News Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years

I take it you didn't actually follow that case? If you did, you wouldn't have said that.

 

Thirty five years. Think about it! Where were you 35 years ago? Where will you be in 35 years time?

Chelsea Manning made a hell of a mistake in releasing what she did. Whatever her reasoning I can't believe she's changed the world for the better because of it. She's now got to sort out her gender issues while incarcerated.

Have the worlds governments cleaned up their act? Not in the slightest.

If she'd have worked at 7 - 11 then maybe she'd have taken her frustration and issues out by smashing a few eggs or being light-fingered in the cash register. But no, some fool in the military decided it was wise to give a real junior soldier access to pandora's box.

Boy, is she paying the price.

 

The only difference is Manning would come under section 45, and the London Facebook riots come under section 46. Its still the same 2007 act.

 

Bradley is a hero, and should never have been sentenced.

 

In related news - DOJ pursues immunity for Bush and six others for Iraq war crimes

 

No he isn't, She is a heroine

 

And still the same burden of proof applies.

It is too early to determine what the impact of her actions is. Most martyrs don't live to see the results of their sacrifices. Ghandi, Martin Luther King, to name a few. People who were regarded ****-stirrers, enemies of the State, potential terrorists or terrorist sympathisers..

Would WikiLeaks have had the same impact without Manning? Would Snowden have done what he did? Governments haven't changed, but the public awareness sure as hell has.

 

As i originally said they only have to "prove" the balance of probabilities, 51% likely to happen. If you want to call that "proof" then fine, but our legal system was founded on using beyond all reasonable doubt when it come to locking people away.

 

Yes, but they still have to prove that. I am speaking of proof in legal, not scientific terms: there has to be evidence to support a reasonable belief that the allegation is true.

If someone tweets: "Go into the streets of London and riot!", then this very statement is evidence that it is reasonable to believe that a crime was being encouraged.

But Manning releasing classified documents is not in and of itself evidence that it is reasonable to believe that he intended to encourage, or expected terrorists to be encouraged to act on it. You can argue that he could reasonably have expected that, but you cannot argue that he did.

Basically, someone's motivations have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt (i.e. there has to be evidence that supports a reasonably unambiguous interpretation). And there is plenty of evidence (e.g. his conversation with Lamo before he leaked) that proves Manning's motivations were nothing to do with encouraging or aiding the enemy.

 

But the point is no crime has to have taken place, saying, tweeting, or encouraging a crime only has to be argued that it would be likely to cause a crime. And yes you are right when you say we could argue that he could reasonably have expected that, and that is what you can be locked up for under the serious crime act 2007.

 

I'm not talking about whether the crime should actually have taken place (focus!). I'm saying that under the Serious Crime Act 2007 you have to prove (in the legal sense) that the person did expect a crime to occur as result of his actions, or intended for it to happen. Saying that he could have reasonably expected it is not enough.

 

The act doesn't say did expect a crime to occur or could have reasonably expected
It says he believes— you would have a hard time convincing a judge that he didn't believe what he/she leaked wouldn't have encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence.

 

Yeah, and that bit is good. I just feel sorry for her I guess. Could not have been in a good head space at the time and she will be paying the price for decades.

I'd love to have Obama stand up and make an awesome 'We've messed up a few times, but we're done with that' speech and then pardon all the whistleblowers but even he doesn't have that sort of power. His inability to shut down Guantanamo has proven that.

 

Same argument. The allegation must be proved, not disproved. You would have to prove (as in: provide evidence that it is reasonable to conclude) that Manning believed that her actions would encourage or assist in the commission of terrorist offences.

I'm hoping that Manning will soon sink into obscurity so that she can be let out quietly in the next decade, and start a new life somewhere far away from the madding crowd, an ordinary woman at peace with herself and her place in the world.

Obama has been somewhat disappoint. Sure, we finally got a Black dude in the White House, and it's nice to hear a US President speak who can actually string a coherent sentence together. But his attempts to improve health care notwithstanding, his track record on Gitmo, foreign policy and on civil rights has been fairly dismal.

 

Its not the same argument at all, before the 2007 act you would need to "prove" beyond all reasonable doubt before someone would be sentenced to serve time in jail.
The Serious Crime Act 2007 changed the burden of proof need before someone would be jailed from beyond all reasonable doubt, to reasonable to believe. The following sums up why the 2007 act is such a bad idea...

 

You'd still have to submit evidence on which that reasonable belief is based.

 

You seen to be confusing legal terms, first you mention "proof" now you say "evidence" the two terms mean totally different things.
Either way there are 700,000 pieces of evidence that could be used as proof on wiki leaks.

 

A few posts above I defined my terms of proof in the legal sense --which means evidence to support the allegation.

The 700000 documents are in and of themselves not evidence of motivation (i.e. his beliefs or expectations around encouragement), only of his actions.

 

Evidence doesn't mean "that it is reasonable to conclude" as you defined it.

Evidence is any matter of fact that a party to a lawsuit offers to prove or disprove an issue in the case.
Evidence is a narrow term describing certain types of proof that can be admitted at trial, In the case of Manning that fact would be that he leaked 700,000 classified documents.

Evidence is different from proof, in that proof is the establishment of a fact by the use of evidence. Anything that can make a person believe that a fact or proposition is true or false. It is distinguishable from evidence in that proof is a broad term comprehending everything that may be adduced at a trial, whereas evidence is a narrow term describing certain types of proof that can be admitted at trial.

The 2007 act replaced the common law crime of incitement that would need to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, with the offence of encouraging or assisting a crime, and that only needs to be proved that its reasonable to believe.

 

You are arguing semantics now.

Evidence supports establishment of fact.
Establishing fact = it is reasonable to believe that the fact is true (in case or the 2007 Act).
Evidence therefore supports that it is reasonable to believe (or conclude) that etc.

Again, you would have to prove that it is reasonable to believe that Manning believed or expected to encourage terrorist crime by his actions. You would therefore have to submit evidence that supports that it is reasonable to believe this inference of his motivations, which is a different thing from establishing his actions.

You are going on correspondent inference: the (perceived!) most likely consequence of an action must have been its intention. This is a logical reasoning error (made a lot by people in daily life) and can be shot down. But you also have to submit evidence to support the reasonableness of your inference of his motivations. You have to prove the reasonableness of your beliefs about what he was thinking at the time, going up against the evidence of his own statements of what he was thinking (made in confidence) at the time. Basically: you have to prove that it is reasonable to believe that he was lying about his motivations at the time. Good luck with that.