bradley manning

[tcirillo]

don't know if this is the right subforum.  i have posted to FB, ARI, AtlasSociety, and tweeted various folks:

 

Tom Cirillo

24 minutes ago

 

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i am an objectivist. i am confused as to why i haven't seen a single post, op ed, pov on a forum...anything, on the bradley manning situation. this is a very complicated issue, involving at least: free speech, treason, appropriate detainment, moral underpinnings of his actions...i could go on. it seems based on the little i know that the objectivist position would be on one side here, perhaps on another side there. but i'd love to see a position regarding his actions and their consequences, but leaders in the objectivist community. i wll share this post with the appropriate parties.

 

of course anyone is welcome to jump in here with an opinion, the more reasoned the better.  

 

tom

 

[softwareNerd]

See this thread and this one.

[tcirillo]

thank you.  i was hoping for an objectivist 'position statement' and a current one at that.  a lot has happened since 2010 (certainly the detainment).  i'll keep looking and prodding. thanks, tom

[softwareNerd]

thank you.  i was hoping for an objectivist 'position statement' and a current one at that.  a lot has happened since 2010 (certainly the detainment).  i'll keep looking and prodding. thanks, tom

I don't think the passage of time has changed anything. Have any new facts emerged?  I think Manning's action was wrong.

 

I've seen people say that governments should not have secrets.  This is essentially an anarchist position, not an Objectivist argument. The counter-arguments consist of all Objectivist arguments against anarchism. 

 

The stronger argument in favor of Manning is that what he did (and what Wikileaks does) is a check on oppressive government. There's something in that, in theory, but the devil is in the details. Someone who thinks "the U.S. government is oppressive" and then proceeds to give contents of a classified server to a third-party is acting immorally. What if he helps some other government by revealing something? Does he think the U.S. government is on the same moral level as the one in North Korea, in Iran, in Syria, in Egypt, or in Russia? Anyone acting from such a view is even worse.

 

If one is aware of real oppression by the U.S. government, and if one can bring that to light without at the same time causing more harm than good, then one can decide to reveal only such material as is relevant: probably just enough to convince a journalist that you are not a conspiracy theorist, and no more. Even so, this is not something I recommend casually. Revealing any classified document is illegal and one ought not break the law unless one has weighed things pretty well: considering the value of the revelation against the harm it could bring and against the personal cost to you.

 

(There is no "Objectivist position", but from what I've seen, some of my Objectivist friends are pro-Manning but most think he was wrong.)

 

Compared to Manning, I'm more sympathetic to the guy who revealed the recent information about the government getting everyone's phone records. (The Guardian did an article on him today.) I think he scores well over Manning on both the things that count:

• how important is it to blow the whistle on the particulars that he reveals; and,
• how selective is he about revealing enough to blow the whistle and nothing more

Edited June 9, 2013 by softwareNerd

[Nicky]

Luckily, someone just provided a real life example of how a whistle blower should go about revealing criminal activity in government:

His name is Edward Snowden, he's an NSA contractor, and he's apparently the person who revealed to the media the existence of the NSA program that spies on Americans:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/09/report-nsa-contract-worker-is-surveillance-source/

Instead of indiscriminately dumping massive amounts of sensitive information on the Internet, he provided the media with specific information about wrongdoing.

Apparently, he lives in Hong Kong (that's a pretty smart location, I would think, since he is technically in China and under the protection of Chinese sovereignty, but at the same time not under the direct control of the Communist government), and has decided to be open about his role in this scandal.

Edited June 9, 2013 by Nicky

[aleph_1]

Does he think the U.S. government is on the same moral level as the one in North Korea, in Iran, in Syria, in Egypt, or in Russia? Anyone acting from such a view is even worse.

 

No, we don't see in the US the same level of official oppression as in those countries, but we have crossed the Rubicon in terms of violating the terms of the Bill of Rights. The Justice Department is oppressing journalists, violating the First Amendment. Attempts are being made to restrict our Second Amendment rights. The Fourth Amendment is made a mockery of by the NSA spying on US citizens. The Fifth Amendment has been regularly violated and the Tenth Amendment might as well not even exist. The Internal Revenue Service is oppressing political opponents of the president, making a mockery of equal protection under the law. So is the Environmental Protection Agency, the Treasury Department, and other parts of the US government.

 

The bond is broke. The Republic no longer exists. Without impressive moves to restore the constitution, the US government, as originally constituted, no longer exists. Without a loud cry--howls of opposition--we are rolling over, taking it willfully, and rightfully deserve the despotic democracy we have constructed. Anyone who actually read Obama's book should have known that he is a man who is not governed by philosophy but by expediency. These make the worst sorts of despots since you cannot trust a single word emanating from their mouths.

 

Yes, without governmental constraints it is only a matter of time before we see the sorts of attrocities happening in the lowest sorts of countries. The US is acting on the same moral level, just not to the same extent.

[mdegges]

 I think he scores well over Manning on both the things that count:

• how important is it to blow the whistle on the particulars that he reveals; and,
• how selective is he about revealing enough to blow the whistle and nothing more

 

Isn't the belief that the government should declassify everything that isn't a threat to national security? Sure, most of Manning's leaks (videos of airstrikes, the iraq war logs, afghan war diary, etc) made US soldiers look bad... but that's because what they did (namely, killing tons of innocent civilians) was wrong. What is the problem with 'leaking' this information?

[softwareNerd]

Isn't the belief that the government should declassify everything that isn't a threat to national security?

No, just a week ago someone with anarchist leanings who also thinks of himself as inspired by Objectivism told me that the whole notion that governments should have any secrets at all was an outdated idea. Anyhow, we can write that view off as outlier for the purpose of this thread.

Also, if someone thinks "the bond is broke" and it is all deuces wild, then there is no basis to convince them to discriminate between what to release and what not to release. That is a level of folly that requires a different argument.

So my basic premises (which I simply assume here) are:

• anarchy is worse than almost any form of government including Soviet-style communism;
• it is folly (and indeed evil) to want to undermine the U.S. government as such (as opposed to wanting to peacefully change how the government works).

Sure, most of Manning's leaks (videos of airstrikes, the iraq war logs, afghan war diary, etc) made US soldiers look bad... but that's because what they did (namely, killing tons of innocent civilians) was wrong. What is the problem with 'leaking' this information?

If Manning thought that the government needed to be exposed in some particular area, he should have chosen what he wanted to reveal, and not release anything else.

Among the stuff he revealed, perhaps there are documents that would be okay to reveal. I do not know. My point is that if he has decided to break the law and decide for himself what is right and wrong, then he has to go all the way and decide what to reveal and what not to reveal. If he's going to put his judgement above the law, then he must be held to that judgement.

Finally, civilians die in wars, and soldiers sometimes do evil things to the enemy and to civilians. Governments must have processes that police the army. it is not legitimate to release all information about such acts to the public at large unless there is an active cover-up within those processes. Otherwise, one is simply providing a one-sided picture that become enemy propaganda.

[Nicky]

Isn't the belief that the government should declassify everything that isn't a threat to national security? Sure, most of Manning's leaks (videos of airstrikes, the iraq war logs, afghan war diary, etc) made US soldiers look bad... but that's because what they did (namely, killing tons of innocent civilians) was wrong. What is the problem with 'leaking' this information?

Should a country's diplomatic cables be kept private or public? In other words, should the US conduct diplomatic talks with the officials of other governments in private or public, and should US diplomats communicate amongst themselves, and with the leaders of their government, in private or public?

Then there is the small issue of US informants in Iraq, Afghanistan , and many other places,(many of these are people risking their lives to help the US fight terrorism) being put in danger by the data dump.

Edited June 10, 2013 by Nicky

[Eiuol]

Yes, without governmental constraints it is only a matter of time before we see the sorts of attrocities happening in the lowest sorts of countries. The US is acting on the same moral level, just not to the same extent.

Yes, a very, very, very long time. It's really not that bad. I'm not going to address your points, but at least this case is an example of things going decently and perhaps even well. Even if you are right about how terrible the other things are (I really don't think you are right), you can't use that to show there is something wrong about punishing Bradley Manning. I understand you're point is that we've passed the Rubicon, so perhaps Manning was making a courageous decision in your view, but if that's the case, it sounds like you advocate bringing down the government indirectly right *now*. If it's not nearly as bad as North Korea, how can you say it's okay *right now* for how Manning went about this?

[mdegges]

• it is folly (and indeed evil) to want to undermine the U.S. government as such (as opposed to wanting to peacefully change how the government works)....

Finally, civilians die in wars, and soldiers sometimes do evil things to the enemy and to civilians.

Yes, of course they do- but should these acts be kept from the public just because they make the US look bad? For instance, should the government forbid the publishing of civilian casualties? .. or friendly-fire incidents? How far would you take this 'undermining the government is evil' belief? I don't know exactly where the line is, but there is a line between 'undermining the government' and publishing real facts to inform the public about what's going on.

 

Otherwise, one is simply providing a one-sided picture that become enemy propaganda.

 

I agree with you here.. but just because something makes the US look bad doesn't mean it should be kept private.

[softwareNerd]

I agree with you here.. but just because something makes the US look bad doesn't mean it should be kept private.

Yes, I agree. Revealing bad stuff can often be more good than bad. It must be something that would really make the U.S. look bad to a reasonable, rational person, and revealing it should not damage some ongoing U.S. source or legitimate secret. Even such things are best brought out via a proper process: for instance, a court martial that looks into evidence of soldiers doing something, exploring the evidence and publishing the results. Only where such a legal process itself is undermined is there an excuse to break the law.

[mdegges]

On that note-

 

What makes leak cases difficult is that some leaking—some interaction between reporters and sources who have access to classified information—is normal, even indispensable, in a society with a free press. It’s not easy to draw the line between those kinds of healthy encounters and the wholesale, reckless dumping of classified information by the likes of Snowden or Bradley Manning. Indeed, Snowden was so irresponsible in what he gave the Guardian and the Post that even these institutions thought some of it should not be disseminated to the public. The Post decided to publish only four of the forty-one slides that Snowden provided. Its exercise of judgment suggests the absence of Snowden’s. -NYorker

[softwareNerd]

On that note-

Wow! that article does not live up to the intellectual standards of the New Yorker.

 

First, the author claims that there's nothing new or surprising about the revelations. According to the author "any marginally attentive citizen" would have some notion of what was going on. Yet, on the other hand, revealing these obvious things rises above the revelation of actual secrets to journalists which the authors says is "normal even indispensable".

Then, as his proof that too much was revealed, he says the Post would not have revealed all of it. Is that proof? And he links to the post article that has no such proof. Perhaps he thinks that by putting a link next to non-evidence, the reader will assume that the evidence actually exists at the link.

Finally, the author talks about Snowden's motives of "ego" rather than "his conscience", as if people who leak are typical staid folk who want not to rock the boat. One must understand, as McArdle rightly points out that "Whistleblowers are Weird". If we find that Snowden simply wanted to embarrass the government, or that he was working with the Chinese, or something like that, that would be news. Stuff that this author throws at him are empty smears, not much different from folk who are saying he is a loner, nerdy, loser who wanted his shot in the spotlight. 

 

Instead of "Snowden is no hero", the article should be titled "I Jeffery Toobin am not a real journalist"

Edited June 12, 2013 by softwareNerd

[mdegges]

The bit that interested me was that only some of the information provided by Snowden was published. (The details are fuddled but both Greenwald and Gellman have said that all the info wasn't published.) Toobin thinks this is a negative, and believes it shows that Snowden didn't use any judgement or restraint when it came to releasing this information. That could be the case.. but it might be reassuring (to those who think guys like Manning and Snowden have no regard for national security) to know that even whistleblowers cannot get all of their info published. There are multiple checks along the way to ensure that truly important, life-or-death info is not released to the public.

 

Also- that McArdle article is pretty weird itself. "[Whistleblowers] are weird in their own way, because they have to be in order to be willing to violate the trust of their group in order to protect a principle... We may well end up grateful to Edward Snowden, and also find that we don't like him very much.  Of course, Edward Snowden probably doesn't care.  After all, if he cared about people liking him as much as the rest of us do, he probably wouldn't have been able to do with he did." Since when is that a bad thing?

[Hairnet]

• anarchy is worse than almost any form of government including Soviet-style communism;

 

   I believe in an organized government. However both you and Diana Hsieh have both asserted this and I don't think that this is true. We actually have a place were absolute communist dictatorship has collapsed in a stateless society. According to this argument, Islamic/Tribal Feudalism is better than totalitarian communism.

 

   

[Nicky]

 I believe in an organized government. However both you and Diana Hsieh have both asserted this and I don't think that this is true. We actually have a place were absolute communist dictatorship has collapsed in a stateless society. According to this argument, Islamic/Tribal Feudalism is better than totalitarian communism.

 

   

Well, the quality of "absolute totalitarianism" (or something close to it, since it's never really "absolute") depends a lot on the quality of the people in charge. Obviously, it's never gonna be an ideal form of government, but you also can't equate a totalitarian government lead by Queen Victoria to an equally totalitarian government lead by Stalin or Kim Jong Il.

Anarchy, on the other hand, is the rule of the worst thug around. So, while it won't be worse that the worst of totalitarian states, it's gonna be worse than the average totalitarian state. It's gonna be worse than post-Stalinist Soviet communism for instance.

[2046]

   I believe in an organized government. However both you and Diana Hsieh have both asserted this and I don't think that this is true. We actually have a place were absolute communist dictatorship has collapsed in a stateless society. According to this argument, Islamic/Tribal Feudalism is better than totalitarian communism.

 

   

Yeah, I mean, perhaps living under, say, the worst of the anarchist communities in the Spanish civil war would be somewhere close to the same thing as living under Soviet Russia, but I have a hard time seeing living under a system with the strucure of something like the Icelandic Free State would be worse than living under a Stalinist one.

 

It's a strange double standard that people can recognize that states (even totalitarian ones) can come in a variety of different political structures, so that the failure of one type proves nothing against another, but on the other hand, it is assumed that anarchies are all the same, so if one instance of anarchy fails to be libertarian, then it counts against all. Of course not all anarchies are automatically libertarian, so it should go without saying that living under an anarchy "ruled by the worst thug around" would be probably about the same as living in a state "ruled by the worst thug around." But this says nothing about whether the NSA is justified or not, or whether the leaks are justified in terms of objectivist ethics..

Edited June 17, 2013 by 2046