Manning not guilty (sort of); take THAT, Obama (updated with sentencing)

Army Private Bradley Manning has beaten the rap on the most serious charges against him in the Wikileaks case. A military judge has found him not guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy.

The charge was fucking ridiculous, and Dear Leader, our constitutional law scholar president knew that then and knows that now. Invoking the Espionage Act was ridiculous enough. That legislation should be repealed and join the Alien and Sedition Acts on the dustbin of bad American legislative history.

Ben Wizner, director of the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project for the American Civil Liberties Union, expressed relief that Private Manning was acquitted of the “most dangerous charge” brought against him, but criticized the espionage charges. 

“While we’re relieved that Mr. Manning was acquitted of the most dangerous charge, the A.C.L.U. has long held the view that leaks to the press in the public interest should not be prosecuted under the Espionage Act,” he said. “Since Manning already pleaded guilty to charges of leaking information — which carry significant punishment — it seems clear that the government was seeking to intimidate anyone who might consider revealing valuable information in the future.” 

That's about right.

And, although this was a military court, not a civilian one, Dear Leader is nonetheless the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States. He could have told prosecutors to drop the "traitor" language.

He could also have told the Army not to have him confined in semi-Supermax solitary confinement, etc.

He did not.

That said, I'm not going to deny that Manning deservedly faced some charges. He did leak classified information. The counts of stealing government property were arguably legit. The leaking of information had already been pled to.

But, remember, this is the Dear Leader who was pursuing Manning:

Private Manning is one of seven people who have been charged with leaking information to the press for public consumption under the Obama administration. Under all previous presidents combined, there were only three such cases.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents Wikileaks in the U.S., has weighed in with a news release:

While the 'aiding the enemy' charges (on which Manning was rightly acquitted) received the most attention from the mainstream media, the Espionage Act itself is a discredited relic of the WWI era, created as a tool to suppress political dissent and antiwar activism, and it is outrageous that the government chose to invoke it in the first place against Manning. Government employees who blow the whistle on war crimes, other abuses and government incompetence should be protected under the First Amendment.

We now live in a country where someone who exposes war crimes can be sentenced to life even if not found guilty of aiding the enemy, while those responsible for the war crimes remain free. If the government equates being a whistleblower with espionage or aiding the enemy, what is the future of journalism in this country?  What is the future of the First Amendment?

Manning's treatment, prosecution, and sentencing have one purpose: to silence potential whistleblowers and the media as well. One of the main targets has been our clients, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, for publishing the leaks. Given the U.S. government’s treatment of Manning, Assange should be granted asylum in his home country of Australia and given the protections all journalists and publishers deserve.

We stand in solidarity with Bradley Manning and call for the government to take heed and end its assault on the First Amendment.

Amen to that last graf.

I'll update this post again when D.L. reacts.

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Update, Aug. 21: Well, the judge has reacted, or acted. Manning's going to serve 35 years. Given that the prosecution wanted 60, and other things, and the minimum, per sentencing guidelines, is 25 years, this isn't "that bad," all things speaking. Of course, let's wait and see, to make sure Dear Leader and the What-A-Gon don't put him in a military supermax with 23 hours a day of solitary.

That worry aside, the story says that with credit for time served, and good behavior while in the stir, he could get out on parole in less than seven years. Of course, this is assuming the next administration is any more tender-hearted about leaking about such issues than is Dear Leader's.

Bradley Manning — Adrian Lamo unapologetic about ratting him out

One of the saddest things about Bradley Manning's case in military court is how he was ratted out after online conversations with hacker Adrian Lamo. (The next saddest thing, after that, outside Team Obama's actions, would be how Wired magazine has repeatedly refused to release all the info it has about this story and its connections to Lamo, even after persistent badgering by the likes of Glenn Greenwald.)

Well, Lamo recently sat for an interview with the Guardian, and he's defiantly unapologetic about the ratting, or about allegedly misrepresenting himself as either a journalist or a minister and thereby allegedly promising Manning either source or confessional confidentiality.

Here's the nut grafs between interviewer Ed Pilkington and Adrian Lamo, identified by initials:

EP: Early on in your chat with Manning you reassured him about your trustworthiness, telling him you were a journalist and a church minister and that either way he'd have legal protection against his identity being revealed. That was clearly misleading, as things transpired, and your critics have accused you of lying to Manning by promising him protection. Do you regret having done that?

AL: Professionally and personally speaking, it's not my function to have people arrested. That's something that would ideally fall to law enforcement. In this matter, the harm from the subject's continued freedom appeared to objectively be greater than the harm of interdicting him. The offer was never meant to be construed as a suicide pact, and no one had ever mistaken it for one.
In the specific context of the logs, it's also relevant to note that the offer was never affirmatively accepted – it proposed two possible conditions, and one was never chosen.

EP: I want to press you on this point. If a priest, or a journalist, promises to protect someone's identity or confession, they can't then turn round and say: 'Oh, you've told me something bad, therefore I'm going to turn you in.' By telling Manning you would protect him (whether or not he accepted your offer) didn't you make pact, a vow, that couldn't be broken? If I tell a source of mine that I will protect his or her identity, I mean it.

AL: The two choices aren't fungible. They're distinct things, each with their own set of boundaries. In each case the law relating to privilege has exemption for exigent situations as the conscience sees them. Assuming the offer had been taken up and we'd gone forward – if I'd been a doctor or a counselor, the same would have been true – the law recognizes that privilege is not, as I said, a suicide pact. Meaning that once you enter into it, you're not bound to it no matter how much harm will arise. I'd have a much harder time saying with a straight face: "Well, he told me about the largest classified material breach in the history of western intelligence, but I wasn't supposed to tell anyone."

That last paragraph is bullshit. The idea that what Manning was confessing was a "suicide pact" is a pure lie. And, that in turn leads to other misrepresentation.

It also leads me to wonder if Lamo wasn't some sort of "double agent" all along, and not just in the Manning case. From what I've read of the world of hacking, a dedicated hacker would never spout such bullshit.

That's reinforced by the end of the interview:

EP: One final question based on hindsight. With everything we now know – including the way Manning was subjected to treatment that the UN likened to torture, and the fact that though he won't face the death penalty as you initially feared he does face possible life in military custody – would you make the same decision again?

AL: People are always asking me whether I'd have done the same if I'd known [x] or had foresight of [y]. Questions like that sound good in theory, but ultimately what they're asking is: "If linear time collapsed into itself and you were suddenly aware of every possible outcome, what would you do?" The thing is, it's not a question that can be answered. One of the great things about life, I think, is that we don't get do-overs. I don't think idealism could survive if we did.

The idea that Lamo can insinuate HE, not Manning, is the idealist, is risible.

It's made more risible yet by his own column in the Comment is Free portion of the Guardian, where he claims that what he was doing in 2003 wasn't hacking.

Let's not forget that Lamo pled guilty to federal charges in 2003. It's not implausible to wonder if he's not an "on retainer" double agent of some sort indeed. As for his claim that he "chose to surrender," it's technically true, but a warrant had been out for his arrest for some time, and the feds were probably narrowing down his hiding place.

As for his attacks on WikiLeaks? The redaction issue is overblown, and Greenwald and others have documented that. As for other issues with WikiLeaks, Lamo could have addressed them without ratting out Manning.

As for offender No. 2? Wired has always been a bit overrated in my book, with a lot of "gee-whiz" angles to it. But, the actions of Kevin Poulson and others in stonewalling Greenwald led me to question anything it does in terms of the intersection of technology with politics or other hard news.

Wired eventually published a redacted version of the Manning-Lamo chats in 2011, which, per Wikipedia, confirmed Greenwald's worst suspicions about both Wired and Lamo.

#Wikileaks the "enemy"? Or Obama?

How else is one to interpret the U.S. Army saying Pfc. Bradley/Brenna (who may be transgendered, and whose lawyers may or may not be using Gender Identify Disorder as part of the defense, and who may or may not be having his/her gender identity used as an activist football outside the case) Manning charging the private, among 22 counts, with aiding the enemy?

The reality, of course, is that Wikileaks has never declared war on the United States. However, in another example of asymmetric warfare, the Obama Administration long ago launched an undeclared war on Wikileaks.

Were this 40 years ago, a la the Pentagon Papers, and in a civilian court, this case would be batted down in an eyelash. Today, it's different.

There is no such thing as jury nullification at a court martial. A definition of one's peers can be different in the military. And, many other factors are at play.

Nonetheless, given the Pentagon's own previous concessions on other documents, it's clear that no leaks aided the enemy. And, since Dear Leader, our constitutional law scholar president for the good retirement times afterward, is also C-in-C of the armed forces of the United States, this nonsense could come to an end any time he likes.

But it won't. Not even if his rightward triangulation gets him re-elected. The only thing I don't get about his "moves" in the last decade is, why didn't he leave the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church a lot sooner, and why didn't he do oppo research on that issue?

Could Bradley Manning beat the rap?

Today, he got to face his "accuser." No, not the Army, but Adrian Lamo. And, based on Lamo having an "ordination" from the Universal Life Church, Manning's attorney aimed at the "confidentiality of the confessional" angle. He also went with Lamo's claims to be a reporter, and the "confidential source" angle.

Here's the "confessional" angle:

Coombs asked Lamo if he was acting as a minister, and then repeatedly asked, “Don’t you think he was contacting you for moral support?” At that point, Manning looked off into the short distance, perhaps recalling the state of confusion and despair that prompted him at the time to reach out to Lamo.

Coombs and Lamo went back and forth over whether Lamo violated his responsibility as a “minister” to keep Manning’s confessions private. Coombs asked Lamo whether it wasn’t clear that bradass87 (Manning's alleged chat ID) intended their chat to be confidential.

“A reasonable person would conclude that,” Lamo conceded.

Interesting, and smart.

In a civilian court, I don't doubt it would play well. Not sure if it will go as well in the military. But, it's possible.

At the least, it sets things up for full court-marshal.

If it works at all, besides Lamo's own testimony getting tossed, how much else of the Army's case would become inadmissible? THAT's the biggie.

P.J. Crowley — reason 1,012 not to vote for Obama

The now-former State Department spokesman has stepped down been fired by President Obama for his comments last week about the conditions of Bradley Manning's detention as "ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid."

Glenn Greenwald has more.

I'll keep an eye on the Internets for Obamiacs to come out of the woodwork to defend him. Because they will.