Tag: Bradley Manning

The Guardian and CNN have good recaps of Bradley Manning's hearing this week.

David Coombs, Manning's lead defense counsel, seemed for focus on two major issues - the Army's lack of response to Manning's emotional and behavior problems as well lack of security in the SCIF where Manning worked in Iraq.

The judge/hearing officer is to make his recommendation to the special Court Martial Convening Authority. by Jan. 16 as to whether Manning should face a full courts-martial proceeding. If convicted of the charges, Manning faces a potential life sentence.

Pvt. Bradley Manning, accused of aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act by leaking the Wikileaks documents and other material, is finally getting a hearing in military court.

Firedoglake has bloggers in the overflow media center. They can't post while court is in session, but are posting during recesses with a running live blog. The Guardian also has a running live-blog. [More...]

Wired Magazine has released the full version of the instant messaging chat logs of Wikileaks suspect Pvt. Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo.

Previously, Wired had published only portions of the logs, due to Manning's privacy interests. It's changed its mind. Why?

[I]ndependent reporting elsewhere has tipped the scale in favor of publishing. By all evidence, Manning is a figure of historic importance. Inasmuch as the conversations shed light on the personal pressures in Manning’s life at the time of his arrest, publishing the logs serves a valid news interest, and at this point we believe it will cause little additional harm to Manning’s privacy.

The Defense Department announced today that Pvt. Bradley Manning will be moved from Quantico to the Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Leavenworth.

The Kansas prison opened in 2010 as part of the Military Correctional Complex.

From their Flickr page, here's a photo of a cell.

Some recent cases challenging military pre-trial detention conditions are here.

Chief Warrant Officer Denise Barnes, the commander at the Military brig at Quantico says Bradley Manning will continue to be stripped of his underwear at bedtime because he is on a prevention of injury watch (which is different than a suicide watch.)

He is given two blankets. What can he do with a pair of underpants that he can't do with a blanket? And what prompted this? According to Manning's lawyer, David E. Coombs, on his blog today, events went like this. Manning was told his petition to be moved out of maximum custody had been denied due to the prevention of injury watch. Manning, who has been a model detainee, asked what he could do to change it. He was told there was nothing he could do, because of the perception he was a risk of self-harm:

PFC Manning then remarked that the POI restrictions were "absurd" and sarcastically stated that if he wanted to harm himself, he could conceivably do so with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops.

Private Bradley Manning's criminal case just got a lot more difficult. The Government has added 22 new charges, including one, aiding the enemy, that provides for a life sentence (Actually, it also could result in a death sentence, but the Government has said it won't seek the death penalty. How gracious of them.)

He was charged in May with 12 counts of illegally downloading and sharing classified material, including a secret video and military and diplomatic documents.

The new charges include allegations he used "unauthorized software on government computers to download classified information and to make intelligence available to "the enemy". [More...]

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent expose on the cruel and inhumane conditions of Pvt. Bradley Manning's pretrial detention. Manning is accused of leaking the State Department cables to Wikileaks. He's being held in solitary confinement at the military brig at Quantico.

For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch).

Here's the website for the Marine Corps Base Quantico which includes the Brig. Manning is thought to be in Special Quarters 2. [More...]