9/23/2017 0 Comments Reading 05: WhistleblowingFrom the readings, what is your opinion of Chelsea/Bradley Manning's decision to leak sensitive information to WikiLeaks and her subsequent sentencing? Is what she did ethical or did she violate her duty?
I think that Chelsea Manning’s decision to leak sensitive information to WikiLeaks was one that wasn’t handled with the care it possibly should have been. I feel that she deserved appropriate prosecution for what she did (irresponsibly and carelessly disclosing classified information), as should anyone who does the same. An article by Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic feels that Chelsea Manning deserved the reduced sentence that Obama’s commuting delivered. I felt that he primarily points to two legitimate points of contention surrounding the legitimacy of the classification system as well as how leaks are treated differently depending on who catalyzed them. In response to the former, I’d agree that some things are classified questionably, but I think it’s reasonable to believe that while there may be a high number of ‘false-positives’ (situations where things are overclassified), there are an important proportion of things that are appropriately classified (or not underclassified). As such, the overclassification of a number of documents doesn’t change the fact that there are still documents at these levels that truly require that level of classification due to their nature and the potential for impact of national security. A top-secret document is one that is defined as potentially causing “Exceptionally grave damage” to national security. If 100 top secret documents are leaked, and 99 of them are falsely overclassified, the person who leaked them have still leaked information that could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security. Additionally, pointing out the selective prosecution of leaking of classified information isn’t a legitimate defense to the actions of a person like Chelsea Manning. If someone did this illegal/careless/harmful thing, that isn’t changed by who else does or doesn’t. I think it’d be incredibly difficult to say that this selectiveness isn’t an issue, sure. But the response to that needs to be to focus on prosecuting everyone according to the described injustices, rather than say that everyone should face minimal consequences. “Everybody’s doing it” doesn’t cut it as a defense for serious wrong-doings. I do think it’s the duty of one to speak out against gross injustices that they become privy to, especially if they’re in a position where they can take actionable steps to do so. The catch here is that I also feel that it’s one’s duty to do so responsibly. There are very likely better ways to bring the type of injustices to light that Ms. Manning saw than simply “vacuuming up as much classified information” as she could and “just throwing it up into the air”, as Adrian Lamo put it, someone who was even held on a pedestal by Manning herself. Should she have been protected under the Whistleblower protection laws? Is she a revolutionary hero or a traitor? I one hundred percent feel that those who report and appropriately respond to what could gross injustices and abuses of power should be protected. I don’t feel that Ms. Manning responded in an appropriate manner to what she felt this information was, and as such, I think that she shouldn’t be protected. The manner in which she elected to respond was careless and the potential for damage to national security as a result of this would lead me to feel she’s much closer to being a traitor (to her duty, if not her country entirely) than any type of “revolutionary hero”.
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AuthorNikolas Dean Brooks is a current Senior at Notre Dame. This blog is for the "Ethics and Professional Issues" course under Dr. Peter Bui. Archives |