General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Scariest Quote You'll Read From the Trial Nobody Is Talking About (Manning trial) [View all]Hydra
(14,459 posts)Because he's not the issue. BTW, the Defense did a brilliant dustup of that charge, since OBL was not into wikileaks until the gov't started screaming about it.
The Gov't is trying to set 2 precedents: That any kind of release of information in an unauthorized fashion is "aiding the enemy" and will get you screwed for life(or death). The Second is criminalizing journalism- they've tried to set the stage for declaring wikileaks to be a terrorist organization.
The fact that they did a poor job of proving either was both laughable and probably irrelevant. The deck is heavily stacked in their favor in this particular court framework, so we may well see Manning charged with aiding the enemy and the bridge built to get Assange and Wikileaks as part of a vast "plan" to get the information to the "terrorists."
Long/short- exposing gov't crimes will be impossible to do soon.