So individual soldiers now get to decide which information is actually sensitive and which is not?
Also, should GMail start leaking emails from Fortune 500 companies and local/state governments by the same logic you employ?
> Your entire post is twisting the facts just to make him look bad.
I'm trying to evaluate and see to the underlying reality. People will try to say what they think puts them in the best light while hinting around what might actually be the core of the issue (I'm certainly no different unless I pay close attention to what made it into the textarea).
I mean, practically the worst thing you could say in that courtroom if you're trying to avoid lengthy jail time is a variant of "Oh, I just felt like starting a public debate on topic $FOO". Especially when that was the reason for your first-ever leak.
At least with the FP 15 and the Reuters FOIA issues pretty much anyone who isn't cold-blooded can easily sympathize with Manning. I simply would have expected him to come across those issues first, not essentially last.
> Yes, he knew that he would get caught eventually (right before he started releasing the material) and that is why he went to two different newspapers just to make sure he does not look like a wikileaks mole once he got caught.
Come. ON. Army CID, Army IG, DoD IG, the Chaplain, a medical mental health practitioner, actually going to a physical office of the NYT or WaPo. He could have (but didn't) do any of these if he wanted to avoid the accusation of pre-selecting WikiLeaks.
That's not even the weirdest part. He was already lurking in their chat, soon to be friends (as he perceived it) with DDB or Assange, their ethics and geopolitics were right up his alley, etc. That part doesn't even surprise me one bit, I see his failure to motivate himself to go to a media source every week, when I fail to wake up 2 hours early on Monday "because I'm going to start working out". That's just basic human psychology. The seed had already been planted in his mind, it was just a matter of how long it would take for him to convince himself that he could live with himself.
With this much I'm 100% in agreement with jacquesm elsewhere: He should never have been screened for that position. Raw intelligence cannot be the sole or primary determining factor for what position you're assigned.
