Bradley Manning’s 35-Year Sentence Is a Halfway House

Bradley Manning joined the US Army in 2007 and two years later was charged with leaking classified information to WikiLeaks, including US embassy cables and a video showing civilians and journalists killed by a US helicopter in Iraq. He was convicted of espionage in July, though the judge dismissed the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, and issued a compromise sentence of 35 years, reports BBC News. Mark Mardell compares Manning and Edward Snowden, the US National Security Agency contract worker who revealed secret programs: “President Barack Obama has a dilemma- how to portray and treat a new breed of spillers of secrets. These are not traitors motivated by money or an ideological sympathy with the enemy, but leakers driven by a conviction that information should be free, that secrecy itself is evil.” US officials try to frame the challenge as problem individuals who have done wrong, while global critics question the scope of such secrets and the futility of expecting secrecy to be maintained among the troubled, bullied or conscience-stricken. – YaleGlobal