NY Times: Bradley Manning prison sentence 'too long

On the 35-year sentence Private Bradley Manning received Wednesday for leaking classified military documents to WikiLeaks, the New York Times writes:

In providing more than 700,000 government files to WikiLeaks — extensive excerpts of which were published in The New York Times and other publications — he broke the law and breached his responsibility as a military intelligence analyst to protect those files. It was by far the biggest leak of classified documents in U.S. history, and thus it is not surprising that the punishment would be the longest ever on record for leaking such information.

But 35 years is far too long a sentence by any standard. ...

In their drastic attempt to put Private Manning away for most of the rest of his life, prosecutors were also trying to discourage other potential leakers, but as the continuing release of classified documents by Edward Snowden shows, even the threat of significant prison time is not a deterrent when people believe their government keeps too many secrets.

Manning will reportedly ask President Obama for a pardon next week.