> Manning is being charged with all this mostly because he embarrassed the US administration, not because of any fraud or real life fall out

The foreign relations hit was real enough. So was the hit to "human intelligence", and the threat to those collaborating with the U.S. in Afghanistan, Yemen, and other places.

So is the Arab Spring, which continues to kill people every day in Syria (and now Egypt, unless things change soon over there).

But either way, though the law is based on the effect of one's actions, the law is also often based on the actions themselves.

After all if someone were to come at me with a knife, swing and miss, they could still be charged with attempted murder or aggravated battery despite "no harm" befalling me.

If I drive around without insurance I can still be cited even though I haven't crashed into anyone yet.

So likewise, even if our allies in places like Afghanistan and Yemen had managed to be alerted and evade retribution in time that didn't change the existential threat they were living under.

And that's the problem with intelligence and counter-intelligence. Often the enemy won't realize that a successful attack against them had intel as a key; the Nazis went through all of WWII with nary a clue that the Allies were amazingly well-informed of their capabilities and intentions.

Now we have it on the reverse. The Taliban attack a U.S. base in Afghanistan and destroy 6 Harrier jets [1] in Sept. 2012. Was the day-to-day operational intelligence revealed by Manning completely useless for that? It's hard for the U.S. to tell on the other end.

How about the people killed, scores injured, and damage done to a Forward Operating Base in Aug. 2012 [2]? Did intel on how the U.S. Army responds to the many previous Taliban and AQ attacks really not help them at all in planning this assault?

The problem is that it is hard to conclusively prove that intelligence was useful for a given attack if you're only on the receiving end, especially if using the evidence you have would have the effect of divulging your sources. The same reasoning is behind the rumors behind Churchill allowing Coventry to be normally defended (and subsequently severely damaged by German bombing), because he didn't want to tip off the German that their Enigma was sometimes readable by the British.

But just because you can't prove something doesn't imply the opposite (that you've proven the intel was not useful). This still helps Manning as far as his trial goes, but history has shown that skilled opponents can utilize far less intel than was provided by Manning to great effect. And common sense would show that there's a reason OBL made an effort to get his hands on the leaked intel himself. Presumably the fact he still had it meant at least he found it useful.

But even if OBL had found it very useful, he'd hardly have issued a press release over it, so a lack of crowing about "real life effects" is hardly evidence in support of Manning, it's simply a lack of evidence to support either conclusion.

Edit: I suppose I could at least mention that I agree that using CFAA as a charge in this case is unfair. The best you can say is that downloading data for the purpose of divulging it is "exceeding authorized access" but that has nothing to do with whether you use a web browser or wget, and in any event is already covered by espionage changes and charges of mishandling classified data. Even worse, had Manning somehow managed to use that compilation he downloaded for statistical analyses that aided the Army in their operations it presumably would have been 'authorized access', despite being the same actions taken in either case.

[1] http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/09/6_harrier_jet...
[2] http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/08/omani_jihadis...