Is Wired Hiding Key Evidence On Bradley Manning? 381
Hugh Pickens writes "Glenn Greenwald writes in Salon that for more than six months, Wired's Senior Editor Kevin Poulsen has possessed but refuses to publish the key evidence in the arrest of US Army PFC Bradley Manning for allegedly acting as WikiLeaks' source. 'In late May, Adrian Lamo — at the same time he was working with the FBI as a government informant against Manning — gave Poulsen what he purported to be the full chat logs between Manning and Lamo in which the Army Private allegedly confessed to having been the source for the various cables, documents and video which WikiLeaks released throughout this year,' writes Greenwald. Wired has only published about 25% of the logs writes Greenwald and Poulsen's concealment of the chat logs is actively blinding journalists who have been attempting to learn what Manning did and did not do. 'Whether by design or effect, Kevin Poulsen and Wired have played a critical role in concealing the truth from the public about the Manning arrest,' concludes Greenwald. 'This has long ago left the realm of mere journalistic failure and stands as one of the most egregious examples of active truth-hiding by a "journalist" I've ever seen.'"
Fallout... (Score:3)
Publishing evidence is what got Wikileaks in trouble in the first place. I doubt Wired will reveal anything without a subpoena.
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Well it rather depends on when they got the Cease and Desist order from the Judge doesn't it?
Poulsen man not be authorized to have the logs, which themselves may carry a secret designation. After all he got them from a person working for the government at the time.
Or those logs may be harmful to the prosecution or defense case, in which case one or both lawyers may have sought protection in the form of a court order.
Re:Fallout... (Score:5, Insightful)
The remaining chat logs can contain details deemed to be national secrets. Releasing them publicly could get them in legal trouble.
They could also contain information about their other informants/sources, which journalists typically try to protect. Withholding that info would actually be the height of journalistic integrity.
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The remaining chat logs can contain details deemed to be national secrets. Releasing them publicly could get them in legal trouble.
They could also contain information about their other informants/sources, which journalists typically try to protect. Withholding that info would actually be the height of journalistic integrity.
...which is precisely what makes a meta-news-organization like wikileaks so different. They're not trying to protect anyone: they reveal everything and let the consequences be responsible for themselves.
Re:Fallout... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not true. Wikileaks protects their sources as much as any journalist does, and for the exact same reason. If you don't protect your sources, you won't have any sources to protect.
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On their terms and their timetable. They most definitely have not 'released everything'.
Also, Wired releasing this supposed info could influence an eventual jury (one way or the other).
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And it is quite clear you have zero clue. Yes, they are different. And quite often there is a 'panel' (consisting of officer and/or enlisted members), which is equivalent to a civilian jury. And if by 'barbaric' you mean an automatic appeal process in serious cases, well then go with that.
Re:Fallout... (Score:5, Informative)
Your understanding is quite wrong.
You could read it for yourself. But I'll enlighten you a little
Manual for Courts Martial 2008 [navy.mil] (PDF and
p. 461
851. Atr 51. Votings and ruling
(c) Before a vote is taken on the findings, the military judge or the president of a court-martial without a military judge shall, in the presence of the accused and counsel, instruct the members of the court as to the elements of the offense and charge them---
(1) that the accused must be presumed to be innocent until his guilt is established by legal and competent evidence beyond reasonable doubt;
(2) that in the case being considered, if there is reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the accused, the doubt must be resolved in favor of the accused and he must be acquitted;
(IANAML - emphasis mine)
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...which is precisely what makes a meta-news-organization like wikileaks so different. They're not trying to protect anyone: they reveal everything and let the consequences be responsible for themselves.
Except that they are now vetting their releases through news organizations in the attempt to avoid criticism over providing names of informants like they did their last release. They are certainly protecting people now. They are certainly revealing less than "everything". And they seem to be much more interested in consequences than originally stated.
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I don't get how people, especially geeks, are surprised by that. It's a story we've seen with a thousand projects out there:
- guy starts project
- geeks of all kinds, exited by the projects' potential, pile in
- project leader moves project in one direction
- when some geeks complain project leader tells them where they can stick their complaints
- a fork is started without any of the leadership, momentum or funding
Nothing different about Wikileaks, just geeks doing their normal rituals.
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> Withholding that info would actually be the height of journalistic integrity.
Exactly.
Plus, If Wired got the info from a government informant (Adrian Lamo), presumably Lamo should have the info. And the FBI should have the info.
I don't see why this article is coming down on Kevin Poulsen - compared to Manning, Lamo, and the FBI, Poulsen is an innocent bystander, making editorial and ethical decisions that seem to be pretty much by the journalistic integrity book.
Re:Fallout... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see why this article is coming down on Kevin Poulsen - compared to Manning, Lamo, and the FBI, Poulsen is an innocent bystander, making editorial and ethical decisions that seem to be pretty much by the journalistic integrity book.
Because it appears that Poulsen is on the job as well. In fact, I've never believed that the May trip to visit Lamo was legit. I've always suspected that this particular non-article was to cover Poulsen's visit to Lamo in which they collaborated on the Manning story. Likely, even, while Lamo was still chatting with Manning.
Unclean hands...
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"It appears"? "I've never believed"? "I've always suspected"?
Maybe whatever you believe is correct. But is there some sort of evidence Poulsen participated in ... whatever you allege he did?
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Since I'm not an active participant in any part of this process, my freedom to draw my own conclusions is completely unimpugned. I can speculate wildly and you can either agree or disagree as you see fit.
Now were I bringing charges, or stating that I know such and such to be a fact then I'd be expected to present some evidence. As I'm doing neither, I'm using the appropriate labels throughout all my conversations, as you have clearly noticed.
Seeing the full logs would settle it, I'd think.
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> you can either agree or disagree as you see fit.
I'm not interested in agreeing or disagreeing, just interested in what happened.
You may indeed be free to draw your own conclusions, but I consider it unethical to impugn a person's honor based solely on "wild speculation."
If you don't have any basis for your beliefs, you have no right to assassinate his character, and you can take your baseless conclusions to that heaven reserved for all those who have unshakable faith in the imaginary.
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I'm not impugning anyone's honor, per se. I have no evidence to do so. Nor should my opinion be capable of damaging such a person as would have use for such honor.
I'm merely pointing out that my chain of events makes more sense than theirs does - with what information we have at hand.
There's no veracity to this, and it could easily be proven false. These are the limits of armchair speculation. Rather as I predict what the weather will actually be like tomorrow, I'm going with my gut here.
And I'm complet
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Here's something to call into question Poulsen's integrity: Lamo has continued to make claims about what Manning told him and how Manning first contacted him. Some of these claims seem to be contradictory. Not only has Poulsen not released the remainder of the logs, he has so far refused to use them to fact-check Lamo's more recent accusations.
Re:Fallout... (Score:5, Informative)
The remaining chat logs can contain details deemed to be national secrets. Releasing them publicly could get them in legal trouble.
The problem is that Lamo has spent the last few months revealing information from the chat logs. Journalists are repeating what he says as fact without being able to check them against the chat logs. Lamo has been making contradictory statements and changing his statements to apparently support the needs of the DOJ - he said that there was no explicit evidence of anyone helping Manning in the logs, the DOJ said it needed evidence of Assange directly helping Manning, and suddenly Lamo claims the logs contain explicit statements that Assange instructed Manning in how to upload files to Wikileaks. Convenient!
Lamo was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital three weeks before Manning's arrest. Now he is talking to the press about these supposed confidential chat logs that they are unwilling to release. They are unwilling to release even the portion of chat statements that would directly confirm or deny Lamo's public statements. There are rumours that Poulsen and Lamo are both informants, and that both are somehow linked to Project Vigilant [salon.com] - a group that tracks internet users and hands the data over to the Federal Government ("what they essentially are is some sort of vigilante group that collects vast amount of private data about the Internet activities of millions of citizens, processes that data into usable form, and then literally turns it over to the U.S. Government, claiming its motive is to help the Government detect Terrorists and other criminals..")
The article has been updated saying that Wired has promised a response, and Greenwald says "What they ought to do, at the absolute minimum, is post the portions of the chat logs about which Lamo had made public statements or make clear that they do not exist." Is that so unreasonable? Or is the world expected to believe verbatim the contradictory statements of a mentally ill man who refuses to show anyone the evidence behind those statements?
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This has to be one of the worst uses of a 1984 quote ever. How is it not the height of journalistic integrity to protect the identity of your sources that wish to remain anonymous? Are you saying that they should be giving up this material and thus compromising their source?
Re:Fallout... (Score:5, Insightful)
Compromising which source, exactly? Lamo? Manning? Or the DOJ?
None of these seem to be anonymous at this point.
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Wired doesn't need to make excuses until they're legally compelled to release the information with a subpoena or a court order.
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Wired doesn't need to make excuses until they're legally compelled to release the information with a subpoena or a court order.
Indeed. And even then, they could likely refuse to testify against themselves. But then again we're discussing the court of public opinion at this point, not a court of law.
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Well, actually, we can really say. How many have been arrested and placed into 23-hour-a-day confinement? Exactly one. Mystery solved.
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Just because one person has been arrested, doesnt mean there are no other "sources".
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Just because I don't think jam will kill me doesn't mean it isn't poisoned either.
There exists a notion of 'likelihood'.
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Disregard this, I spoke only reading that single article. From this:
http://utdocuments.blogspot.com/2010/06/email-exchange-with-wireds-kevin.html [blogspot.com]
It seems he's already passed on the whole of the logs to the Army and FBI, he's not protecting jack.
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Irony (Score:5, Funny)
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So...? (Score:2)
Is Wired protecting a source? (Score:2)
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Wired's duty to protect their sources is more important to the nation -- the people -- than helping the government to prosecute those sources. Democracy demands freedom of the press.
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Wired's duty to protect their sources is more important to the nation -- the people -- than helping the government to prosecute those sources. Democracy demands freedom of the press.
Unless those sources are the government, due to Wired's being employed by the DOJ to solicit Manning's confession.
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Oh, I'm not confusing them. I'm recognizing how entities farm things out to one another in order to obfuscate the true actors in their crimes.
Lamo was a puppet of Wired and Wired was a puppet of the DOJ.
This explains the non-story they printed back in May about Lamo. Not that anyone would have noticed or cared that Poulson spent the weekend with him in San Diego. But they ran a cover story anyway...
Secret Identity! (Score:2)
Whats Greenwald's angle? (Score:2)
Glenn Greenwald writes
Whats Greenwald's angle? Anyone know?
I read what he's writing, all very good agitprop, but the unreleased info could be used for many different purposes depending on what it is, maybe Greenwald already knows. Or his buddy told him to support it. If it happens to match a pre-existing agenda of his. So in that scenario, if we know his agenda, we know what the unreleased contents are..
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Greenwald's agenda is that Bradley Manning has been held in solitary confinement for seven months without yet being charged with a crime. The chat logs (which the federal government has copies of) may contain evidence that helps to exonerate Manning or to prove his guilt. Outside of Lamo, Poulsen, Manning, and the government, nobody knows.
However, Lamo has continued to make (sometimes conflicting) statements about what Manning has told him, and Poulsen refuses to so much as confirm or deny whether the logs
Re:Whats Greenwald's angle? (Score:4, Informative)
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I was mistaken then, my mistake. But although he has been charged, Manning still has yet to be convicted, and his incarceration certainly seems excessively harsh in a country where people are presumed innocent until proven otherwise.
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Greenwald's agenda is that Bradley Manning has been held in solitary confinement for seven months without yet being charged with a crime. The chat logs (which the federal government has copies of) may contain evidence that helps to exonerate Manning or to prove his guilt. Outside of Lamo, Poulsen, Manning, and the government, nobody knows.
However, Lamo has continued to make (sometimes conflicting) statements about what Manning has told him, and Poulsen refuses to so much as confirm or deny whether the logs support any of these statements.
That sounds like an accurate summary of the guys article, rather than his angle, or agenda or goal, or whatever.
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Give it to Assange ... (Score:2)
... if he doesn't publish it, then we'll have proof of what many of us have strongly suspected: he's a hypocrite.
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Anyone want to start a pool? (Score:3)
Anyone want to start a pool on when Anonymous will DDoS Wired for not supporting Wikileaks?
What the fuck? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Interesting)
Greenwald is suggesting that the failure to release this information somehow is a failure of journalistic integrity on the part of Poulsen? I don't know where the fuck Greenwald went to school, but the protection of source confidentiality is one of the tenets of journalism.
You mean like how Lamo and by extension Poulsen promised Manning journalistic confidentiality as a source for a Wired article?
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Interesting)
If he does possess such information, then what he has is information about a confidential source relationship... I don't know where the fuck Greenwald went to school, but the protection of source confidentiality is one of the tenets of journalism.
You do realise that it was Lamo (Wired journalist) who turned his source over to the FBI? The evidence suggests that Wired and/or their journalist staff do not have an absolute policy of protecting their sources.
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An absolute policy of protecting a source is an idiot concept. Afterall what do you do when your source tells you he is responsible for a criminal act, more importantly what do you do when they tell you they plan to do more criminal acts? Even in the current example, there is a fine blurry line here between whisle blower and releasing state secrets that could get people killed Now consider if the source was a member of some fringe group that thinks freedom of expression extends to blowing up things as a
Re:What the fuck? (Score:5, Informative)
what do you do when your source tells you he is responsible for a criminal act, more importantly what do you do when they tell you they plan to do more criminal acts?... Now consider if the source was a member of some fringe group that thinks freedom of expression extends to blowing up things as a form of protest.
I don't have to imagine this situation - it happened with terrorist groups in Northern Ireland: The moral reason never to tell (British Journalism Review 2005): [bjr.org.uk]
In such scenarios, journalists need first to address the moral dilemma: are they investigative journalists first, or citizens of the State first? They cannot jump between the two. If they decide it is the latter, then they should not be giving confidential sources worthless guarantees that at some point in the future they will abandon. In the issue of collusion, for journalists to identity their confidential sources makes them no better than the agents of the State they are exposing.
Let me state categorically where I stand on the issue of a journalist's confidential sources of information. For me, the fundamental ethical principle of journalism is that we have a moral imperative to give a guarantee of anonymity to genuine confidential sources providing bona fide information. There can be no transparency in the trust that our sources must have in us as professional journalists. If we sacrifice that trust, we betray our credibility as reporters of the truth. Likewise, if there is no trust between the confidential source and the journalist, it destroys the concept of honesty in the verification of the evidence given by that source.
Kevin Poulsen and Adrian Lamo are Informants (Score:5, Interesting)
It's been an open secret for some time that Kevin Poulsen and Adrian Lamo are both federal informants and have been since they were released from prison. That was part of the deal that they made with the government when arrested to avoid the hell that Kevin Mitnick went through when arrested. Even if it weren't an open secret, their actions in regards to Bradley Manning and Wikileaks expose them.
The chat log between Adrian Lamo and Bradley Manning will likely never see the light of day.
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... and the assertion that Manning sought out an attention-whore loser like Lamo to "confess" to is absurd. Most likely he contacted Poulson who fobbed him off on Lamo as a sort of firewall.
The chat logs are important because they contain the only evidence that Manning did anything at all. And Lamo got to play with them before anyone else saw them.
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<published>
Lamo: So you felt you had the duty to release those classified documents, no matter what the consequences?
Manning: Oh yeah, I so totally leaked that shit.... I could not stand by and watch as people got killed for nothing. Fuck
Good journalism often edits out info ... (Score:3)
Except for sitting on the D-Day invasion story? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not that I'd expect the wikileaks crew to get that.
Re:Except for sitting on the D-Day invasion story? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they were just sitting on it, you'd have a point. But what they actually did was release choice tidbits of the chat logs and then refuse to publish anymore or even answer questions such as "Did Manning actually say this in the logs?".
Which only makes sense if you are trying to frame Manning or milk your 'exclusivity' to the detriment of Manning.
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Answering questions like "Did Manning really claim to have physically dropped off a hard drive with Assange" doesn't require anything more than a yes or no or at worse, the relevant portion of the chat logs published.
And obviously, they know how and are willing to do just that, or they'd have not published anything at all.
Which leads us back to the argument I've made. This has squat to do with 'journalistic integrity' or 'protecting national secrets'. It's about either being part of a frame up or milking th
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what? wikileaks gets it better then most.
They had the info, they sat io the info, they shared the info with other journalists, they told people they where going to release it.
The did EXACTLY what any good journalist does. JA may be a douche bag, but wikileaks did exactly what a good news agency should do.
Just like the Washington post did.
Poulsen, Lamo, Rasch, Wired - All on the job (Score:5, Interesting)
This is merely my suspicion, but I feel that the entirety of the content of those logs would reveal that Manning was caught in a sting by the DOJ. That the story of Manning finding someone, anyone to brag to was false and that Lamo sought direct contact to solicit the confession. This is the most-likely scenario, as I suspect it:
1) DOJ contacts Wired via Rasch informing him of this 'lead' about one of the biggest cyber-crimes of all time. Chances are the military knows that Manning has leaked something, but they can't prove it. They need a confession before they can attempt to put the genie back in the bottle.
2) Poulsen hires Lamo for the job. Note the non-story Poulsen wrote about Lamo in May. This was likely a cover to hide their extended contact at that time.
3) Lamo contacts Manning using information given to him by the DOJ and violates his civil rights in order to solicit a confession that otherwise would not hold up in court.
4) Manning is arrested and those logs are secured from the public's eyes under the guise of 'national security'.
That's how I see it. It just makes more sense than the story we're being told. Please do poke holes in it if you can, because where I sit right now, Wired is a fairly disgusting entity deserving some charges being brought of their own.
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If Lamo is on being paid by the FBI it would seem reasonable that Wired would be cautious about using an account of the exchange with Manning which came only from Lamo. They may as well just get the version from the FBI.
Re:Poulsen, Lamo, Rasch, Wired - All on the job (Score:4, Interesting)
In the comments section of that Greenwald post (called "Letters"), many are also asking how authentic the chat logs are: aren't they just text files anybody with Notepad can generate?
I'm also wondering if maybe Lamo and Poulsen, under the orders of Rasch, doctored a "chat conversation" up to get rid of Manning who has been seen as trouble (because of his independent thinking streak). I'm starting to wonder if Manning is the leaker at all, is there any proof of that other than an alleged chat that took place, based on the evidence of a text file?
Maybe they knew they got a leak, and they needed to take down WikiLeaks, and they thought, "we can do this by taking a US soldier, put him in solitary until he loses his mind, and then he'll say whatever we want him to say (like 'Assange coerced me into doing it!'), do we have a monkey we can use for that?"
"How about this troublesome Manning kid?".
Hey, if they can change the story about that girl soldier who was taken peacefully from a hospital into a "we ambushed the enemy stronghold to get her!" piece of news.
Posted not anonymously, hello CIA database! I guess I won't be visiting the US for a long time, maybe when a free country rises up from the ashes of the burnt-down empire.
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Yeah, that's possible, but it doesn't seem quite as likely. Hard to say though. Very good point.
Re:Poulsen, Lamo, Rasch, Wired - All on the job (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm starting to wonder if Manning is the leaker at all, is there any proof of that other than an alleged chat that took place, based on the evidence of a text file?
Bingo. None that anyone knows of.
Incidentally, Lamo himself has said that he told Manning that (a) he (Lamo) is a journalist and source shield laws would protect Manning, and (b) he (Lamo) is an ordained minister and that priest/penitent laws would make Manning's "confession" inadmissible. Yes, Lamo himself has said he said these things. Are they in the chat logs? Good question, and it makes a lot of difference.
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There's a further suspicion that Lamo presented himself as a journalist, and extended confidence under California's shield law.
no due process for Pfc Bradley Manning... (Score:3)
To what jury are you referring? Manning isn't going to see a typical court proceeding. The Fifth Ammendment to the Constitution [wikipedia.org] negates his right to due process, trial by jury, etc. I certainly would like to see his case go to a public trial, but that's not in the cards here.
Seth
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Yeah, and I highly doubt that such a link actually exists. Everything about Wikileaks and Assange's 'rubberhose' or whatnot absolutely SCREAMS anonymity. The odds of such a person, capable of such concepts to the point of actively enabling them through software and websites, actually being traced back to the leak is very nearly absurd.
Have the rules of evidence changed? (Score:2, Interesting)
Have the rules of evidence changed? Is there now a requirement on the judicial system that all evidence be turned over to journalists to investigate and report on their interpretation of what Manning did or did not do. This seems more like a requirement placed on them by their parent organizations who need such stories and speculation to generate income.
If I were Manning, I wo
Wired's rebuttal to Greenwald's smears (Score:3)
Wired have posted a fairly robust rebuttal to Greenwald's accusations which don't paint him in a very god light: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/greenwald/ [wired.com]
Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
He also violated a contract he voluntarily signed with the government in which he said that in exchange for being given access to classified information that if he ever leaked it during his life that he would face criminal charges. Whether or not what he did was for good reasons or not, he has to live with the consequences of violating that contract he signed.
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Oh, hey, then all the government needs to do is uphold their part of the bargain is charge him with a crime, and give him a trial. I doubt he signed anything saying that if he was accused of leaking secrets, he could be held without trial and tortured. But, given who he works for and their previous history of torturing people they don't like, he should have known what they would do to him, eh?
Re:wtf (Score:4, Insightful)
Before being granted access to classified information an individual must meet three criteria:
1) Hold a current security clearance
2) Possess a valid need to know
3) Have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA)
Private Manning, if he's done what most suspect he's done, has violated the terms of the NDA he signed. He is therefore subject to the requisite prosecution under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice for violating the NDA.
If he hasn't been to trial yet, it's only because the case is still being built against him. The military will not prosecute him if they are unable to make a convincing case of his guilt. As soon as they have that case, Manning will then have his day in court.
Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
And until then, they are free to torture him [salon.com] to their hearts content in an effort to force compliance out of him? I think not.
When did acting like the villains out of a WWII or Cold War spy flick become publicly acceptable for the country that prides itself on being the leader of the free world?
Re:wtf (Score:5, Informative)
From your link:
Son, he's been held in that condition for about seven months now and hasn't yet even had a pre-trial hearing. I don't care if you are fucking John Yoo behind that Anonymous mask of yours. There's no way you can effectively argue that isn't psychological torture being performed there.
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Re:wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't get worked up over being put in solitary for seven months, being forced to answer every five minutes if you are ok, being woken up every five minutes if your guards decide they can't tell if you are alright on their own, or being denied the ability to exercise outside of pacing for an hour a day for seven months straight, then you either are young enough to be anyone's naive neo-con's child or you really are John Yoo and have no fucking clue what torture is about.
That, or I really did need to link to the article for you, as you obviously hadn't read it and apparently still haven't.
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Would you rather him be fed bread & water only? That's also a punishment under the UCMJ. Perfectly legal too.
Punishment comes AFTER you are found guilty and convicted. Remember that silly "presumption of innocence" thing? Look up Coffin v. United States [wikipedia.org] and In re Winship [wikipedia.org].
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Uniform code of Military Justice, or UCMJ.
Service members may be uniformed, but the UCMJ is 'uniform'.
Sheesh.
And it is not so much an NDA as it is a security clearance with the attendant lawful requirements. If Pvt. Manning did remove classified material from secure areas without clearance to do so, he's guilty of that crime. Disclosing it to unauthorized third parties is another offense. In fact, it's possible that his bringing storage media into a secure area is an offense, and if he himself views the
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He also violated a contract he voluntarily signed with the government in which he said that in exchange for being given access to classified information that if he ever leaked it during his life that he would face criminal charges. Whether or not what he did was for good reasons or not, he has to live with the consequences of violating that contract he signed.
Well, shit, we should throw him in jail and throw away the key. he broke a contract!!!! That's worse then, maybe, killing civs and covering it up. I know I think that.
Wake the fuck up. Dude did what his conscious had him do. And he did right. Now it's up to us to help him out.
Where's my Free Bradley Manning tshirts at?
Re:wtf (Score:5, Interesting)
Can that contract compel him to commit criminal acts? No. Unlawful contracts are unlawful.
Consider that cable about US Treasury funds ultimately being used to buy children for sex. If you have knowledge of that crime, Nuremberg tells us that you damned well better NOT follow orders, and you better to the right thing...
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Consider that cable about US Treasury funds ultimately being used to buy children for sex. If you have knowledge of that crime, Nuremberg tells us that you damned well better NOT follow orders, and you better to the right thing...
Yes, never mind that Manning was not ordered to commit that crime. Never mind that manning had no first-hand knowledge of the crime. Never mind that the crime happened outside US jurisdiction and was being handled by the country in question. Lets invoke Nuremberg and raise Manning up on a pedestal as a hero.
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Consider that cable about US Treasury funds ultimately being used to buy children for sex.
Not quite.
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That said it is incumbent on every hum
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There are a couple of good excuses, actually, both of which are squarely on point to his case. One is the oath of office, the other is the Nuremberg principles.
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1. The Declaration of Independence isn't law.
2. Manning was a solder and may have broken his oath.
Members of the military are under CIVILAN command. The only right that applies is if he was given an illegal order. Keeping those cables secret violates no laws or in any way the UCMJ.
If Manning is the source he committed criminal acts. Obeying orders is not an option for a member of the military of a free nation. They must be under the control of the civillian government.
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The Declaration of Independence is the spirit of the Constitution of the United States you fucking commie.
Manning most certainly did break his oath, if not the law. However, it is not the job of the press to hand evidence to convict him of those things to the government.
I have no doubt that most of the WikiLeaks stuff that got out was just ordinary security breech. SOME of it however, is probably illegal black ops stuff. That leaves some gray areas as far as Manning goes, it is NOT his duty to execut
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It could be argued except that he isn't a judge.
Also the vast majority of wikileaks are not illegal acts. So they can just convict on those.
if he did it. He is still innocent until proven guilty.
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It will make little difference because they don't care, understand or want to understand.
The danger of a military that feels it is above the civilian government is outside the understanding of most US citizens.
Also thanks for also using the the wording if Manning is guilty as I have.
They also don't understand that he still has to go to court.
Right idea, wrong argument (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL, so the below opinion represents a non-legal reading of the various treaties, obligations and rulings. A judge may well reach a different conclusion. In fact, were Judge Pickles involved (different country so he can't and he retired anyway), any judgement might be possible. The guy was living proof of the razor-edge between genius and utter insanity. However, I feel that even if my reading is legally incorrect, the cited texts should still be taken into consideration.
The Supreme Court has long decided that the Declaration of Independence is just so much scrap paper with no legal backing whatsoever. The argument needs to be stronger.
Now, under US law, all International Treaties that the US has signed up to have the weight of US law. Maybe that will offer some possibilities.
Article 29 of the Second Hague Convention: An individual can only be considered a spy if, acting clandestinely, or on false pretences, he obtains, or seeks to obtain information in the zone of operations of a belligerent, with the intention of communicating it to the hostile party.
Well, there's no claim that he used false pretenses to access the material or that he did so clandestinely. Nor is there any claim that he communicated it to the hostile party.
Article 31 states: A spy who, after rejoining the army to which he belongs, is subsequently captured by the enemy, is treated as a prisoner of war, and incurs no responsibility for his previous acts of espionage.
So if he, after giving the information to Wikileaks, acted correctly under the commanding officer and committed no offence at the time of his arrest would not qualify as a spy as he had "rejoined the army to which he belongs".
Nurenberg Principle II states, "The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law."
Nurenberg Principle IV states: "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him".
Taken together, this would mean that if Manning's silence would be a crime under international law, then it would be a criminal act even if it was (a) legal in the US and (b) ordered by his superiors. Thus, we now have to establish if his silence was a criminal act.
Principle IV also states:
(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
Under (ii), silence would be partitipation in a common plan or conspiracy, provided the acts he was aware of were indeed illegal.
Article 5 of the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded on the Field of Battle (Red Cross Convention) states: Inhabitants of the country who may bring help to the wounded shall be respected, and shall remain free. The generals of the belligerent Powers shall make it their care to inform the inhabitants of the appeal addressed to their humanity, and of the neutrality which will be the consequence of it.
Thus, bombing civilians rendering aid, regardless of who they are aiding, is an illegal act. Which would make Manning's silence an illegal act under Principle IV above.
So, from this we can reasonably conclude that Manning (a) is not a spy or guilty of espionage (regardless of any US law to the contrary, since international law supercedes it), and (b) would have been guilty of a war crime had he not released the information.
This does NOT make him innocent of any crime. It merely makes him innocent of the crime that is popularly attached to him. There may well be legal grounds for disciplining him for his method of non-silence, but legally he was obliged under international law to be non-silent.
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Point by point....
Second Hague Convention Article 29 (I assume you mean Article IV, you don't say and it is important):
First off, these conventions are intended for warring States. There is no provision covering international movements or other extra-governmental organizations. So Wikileaks is not a protected or described participant here, and neither are groups which do not represent a territorial collective will, such as Al Qaeda. So this does not apply, as there is no State of Wikileaks.
Even if it did
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He is a traitor. Perhaps he thought he was playing, but he will be made an example of and hopefully put up against a wall and shot. What the lawyers think should be in consequential. For me personally I think the leaks have been fun...but for PCF Manning they should be fatal.
Isn't it always the ANONYMOUS COWARD that yells "Off with his head!" the loudest?
Until you have enough courage in your convictions to associate your name with your facile death sentence then I shall ignore your opinions as the inconsequential brutish yammerings of a disturbed mind.
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oh please. Have you not been reading the released docs? they show exactly the opposite.
Fucking moron.
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Re:Ethics lecture from a sock puppet (Score:4, Informative)
Yup I googled what you said to and came up with this:
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/07/response-to-right-wing-personal.html [blogspot.com]
Doesn't exactly confirm your accusations.
Re:Ethics lecture from a sock puppet (Score:5, Interesting)
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