Chelsea Manning, imprisoned for leaking secrets, to tweet …

Chelsea Manning, the U.S. soldier serving a 35-year sentence for leaking military secrets to the Web site Wikileaks, has joined Twitter, giving her a new way to communicate with the outside world from the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Mannings first message was posted at noon, and was followed by three more in quick succession. She said shed be dictating them by voice, and is using the handle @xychelsea. A spokesperson for the ACLU told Politico on Friday that it would not be tweeting on her behalf, but others in close contact with her would.

Manning, who joined the Army as a man named Bradley, uses a black-and-white image of herself with long hair on her Twitter profile.

[From military prison, Chelsea Manning offers punditry on Iraq]

Its not the first time shes offered punditry from behind bars: In September, she argued in an opinion piece published by The Guardian that Islamic State militants should be allowed to set up a caliphate and control their own territory because it would prove that they are unable to govern.

Manningserved in Iraq in 2009 and 2010andwas sentenced to 35 years of confinement in August 2013. In August 2014, her attorneys threatened to sue the U.S. government if it didnt grant her gender treatment. She identifies as female, and swapped names to Chelsea in 2013.

Dan Lamothe covers national security for The Washington Post and anchors its military blog, Checkpoint.

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Chelsea Manning, imprisoned for leaking secrets, to tweet ...