Bradley Manning: top US legal scholars voice outrage at 'torture'

More than 250 of America's most eminent legal scholars have signed a letter protesting against the treatment in military prison of the alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, contesting that his "degrading and inhumane conditions" are illegal, unconstitutional and could even amount to torture.

The list of signatories includes Laurence Tribe, a Harvard professor who is considered to be America's foremost liberal authority on constitutional law. He taught constitutional law to Barack Obama and was a key backer of his 2008 presidential campaign.

Tribe joined the Obama administration last year as a legal adviser in the justice department, a post he held until three months ago.

He told the Guardian he signed the letter because Manning appeared to have been treated in a way that "is not only shameful but unconstitutional" as he awaits court martial in Quantico marine base in Virginia.

The US soldier has been held in the military brig since last July, charged with multiple counts relating to the leaking of thousands of embassy cables and other secret documents to the WikiLeaks website.

Under the terms of his detention, he is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, checked every five minutes under a so-called "prevention of injury order" and stripped naked at night apart from a smock.

Tribe said the treatment was objectionable "in the way it violates his person and his liberty without due process of law and in the way it administers cruel and unusual punishment of a sort that cannot be constitutionally inflicted even upon someone convicted of terrible offences, not to mention someone merely accused of such offences".

The harsh restrictions have been denounced by a raft of human rights groups, including Amnesty International, and are being investigated by the United Nations' rapporteur on torture.

Tribe is the second senior figure with links to the Obama administration to break ranks over Manning. Last month, PJ Crowley resigned as state department spokesman after deriding the Pentagon's handling of Manning as "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid".

The intervention of Tribe and hundreds of other legal scholars is a huge embarrassment to Obama, who was a professor of constitutional law in Chicago. Obama made respect for the rule of law a cornerstone of his administration, promising when he first entered the White House in 2009 to end the excesses of the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

As commander in chief, Obama is ultimately responsible for Manning's treatment at the hands of his military jailers. In his only comments on the matter so far, Obama has insisted that the way the soldier was being detained was "appropriate and meets our basic standards".

The protest letter, published in the New York Review of Books, was written by two distinguished law professors, Bruce Ackerman of Yale and Yochai Benkler of Harvard. They claim Manning's reported treatment is a violation of the US constitution, specifically the eighth amendment forbidding cruel and unusual punishment and the fifth amendment that prevents punishment without trial.

In a stinging rebuke to Obama, they say "he was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as commander in chief meets fundamental standards of decency".

Benkler told the Guardian: "It is incumbent on us as citizens and professors of law to say that enough is enough. We cannot allow ourselves to behave in this way if we want America to remain a society dedicated to human dignity and process of law."

He said Manning's conditions were being used "as a warning to future whistleblowers" and added: "

I find it tragic that it is Obama's administration that is pursuing whistleblowers and imposing this kind of treatment."

Ackerman pointed out that under the Pentagon's own rule book, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Manning's jailers could be liable to prosecution for abusing him. Article 93 of the code says "any person who is guilty of cruelty toward any person subject to his orders shall be punished".

The list of professors who have signed the protest letter includes leading figures from all the top US law schools, as well as prominent names from other academic fields. Among them are Bill Clinton's former labour secretary Robert Reich, President Theodore Roosevelt's great-great-grandson Kermit Roosevelt, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union Norman Dorsen and the writer Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Source: AnonOps

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WikiLeaks suspect files complaint over detention conditions

The prime suspect in the WikiLeaks case, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, is being mistreated in detention, his lawyer asserts.

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning has been charged with leaking
classified government documents.

Manning has been behind bars since July at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, charged with leaking classified government documents, including a classified military video of an attack in Iraq that was posted online by WikiLeaks.

The Army says Manning illegally downloaded secret files from a government computer network while he was serving as a low-level intelligence office at a small base in Iraq between November 2009 and May 2010, when he was arrested.

His lawyer, David Coombs, formally objected to Manning's treatment, filing an Article 138 complaint Wednesday, according to a posting on the lawyer's blog. Manning has been in solitary confinement and for part of this week was again placed on suicide watch by the Quantico brig commander, according to his lawyers.

"He was stripped of all clothing with the exception of his underwear. His prescription eyeglasses were taken away from him," Coombs wrote in the blog entry. "He was forced to sit in essential blindness with the exception of the times that he was reading or given limited television privileges. During those times, his glasses were returned to him."

Manning was taken off suicide watch after 2½ days, after a review of the situation by the Army Staff Judge Advocate's office.

Under a less restrictive condition, called prevention of injury watch, Manning is confined to his cell 23 hours a day with no pillow, sheets or personal items, according to Coombs.

His only exercise, according to his lawyer, is when he is taken to an empty room and allowed to walk. When he sleeps he must strip to his underwear and surrender his clothing to the guards.

Quantico public affairs officer Lt. Brian Villiard said under military rules he could not confirm whether the complaint had been received. He said all the conditions of Manning's confinement are in line with his maximum custody status and to prevent Manning from harming himself.

"He is not being treated any differently than anyone else in maximum custody," Villiard said. "We're not treating him any differently than anyone who could pose a risk to life, property or national security."

In December, a Pentagon spokesman said that even under the restrictive conditions, Manning is allowed to converse with other prisoners, receive visitors and exercise for an hour a day. In addition, Manning has pillows and sheets made from a material that cannot be torn into strips, according to Villiard.

The next step in Manning's case will be a "706 board" to determine whether Manning is mentally competent to stand trial.

Lt. Col. Robert Manning of the Military District of Washington said he expects that board to convene "within the near future." Depending on the outcome, that could be followed by an evidentiary hearing and, possibly, a full court-martial.

Source: CNN

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WikiLeaks Contributes $15,000 to Bradley Manning’s Defense

WikiLeaks has finally made good on a months-old pledge to contribute financially to the defense of 23-year-old Bradley Manning, according to a group raising money for the imprisoned Army private suspected of providing WikiLeaks its most important U.S. releases.

But the sum, $15,100, is less than half the $50,000 WikiLeaks originally promised. It’s also less than the group pledged in December, when WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said WikiLeaks would immediately transfer $20,000 to Manning’s defense fund.

The Bradley Manning Support Network, which expressed frustration last month that it had not received the promised pledge, praised WikiLeaks’ contribution Thursday. ”This donation from WikiLeaks is vital to our efforts to ensure Bradley receives a fair, open trial,” wrote Mike Gogulski, the network’s founder, in a press release.

Combined with funds that the Support Network has already raised for Manning’s defense, the total amounts to more than $100,000, the flat fee that defense attorney David Coombs had originally agreed to charge for defending Manning. Gogulski noted in his e-mail that the expected expense for Manning’s defense has now risen to about $115,000.

Manning was arrested last May in Iraq, and briefly held in Kuwait before being transferred to the U.S. Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. Manning is believed to be the source who provided WikiLeaks with a classified U.S. Army video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack on civilians in Iraq, 250,000 U.S. State Department cables, and logs containing about 500,000 U.S. military files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

WikiLeaks highlighted Manning’s plight after his arrest, writing on Twitter, “We do not know if Mr. Manning is our source, but the U.S. military is claiming he is so we will defend [him].” In a fundraising e-mail last June, the organization said it needed more donations in part because it was “flying a legal team to Kuwait,” where Manning was being held. “Any financial contributions will be of IMMEDIATE assistance.” The group subsequently promised to send $50,000 to the Bradley Manning Support Network.

But while salaries were paid out to founder Julian Assange and other WikiLeaks members, the promised support to Manning failed to materialize. Assange recently received about $88,000 in retroactive salary for his work with WikiLeaks in 2010. He also recently signed a $1.5 million book deal to publish his memoir.

Loraine Reitman, a member of the Support Network’s steering committee, shied away from placing blame on WikiLeaks. “WikiLeaks is the reason we’ve been able to get so much money and donations,” she told Threat Level last month. “They’ve been linking to us and tweeting about us, and every time they do it, donations come in.”

WikiLeaks has received at least $1.2 million in donations since it began accepting contributions via PayPal and bank transfer payments. The donations have been handled for WikiLeaks by the Berlin-based Wau Holland Foundation since October 2009.

The organization initially spent these contributions frugally, tapping just $38,000 between October 2009 and July 2010. But by December, its costs swelled to nearly half of its nest-egg, about $495,000. A Wall Street Journal story last month said that around $133,000 of that money was paid out as salary for WikiLeaks staffers who’d submitted invoices requesting compensation for their 2010 work.

Hendrik Fulda, vice president of the foundation, says Wau Holland will soon release a report detailing all the donations and expenses it has handled for WikiLeaks. “Our report on the money paid out is in the final stages, we’re now putting text to the numbers. So it should be out in the next week or two,” said Fulda in an e-mail. “We’re still on the legal / tax issue from our end, which seems to be complicated, but expect this to be sorted by end of January.”

The long overdue Wau Holland report will be the first public disclosure of WikiLeaks’ finances. The organization and founder Assange have been criticized by supporters and others for failing to provide a transparent accounting of donations and expenses. According to the Telegraph, the Wau Holland Foundation was issued two official warnings by charity regulators in Germany for failing to file the required financial reports.

Last month, PayPal and Bank of America cut off the mechanism to provide donations to WikiLeaks through their services, amid mounting U.S. pressure against the organization for releasing diplomatic cables. Assange claimed in a recent interview that his group has been losing about $620,000 a weeksince it began publishing the cables. He did not, however, provide any information to substantiate the claim.


Source: Wired

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9 Essential Questions About Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks

  

Both the award-winning documentary film director Michael Moore and the celebrated whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg have called 22-year-old U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning a hero in the fight for free information. Ironically Manning's own fate is presently unknown, since much information leading to his arrest is being withheld. Since his detention in May last year, Manning has been in solitary confinement under conditions criticized for being inhumane and torturous. According to his lawyer, Army court-martial defense attorney David E. Coombs, Manning is only allowed to leave his cell one hour a day and has no contact with other prisoners.

Even in his cell, his activities are strongly restricted. The light is kept turned on 24 hours a day, he is prohibited from possessing personal items or exercising, and he has no access to basic items such as sheets or pillows. What is the reason for this treatment? Manning is accused of being WikiLeaks' source for the 250,000 U.S. State Department cables published since November and for being the source of the "collateral murder" video, showing civilians and two Reuters reporters being killed in a 2007 U.S. air raid in Baghdad. He is not yet convicted of any charges, and as it lingers in the air his fate raises a number of questions:

Why is Manning kept in solitary confinement?

The official justification for Manning's pretrial conditions is his classification as both Maximum Custody Detainee, the highest level of military detention, and POI (prevention of injury) Detainee. Both labels have been criticized as exaggerated. Salon's Glen Greenwald points to the fact that Manning, since his arrest, has been a model detainee without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems and Manning's lawyerdenies that he is potentially suicidal. But considering the harsh pretrial conditions, who would not be suicidal after a while? In an open letter send to Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier this week, Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) points to the severe deleterious effects of solitary confinement and suggests that, rather than a response to a risk, Manning may be the victim of political retribution. Julian Assange, in an interview with Sir David Frost, claims that the torturous conditions of Manning's imprisonment are in fact intended to coerce Manning into testifying against him. If true, Manning is a brick in a larger plot to crack down on WikiLeaks. Let us scroll the history back some six months.

What made Manning leak the secret information?

Manning has faced accusations of recklessly threatening homeland security. In an online chat with the fellow hacker Adrian Lamo (we will get back to him in a minute) Manning expresses a motivation for the leak grounded in deep concern with the atrocities his country has committed. In the chat logs Manning is said to have stated if i were someone more malicious -- i could've sold [the information] to russia or china, and made bank. Instead he uploaded it on WikiLeaks, because it belongs in the public domain --information should be free & god knows what happens now -- hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms -- if not & we're doomed. It was these statements that made Daniel Ellsberg call Manning his new hero, and assuming the chat logs are to be trusted, Manning should be considered a whistleblower of our time. Now the other key figure in the story:

Who is Adrian Lamo?

Lamo is a hacker, convicted of a felony in 2004, for hacking into the New York Times. In the hacking community Lamo is notorious for his dishonesty, compulsive self-promotion and mental instability. In April 2010 Lamo voluntarilycommitted himself to a psychiatric hospital for a week. Lamo declared himself a journalist and at the time Manning is said to have engaged in the chat with Lamo he was working with a group called Project Vigilant, whose self-proclaimed mission was to inform federal authorities of crimes taking place over the Internet. There is no evidence suggesting Lamo and Manning knew each other prior to the chats, which raised the question:

Why did Manning confess the leaks to Lamo?

It seems odd that Manning divulged information likely to put him in prison for years to a man he did not know on an open source online chat. According toWired, Manning quickly and without reservations inaugurated Lamo in his activities and willingly answered to further investigation by Lamo. In an interview with Yahoo! News Lamo claimed to have explicitly informed Manning that there were no measures of confidentiality and Wired suggests that Manning simply saw in Lamo a likeminded hacker in whom he could confide. Considering the importance of Manning's activities it seems likely that he would be on the lookout for somebody to share the burden, but it appears unforgivably stupid and rather bizarre, for somebody with his knowledge about Internet security to give away such information to a complete stranger without any measures of confidentiality. To Glenn Greenwald, Lamo reversed the story he gave to Yahoo! News and said he told Manning he was a journalist and could offer him confidentiality under California's shield law. If so, Manning's decision to confess seems sounder, but Lamo's explanation of his role in the story is riddled with inconsistencies.

How did Manning contact Lamo in the first place?

Lamo told Yahoo! News that Manning found him by making a Twitter search on WikiLeaks and contacted him out of the blue on an open AOL Instant Messenger chat. To Greenwald, however, Lamo claimed that Manning had initially contacted him through a number of encrypted emails. Lamo refuses to release these emails. If they exist it is reasonable to assume they contain proof that Lamo promised Manning confidentiality. Lamo compromised this assumable promise by turning Manning over to the authorities.

Why did Lamo inform the FBI?

Lamo has claimed he acted out of sheer concern with national security. He told the Australian journalist Patrick Gray, from Risky Busyness, that he tried toprevent the lives of other human beings from being seriously and adversely effected by the leakage of classified material. The justification rings hollow considering Lamo himself is a longtime hacker convicted of a felony. Even more bizarre is the fact that Lamo, a couple of months prior to leaking the story,donated money to WikiLeaks and expressed his support for the organization. So if Lamo's concern with homeland security is true it brings up another question.

Why did Lamo leak the chat logs to Wired?

According to his own statement, Lamo wanted to ensure that Manning was painted as a human being rather than a terrorist before arrested by the U.S. authorities. The statement rings hollow in light of the curious connection between Lamo and Kevin Poulsen, Wired's senior editor, investigated by Greenwald. Poulsen is not only a journalist but also, like Lamo, a previous hacker convicted of a felony and sentenced to three years in jail. Throughout his hacking career, Lamo went to Poulsen for coverage of his activities. When Lamo had successfully hacked a company, he informed Poulsen, who then went to the company with information about the break-in, offered Lamo's cooperation and afterward reported the hacking incident in the news. Lamo thus used Poulsen to carry out his hacking adventures while Poulsen took advantage of Lamo as insider source from the hacking world. The fact that Lamo leaked the chat logs not only to the FBI, but also to Wired suggests the desire for media attention played a role in Lamo's actions. Leaked to Poulsen only 25 percent of the logs made it to the public. Next question arises:

What is in the unpublished logs?

Poulsen and Lamo both confirmed to Greenwald that Lamo placed no restrictions on publishing the chat logs in their entirety. Poulsen, however, refuses to publish the remaining 75 percent, claiming they contain irrelevant personal stuff about Manning in addition to information that would jeopardize national security if released. It seems unreasonable that Poulsen alone should make that decision and begs for the examination of the material by a third party. The remaining chat logs might hold the key to some of the unanswered questions above, e.g. how Manning first contacted Lamo; if Lamo promised Manning confidentiality; and if the chat gave Lamo sound reason to believe Manning was a threat to national security.

In a battle for free information it is frustrating that the trail leading to Manning's arrest ends blindly in an alley of unpublished chat logs. While Manning is rotting away, solitary in his cell, WikiLeaks continues to release a lava flow of information. The trial of Manning, however, might pose a serious threat to Assange as well. One last, crucial question is still up in the air:

What role did Assange play in Manning's leaks?

Assange claims to have no knowledge about any of the sources leaking documents through WikiLeaks, as it is an open platform for anonymous uploading. In the chat, however, Lamo claims that Manning confessed a relationship with Assange, who gave him instructions on how to download the files. According to the New York Times, prosecutors have been looking for proof that this is true. If so, it would enable them to prosecute Assange for conspiracy, rather than espionage, thus getting around obstacles caused by the First Amendment. It is crucial for the Obama administration to make an example out of Assange and WikiLeaks through prosecution. This might hold the key explanation of the unusual repressive conditions Manning is placed under.

If Assange is indicted, Greenwald worries it poses a threat, not only to the vision of WikiLeaks, but to an already endangered species of critical investigative journalists. Greenwald, interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, punctures the illusion: "Very rarely do investigative journalists merely act as passive recipients of classified information; secret government programs aren't typically reported because leaks just suddenly show up one day in the email box of a passive reporter. Journalists virtually always take affirmative steps to encourage its dissemination."

The story of Bradley Manning is a story of questionable reporting flawed with unknowns and withheld information. What are Lamo's intentions? What exactly did Manning tell him? And why do we have to rely on assumptions about the content of chat logs withheld by Wired and Kevin Poulsen? While Manning sits solitary in his cell, Assange continues the fight for free information, and government prosecutors advance their battle to crack down on WikiLeaks.

Source: AlterNet

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A Mysterious Photo

(illustration: Rob Beschizza)

Adrian Lamo, 

Barak Obama, 

Bradley Manning, 

Donald Ramsfeld, 

Julian Assange, 

Kevin Poulsen,

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Bradley Manning accused of leaking secrets is being abused

The Army private suspected of releasing the secret US Government files is considered a major security risk. Source: AFP

MONTHS of "inhumane" solitary confinement are taking a toll on the US Army private suspected of passing secret government files to WikiLeaks, a friend says.

"It has become obvious to me that Bradley Manning's physical and mental well-being are deteriorating," David House wrote on the blog Firedoglake, recounting a visit to the military brig where the accused soldier is being held.
"It's become increasingly clear that the severe, inhumane conditions of his detention are wearing on Manning."
Held at a military brig in Virginia at the Quantico Marine base since July, Manning, 23, has been placed under a maximum-security regimen because authorities say his escape would pose a risk to national security.
Under the strict rules, Manning is allowed out of his cell for only one hour a day for exercise outside or at an indoor gym, military officers say.

But Mr House said the Pentagon's description of conditions was contradicted by what he learned from Manning.

Bradley Manning faces 52 years in prison if found guilty
 / AP Source: AP

"He has not been outside or into the brig yard for either recreation nor exercises in four full weeks," Mr House said.
"When told of the Pentagon's statement that he indeed receives exercise, Manning's reply was that he is able to exercise insofar as walking in chains is a form of exercise," he wrote.
As a "precaution", prison authorities have decided not to issue Manning cotton sheets and instead have provided two blankets and a pillow made of material that cannot be torn into pieces.
Manning said that "his blankets are similar in weight and heft to lead aprons used in X-ray laboratories", Mr House said.
The army soldier was under a "Prevention of Injury" order that was the cause of some of the more strict conditions, Mr House said, even though Manning allegedly had been cleared by a military psychologist.
"What Manning needs, and what his lawyer has already urged, is to have the unnecessary 'Prevention of Injury' order lifted that severely restricts his ability to exercise, communicate, and sleep," he wrote.
The Pentagon has rejected allegations Manning is suffering from any abuse and insists he is being treated in the same way as other inmates under the "maximum custody" regime.
The WikiLeaks website has yet to disclose its source for a massive trove of classified US military and diplomatic documents published in recent months, but suspicion has focused on Manning, who worked as a low-ranking army intelligence analyst in Iraq.
Manning was arrested in May, and US authorities have yet to say when he will be put on trial on charges of violating federal criminal and military law, including transmitting classified information to a third party.
If found guilty, Manning faces up to 52 years in prison.

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