Bradley nee. Chelsea Manning pleads guilty

[outsider]

Bradley Manning pleads guilty to lesser charges; allowed to read out very long self-justification:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31 &Itemid=74&jumival=9779

'RATNER: I went down to Fort Meade, and it was an all-day affair. Bradley Manning was in the courtroom. Most of the press goes to a theater room, but a few of us—I'm not press—go into the room with Bradley Manning. And it was a special day because it was a day in which Bradley Manning's lawyer and Bradley had decided to plead guilty to certain of the charges, but really lesser included charges, not the top charges of espionage and aiding the enemy and all of that.

But I was devastated by the day emotionally. I was devastated by it. But at the same time, you really saw who Bradley Manning was, what a hero he was, and how when he saw wrong, he basically acted.

Technically what happened today is he pleaded guilty to nine charges. And when you plead guilty in a court, the court wants to make sure you understand what you're doing, the nature of the plea, and asks you to describe what your actions are. And so Bradley Manning pleaded guilty to many of the distribution or the transferring of documents to WikiLeaks, who is my client, all of the documents from the Iraq War Logs, the Afghan war logs, "Collateral Murder" video, Department of State cables, the Reykjavik 13 cable, etc.

But what was amazing about this guilty plea to nine charges is the judge allowed him to read a statement that's probably a 30-page statement—it took two or three hours—that really gave you a sense of who Bradley Manning was. And it was an incredibly moving statement. He started out by when he joined the military, and then he described what his first job was in Iraq. And his first job was really compiling and working with something called SigAct, which are significant activities. And those are the daily log reports of what happens in the field. And as he read those reports, he got more and more disturbed by what he saw going on in Iraq, the amount of killings, the number of—the fact that they were killing people on a kill list, he said, rather than helping people. And he thought there should be a serious discussion of counterinsurgency, what it meant, what it meant to really help people instead of hurt them....'

[scienceplease 2]

Glenn Greenwald has been doing a good job supporting Bradley Manning...

This is his latest piece.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/28/bradley-manning-he roism-pleads-guilty

[TonyGosling]

Today's important audio leak
As not covered by the BBC of course
http://boingboing.net/2013/03/12/leaked-audio-of-bradley-mannin.html
https://s3.amazonaws.com/pressfreedom/bradley_manning_statement/full_s tatement.mp3
https://www.pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/03/fpf-publishes-leak ed-audio-of-bradley-mannings-statement


Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L79wWAFUqg

A Real Hero
by craig on March 13, 2013 6:56 pm in Uncategorized
Please listen to a truly great military hero, Bradley Manning. He has been kept in abusive solitary confinement for a very long time now. He is plainly unbowed and undiminished.
There is another great hero out there too – the whistleblower who leaked the audio recording. Freedom fighters pop up everywhere – that is the great joy of being human.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/03/a-real-hero/

[outsider]

Here is an appeal to get Bradley Manning a Nobel Prize.
He seems to be doing well with votes, so I hope you will give him your vote:

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7612

There are always difficult choices in this kind of vote, with many good and worthy people and causes, but Bradley Manning is right up our street; as a whistleblower he exposes the Truth, which is what we are all trying to do.

[outsider]

Bradley’s mother and aunt’s first interview..:
http://www.bradleymanning.org/featured/mom-intv

'The family’s horror at his arrest in 2010 deepened the following year when they visited him in jail as he awaited his court-martial.

Susan, accompanied by Sharon and her husband and suffering worsening health problems, made her first and only trip to the US to visit Bradley in February 2011 at a US marines’ base at Quantico in Virginia.

She was permitted four one-hour meetings with her son, who was being kept in solitary confinement. Sharon and Joe were not allowed inside.

Sharon says that, after the first visit, Susan fell into her sister’s arms and sobbed: ‘You wouldn’t treat a bloody animal like they’re treating Bradley...'

[outsider]

Pentagon Papers Lawyer: Today's Whistleblowers Face Unprecedented Danger:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31 &Itemid=74&jumival=10572

This is a 'Real News' video, but gives some very important facts about the illegality of the Patriot Act, and the stuffing of the Federal Judge system with extreme Right-Wing Reactionaries, with 83% of Federal Judges having been appointed by Presidents Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, George HW Bush or George W Bush. Below is the transcript:

'JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore.

Nobel Peace Prize committee officials have received a petition with some 100,000 signatures that endorse awarding the Peace Prize to U.S. soldier Bradley Manning.

Here to discuss the significance of whistleblowers in U.S. history is Daniel Sheehan. Daniel Sheehan has litigated over a dozen historically significant American legal cases in the 20th century, including the Pentagon Papers case in 1971 and the Watergate case in 1973. His autobiography, The People's Advocate: The Life and Legal History of America's Most Fearless Public Interest Lawyer, was published this month.

Thank you so much for joining us, Daniel.

DANIEL SHEEHAN, ATTORNEY FOR DANIEL ELLSBERG (PENTAGON PAPERS): Thank you. I appreciate being here.

NOOR: So, Daniel, you worked as a lawyer on the law firm that helped The New York Times decide to publish the Pentagon Papers. Talk about that decision and what it meant for you and the historical significance.

SHEEHAN: Well, it was quite extraordinary. We were in the process of working on the United States Supreme Court decision to establish the right of journalists to protect their confidential news sources. The law firm where I was, the Cahill Gordon law firm on Wall Street in New York, were representing NBC News, because the NBC News journalist Paul Pappas had been the first one to assert this right, and it had gone all the way to the United States Supreme Court. So we were in the process of preparing the briefs at the United States Supreme Court not only for NBC News, but for a number of news media, such as The New York Times, Washington Post, CBS, and others.

And in that context I got to know Jim Goodale, who was general counsel and vice president of The New York Times. He brought the Pentagon Papers to us. Their law firm, Lord Day & Lord, refused to protect them and said that they were going to turn them in to the FBI if they didn't give the papers back immediately. So Jim Goodale called me on the phone at the Cahill firm and came over to visit with us. And I convened the meeting with Jim Goodale and the lawyers at our law firm, Floyd Abrams and [dZin SaInm@n] and I, and we participated in the decision to actually publish the papers. And we had designed a defense for them under the First Amendment and a defense against any potential charge of espionage.

NOOR: So, Daniel, more than 40 years later, the Obama administration is carrying out an unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers across the country and is going after journalists, spying on journalists, pressuring them to reveal their confidential sources. What's your reaction to where press freedom and the freedom of whistleblowers has come to today?

SHEEHAN: Well, I think that there are two major factors that have played into making the time period that we're in right now distinctly more dangerous than it was back in 1971.

The first of these, of course, is the 9/11 attacks. Subsequent to those attacks, the United States [inaud.] blindly went forward and enacted the Patriot Act, 95 percent of the members of Congress never having even read any of it, and voted that into place. And then they later enacted the National Defense Authorization Act. These are the two sets of statutes, along with the traditional Espionage Act, that is being used by the administration, the Obama administration, to try to harass journalists and to suppress sources.

Now, back in 1971, when the United States Supreme Court decided the Pentagon Papers case and The New York Times case, there were actually ten written opinions issued in that decision. There are only nine justices. So it's the first time in history where there's ever been ten opinions written by the court. So all nine justices weighed in. And you can tell from a close reading of those decisions that the concurring opinion of Justice Potter Stewart was actually dominant in that case. And he set forth a whole--half a dozen major criteria that had to be met by any statute that was going to be passed by Congress that was going to attempt to punish journalists or to punish people in the government who revealed information which turned out to be of great importance to the public interest of the American people. And none of those standards have been met by either the Patriot Act or the National Defense Authorization Act. So both of those statutes are clearly unconstitutional. So that's one of the major issues that's changed is the atmosphere around this issue since the 9/11 attacks.

The second major issue, of course, is the fact that since that point in time, some 83 percent of all of the federal judges in the United States federal judicial system have been appointed by either Gerald Ford of Richard Nixon or George H. W. Bush or George W. Bush. These appointments in the United States federal judicial system have filled the ranks of our courts with extreme right-wing reactionaries, many of whom come from the Federalist Society, an extremely reactionary judicial group of people who have a very aggressive, hostile attitude toward journalists and confidential news sources.

NOOR: And can we get your reaction to the conviction of Bradley Manning? He now faces up to 91 years in prison for leaking the WikiLeaks documents, hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables.

SHEEHAN: Well, the fact of the matter is--you may recall that back in 1972, Daniel Ellsberg, who had been the source of the Pentagon Papers, who was also a contract employee such as Snowden, for example, and he was also a member of the military, where he obtained much of this information, was charged with espionage by the Nixon administration. But in that particular case, all of the charges were dismissed against Daniel Ellsberg because of the prosecutorial misconduct. In that particular case, not only did the Nixon administration burglarize the office of Daniel Ellsberg to try to get at his psychiatric files, but they also attempted to bribe the judge right in the middle of the case by offering him an appointment to the Court of Appeals. Those actions on the part of the government forestalled any type of a ruling on the application and applicability of the Espionage Act to what Dan Ellsberg had done.

Now, there is a case, a United States Supreme Court case, that's called U.S. v. Gorin. And in that case back in 1946, a member of the United States military, a young lieutenant in the United States Navy, was charged with espionage for revealing the sailing schedules of the ships that were sailing in and out of Pearl Harbor. In that case he gave that information to British intelligence for the purpose of helping to coordinate their sailing schedules with ours. And he was indicted and prosecuted for espionage.

The United States Supreme Court ruled that that was an improper charge and an improper conviction, because he was able in that case to have access to the United States Supreme Court and to the Courts of Appeals, and what they ruled was that the Espionage Act is on its face unconstitutionally vague and over-broad. And so to attempt to apply it to any person for having revealed information to the national news media or in good faith to some other source, such as Gorin had, to the British intelligence people, to reveal it to a source that--he was not intending to reveal it to a foreign enemy for the specific intent of having that damage the United States--that that was declared to be unconstitutional if he was going to be convicted.

So what's going to be extremely important here is to try to figure out how we can get this issue elucidated in a way in a federal court that can set aside these charges against him. And that's what really has to be done.

The problem is that that now interfaces with this new reactionary United States Supreme Court. At least four of the justices on the present United States Supreme Court are so reactionary, actually, that they can be virtually depended upon to go along with United States government in whatever way they want to.

So we're going to have to take a look at a couple of the swing votes. There's going to be Stephen Breyer, and there's--well, there's going to be--actually, in this particular case, we're going to have to look at Justice Kennedy, because Kennedy is probably going to be the swing vote in this particular case. So we have to look at that to try to figure out how this case can be framed in front of the United States Supreme Court so that with extremely reactionary judges, four of them, we can still have the old U.S. v. Gorin precedent confirmed by this court.

NOOR: And finally, Daniel Sheehan, our final question to you: if you had been Bradley Manning's attorney, would you have done anything differently?

SHEEHAN: Well, I think that the actual turning over of the documents to a journalist, in that particular case with Julian Assange, and Julian Assange having gone to The New York Times and to the British newspaper to have them review these documents to determine what information should be revealed and what shouldn't be revealed I thought was a very judicious thing to be done. It wasn't as though Bradley Manning just put all of this information out, immediately out onto the internet. There was a whole dealing with major media to vet this information.

Now, that's something that may need to be looked at in the course of a legitimate trial. The problem is that I don't think that Julian Assange is going to be given a legitimate trial if he were to return, and I certainly don't think that Bradley Manning was given a legitimate trial in front of a military tribunal. It's important to remember: the old saying is is that military justice is to justice as military music is to music.

NOOR: Daniel Sheehan, thank you so much for joining us.

SHEEHAN: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

NOOR: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.


End.'

[outsider]

For every signature, we mail a letter to top decision-makers!

Although just a petition, it seems more sensible to put it on an ongoing thread:
http://ymlp.com/zEgkdm

A thirty-five year prison sentence is a heck of a lot for exposing War Crimes; shouldn't it be the War Criminals who are in clink?

We must not forget those who risked all to tell us what was really going on (we would never have seen the video clip of those Iraqi civilians machine-gunned to death by the trigger-happy helicopter murderers).

[Frazzel]

Pleae sign this petition and help Chelsea Manning: she is threatened with imprisonment for 35 years in a hearing cming up next week. Needs 20,000 signatures, aleady has over 18,000

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=115 73

[outsider]

Well, at least one decent action by Obama:

'Chelsea Manning: majority of prison sentence commuted by Obama':
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/17/chelsea-manning-senten ce-commuted-barack-obama

'Chelsea Manning, the US army soldier who became one of the most prominent whistleblowers in modern times when she exposed the nature of modern warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, and who then went on to pay the price with a 35-year military prison sentence, is to be freed in May as a gift of outgoing president Barack Obama.

In the most audacious – and contentious – commutation decision to come from Obama yet, the sitting president used his constitutional power just three days before he leaves the White House to give Manning her freedom. She will walk from the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on 17 May, almost seven years to the day since she was arrested in a base outside Baghdad for offenses relating to the leaking of a vast trove of US state secrets.

Nancy Hollander, Manning’s lawyer, spoke to the Guardian before she had even had the chance to pass on to the soldier the news of her release. “Oh my God!” was Hollander’s instant response to the news which she had just heard from the White House counsel. “I cannot believe it – in 120 days she will be free and it will all be over. It’s incredible.”

Manning, who is a columnist for the Guardian, was the face of one of the harsher aspects of the Obama administration, as an official leaker who suffered under his approach a longer custodial than any other whistleblower of modern times. She was one of several leakers who were prosecuted under the 1917 Espionage Act – with more individuals falling foul to that anti-spying law than under all previous US presidents combined.

The soldier has experienced some very hard times while in military prison. In 2010 she was transferred from Iraq and Kuwait to the military brig at Quantico, Virginia, where she was put through prolonged solitary confinement.

She has also endured recent challenges with her morale and mental health, having attempted suicide on at least one occasion last year. The US military responded to that attempt by punishing her with further solitary confinement.

More details soon...'

[TonyGosling]

Opinion Obama commuting Chelsea Manning's sentence was an entirely defensible act of mercy
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-obama-manning-20170117 -story.html

By definition, the exercise of clemency is an act of mercy, not the meting out of mathematical justice. President Obama’s decision to commute the sentence of Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning is a defensible use of that power.

The obvious argument for mercy is Manning’s recent ordeal as a transgender woman in a men’s military prison. But another factor is the harsh treatment Manning has received virtually from the time the young Army private was identified as the source of classified information supplied to WikiLeaks.

After being arrested in 2010, Manning was held in virtual solitary confinement for 23 hours a day at a Marine Corps brig and sometimes stripped naked. Even after Manning pleaded guilty to offenses that could have led to a 20-year sentence, the Army insisted on a trial on more serious charges, including "aiding the enemy," which could have led to a sentence of life in prison. (Manning was acquitted of that charge by a military judge.)

In 2013, when Manning was sentenced, the Los Angeles Times said this in an editorial:

“In sentencing Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison, a military judge disappointed both the prosecution, which had sought a 60-year term, and Manning’s most ardent supporters, who believe he should serve no time at all. Assuming that Manning is released on parole after a reasonable time, the sentence imposed by Col. Denise Lind strikes a reasonable balance between the damage Manning did to national security and the service he performed by exposing certain matters to public attention.”


The editorial concluded: “Manning’s supporters are urging President Obama to pardon him or commute his sentence to time served. That is both unlikely and unjustified; even if he was engaging in principled civil disobedience, Manning should face some consequences for violating the law. But if Manning is denied parole after serving several years in prison, a future president should be willing to consider clemency.”

As a result of Obama’s action, Manning will be free in May, which isn’t that much earlier than in the scenario sketched out in the editorial. The earlier release is more than justified by sympathy for Manning’s medical issues and the difficulty the military is having addressing them as long as she is a prisoner.

Those who would oppose Obama’s act of clemency are straining the quality of mercy.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-obama-manning-20170117 -story.html