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From POGO spokesman Joseph Newman:
Newman said he believes the Obama administration is spooked by the WikiLeaks case and is using the Espionage Act to send a message to other employees to “button it up” — though some of these cases pre-date the Manning case.
He acknowledged that the six defendants are not “apples to apples,” clarifying that the Project on Government Oversight “doesn’t necessarily condone” what Manning did. But for others, he questioned whether the information they leaked was being overlooked in the rush to punish.
This is from an organization that relies upon and, from time-to-time, supports whistleblowers (though some argue, not without merit, that POGO exploits whistleblowers in its efforts to cozy up to the powers that be).
For a different take on the Manning case, see this:
A generation before Bradley Manning, Daniel Ellsberg understood that some laws were worth breaking to expose and bring accountability to far greater crimes. Ellsberg tried to voice his grievances within his chain of command, as Manning did, before being ignored.
I have heard many people justify the government’s treatment of Manning simply because of the risks he allegedly took. “He should have known better,” they say, missing the point. Asked in 1971 if he was prepared to go to prison for releasing the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg’s reply was simple: “Wouldn’t you go to jail to end this war?”
Future posts will explore POGO’s financial ties and its role in the veal pen that is the whistleblower community.
P.S. This isn’t the first time that POGO throws its values out the window to please the power structure.
16 Comments
How fitting that 0 should get his “transparency” awards in a quiet, closed ceremony. Also, how fitting that the groups that gave him the awards would go along with this sham. This awarding, of course, validates the nobel peace prize. More evidence that I must vote for the man that gets all of these awards.
POGO the cartoon character, or a Pogo stick bouncing uncontrolled off into a briar patch?
Take your pick.
POGO just lost any reputation they had left. I don’t care what anybody says, Manning showed the world that our war is not for Osama Bin Laden and his group, it is for other things. It also showed that the military will shoot dead any reporter from any country trying to cover the atrocity.
Manning did all of us that pay attention a deed that would never have been done by anybody else.
What a load of horse manure. If you think the qualified statement by POGO that they do not “necessarily condone” is “throwing Bradley Manning under the bus”, you need to get a grip and some perspective. It is very possible to support some of Manning’s leaks and, at the same time, understand that most of the documents he leaked were done recklessly and with no knowledge whatsoever of what he was leaking. And he turned them all over to a foreign internet site. Nobody in their right mind should condone that.
Just to explain my statement above, let me phrase it this way: Why would any legitimate whistleblower organization unqualifiably support the leaking of hundreds of thousands of items of classified material to a foreign entity by an individual who does not even know what is on each item? That is the antithsis of what a legitimate, and legally recognized, government whistleblower is protected in doing. In fact, such actions make it harder, and mar the efforts, of true whistleblowers.
Some key pieces Manning released, that he knew, had reviewed, and was releasing with specific intent, put him squarely within the ambit of a whistleblower. The rest is just indiscriminate criminal dumping of the nation’s classified material, and that is antithetical and destructive to real whistleblowers.
If this is where you come down, then you probably don’t support Daniel Ellsberg, who similarly handed over thousands of documents (though 7,000 hard copies in his day… much easier to hand over hundreds of thousands digitally, so a pure numerical comparison won’t work, if that’s what you’re thinking). In Ellberg’s case, the documents were Top Secret. None of the documents allegedly handed over by Manning were Top Secret. 11,000 were Secret, half Confidential or below, the rest not classified. Even Robert Gates said the impact was only “fairly modest.”
Manning went to his supervisors, they blew him off (much like Ellsberg). Did he go to an IG? I don’t know. Was it possible to go to one in Iraq? Would it have mattered? Would he have been protected from reprisal? (Probably not: http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2012/02/22/investigators-prematurely-closed-military-whistleblower-reprisal-cases-2/).
He grew sour on the war and what his bosses wanted him to do. He was willing to go to jail for opening people’s eyes and spurring debate. Much like Ellsberg.
He said he disclosed the Collateral Murder video. His disclosures may have resulted in Arab Spring, as well as the public wanting the wars to end.
The cables disclose alleged war crimes: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/31/v-print/122789/wikileaks-iraqi-children-in-us.html. Would we know this otherwise?
Did he violate the law? That is for an independent judicial process to determine. (Note that POGO is passing judgment on his conduct. Thus far, he is presumed innocent.)
Is it just for him to be punished but the war criminals he blew the whistle on to escape accountability? Note that Ellsberg was not prosecuted, even though he could have been.
The justice system is not perfect, far from it, but it does have measures built in to rectify injustices. The selective prosecution in my mind is the most offensive. There can be a prosecutorial decision not to prosecute, or only bring appropriate charges, or for a jury to nullify, or for the President to pardon or provide clemency.
I don’t believe justice is about the rote application of human conduct to established norms like some checklist, followed by the uncritical imposition of punishment. There has to be a measure of judgment involved, some context. What’s the context of an illegal war with war crimes afoot, an apathetic public, and a broken oversight process? Do you think history will look back on this and wag its finger at Manning, or see his acts for what they are: bringing much needed light to a very dark chapter in American history?
One more thing: it may not have been an indiscriminate dump. Manning had a Top Secret clearance, but no Top Secret documents were disclosed.
Here’s his motivation:
Note what he said: “its impossible for any one human to read all quarter-million… and not feel overwhelmed… and possibly desensitized”
I agree as to Collateral Murder, a second video that I believe is now lost to the infighting at WikiLeaks and the Gitmo detainee files. There is little to no evidence Manning had any idea whatsoever what was on the ables. Maybe he viewed some – how many of the 200,000 to 250,000 could he have physically read? Not many by simple logistics. Ellsberg leaked a lot of pages, but he knew the general contents of the entire Rand study that they comprised and it was pretty much a singular deal even if a lot of pages.
Very few of the total number of cables detail any crime whatsoever, much less war crimes within the ambit of either national or international definition. And that is my problem. I think indiscriminate dumping, and think there is almost no question Manning did a lot, is not sanctionable as whistleblowing and discredits true whistleblowers. I think Manning, unfortunately resides in both worlds and most of his almost cult like supporters fail to intellectually admit the flip side of the coin where his conduct should not be condoned.
It’s not an easy case. I think even if he is not a legally protected government whistleblower (due to allegedly violating classified disclosure rules), he still did a service to the world. In the logs below he objected to what he saw as the USA exploiting the third world in those cables. No doubt there is value to the world in exposing US hypocrisy and subservience to power and institutionalizing oppression. For me the most glaring issue is the different set of rules at play, one for the privileged and another for the nobodies like Manning. If, as a person of conscience, he was set up to fail, much like Thomas Drake or any number of other whistleblowers who had no where to turn to, who is the president or any government official who violated the law, enabled such violations, and then failed to provide adequate disclosure channels to turn and condemn Manning?
Oh, I agree there was benefit even to the cables that I maintain place him in a non-protected category. Manning, unfortunately, does not fall within any legal whistleblower protection defense for any of his acts (I am pretty sure you have seen my explanations on that), even for things we both agree tend to demonstrate potential war crimes such as Collateral Murder.
And, as you know, legally a whistleblower defense simply does not exist in common law and exists only pursuant to statutory provision. But even if it did, I would think the parameters would not – and should not – cover indiscriminate leaking and doing so without knowing how and by whom it would be used. This is why I think many people, including POGO, FAS/Aftergood and, well, me flinch at not qualifying support for Manning and do not fully condone what he did.
But beyond that, Ellsberg may not have been keen on the idea, but was under no illusion but that he may well go to prison for his acts. And but for unnecessary govt malice in his prosecution, he would have. I think Manning will, although I hope it is mitigated due to several factors.
I can mostly agree with this. The statute for disclosing classified information, depending on type, gives a range between 5 to life. Sometimes death, if we’re talking about treason.
I could live with 5 years for disclosing information that reveals imperialistic tendencies but does not disclose crimes per se. Which is a policy argument that is beyond purpose of whistleblowing law, hence the lack of protection.
That said, POGO has a way of dictating who deserves protection and who doesn’t (note the language in the quote – making a distinction between the six other prosecutions and Manning), which would be more believable if I thought they were doing everything they can to ensure whistleblowing channels exist and are effective, such that whistleblowers wouldn’t have to face the Catch 22 they often do. But POGO pulls their punches, as do other good government groups, because of bullshit inside-the-beltway reasons, and because an effective oversight mechanism cuts into their role as an outside-the-government inspector general (see page 5: http://www.pogoarchives.org/m/about/carnegie_results_spring_10_final_02.pdf).
Future posts will delve deeply into how these groups claim to be about government accountability, except when it impacts their fundraising ability or amount of influence and access with the power structure, and how their business model depends on a steady stream of whistleblowers to twist in the wind.
Hmm, not sure where in the nesting chain this will show up, there was no reply button for the last comment I am actually replying to.
I do not totally disagree about the various “good government” groups, but they serve a purpose, even if in sometimes flawed ways. I personally probably tend to be fairly mechanical in looking at these things from a legal perspective of how it really plays out under the law in court, which results in different views than someone looking at the moral and policy aspects. I have said from nearly the get go that people who thought Manning could ever walk on this were nuts and that anything less than ten years would be literally a victory. Heck, I would personally like to see him given time served (which will be substantial by the time he is done being tried) and intensive counseling. Little doubt there would be a dishonorable discharge ordered too. That would be appropriate in my mind. Not gonna happen though.
Without a doubt they serve a purpose, but their influence becomes problematic when Congress outsources government oversight and legislative drafting to them, and they are only accountable to their foundation funders, who have extensive ties to the Administration (which these organizations are supposed to oversee).
A good, concrete example is Tom Drake. He threw away his career and almost lost his freedom because he exhausted almost all internal channels before going to the press. But he didn’t know he could go to the Office of Special Counsel, and OSC did not advertise it was supposed to accept his disclosures under the law (it’s also an open question whether it was able accept them in the first place).
Yet, Drake’s attorneys, who work in one of the good government groups, did not press this issue for decades despite knowing what the law required, such that now the issue is being exposed by the grassroots (a FOIA request is in place).
Further, Drake serves as fundraising material for his good government attorneys. Had the system worked as it should have, as these groups should have pointed out long ago, they would have never met Drake.
I think you’re a paid troll.
haha, that was you called me, back in July 2011, so you get it back.
As you can guess, I would love to see MUCH better channels for appropriate whistleblowing. In fact, it is critical that we set up and insure those, even if easier said than done. We are in complete agreement there. I will say this though, OSC under Bush/Cheney in the relevant period for Drake would have been a dry hole with Scott Bloch running it and having it paired down to uselessness.
Technically, legally, and legalistically, Ellsberg’s dump was “worse” than Manning’s, as all of it was marked “Top Sekrit.” Bmaz, I love ya, but from my IANAL perspective, you are professionally prone to side with “the law” as it is written, and not “justice” as it is commonly understood by the average citizen. There is no question that there is a difference between the two.