Whether or not you are for or against such wrong-doing.

It sends a miserable message for anyone in the position of witnessing government abuse. Such a person would see many of "the people" will never be on their side so they should shut up.

And in no way am I implying anything about Snowden. I am rather extending this mindset to how it will apply to all such people, with a variety of motives witnessing varied forms of abuse and corruption.

a sympathetic congress member, not bought out by corporations, like Bernie Sanders or Barbara Boxer. There are a few others, too. Then he should have quit his job and moved on. But since he chose this path, I don't trust our present government to give him humane treatment as a prisoner. I agree with you. I was in high school during the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for being Soviet spies. I don't ever remember any news stories about them being tortured in prison although they did go to Sing Sing to wait for execution. It seems being electrocuted was the worst treatment they received outside of the normal prison treatment of the day.

Sad to say, this administration has demonstrated extraordinarily bad faith in dealing with whistleblowers -- most notably by overcharging them under the Espionage Act, to a degree unprecedented in any prior administration, and by its indefensible pre-trial treatment and isolation of Bradley Manning. (And for those who would claim that Snowden's release of information to the Chinese is proof that he was engaged in espionage, sorry, but that is a classic example of a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.) So given the bad faith the government has demonstrated, and in light of what the government has done to one (Manning) who has submitted to its authority, I find no reasonable argument for why any other whistleblower shoud so submit.

The channels have been blocked and are illusions of any kind of protection for oversight that could be brought by whistleblowers. The system is BROKEN to fix things from the inside, and until it is fixed, the only effective whistleblowers are going to make moves like Snowden did. Many of you aren't even familiar with the many whistleblowers like Edmonds, Russell Tice, etc. who've had their efforts covered up over the years. Ask yourself who has been more effective at drawing attention to the wrongdoing (even if the media and government tries to distract us from these revelations). Snowden or the others? And then you'll have your answer why he's doing it the way he's doing it.

he went directly to news organizations, entities that have not sworn and oath to our Constitution. We don't know if he contacted any Senators who are not in the pocket of the MIC. That would have been my route at first.

He lived in a different era then though when the media was doing responsible investigative journalism not under the edict of being a "profit center", that perhaps would have just got him in more trouble in times like today, when they might not have been published like they were then, and just got him in trouble, even though in those days, they weren't as brutal to whistleblowers as they are now.

If Snowden and Manning belong in prison, then arguably Daniel Ellsberg belongs there too. THough I think the way the Pentagon Papers came out and helped change the direction of the Vietnam War, and perhaps along with protest actions in those days prevented the Nixon administration from using nukes then.

Sibel Edmonds also tried to go through two senators as well (Patrick Leahy and Chuck Grassley) and so many other chains of command, and that didn't do any good. Her two big court cases were all silenced by "randomly selected" justice and current FISA Court chief justice Reggie Walton using the "State Secrets Privilege" which has been a big tool for both Bush and Obama to cover up cases that they can throw any sense of "national security" in the mix that they don't want to go to trial.

Many others who've tried to expose secrets have also been personally attacked and put in prison as well.

My guess is that Snowden has studied the history of whistleblowers and realized that trying to go through the system was going to be a losing battle, and not one that he felt worth sacrificing his life for if it wasn't going to do anything.

their hands on him. Going to a foreign press enabled them to bring the barely plausible espionage charges on him. I hope he has thoroughly thought this out and if Julian Assange is helping him that Assange has learned from his mistakes.

After he was removed from a small cell and moved to a prison where he could mingle with the general population and keep personal items in his much larger cell.


If Snowden was treated like Manning has been for the past two years then there should be no problem with turning himself in.

. . . which is the other reason I stated, which you conveniently ignored.

Here is the list of charges against him. The Espionage Act is one of several UCMJ articles he is charged against. Take away the 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) charges and he is still going away for a very long time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_charges_against_Bradley_Manning

http://m.democracynow.org/stories/13686

AMY GOODMAN: Among the protesters outside Fort Meade, Maryland, on Saturday was Sarah Shourd. She was jailed for 14 months in Iran after she and two other Americans, Shane Bauer and now her husband—who is now her husband, and Josh Fattal, were detained by Iranian border forces on July 31st, 2009, for allegedly hiking across the Iraqi border into Iran, which they don’t believe is the case. She spoke to Al Jazeera from the protest.

SARAH SHOURD: My name is Sarah Shourd. I’m an author and an advocate against the use of solitary confinement. And I was held as a political hostage by the Iranian government for 410 days in solitary confinement, along with my now-husband Shane Bauer and my friend Josh Fattal.

Bradley Manning doesn’t deserve to be in prison. And I know what it’s like to sit in a prison cell and know that you don’t deserve to be there. Bradley Manning was held for nine months in extreme conditions of solitary confinement, very similar to my own conditions in Iranian prison. We were both under lockdown 23 hours a day, with—under sensory deprivation. There’s really no way to describe the depth of loneliness. You really just have to get through one day at the time, and every day is a monumental task.
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http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/us-accused-inhumane-treatment-over-wikileaks-soldier-case-2011-01-24

US accused of inhumane treatment over Wikileaks soldier case

Amnesty International has urged the US authorities to alleviate the harsh pre-trial detention conditions of Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking information to Wikileaks.

The US army private, 23, has been held for 23 hours a day in a sparsely furnished solitary cell and deprived of a pillow, sheets, and personal possessions since July 2010.

Amnesty International last week wrote to the US Defence secretary, Robert Gates, calling for the restrictions on Bradley Manning to be reviewed. In the same week, the soldier suffered several days of increased restrictions by being temporarily categorised as a "suicide risk".

"We are concerned that the conditions inflicted on Bradley Manning are unnecessarily severe and amount to inhumane treatment by the US authorities," said Susan Lee, Amnesty International’s Programme Director for the Americas.

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http://mobile.rawstory.com/therawstory/#!/entry/amnesty-international-condemns-inhumane-treatment-of-bradley-manning,514aa81cd7fc7b56707a19b9

.

Saying that anybody should do such a thing is preposterous.

Snowden is not subject to the UCMJ or military confinement.

. . . the very same government that would prosecute Snowden.