on HN?
For the record, I lean towards thinking she should be found guilty, but I haven't put enough thought into it to feel strongly.
I don't see a moral obligation to use the pronouns people assign to themselves.
More generally, just because someone is indisputably guilty of violating some statute doesn't mean they deserve the prescribed punishment. You're taking a legal conclusion and imputing some sort of moral authority to it. The law often requires outcomes that are arguably immoral. Sometimes this provides the motivation to change the law. Other times, judges ignore the law. And sometimes, the government does terrible things because nobody does anything to stop it. It seems ridiculous to argue that someone who is arguably being punished for doing the right thing should just stand there and take whatever the law metes out.
There were several legal motions prior to the guilty plea and on which it was predicated that are quite likely to be the subject of the appeal, particularly the motions to dismiss all charges (first for Constitutional due process violations involving unlawful pretrial punishment, second for violation of the Constitutional right to a speedy trial.)
Horrible but probably true.
Otherwise, yep.
In the same way that lots of tech firms release some open-source code (in some cases, quite a lot!), legal firms often do a fair bit of pro-bono work.
Releasing stuff/providing legal services for free doesn't mean you can't eat!
A high profile criminal case such as the one against Chelsea Manning where the government throws in many man-years will only be successful if the defense also throws in a team of competent defense attorneys, researchers, assistants etc. In a huge case like this that stretches over several years and where there is vast information to deal with, this could amount to decades of man-years.
A one man boutiques usually can't handle such cases and the largest law firms typically don't take such cases. So the defendant often has to pick among law firms with 5-20 lawyers.
Such small firms usually cannot afford to allocate that much manpower to pro bono cases.
But even if they could afford it, there are numerous faster and cheaper options for marketing. As for professional satisfaction, there are plenty of cases that provide that and pays a salary meanwhile.
If they can't work pro bono, who can?
Yeah, right, they have to "put food" on the table.
So someone earning $200k could well be less well off after expenses than someone earning $50k.
Money well spent if you ask me.
>So someone earning $200k could well be less well off after expenses than someone earning $50k.
Poe's law invoked.
less disposable income != less well off
At the price they are working at, it's not about eating anymore, it's about being able to afford 3 houses, an apartment in New York, Cocaine every Friday and the Tesla or a BMW to complete the picture.
I have never seen a poor lawyer.
So obviously he is not the typical lawyer.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/15/pf/jobs/lawyer-salaries/
There's indeed a lot of potential to make third-house money as a lawyer, but it is by no means a given, and it seems a lot less likely than you think.
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Attorney_%2F_Lawyer/...
Average salaries are skewed because the top-end is so high. If you have all the bona fides (top-tier law school/clerking opportunities, high-paying specialty, good track record of winning cases) you can command an astronomical hourly rate.
However, the vast majority of lawyers don't get those opportunities, and are working schlubs just like the rest of us.
The ideal situation would be to establish a social norm, where successful pro bono defense work was a badge of honor. This work should include not only criminal defense, but also helping the poor deal with civil cases.
1. She's trans.
2. Her case is complex with many elements to it, requiring a large amount of money and time by many different people to argue correctly.
Or some combination of the two. I think 2 is far more likely here, while you seem to only think 1 is a factor. I find that position obsurd.
They are the second most hated. The most hated is the one hate groups compare all other minorities to when attacking them. The catch is that the most hated group has far better ability to pass than transgender individuals, meaning that a 'which group is worse off' classification is harder to determine.
For a case like this with 100,000's of documents tons of witnesses and experts you need more money just for the discovery phase that any non-tv law firm will be able to put out.
The defense also needs to be able to bring their own experts which in this case might be psychologists, social liberty experts, computer security and forensic experts, anti-terror and national defense experts and more, all of those cost money and a lot of it even if they are willing to come out and testify at cost.
"Brigadier general Robert Carr, a senior counter-intelligence officer who headed the Information Review Task Force that investigated the impact of WikiLeaks disclosures on behalf of the Defense Department, told a court at Fort Meade, Maryland, that they had uncovered no specific examples of anyone who had lost his or her life in reprisals that followed the publication of the disclosures on the internet. "I don't have a specific example," he said."
0: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/bradley-manning...
He is a traitor who has endangered lives.
If you want to talk about people's rights - what about the rights of the identities he leaked? Where was there trial? I don't see much sympathy for them.
So people who confess don't deserve legal representation? Really?
Even if she is a traitor, even they have a right to a legal representation in any civilised place.
If you want to talk about people's rights - what about the rights of the identities he leaked? Where was there trial? I don't see much sympathy for them.
Well, maybe if you posted the stories of the tragedies that happened to them due to the leak there would be some sympathy. Where are they?
Sure, but money doesn't change the facts.
After a confession - the reality of the outcome changes.
> Well, maybe if you posted the stories of the tragedies that happened to them due to the leak there would be some sympathy. Where are they?
There full names were leaked. Security for them has been compromised. Maybe they don't go to the news about it, they're private individuals.
Bradley Manning seems to have a lot of free defense already. Not a lot of people defending the facts. He's confessed.
That's a statement with which nobody disagrees. She still deserves a legal defence. What's your point?
There full names were leaked. Security for them has been compromised. Maybe they don't go to the news about it, they're private individuals.
Yeah, obviously tragedies get reported only when the victims mention them to news organisations. The rest just passes us by.
Bradley Manning seems to have a lot of free defense already. Not a lot of people defending the facts. He's confessed.
The fact that she divulged the documents isn't under dispute, not even by her legal team, so I don't see why would they need to be "defended".
1. Why does need a fund? It won't make much difference, he has already confessed.
2. There are plenty of other people with their lives on the line who don't get the kind of sympathy he did.
He built nothing. He didn't rise ranks. He's a childish, selfish heartbreaker who hasn't shown an inkling of remorse for the damage he has caused.
> I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Also, while I don't have an example of it, his security clearance also required a pledge. (Found it: The SF-312 http://www.sandia.gov/resources/employees/corporate_forms/_a...)
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=42926
These often state how leaking of such information can cause great damage. Snowden did the same pledge.
I find it very hard to believe that the U.S. Government will pay for sex change meds and procedures for a convicted traitor, when I can't even get them to buy me an aspirin.
By all accounts, however, Manning's gender issue was present before enlisting, and certainly before she had access to classified materials.
Manning was not convicted of treason.
> when I can't even get them to buy me an aspirin.
Presumably, the US government isn't actively denying you the liberty to actively seek a living on your own, or to get your own medical treatments as a result of imprisoning you, so it isn't obligated to provide for your medically necessary treatments. If that was the case, OTOH, and the government still wasn't providing you with medical necessities, then the situations would actually be parallel such that your complaint might be meaningful.
He pled guilty at trial, and received a fair sentence.
He did? He exposed traitors. Funny how the narrative has been forcefed.
Words mean things. In the United States, 'treason' is 'levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort' (Constitution, Article III, Section 3). Whom did Manning reveal to be levying war against the United States? Whom did he reveal to adhere to our enemies, giving them aid and comfort?
No-one. He didn't expose a single traitor.
No, what I'm saying is that murdering journalists and unarmed civilians is not treason, because…it's not.
Now, was the specific act you referred to a war crime, or a case of mistaken identification, or legitimate action against an armed group or individual within a group, or something else? Beats me. It's not my job to decide. Nor was it Manning's job to decide, nor to leak that information because he didn't like the decision of those whose job it was to decide.
It is directly aiding the enemy by giving them a great recruitment tool. A soldier would be hard pressed to find a better recruitment tool to give the enemy.
So fuck 'em, time for others to take on the responsibility.
Manning, Snowden and whoever else in future has access to information that would serve public interest and decides to risk their lives and their freedom to make it known.
They have my full support.
There is a difference between releasing data that is strictly related to the public interest and taking massive amounts of data, including information about very sensitive operations and diplomatic discussions and releasing them without regards to the damage they may cause. It's reckless.
Let's be realistic. This never would have seen the light of day and those involved would never have faced justice.
Manning didn't commit treason either unless he was trying to aid the insurgency, but there is no reason to believe that.
Yes, let us let the fox define all the terms with regards to the hen house. What could go wrong?
>Whom did he reveal to adhere to our enemies, giving them aid and comfort?
Everyone involved in covering up our mistakes that served to further recruitment efforts of our enemies. Instead of admitting the mistakes and explaining how we would prevent such mistakes in the future. Instead, they covered it up so that Americans wouldn't see it (thus protecting themselves from blow back from us) at the cost of giving the enemy a far better recruitment tool.
...that have been shown to be inadequate several times.
But Manning just took as much classified information as she could get her hands on and dumped it on an untrustworthy third party.
The vast majority of the information wasn't even leak worthy.
This isn't a case were some soldier found evidence of a crime or atrocity and was compelled to leak it.
Perhaps because exposing unethical and illegal activities carried out by your country is a service to your country, not betrayal.
Perhaps because she, like Edward Snowden, should be celebrated as a hero instead of rotting in jail.
We need those terrible people to understand that we will stand by good people who expose them for what they are.