My understanding is that the court held that the clause of the Internal Security Act, which applied to employees of the federal government and citizens who worked on defense facilities, improperly curtailed their 1st Amendment rights.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

That's just not true, although it's a common misconception.

The UCMJ's authority is derived from the Constitution. The fact that cases have come up to SCOTUS from time to time reinforces the jurisdiction of the Constitutional framework over services and their members. Service member's enjoy, generally, the same protections under the UCMJ that a regular civilian has under the Constitution, and in fact service members can obviously still be tried in civilian courts. In some areas, the UCMJ actually grants broader protection than civil law.

You do not give up your Constitutional rights when you join the military. However, the practice of some of your rights may be curtailed in specific ways due to the nature of your job, or where you work (e.g. on federal property). The places where your rights are curtailed in a different way from civilians generally has directly to do with the effectiveness of military chain of command. For example, rules against contemptuous speech toward a public official or disrespect to a super officer may be curtailed because it could be detrimental to good order and discipline. Another example might be that you can't carry firearms onto federal facilities, or if you're housed on a base you may have slightly different rights regarding inspection and search. Again, this things depend on the military situation, not the giving up of rights by the service member.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I dunno man. I hear you, but I certainly didn't feel like my rights nor the rights of my subordinates fell under the Constitution protections that civilians enjoy. I'm not complaining mind you, I knew the rules for what I could and could not do and I was good with them.

No free speech. No freedom to assemble. No protection re. search and seizure. Due process not guaranteed.

Heck, I could have gotten my ass in a crack for ANYTHING my boss wanted to hang on me. All he'd need to have done is point to article 133 or 134 and convince the brass that I was a pita.

Again, not complaining. I was good with it.

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Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

yes

You had free speech, you had freedom to assemble, you had protection against unreasonable search and seizure, and you had due process.

If you were charged with something under 133 and 134 that you felt violated your rights, you could appeal. The UCMJ is fairly specific and constrained.

You may not have always felt like your rights were protected, but they were. Maybe you just had bad COs.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Back when I was a (low-level) CO (a company commander and then an inspector-instructor with the Marine Corps) and an XO (medical battalion), I had to remind Sailors (Marines, not so much because they knew the score) that the rules of evidence nor of procedure applied at non-judicial punishment (Navy calls it "captain's mast," the Marines "office hours"). And I saw more Sailors and Marines in front of me, at captain's mast/office hours and XO's screening mast, than I would have liked to have seen. I usually gave out the discipline (or just scared them and let them off with a warning, if the offense was minor and it was a first time or honest mistake) recommended by the command master chief and/or sergeant major

When you move up to courts martial (Summary -- which is just a little harsher than an NJP --, Special (full-on criminal procedure and rules of evidence apply) and General (really, really harshly serious, with harshly serious penalties if a conviction results) there are more constitutional protections, and also more leeway or benefit of the doubt afforded to members charged before the court.

Service members generally receive all the same 1A rights as civilians in most cases, but there are a number of proscriptions against speech they simply can't violate lest they find themselves in the same tub of hot water this young Army lieutenant has.

It's also not legally or factually the case that servicemembers "give up their rights" (constitutional rights), such as the 5A right against against self-incrimination and the like, but it's certainly the case that the military -- to maintain "good order and discipline" -- can proscribe a range of activities servicemembers can partake of, such as attending protests when in uniform, which they can't do, or attending political rallies in uniform, especially if they intend to make public utterances at them. That's a quick way to a JAGMAN (Manual of the Judge Advocate General Corps) investigation and a UCMJ Article 32 hearing, if the investigating officer recommends such.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

And it looks like this young lieutenant is going to possibly be in even hotter water, as evidence has surfaced that he was inspired to infiltrate the military by Bradley (Chelsea) Manning's actions.

Seems 2LT Spenser Rapone, in a Reddit post referencing Manning, stated a few of his own motivations for entering and then staying in the military as well as what he wanted to accomplish once he was commissioned an officer and sent to the Army's 10th Mountain Division (2nd Brigade Combat Team) at Fort Drum, NY. Manning had also been a member of the 10th Mountain Division.

In Rapone's words:

“I’m currently an infantry officer at Ft. Drum, NY assigned to the same brigade that she was while enlisted,” Rapone wrote in a post. “Every single day I think of the contradictions of being a communist while in this organization, and her courage and tenacity gives me strength to continue the long march through the institutions.

"The long march..." remark refers to a strategy espoused by Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci, and it advocates for communist adherents to infiltrate various institutions of the state (in this case, the US Army and US military) and engage in subversive activities in order to bring those institutions down.

It seems a fellow Reddit user, who was also a communist, cautioned 2LT Rapone to not be so open about where he was stationed. Rapone's reply?

“I know comrade, but I feel like we should not hide any longer,” Rapone answered.

He may have also been genuinely interested in revolutionary activities against the United States, given this remark:

“I read Che’s Guerrilla Warfare a month or two back. An essential text, although, as Che would say, specific to a certain historical context. I’d suggest Marighella’s Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla after finishing Che’s work. I myself need to read Mao’s On Guerrilla Warfare here soon enough. But, I suppose, more than anything else, the task at hand for all of us is to produce our own text on guerrilla warfare, in the days ahead, yes?”

2LT Rapone sure sounds to me like a true believer dedicated to the communist overthrow of the United States.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Just when you think the saga of 2LT Rapone couldn't get any more bizarre, along comes another element that's, well...even more bizarre.

It seems his formal mentor -- known as a cadet adviser -- at West Point was a Muslim professor of Middle East and Islamic history, one Dr. Rasheed Hosein, who was recently placed on administrative leave by the US Military Academy for issues the school said are unrelated to Rapone's recent activities.

There's speculation that Rapone was 'radicalized' by Hosein around 2014. The tone and tenor of his social media posts took a sharp turn toward communism, socialism and revolution and overthrow of the US government at some point during the summer of that year. Apparently Hosein and Rapone traveled together to India in March, 2014 and maintained a close relationship with each other until the young cadet graduated from West Point in May 2016.

Below, Rasheed Hosein (L), with Rapone (R) and an unidentified cadet between the duo (also, Rapone still needs a haircut, because that one he's sporting looks unsat ;-).




A portion of Hosein's background at West Point (his formal mentorship of Rapone is circled in red):

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."