Subject: Re: In Closing Argument, Prosecutor Casts Soldier as 'Anarchist'
for Leaking Archives
Lies and rumors abound. So what if Manning talked to Assange?
I am beginning to fear for these people's lives, along with Snowden's. Once
the idea is firmly planted that they are Terrorists, not whistle blowers,
can the drones be far behind?
Oh the Prince of Peace sits on his Throne,
With the remote control in hand.
"We'll hunt down Terrorists near and far,
Even within our Land."
With steady eye and GPS, he tracks each culprit down,
And then he quickly hits Delete,
And grins like a hungry hound.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'S. Kashdan'" <skashdan@scn.org>; "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'"
<blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 27, 2013 6:47 AM
Subject: RE: In Closing Argument, Prosecutor Casts Soldier as 'Anarchist'
for Leaking Archives
No other article has mentioned Manning's alleged interactions with Assange,
at least, I haven't seen this before.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounces@octothorp.org] On Behalf Of S. Kashdan
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 11:24 PM
To: Blind Democracy List
Subject: In Closing Argument, Prosecutor Casts Soldier as 'Anarchist' for
Leaking Archives
In Closing Argument, Prosecutor Casts Soldier as 'Anarchist' for Leaking
Archives
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
The New York Times, July 25, 2013, 18:12
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/us/politics/closing-arguments-due-in-m...
FORT MEADE, Md.--A military prosecutor portrayed Pfc. Bradley Manning on
Thursday as an "anarchist" who, seeking to "make a splash," betrayed the
United States' trust when he leaked vast archives of secret documents to
WikiLeaks, lifting a veil on American diplomatic and military activities.
As closing arguments began in the high profile court-martial trial, the
prosecutor, Maj. Ashden Fein, focused squarely on the most contentious
charge that Private Manning is facing: that by giving the information to
WikiLeaks for publication on a Web site that the world could see, he is
guilty of "aiding the enemy."
That charge has never been brought in a leak case, and the theory behind it
could establish a precedent with implications for investigative journalism
in the Internet era. But Major Fein said it was justified in Private
Manning's
case. Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence.
"Pfc. Manning was not a humanist; he was a hacker," Major Fein said, adding:
"He was not a whistle-blower. He was a traitor, a traitor who understood the
value of compromised information in the hands of the enemy and took
deliberate steps to ensure that they, along with the world, received it."
Private Manning's defense lawyer, David E. Coombs, has portrayed him as a
well-intentioned and principled, if naive, protester who was motivated by a
desire to help society better understand the world, who wanted to prompt a
national debate and who was selective about which databases he released to
avoid causing harm. Mr. Coombs is set to deliver his closing arguments on
Friday.
While Major Fein made his arguments, reporters watched the trial on a
closed-circuit feed at the media center. Two military police officers in
camouflage fatigues and armed with holstered handguns paced behind each row
there, looking over the journalists' shoulders, which had not happened
during the trial. No explanation was given.
Major Fein spoke from late morning until nearly 6 p.m., going over each
batch of documents in detail and repeatedly returning to the theme of what
he said was Private Manning's recklessness and betrayal.
He argued that Private Manning's "wholesale and indiscriminate compromise of
hundreds of thousands of classified documents" for release in bulk by the
WikiLeaks staff, whom he called "essentially information anarchists," should
not be portrayed as an ordinary journalistic leak but as a bid for
"notoriety, although in a clandestine form."
Leaking to "established journalistic enterprises like The New York Times and
The Washington Post would be a crime," Major Fein said, but "that is not
what happened in this case and under these facts."
He added, "WikiLeaks was merely the platform which Pfc. Manning used to
ensure that all of the information was available to the world, including the
enemies of the United States."
Some of the files given to WikiLeaks by Private Manning, he emphasized, were
found in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and showed up in a
Qaeda propaganda video.
Private Manning has already pleaded guilty to a lesser version of the
charges he is facing. He has also confessed to providing WikiLeaks with two
videos of airstrikes in which civilians and journalists were killed; files
about detainees' being held without trial at the prison at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba; hundreds of thousands of incident reports from the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars; and about 250,000 diplomatic cables.
Given the volume of the documents Private Manning released, Major Fein said,
"there is no way he even knew what he was giving WikiLeaks."
Major Fein focused on Private Manning's training, when he was warned to
avoid posting secret information on the Internet, and zeroed in on one of
the few factual disputes in the case: the date Private Manning downloaded
and leaked an encrypted video of a botched airstrike in Afghanistan that
killed 100 to 150 civilians, many of them women and children.
Private Manning contends he did so in the spring of 2010. Major Fein argued
that a variety of circumstantial evidence indicated that Private Manning
instead downloaded it in late November 2009, less than two weeks after he
arrived in Iraq.
The timing is important because it speaks to the dueling portrayals of
Private Manning. The prosecution wants to show that he immediately seized
upon his opportunity to release classified information through WikiLeaks,
but the defense has argued that he only gradually decided to do so after
seeing things that troubled him.
Similarly, Major Fein pointed to evidence that he said showed that Private
Manning was also responsible for stealing a rare file he has denied
downloading, a list of 74,000 names and e-mail addresses of soldiers and
civilians deployed in Iraq. That dispute is important because the accusation
could undercut Private Manning's portrayal of himself as selecting only
information that could inspire socially valuable debate.
Major Fein also focused on Private Manning's chats with Julian Assange, the
WikiLeaks leader, based on logs recovered from his computer that have not
been made public. At one point, he said, Mr. Assange offered to get Private
Manning an encrypted cellphone to use in Iraq. At another, Private Manning
sought Mr. Assange's help in cracking an encrypted password for an anonymous
account on his classified computer, but the joint effort failed, Major Fein
said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: July 26, 2013
An earlier version of this article described incorrectly one of the charges
he is facing and that he has denied. He is accused of stealing a list of
e-mail addresses of soldiers deployed in Iraq, not with leaking that
database to WikiLeaks after he allegedly downloaded it.
A version of this article appeared in print on July 26, 2013, on page A14 of
the New York edition with the headline: In Closing Argument, Prosecutor
Casts Soldier as 'Anarchist' for Leaking Archives.
Tags: bradley manningWikileaksthe stateCategory: International
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