Im not surprised, but Im still deeply disappointed:

WASHINGTON President Obama on Tuesday largely commuted the remaining prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the army intelligence analyst convicted of an enormous 2010 leak that revealed American military and diplomatic activities across the world, disrupted the administration, and made WikiLeaks, the recipient of those disclosures, famous.

Manning is transgender and now goes by the name Chelsea after entering the Army as Bradley. He deployed to Iraq as an intelligence analyst, where he copiedand ultimately disclosed a vast number of military and diplomatic files, including detailed, classified accounts of American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the New York Times tries to underplay the significance of the leak by noting that the documents were merely classified at the secret level, it at least partially acknowledges the gravity of the breach:

The disclosures set off a frantic scramble as Obama administration officials sought to minimize any potential harm, including getting to safety some foreigners in dangerous countries who were identified as having helped American troops or diplomats. Prosecutors, however, presented no evidence that anyone was killed because of the leaks.

Let me put this more plainly. He disclosed details of American military operations, the identities of American military allies, and placed sensitive American diplomatic relationships at risk. We may never know exactly how much damage he did.

No matter how troubled Manning is (and hes certainly troubled), he breached faith with his brothers in arms. Armies depend on bonds of trust, and he knowingly and intentionally placed lives in danger by indiscriminately placing our nations secrets in the public domain. He risked American lives. He risked allied lives.

Its not that long ago that actions like Mannings would merit execution, and he should be grateful that he merely received a 35 year sentence. Instead, however, both the Times and the Obama administration treat him more like a messed-up kid than a soldier who betrayed his nation. Heres the Timesstake:

The decision by Mr. Obama rescued Ms. Manning, who twice tried to commit suicide last year, from an uncertain future as a transgender woman incarcerated at the male military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. She has been jailed for nearly seven years, and her 35-year sentence was by far the longest punishment ever imposed in the United States for a leak conviction.

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The commutation also relieved the Department of Defense of the difficult responsibility of her incarceration as she pushes for treatment for her gender dysphoria including sex reassignment surgery that the military has no experience providing.

Manning isnt a woman in need of rescue. Hes a soldier who committed serious crimes. He wasnt a whistleblower, as many of his defenders claim. He just dumped hundreds of thousands of classified documents into the public domain for the purposes of worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms without the slightest regard for the lives of others. There is no excuse.

Manning is a traitor who pled guilty to a lesser offense to avoid the full penalty for his crimes. He has received too much mercy already. Obamas commutation of his sentence is a disgrace.

See original here:
Disgrace: Obama Commutes Bradley Manning's Sentence ...

Over and over, the young private who exposed so much of the U.S. governments inner workings trusted peopleonly to get knifed.

I first heard the name Bradley Manning at a cheap Japanese restaurant near Sacramento, California, sitting across from the ex-hacker whod just turned the soldier in.

It was May 2010, and I was following up on a remarkable story Id heard in cryptic bits and pieces from Adrian Lamo, a former recreational hacker Id once reported on extensively. Lamo told me hed been contacted online by an Army intelligence analyst deployed to Iraq, and the soldier, mistaking Lamo for a kindred spirit, confided that hed been providing the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks with a trove of material from a classified network. The leaks included a quarter million State Department cableswhich WikiLeaks had not yet acknowledged havingand a shocking video of a U.S. Army helicopter attack in Baghdad that the site had already released under the title Collateral Murder.

Lamo considered the leaks reckless and dangerous, and decided to turn in the soldier, who I learned was a 22-year-old kid named Bradley Manning. By the time of that lunch, Lamo had already met once with law enforcement officials, and he was scheduled to meet with them again later that day to hand over the logs hed kept of his chats with Manning. Hed agreed to give me a copy as well under embargo, if I showed up in person with a thumbdrive.

I hadnt seen Lamo in years, and he was in a bad state, recently separated, living with his parents, and apparently hungryhe asked for a hot lunch and small talk before hed detail his exchanges with Manning, or give me the chat logs. And so we ate, talked about the old days when Lamo effortlessly hacked the likes of Yahoo and The New York Times, back when he was as young and fearless as the soldier he was giving up.

In the end, I got the logs, and was on my way back to San Francisco by the time Lamo and the feds had their second meeting. I remember wondering on the drive what would become of the soldier Lamo had felt obliged to betray.

Now we know. On Tuesday, outgoing President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of the woman now named Chelsea Manning, who will be freed from the military prison at Ft. Leavenworth on May 17 after serving seven years on a harsh 35-year sentence.

The announcement comes just three days before Obama turns the White House over to Donald Trump, and follows a concerted online campaign thats been pushing for Mannings freedom since the day I reported her arrest. Most recently, an online petition urging clemency for Manning gathered over 100,000 signatures in about a month.

Manning became a WikiLeaks source in 2010, when her work as an intelligence analyst in Iraq led her to a crisis of conscience over Americas military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. I started to question the morality of what we were doing, she later told a military judge. I realized that our efforts to meet the risk posed to us by the enemy, we had forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians.

That point was underscored by her most plainly righteously leak, the Collateral Murder video that gave the public a gunners-eye-view of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack on a group of men mistakenly identified as insurgents. Two Reuters employees died in the assault, as did a Baghdad man who stumbled on the scene afterward and tried to rescue one of the victims by pulling him into his van. The mans two children were in the van and suffered serious injuries in the hail of gunfire. Though the incident was already public, the Army had refused to release the video, which showed the consequences of urban warfare with more clarity than any report.

Other leaks were less focused. Manning gave Julian Assange databases of nearly 500,000 Army field reports from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, reports on prisoners held in Guantanamo, and, just as shed told Lamo, 250,000 U.S. State Department diplomatic cables.

When Lamo lifted his embargo, another reporter and I broke the news of Mannings arrest on the website of Wired magazine. Assange took to Twitter with a barrage of tweets disputing the story and attacking me directly. He denied knowing whether Manning was the source of the Collateral Murder video, and denied having a quarter-million diplomatic cables. He and others demanded that I publish the full logs of Mannings chats, though Assange knew full well why I wouldnt: Manning had told Lamo all about her struggles with gender dysphoria, and those personal disclosures were out-of-bounds. By her own account, her leaks were impelled by her moral compass and nothing else.

When Assange finally stopped denying that he had the Manning leaks, and starting releasing them, the disclosures made a sensation of his organization, which pulled in about $1.9 million in donations in 2010.

Manning became a hero and martyr of the anti-war movement, and she seemed to channel her more ardent supporters in her first clemency application in 2014, defending her leaks in a tone that approached defiance, and seeking a full presidential pardon. If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society, she wrote. The application was denied.

This time around, Manning asked only for Obama to shorten her sentence to time-served, and she wrote virtually nothing of her leaks, and much about her struggles in the Army, which began as a young private coming to terms with her gender dysphoria while serving in a military still guided by Dont Ask, Dont Tell. Her struggles only intensified after her court martial when Manning came out as a transgender woman, and took the name Chelsea, but her jailors refused to acknowledge her gender identity. She had to sue the Army to receive hormone therapy. Last year, she attempted suicide twice.

I have served a sufficiently long sentence, Manning wrote. I am not asking for a pardon of my conviction. I understand that the various collateral consequences of the court-martial conviction will stay on my record forever. The sole relief am asking for is to be released from military prison after serving six years of confinement as a person who did not intend to harm the interests of the United States or harm any service members.

Thank You!

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I am merely asking for a first chance to live my life outside as the person I was born to be.

The WikiLeaks that Manning knew has all but vanished. Founded to challenge primarily highly oppressive regimes in China, Russia and Central Eurasia, the groups major focus last year was the U.S. Democratic party, publishing thousands of emails stolen from the DNC and Hillary Clintons campaign. Unlike the Manning leaks, the Democrats emails were published without redaction, as Assange deliberately left in details like the names, credit card and Social Security numbers of party donors.

To his credit, though, Assange, never stopped drawing the publics attention to Mannings situation, even offering last September to take her place in prison. If Obama grants Manning clemency, Assange will agree to U.S. prison in exchangedespite its clear unlawfulness, he tweeted last September. As of press time, though, Assange had not been sighted leaving the safety of the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Excerpt from:
All The People Who Betrayed Chelsea Manning

Image: Bradley Manning Support Network flickr.com

Barack Obamas commutation of the sentence of male traitor Bradley Manning reveals that transgenderism is part of Obamas religious fanaticism. Its part of his comrades religiousfanaticism too. This is a significant threat to society.

One of my short stories is about a president obsessed with the concept of a transgender human being. Chapter 16 of Matt Barbers nonfiction book, Hating Jesus, addresses Obamas obsession with transgenderism and sodomy in general, including in the Department of Defense and intelligence community. I dont believe people realized transgenderism was such a big issue when we wrote what we did. They should start realizing it now.

Obama is not a secret Muslim like many people think he is. He is a communist autotheist. In other words, Obama believes he and his cohorts are gods who deem what is right and wrong. And as is with such things as abortion and global warming, they have deemed sodomy (including transgenderism) not just an inalienable right, but a religious tenet that must be worshipped. This is why sodomy was preeminent in everything throughout Obamas presidencyfrom national security, to promoting it in schools, to evangelizing it across the globe. Obama and his fellow autotheists deemed it holy so they therefore have to enforce it on everyone at all costs.

That people still dont fully grasp how important sodomy is to autotheists, and how they have damaged society with their promotion of it, showshow successful they have been in their manipulation. It also shows why America is doomed.

Once society accepts the most blatant of lies as truth (and even conservatives and professing Christians are referring to Manning and other maniacs by the wrong pronouns), we have both humiliated ourselves and clearly aligned with evil. Theodore Dalrymple indirectly addressed this years ago when he was talking about communism and political correctness.

Dalrymple: Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. Ones standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.

America has accepted the transgender lie. And Obama played a huge part in advancing this evil through the massive influence operations he and his fellow autotheists run. Furthermore, his commutation of Bradley Mannings sentencereveals that transgenderism isa fundamental part oftheir religious fanaticism. Transgenderismis a threat. People should start treating it like one.

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Excerpt from:
Bradley Manning and Obamas Transgender Obsession

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Manning is currently serving a 35 year prison sentence after he was convicted of leaking classified military material to Julian Assanges whistleblower site WikiLeaks in 2013. During his time in prison, Manning came out as transgender and changed his name from Bradley to Chelsea.

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It is reported that Manning was being held in a hospital close to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas where he has been serving his sentence.

Mannings attorney Chase Strangio was unable to confirm the report to CNN, stating I am still trying to figure out what is happening. I have unfortunately not been contacted by Leavenworth and have no additional information.

However Colonel Patrick Seiber, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army did confirm that Manning had been hospitalized during the early hours of July 5th but was now located back at the barracks where U.S. Army officials continue to monitor the inmates condition.

It is unknown as to what condition Manning is currently in, as well as the reasons for Mannings attempted suicide, however one source told TMZ that his attempted method was hanging.

Charlie Nash is a reporterforBreitbart Tech and formereditor of the Squid Magazine. You can follow himon Twitter@MrNashingtonorlike his page at Facebook.

Excerpt from:
Report: Wikileaks Whistleblower Bradley Manning Attempted ...

We have a country that is built on the freedom of speech. Also, our country believes in government accountability and informed citizens. However, it does appear from the documents that leaked that our government found need not to inform us of much military activity. Also, if Mr. Manning is found guilty this could affect future journalists and whistleblowers. They would not come forward with needed information that we the people need and our government felt the need to keep us uninformedFreedom of speech, which covers freedom on the internet and in journalism, is an important part of our Constitution. There should not be a penalty for employees or servicemen that try to keep the world informed of such valuable and important information. If Manning is found guilty this will affect the Freedom of Speech in our country for countless years. Whistle blowers are needed since our government is so enormous and very secretive and non-transparent on military actions. Many people will be frightened to step forward with information that could valuable because they would be scared of being unjustly punished. This case is a relentless attack on free speech; therefore, Manning should not be found in this area to protect Americans freedom of speech for years to come.

Bradley Manning had a responsibility in the military to protect the national interest. When he went into the military, he took an oath of office. Nowhere in the oath was it stated to let the American

See the rest here:
Bradley Manning: Hero or Convict? Essay - 927 Words | Cram

Of the 22 charges US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning faces for allegedly leaking classified information to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks, none is more serious than aiding the enemy in wartime.

Although military prosecutors could have sought the death penalty on this charge which violates both the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) they are pushing for a life sentence.

In a court-martial pretrial hearing Tuesday, Col. Denise Lind, the military judge in the case, ruled that the US government must prove that Manning knew he was aiding the enemy when he took steps to make public hundreds of thousands of Iraq andAfghanistanbattlefield reports,State Departmentdiplomatic cables, files on detainees at the Guantnamo BayUS naval base, other classified records, and battlefield video clips the most controversial of which showed US attack helicopter pilots in Iraq killing what turned out to be a group of unarmed civilian men, including two journalists from theReutersnews agency.

Colonel Lind said the prosecution must show evidence that Manning had "reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the US," by an armed group like Al Qaeda or another nation, Agence France-Presse reported Wednesday.

Prosecutors reportedly are preparing evidence including testimony from a US Navy SEAL who was one of those involved in the raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011 to show that the information leaked by Manning was found in Mr. bin Ladens compound in Abbotttabad, Pakistan, and thus aided a terrorist organization.

As Mannings pretrial hearing continued Wednesday, Lind ruled against the defense, which had tried to block such testimony on grounds that it would be prejudicial to Mannings case.

The ruling means prosecutors can call the witness during the "merits," or main, phase of the trial. They otherwise could have used his testimony only for sentencing purposes, according to the Associated Press.

The witness has been publicly identified only as "John Doe" and as a Defense Department "operator," a designation given to SEALs. Prosecutors say he participated with SEAL Team Six in their assault on the compound which resulted in the death of bin Laden. Such testimony would help establish a chain of custody for the evidence from its recovery to its analysis by a computer expert.

Lind is weighing options for protecting the witness's identity, the AP reports. They could include moving the trial to a secure location to hear his testimony, or having him wear a disguise. Lind also must decide what limits to place on any defense cross-examination of John Doe, as well as three other unidentified "special witnesses," to protect national security.

Wednesdays hearing was the first since a group pressing for more government transparency flouted a military ban by releasing a secretly-recorded audio clip of Manning's testimony in February, according to the AFP report.

"To say that the judge was unhappy about this violation of the rules of the court would be an understatement," a military spokeswoman told reporters covering the hearing.

As a result, mobile phones and recording devices, previously only banned inside the courtroom, are now outlawed in the press gallery as well, where the hearing is being broadcast, AFP reports.

"This media operation center is a privilege, not a requirement. Privileges can be taken away," the spokeswoman said.

Specifically, Manning is charged with aiding the enemy; wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet knowing that it is accessible to the enemy; theft of public property or records; transmitting defense information; fraud and related activity in connection with computers; and for violating Army Regulations 25-2 Information Assurance and 380-5 Department of the Army Information Security Program.

In February, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of 22 charges against him specifically acknowledging that he had misused classified documents by sending them toWikiLeaks, the website founded by controversial Internet activistJulian Assange. Those 10 charges could result in a 20-year sentence.

Mannings trial is scheduled to start June 3 at Fort Meade in Maryland. It could last for 12 weeks.

View original post here:
Bradley Manning trial may include Navy SEAL from Osama bin ...

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Bradley Manning | Democracy Now!

United States v. Manning

Official photograph of Manning from the United States Army

United States v. Manning was the court-martial of former United States Army Private First Class Bradley E. Manning[1] (known after the trial as Chelsea Manning).[2]

After serving in Iraq since October 2009, Manning was arrested in May 2010 after Adrian Lamo, a computer hacker in the United States, provided information to Army Counterintelligence reporting that Manning had acknowledged passing classified material to the whistleblower website, WikiLeaks.[3][4] Manning was ultimately charged with 22 specified offenses, including communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source, and the most serious of the charges, aiding the enemy.[1] Other charges included violations of the Espionage Act, stealing U.S. government property, charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and charges related to the failure to obey lawful general orders under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Manning entered guilty pleas to 10 of 22 specified offenses in February 2013.[5]

The trial on the 12 remaining charges began on June 3, 2013.[6] It went to the judge on July 26, 2013, and findings were rendered on July 30.[7][8] Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge, that of aiding the enemy, for giving secrets to WikiLeaks. In addition to five[9][10][11] or six[12][13][14] espionage counts, Manning was also found guilty of five theft specifications, two computer fraud specifications and multiple military infractions.[15]

On August 21, 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment, reduction in pay grade to E-1, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge.[16] Manning may be eligible for parole after serving one third of the sentence, and together with credits for time served and good behavior could be released after eight years.[17][18][19]

The material in question includes 251,287 United States diplomatic cables, over 400,000 classified army reports from the Iraq War (the Iraq War logs), and approximately 90,000 army reports from the war in Afghanistan (the Afghan War logs). WikiLeaks also received two videos. One was of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike (dubbed the "Collateral Murder" video); the second, which was never published, was of the May 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan.[20]

Manning was charged on July 5, 2010, with violations of Articles 92 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which were alleged to have taken place between November 19, 2009, and May 27, 2010.[21] These were replaced on March 1, 2011, with 22 specifications, including aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet knowing that it was accessible to the enemy, theft of public property or records, and transmitting defense information. Manning was found not guilty for the most serious of the charges, aiding the enemy, for which Manning could have faced life in prison.[22]

A panel of experts ruled in April 2011 that Manning was fit to stand trial.[23] An Article 32 hearing, presided over by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza, was convened on December 16, 2011, at Fort Meade, Maryland, to determine whether to proceed to a court martial. The army was represented by Captains Ashden Fein, Joe Morrow, and Angel Overgaard. Manning was represented by military attorneys Major Matthew Kemkes and Captain Paul Bouchard, and by civilian attorney David Coombs.

The hearing resulted in Almanza recommending that Manning be referred to a general court-martial, and on February 3, 2012, the convening authority, Major General Michael Linnington, commander of the Military District of Washington,[24] ordered Manning to stand trial on all 22 specified charges, including aiding the enemy. Manning was formally charged (arraigned) on February 23, and declined to enter a plea.[25]

The lead prosecutor, Captain Fein, argued that Manning had given enemies "unfettered access" to the material and had displayed an "absolute indifference" to classified information. He showed the court a video of Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaeda spokesman, referencing the leaked material.[26]

The prosecution presented 300,000 pages of documents in evidence, including chat logs and classified material. Nicks writes that Manning appeared to have taken few security precautions. After Manning's arrest, detectives searched a basement room in Potomac, Maryland, and found an SD card they say contained the Afghan and Iraq War logs, along with a message to WikiLeaks. Investigators said Manning had also left computer trails of Google and Intelink searches, and of using Wget to download documents.[27]

Lieutenant Colonel Almanza heard from two army investigators, Special Agent David Shaver, head of the digital forensics and research branch of the army's Computer Crime Investigative Unit (CCIU), and Mark Johnson, a digital forensics contractor from ManTech International, who works for the CCIU. They testified that they had found 100,000 State Department cables on a computer Manning had used between November 2009 and May 2010; 400,000 U.S. military reports from Iraq and 91,000 from Afghanistan on the SD card; and 10,000 cables on a personal MacBook Pro and storage devices that they said had not been passed to WikiLeaks because a file was corrupted. They also said they had recovered an exchange from May 2010 between Manning and Eric Schmiedl, a Boston mathematician, in which Manning had admitted to being the source of the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral Murder") video.[28]

Johnson said he found a text file called wl-press.txt on an external hard drive in Manning's room in Iraq. The file was created on November 30, 2009, and gave the contact detail in Iceland for WikiLeaks. He said he also recovered 1415 pages of encrypted chats, in unallocated space on Manning's MacBook's hard drive, between Manning and someone believed to be Julian Assange, using the Adium instant messaging client. The MacBook's log-in password was found to be the encryption key. Two of the chat handles, which used the Berlin Chaos Computer Club's domain (ccc.de), had names associated with them, Julian Assange and Nathaniel Frank. Johnson also said he found SSH logs on the MacBook that showed an SFTP connection, from an IP address that resolved to Manning's aunt's home, to a Swedish IP address with links to WikiLeaks.[28] There was also a text file named "Readme" attached to the logs, apparently written by Manning:

Items of historical significance of two wars Iraq and Afghanistan Significant Activity, Sigacts, between 00001 January 2004 and 2359 31 December 2009 extracts from CSV documents from Department of Defense and CDNE database. These items have already been sanitized of any source identifying information.

You might need to sit on this information for 90 to 180 days to figure out how best to send and distribute such a large amount of data to a large audience and protect the source.

This is possibly one of the most significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century assymmetric warfare.

Have a good day.[29]

Johnson said there had been two attempts to delete material from the MacBook. The operating system was re-installed in January 2010, and on or around January 31 an attempt was made to erase the hard drive by doing a "zero-fill," which involves overwriting material with zeroes. This process was started, cancelled, then started again with a single pass. The material was recovered after the overwrite attempts from unallocated space.[28]

The defense named 48 people it wanted to appear on Manning's behalf. The list was believed to include President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton had said that the diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks "did not represent significant consequences to foreign policy."[30] Obama was named because of an April 2011 statement[31][32][33][34][35] that Manning "broke the law":[36]

The defense requests the presence of [redacted] in order to discuss the issue of Unlawful Command Influence (UCI). Under Rule for Courts-Martial 405(e), the defense is entitled to explore the issue of UCI. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), a superior officer in the chain of command is prohibited from saying or doing anything that could influence any decision by a subordinate in how to handle a military justice matter.

Obama's statement was later echoed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who said "We're a nation of laws. He did violate the law."[37]

Manning's lawyers argued that the government had overstated the harm the release of the documents had caused, and had overcharged Manning in order to obtain evidence against Assange. They suggested that other people had had access to Manning's workplace computer, and under cross-examination Shaver acknowledged that some of the 10,000 cables on Manning's personal computer did not match cables published by WikiLeaks. Coombs asked for the dismissal of any charge related to the use of unauthorized software, arguing that Manning's unit had been "lawless ... when it comes to information assurance."

The defense also raised the issue of whether Manning's gender identity disorder had affected Manning's judgment. Manning had e-mailed master sergeant, Paul Adkins, in April 2010 to say she was suffering from gender confusion and, despite then living as a man, attaching a photograph of herself dressed as a woman. After Manning's arrest, the army found information about hormone replacement therapy in her room, and Manning's commander, Captain Steven Lim, learned that she had been calling herself Breanna. Defense lawyers argued that the superiors had failed to provide adequate counseling, and had not taken disciplinary action or revoke Manning's security clearance. They also suggested that the "don't ask, don't tell" policywhich was repealed in September 2011had made it difficult for Manning to serve in the army as a gay man.[38]

After the hearing, in January 2012, Coombs filed a request to depose six witnesses, whose names were redacted in the application, and who are believed to have been involved in classifying the leaked videos. Coombs argues that the videos were not classified at the time they were obtained by WikiLeaks.[39]

An Article 39[40]hearing was convened on April 24, 2012, during which the judge, Colonel Denise Lind, denied a defense motion to dismiss the charge of aiding the enemy, and ruled that the government must be able to show that Manning knew the enemy would be able to access information on the WikiLeaks site. She ordered the CIA, FBI, DIA, State Department, and Department of Justice to release documents showing their assessment of whether the leaked material had damaged the national interest of the United States. Lind said she would decide after reading the documents whether to make them available to Manning's lawyers. She also ordered forensic imaging of five computers removed from Manning's work station that had not yet been wiped clean.[41]

At the start of the hearing, Manning replaced the assigned two military defense lawyers, Major Matthew Kemkes and Captain Paul Bouchard, with Captain Joshua Tooman. The next Article 39 hearing was set for June 68 and trial was set for September 2012.[41]

The Center for Constitutional Rights filed a petition in May 2012 asking the Army Court of Criminal Appeals to order press and public access to motion papers, orders, and transcripts. Petitioners included Julian Assange, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Chase Madar, author of The Passion of Bradley Manning (2011), and Glenn Greenwald of Salon.[42]

On September 19, 2012, Manning's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss all charges with prejudice, arguing that Manning had been unable to obtain a speedy trial.[43] The motion claimed that the 845 days spent in pretrial confinement was longer than the periods that the law says is unreasonable.[44] (United States military law normally requires a trial within 120 days.[45]) Judge Lind ruled against the defense motion and allowed for the delay because the prosecution needed more time to prepare its case.[46]

On February 28, 2013, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 specified charges. Military judge Colonel Denise Lind accepted the guilty pleas, for which Manning could face up to 20 years in prison. Manning did not plead guilty to the most significant charge of aiding the enemy.[47]

Manning acknowledged having provided archives of military and diplomatic files to WikiLeaks. She pleaded guilty to 10 criminal counts in connection with the material leaked, which included videos of airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan in which civilians were killed, logs of military incident reports, assessment files of detainees held at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba, and a quarter-million cables from American diplomats stationed around the world. Manning read a statement recounting how she joined the military, became an intelligence analyst in Iraq, decided that certain files should become known to the American public to prompt a wider debate about foreign policy, downloaded them from a secure computer network and then ultimately uploaded them to WikiLeaks.[48]

When the judge asked Manning to explain how she could admit that her actions were wrong, Manning replied, "Your Honor, regardless of my opinion or my assessment of documents such as these, it's beyond my pay gradeit's not my authority to make these decisions about releasing confidential files."[48] An audio recording of Manning's statement was released by journalist Glenn Greenwald on March 12, 2013.[49]

Manning put the files on a camera digital storage card and took it home on a leave in early 2010. Manning then decided to give the files to a newspaper, first calling The Washington Post. Next, The New York Times was contacted and an unanswered voice mail message was left. In January 2010, Manning called the public editor's line at Bloomberg News, but got no response. Manning then copied the files and uploaded them to WikiLeaks, through its website, using a directory the group designated as a "cloud drop box" server. Manning was frustrated that WikiLeaks did not publish files about 15 people who printed "anti-Iraqi" pamphlets. After uploading the files, Manning was engaged in more online conversations with someone from WikiLeaks, who Manning thought was a senior figure, like Julian Assange. In retrospect, Manning described the relationship as "artificial."[48]

The trial began on June 3, 2013, at Fort Meade, Maryland, before Colonel Denise Lind, chief judge, U.S. Army Trial Judiciary, 1st Judicial Circuit.[50]

Opening for the prosecution, Captain Joe Morrow accused Manning of having "harvested" hundreds of thousands of documents from secure networks, then making them available within hours to the US's enemies by dumping them on the Internet: "This is a case about what happens when arrogance meets access to classified information," he said.[51] For the defense, Coombs described Manning as "young, nave and good intentioned." Coombs recounted an incident in which a convoy was hit by an IED, which U.S. troops were relieved did not result in any American fatalities. Manning was reportedly disturbed by her comrades' lack of sympathy upon later learning that an Iraqi civilian had been killed in the incident. Coombs said that by releasing material she felt the public should see, Manning had hoped to make a difference. Manning additionally believed that much of the information she released was "already basically in the public domain," and that it was of historical importance.[6]

On July 2, at the trial's 14th day of sessions, prosecutors rested their case, having presented testimony from 80 witnesses and evidence showing that Manning's training repeatedly instructed her to not give classified information to unauthorized people. The government also presented evidence that Osama bin Laden asked for and received from an associate the Afghanistan battlefield reports WikiLeaks published,[52] and that al-Qaeda leaders reveled in WikiLeaks' publication of reams of classified U.S. documents, urging members to study them before devising ways to attack the United States.[53]

On July 10, the defense rested its case after presenting evidence from 10 witnesses. Manning did not take the stand. Attempting to undercut the most serious charge against Manningaiding the enemydefense lawyers called Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler, who testified that until WikiLeaks started publishing the material Manning leaked, even The Pentagon apparently viewed the anti-secrecy website as a legitimate journalistic enterprise. Thereafter, said Benkler, the public, the military and traditional news media perceived WikiLeaks as a group that supported terrorism.[54]

On July 18, Judge Lind rejected a defense motion to dismiss the charge of aiding the enemy, citing Manning's extensive training as an intelligence analyst and the sheer volume of records that were leaked as reasons to allow the charge to proceed. In its rebuttal case, the prosecution entered three tweets from WikiLeaks that Manning may have viewed to show that the organization was not a legitimate journalistic enterprise. In surrebuttal, the defense entered articles into evidence depicting WikiLeaks as an important journalism outlet, a platform "just as important as" the Freedom of Information Act (United States).[55]

On July 25, chief prosecutor Maj. Ashden Fein delivered the government's closing argument, portraying Manning as an "anarchist" who sought to "make a splash" by providing vast archives of secret documents to WikiLeaks. Arguing that Manning must be found guilty of aiding the enemy, Fein said, "He was not a whistleblower. He was a traitor, a traitor who understood the value of compromised information in the hands of the enemy and took deliberate steps to ensure that they, along with the world, received it." Fein contended that Manning's "wholesale and indiscriminate compromise of hundreds of thousands of classified documents" for release by the WikiLeaks staff, whom he called "essentially information anarchists," was not an ordinary journalistic disclosure but a bid for "notoriety, although in a clandestine form." Fein addressed the court for nearly six hours.[56]

The next day, defense attorney Coombs countered with his own closing argument, portraying Manning as "a young, nave, but good-intentioned soldier who had human life and his humanist beliefs center to his decisions, whose sole focus was, 'Maybe I just can make a difference, maybe make a change.'" Coombs said his client released only files she believed would cause no harm yet spark debate and prompt change, and that if Manning had not been selective, she would have leaked much more. Playing excerpts from the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral Murder") video that Manning admitted supplying to WikiLeaks, Coombs told Judge Lind: "When the court looks at this, the defense requests that you not disengage, that you not look at this from the eyes of 'this happened on a battlefield.' Did they all deserve to die? That is what Private Manning is thinking as he is watching this video he is seeing, and he's questioning."[57]

With closing arguments concluded, Col. Lind began her deliberations. Manning chose to have her court-martial heard by the judge only instead of a jury.[58]

On July 30, 2013, Judge Lind issued her findings regarding the charges. Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy by knowingly giving out intelligence through indirect means, and was convicted of 19 of the 21 or 22 specified charges, including theft and six counts of espionage.[12][13][14] The hearing on sentencing began on July 31, 2013.[59] Manning initially faced a maximum sentence of as much as 136 years' imprisonment.[10][11][60][61] This was subsequently reduced to 90 years after the defense successfully filed a motion to merge some of the 20 counts that Manning was being charged with on the grounds that they overlapped.[62]

The judge ruled in January 2013 that Manning's sentence would be reduced by 112 days because of treatment during confinement at Quantico.[63] The sentencing phase of the trial began on July 31.[64] A military psychologist who had treated Manning, Capt. Michael Worsley, testified that Manning had been left isolated in the army, trying to deal with gender-identity issues in a "hyper-masculine environment." On August 14 during the sentencing hearing, Manning apologized for past actions, telling the court: "I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States. I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people. ... At the time of my decisions I was dealing with a lot of issues."[65] On August 21, 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Manning was given credit of 1,293 days (3 years and 6 months) served in pre-trial confinement, and may be eligible for parole after serving one-third of the sentence. Manning was also reduced to the lowest enlisted pay grade (E-1), forfeited all pay and allowances, and given a dishonorable discharge.[66][67]

On September 3, 2013, Manning's attorney announced that he had filed on his client's behalf a Petition for Commutation of Sentence, submitted with a letter to the Secretary of the Army and, through the Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney, to President Obama, seeking a presidential pardon.[68]

In the meantime, Manning's case will be reviewed by the court-martial convening authority, Major General Jeffrey S. Buchanan, commander of the Military District of Washington,[24] who has discretion to dismiss the court's findings of guilt or reduce, but not increase its sentence. Should Buchanan uphold confinement for at least a year and/or dishonorable discharge, the case will be automatically appealed to the intermediate Army Court of Criminal Appeals.[69]

Read more:
United States v. Manning - Wikipedia

Updated 8:00 p.m. EST.

The Army has filed 22 new counts against suspected WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, among them a capital offense for which the government said it would not seek the death penalty.

The charges, filed Tuesday but not disclosed until Wednesday, are one count of aiding the enemy, five counts of theft of public property or records, two counts of computer fraud, eight counts of transmitting defense information in violation of the Espionage Act, and one count of wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet knowing it would be accessible to the enemy. The aiding-the-enemy charge is a capital offense, potentially carrying the death penalty. Five additional charges are for violating Army computer-security regulations.

The new charges more accurately reflect the broad scope of the crimes that Pvt. 1st Class Manning is accused of committing, spokesman Capt. John Haberland said in a statement.

According to the Army, the prosecution team will not seek the death penalty for the capital offense. But under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the convening authority ultimately decides what charges to refer to court-martial and whether to impose the death penalty.

Manning was arrested last May after he told a former hacker that he passed thousands of classified and sensitive documents to WikiLeaks. He has been in custody at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia, awaiting a mental health hearing requested by his attorney. Depending on the result, the case could then proceed to an Article 32 hearing the military equivalent of a grand jury investigation.

Though WikiLeaks is not named in the charges, the details of what Manning allegedly accessed or transmitted largely match up with WikiLeaks leaks over the past 10 months. Charge II, Specification 2 charges him with leaking a classified video titled 12 JUL 07 CZ ENGAGEMENT ZONE 30 GC Anyone-avi on or before April 5, 2010, the day WikiLeaks published an Army video of a July 12, 2007, Army helicopter attack in Iraq that killed innocent people.

WikiLeaks released the video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Iraq under the title "Collateral Murder."

Specification 4 in the same charge describes a Combined Information Data Network Exchange Iraq database containing more than 380,000 records. On Oct. 22, WikiLeaks released a largely classified Army database of events in the Iraq war with 392,000 entries. A similar Afghan database with over 90,000 events, partially published by WikiLeaks on July 25, is described in Specification 6.

Specification 8 describes a United States Southern Command database containing more than 700 records likely a reference to the records of more than 700 Guantnamo Bay detainees that WikiLeaks reportedly received, but has not published. Specification 12 accuses Manning of stealing over 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables from the Net-Centric Diplomacy database a clear reference to the WikiLeaks Cablegate material.

At least one of the charged leaks has neither been acknowledged by WikiLeaks, nor mentioned by Bradley Manning in his online chats with Adrian Lamo the ex-hacker who turned him in to the Army and FBI. Thats a United States Forces -Iraq Microsoft Outlook / SharePoint Exchange Server global address list belonging to the United States government. This may indicate that investigators recovered evidence fromforensic examinations of Mannings computer following his arrest.

The charge of aiding the enemy is a purely military charge from the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which applies only to service members. But the specter of a capital offense will likely be seized upon by lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who have claimed that Assanges pending extradition to Sweden in a rape-and-molestation investigation there could somehow lead to him being shipped to the United States, where some politicians have called for Assange to be charged with a capital offense.

If convicted of all charges, Manning would face a life sentence in prison, assuming the convening authority takes the death penalty off the table. Before the latest charges, the maximum potential jail time he had faced was 52 years.

The full charges and specifications, from the charge sheet (.pdf), follow, with the allegedly leaked or accessed material in bold.

ADDITIONAL CHARGE I: VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ. ARTICLE 104.

THE SPECIFICATION: In that Private First Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 1 November 2009 and on or about 27 May 2010, without proper authority, knowingly give intelligence to the enemy, through indirect means.

ADDITIONAL CHARGE II: VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ, ARTICLE 134.

SPECIFICATION 1: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 1 November 2009 and on or about 27 May 2010, wrongfully and wantonly cause to be published on the internet intelligence belonging to the United States government, having knowledge that intelligence published on the internet is accessible to the enemy, such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 2: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 15 February 2010 and on or about 5 April 2010, having unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense, to wit: a video file named 12 JUL 07 CZ ENGAGEMENT ZONE 30 GC Anyone-avi, with reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 793 (e), such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 3: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Amy, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 22 March 2010 and on or about 26 March 2010, having unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense, to wit: more than one classified memorandum produced by a United States government intelligence agency, with reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 793(e), such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 4: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 31 December 2009 and on or about 5 January 2010, steal, purloin, or knowingly convert to his use or the use of another, a record or thing of value of the United States or of a department or agency thereof, to wit: the Combined Information Data Network Exchange Iraq database containing more than 380,000 records belonging to the United States government, of a value of more than $1,000, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 641, such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 5: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 31 December 2009 and on or about 9 February 2010, having unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense, to wit: more than twenty classified records from the Combined Information Data Network Exchange Iraq database, with reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 793(e), such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 6: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 31 December 2009 and on or about 8 January 2010, steal, purloin, or knowingly convert to his use or the use a another, a record or thing of value of the United States or of a department or agency thereof, to wit: the Combined Information Data Network Exchange Afghanistan database containing more than 90,000 records belonging to the United States government, of a value of more than $1,000, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 641, such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 7: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 31 December 2009 and on or about 9 February 2010, having unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense, to wit: more than twenty classified records from the Combined Information Data Network Exchange Afghanistan database, with reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 793(e), such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 8: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Planning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, on or about 8 March 2010, steal, purloin, or knowingly convert to his use or the use of another, a record or thing of value of the united States or of a department or agency thereof, to wit: a United States Southern Command database containing more than 700 records belonging to the United States government, of a value of more than $1,000, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 641, such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 9: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 8 March 2010 and on or about 27 May 2010, having unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense, to wit: more than three classified records from a United States Southern Command database, with reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 793(e), such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 10: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U-S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 11 April 2010 and on or about 27 May 2010, having unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense, to wit: more than five classified records relating to a military operation in Farah Province, Afghanistan occurring on or about 4 May 2009, with reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 793(e), such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 11: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 1 November 2009 and on or about 8 January 2010, having unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense, to wit: a file named BE22 PAX.zip containing a video named BE22 PAX.wmv, with reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 793(e), such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 12: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 28 March 2010 and on or about 4 May 2010, steal, purloin, or knowingly convert to his use or the use of another, a record or thing of value of the United states or of a department or agency thereof, to wit: the Department of State Net-Centric Diplomacy data base containing more than 250,000 records belonging to the United States government, of a value of more than $1,000, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 641, such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 13: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 28 March 2010 and on or about 27 May 2010, having knowingly exceeded authorized access on a Secret Internet Protocol Router Network computer, and by means of such conduct having obtained information that has been determined by the United States government pursuant to an Executive Order or statute to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national defense or foreign relations, to wit: more than seventy-five classified United States Department of State cables, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, with reason to believe that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 1030(a)(1), such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 14: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 15 February 2010 and on or about 18 February 2010, having knowingly exceeded authorized access on a Secret Internet Protocol Router Network computer, and by means of such conduct having obtained information that has been determined by the United States government pursuant to an Executive Order or statute to require protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national defense or foreign relations, to wit: a classified Department of State cable titled Reykjavik-13, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, with reason to believe that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 1030(a)(1),such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 15: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 15 February 2010 and on or about 15 March 2010, having unauthorized possession of information relating to the national defense, to wit: a classified record produced by a United States Amy intelligence organization, dated 18 March 2008, with reason to believe such information could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicate, deliver, transmit, or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, the said information, to a person not entitled to receive it, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 793(e),such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

SPECIFICATION 16: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 11 May 2010 and on or about 27 May 2010, steal, purloin, or knowingly convert to his use or the use of another, a record or thing of value of the united States or of a department or agency thereof, to wit: the United States Forces -Iraq Microsoft Outlook / SharePoint Exchange Server global address list belonging to the United States government, of a value of more than $1,000, in violation of 18 U.S. Code Section 641, such conduct being prejudicial to good order and discipline in the armed forces and being of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces.

ADDITIONAL CHARGE III: VIOLATION OF THE UCMJ, ARTICLE 92.

SPECIFICATION I: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 1 November 2009 and on or about 8 March 2010, violate a lawful general regulation, to wit: paragraph 4-5(a) (4) , Army Regulation 25-2, dated 24 October 2007, by attempting to bypass network or information system security mechanisms.

SPECIFICATION 2: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Amy, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 11 February 2010 and on or about 3 April 2010, violate a lawful general regulation, to wit: paragraph 4-5 (a)(3), Army Regulation 25-2, dated 24 October 2007, by adding unauthorized software to a Secret Internet Protocol Router Network computer.

SPECIFICATION 3: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, on or about 4 May 2010, violate a lawful general regulation, to wit: paragraph 4-5(a) (3),Army Regulation 25-2, dated 24 October 2007, by adding unauthorized software to a Secret Internet Protocol Router Network computer.

SPECIFICATION 4: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, between on or about 11 May 2010 and on or about 27 May 2010, violate a lawful general regulation, to wit: paragraph 4-5(a)(3), Army Regulation 25-2, dated 24 October 2007, by using an information system in a manner other than its intended purpose,

SPECIFICATION 5: In that Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, U.S. Army, did, at or near Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, on divers occasions between on or about 1 November 2009 and on or about 27 May 2010, violate a lawful general regulation, to wit: paragraph 7-4, Army Regulation 380-5, dated 29 September 2000 by wrongfully storing classified information.

UPDATE 3.3.2011: This story updated to note that the convening authority decides whether the death penalty will be pursued in the case.

Senior editor Kevin Poulsen contributed to this report.

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Bradley Manning Charged With 22 New Counts, Including ...

Pvt. Bradley E. Manning, now known as Chelsea and convicted of leaking classified military documents to Wikileaks, will soon be moved to Leavenworth Federal Prison to serve 35 years in an all-male facility as a transgender female.

"I am female," she said in a statement Thursday, asking media and others to use female pronouns to refer to her.

"Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible," she said. "I hope that you will support me in this transition."

Bradley "Chelsea" Manning Denied Transgender Treatment

Manning has declared her intention to begin the gender transition with hormones, but it's not clear how she will manage to do this, because the military does not allow hormone treatment or further surgeries to realize a sex change.

Department of Defense spokeswoman Catherine T. Wilkinson told ABC News today that "there is no mechanism in place for the U.S. military to provide hormone therapy or gender-reassignment surgery for inmates."

But transgender advocacy groups sharply criticized the U.S. Army response, saying health care standards in U.S. federal prisons must be applied in military prisons.

"This is America -- we do not deny health care to prisoners," said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center on Transgender Equality.

"The Constitution has a prohibition in the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment. Denying health care is cruel and unusual punishment. If an inmate breaks a leg, they have to set it. If you have diabetes, they have to treat it. If you develop schizophrenia, they have to treat it.

And, said Keisling, when an inmate is diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the latest diagnosis for what used to be called gender identity disorder, and there is a recommended course of treatment, "they have to provide that treatment."

Bradley "Chelsea" Manning to serve 35 years in prison.

"[The military] can argue that transgender-related care is not health care, but that is not a winning argument anymore. The medical profession is unified in the belief that transition-related care for transgender people is legitimate and beneficial health care to treat someone with a serious, underlying condition."

But Department of Defense spokeswoman Wilkinson said that inmates in military correctional facilities are "treated equally regardless of race, rank, ethnicity or sexual orientation. ... [They] are considered soldiers and are treated as such with access to mental health professionals, including a psychiatrist, psychologist, social workers and behavioral science noncommissioned officers with experience in addressing the needs of military personnel in pre- and post-trial confinement."

During Manning's court martial and pre-trial hearings, Manning referred to himself using the female name Breanna. His lawyers argued that his judgment had been clouded by his struggle with gender identity problems. Photos that Manning took of himself dressed as a woman were also used as evidence.

Several court cases have affirmed the right to receive treatment for gender dysphoria in federal prisons.

A federal judge last year ordered the Massachusetts Department of Corrections to provide sex reassignment surgery for Michelle Kosilek, a transgender woman serving a sentence for murder. He ruled that the state had violated the inmates' constitutional rights in denying the surgery.

Rates of incarceration among transgender Americans are significantly higher than for the general population, according to a 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which found that 16 percent of the nearly 6,500 respondents reported having ever been incarcerated, mostly for less than a year, in county jails.

This far exceeds the 2.7 percent of all Americans who have reported being imprisoned.

A study of California's men's prisons identified more than 330 transgender inmates out of a population of approximately 160,000. All these inmates were transgender women.

In federal prisons, guidelines for housing of transgender inmates in sex-segregated facilities are regulated by the Prison Rape Elimination Law.

Manning's lawyer, David Coombs, said his client's goal was not to be placed in a women's prison. Rather "the ultimate goal is to be comfortable in her skin, and to be the person that she's never had the opportunity to be," according to an interview on the "Today" show.

Coombs said he hoped Fort Leavenworth "would do the right thing and provide" the hormone treatments. If not, he said he would "do everything in my power to make sure that they are forced to do so."

Masen Davis, executive director of the Transgender Law Center in Oakland, Calif., told ABCNews.com that its attorneys were "looking at every recourse that Manning will have in military prison" to obtain necessary medical treatment.

"He has a right to access to care, including a prescription for estrogen," she said. "Medical treatment should be determined by a doctor, and not bias against trans people."

The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign also weighed in on the issue with a statement today:

"Regardless of how she came to our attention, Pvt. Chelsea Manning's transition deserves to be treated with dignity and respect," the statement read.

"As Pvt. Manning serves her sentence, she deserves the same thing that any incarcerated person does -- appropriate and competent medical care and protection from discrimination and violence.

"The care she receives should be something that she and her doctors -- including professionals who understand transgender care -- agree is best for her."

ABC News' Luis Martinez contributed to this story.

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Bradley Manning, Now Chelsea, Fights for Hormone Treatment ...