Posted on Oct 26, 2016
LTJG Aviator
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-Edited-

Thank you all for your responses. I was apparently given some misinformation about the Manning and Snowden cases. The two of them were just an afterthought from my original point.
The reason for my question was to get a bead on what the military community thought about the general idea of whistle-blowing. Obviously each case must be treated differently based on the information released and the implications of who sees that information.

I was originally researching the recent WikiLeaks development. The original angle I was looking at the problem from was not one of endangering national security, but from the position of integrity violations, and violations of the law by, lets just say for the purposes of this post, "hypothetical senior officials."

Personal violations or a collective group's professional violations.

I know we are extremely limited in what we can say and do as members of the military, and that we all took oaths to obey the officers and officials appointed over us. My primary concern is the issue of deteriorating integrity.

Slightly off topic:
My personal grid square is very small compared to many of the individuals here so I have no doubt my perspective is limited, but what do we do (if anything) in the event that the officials appointed over us violate the constitution that we have also sworn to protect?
Posted in these groups: 6262122778 997339a086 z Politics417b50e7 Scandal
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Maj John Bell
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There is honor in whistle blowing and remaining to face the storm of consequences. There is not honor in whistle blowing and high-tailing out the back door.
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Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS
Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS
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Exactly this. Running from consequences is where I have a huge problem.
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MSgt Electrical Power Production
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Exactly right sir!
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LTJG Aviator
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Obviously something like this needs to be treated on a case by case basis and whether or not it could put lives in danger, especially service members.
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SSG(P) Counterintelligence Sergeant
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Manning was not a whistleblower. He released the documents as a means to "get back" at people and to make people pay attention to him. He had no intentions of helping to expose an issue, his actions were purely to hurt.
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LTJG Aviator
LTJG (Join to see)
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I did not know that. However he did expose the torture of prisoners or at least the handing over of prisoners to the Iraqi authorities that were known to torture didn't he? I thought that was illegal.
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Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin
Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin
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That's not what was revealed. Manning was a traitor who released classified information he did not understand for the purpose of getting attention. The reports of torture were untrue and the only revelation they had was the low level seemingly unimportant prisoners identified at GITMO. He also released information on how we interrogate prisoners, which only aided the enemy.

There are things which seemingly appear to be unpleasant and or harsh, which we have to do to gather intelligence from the enemies we capture.
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SN Greg Wright
SN Greg Wright
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Exactly right.
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