Opinion of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Manning had no opportunity to read all of those documents...

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I have some concerns whether or not 'accountability' is an absolute... I mean, I don't like the idea of reasonable intelligence gathering having to have every step known publicly. I mean... I don't think there's a problem with the operational framework being held up with the utmost clarity and accountability (although I think specific operational stuff should be confidential).

But what's the point if everything is known...

Snowden is a bit of odd-case, his story doesn't exactly add up, plus he's a combination of two movements... Paultard and Assangeism. Plus, as I said before, I get Manning as a whistle-blower if he leaked certain documents for certain purposes, but 750,000 documents, very few of which he would have known or understood the context of... while I get the 'nobility' in some of it, there's something 'off' to both of them for me.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I have yet to hear a single principled left-wing argument against what these people did. And no "but paultards like them!" isn't a valid argument - nor is "but they harmed Obama's image!". Some people here are either machiavellians or utter hypocrites.

Its not about left or right... this is far more complicated than that (and I worry when people assume there should always be a distinct left and right wing response to everything). I don't think they did an objectively brave or noble thing, there's nobility in the idea... I know I keep coming back to this, but Manning could not have read all of those documents therefore he didn't know nor care about the consequences of their release. Snowden is a different case, there's a lot more sophistication and consideration in his actions.

I expect the government to do things I don't know about - my only real concern about this is whether their actions were legal and administered properly.