Bradley Manning: Traitor or Whistleblower?

_Howard wrote:

And where do any of your highlighted phrases accuse the author of making false statements?

It's all in the interpretation, Howard.

I would think that any verifiably false statements would have been called out by Snowden's representative, no matter how one wished to interpret the overall tone of the article.

And I'm not trying to defend the article. I just made a post that I thought might interest someone. Hell, it may be all bullshit as far as I know. I just thought it was interesting.

I read it and I read the interpretations of it. The author had an agenda, one that the original journalists who did the in-depth reporting did not share.

That's enough for me.

What agendas did the other authors have? Were they somehow superior because they were different? As I said, I just made the post because it might be interesting. I have no interest in defending it.

For me the agendas aren't the telling point.  For me it's that this author didn't do any original research.  He just cherry picked quotes from other reporters' research.

The reporters who did the research, who actually interviewed Snowden and Greenwald, came away with a VERY DIFFERENT opinion of Snowden and Greenwald.

Manning's name change is complete, hormone therapy not forthcoming

On a related note,
Assange will not be prosecuted

Quote :

The Post, however, said the Justice Department has all but concluded it will not bring charges against Assange, even though a grand jury investigating the massive leak remains impaneled. Government lawyers believed they could not prosecute Assange without also prosecuting U.S. journalists and news outlets that had taken part in leaks, which they were not going to do, the Post said.

The Supreme Court has agree to hear a whistleblower case. I wonder what the implications will be.

Probably Alito and Thomas hope to close the door on the whistleblower defense.

This is the sort of case that previous courts would not have heard, but would have allowed the lower court's verdict to stand. The only reason I can see for SCOTUS to hear this case is so that they can eliminate the whistle blower protection altogether. That's what happened in Citizens United.

We see the same pattern.

Alito and Thomas are frequent guests at the Koch brothers private policy sessions.

Yeah. I've wondered exactly what the party favors are at those gatherings.
Probably not key chains.

Half hour interview with Snowden on MSNBC tonight.  I don't know how anybody, after seeing it, could claim Snowden is anything but a whistleblower patriot.
http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/edward-snowden-interview/snowden-strikes-back-nsa-emails-nbc-news-n118821

The discussion continued online after the broadcast, additional footage there wasn't time to air. I went to the website to view it -- but my NoScript software alerted me to the automatic scripts being launched. More hidden links than I'd ever seen on a website before, must've been close to thirty. Some were obviously user tracking or advertising links, but many were entirely new and mysterious.

In light of Snowden's revelations I thought better of allowing these scripts.

Chelsea Manning has gone to jail again, rather than reveal her sources of the Wikileaks leaks.  She sees it as protecting press freedom.

Trump sees it as aiding a criminal organization that published top secret documents.  As Glenn Greenwald points out, the Obama administration eventually gave up on this line of reasoning because PUBLISHING is protected.  

The original STEALING of the documents is not protected.

Did Manning steal the documents herself?  I seem to recall she did -- put everything on a thumb drive.  Or was that Snowden?  Shit, now I can't remember.


Edit:
Here's the answer, from Al Jazeera, from page one:

Quote :

US Private Bradley Manning is no longer the alleged source of all those documents to WikiLeaks. According to his own testimony, delivered before a military court on February 28, Manning was the source - nothing alleged about it.

In a pre-trial hearing for the first time, Manning admitted that he broke the law when he released around 700,000 government documents to WikiLeaks but these lesser charges did not satisfy the United States government.

Straight back into solitary confinement.

For protecting sources.

Yikes, is this the USA?

Finally out of solitary after 28 days.

Quote :

Manning, who earlier served seven years of a 35-year jail term for sending classified documents to WikiLeaks, was sentenced to an indefinite time behind bars on March 8 for refusing to testify about the document leak before a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.

Assange has been hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning as part of a sexual assault investigation.

Expect Assange to be back in the news shortly, when he's kicked out of the Ecuadorian embassy for publishing dirt on Ecuador's president. London will snap him up and extradite him to the US so he can stand trial before one of Trump's handpicked kangaroo court judges.

Right on schedule.

The question still looms, as it did in 2010, is Assange a journalist protected under freedom of the press, or did he work with Russians to hack the documents he published?  There's a very fine line here.

On the one hand, journalism must be protected as an independent entity, to keep politicians and corporations and other powerful forces from controlling the news.

On the other hand, Chelsea Manning's downloading & releasing (though Wikileaks) classified material documenting US government illegal activities WAS itself a crime.  The fact that Assange encouraged Manning to get more material is the basis for his "conspiracy" indictment.

The present Supreme Court -- where this case will end up, sooner rather than later -- has a very difficult parsing of the facts ahead of them.  I'm not quite sure where they will land: the "conservatives" on the court SHOULD be all about preventing government overreach.  

But they may decide to side with power instead.

• Cheating on your taxes = okay
  
  
• Lying to banks to get loans = okay
  
  
• Not paying subcontractors = okay
  
  
• Laundering Russian drug & organized crime money = okay
  
  
• Accepting Russian help to win an election = okay
  
  
• Accepting Russian money for a big inauguration = okay
  
  
• Using your office for personal enrichment = okay
  
  
• Paying for hookers with campaign funds = okay
  
  
• Firing prosecutors for investigating you = okay
  
  
• Hiring AGs who ignore the law = okay
  

But man, publishing unflattering documents?  PUNISHABLE TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW.

NoCoPilot wrote:

Trump sees it as aiding a criminal organization that published top secret documents.  As Glenn Greenwald points out, the Obama administration eventually gave up on this line of reasoning because PUBLISHING is protected.  

The original STEALING of the documents is not protected.

Quote :

Although the indictment, filed in a U.S. District Court in Virginia, focuses on Assange and computer hacking, the bigger issue is that his case raises fundamental questions about press freedom. If Assange is convicted based on what is shown in the indictment, it could give the government a dangerous precedent to use against journalists in the future, First Amendment experts say.

Much of the case comes down to prosecutors’ allegation that Assange not only received classified, illegally obtained documents but that he also actively assisted Manning in taking them from the Department of Defense. This is quite different from how journalists generally obtain classified documents, which is typically as passive recipients of the information and which is protected under the First Amendment.

“The source may be subjecting themselves to liability or may be breaking the law, but the journalist is not just by receiving it. There are reasons why we protect that kind of thing,” said Gregg Leslie, executive director of the First Amendment Legal Clinic at Arizona State University.

What Julian Assange's arrest means for freedom of the press

Quote :

Julian [Assange] has always argued that if the US government charged him, it would be a slippery slope to prosecuting The New York Times, The Guardian or any other journalist that works with whistleblowers to reveal classified information in the public interest. That will, undoubtedly, be one of the arguments his experienced legal team will make.

But...

Quote :

Yes, the US government was pursuing a legal case against him but not, as it turns out, for espionage. The US Department of Justice has now unsealed the indictment filed in March of last year, charging with him with one count of conspiracy to computer hacking, offering to help Manning crack a password and gain access to classified government networks. He faces a maximum sentence of five years.

Ordinarily, I would expect prosecutors to walk a careful line between freedom of the press and illegal dumping of classified information.

Unfortunately, under this gluag, we probably can't expect any care or discretion.

Manning has been released again, after two months in jail (28 days of it in solitary) for refusing to testify.  Her confinement was not working to compel her to testify, and she'd committed no crime, so they had to release her.  Also, the grand jury expired.  She's been subpoenaed again to testify May 17 and said she won't, so her freedom may be temporary.

Man, she has an iron will.

I don't frankly understand why she refuses to talk to a grand jury about her theft of 750,000 classified documents -- earlier she admitted to the theft -- but good on her for sticking to her principles.  I guess. Maybe she's protecting Julian Assange?

Chelsea Manning was finally released from jail today.

Quote :

On Thursday, Judge Anthony J. Trega ordered Manning’s release, saying her testimony was no longer needed.

“The Court finds that Ms. Manning’s appearance before the Grand Jury is no longer needed, in light of which her detention no longer serves any coercive purpose,” Trega wrote.

So how is it she was still in jail, after having her sentence commuted???

Quote :

Before former President Barack Obama commuted her sentence, Manning served seven years of a 35-year sentence after being convicted of leaking thousands of diplomatic cables and confidential military files to WikiLeaks.