William Goode’s Journal – Bradley Manning, The US Government and State Secrets

This was my comment to an article in the Guardian on 6/12/12.

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Bradley Manning – we ask once again, should he take all the blame?

Fill a room up with old newspapers that you hope to read one day and you’re pretty soon going to end up with a mess.

The theory is the same except this room is full of computers.

I doubt the the US governments treatment of Bradley Manning (and should they manage to get hold of Julian Assange and do a similiar thing with him) will stop the room being filled.

Citizens are no longer influenced by major trials and their outcomes, we have our own social media that pretty much runs the way we think. The Wikileak leaks could have been dangerous but even Wikileak is like a government, full of information but little of it not already available from other internet sources if you really care to delve, and a lot don’t.

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Julian Assange, will he be extradited to the US ?

The idea that security information can be leaked is more of an embarrassment to governments than a major problem. The majority of citizens are not going to make much use of the information and those with dodgy intent already know what they know.

Governments are always going to set the current ideology but the populace will increasingly judge their politicians on their administrative skills not their ideological skills. The current lapses in database security (not just the US but world wide) are of major national concern to all citizens.

The US government hides nothing when they bring, from what appears a slightly disturbed man in Bradley Manning to trial.

He has become a casualty from the Wikileak action and will now be collateral damage to the US government.

There will always be secrets that should be kept secret in the national interest. I know not all agree but watching your football with a barbecue in peace requires pretty elaborate work by some.

The problem of course starts when that “some” cross personal interest with national interest and decide that in place of a better administrative position (or other less moral intentions), lock up indefinately a citizen that all of us are increasingly becoming aware (thanks to lengthy worn out procedures that allow for endless social media discussions), is not the major bad guy in all of this.

The individual rarely is totally the only one to blame, there is generally faulty administration lurking in there somewhere, you just need to look deeper and thoroughly.

As one famous U.S. President (Harry S. Truman) said “the buck stops here”.