I guess there are more trans people than informants so maybe there's some statistical point to be made there, but frankly I'm not sure why you picked this nit to begin with. I think it's important to recognize, rather than downplay the risks faced by marginalized groups in the US and elsewhere.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unlawfully_killed_tran...
https://www.facebook.com/sophievlabelle/posts/18847957251286...
Who is gunning trans (just because they are trans)?
Because of the media, power balances, legalities etc of US life, they obviously wouldn't be doing them in an open Third World/Banana Republic style (where, depending on the country/political climate, the state doesn't hesitate much to semi-openly get rid of enemies and more or less everybody knows they did it).
(edit removed the yet in "proved yet")
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
[…]
If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
This seems like mainstream TV news, not really Hacker News.
She copied a lot of that data onto a CD and passed it to Julian Assange, who is the head of Wikileaks. Wikileaks publishes digital data it receives from whistle-blowers, both summarizing and analyzing the data itself. It also provided access to other journalists (Der Spiegel, The Guardian, etc.) in order to incentive scoops and increase the impact of the leaked material. Some of the material includes the "Afghan War Logs", which is essentially raw military data on the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, including estimates of civilians killed in raids. The data itself is available to the public as an SQL or CSV database.
One of the pieces of data was the so-called "collateral murder" video which shows a U.S. apache helicopter firing on unarmed civilians, including a Reuters journalist who died and two children who were injured. Reuters had filed a FOIA request (Freedom of Information Act) to get public access to the video, but was unsuccessful. Since Manning had access to database, and because digital data has a marginal cost of $0, he was able to copy the video onto the CD passed along to Assange, thus bypassing the stall tactics of the U.S. government in releasing the video.
Manning was caught after the FBI had apparently enlisted Adrian Lamo-- himself a former hacker (or I guess cracker to be exact) who apparently Manning trusted and chatted with over IRC.
Also-- and I admit this is a digression from actual "hacker news"-- the U.N. Special Rapporteur on torture publicly stated that the U.S.'s treatment of Manning while awaiting trial was "cruel, inhuman and degrading." In fact, when someone from the press finally got the nerve to ask about this, a U.S. state department official called Manning's treatment "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid." (He then resigned.)
Anyway, we're talking about the release of a computer analyst who got caught confiding in a well-known hacker, and who was sent to prison for passing the largest collection of digital documents to someone who is at present probably the most well-known hacker in the world.
If this subject isn't relevant to a site called "Hacker News", what is?
Let's hope the media doesn't tear her apart.
[1]: https://twitter.com/xychelsea/status/847264510247190532
Lets cut through all the noise and look at the President's uncut opinion on net neutrality.
>Donald J. Trump Verified account
>@realDonaldTrump
>Obama’s attack on the internet is another top down power grab. Net neutrality is the Fairness Doctrine. Will target conservative media
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/53260835850816716...
So there, that's what about one third of the country are led to believe about net neutrality. Just like with all the fake news recently, facts and rebuttals don't help one bit, and make the believers believe even more in their own "facts".
Good luck getting Breitbart and conservative radio on board with NN, they are fundamentally opposed to anything Obama did, plus are skeptical of govt regulations and there is a lot of money to be made from the cable industry fight on NN.
For one thing she is certainly more credible not being in prison.
[0] https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/819630102787059713
[1] http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/314783-assange-lawye...
Edit: I have now listened to the whole thing and there seems to be no mention of that offer as far as I can tell. So either I missed it, you mistakenly linked the wrong interview, this is anti-Assange Propaganda you hope nobody is going to check too closely, or it is guerilla marketing for the intercept.
It seems to me to be too little (clemency instead of a pardon) too late (she already spent a horrific amount of time under torturous conditions in prison).
Nothing good or interesting came from those leaks. And they were legitimate threat to US security. And Snowden ones were responsible, curated and only in the areas where rights of US citizens were infringed.
And yet he is stranded in Russia (1/6 of the world, so not bad).
What is the lesson - if you leak, leak more severe?
Manning was not pardoned, her sentence was commuted. She is still considered guilty on all grounds on which she was convicted.
> And Snowden ones were responsible, curated and only in the areas where rights of US citizens were infringed.
> And yet he is stranded in Russia (1/6 of the world, so not bad).
> What is the lesson - if you leak, leak more severe?
Snowden has not been sitting a in a US prison for years (in pretty difficult conditions) after a sentencing which many found excessive and unfair.
So the lesson is rather more "get sentenced to rank reduction to E-1, forfeiting of pay and allowances, dishonorably discharged and 35 years in prison and you may see the last part reduced to only ~6 years afterwards".
Oh don't forget the 6 years include a significant duration as POI at Quantico:
* checks by guards every five minutes
* not allowed to sleep between 5 am (7 am on weekends) and 8 pm
* required to remain visible at all times, no sheets, pillow built into mattress, and blanket designed for unshreddability
* sleeping attire limited to boxer shorts
* 6 × 12 ft (1.8 x 3.6 m) with no window, containing a bed, toilet and sink
* allowed to walk for up to one hour a day, meals in the cell, shackled during lawyer visits
Not to disparage Snowden, and his reasons for not coming back seem sound, but political asylum in Russia isn't exactly Manning's last 6 years.
Snowden thinks (and I personally agree) that the second step (of him going through a trial) would not work, because he wouldn't get a fair trial, and I agree with him.
And, as was pointed out to you, Manning hasn't been cleared of claims that she made. She still made a crime according the court and was still convicted of that crime. It's just that her punishment got reduced and she is now free.
It's nowhere even near the similar situation. Snowden's case is basically in the same stage where Manning's case was when she leaked the documents, so somewhere around 2011. Manning pleaded guilty to the charges in court in early 2013. Snowden still didn't go through that process.
1. Manning thought she was doing the right thing and didn't realize what she would cause. Snowden knew exactly what he was doing.
2. Manning leaked the docs to something that is probably a Russian front but something she didn't realize was a Russian front. Snowden, if he didn't turn over the leaks to the Russian and Chinese governments, certainly put them in great risk of being turned over.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/14/chel...
> After the 2013 sentencing, the ex-intelligence agent changed her name to Chelsea Manning and identified as transgender.
Enlisted MI are hardly 'intelligence agents'.
Edit: NBC reports it as voluntary excess leave. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chelsea-manning-set-be-r...
Functional governments have a vested interest in not forgiving blatant disregard for their laws, regardless of the morality of the acts that led to the disregard. It's possible (but probably unlikely) that he could have been pardoned, found innocent, or had a sentence commuted had he turned himself in, but escaping the reach of American justice? There's very little incentive for a country to reward "Break the law then run from our jurisdiction," independent of the details.
Snowden's successfully attained a life probably free of American legal influence. His reward is a life free of American legal influence.
Unless you are high enough on the food-chain
For anyone else wondering where this is coming from.
3am?! A parting kick to the head, or a ploy to avoid publicity?
Thank you Chelsea, welcome home
