Hey, you got one right. Congratulations! 
We’re not at war, and the The New York Times and Wall Street Journal are not enemies of the US. It’s not treason. That doesn’t mean the government won’t try to make an example out of him, though, and it will be a bad precedent for the free press.
No. Mr. Moto is wrong, unless I misunderstand what he is saying.
First of all, the Universal Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) is part of the federal penal code. The UCMJ governs the conduct of all service members. Manning couldn’t be tried as a civilian.
Secondly, this is in a military court rather than federal court because the alleged crimes did not take place in the US.
Except Manning is not a member of the press, and we are at war. It’s a misconception that a state of war – congress passed separate joint resolutions for both Afghanistan and Iraq .
We’re not at war. There has never been a declaration of war against either Iraq or Afghanistan. We are currently not even in any conflict with Afghanistan.
Moreover, Manning gave no information to any enemy. There’s no treason here. There are going to be a buttload of other charges, but not treason.
Like I stated above, Clause 3 of Article 134 of the UCMJ allows for servicemembers to be prosecuted for any federal charge, including those not specifically mentioned in the UCMJ. This would of course be a court martial.
Do you consider this a factually correct answer, or are you just trying to be cute? It’s hard to take your posts seriously when you post this kind of bollox.
Yeah yeah, I know. Korea was a “Police Action” and Vietnam wasn’t a war either, right?
You can’t possibly believe that any charge of espionage or treason would rest on whether or not there was an official declaration of war, do you?
It is a factually correct answer. We are not currently engaged in any declared war, and we have no declared enemy.
I don’t know, I was just correcting a factual error. I think the larger problem with a treason charge is that he did not give anything to an enemy of the US.
“Time of war”, as has been pointed out above, requires either that there be formal declaration of war, or that the President determine, as a matter of fact, that there exist hostilities which warrant a finding that a “time of war” exists.
I don’t know whether the President has made such a determination and, if so, whether he had made it at the time Manning did the acts for whcih he might be charged.
Could he do so after the event, with retrospective effect? That seems objectionable in principle to me - retrospectively making an act a crime which was not a crime at the time the act was done. I don’t know how the courts would treat it, but I suspect they wouldn’t like it.
“Time of war” is a necessary element of a spying charge under 106. (And I think, looking at 106, that even if there is a time of war, there are other problems with prosecuting Manning. It’s clearly not aimed at servicemen and women who are abusing their positions.)
But “time of war” is not a necessary element of an espionage charge under 106a. A 106a charge would require it to be shown that Manning
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communicated, delivered or transmitted, directly or indirectly
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information relating to national defence
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to a foreign government, faction, party or military/naval force of a foreign country, or repfesentative/officer/agent etc of such.
Let’s assume that among the mass of diplomatic cables there was some identifiable information relating to national defence.
Manning didn’t deliver it directly to any foreign government, etc. Nor did he deliver it to anyone acting as an agent of such. He delivered it to somebody who would publish it generally. Is this enough to amount to “indirect” deliver to a foreign govenrment etc? Bear in mind that Manning needs to have “intent or reason to believe” that the information would be used (NB not “could be used” but “would be used”) to the injury of the US/advantage of the foreign government? The truth is that Manning had no real idea of the use which would be made of the information by those who read it through Wikileaks. Indeed, Manninig quite possibly has no idea of the information contained in the cables that he delivered to Wikileaks. You could certainly say that Manning was indifferent to whose hand the information got into, or what use they would make of it, but I don’t know that that amounts to “intent or reason to believe” that it would be used to the injury of the US.
For the record, it doesn’t matter if he gave anything to an enemy of the US or not. Dissemination of the information (and the type of information) is the question that will be asked, and if he is guilty of that, he will have to pay the consequences. A treasonous act is NOT limited to information dissemination to an enemy of the US. Information given to Canada, the UK or pick-your-favorite-ally can be considered treasonous.
He did not give information to any foreign government. There is no treason here. Sorry.
I would argue that if you gave something to someone, being fairley sure that it would be published on the internet, its for all practical purposes the same as if you intended to give it to everyone.
Given that “everyone” includes “enemies”, IMO the kid is in deep shit and rightley so.
Or did the kid think only our “friends” would read this stuff?
You can argue that all you want, but it’s a specious argument that won’t go anywhere legally.
Incidentally, if that constituted treason, then Dick Cheney should be facing a firing squad.
Dio, this is GQ. You are not a lawyer, and you have no business providing “factual information” about legal matters. You have no training or expertise in the area, and past experience has shown that you are almost always wrong about such things.
If you think you spot a factual inaccuracy, correct me. Otherwse take it to the Pit. It’s not like the other posters I’m talking to are lawyers either, by the way, but you aren’t sniveling about it when they declare something to meet the legal standard of treason.
If you’d care to actually EXPLAIN why you think that is so, I am sure folks here would be interested in hearing it.
Or is this another declaration of “fact” from you?
Back to my point. To put it another way, I would argue that his actions rise to the level of treason due to at least 2 things.
First, the virtual certainty that it being put on Wikileaks means anybody who wants the info can and will have it. Did he really think otherwise?
Second, the abject carelessness about what he stole and gave away. Its not like he just grabed documents that showed that gays were mistreated or that the military was dumping toxic waste. It sounds like he just grabbed whatever two tons of shit he could get his hands on and passed it on without really knowing WTF was in there. If he didn’t know what was in it all, he doesnt know if its fricking TPS reports or actual important State secrets.
Now, if you want to argue (or it turns out its actually a solid legal fact) that unless he took a folder of SECRET info and he personally handed it to a Russian spy on a park bench it aint treason, fine.
But, I’ll stand by my OPINION (with some logic to back it up) that if he intended for a shitload of classified information to broadcast over the internet, especially not knowing the contents of it all, that he is guilty of treason in the practical sense because of who would/could read it, as well as the sheer wrecklessness of distributing a volume of material so large that he couldnt actually know the actual content of what he was revealing.
[Moderator Note]
Then the best thing to do would be to simply to point out his errors, and then just ignore further posts by him. There is no need to reply to simple assertions unsupported by evidence.
[Moderator Note]
Let’s dial it back.
I will also note that simple repeated assertion of opinion is not really appropriate for GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
We can discuss the relevant issues here without having to get into a political circle-jerk.
Some folks have advanced the view that leaking confidential info to the press ought to be considered treason. That’s a reasonable opinion, but it is clear that this is not the law of the land. There have been numerous instances of press leaks from members of congress and from various presidential administrations in the ~90 years since these laws were enacted. None have been prosecuted for espionage.
That is because it one of the elements required for such a charge is that the info be given to an enemy during wartime. Enemy is defined in clear detail, and unless WikiLeaks had been designated as a terrorist organization prior to Manning’s act, they don’t meet the definition.
Even if that element didn’t disqualify the espionage charge, there’s also the issue of whether the documents themselves were sufficiently secret enough to warrant the charge. The law describes what types of things qualify, and I don’t think Manning’s stuff does.
It’s fine to discuss what we think the laws ought to be, but let’s not conflate that with a discussion of what they currently are.
That is perhaps true, but it’s irrelevant. It’s irrelevant because the espionage law does not say anything about “declared wars” or “declared enemies.” It defines war and enemies in a way that clearly includes what we currently have going in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Don’t want to hijack the thread for a constitutional discussion, but the congress can authorize the use of military force without “declaring” war (and frequently has). The constitution makes no specific requirements for how they exercise their enumerated power.
Except espionage doesn’t require that information be given to an enemy during wartime, right? Just that it be given to a foreign nation, faction, party, or military, or agent thereof, whether that foreign nation, et al, is an enemy or not. So the question wouldn’t be, is Julian Assange an enemy, it would be, does he fit under any of those categories.
He’s not a government, or an agent of a government or an agent any enemy. He’s the press.
Let me throw up a hypothetical question here to see if anyone knows the answer. Lets say Bill, an American national, knows some secret information, and he gives that information to Bob, another American national. Bob then turns around and gives it to Juan, a Mexican national (but a private citizen). Juan, being a good citizen, gives the information to the Mexican government. Has anyone committed espionage here, and if so, who? Does it matter whether or not there was knowledge that the information would be passed on; if Bill knew that Bob would give the information to Juan, or Bob knew that Juan would give the information to the Mexican government?