By Margaret Sullivan

The most dangerous man in America is asking to borrow my scarf.

I've known Daniel Ellsberg for only five minutes but, curious, I unwind it from my neck and give it over. One-handed, with a flick of his wrist, the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower produces an elegant knot. With another flick, the knot disappears.

Not a bad feat, although it hardly measures up to his copying and leaking thousands of pages of classified documents on the Vietnam War to the New York Times an act that eventually changed the course of history.

Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's national security adviser and later secretary of state, dubbed Ellsberg "the most dangerous man in America," which became the title of an award-winning 2009 documentary.

Almost five decades after the first Pentagon Papers story was published in 1971, revealing the secret history of the Vietnam War, the 85-year-old Ellsberg still isn't done making trouble. That was clear on a Georgetown University stage earlier this month, shortly after the scarf encounter.

"Something like the Pentagon Papers should be coming out several times a year," Ellsberg told journalist and scholar Sanford Ungar, who organized the two-day symposium, "Free Speech Legacies: The Pentagon Papers Revisited."

If Ellsberg had had access to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, a summary of which was released in 2014, "I would have put that out," he said.

There's plenty more, he's sure.

"The secrecy system operates overwhelmingly to keep important information from the American public," he said.

Whistleblowers are the best defense, he believes but there aren't enough of them.

An admirer of two other major leakers, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, Ellsberg wants more.

"Is three whistleblowers of this scale about right in 45 years?" he demanded.

He knows, though, that they have paid a big price and the legal troubles of other Obama-era leakers, such as Thomas Drake and John Kiriakou, underscore his point.

Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, leaked a huge tranche of classified information including a video showing a U.S. airstrike killing Iraqi civilians through WikiLeaks. Court-martialed, the transgender woman formerly known as Bradley Manning went to prison for seven years. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in his final days in office.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who revealed shockingly widespread electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens by their government, will never return to the United States, Ellsberg said. Exiled in Russia, Snowden would not be allowed to explain his motivations during trial because he is charged under the Espionage Act, which allows no public-interest defense.

Ellsberg entertained the Georgetown crowd with spot-on impressions of Nixon and Kissinger, and tales about failing to master Twitter and digital encryption.

"I had to rely on Xerox I used the cutting-edge technology of my day," he quipped.

The government case against him ended in a mistrial, sparing him what he expected would be life in prison.

Now, with President Trump threatening to prosecute government leakers, he said, "we're coming full circle."

"We're back with Nixon, as we have been all along." All presidents lie, Ellsberg said and both Nixon and Trump have stated that when the president does something, it is, by definition, legal.

When Nixon said it to TV interviewer David Frost, he was referring to government agents' break-in at the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist an effort to find material to blackmail him.

That crime, top Nixon aide John Ehrlichman later said, was "the seminal Watergate episode" the original sin leading to Nixon's eventual demise.

But Ellsberg said that "the things that were crimes under Nixon are no longer crimes," after post-9/11 PATRIOT Act legislation.

"Even killing people is something Obama has proclaimed the right to do," he said, referring to Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and radical Islamic cleric assassinated by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

Ellsberg thinks Trump whose associates are already under FBI investigation for Russian connections will avoid Nixon's fate.

"If he were facing a Democratic Congress, he'd be in great trouble. If he were facing a Republican Congress that had any principle, any conscience, any shame ... but he doesn't have that," Ellsberg said. "It won't be a problem. And I'm sorry to say that."

His own leak didn't accomplish its purpose, he said.

"The Pentagon Papers didn't shorten the war by a day," he said. But Ellsberg's leak did reveal the government's longtime cynicism about the war: that President Lyndon Johnson had believed it was unwinnable, even as more bombs fell and as more troops and civilians died.

What's more, it established an important press rights precedent: that the government can't use "prior restraint" to prevent publication, which Nixon tried and failed to do when he attempted to enjoin the Times and The Washington Post from publishing the papers.

Ellsberg stands by what he did just as he fully approves of Snowden and Manning because they brought light to government deception and malfeasance.

Despite the threats that such leakers will endanger national security and have "blood on their hands," he said, no such harm has been proved.

Now it's time to bring more to light.

"I would like others, like Snowden, to think about their oath to the Constitution and whether they are obeying it" by keeping silent, he said.

He offered another subversive thought:

"Manning and Snowden and I all thought the same words, which I heard them say: 'No one else was going to do it, someone had to do it so I did it.' "

Margaret Sullivan is the media columnist for The Washington Post.

The rest is here:
National View: Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, asks who will be the next Snowden? - SouthCoastToday.com

Almost five decades after the first Pentagon Papers story was published in 1971, revealing the secret history of the Vietnam War, the 85-year-old Ellsberg still isn't done making trouble. That was clear on a Georgetown University stage earlier this month, shortly after the scarf encounter.

"Something like the Pentagon Papers should be coming out several times a year," Ellsberg told journalist and scholar Sanford Ungar, who organized the two-day symposium, "Free Speech Legacies: The Pentagon Papers Revisited."

If Ellsberg had had access to the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, a summary of which was released in 2014, "I would have put that out," he said.

There's plenty more, he's sure.

"The secrecy system operates overwhelmingly to keep important information from the American public," he said.

Whistleblowers are the best defense, he believes but there aren't enough of them.

An admirer of two other major leakers, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, Ellsberg wants more.

"Is three whistleblowers of this scale about right in 45 years?" he demanded.

He knows, though, that they have paid a big price and the legal troubles of other Obama-era leakers, such as Thomas Drake and John Kiriakou, underscore his point.

Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, leaked a huge tranche of classified information including a video showing a U.S. airstrike killing Iraqi civilians through WikiLeaks. Court-martialed, the transgender woman formerly known as Bradley Manning went to prison for seven years. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in his final days in office.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who revealed shockingly widespread electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens by their government, will never return to the United States, Ellsberg said. Exiled in Russia, Snowden would not be allowed to explain his motivations during trial because he is charged under the Espionage Act, which allows no public-interest defense.

Ellsberg entertained the Georgetown crowd with spot-on impressions of Nixon and Kissinger, and tales about failing to master Twitter and digital encryption.

"I had to rely on Xerox I used the cutting-edge technology of my day," he quipped.

The government case against him ended in a mistrial, sparing him what he expected would be life in prison.

See the original post here:
Margaret Sullivan: Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, asks: Who will be the next Snowden? - Salt Lake Tribune

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Army Pfc. Bradley Manning wears handcuffs as he is escorted into a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013, before a sentencing hearing in his court martial. Manning was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years in prison for giving hundreds of thousands of secret military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Santa Clara police earlier this month busted an identity theft ring with ties to San Jose, police said Friday.

On Feb. 6, Santa Clara Police Department Special Enforcement Team Detectives served a search warrant at a residence in the 2600 block of Monterey Road in San Jose as part of an investigation into an identity theft ring.

Detectives located piles of stolen mail, checks, fake identification cards, a controlled substance and drug paraphernalia, according to police.

They also discovered printers, card readers and scanning devices used to fraudulently manufacture identification cards and a stolen vehicle, police said.

Three suspects, two men and a woman, were arrested in connection with the investigation.

One of the men had two counts of court probation, while the other had an active federal warrant outstanding for his arrest, according to police.

The woman was associated with the stolen vehicle. Additionally, her photograph was allegedly on several of the fraudulent identification cards, police said.

Police determined at least 12 Santa Clara residents were victims of the identity theft ring.

The identity of the suspects was not released.

Published at 1:29 PM PST on Feb 25, 2017 | Updated at 1:42 PM PST on Feb 25, 2017

Read more:
Santa Clara Police Arrest Three in Connection With Identity Theft Ring - NBC Bay Area

Oratorio. For many of us, the word conjures large-scale works of the past, Baroque epics such as Handels Messiah and Bachs Passions.

Yet composers are reimagining the form for our times. Two contemporary works, both making their Bay Area premieres this week, demonstrate that oratorios remain a powerful medium for telling big stories.

The works themselves couldnt be more different. Ted Hearnes The Source, which San Francisco Opera presents Feb. 24-March 3, focuses on Chelsea Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst who released thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.

Julia Wolfes Anthracite Fields, coming to Cal Performances in a Feb. 26 performance featuring the new music sextet Bang on a Can All-Stars and Cappella SF, examines the Pennsylvania coal mining industry from the late 19th century on.

These new-wave oratorios, both of which premiered in 2014, use unusual forces to tell their stories.

Hearnes score employs four voices, seven instrumentalists, video and electronica; the libretto, by Mark Doten, is assembled from news reports, Twitter feeds, declassified government documents and emails between Manning and hacker Adrian Lamo. Performed in the round, the piece yields a prismatic portrait of Manning, who was arrested in 2010 as Bradley Manning and sentenced to 35 years in prison. (Manning subsequently began identifying as female: now Chelsea, her sentence was commuted by President Obama last month. She is scheduled to be released in May.)

Hearne began writing The Source in 2010 and says the piece morphed as Mannings story did. At first, I was interested in the freedom of information implications of a group like WikiLeaks, the composer explained in a recent call from Los Angeles. When the leaks of the Department of Defense and Department of State cables came out and Manning became known as a public figure, that story and the content of those leaks really took over.

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Like Hearne, Wolfe drew on historical documents for Anthracite Fields. Her score, which won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2015, riffs on miners names, taps interviews and oral histories and incorporates bits of ads, speeches and childrens rhymes in a moving 21st-century score (the title refers to the type of coal that burns the cleanest.)

Wolfe, a co-founder of Bang on a Can, grew up in Pennsylvania but says she knew little about the coal industry. She started taking the bus on information-gathering trips to coal country, visiting mines and museums and talking to people who were part of that life. She was often surprised by what they told her.

In one poignant movement, the choir sings the names of children the Breaker Boys who worked and perished in the mines. Other movements focus on mining communities the patch towns where workers and their families lived.

I wanted to honor the people who worked in the mines, says Wolfe. I thought this would be a dark piece there were a lot of disasters and difficulties but there were also sunny things. The work comes current in the final movement, which names activities that coal continues to power today.

Surprisingly, neither composer initially thought of these scores as oratorios.

I dont use the word oratorio very often, Hearne said, although I love the old Baroque oratorios, which have a way of telling stories that uses discrete numbers.

When you see the Messiah, youre vaguely aware of the story. Here, we know part of the story. Most people have heard of Chelsea Manning and probably know that the U.S. is engaged in war overseas. But theres no character. Its not lets follow Mary as she gives birth. There are four singers, and they all sing the words that came from several different people. They all sing Mannings words at one point. They sing words that were written by Department of Defense officials. So its really up to us to piece together the story. Thats why I call it an oratorio.

Wolfe notes that contemporary works are often harder to categorize. These names are kind of fluid, she said. Like Einstein at the Beach is it an opera? Sometimes things are called something afterwards. With this piece, I almost retroactively called it an oratorio. I really think of it as a poetic history.

Details

The Source: Feb. 24-March 3; Taube Atrium Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco; $35; 415-864-3330, http://www.sfopera.com

Anthracite Fields:7 p.m. Feb. 26, Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley; $38-$62; 510-642-9988, calperformances.org

Contact Georgia Rowe at growe@pacbell.net.

Excerpt from:
From coal miners to Chelsea Manning the world of oratorios has changed - The Mercury News

WASHINGTON

President Donald Trumps administration has been plagued by leaks of confidential information since before Trump was sworn into office, but the nature of the unauthorized disclosures is somewhat different from the leaks that have annoyed or enraged other U.S. presidents.

Leaks themselves, the premature, unofficial release of confidential policies, executive actions or plans, are nothing new, according to Louis Clark, executive director of the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting whistleblowers.

What's different

What is new, Clark told VOA, is the motive of the leakers, those who divulge the information, usually to journalists.

Clark said leaks coming from a U.S. administration generally are intended to push a particular political or policy decision.

Whats different about the leaks coming from the Trump administration, he added, is the impression many people have that the leaks are intended to harm the president and his reputation.

Direct criticism of a president in that way is somewhat unprecedented, Clark told VOA.

Jesselyn Radack is a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer experienced in national-security and human-rights issues who now works for the Whistleblower and Source Protection Program, established by the Institute for Public Accuracy. She contends there is something more dangerous about the Trump leaks than those that bedeviled former President Barack Obama, whose administration was hit by the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history.

Oftentimes, administrations leak trial balloons to push policy ideas, Radack told VOA in an interview. Trumps leaks seem much more dangerous. Theyre all over the place. They dont seem like strategic leaks.

Watch: Trump: Flynn Treated 'Unfairly' by 'Fake Media'

Flynn resigns under fire

Those leaks claimed their first victim this week when Trumps national security adviser, General Michael Flynn, resigned under pressure.

In a series of tweets Wednesday morning, Trump said the leaks that brought down Flynn resembled tactics used in Russia, and he accused fake news media of using confidential information to fuel their conspiracy theories and blind hatred.

The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by intelligence like candy. Very un-American! Trump wrote.

The Flynn controversy arose before Trump was inaugurated, while the Obama administration was still in power, when The Washington Post reported on telephone conversations last year between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. They included a chat just before the United States announced the expulsion of dozens of Russian diplomats and intelligence agents as a sanction against the Kremlin for Russias computer-hacking operations connected to the U.S. elections.

The question was whether and to what extent Flynn and Kislyak discussed the full range of sanctions against Russia, which Obama ordered in response to Russias annexation of Ukraines breakaway Crimean territory and for other reasons.

The supposition was that Flynn may have overstepped his role by urging Russia to avoid immediate tit-for-tat expulsions against American diplomats the tactics the White House and the Kremlin have used in such disputes since the beginning of the Cold War and instead wait for the incoming U.S. president to review and possibly reconsider the entire issue of sanctions against Russia.

Mike Flynn arrives for a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Feb. 13, 2017.

Were calls legal?

If that was what Flynn said to Kislyak, it would have been illegal, because the retired general did not yet have an official role in government and would have been usurping the role of diplomats representing Obama.

Flynn denied last month that he had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador, but later changed his story and said he could not remember whether sanctions were discussed. By this time, some details of the Flynn-Kislyak conversations had been leaked to The New York Times as well as The Post.

He resigned late Monday night.

Benefit to the public

The whistleblower advocates VOA spoke with said government employees generally allow confidential information to become public if they believe knowledge of that information would benefit the general public, what they called public interest leaks.

Radack said exposing the conversations between Flynn and Kislyak fit that definition on some level.

To the extent that leaks about Flynn revealed government misconduct, that would count as whistleblowing, she said.

Similarly, Clark told VOA: When theres a leak that involves a false statement, then I dont think you can assume that the agents are engaged in a conspiracy to oppose the president.

A view of the building where offices of Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd are located, in central London, Jan. 12, 2017. Media have identified the author of the Trump dossier, former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.

Constant stream of leaks

Several other high-profile leaks have shaken Trumps transition team and his young administration.

The president has previously accused unnamed members of the U.S. intelligence community of leaking unsubstantiated information about his reputed personal conduct on a visit to Moscow years ago, long before he ever contemplated a career in politics.

A 35-page dossier summarizing allegations of salacious activity by Trump was published in full last month by Buzzfeed News. The report, compiled by a former British spy, did not include specific evidence against Trump but suggested that Russian intelligence agents had compromising material that could be used to blackmail the president.

It was disgraceful, Trump said of the leaked dossier, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed [out] any information that turned out to be so false and fake. Disavowing the allegations against him completely, the president declared at a news conference last month: Thats something that Nazi Germany would have done and did do.

President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office of the White House, Jan. 28, 2017.

Telephone disputes aired

Embarrassing and unflattering details also have emerged over the past four weeks about some of Trumps telephone calls with foreign leaders, a traditional task for a new U.S. president.

Among those conversations was one with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, which turned from cordial to less than friendly, according to The Washington Post, after Trump bragged about the size of his election victory and denounced a deal struck between Canberra and the White House under Obama, calling for the United States to accept thousands of refugees that Australia had been unwilling or unable to resettle.

Trump disputed all of the colorful reports about his alleged spat with Turnbull as fake news, tweeting: Thank you to Prime Minister of Australia for telling the truth about our very civil conversation that FAKE NEWS media lied about. Very nice!

Another controversial conversation, between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, was leaked to The Associated Press, which reported that Trump had threatened to send U.S. troops across the border into Mexico to deal directly with bad hombres there if Nieto could not control them. Both the White House and the Mexican government denied that account.

Calls for investigation

Since Flynn left this week he said he resigned, Trump said he was fired leading Republican lawmakers have called for an investigation of the repeated leaks, which House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said raise serious concerns.

In a letter to the Department of Justices internal investigator, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, Chaffetz and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Bob Goodlatte, asked for an immediate probe to learn whether classified information [about Flynn] was mishandled.

During a lengthy news conference Thursday in which he repeatedly assailed White House reporters for fake news, Trump said he wanted to track down and punish criminal leaks.

I dont want classified information getting out to the public. ... Whats going to happen when Im dealing on the Middle East? Trump said. Whats going to happen when Im dealing with really, really important subjects like North Korea? Weve got to stop it.

These developments have sounded alarm bells, Radack said, along with concerns that Trump will continue or even expand the Obama administrations really unfortunate efforts to uncover government whistleblowers. That really does open a Pandoras box of problems.

Obama cracked down on leaks

The Obama administration aggressively investigated suspected leakers and the journalists who worked with them. At least eight whistleblowers were prosecuted under the Espionage Act, compared with only three other cases since the law was passed in 1917.

Two of the countrys most high-profile leaks cases, involving hundreds of thousands of classified military documents and details of super-secret surveillance programs, occurred during Obamas time in office:

Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, then-Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, is escorted out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., after the third day of his court martial.

Chelsea Manning, a former Army private (known at the time as Bradley Manning), handed over the secrets he stole in 2009 to the group WikiLeaks, which published them all online in what was considered the largest leak of state secrets in U.S. history. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison, a much harsher penalty than anyone else prosecuted under the Espionage Act received, but Obama reduced the sentence before leaving office, and Manning is now due to be set free in a few months.

Edward Snowden, a contractor for the National Security Agency, stole enormous quantities of classified information a few years later, including details of previously unknown surveillance programs that gathered private information from government officials and ordinary people worldwide. He now lives in Russia, where he sought and was granted political asylum, but faces two serious criminal charges if he ever returns to U.S. jurisdiction.

Others prosecuted under the Obama administration include former CIA analyst John Kiriakou, sentenced to 30 months in prison for revealing the CIAs secret torture program, and Shamai Leibowitz, a former FBI translator who got 20 months in prison for telling a blogger about U.S. spy operations against Israeli diplomats.

Will the leaks continue?

Both whistleblower advocates interviewed by VOA, Louis Clark and Jesselyn Radack, said they believe the leaks will continue to hamper Trumps presidency, even though, as Clark said, There has been an extraordinary amount of leaking from this administration in just the first month.

Radack said the leaks are meant to serve a corrective purpose for people in government who disagree with Trumps policy decisions.

To the extent that Trump continues to operate in excess of his authority and outside the normal boundaries of the presidency, I think the leaks will keep coming, she said. Leaks are the American way. They go all the way back to Benjamin Franklin; theyre a time-honored tradition in America.

Trump, who has offered several conflicting theories about who leaks information and their motivation during the past month, has his own take on the problem. He blames government employees who are holdovers from the Obama administration, and adds: I think youll see its stopping now [that] we have our people in.

See the original post here:
Leaks Plague Trump White House, Will They Continue? - Voice of America

Laverne Cox has carved a path not just for herself as an actress but for others in the transgender community defining their own identities.

Her roles range from an inmate in Netflixs Orange is the New Black to a high-powered, Ivy League-educated attorney on CBS new series Doubt. Cox says being an actress has given her a platform to engage in activism and speak out about transgender rights.

Over the years, shes made history as the first transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy in 2014 and the first to appear on the cover of TIME magazine.

Cox is one of a number of public figures whose advocacy has helped raise awareness and advance the rights of transgender men and women in recent years markedly transforming not just the entertainment world but Americas public discourse, business, law and policy.

Here is a look at some of the recent milestones covered by CBS News:

Then-President Obama signs hate crime legislation, the first in U.S. history to provide federal civil rights protections for transgender men and women. The legislation expands the definition of federal hate crimes to include offenses committed against people for their gender identity.

Chaz Bono comes out as transgender. Formerly known as Chastity, the child of Cher and Sonny Bono shocked the world when he shared his struggle as a transgender male.

The Girl Scouts of Colorado council publicly stated that if a child identifies as a girl and the childs family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout. This prompted a backlash, including calls to boycott Girl Scout cookies; however, it set a precedent for the Boy Scouts of America to take the same stand this year.

The American Psychiatric Association removes gender identity disorder from its diagnostic manual, replacing it with gender dysphoria. This was a critical step towards defining the terms associated with the transgender community and destigmatizing the idea of gender identity.

Bradley Manning announces he is transgender and identifies as female. 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 25-year-old said in a statement. Manning was originally sentenced to 35 years in prison for sending classified military documents to Wikileaks but recently had that sentenced commuted by President Obama.

Laverne Cox, a transgender actress who plays Sophia Burset in Netflixs Orange is the New Black, is the first transgender person to be nominated for an Emmy. She also becomes the first transgender person to be featured on the cover of TIME Magazine.

Bruce Jenner comes out as transgender. Now known as Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic gold medalist appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair and launched a reality TV show, I am Cait, that chronicled her transition. She won the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs in Los Angeles in July 2015 and has remained a vocal activist for the transgender community.

The Obama administration appoints the first openly transgender officialto serve in the White House. Raffi Freedman-Gurpsan was appointed Outreach and Recruitment Director for Presidential Personnel.

A fresh legal battle over the rights of transgender people in public places is sparked when the governor of North Carolina signs the controversial HB2 law, also known as the bathroom bill,preventing transgender individuals from using public bathrooms according to the gender they identify with. Some corporate leaders opposed the bill and entertainers including Bruce Springsteen andPearl Jam boycotted the state in protest.

The Pentagon announces that transgender people will be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military. Then Defense Secretary Ash Carter made the announcement and laid out an implementation plan. Carter said, Americans who want to serve and can meet our standards should be afforded the opportunity to compete to do so.

The Boy Scouts of America announced they will allow transgender boys to enroll in its boys-only programs. This shift came just a month after an 8-year-old transgender boy was asked to leave a Cub Scouts troop.

The mayor of a Texas town came out as a transgender woman in an open letter to residents. Jess Herbst is believed to be the first openly transgender mayor in the states history. She detailed the experience further in a Facebook post.

Atransgender doll based on Jazz Jennings, of the TLC show I am Jazz, is introduced at the New York Toy Fair.

And the Grammys adds the first transgender presenters at the awards ceremony. The president of the Recording Academy said in a statement that the idea of a trophy girl felt antiquated and that the ability to present a trophy has nothing to do with ones gender.

Read this article:
Laverne Cox on transgender rights, her new role - WDEF News 12

The following are arrests and citations were recently issued in Craven County:

The following are arrests and citations were recently issued in Craven County:

City Police Departments: James Alexander Williams, 26, 346 N.C. 307, Vandemere, Feb. 14, misdemeanor larceny. Officer: M.A. Ramos. Danielle Kilwanna Waters, 26, 6 Arlington Circle, Apt. D, Feb. 14, driving while license revoked, expired registration card or tag. Officer: J.E. Sterling. Grady Trevon Marquise Brant, 18, 931 West St., Feb. 14, possession of marijauana greater than 1/2 to 1 1/2 ounces. Officer: N. Coffey. Christine Lynn Greene, 25, 200 Shipman Road, Apt. A7, Havelock, Feb. 13, larceny of a motor vehicle. Officer: K. Lee. Jasmine Lovick, 24, 711 Chattawka Lane, Feb. 13, injury to real property, attempted breaking or entering of building. Officer: B. Bryant. Urbing Gomez Macedo, 38, 380 Wilmar Road, Vanceboro, Feb. 13, driving while license revoked. Officer: J. Whaley. Willie W. Newkirk, 20, 1422 Washington St., Feb. 13, possession of marijuana paraphernalia. Officer: C. Garrison. Taveon Malik Taylor, 16, 1036 Sampson St., Feb. 13, simple possession schedule VI controlled substance, possession of marijuana paraphernalia. Officer: M.D. Lee. Brittney Danielle Collins, 28, 425 Ipock St., Vanceboro, Feb. 13, driving while license revoked, speeding. Officer: A.B. Callaway. Brandon Bryce, 28, 175 Cool Springs Road, Ernul, Feb. 13, felony possession of cocaine, hit and run leaving the scene with property damage, unauthorized use of motor vehicle, driving while impaired. Officer: B. Rohrs. Ivan Monroe Pickett, 47, 2913 Monroe Drive, Feb. 13, driving while license revoked. Officer: A.C. Greenidge. Christine Lynn Greene, 25, 100 Vine St., Apt. 6, Havelock, Feb. 13, driving while license revoked, failure to reduce speed. Officer: A.R. Williams. Malcolm Jamal Brown, 29, 1733 Beaumont Drive, Greenville, Feb. 12, driving while license revoked, failure to stop at steady red light. Officer: J.T. McKee. Joshua Tyler Ries, 22, 1703 Olympia Road, Feb. 12, driving while license revoked, failure to maintain lane control. Officer: K.M. Johnson. Jenny Leigh Bryant, 54, 2905 Magnolia Drive, Feb. 11, shoplifting or concealment of goods. Officer: J.F. Fell. Christine Lynn Greene, 25, 200 Shipman Road, Apt. A7, Havelock, Feb. 13, larceny of motor vehicle. Officer: K. Lee. Jasmine Lovick, 24, 711 Chattawka Lane, Feb. 13, larceny of motor vehicle. Officer: K. Lee. William Bradley Manning, 61, address unknown, Feb. 12, possession of drug paraphernalia, soliciting from highway. Officer: M. Manning. Anthony John Fedele, 34, 500 Fisher Town Road, Havelock, Feb. 12, resisting public officer, driving while license revoked. Officer: B. Young. John David McLawhorn III, 38, 100 Kinnett Blvd., Feb. 11, breaking coin or currency machine. Officer: M. Manning. William Bradley Manning, 61, address unknown, Feb. 10, solicitation and begging in New Bern. Officer: B. Lewis.

Craven County Sheriffs Office: Felix Andrew Sumner, 27, 1120 S. West Craven Middle School Road, Feb. 13, possession of marijuana up to 1/2 ounce. Deputy: D. Anderson. Gariella Brianna Cacciotti, 20, 2209 Oakview Drive, Feb. 13, felony possession of a schedule I controlled substance. Deputy: V. Arnold. William Kelsey McKiddy, 22, 115 Eagle Trail, Feb. 13, possession of drug paraphernalia. Deputy: V. Arnold. Alvin Mack Brown, 35, 17409 E. Constance Road, Suffolk, Va., Feb. 11, driving while license revoked. Deputy: J.A. Keys. Katrna Nelson, 46, 391 Parker Road, Feb. 12, simple assault. Deputy: D. Woods. Gregory Owen Sanders, 53, 715 Vann St., Feb. 12, injury to personal property. Deputy: D. Woods. Daquan Best, 22, 707 West St., Feb. 11, simple assault. Deputy: G. Clark. Demetris A. Nolan, 23, 1200 N. 20th St., Lot 91, Morehead City, Feb. 11, simple assault. Deputy: G. Clark. Kishon Jerell Toms, 32, 1503 Washington St., Feb. 11, simple assault. Deputy: G. Clark. Erik Douglas Barfield, 26, 119 Keith Circle, Feb. 11, contributing to the deliquency of a juvenile. Deputy: D. Anderson.

N.C. Highway Patrol: William Dayshawn Wilson, 27, 660 Spring Garden Road, Feb. 14, driving while license revoked, speeding, reckless driving to endanger, failure to stop at stop sign or flashing red light. Trooper: A.J. Lamp. Tony Lee German, 44, 2301 Carolina St., Feb. 13, driving while license revoked. Trooper: R.J. Onofrio. Natalie Jill Salter, 26, 395 Salter Lane, Havelock, Feb. 13, driving while license revoked. Trooper: R.L. Wallace. Jason Ray Wood, 38, 101 Pettiford Lane, Feb. 12, driving while license revoked, expired registration card or tag, expired or no inspection. Trooper: N.C. Stoneroad. Ottis Franklin Adams III, 38, 118A Gladewood Circle, Feb. 12, driving while license revoked. Trooper: J.A. Rink. Carla James Petteway, 51, 223 Creek Bank Drive, Feb. 12, possession of marijuana up to 1/2 ounce. Trooper: J.A. Rink. David Michael Slugaj, 50, 1056 Palestine Road, Fayetteville, Feb. 12, driving while license revoked, failure to wear seat belt while driving. Trooper: C.W. Lawrance. DeQuan Marshawn Norfleet, 22, 126 Concord Drive, Greenville, Apt. 4, Feb. 11, driving while license revoked, expired registration card or tag, expired or no inspection. Trooper: R.J. Onofrio. Christopher Joseph White, 34, 6115 Redwood Lane, Alexandria, Va., Feb. 11, driving while license revoked, reckless driving to endanger. Trooper: S.F. Brown. James Robert Lewis, 30, 4506 Haywood Farms Road, Feb. 11, possession of marijuana up to 1/2 ounce, unsafe tires, driving while license revoked, unintentional litter of less than or equal to 15 pounds. Jerry Lewis McCullough Jr., 34, 5 Little Valley Court, Durham, Feb. 13, driving while impaired, speeding. Trooper: M. Riggs.

Alcohol Law Enforcement: Hisham Allam Sulaiman, 55, 103 Rhem St., Feb. 12, selling or consuming alcohol beverage after hours. Officer: D.T. Chunn. Eva Nelson Cagle, 59, 814 Circle L Drive, Feb. 12, selling or consuming alcohol beverage after hours. Officer: D.T. Chunn.

Read the rest here:
Craven County arrests and citations for Feb. 16 - New Bern Sun Journal

Soon-to-be-freed Chelsea Manning has delivered an emotional thank you to fellow prisoners who she says helped her survive behind bars after her conviction on espionage charges.

The transgendered Army soldier who was born Bradley Manning but now considers himself a woman wrote in London's Guardian newspaper: "To those who have kept me alive for the past six years I never would have made it without you."

Manning will be released on May 7 after her 35-year prison sentence for espionage, theft and computer fraud was commuted by President Barack Obama last month.

"Recently, one of you asked me 'Will you remember me?' I will remember you. How could I possibly forget? You taught me lessons I would have never learned otherwise," Manning writes.

"When I was afraid, you taught me how to keep going. When I was lost, you showed me the way. When I was numb, you taught me how to feel

"We were friends in a way few will ever understand. There was no room to be superficial. Instead, we bared it all. We could hide from our families and from the world outside, but we could never hide from each other."

Manning attempted suicide twice in 2016, according to his lawyers. Last month, White House officials said Obama was inclined to grant clemency because Manning had expressed remorse for her crimes and had served several years of her sentence.

While the Army provided transgender treatments to Manning and determined she qualifies for sex-change surgery, she will soon lose her military health benefits after a dishonorable discharge.

2017 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

See the article here:
Chelsea Manning to Fellow Inmates: Thanks for Keeping Me Alive - Newsmax

A fundraising campaign is underway to help whistleblower and former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning cover living expenses when she is released from prison on May 17.

Manning was convicted under the Espionage Act in 2013 after leaking hundreds of thousands of classified US government documents to WikiLeaks.

She was originally due to be released in 2045, but her 35-year sentence was commuted by former US President Barack Obama last month during his final days in office.

READ MORE: Obama commutes much of Chelsea Manning's sentence

Campaigners are now preparing for the former army privates release and have launched a GoFundMe page called the Chelsea Manning Welcome Home Fund with a financial target of $100,000. The fund has already raised more than $21,500 in 20 hours.

For the first time in her life, Chelsea will have the opportunity to live freely as her authentic self, to grow her hair, engage with her friends, and build her own networks of love and support, the page states.

The campaign organized by friends and family of the transgender woman aims to raise money to meet Mannings survival needs as she is released from military custody after seven years.

Remarking on the whistleblowers time in solitary confinement and systemic denial of healthcare, the fundraising drive notes the logistical, emotional, and financial support Manning will now need to safely transition into the free world.

The money accumulated will go directly to Mannings rent, utilities, healthcare, clothing and other living expenses for the first year after she is released, according to the group.

Formerly known as Bradley Manning, the whistleblower was initially denied sexual reassignment surgery by the Department of Defense, but the treatment was later approved just months before the commutation was announced.

Manning made two suicide attempts during her time in prison and was subjected to long periods of solitary confinement.

News of Mannings commutation was welcomed by her supporters, including NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

However, it was met with some opposition, particularly from members of the Republican party.

President Trump blasted Manning as an ungrateful traitor on Twitter after she criticized Obamas legacy in an opinion piece.

View original post here:
$21.5k in 20hrs: Chelsea Manning GoFundMe page thriving ahead of whistleblower's release - RT

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By CHARLIE SAVAGE

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Read the rest here:
Chelsea Manning - The New York Times