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A comment on Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf]. Parent comment

Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by jswizzy on Thursday March 12, 2020 @06:07PM (#22562396)
Manning was never a whistleblower hence the espionage charges.
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Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by kick on Thursday March 12, 2020 @06:13PM (#22562461)
She was a whistleblower, hence everyone with a hint of credibility saying she was.

Also, it's customary on HN to point out when you have a conflict of interest. You work for a military contractor & used to work for the government, and probably should disclose that when talking about a subject so closely tied to your work.

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Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by dang on Sunday March 15, 2020 @01:56PM (#22585183)
It's a form of personal attack to bring in someone's personal history as ammunition in an argument. You can't do that on HN, regardless of how strongly you feel about some other commenter or their work. No amount of personal upbraiding is worth the damage it does to the container. Please don't do it again.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

The case of using someone's employer or field to shame them is particularly bad for this site, because it disincentivizes people from showing up where they have the most expertise. It's true that we're all strongly biased by our work, so some distortion is inevitable, but having HN be a place where people feel free to show up on topics that they're knowledgeable in is more important than policing each other for bias.

We're also trying to avoid the online callout/shaming culture on HN in general.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by dependenttypes on Thursday March 12, 2020 @10:43PM (#22564242)
> You work for a military contractor & used to work for the government, and probably should disclose that when talking about a subject so closely tied to your work.

How do you know that? I don't see anything in their profile. Was it a post that they made?

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Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by kick on Thursday March 12, 2020 @11:11PM (#22564386)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21583369

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22081500

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Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by kevin_thibedeau on Thursday March 12, 2020 @06:55PM (#22562870)
The gun camera footage, maybe, but the state dept. cables were not blowing any whistle.
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Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by SlowRobotAhead on Thursday March 12, 2020 @06:54PM (#22562847)
Can you help me understand the difference between leaker and whistleblower?
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Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by smsm42 on Thursday March 12, 2020 @07:14PM (#22563035)
Whistleblower is commonly understood to uncover illegal, criminal or otherwise punishable activity within the organization, that is being hidden. Thus the metaphor of "blowing the whistle" - as in, attracting attention to something untoward going on. However, just releasing secret documents which do not contain the proof of any specific criminal, or otherwise untoward, behavior is not "whistleblowing". For example, Manning released 251,287 US Diplomatic cables and 482,832 Army reports - unless you consider the whole US Diplomatic corps and US Army to be a criminal enterprises, this goes way beyond whistleblowing, as described above.
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Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by sybarita on Thursday March 12, 2020 @07:04PM (#22562967)
I mean do you understand what it is that she "leaked"? Her intentions were obviously good, she was blowing the whistle on the government committing war crimes, at her own expense, no benefit. She may have not gone through proper channels, but you can't even really expect to be protected by those systems anyway. A "leak" is generally done for some kind of personal benefit or simply to cause harm and has no noble intention. the information leaked did not put anyone in danger but did expose crimes committed by the military. She should never have been jailed in the first place, free her.
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Re:Chelsea Manning ordered to be released [pdf] by panzagl on Friday March 13, 2020 @11:06AM (#22567815)
A 'whistleblower' has protections gained by following the correct procedure to identify improper/criminal behavior first. If those actions result in punishment you can bring a suit against the offending party.
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