FORT MEADE, Md. Bradley Manning plans to live as a woman named Chelsea and wants to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible, the soldier said Thursday, a day after being sentenced to 35 years in prison for sending classified material to WikiLeaks.

Manning announced the decision in a written statement provided to NBC's "Today" show, asking supporters to refer to him by his new name and the feminine pronoun. The statement was signed "Chelsea E. Manning."

"As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible," the statement read.

Manning's defense attorney David Coombs told "Today" in an interview that he is hoping officials at the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., will accommodate Manning's request for hormone therapy.

In a statement, the Army said it "does not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery for gender identity disorder."

A lawsuit could be in the offing. Coombs said he will do "everything in my power" to make sure Manning gets his way. And the American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign and other advocates for gays, bisexuals and transgender people said he deserves the treatment.

"In the United States, it is illegal to deny health care to prisoners. That is fairly settled law," said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. "Now the Army can claim this isn't health care, but they have the weight of the medical profession and science against them."

A Federal Bureau of Prisons policy implemented last year requires federal prisons to develop treatment plans, including hormone therapy if necessary, for inmates diagnosed with gender-identity disorder. But the bureau oversees only civilian prisons.

Manning's case appeared to be the first time the therapy had come up for a military prisoner.

After his sentencing Manning was returned on Thursday to Fort Leavenworth, where he has been held for more than two years.

Fort Leavenworth is an all-male prison. But the staff has some leeway to separate soldiers from the other inmates based on the risk to themselves and others, prison spokesman George Marcec said.

Manning would not be allowed to wear a wig or bra, and his hair would have to be kept to military standard, Marcec said.

Advocates said gays and transgender people are more susceptible to sexual assault and other violence in prison.

"She most likely will need to be placed with a female prison population because she identifies as female," said Jeffrey Parsons, a psychology professor at Hunter College in New York.

Meanwhile, the fight to free Manning has taken a new turn, with Coombs and supporters saying they will ask the Army for leniency -- and the White House for a pardon.

Greg Rinckey, a former Army prosecutor and now a lawyer in Albany, N.Y., said Manning's statement could be a ploy to get him transferred to a civilian prison.

"He might be angling to go there because he believes life at a federal prison could be easier than life at the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth," Rinckey said.

He also said the military is adamant about not providing hormone treatment: "You enlisted as a male, you're a male, you're going to be incarcerated as a male."

Manning's struggle with gender identity disorder -- the sense of being a woman trapped in a man's body -- was key to the defense.

Attorneys had presented evidence of Manning's struggle with gender identity, including a photo of the soldier in a blond wig and lipstick sent to a therapist.

Even Manning's supporters have pivoted. During the sentencing hearing Wednesday, they wore T-shirts reading, "truth," as they had for the entire court-martial. Hours later, they had changed into shirts saying, "President Obama: Pardon Bradley Manning."

"The time to end Brad's suffering is now," Coombs told a news conference after Manning's sentence was handed down. "The time for our president to focus on protecting whistleblowers instead of punishing them is now."

The sentence was the stiffest punishment ever handed out in the U.S. for leaking information to the media. With good behavior and credit for the more than three years he has been held, Manning could be out in as little as seven years, Coombs said. Still, the lawyer decried the government's pursuit of Manning for what the soldier said was only an effort to expose wrongdoing and prompt debate of government policies among the American public.

The sentencing fired up the long-running debate over whether Manning was a whistleblower or a traitor for giving more than 700,000 classified military and diplomatic documents, plus battlefield footage, to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. By volume alone, it was the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history, bigger even than the Pentagon Papers a generation ago.

Manning was to return to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Coombs said, adding that he didn't know precisely when the soldier would leave Maryland. Coombs said he will file a request early next week that Obama pardon Manning or commute his sentence to time served.

Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison

Coombs read from a letter Manning will send to the president that read: "I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone."

Manning said the disclosure was done "out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others."

The White House said the request would be considered "like any other application." However, a pardon seems unlikely. Manning's case was part of an unprecedented string of prosecutions brought by the U.S. government in a crackdown on security breaches. The Obama administration has charged seven people with leaking to the media; only three people were prosecuted under all previous presidents combined.

Coombs also will work in coming weeks on a separate process in which he can seek leniency from the local area commander, who under military law must review -- and could reduce -- Manning's convictions and sentence.

Manning, an Army intelligence analyst from Crescent, Okla., digitally copied and released Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department cables while working in 2010 in Iraq. Manning also leaked video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that mistakenly killed at least nine people, including a Reuters photographer.

Manning said the motive was exposing the U.S. military's "bloodlust" and generate debate over the wars and U.S. policy. The government alleged Manning was a traitor who betrayed his oath as a soldier in order to gain notoriety.

He was found guilty last month of 20 crimes, including six violations of the Espionage Act, but was acquitted of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which carried a potential sentence of life in prison without parole.

Whistleblower advocates said the punishment was unprecedented in its severity. Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists said "no other leak case comes close."

Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, on Wednesday called Manning "one more casualty of a horrible, wrongful war that he tried to shorten." Ellsberg also was charged under the Espionage Act, but the case was thrown out because of government misconduct, including a White House-sanctioned break-in at the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist.

Others disagreed.

Gabriel Schoenfeld, a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute think tank and author of the book "Necessary Secrets," welcomed Manning's punishment.

"The sentence is a tragedy for Bradley Manning, but it is one he brought upon himself," he said. "It will certainly serve to bolster deterrence against other potential leakers."

But he also warned that the sentence will ensure that Edward Snowden -- the National Security Agency leaker who was charged with espionage in a potentially more explosive case while Manning's court-martial was underway -- "will do his best never to return to the United States and face a trial and stiff sentence."

Coombs said that he was in tears after the sentencing and that Manning comforted him by saying: "Don't worry about it. It's all right. I know you did your best. ... I'm going to be OK. I'm going to get through this."

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Bradley Manning: I want to live as a woman named Chelsea ...

Updated 5:00 p.m. ET

Bradley Manning, the Army private who was responsible for the largest leak of confidential information in U.S. history, was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison by a military judge.

About 3.5 years (1294 days) will be subtracted from Manning's sentence. The 1294 days are the number of days he's been detained plus the 112-day credit he received for excessively harsh treatment while in a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. Even with the time subtracted, he'll have to serve at least one-third of his sentence before he is eligible for parole, meaning that if nothing changes in post-trial hearings, he could potentially be free in about 6.5 years, his lawyer David Coombs said at a press conference after the sentencing.

Manning will also be dishonorably discharged, forfeit all pay and benefits, and be reduced to the grade of "private E-1" (PV1), the lowest rank possible for an enlisted member of the Army.

Manning's legal team has said that among the many post-trial legal maneuvers they have planned, they will apply for a pardon from President Obama. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a press conference Wednesday there was a process for pardons. "I'm not going to get ahead of that process," Earnest said.

Manning stood at attention and appeared not to react to the sentencing, according to the Associated Press. Some of the spectators gasped when the verdict was read, and Manning's supporters expressed shock at the length of the sentence.

After the hearing, Coombs said he and others escorted Manning to a back room of the courthouse, and that everyone but Manning was crying.

"He looks to me and says: 'It's okay...I know you did your best. We're gonna get through this,'" Coombs said. "I'm in a position where my client is cheering me up."

Manning is likely to serve his time in Ft. Leavenworth in Kansas, the main military prison in the U.S.

Coombs said he has health concerns for Manning, whom he described as having "gender dysphoria," which is a condition in which there is a conflict between a person's physical gender and the gender he or she identifies as. Coombs said he is going to seek to have that condition addressed during Manning's detention.

Through Coombs, Manning's family released a statement saying: "We are saddened and disappointed in today's sentence. We continue to believe that Bradley's intentions were good."

The American Civil Liberties Union put out a statement critical of the sentence.

"When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians, something is seriously wrong with our justice system," said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project.

WikiLeaks, on Twitter, called the sentence a "significant strategic victory" and claimed Manning could be free within a decade.

Daniel Ellsberg, the man behind the "Pentagon Papers" leak in the 1970s, told the AP Manning was "one more casualty of a horrible, wrongful war that he tried to shorten. I think his example will always be an inspiration of civil and moral courage to truth tellers in the future."

House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif., called 35 years "a light sentence," and a "dangerous conclusion" that won't send a strong enough signal to others tempted to disclose classified information.

"Bradley Manning betrayed his country, his obligations as a Soldier, and the trust of all Americans. He put the lives of our troops and our allies in danger," McKeon said.

The 25-year-old who gave thousands of classified U.S. military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks was acquitted of aiding the enemy in a military court-martial, but was convicted on multiple other counts.

The charge of aiding the enemy was the most serious of 21 counts. It carried a possible life sentence without parole. Manning was ultimately convicted of six espionage counts, five theft charges, a computer fraud charge and other military infractions.

Manning pleaded guilty earlier this year to reduced versions of some charges. He faced up to 20 years in prison for those offenses, but prosecutors pressed ahead with the original eight federal Espionage Act violations, five federal theft counts, and two federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act violations, each punishable by up to 10 years; and five military counts of violating a lawful general regulation, punishable by up to two years each. All told, Manning faced a maximum of up to 90 years in prison for his various convictions.

Manning had chosen to have his fate decided by a judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, rather than a military jury. Col. Lind gave no explanation for her verdict or why she was not convinced by the government's contention that Manning knew the material he provided to WikiLeaks would make its way to the enemy.

There were no minimum sentencing requirements for Judge Lind to follow.

A prosecutor suggested Manning be sentenced to 60 years in prison because he betrayed his country. The soldier's defense attorney didn't recommend a specific punishment but suggested the limit of his punishment should be 25 years, since that is when the classification of some of the leaked documents expires.

Manning, a native of Crescent, Okla., had prior to the verdict admitted to sending 470,000 Iraq and Afghanistan battlefield reports, 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables and other material, including several battlefield video clips, to WikiLeaks while working in Army intelligence in Iraq in early 2010.

WikiLeaks published much of the material on its website, as well as in cooperation with several news outlets like The New York Times and The Guardian.

Prosecutors had argued that Manning had a "general evil intent" because he knew the classified material would be seen by and help terrorists. They claimed when Navy SEALs raided Osama bin Laden's Pakistani compound in 2011, they found copies of WikiLeaks documents that Manning had provided. Prosecutors also argued that Manning simply wanted to make a name for himself by leaking the classified material.

Manning himself did not testify during the trial itself, but in a pre-trial hearing said he wanted to expose what he called the American military's "bloodlust" and disregard for human life in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as its dishonest diplomacy, and that he carefully selected material that wouldn't put troops in harms' way. His attorney has tried to portray Manning as a whistleblower with good intentions.

During a sentencing hearing, Manning apologized for causing harm to his country.

"I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States," he said as he began.

The soldier said that he understood what he was doing but that he did not believe at the time he would cause harm to the U.S.

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Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison - CBS News

U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning enters the courtroom for day four of his court martial at Fort Meade, Maryland June 10, 2013. Manning, 25, is charged with providing more than 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks, the biggest unauthorized release of classified files in U.S. history. The most serious among the charges is aiding the enemy. REUTERS/Gary Cameron NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bradley Manning, the soldier convicted in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, faces the prospect of years of monotony with no Internet access in a small military prison cell but he would likely be allowed to mix with other inmates and exercise outdoors.

The 25-year-old Manning, who has yet to be sentenced, would be able to nominate friends and relatives for visits pending official approval. A handshake, a brief kiss or a hug that does not involve touching below the waist are allowed during visits, and visitors and inmates may hold hands, according to regulations. Prisoners are allowed to telephone friends and family through payphones that may only be used at set times, but they are not permitted to send email or browse the Internet.

A military judge on Tuesday found the former low-level intelligence analyst guilty of 19 criminal charges, including espionage and theft, for giving about 700,000 classified diplomatic cables and war logs to the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website in 2010 while he was serving in Iraq.

The U.S. Army Private First Class was acquitted at his two-month-long court-martial on the most serious charge of aiding the enemy, sparing him a life sentence without parole. But his convictions could draw a maximum term of 136 years.

Legal experts said the case was highly unusual and they were reluctant to predict the sentence. The judge has already ruled that 112 days will be deducted because Manning was mistreated in the months after his arrest in Baghdad in May 2010.

The sentencing phase of the court-martial at Fort Meade, Maryland, began on Wednesday and was expected to last at least until August 9, military officials said.

Any sentence longer than 10 years must be served at the United States Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, U.S. Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel S. Justin Platt said. Manning could also serve time at a Fort Leavenworth military correctional facility, where the spokesman said he had been held pre-trial since April 2011.

Cells, which have walls rather than bars, contain a bed, a toilet and a sink, a desk and a locker, according to unclassified army regulations. The regulations say cells for one person must have 35 square feet (3.25 square meters) of unencumbered space. When confinement exceeds 10 hours per day, there must be at least 80 square feet (7.4 square meters) of total floor space.

TIGHTLY STRUCTURED DAYS

Several people familiar with the prisons described them as clean and relatively safe compared to civilian prisons but said the daily routine was monotonous and tightly structured.

"Most of those guys there have inculcated the hierarchy, the structure, the discipline the respect for authority," said Raelean Finch, a former army intelligence officer who co-writes a blog called "Captain Incarcerated" with a friend and former army colleague serving six years at the Barracks in Fort Leavenworth. (She asked that her friend not be identified further in order to preserve his pseudonym on the blog.)

Finch said that although "it's a tinderbox for sure, tempers flare and whatnot, everyone recognizes they're in a pretty safe situation."

She said many fear being "Fed-Exed" - the term used for being transferred to a civilian federal prison because prisons are perceived as being less disciplined and more violent.

Another blog, "Prison Pie," by a woman who posts her inmate brother's letters, details the routine: Breakfast starts at 5.30 a.m., work hours are between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m., then lunch at noon and back to work at 1 p.m. until 4 p.m., followed by dinner between 4.30 p.m. and 5.30 p.m. Work includes jobs such as catering, laundry, cleaning and yard maintenance.

There is a lockdown for head count twice a day and 3-1/2 hours of time is allotted for activities such as games and movies in the evening until 9.30 p.m.

MOSTLY PAP LITERATURE

Philip Cave, a lawyer who represents soldiers and visits military prisons, said Manning would be able to borrow from a limited list of books, particularly those with legal information that can help an inmate better understand their case, although there were a few more general-interest titles.

"Mostly pap," said Cave. He said military prisons were more restrictive than civilian prisons about books and magazines, although inmates are allowed to receive titles from friends and relatives that meet official approval.

The former officer Finch said her inmate friend uses a 1990s-vintage refurbished electronic word processor that meets prison guidelines to write his posts, which he prints and sends to her by regular mail since he can't use the Internet.

There is nothing to prevent an inmate writing for publication, the U.S. Army spokesman Platt said, although they may be prevented from receiving compensation for doing so. All correspondence, except between a client and a lawyer, is screened by prison officials.

Cave said that Manning, a slight man who looks younger than his 25 years and is gay, may encounter homophobia, and some inmates may view him as a traitor, although others convicted of espionage are serving time in Fort Leavenworth.

"They may take some extra precautions in the beginning to make sure of his safety," Cave said.

Finch said her inmate friend knew of a number of openly gay inmates. According to him, they do not generally encounter prejudice, tend to socialize among themselves, and sometimes dated within the strictures of a prison environment.

MANNING IN "CAGE" AFTER ARREST

Manning's lawyers and civil rights groups complained that he was mistreated during initial detention in Kuwait and nine months he spent in solitary confinement at a U.S. Marine Corps jail in Quantico, Virginia.

A United Nations special rapporteur on torture formally accused the U.S. government of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of Manning. A government lawyer responded that the United States was satisfied Manning had been placed in the same type of cell as other pre-trial detainees.

At Quantico, Manning was confined to his cell for 23 hours a day, required to sleep naked and was woken often during the night, military officials said. They said those measures were necessary because of concern that Manning was suicidal.

To compensate for that treatment, the court-martial judge, Colonel Denise Lind, ruled that 112 days should be deducted from any sentence she imposes.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Writing by Grant McCool; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

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Bradley Manning Faces A Tough Life In Prison - Business ...

FT. MEADE, Maryland - A government digital forensic expert linked accused Army leaker Bradley Manning to documents published by WikiLeaks with damning evidence Sunday, testifying that he found thousands of U.S. State Department cables on one of Manning's work computers, ranging from unclassified to SECRET cables, among other incriminating documents.

Special agent David Shaver, who works for the Army's Computer Crime Investigative Unit, said that on one of two laptops that Manning used he found a folder called "blue," in which he found a zip file containing 10,000 diplomatic cables in HTML format, and an Excel spreadsheet with three tabs.

The first tab listed scripts for Wget, a program used to crawl a network and download large numbers of files, that would allow someone to go directly to the Net Centric Diplomacy database where the State Department documents were located on the military's classified SIPRnet and download them easily; the second tab listed message record identification numbers of State Department cables from March and April 2010; the third tab listed message record numbers for cables from May 2010. The spreadsheet included information about which U.S. embassy originated the cable. The earliest indications on Manning's computer that he was using the Wget tool was March 2010.

Shaver noted in his testimony that what he found particularly significant was that the cable record numbers in the spreadsheet were all sequential.

"Whoever did this was keeping track of where they were [in the downloading process]," said Shaver, the final government witness on Sunday, the third day of a pre-trial hearing that will determine whether the soldier will face a court martial on more than 20 charges of violating military law.

The Net Centric Diplomacy Database stores the more than 250,000 U.S. State Department cables that Manning is alleged to have downloaded and passed to WikiLeaks. In May 2010, he allegedly bragged in an online chat with former hacker Adrian Lamo that he had downloaded them while pretending to lip sync to Lady GaGa music. Six months after Manning was arrested in May, WikiLeaks began publishing 250,000 leaked U.S. embassy cables.

The zip file Shaver examined on Manning's computer didn't include the contents of the cables themselves, but Shaver said that while he was probing unallocated space on one of Manning's laptops, he also found thousands of actual State Department cables, including ones classified as SECRET NOFORN, a classification that prohibits sharing of the information with non-Americans, and another "hundred thousand or so fragments" of cables.

In addition, he found two copies of the now-famous 2007 Army Apache helicopter attack video, that Wikileaks published on April 5, 2010 under the title "Collateral Murder." He also found files pertaining to a second Army video, known as the Garani attack video, that Manning allegedly leaked to WikiLeaks, but which the site has not yet published. Shaver was able to recover a number of PDF files and JPEG images pertaining to the Garani incident that were supposedly deleted from Manning's computer.

The "Collateral Murder" video depicts a U.S. gunship attack on Iraqi civilians that killed two Reuters employees and seriously wounded two Iraqi children. Shaver said one copy of the video he found on Manning's computer was the version that WikiLeaks had published, and the other copy "appeared to be the source file for it." The video appeared to have shown up on Manning's computer for the first time in March 2010.

Shaver testified that he also found four complete JTF GITMO detainee assessments located in unallocated space on Manning's computer. The assessments are reports written by the government about prisoners at the Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay prison, assessing their threat risk should they be released.

Last April, WikiLeaks began publishing a trove of more than 700 Gitmo prisoner assessment reports.

Shaver discovered Wget scripts on Manning's computer that pointed to a Microsoft SharePoint server holding the Gitmo documents. He ran the scripts to download the documents, then downloaded the ones that WikiLeaks had published and found they were the same, Shaver testified.

Finally, Shaver found JPEGS showing aircraft in combat zones, as well as pictures that appear to show hospital burn victims.

Nearly all of the documents found on Manning's computer, aside from the JPEGs of aircraft and burn victims, are documents that Manning allegedly confessed that he had stolen and passed to WikiLeaks in online chats with former hacker Adrian Lamo. Lamo had passed a copy of those chats to the government in May 2010, but forensic investigators found an identical copy of those chats on Manning's computer as well, a government witness said Saturday.

In those chats, Manning told Lamo that he had "zero-filled" his laptops, referring to a way of securely removing data from a disk drive by repeatedly filling all available space with zeros. The implication from Manning was that any evidence of his leaking activity had been erased from his computers. But Shaver's testimony would seem to indicate that either the laptops weren't zero-filled after all, or that it had been done incompletely.

Aside from the files that Shaver found on Manning's computer, he also found repeated keyword searches that suggest that Manning had, if nothing else, an extensive interest in WikiLeaks.

Shaver examined the logs of Intel Link - a search engine for the military's classified SIPRnet - and found suspicious searches coming from an IP address assigned to Manning's computer starting in December 2009. The search terms included "WikiLeaks," "Iceland," and "Julian Assange."

The searches "seemed out of place," Shaver said, for the kind of work Manning was doing in Iraq.

There were more than 100 keyword searches on "WikiLeaks," the first occurring December 1, 2009. He also found searches for the keywords "retention of interrogation videos." The first search for that term was Nov. 28, 2009, around the time that Manning told Lamo he first contacted WikiLeaks. "Interrogation videos" could refer to the infamous CIA videos showing the waterboarding of terror suspects, which the CIA destroyed, despite a court order to the contrary.

Shaver did not face defense cross-examination Sunday afternoon, but will likely do so Monday. He is also expected to testify on classified information in a court session closed to the public.

Despite Shaver's testimony about being able to reconstruct Manning's activities, testimony earlier in the day showed that the security conditions and logging in the area Manning worked lacked basic controls.

Capt. Thomas Cherepko, who is currently the deputy computer information services officer for the NATO command in Madrid, testified during cross-examination from the defense that on the day that Manning was arrested in May 2010, agents with the Army's Criminal Investigations Division (CID) asked him for server logs that would show activity on the classified SIPRnet, activity on a shared drive that soldiers used for storing data in the Army "cloud" as well as email activity.

Cherepko hesitated in answering before saying that he was able to pull up some of the logs for the agents, but not others, because "some of them we did not maintain."

Cherepko explained that due to lack of storage capability, they were not able "to maintain every single data log that you can see on [the television show] CSI."

"The logs we maintain are generic server logs that we use for troubleshooting," he said. "Theyre technical logs, not administrative logs of user activity."

When government attorney Capt. Ashden Fein later asked him in re-direct what the server logs contained, Cherepko replied, "I'm not entirely sure at this time."

CID agents also asked him to image computers, but Cherepko could not recall exactly which computers he was asked to image. He said he did not do the imaging himself, but passed it to one of his subordinates - a sergeant or a private (he couldn't remember who) had done the imaging for him.

Cherepko testified that he expressed concern to the agents about creating "forensically sound images" so as not to taint the data. He said one of the CID agents replied to him saying in essence, "Its okay, we haven't seized it yet so you can't really taint anything," adding that it had been so long since the activity they're investing occurred that "its already been contaminated.

He was later asked to "make a copy of Manning's folder" as well as log files from the server, but didn't know how to do it in a way that would preserve the metadata for forensic purposes, so a CID agent had to walk him through the process over the phone.

Cherepko, who received a letter of admonishment last March from Lt. Gen. Robert Caslan for failing to ensure that the network of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division - Manning's brigade - was properly accredited and certified, continued his testimony about the lax network security at FOB Hammer.

He described how soldiers would store movies and music in their shared drive on the SIPRnet. The shared drive, called the "T Drive" by soldiers, was about 11 terabytes in size, and was accessible to all users on SIPRnet who were given permission to access it, in order to store data that they could access from any classified computer.

Rules prohibited using the shared drive for storing such files, and Cherepko would delete the files when he found them, but they would return despite his efforts. Although he reported the activity to his superiors, he wasn't aware of any punishment that occurred as a result, or any subsequent enforcement of the rules against storing such files on the shared drive.

The hearing will resume Monday morning.

UPDATE 11pm EST: This story has been updated with additional information about forensic data found on Manning's computers.

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Forensic Expert: Manning's Computer Had 10K Cables ...

Published time: 11 Jan, 2011 20:42 Edited time: 12 Jan, 2011 01:49

Julian Assange conducts interviews from a house in England, but PFC. Bradley Manning, the soldier believed to be responsible for leaking classified cables to WikiLeaks, sits in solitary confinement on a US military base.

Few have followed the treatment and details surrounding Mannings imprisonment, however a group of psychologists are calling on the US military to refrain from using solitary confinement on the grounds it may have severe psychological effects on those subject to the treatment.

Stephen Soldz, the president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility explained that isolation can have dubious affects on an individual and further, holding a person in that accord that has not been charged or convicted is wrong.

One of the aspects of psychological torture, one of the techniques used is isolation, he explained. Hes kept in his cell 23 hours a day. Hes not allowed to even exercise. If he tries to do push-ups they go in and stop him. Hes not allowed to sleep during the day. He has virtually nothing to do.

He explained, this type of isolation is harmful to people.

People live in a social environment, Soldz remarked. When we are isolated from that we do not do well.

Isolation of this nature can induce depression, listlessness, hopelessness, delusions and even thoughts of suicide. In addition, it impedes that ability of the individual to think clearly and cooperate with attorneys, lawyers and function for an adequate legal defense. His inability to operate fully can impede his access to a fair trial.

Abuse leads to a lack of clarity and an inability for the person to provide accurate information; Things like solitary confinement are counterproductive, Soldz argued.

As one veteran interrogator said to me, if I want to interrogate someone, I want him to get ten hours sleep before. I dont want him to be sleep deprived because I want him thinking clearly, he explained. If you want good information you need people who are clear.

Soldz argued isolation is both unusual and inhumane treatment that violates US and international law.

Although Assange has been receiving all the attention, many wonder should he be? Is Assange truly a Journalist? Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists explained that whether Assange is a journalist or not is irrelevant, the important issue is whether the act of disseminating information to the public unfriendly to the government will be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. If he is, it will have a major impact on journalists in the US and on press freedom globally, he argued.

For this reason, it is important to keep the debate also focused on press freedom and the rights of journalists.

The first amendment of the Constitution guarantees press freedom in the United States and the Espionage Act, there has never been a successful prosecution of a journalist or anyone for disseminating information. So, the notion that somebody could be prosecuted for disseminating information under the Espionage Act, in our view, would open the door for subsequent prosecutions potentially of journalists and weaken the protection that journalists in this country currently enjoy, said Simon.

It is important to fight for continued press freedom, whether the focus is on Assange himself or otherwise. The debate should focus on the principle of a free press and the right to disseminate information.

Should they decide to pursue criminal charges under the Espionage Act, it will be applied extraterritorially, in other worlds, outside the United States. Potentially, journalists around the world who report on or publish information about classified activities of the US government might feel that they too could be subject to prosecution, he explained.

The implications of this are global; it is much bigger than WikiLeaks or Assange, Simon argued.

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In Assange limelight Bradley Manning almost forgotten RT ...

Speaking with supporters at a San Francisco fundraiser Thursday, President Obama said that accused Wikileaks leaker Pfc. Bradley Manning "broke the law," Forbes reports.

Mr. Obama's comments followed an incident earlier on Thursday in which protesters seeking Manning's release from prison interrupted a fundraising speech from the president.

Manning's prolonged detainment has been a source of controversy for the Obama administration for several months. Just this week, the Pentagon transferred Manning to an Army prison in Kansas from the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., where he spent nine months in restrictive conditions. Manning faces nearly two dozen charges, including aiding the enemy, but no trial date has been set.

Though Manning has yet to stand trial, Mr. Obama asserted yesterday that he is guilty.

"If you're in the military, and -- I have to abide by certain classified information," Mr. Obama explained to a supporter. "If I was to release stuff, information that I'm not authorized to release, I'm breaking the law. We're a nation of laws. We don't individually make our own decisions about how the laws operate... He broke the law."

The person to whom the president was speaking compared Manning to Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret Pentagon study related to the Vietnam War.

"It wasn't the same thing," Mr. Obama responded. "What Ellsberg released wasn't classified in the same way."

Ellsberg is among the protesters who were arrested last year for demonstrating against Manning's treatment.

The demonstrations against Manning's detainment spurred one congressman to compare Manning's situation at Quantico to Abu Ghraib and prompted Amnesty International and the British government to voice concerns over his treatment as well.

The Pentagon has said its treatment of Manning has been all legal, and Mr. Obama has supported that assertion.

Officials said this week it moved Manning to the Kansas facility because it is designed for long-term detention. His case could take months, if not years, to be settled because of its complexity, the Associated Press reported.

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Obama says Bradley Manning "broke the law" - CBS News

Updated at 6:39 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON - The Army said Wednesday it has filed 22 additional charges against Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, the soldier suspected of providing classified government documents published by the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group.

Special Section: WikiLeaksSpielberg gets rights to WikiLeaks book for film

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the new charges for the first time formally accuse Manning of aiding the enemy.

Army officials said the charges accuse Manning of using unauthorized software on government computers to extract classified information, illegally download it and transmit the data for public release by what the Army termed "the enemy."

The charge sheets against Manning make clear that the 22 new counts against him involve the leaking of the Afghan and Iraq war logs as well as the quarter million State Department cables disseminated last year, Martin reports.

The charge sheets do not make any mention of either WikiLeaks or its founder, Julian Assange, Martin reports. All told, the charges accuse Manning of leaking more than half a million documents plus two videos, Martin reports.

"60 Minutes" Coverage of Julian Assange

Assange: WikiLeaks Played "Inside the Rules"Julian Assange, The Man Behind WikiLeaksSegment: Julian Assange, Part 1Segment: Julian Assange, Part 2Julian Assange: The "60 Minutes" Interview

CBS Radio News chief legal analyst Andrew Cohen reports that military officials look like they want to throw the book at Manning, not just to punish him, but also to send a message to other service members who may be tempted to do what Manning allegedly did.

The charges follow seven months of Army investigation.

"The new charges more accurately reflect the broad scope of the crimes that Pvt. 1st Class Manning is accused of committing," said Capt. John Haberland, a legal spokesman for the Military District of Washington.

The charge of aiding the enemy under the Uniform Code of Military Justice is a capital offense, but the Army's prosecution team has notified the Manning defense team that it will not recommend the death penalty to the two-star general who is in charge of proceeding with legal action.

Cohen reports that military officials aren't giving up much when they promise not to seek the death penalty against Manning, a sentence that would have been unlikely anyway even if he is ultimately convicted. One big question now is whether Manning or the government will be open to some sort of a deal that precludes trial, Cohen reports.

In a written statement detailing the new charges, the Army said that if Manning were convicted of all charges he would face life in prison, plus reduction in rank to the lowest enlisted pay grade, a dishonorable discharge and loss of all pay and allowances.

Manning's civilian attorney, David Coombs, said any charges that Manning may face at trial will be determined by an Article 32 investigation, the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing or grand jury proceeding, possibly beginning in late May or early June.

Trial proceedings against Manning have been on hold since July, pending the results of a medical inquiry into Manning's mental capacity and responsibility.

The Army said Manning was notified in person of the additional charges on Wednesday. He is confined at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va.

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WikiLeaks: Bradley Manning faces 22 new charges - CBS News

The Guantnamo Bay files leak (also known as The Guantnamo Files, or colloquially, Gitmo Files)[1] began on 25 April 2011, when WikiLeaks, along with several independent news organizations, began publishing 779 formerly secret documents relating to detainees at the United States' Guantnamo Bay detention camp established in 2002 after its invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.[1] The documents consist of classified assessments, interviews, and internal memos about detainees, which were written by the Pentagon's Joint Task Force Guantanamo, headquartered at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The documents are marked "secret" and NOFORN (information that is not to be shared with representatives of other countries).[2]

Media reports on the documents note that more than 150 innocent Afghans and Pakistanis, including farmers, chefs, and drivers, were held for years without charges.[3][4][5] The documents also reveal that some of the prison's youngest and oldest detainees, who include Mohammed Sadiq, an 89-year-old man, and Naqib Ullah, a 14-year-old boy, suffered from fragile mental and physical conditions.[6] The files contain statements from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the planner of the 9/11 attacks, who said that al-Qaeda possessed nuclear capacity and would use it to retaliate for any attack on Osama bin Laden.[3][7] The files also reveal the fate of wanted terrorist Mustafa Mohammed Fadhil, who had been quietly removed from the FBI's most wanted terrorists list in 2005.[8][9]

The New York Times said it received the documents from an anonymous source other than WikiLeaks,[10] and it shared them with other news outlets such as NPR and The Guardian. WikiLeaks suggested on Twitter that the source might be Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former associate. WikiLeaks noted that "our first partner, The Telegraph, published the documents at 1:00 AM GMT, long before NYT or Guardian." Reuters speculated that the original source of the leak may have been Chelsea Manning, a United States soldier then known as Bradley Manning, who was detained for allegedly having leaked other material to WikiLeaks.[13][14] The Guardian reported that "the Gitmo files are the fifth (and very nearly the final) cache of data that disaffected U.S. soldier Bradley Manning is alleged to have turned over to the WikiLeaks website more than a year ago."[15] Before the time of Manning's alleged leak, WikiLeaks was already being reported and rumored to have these documents.[16]

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) said the documents remained legally classified despite the leaks. It informed the lawyers who represent the prisoners in Guantanamo that they were not allowed to read the documents, which have been published by The New York Times and other major media outlets.[17]

The U.S. government issued a statement: "It is unfortunate that The New York Times and other news organizations have made the decision to publish numerous documents obtained illegally by WikiLeaks concerning the Guantanamo detention facility."[15] The documents seem to be "Detainee Assessment Briefs" (DABs) written between 2002 and 2009 and "may or may not represent the current view of a given detainee."[15]

The Guardian noted that, despite the government's claim of having detained dangerous militants, the files, which covered almost all the prisoners held since 2002, revealed an emphasis of holding people to extract intelligence. Although many prisoners were assessed as not posing a threat to security, they were nonetheless detained for lengths of time.[1]

The files showed that nearly 100 detainees had been diagnosed with depressive or psychotic illnesses. The United States tried to retain British nationals and legal residents, such as Jamal al-Harith and Binyam Mohamed, for intelligence value, although its agents knew neither were members of the Taliban or al-Qaeda, and Mohamed had been tortured, so any "evidence" he provided was suspect due to that fact.[1]

The Guardian noted that the files revealed that the U.S. relied strongly on evidence obtained from a relatively few number of detainees, most of whom had been tortured. One detainee made allegations against more than 100 other detainees, so many that his accusations should have been considered suspect. The U.S. issued guidance to its interrogators that was based on assumptions of threat based on flimsy associations through attendance at particular mosques, stays at certain guest houses in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and other elements.[1]

The Guantanamo Files revealed that Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera journalist and cameraman, was detained from 2002 to 2008, allegedly in part so that U.S. officials could interrogate him about the news network. According to the file, he was detained "to provide information on ... the al-Jazeera news network's training programme, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including the network's acquisition of a video of UBL [Osama bin Laden] and a subsequent interview with UBL." He was considered to be "a HIGH risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies" and "of HIGH intelligence value."[18]

Sami al-Haji has said that he was beaten and sexually assaulted in detention. His lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, also legal director of the British organisation Reprieve, said that the U.S. had tried to force al-Haji to become an informant against his employers.[19]

Other documents cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the planner of the 9/11 attacks, saying that if Osama bin Laden was captured or killed by U.S. allies, an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell would detonate a "weapon of mass destruction" in a "secret location" in Europe. He said it would be "a nuclear hellstorm".[3][7][20] By March 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded at least 183 times by the CIA, which held him in custody until September 2006, when he was transferred to Guantanamo.[21] No such attack has occurred following the killing of bin Laden in May 2011.[22] Al-Qaeda has vowed to retaliate.[23]

WikiLeaks has said that, as with previous releases, at least as important as the content of the published documents is that readers should note the reaction of each media news outlet. For instance, WikiLeaks suggested "[comparing] the first paragraph of these two stories about the same thing" by BBC and CNN.

The BBC version opened with the following statement:[25]

Wikileaks: Many at Guantanamo 'not dangerous' Files obtained by the website Wikileaks have revealed that the U.S. believed many of those held at Guantanamo Bay were innocent or only low-level operatives.

CNN stated:[26]

Military documents reveal details about Guantanamo detainees, al Qaeda Nearly 800 classified U.S. military documents obtained by WikiLeaks reveal extraordinary details about the alleged terrorist activities of al Qaeda operatives captured and housed at the U.S. Navy's detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The contrast between foreign and United States media was noted by several journalists,[27][28] including Glenn Greenwald of Salon. He described the differences as "stark, predictable and revealing". He wrote, "Foreign newspapers highlight how these documents show U.S. actions to be so oppressive and unjust, while American newspapers downplayed that fact."[29]

The rest is here:
Guantanamo Bay files leak - Wikipedia

Well first off he has been to the initial hearing to determine if he is to be court martial-ed... it was even in the news. (And they recently announced that he will be going to a full court martial.)

Second due to the severity of the crimes involved, (you are aware that one of the charges is "aiding the enemy" right? That can get you the death penalty in the military.) anyone charged with these crimes is not released prior to the trial. In a treason case the person would not be released, or any other criminal case that can grant the death penalty.

Manning was a low ranking member of the Army with clearance to help protect his unit. (Spent 12 hour shifts, with other analysts, in a secure room reading over classified documents.) He was a specialist who was getting ready to be dishonorably discharged from the military (demoted several times prior for multiple discipline issues including attacking a female soldier.) when they found out he had been leaking information to a foreign company. (He was turned in by a hacker he had been bragging too about this who asked people in the hacking community about it and everyone told him to turn Manning in... as even they felt what he was doing was wrong.)

His reasons for releasing the documents (per interviews) were because he felt he was not getting the respect he felt he deserved from the officers that were above him in the chain of command and to impress his boyfriends college friends. (Btw it was well known in his unit that he was gay/had gender identity disorder, but the funny thing is that no one really cared about that.) In addition, he did not just release records that showed wrongdoing on the part of the government itself... the first thing he released (the apache footage) was on an incident that had been known about for years, had been investigated, and even the footage he released (which was editted and had a large section removed from the middle of it) showed that the reporters (which were not wearing any identifying clothing or insignia, and insurgents would take cameras on attacks to film them as well) were with insurgents with RPG's and at least one assault rifle.

And the later files he released he did not even review what it was he was releasing, he just mass dumped over 500,000 classified documents. (That he used an automated program to gather) Which included such things as most vulnerable target lists for the U.S. infastructure, lists of villages/informants that helped the U.N. and Nato forces, methods people had used to escape countries like Iran (including a step by step route which would put the people who helped them in danger), and things of this nature... which have been published in the press since. (And the press cited they got the documents from Wikileaks)

The worst part is that there are channels he could have gone through if he had found actual criminal actions/or even questionable ones from the military. Due to the actions of Daniel Ellsberg back during the Vietnam war, there are now contact numbers (that are outside a persons chain of command, in some cases to another section of the government entirely, such as Congress) that every person with access to classified data are given. And they are required to report anything that is questionable. Manning did not do this... instead within a month of his assignment overseas, he started leaking files.

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why is bradley manning rotting in prison without going to ...

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning's attorney has called on President Obama to pardon his client.

"What's at stake here is how do we as a public want to be informed about what our government does," attorney David Coombs said in a news conference soon Wednesday, soon after Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

The request is a longshot, to say the least: Manning is asking for a pardon from the same government that is prosecuting him. Obama said flatly that Manning "broke the law" even two years before his conviction.

Manning has been convicted of multiple charges, including violations of the Espionage Act. He copied the documents while serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq.

Also read: WikiLeaks Mole Bradley Manning Sentenced to 35 Years

Coombs said that if Obama does not pardon Manning, he should at least commute his sentence to time served. Manning could have received up to 90 years behind bars.

Coombs also read a statement from Manning, in which he said he acted out of "concern for my country and the world that we live in." He said that while in Iraq, seeing Army dispatches, he "started to question the morality" of the U.S.'s methods of fighting its enemies, and said the U.S. sometimes killed innocent civilians, tortured people, and held prisoners at Guantanamo Bay without due process.

"Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power," Manning's statement continued. "When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically based dissension, it is the American solider who is given the order to carry out some ill-conceived mission."

Also read: WikiLeaks Mole Bradley Manning Convicted of Espionage, Acquitted of Aiding the Enemy

He also paraphrased historian Howard Zinn: "There is not a large enough flag to cover the shame of killing innocent people."

Manning had argued in court that he was trying to inform the public about military and government wrongdoing when he supplied WikiLeaks with more than 700,000 pages of classified information in 2010, and did not intend to aid the enemy.

In a recent hearing he apologized for embarrassing American diplomats, among others.

"I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry I hurt the United States," he told the court. "I understood what I was doing was wrong, but I didn't appreciate the broader effects of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people."

Read more from the original source:
Bradley Manning's Attorney Asks Obama to Pardon Him