Most influential leaker of the Century.

Manning or Snowden?

I thought I would compare the revelations from the pair and try to determine which whistleblower will be remembered as the most influential.

Bradley Manning

Below is a list of 10 revelations disclosed by Manning’s leaked documents that offer insight into the breadth and scope of what he revealed. The list, in no particular order, is far from comprehensive but encompasses some of the most significant information brought to light by the leaked documents.

1. The U.S. Embassy in Paris advised Washington to start a military-style trade war against any European Union country that opposed genetically modified crops, with U.S. diplomats effectively working directly for GM companies such as Monsanto.
   
   
2. In apparent violation of a 1946 U.N. convention, Washington initiated a spying campaign in 2009 that targeted the leadership of the U.N. that sought to gather top officials’ private encryption keys, credit card details, and biometric data.
   
   
3. A leaked diplomatic cable provided evidence that during an incident in 2006, U.S. troops in Iraq executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a 5-month-old, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence. The disclosure of this cable was later a significant factor in the Iraqi government’s refusal to grant U.S. troops immunity from prosecution beyond 2011, which led to U.S. troops withdrawing from the country.
   
   
4. The U.S. threatened the Italian government in an attempt to influence a court case involving the indictment of CIA agents over the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric. Separately, U.S. officials were revealed to have pressured Spanish prosecutors to dissuade them from investigating U.S. torture allegations, secret “extraordinary rendition” flights, and the killing of a Spanish journalist by U.S. troops in Iraq.
   
   
5. During the Iraq War, U.S. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape, and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers, according to thousands of field reports.
   
   
6. There were 109,032 “violent deaths” recorded in Iraq between 2004 and 2009, including 66,081 civilians. Leaked records from the Afghan War separately revealed coalition troops’ alleged role in killing at least 195 civilians in unreported incidents, one reportedly involving U.S. service members machine-gunning a bus, wounding or killing 15 passengers.
   
   
7. British and American officials colluded in a plan to mislead the British Parliament over a proposed ban on cluster bombs.
   
   
8. In Baghdad in 2007, a U.S. Army helicopter gunned down a group of civilians, including two Reuters news staff.
   
   
9. U.S. special operations forces were conducting offensive operations inside Pakistan despite sustained public denials and statements to the contrary by U.S. officials.
   
   
10. A NATO coalition in Afghanistan was using an undisclosed “black” unit of special operations forces to hunt down targets for death or detention without trial. The unit was revealed to have had a kill-or-capture list featuring details of more than 2,000 senior figures from the Taliban and al-Qaida, but it had in some cases mistakenly killed men, women, children, and Afghan police officers.
    

Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden's leaks are said to rank among the most significant breaches in the history of the USA.

So, what did the leaks reveal?

1. They confirmed that the U.S. government, without obtaining any court warrants, routinely collects the phone logs of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, of Americans, who have no links to terrorism whatsoever.
   
   
2. The US bugged 38 foreign embassies, microphones were put in buildings and computers were compromised as spooks targeted EU in Washington and UN offices in New York causing outrage across Europe from citizens and leaders alike. The document also lists the large range of spying methods used to infiltrate the 'targets' including bugging phones, tapping cables and intercepting transmissions with far-reaching antennae.
   
   
3. The top-secret PRISM program collects and analyses information from internet and phone users around the world, with direct access to data from Google, Yahoo! Facebook, Skype and other Internet firms and stores them for detailed post-analysis.
   
   
4. He also revealed details of Tempora, a British black-ops surveillance program run by the NSA's British partner, GCHQ.
   
   
5. Revealed the workings of Boundless Informant. A big data analysis and data visualization system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) to give NSA managers summaries of NSA's world wide meta-data collection activities.
   

The full extent of Snowden's leaks are probably not yet fully realized as he has stated that there are more leaks to come.

I would like to ask your opinion ATS as to who is/will be the more influential whistleblower?

Manning or Snowden?

or neither.

Fast Eddie Snowden or Bradass69?

Both are giant disappointments to me.

We need a Whistleblower Court so these leakers have some where to go.

Because running to a Foreign Government with our secrets.

Gets zero sympathy from me.

Originally posted by whyamIhere
Fast Eddie Snowden or Bradass69?

Both are giant disappointments to me.

We need a Whistleblower Court so these leakers have some where to go.

Because running to a Foreign Government with our secrets.

Gets zero sympathy from me.

I agree completely, if the government doesn't wish it's dirty laundry aired then they should stop committing crimes against it's own people in violation of the Constitution.

Edward Snowden should be a protected man INSIDE of our borders, protected by the citizens he brought the crimes to light in order to inform and protect. It's insane that he must flee our country and refuge in a foreign country and en route release all of that information to God knows how many unfriendly or outright hostile regimes.