Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy

[mcnoch]

An Army judge on Tuesday acquitted Pfc. Bradley Manning of aiding the enemy by disclosing a trove of secret U.S. government documents, a striking rebuke to military prosecutors who argued that the largest leak in U.S. history had assisted al-Qaeda.

The judge, Col. Denise Lind, found Manning guilty of most of the more than 20 crimes he was charged with. She also acquitted him of one count of the espionage act that stemmed from his leak of a video that depicted a fatal U.S. military airstrike in Farah, Afghanistan.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/judge-to-announce-verdict-in-bradley-manning-case-today/2013/07/29/e894a75c-f897-11e2-afc1-c850c6ee5af8_story.html?wpisrc=al_national

[Deleted]

How a PFC had access to so much classified information is a wonder in its self , but the judge should order Manning to receive a good old fashion ass kicking which would do wonders to the little pricks attitude .

[mcnoch]

In line with the inflation of the surveillance and data gathering in the USA the number of persons with "top secret" clearence grew too. I've read in Die Welt that now more than 115 000 have the highest level and close to 3 million the level below as more and more pooling of the data is happening and now police officers can read military intel too.

[Deleted]

Jul 30, 2013 13:10:13 GMT -5 mcnoch said:

In line with the inflation of the surveillance and data gathering in the USA the number of persons with "top secret" clearence grew too. I've read in Die Welt that now more than 115 000 have the highest level and close to 3 million the level below as more and more pooling of the data is happening and now police officers can read military intel too.

That was a BIG problem when I was in the Army over 35 years ago. There were always complaints that too many people had at least Top Secret clearances. And those clearances weren't really the problem. It was all the extra accesses that went along with the, many codewords or program accesses. When I retired, I was highly recruited by the defense industry because all my clearances and accesses were portable, i.e., they could be used almost immediately instead of the company having to go through the expense and two year time period of having me undergo a background check and bring up to date (BUTD) investigation.

I can just imagine how bad it must be now.

[Deleted]

The bigger problem is if a PFC can handle all this info what do we need Generals for , in fact what do we need secrets for .

[Deleted]

Anyone with access and a memory stick can do this. It isn't brain surgery.

[Sir John]

136 years should be just enough!