Thank you for the sincere comment and I respect your position - a lot of the usage of the death penalty is really morally questionable in my eyes, things like executing people who are barely mentally competent and making a big dog and pony show out of it. That sort of thing doesn't seem like it'd reduce crime or give any real feeling of closure to a victim, or really accomplish much at all. So I respect your position.

If you think the death penalty is wrong, full stop, then I guess it's just agree to disagree because I think there are times when it's appropriate - though, like I said, I respect your position. But if you'll ask the question of, "If there's a death penalty available for prosecutors, when should they seek it?" I'm not convinced that the answer to that is just when the person does obviously horrifying things.

Put like this - I have an expression that goes, "Satan urinates on toilet seats." I don't actually believe in Satan, mind you, what I mean is - I think evil originates less from bad motives like you see in the movies and more from people being careless, reckless, and leaving a mess. Most people are careful in a clean public bathroom, but once it gets a little messy, it gets really messy really fast. So I always imagined that, if there's a Satan, he goes around being the first one to pee on a clean toilet seat. Then all the decent people who would normally not make a mess both have to stay further away from the now-dirty bathroom, and care less if they make more of a mess.

So by punishing this man for very casually, unthinkingly sharing very important information and risking lives, I think he's absolutely culpable. If there's any place where the death penalty could dissuade people, or get them thinking more, it's here.

So a someone in military intelligence who thinks about leaking classified material has to ask themselves, "Is this important that I'm willing to die to leak it?" And thus, I don't think it'd suppress people who come across something really, really bad. But this guy was talking about dumping classified material wantonly on an anonymous server. People were going to die as a result of his actions. I wouldn't be for seeking the death penalty based on just the video of the helicopter incident, but all sorts of material just for the hell of it?

And on top of that, he took specific oaths to protect his country and his fellow soldier. He wasn't conscripted. He wasn't a random kid playing around on the internet. He volunteered to join the armed forces, and then he was trained and instructed before he become an intelligence analyst. He would've had a choice if he wanted go into that role in the armed forces, and he would've been instructed repeatedly that sharing classified information could kill his fellow servicemen and women.

I agree with you that there could be some much-needed security improvements as a result of his actions, but it's not like some kid was hacking around on servers from the internet, this is a man who carefully planned to bring materials into an area sealed off from the internet and sneak the information out. He's smart enough to steal classified information, but he's either reckless or ambivalent to the fact that people are very likely to die as a result of his actions.

If you seek the death penalty for this, you send a clear message that risking a fellow serivemen's and innocent civillians' lives haphazardly for a thrill is considered the highest of crimes and deserves the highest of punishments. I respect your position on the death penalty in general, but if you have a death penalty, I think this is just about as bad of a crime as a member of the armed forces can commit.