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05 Aug 2013

by Cheyanne Konate

The Manning and Snowden Trials

Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are two Americans in their 20s. Both are fascinated by computer use and have held jobs that gave them access to some of their country’s most secret material. Manning and Snowden chose to share that material with the world and are now paying for it.

Edward Snowden was a former CIA employee and National Security Agency contract employee. He told a journalist from The Guardian that the NSA was operating classified surveillance programs that track cell phone calls and monitor the email and internet traffic of virtually all Americans. To tell everyone what happened, he left his job and life in Hawaii, and went to China and is now in Russia, where he has been granted temporary asylum.

U.S. Army Pvt. Bradley Manning leaked hundreds of classified documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and sensitive correspondence written by U.S. diplomats, information that WikiLeaks published. The New York Times also analyzed and reported some of that information. So did Der Spiegel and The Guardian newspapers. A military judge acquitted Manning of aiding the enemy, but convicted him of violations of Espionage Act. Manning could get up to 136 years in jail.

I honestly think that this is not that serious. If anything, Snowden was just showing us how the government is basically watching everything we do, which I don't think the government should be doing. And Manning put out documents that are not that big of a deal. I personally think Manning and Snowden just wanted to make a point and show America what the government does and is doing. I mean I wouldn't want people listening to my conversations on the phone, and some others might not like that either. I think that the government should rethink what they do because if it wasn't for Manning and Snowden, we would have never known this. So if anything they helped us to see what was really going on. I also think it was a good thing for them to want to be honest with people about this kind of thing. I probably would have done the same thing.

http://sanleandro.patch.com/groups/richard-mellors-blog/p/bradley-manning-and-edward-snowden-working-class-americans-to-be-proud-of

My sources

Cheyanne Konate is 14 years old. Her family is from Accra, Ghana. She likes to advantage of good opportunities that will help her dream to work in media or music entertainment. Cheyanne's favorite hobby is writing songs. She is excited and curious by life and all its opportunites and unknowns.