Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. Fortunately he was found “not guilty” of “aiding the enemy” but for other charges of espionage and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (a seriously outdated law).

I want to focus on the “aiding the enemy” part because even though he was not found guilty of doing so, it raises some very important questions about who the “enemy” is that I predict will play a much larger role when the United States government does finally get their hands on Edward Snowden.

What does “aiding the enemy” mean? Since we have no idea what the government means by that statement (as they can change it at their whim), I’m going to assume they mean helping terrorist groups and countries doing things we don’t approve of (like say, Iran or North Korea).

But, what if they charge Snowden with this? All he did was inform the American people (and people of other nations) that he United States government was spying on them and that the major technology corporations were in on it. I want to state this part again: He informed the American people. Meaning that charging Edward Snowden with “aiding the enemy” would make “We the People” into “the enemy” and that is a very scary thought.

If the American people are “the enemy” according to their own government, then we may be in a downward spiral that we may never come back from. This is something that transcends political affiliations. Regardless if you’re “right” or “left” this is something that you should not only think on, but be concerned about. If you’re the enemy, then we live in tyranny and all the actions of the Revolutionary War were in vain. We will have become that which our founding fathers rallied against.