With the stunning news that a bulk of Chelsea Manning's remaining sentence has been commuted by President Obama,Indonesia Archives there's an obvious question in the air about that other infamous leaker of government document troves, Edward Snowden.
Mainly: Why grant mercy to Chelsea Manning, but not Edward Snowden?
SEE ALSO: Obama commutes majority of Chelsea Manning's sentenceIt's easy to conflate the two, due in no small part to the fact that Snowden issued his own heart-felt call to Obama to commute Manning's sentence just last week.
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But people—many important ones—see a major rift between the two. In a statement to media today, White House press secretary Josh Earnest was crystal clear in what he saw as the "stark difference" between the two cases of Manning and Snowden:
On Chelsea Manning:
“Chelsea Manning is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she acknowledged wrongdoing,” [Earnest] said.
On Edward Snowden:
“Mr. Snowden fled into the arms of an adversary, and has sought refuge in a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy.”
Even more:
In Manning's case, the documents leaked related to the ongoing military operation in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as diplomatic cables, and information about detainees in Guantanamo. Many of Manning's documents related to the war were about operations that already happened, and documents that revealed the number of civilian casualties to be higher than what the U.S. government was reporting at the time. In Snowden's case, the leaks detailed massive surveillance programs that were currently under use by U.S. intelligence agencies, including cracking encryption, collecting data-like text messages from cell phone carriers, and surveillance of other nations, including several allies.
Chelsea Manning leaked documents directly to WikiLeaks after being turned down by several newspapers, including the New York Times. Eventually, the Times, as well as The Guardianand German paper Der Spiegel, would go on to publish excerpts from the documents. Edward Snowden's documents were leaked to multiple outlets, including the Washington Postand The Guardianand, later, The New York Timesand Der Spiegel.
Government officials also noted that while Manning's leaks were information, Snowden's leaks showed, in detail, exactly how intelligence agencies went about collecting information, which could give enemies of the United States a better idea of how to avoid detection and circumvent U.S. efforts to undermine their plans.
Snowden, for his part, has expressed gratitude towards the U.S. Government in commuting Manning's sentence.
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Given the White House's take on the matter, Snowden's gratitude not withstanding, it certainly doesn't look like he's going to be on the receiving end of any help from the American government any time soon. For all the various ways the Obama administration and the forthcoming Trump administration seem to differ, given the last time he weighed in on it, it looks like the matter of Edward Snowden is one of the few things he and Obama can seem to agree on:
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Then again, given Trump's ever-evolving dynamic with Moscow, that one's potentially up in the air these days, too.
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