Bradley Manning’s consequence for sending classified information to Wikileaks over incidents in Iraq where American soldiers killed 24 innocent Iraqis were reaffirmed today. Manning’s possible life sentence was maintained as charges of “aiding the enemy” were upheld. Manning sent videos to Wikileaks showing gun camera footage of American gunship pilots with permission of their commanders opening fire on several Iraqi civilians, an incident that was covered up until Manning’s information lead those soldiers to trial due to pressure from the American public over the killings. Classified information and the legality of actions places national security in opposition with the legality of actions by a government, actions that may violate the US Constitution in many cases. The individual leaking the information must decide whether or not justice is worth his or her own personal freedoms in many cases, and journalists must be able to be free to report on incidents of abuses of power.
While Manning seems to be a good example of how secrecy lacks justice, especially when whistleblowers reveal actions that are clearly illegal by the U.S. government, there is a distinction of honour when the whistleblower continues to fight for their own personal freedoms. When consequences are laid on a citizen who simply is following the core beliefs of the founding members of their own nation that sought to ensure freedoms against repression by any government, it shocks the population when the core beliefs of a nation are wholly ignored for the sake of political gains by that government. One day Manning will be able to claim justice in his actions as he consciously accepted a punishment to promote the founding ideals of his country, as the one’s keeping him have little weight to show that American citizens should be punished for telling the truth on incidents they know are morally illegitimate.
While Manning sought to build on freedoms in the U.S. through his actions and accepted the results and sought to face trial, Assange and Snowden have sought to run away from U.S. authorities, seeking assistance from governments where someone like Manning would have likely been “disappeared” long before any trial would have taken place. By appearing in court, Manning continues to keep the issue in the spotlight without losing personal credibility, remaining to fight the battles that need to be addressed in order to change the system he lives in for the better. Assange’s life in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London in order to avoid charges of sexual assault in Sweden can only be justified by claiming that all governments are as bad as all others, and that freedoms only exist for the most powerful in society. Rights do exist in places like the US and Sweden, and they are guaranteed to a lot greater degree than in places like Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. The rights of the two women who claimed to be assaulted by Assange need to be addressed without fail, because no one should be able to claim that because one un-related violation of a law in a society should make it legitimate to ignore all other laws, especially criminal laws related to sexual assault.
Snowden has released classified information and will continue to do so, and like Wikileaks, most of the information will likely be things that most policy experts suspected were occurring in any case. Snowden, unlike Manning, sought to protect the people of the United States but ran to countries for support that have extremely questionable records, constantly suppressing their own citizens. Snowden will likely get to one of the three Latin American countries that has offered him asylum at some point and will likely meet agents from Iran and other malcontents towards the United States who are well established in Venezuela and the region as a whole. Helping Americans and ensuring the growth of freedoms in the U.S. does not equate to speaking to Chinese, Russian, Venezuelan and Iranian officials that have little consideration for the American public, or in some cases may attack them in the long run.
The way to promote freedoms and hold the government accountable started and will end with Manning in this era of whistleblowers. Claiming such a position includes fighting for it as well unfortunately, not rushing off to countries that are in the midst of jailing their own citizens because they ask for the most basic of freedoms. Snowden’s information will not end democracy in the U.S. or hurt the U.S. in the long run, but for his own credibility and for that of all whistleblowers, he needs to be as strong as Russian protesters who currently reside in jail and continue to fight for freedoms in their own country just a few kilometres away from Snowden himself. That is the only was Snowden’s original message could continue to hold weight against the U.S. government.
