FBI Admits That Obeying The Constitution Just Takes Too Much Time

If You Were Bradley Manning, What Would You Do?

from the put-yourself-in-his-shoes dept

Thu, Jun 20th 2013 4:16am — Mike Masnick

Some Bradley Manning supporters have put together a very compelling campaign, called I Am Bradley Manning, asking the government to drop the "aiding the enemy" charge against Bradley Manning and noting the chilling effects it has on whistleblowers. The key part of the campaign is a five minute video of various well-known people talking about Bradley Manning and asking what would you do if you were in his shoes, and saw that your government was lying to the public, and doing things that you believed went against the very values and principles you were supposed to be fighting for. The video includes commentary from a variety of different people, including Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, reporter Matt Taibbi, actors Russell Brand, Wallace Shawn, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and many more, musicians Roger Waters, Tom Morello, Moby and many more. For whatever reason -- even with all of the new attention paid to leaking due to Ed Snowden, the travesty that is the Bradley Manning trial still just isn't getting that much attention. One hopes that a bit more mainstream interest might change that. It really is an important question: if you were in Bradley Manning's shoes, what would you do?

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: bradley manning, i am bradley manning, whistleblowing

31 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Another AC, 20 Jun 2013 @ 4:22am

I would like to say I would have done the same thing...
... but I don't think I would have the courage to do what he did.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2013 @ 4:53am
  
  Re: I would like to say I would have done the same thing...
  Ditto. I am a coward (not only in the anonymous fashion) and would likely fight myself for weeks to months to years over what I should do. Then again, I've never been faced with a situation of such importance to other people, so I can only hope that would be incentive enough.
  
  I'll probably never know if I have the strength necessary that I doubt I have, but I appreciate knowing that Manning does have it.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- John Fenderson (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 2:00pm
  
  Re: I would like to say I would have done the same thing...
  Me too. I'm not a cowardly person, and I tend to act on my beliefs even when it's easier or less harmful to turn my back on them, so I would like to believe I would do the same as Snowden.
  
  However, this is one of those "easy to say when you aren't actually facing it" kinds of situations. So, to be 100% honest with myself, I don't really know what I'd do.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - John Fenderson (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 2:00pm
    
    Re: Re: I would like to say I would have done the same thing...
    Err, Manning, not Snowden. Sorry.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 21 Jun 2013 @ 12:25pm
  
  Re: I would like to say I would have done the same thing...
  I already know what I would do. I worked for a company in the past who had shady practices when it came to most everything. I had domain admin access, so I was able to watch my own back, but I saw stuff happen both to internal employees and external clients that would make your head spin.
  
  What did I do? Well, I was pretty junior at the time and I knew the job looked good on my resume, so I rode it out, kept my head down, and once I had enough experience to get something better, left and did so. Honestly, I can't imagine doing it any differently. That company is still in business and I know is never going to change (even if I blew a whistle to someone, I watched them weasel out of enough to know it wouldn't affect much), so all I could do was stay on guard, get something out of it, and move on. I still have a good reference and quite a bit of experience from there.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ninja (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 4:23am

I don't know, what a person that has virtually nothing to lose could do?

I'd simply escape all the torture and psychological harm by hiding inside myself.

I wonder what kind of person Bradley will be if somehow people manage to make to free him from the dictatorship.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2013 @ 4:33am

Of course it's not getting much attention, because regardless of how the government tries to spin the decision, by claiming Manning "aided the enemy" the are essentially stating they consider the American people the enemy (which is why, like Snowden, they rarely name a specific "enemy", just "potential terrorists").
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Berenerd (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 5:52am
  
  Re:
  And this is my thought exactly. He made the american people aware of what our government was doing. He gave nothing to the enemy other than talking points to prove the US is not holier than thou, which they already knew anyhow. I wonder if the US government really understands the full meaning of their actions at this point. The US people can only keep a blind eye for so long.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - AB, 20 Jun 2013 @ 6:49am
    
    Re: Re:
    Even the 'talking points' are actually a gift to the US since a country that still has something to talk about is far less likely to attack.
    
    The fact is that nothing he told was harmful to the US, though some of it was certainly uncomfortable to specific individuals within said US. Of course that hardly counts since those individuals are the greatest existing threat to the nation - far greater than any terrorists, real or imagined.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
horse with no name, 20 Jun 2013 @ 4:38am

if I was bradley manning
I would feel very bad for getting used by Assange.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- art guerrilla (profile), 21 Jun 2013 @ 3:52am
  
  Re: if I was bradley manning
  ...and yet, feeling not-so-bad for being used like a tampon by your copymaximalist overlords...
  
  funny, that, eh...
  
  art guerrilla
  aka ann archy
  eof
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
renato maalouli, 20 Jun 2013 @ 5:51am

BRADLEY MANNING AND EDWARD SNOWDEN
BRADLEY MANNING AND EDWARD SNOWDEN

What were their crimes even??

The right to exercise FREE EXPRESSION, only to be subdued, chastened the worst possible way, ruthlessly brutal and painful to which the government itself makes the country such partnership, to be a greater control of nationals of the U.S. and the world and thus be targeted only the information that interests and convenient to own U.S. government and Israel. What is missing now. Put a camera in my bathroom?

Thank hacker American government, and the president of this country, Barack Obama (I trusted him), you helped me a lot in the exercise of my individual freedom and you also "never" persecuted those who think different from you.

"DESIRE" total progress for all intellectuals throughout the world from this discovery;
THANK YOU;

+ + May God forever and BRADLEY MANNING EDWARD SNOWDEN.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2013 @ 6:00am

he's basically giving up his life to tell the people what was going on. People like him start revolutions. If the rest of us don't pick up the slack, we'll be killing him, and allowing the corruption to continue. This one man has more courage than the rest of us put together, if we let it happen.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Zos (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 6:00am

i like to think i'd have gone the snowden route, and gotten myself to somewhere difficult to extradite from. but without mannings example i don't know if i would have been paranoid enough.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it

out_of_the_blue, 20 Jun 2013 @ 6:55am

pirate mike supporting illegal passing on of information to enemies and thieves putting at risk many lives.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2013 @ 7:26am
  
  Re:
  What lives? What enemy? Can you even point to any specific harm that has been caused by this, other than the obvious illegal activity of the government?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2013 @ 7:43am
  
  Re:
  milk milk milk... or is that another troll?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2013 @ 7:58am
  
  Re:
  out_of_the_blue supporting torture and war crimes.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2013 @ 9:53am
    
    Re: Re:
    How else would copyright ever get enforced?
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Rikuo (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 10:45am
  
  Re:
  And if memory serves me right, just about two or three weeks ago, the US government said that the identity of the "enemies" themselves is secret. So, what enemy did Manning aid? Who died because of him?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Marcel de Jong (profile), 21 Jun 2013 @ 3:12am
  
  Re:
  Moron out_of_the_blue talking out of his ass again, trying to muddle the discussion with his trollish behaviour, putting the grown-up's discussion at risk, without backing up any of his claims.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jeff (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 7:23am

WWBMD
I'm having all kinds of trinkets made up that says "WWBMD"... think it'll be a best seller? I'm thinking of making them black to symbolize the darkness of the hood of justice(tm) being pulled over our eyes...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Marcel de Jong (profile), 21 Jun 2013 @ 3:37am
  
  Re: WWBMD
  Add some yellow as well; the "awareness ribbon" for suicide prevention is yellow in color.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
tqk (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 8:20am

What would Bradley Manning do? He'd get nailed to a cross. He'd be a deer in the headlights. He'd be a Winston Smith, utterly oblivious to the magnitude of the avalanche of power about to fall and crush him. This's the 21st Century. The proper response to it is a cross between Jason Bourne and the Inglorious Bastards; that is, if you don't wish to end up like roadkill.

Snowden has the right idea, but he's far too trusting and naive as well.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ECA (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 8:38am

I thought
That justice was supposed to be handled quickly.
NOT sitting in jail for 2 years..

is the military court so busy that it cant do him justice?
if it is...WOW, what are we doing wrong.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- JeroenW, 20 Jun 2013 @ 10:15am
  
  Re: I thought
  In a country that has several hunderd political prisoners in the Guatanamo Gulag without trial? I admire your optimism.
  
  Just wondering... when he is convicted, can he still get a book deal?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Rikuo (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 10:46am
  
  Re: I thought
  Actually, it was 3 years sitting in a jail. Manning leaked the cables in 2010.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
jupiterkansas (profile), 20 Jun 2013 @ 10:42am

Ugh! I can't stand seeing privileged Hollywood celebrities spouting off on their political pulpits.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- The dude, 20 Jun 2013 @ 11:44am
  
  Re:
  At least its for a good cause and not some of the nonsense they sometimes advocate.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Rekrul, 20 Jun 2013 @ 1:24pm

What would I have done?

I would have taken the information, scrubbed it of anything that could directly endanger lives (names of informants, etc), removed anything that could identify me, made multiple copies while wearing rubber gloves and then covertly mailed them from another city to various news outlets and/or Wikileaks, all while doing my job and keeping my head down.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jake, 20 Jun 2013 @ 4:15pm

Well, I might have tried getting the FBI to take an interest in the documents showing a US defence contractor was procuring underage rent-boys to sweeten deals with the Afghan authorities before I went the Wikileaks route. Even if it got hushed up, at least I could say I'd tried to raise concerns through the proper channels.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]