
Chelsea Manning confirms health status with attorneys - luizlopes
https://www.chelseamanning.org/featured/chelsea-helath-status
======
grizzles
This really puts the whole Hillary Clinton email scandal into perspective,
huh?

The message seems to be that if you leak classified data to the American
people you get a big punishment, whereas if you leak classified data
carelessly (Clinton) or for your girlfriend's book (Petraeus) the most you can
expect is a slap on the wrist. That's f ed up.

~~~
sparky_z
To be fair, it's pretty standard for crimes to have differing punishments
depending on whether they were accidental or purposeful. Sometimes they're
even considered different crimes entirely (i.e., murder vs manslaughter).

(I'm not defending Chelsea's treatment here. I just think it's odd that
grizzles has singled out this particular aspect of the situation as worthy of
outrage.)

~~~
grizzles
Petraeus did it for sex. He got a fine, and no prison time.

~~~
gozur88
He also leaked far less data and had an idea of what he was leaking. Manning
did far, far more damage to national security interests the law was designed
to protect.

~~~
ricksplat
He was also in the military, which carries different expectations of
behaviour, and a tougher system of account.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
The system of account should be stricter the higher you go up, no?

Otherwise you seem to be making the case for civilian leaders to not have
access at all to sensitive information.

(Sidebar: Because of the way this played out, this is probably going to be an
impossible topic to talk about for many years. And the system is going to
suffer for it.)

~~~
gozur88
>The system of account should be stricter the higher you go up, no?

There's more than one dimension here. The "system of account", as you call it,
should be stricter the higher up you go, and it should also be stricter if
you're uniformed military.

------
rdl
When you write a letter to someone facing 20+ years more in prison, who has
just tried to kill herself, what do you say? I'm kind of at a loss for words
-- "hope you get well soon?" "hope you are out of the hospital and back to
your, uh, home soon?"

[https://www.chelseamanning.org/learn-more/write-to-
chelsea-m...](https://www.chelseamanning.org/learn-more/write-to-chelsea-
manning)

~~~
DasIch
How about not touching on that at all? Surely she hears more than enough on
that already and is confronted with it when she's not reading about it also.

Something that has nothing to do with her and her current situation, something
that allows her to escape her situation at least in her mind for a little bit,
would probably be welcome. If I were in that situation, I believe I would
appreciate that anyway.

~~~
rdl
Probably a good idea. Yan wrote about her visit and she seemed interested in
current affairs/etc. (plus writes articles, including one which went out on 3
July)

------
themartorana
Is anyone surprised she's suicidal? Locked in solitary confinement, for a
minimum of 8 years (probably a lot more), at the hands of an obviously
vindictive government - I imagine that by now I would have tried to kill
myself too.

~~~
rtpg
It's still deplorable to me that you can force someone into solitary
confinement for anything over a couple of days.

Well, a lot of the mechanisms of prison seem pretty counterproductive... 23
hours in the same room.

My understanding is that members of the military sign away a bunch of their
rights but I don't understand how throwing somebody in jail for 20 years is a
thing we came up with.

~~~
pm90
It came up as a consequence of the criminal justice system. That kind of
punishment was meant for people who could not be left by themselves as they
posed a very real threat to society: murderers, rapists, arsonists etc. Once
the system is in place, its easy to just "add" to it. Making certain things
severely punishable (e.g. the prosecution of Aaron Schwartz) just requires the
lawmakers to categorize these new crimes in a certain way and not to invent
the category itself.

Of course, if you go back further, punishments were invented by the ruling
class to keep everyone else in line. The king could pretty much have anyone
hanged if he wanted to and it took sometime before there were enough smart
people in society to suggest that this was maybe not the best way to live.

------
Swizec
This part seems a little bit ironic "Though she would have preferred to keep
her private information private".

Is that not why she's come into the public eye? For releasing private
information that some people would have preferred to keep private?

This isn't a comment on whether her leak was the right thing to do or not,
just the whole "Treat others like you want others to treat you".

~~~
lacksrigor7373
Ask yourself what value to society do Chelsea create with her leak?

Then ask, what value does broadcasting her health status everywhere provide
society?

Hopefully this will help inform you of the differences in these separate acts,
since it seems to have blown right by you at light speed.

~~~
alsetmusic
> Ask yourself what value to society do Chelsea create with her leak? > Then
> ask, what value does broadcasting her health status everywhere provide
> society?

(Not who you replied to, but...)

I believe Chelsea Manning deserves privacy for an issue such as this, but also
hope that the situation will (at least) make more people contemplate the
extreme nature of solitary. I would be undone fifty times by now if I were
isolated by force.

