A cover-up of a war crime, such as the Manning trial seeks to accomplish, would make the participants of the cover-up “accessories after the fact” if they had not ordered the crime to be covered up and merely participated in the cover-up. If they had ordered the cover-up or the prosecution of whistleblowers, then they should be guilty as co-conspirators.

In time of war, government espionage against their own citizens – the American people – as revealed by Mr. Snowden, perhaps should also be considered to be a “war crime” in that innocent civilians are the target of the government attack on privacy. The Geneva Convention prohibits treating innocent civilians as if they were enemy soldiers.

Government spying on an innocent population during the War on Terrorism could be considered espionage in time of war. In effect, US citizens are treated as an enemy. In wartime, government monitoring of citizen movements as though they were enemy movements should be a violation of the Geneva Convention.

It would appear that there were numerous violations of international law by the Obama and Bush administrations, yet nothing is being done about it, no national leaders call for investigation, no country demands prosecution for various murders including murder by drones.

How can this be that murder by drone of innocent civilians can be ignored by the world’s nations? And US authorities view their citizens as an enemy to be spied upon and monitored and murdered?

Who is responsible for enforcing the Nuremburg principles?

Why is nothing done to stop state crimes?

Why are Mr. Manning and Mr. Snowden, heroic whistleblowers, so feared by the US government that government officials violated international law to hide US official’s crimes?

Nuremburg rules are U.S. law, so there is no excuse in saying a soldier or civilian contractor was ordered to keep secret a crime against civilians, and the same should be true for whistleblowers who reveal government crimes against the public. An order to keep secret a crime would be an illegal order under the principles of Nuremburg, as would be the crime itself.

It is an interesting question whether, in the War on Terrorism, current and former government officials violating privacy laws and the 4th Amendment, can be prosecuted in an international tribunal for “war crimes” under Nuremburg principles. If Nuremburg applies, and it seems clear that it should, then US officials risk prosecution for committing war crimes and crimes against the public, including the illegal orders to keep them secret.