Gen. Petraeus To Be Sentenced To Two Years Probation and Fine 94
An anonymous reader writes: Petraeus, a now-retired U.S. Army General, has already agreed to plead guilty to a criminal misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. As part of the agreement with prosecutors filed in March, the government will not seek any prison time. Instead, Petraeus will agree to pay a $40,000 fine and receive two years of probation, according to court documents. The recommendations are not binding on the federal judge who will preside at the hearing Thursday afternoon in Charlotte.
Haha FTA! (Score:2, Insightful)
Snowden done a truly patriotic service, never mind his intent (who knows) but this General was only after pussy before he BETRAYED US!
Motivation and punishment (Score:5, Insightful)
Snowden disclosed illegal activity on the part of his employer and the US government. He should be protected by the whistle-blower law. Petraeus gave classified material to his biographer (and lover). In addition to displaying his machismo to his female, he was also trying to provide background info for the book about him. Petraeus was motivated by self-serving benefit. Snowden was doing a service to his country. In a just world, Petraeus should be the one hiding in Russia to avoid life imprisonment or a death sentence.
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Immoral maybe (opinions vary), illegal no.
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If they were doing nothing wrong, they shouldn't have had anything to hide. At least, that's how we are told to treat citizens of this country, right? Why shouldn't the government abide by the same rules that it expects its citizens to abide by?
Oh wait, they need an exemption because government. Because "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others"
I am sorry, I was going to continue, but now I feel like I am giving a book report on Animal Farm.
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That sounds exactly like what I would expect from this government, without regard to who is in office. Oh you did something stupid for personal gain? No harm no foul.....but if you are an idealist, that scares them.
The last thing they want is to be held accountable, and this is a clear indication of that.
Thank God!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
For a second I thought a member of the elite was actually going to be significantly punished, but these wise prosecutors have preserved the Aristocracy from shame!
Now, let's get about castrating Edward Snowden!
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So the general protection fault has to pay almost what, 5% of what he made by selling out his country?
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He did send a serious message.... misappropriation and corruption at the highest levels will most certainly be tolerated.
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Well, thanks for showing up to tell us. It's so good of you to come on to a topic that you believe completely does not belong on /. to tell us how it does not not belong on /. You are a true champion through and through! Now use your powers to find out if that pack of 100 jelly beans in fact has 100 jelly beans, or 99 or 103.
America needs people like you!
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I could say the same thing about your post, but that's really going nowhere.
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I agree with OP. /. is it's own thing, not a general purpose news aggregation site. The world is saturated with those, and surely doesn't need another.
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Slashdot is been posting general new stories since basically forever.
Re: so....why? (Score:5, Informative)
Petraeus' case is generally contrasted with those of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Manning spent a long time in questionable conditions that some suggest were intended as duress, all for leaking computer data that exposed a US war crime. Snowden is in de facto exile for exfiltrating data that revealed the means by which the US government illegally spies on its citizens and the extent of their previous lies denying it. Petraeus got a slap on the wrist for leaking classifed information to a woman with whom he was having an affair. The two former leakers were punished for revealing the government's crimes, while the latter stayed out of jail despite giving classified info in exchange for sex.
Re: so....why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Petraeus is a part of the elite. The elite don't get real punishments. Now remember who your masters are, and beg them not to punish you for your impertinence! Oh, and Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
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Probably somewhere in the middle... he knew the location of enough closeted skeletons to avoid a stay at Hotel Leavenworth, but he was not quite powerful enough to just have the system shrug it off.
Then again, consider that he is still, even now, a paid consultant for the Obama Administration (ostensibly concerning ISIS), so take from that what you will...
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It's meant to warn nerds of the dangers associated with female companionship
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It's meant to warn nerds of the dangers associated with female companionship
I suppose it is useful to have purely theoretical discussions around here from time to time.
Re:so....why? (Score:5, Informative)
We get a lot of articles here that people say don't belong on Slashdot, but I usually side with them being good articles. "Stuff that matters" and all that, personal freedoms, general interest to nerds, etc. But this one...no, I'm just not seeing it. Nothing to do with personal freedoms, nothing to do with computers, nothing to do with public policy, absolutely zero effect on any of us, even those of us in the USA. It's just political celebrity news.
Except that his indiscretions were discovered because his electronic cloak-and-dagger skills weren't what he thought they were, and that the FBI discovered this in an electronic dragnet, and that he, the director of the CIA, disclosed state secrets to his soon-to-be-jealous lover, which constitutes a greater potential breach of security than Snowden and Assange combined....
But aside from that, yeah, no relevance to the life of the average geek. None whatsoever.
Re: so....why? (Score:1)
The more this happens ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: The more this happens ... (Score:1)
not binding (Score:2)
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If we're talking about the number of kicks to the nuts he should receive, we can start talking.
Should be used as precedent for sentencing Snowden (Score:5, Informative)
I think this case should absolutely be used as precedent when and if they sentence Edward Snowden. I think a two year suspended sentence, followed by a Congressional Medal of Freedom would be an appropriate sentence.
Re: Should be used as precedent for sentencing Sno (Score:1)
A Congressional medal?
I would sooner pick the two years on jail instead.
Different Set of Rules (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Different Set of Rules (Score:5, Insightful)
Until someone snaps and takes the law into his own hands. That's the inherent dangers of an unjust justice system: People losing faith in it.
That is actually very dangerous to the stability of a state.
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Don't worry, we're removing the means for you lowlifers to do that. Soon enough surveillance will be so pervasive that even *thinking* wrong will be detected. Game over for you shit people.
Re:Different Set of Rules (Score:4, Insightful)
Only as long as we still have something to lose. You have to be careful not to take that away, or else it's game over for you.
You cannot win a war against someone who doesn't mind losing it because he CANNOT lose anything.
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If there were video of Hillary physically being handed a stack of cash (right hand), cigar hung loosely from lips while strangling a kitten(left hand) from a Russian CEO over a document that said approval to process uranium; people would still apologize for her and do their best to 'splain it way. If that effort failed they'd invent some other way for her to evade accountability like 'No controlling legal authority' and the press would complicity discontinue talking about it and return focus to what sort o
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We know that Snowden and Petraeus both leaked classified material, but I'm inclined to say that someone of high rank and responsibility should be punished more than a contract sysadmin for doing the same thing.
Petraeus has pled guilty to leaking classified material, and we all know Snowden did. I've seen no indications that Clinton did anything on the same scale, or a mention of any law she appears to have broken. (Other secretaries of state have used private email for official purposes; it was only ma
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ah but Snowden isnt connected.
Petraeus is, from having been director of the CIA.
Also, he told secrets to the public, instead of his mistress.
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That ship already sailed with MEK. Carry a Hezbollah tv channel - the feds will send you to a Federal Pound Me In the Ass Penitentiary. Take money from MEK to lobby, aka propagandize [salon.com] on their behalf? We'll just take them off the terror watch list.
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"Also, he told secrets to the public, instead of his mistress."
Snowden gave the documents to journalists for them to reveal. Don't be lazy and misrepresent it even accidentally. Beyond that they weren't even just "journalists" they were lawyers etc.
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oh shut up.
the point of his actions were to reveal the NSAs actions to the public, so that the public knew about the shady/illegal snennigans the NSA and government were engaging in.
unlike Petraeus who's motivation in leaking was apparently to get into his biographer's pants.
and my lil joke was simply pointing out which one the government believes to be the bigger sin
(and since you're a little dense apparently, that would be "telling the public")
Good thing he didn't download a bunch of pdf's (Score:2, Funny)
Summary overlooks a couple of points (Score:5, Insightful)
1. He was leaking classified information to his mistress who was also his biographer. Like top-secret stuff.
2. When an investigation ensued, he lied to the FBI about leaking the material to his mistress.
Martha Stewart lied to the FBI about insider trading tips and got at least 5 month in a prison camp.
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An enlisted man would have received 10 years in Leavenworth.
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An enlisted man would have received 10 years in Leavenworth.
Or eleven years in Twelveworth,
or five to ten in Woolworth.
Hey, someone had to quote it!
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Sensitive Compartmented Information, actually, which is far beyond the Top Secret information revealed by the whistleblower Manning. Guess which one is getting probation and the other is getting to spend 3+ decades in prison?
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If only he had ... (Score:2, Insightful)
dishonourable discharge (Score:2, Insightful)
He should get dishonourable discharge as well and no pension.
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Still waiting for a statement on the alleged classified alleged information she allegedly leaked, or for that matter a law that she may have broken. (Using a private email server was SOP until Kerry, at which point it became illegal.)
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No, you're wrong. Discussing classified information via unclassified sources has been illegal for some time.
EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 12065 [fas.org]
Executive Order 12356 [archives.gov]
EXECUTIVE ORDER 12958 (notice the signatory) [fas.org]
So, please express how the government can address this without a complete record of the Secretary's e-mails? That's assuming you wish to trust the person receiving legal bribes from foreign governments $200K to $500K at a time through speaking fees for her or her husband.
I haven't heard what the lady did with the info (Score:3)
People at the top pay? (Score:3)
Sandy Berger got probation, community service, and a $50,000 fine I bet he didn't pay. Petraeus received essentially the same.
Funny that normal civilians and enlisted people get decades plus for the same crime.
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Apparently Attorney General Holder has never heard of a PLANK on a Ship at Sea, where there are Sharks with fucking laser beams. So General Petraeus' walk will be a long one.
And (Score:2)
"They hate us for our* Freedom!"
* - 'Us' being the power elite, not the filthy commoners subject to all the rules.
It's Hillary's turn now, right? (Score:3)
Gen Petraeus had a handful of documents in his desk. Hillary had tens of thousands of government emails stored in her own server and then wiped it without any government oversight.
General Petraeus = Traitor (Score:2)
And traitors of the Bush White House Occupancy are supposed to be handed stiff bonuses, not flabby penalties
so... (Score:2)
in about 8 years, give or take, we will see him as the GOP candidate?