Whistleblowing is the act of reporting wrongdoing of an individual or organization, whether it be legally or not. Whistleblowing is important because it helps to prevent possible corruption or other forms of wrongdoing. In this case we see the Baghdad airstrikes, or as WikiLeaks’ titled it, Collateral Murder. The video goes into detail of the airstrikes that happened in 2007 during the Iraq War. The leaker, Chelsea Manning, who was court-martialed over the leaking of these videos is the main subject of this case. We will go over the impact of the clips leaked by Manning, specifically how it affected the United States. We will also go into detail whether Manning’s release of the videos was out of loyalty to the United States. Coming from a military family, I want to side with the military, however; I will argue using the ethical tool for Contractarianism to show that Manning did act out loyalty to the United States, but her actions were an immoral case of whistleblowing.

            In 5.2 after reading Vandekerckhove and Commers’ Whistle Blowing and Rational Loyalty we learn that Duska claims that ‘employee loyalty to companies is a category mistake.’ He claims that there is technically no mutual gain between an employer and employee. This fits as the military, more specifically, the United States Army should not automatically assume that any service member would not divulge battlefield footage or other potentially harmful information to the United States if leaked. They should not assume that all their soldiers would automatically have the utmost loyalty to their country, that would be a naïve way to view people. According to United States v. Manning, Manning’s defense attorney David Coombs had quoted, then Bradley Manning, as being a “young, naïve, but good-intentioned soldier who had human life and his humanist beliefs center to his decisions.” Coombs also goes on to mention how Manning wanted to “make a difference, maybe make a change.” In a Contractarian sense, now Chelsea Manning, believed there to be a way in which there would be a case in which the United States, as a whole, would benefit from her actions. Through a Contractarian viewpoint, many could benefit from Manning’s cooperating with WikiLeaks. The United States military would need to make changes that could potentially benefit service members, people would see the military in a better light, etc.

                The authors also argue that if employees are loyal to their employers, then they have the obligation, our of loyalty, to ‘blow the whistle.’ This is because loyal employees may see a company engaging in corrupt activities or wrongdoing and whistle blow out of said loyalty to better the employer or company. This is in essence what Manning wanted to do when they leaked the combat footage to WikiLeaks. As mentioned previously, Coombs said that Manning’s actions were ‘good-intentioned’, they wanted to make a difference and change. Manning wanted to better the United States military in how they handle and present themselves during times of war or conflict. As stated earlier, through a Contractarian viewpoint, many would benefit from those stated above is they agree with Manning.

                What makes Manning’s whistleblowing potentially immoral is how they went about whistleblowing. Referring back to the case of United States v. Manning, it was found that Manning indeed did go through the proper lanes to communicate their feelings- her commanding officers, but they did nothing. However, it is ambiguous as to whether or not Manning specifically went to their superiors about her team’s actions on the battlefield. Another reason is whether the access was made by an authorized individual. Manning herself was authorized at the time, however those at WikiLeaks were not, making the morality of Manning’s whistleblowing questionable at best. She knowingly put authorized documents she had access to into the hands of unauthorized persons outside of the military. This led to a case in which the prosecution claims that Al-Qaeda used WikiLeaks to attack the United States. Though she did not willfully nor intend to aid the enemy, the release of these documents to unauthorized persons may have done that.

                In 5.3 after reading about Oxley and Wittkower’s Care and Loyalty in the Workplace, we gain a little insight into how to apply Care Ethics to business. In this section we learn that, generally, loyalty is not contractually mandated. This means that most normal persons are not obligated to be loyal to their employers as it is not outlined in the rules or regulations set out by the employer. Most companies probably will not demand absolute loyalty out of their employees, but the United States military operates differently in that all service members will take either an Oath of Enlistment or an Oath of Office depending on if they enlist or obtain a commission. Directly from the United States military, the oath of enlistment states that one “will bear true faith and allegiance,” so in a way they are being demanded loyalty to the United States to protect and defend her. Though she broke her Oath of Enlistment, I still believe Manning did the right thing in leaking the footage and documents to WikiLeaks as she strived for better moral standards out of the United States military.

Another thing learned in this section is that of partiality. Partiality is prevalent everywhere in the workplace, whether it be on the employer or employee’s side. One could argue that Manning acted with partiality. She likely knew that her releasing the footage and documents would likely only benefit a select few, instead of everyone equally initially. Though Manning broke their contract with the military, the contract to society was arguably maintained. She revealed the wrongdoings and downright negligence of her unit, and their lack of professionalism. She showed these wrongdoings to the world which would likely lead to changes that would affect how personnel act on the battlefield.

In this section we also go over how whistleblowing has the potential to be good, like in 5.2. The process would be quite different in the military as the usual process would always to go through your chain of command instead of going straight to the top, which Manning’s defense Coombs claims she attempted to do. However, the fact of the matter is that Manning attempted to go through the proper channels before eventually going to WikiLeaks, in a way she also stuck to that ‘contract’ she had between herself and the military.

One could argue that Manning’s method of whistleblowing was immoral in the fact that, using a concept we learned in this section, care does not exist only on one person in a relationship. Manning did, however, show care for the public by revealing everything to said public. However, did Manning think of the safety of other service members or ever herself? People applauded her efforts of whistleblowing, which showed that the public cared for her, and that she cared for the public, but she may have put herself in to more danger that most, which arguably shows lack of care for herself. We must ask if lack of self-care affects this relationship.

In conclusion, while I believe that Manning did the right thing and became a whistleblower due to the various wrongdoing and negligence of the United States Army, she showed certain immoral tendencies when they did so, like handing off the data to unauthorized individuals and showing a lack of care for herself when not factoring her own safety into the thought process of the consequences of releasing the footage and those documents via WikiLeaks. I believe, in terms of morality, Manning had the right moral thought process, but their method of execution could have been better, similar to the case of Edward Snowden. They regret leaving their family and friends and fled to Asia, despite having the ability to remain anonymous. I believe if Manning were older and more experienced rather than being (likely) fresh out of bootcamp, things may have been much different, however they were, as Coombs puts it, “young and naïve.”