VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|HarryR|DATE|1362256315|CONTENT|The biggest security failure was the decision to allow everyone at or above a specific security clearance level to see everything though very few would need more than information that affected their particular area of responsibility. It was just a matter of time before the whole lot was copied off and given to a 3rd party and Manning was not necessarily the first to do this. We know about it because he sent it to Wikileaks and it became public and people had to publicly react. 

It was a betrayal of trust for him to release secret info. It may have be for noble rather than venal reasons but it was still a betrayal of his position and he would have been aware of the consequences. If specific videos had moved him to action why didn&#039;t he just release those instead of copying off the whole database accessible to him and pass it on unconsidered. There are worse regimes in the world than the US, even under Bush, and any of their citizens seeking to oppose their own govts would probably consider the US a natural consumer of any information they could obtain about them. Those individuals may have been put at risk by indiscriminate release of US Govt confidential info.|IP-ADDRESS|85.178.34.127|MODERATIONFLAG|