Matthew Shaffer: The Espionage Act and Bradley Manning
[Matthew Shaffer writes for the National Review.]
...[T]here is a legal question of whether Manning is guilty of espionage. He handed documents over to, charitably construed, a journalist — not an enemy power. And it’s not clear that he had a specific intent to undermine the U.S., her interests, or her allies. So does this still constitute espionage?
Yes. There’s a closely analogous precedent for this case. In 1985, Samuel Morison, the namesake and grandson of the famous naval historian, became the first American prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917 for passing information to the press. Morison was a United States intelligence agent who contributed to the editing of Jane’s Fighting Ships, an annual reference of the world’s navies associated with Jane’s Defence Weekly. In 1984, several classified photos of a Soviet ship-building facility appeared in Jane’s. An investigation found that Morison had removed classified labels from the satellite photos, brought them illegally to his residence, and provided them to Jane’s....
Read entire article at National Review
...[T]here is a legal question of whether Manning is guilty of espionage. He handed documents over to, charitably construed, a journalist — not an enemy power. And it’s not clear that he had a specific intent to undermine the U.S., her interests, or her allies. So does this still constitute espionage?
Yes. There’s a closely analogous precedent for this case. In 1985, Samuel Morison, the namesake and grandson of the famous naval historian, became the first American prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917 for passing information to the press. Morison was a United States intelligence agent who contributed to the editing of Jane’s Fighting Ships, an annual reference of the world’s navies associated with Jane’s Defence Weekly. In 1984, several classified photos of a Soviet ship-building facility appeared in Jane’s. An investigation found that Morison had removed classified labels from the satellite photos, brought them illegally to his residence, and provided them to Jane’s....