An Alaska-based military police officer has been sentenced to 16 years in prison and will receive a dishonourable discharge for selling military secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as a Russian spy, a military panel has decided.

A panel of eight military members from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage recommended a 19-year sentence for Spec William Colton Millay, which was dropped to 16 years because of a pretrial agreement.

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Military prosecutors said Millay was a white supremacist who was fed up with the army and the US, and was willing to sell secrets to an enemy agent even if that would cost his fellow soldiers their lives.

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So, let me get this straight. If you intentionally try to betray your country by attempting to sell secrets to a foreign government, you get 16 years and your attorney promises to continue to seek clemency because of the "circumstances".

But if you think that your government is participating in something immoral, and you want to make the public aware of things they are doing that might be wrong, with the possible unintentional consequence that "enemies of the state" will also find out, you get caged for 2 years and tried for treason where the best outcome you could hope for is life in prison.

I think that's a pretty clear message. It's not good to sell secrets to foreign governments (who happen to have friendly relationships with countries on our "enemy" list) with full knowledge that it will compromise your fellow officers, but it's much much better than releasing information to the media about the bad things your government is doing.