Obama’s Crackdown On Military Whistleblowers
When it comes to abuses, the government is using severe punishment of high-profile whistleblowers as a method of encouraging silence, TomDispatch writes:
On January 23rd, the Obama administration charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information to journalists about the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects. His is just the latest prosecution in an unprecedented assault on government whistleblowers and leakers of every sort.
The Obama administration has already charged more people—six—under the Espionage Act for alleged mishandling of classified information than all past presidencies combined. (Prior to Obama, there were only three such cases in American history.)
By now, there can be little doubt that government retaliation against whistleblowers is not an isolated event, nor even an agency-by-agency practice. The number of cases in play suggests an organized strategy to deprive Americans of knowledge of the more disreputable things that their government does. How it plays out in court…
Bradley Manning Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize
Source: Abode of Chaos (CC)
It’ll be fascinating to see how this plays out because it’s such an unusual choice. Normally you have to commit tens of thousands of armed troops to Afghanistan before you go home with one of these babies. From the blog of Birgitta Jónsdóttir:
[On] February 1st 2012 the entire parliamentary group of The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament nominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Following is the reasoning we sent to the committee explaining why we felt compelled to nominate Private Bradley Manning for this important recognition of an individual effort to have an impact for peace in our world.
Our letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:
We have the great honor of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the…
The Leak That Made America
Well, no surprises in the Iowa caucus. Gingrich, Bachman and Perry beat themselves into irrelevance and the voters remain undecided whether their priority is to be impoverished by Wall Street wh*res like Mitt Romney or burned at the stake by puritanical simpletons like Rich Santorum. If the Democratic Party’s Achilles heel is a lack of conviction and willingness to fight for its stated beliefs, the Republican Party’s fatal flaw is its love of stupidity.
But that’s just us, the electorate. Supposedly the great education and ethical commitment of professional functionaries should mitigate against the creeping culture of mediocrity that’s overtaken American culture in the last 50 years. Does it really, though? For example, do the judges deciding the fate of Bradley Manning have clue # 1 that their nation’s very founding legal principle owes its existence to a state department leak in 1773? Do any of them remember the Hutchinson Letters Affair?
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| Benjamin Franklin |
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| Bradley Manning |
On the face of it, the late 18th century should, by all rights, have represented a gratifying period of peace and contentment within the British Empire. The vicious civil wars that marked the 17th century had finally been resolved with the decisive defeat of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745. A remarkably stable political settlement had been achieved which conclusively destroyed the arbitrary power of absolute monarchy…
Happy Bloomsday, America!
Hand drawing of Bloom by Joyce
June 16th is the annual celebration of Leopold Bloom’s doomed wanderings through Dublin in 1904, as chronicled in James Joyce’s classic novel “Ulysses”. And in the 21st century, reality finally catches up with and overtakes fiction.
In 1921 a U.S. court banned Ulysses on the grounds that some of its graphic depictions of nudity and sexuality constituted pornography under the Postal Code. And while that decision was reversed in 1933 by a judge who could only have failed today’s more rigorous selection processes for illiteracy and cretinism, the private sector came to the rescue of public morals when Apple banned an online illustrated version from its iStore last year.
However, that victory had an even shorter half-life. A couple months later, presumably realizing that it would lose it’s investment completely if it maintained the ban, and that nobody would likely access anything remotely smacking of literary merit anyway, Apple decided…
U.S. Military Orders Millions of Employees to Spy on Each Other
Had to imagine there would be drastic action taken. Sam Biddle writes on Gizmodo:
The faces at the Pentagon are still mighty red since WikiLeaks. And they don’t want a repeat. A new directive from the Department of Defense aims at squelching leaks — by deputizing a massive number of employees as involuntary snitches.
The document, titled “Counterintelligence Awareness and Reporting (CIAR),” directs DoD employees, military and civilian alike, to “Report, in accordance…the contacts, activities, indicators, and behaviors” of their coworkers. And given the WikiLeaks story, this means keeping tabs on your neighbor’s computer. Suspicious (and must-report) behavior includes:
“Unauthorized possession or operation of cameras, recording devices, computers, and communication devices where classified information is handled or stored.”
“Discussions of classified information over a non-secure communication device.”
“Unauthorized copying, printing, faxing, e-mailing, or transmitting classified material.”
WikiSecrets: The Inside Story of Bradley Manning & The Largest Intelligence Breach in U.S. History (Video)
Worth watching, available now on Frontline’s website. Here’s part one of five:
How ‘Enemy-Creep’ Is Guantanamo-izing America
Via Guernica, Karen Greenberg sounds the warning on what she terms “enemy creep.” Treatments once reserved for foreign terror suspects will be applied to the U.S. populace, as the definition of the “enemy” continually expands.
It has been a persistent worry of civil libertarians that violations of the rights of non-citizens would eventually contaminate the ways citizens are treated, too; that a process of “enemy creep” would, in the end, result in the Guantanamo-ization of American terrorism suspects.
When rights were first denied to captives at Guantanamo Bay, the Bush administration argued that a prison in Cuba should not be considered subject to the constitutional principles that apply to Americans everywhere or to anyone within the territorial boundaries of the U.S. It is, however, quite another matter, as in the King hearings, to single out Muslims or others in our midst as potential terrorists and then to argue that when arrested—even if…
Bradley Manning Supporters Heckle Obama During Fundraiser
Reuters reports:
Protesters interrupted President Barack Obama at a campaign fund-raiser on Thursday to complain about the treatment in detention of a U.S. soldier accused of leaking documents that appeared on the WikiLeaks website.
Obama’s administration has been criticized for Bradley Manning’s treatment, although the president says the Pentagon has assured him the soldier is not being ill-treated while he is awaiting trial.
Obama was addressing a room of about 200 people — many of whom paid as much as $35,800 to see him — when a woman in a white suit stood up and announced that she and nine others sitting at her table had written a song for him.
Despite Obama’s protestations, they then broke into a song that called for the 23-year-old soldier’s release. They passed out “Free Bradley Manning” signs and the woman took off her jacket to reveal a black T-shirt with Manning’s image.
“Now, where was I?” the somewhat flustered…
Media Roots Radio: Two Active Duty Soldiers Speak Out
Via Media Roots:
This is a special Media Roots Radio interview conducted by Abby and Robbie Martin with two active duty soldiers in the army: Malcolm and Yossarian. Malcolm is a soldier enlisted in the US Army and serves as an aviation mechanic. Yossarian is an Apache helicopter pilot and military aviator in the US Army. They are both stationed abroad right now but were gracious enough to take some time out of their schedule to sit down on Skype for an interview with Media Roots. They talk about why they enlisted, how they woke up and give their perspectives on Bradley Manning, US foreign policy and 9/11 while expressing grave concerns for the future of this country.
They are also both contributing writers for Media Roots. Check out their op-ed writings in the Soldier’s Corner of the site. If you would like to directly download the podcast click the down arrow icon on the right of the soundcloud display. To hide the comments to enable easier rewind and fast forward, click on the icon on the very bottom right.
The American Left Is Letting The U.S. Government Abuse Bradley Manning
Is it because Obama is a “liberal” black Democrat? Dylan Ratigan talks to former Democratic “naughty Santa” Krystal Ball and ubiquitous “registered independent” bullshitter Amy Holmes about the hypocrisy of the American left regarding the Obama administration’s treatment of Bradley Manning:
Media Roots Radio: Wikileaks, Bradley Manning & False Memory Research
In this episode of Media Roots Radio, Robbie and Abby Martin discuss Wikileaks, Bradley Manning and the inhumane conditions of his detention.
Media Roots Radio- Wikileaks, Bradley Manning, False Memories with Guest Researcher Steven Frenda by Media Roots
During the second half of the show, guest Steven Frenda talks about his studies and research in the field of human memory: manipulated and false memories, coerced confessions, and how they relate to the legal system…
John Pilger Interview With Julian Assange: ‘I Have Murdoch Insurance’
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Perhaps as a return favor for posting bail for him, Julian Assange has given veteran British journalist John Pilger an exclusive interview. It will appear in the print edition of New Statesman, but some choice excerpts are on the New Statesman site:
… On Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of leaking diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, Assange says: “I’d never heard his name before it was published in the press.” He argues that the US is trying to use Manning – currently stuck in solitary confinement in the US – to build a case against the WikiLeaks founder:
“Cracking Bradley Manning is the first step,” says the Australian hacker. “The aim clearly is to break him and force a confession that he somehow conspired with me to harm the national security of the United States.”…
Yesterday, Assange’s lawyers warned that if he is extradited to America he could face the death penalty – for embarrassing…
UN Torture Office Probes Treatment of Bradley Manning
Al Jazeera reports:
The United Nations is looking into a complaint on behalf of a US soldier who is said to have been mistreated while held since May in US army custody pending trial.
Bradley Manning, an army private suspected of giving classified documents to WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website, is being held in solitary confinement at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, and faces a court martial sometime in 2011.
The office of Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture in Geneva, received a complaint from one of Manning’s supporters alleging conditions amount to torture. Visitors say he spends at least 23 hours a day alone in a cell.
The UN could ask the US to stop any violations it finds. However, the Pentagon has denied mistreating Manning.
A Marine Corps spokesman says the military is keeping Manning safe, secure and ready for trial.
Political prisoner?
Manning was charged in July with leaking classified material, including a video posted by WikiLeaks of…
WikiLeaker Bradley Manning’s Brutal Detention
Here’s what America has in store whistle-blowers — Despite not being charged with a crime, 22-year-old Army private and alleged WikiLeaker Bradley Manning has spent the past seventh months imprisoned under some of the most extreme, brutal conditions possible: total isolation for 23 hours a day, every day, while being dosed with antidepressants to prevent his mind from snapping. Salon takes a look at Bradley’s background and his current fate, which it says is undoubtedly torture:
Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has never been convicted of that crime, nor of any other crime. Despite that, he has been detained at the U.S. Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia for five months — and for two months before that in a military jail in Kuwait — under conditions that constitute cruel and inhumane treatment and, by the standards of many nations, even torture.
Interviews with several…
