Category Archives: Bradley Manning

In Search Of A Transgender Pronoun

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"To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often." So said John Henry Newman, the Victorian-era Anglican priest who became a Roman Catholic cardinal. A trans-Christian, you might say.

I take his words to heart as I try to change myself with respect to people who are changing more than their vestments.

We live in a time when gender is fluid. Mount Holyoke College, the alma mater of Emily Dickinson and Gov. Ella Grasso, recently canceled its annual production of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" because it's not fair to women who don't have vaginas. Mount Holyoke is one of several all-women schools to begin admitting women who don't have vaginas, which is to say people who skew male, anatomically, but identify as women.

Another way of thinking about them is: male-to-female transgendered people who have not had "the lower surgery," a term I picked up watching "Transparent," the excellent Amazon TV series in which Jeffrey Tambor plays such a person. Tambor won a Golden Globe for his work, over the groans of a trans community inflamed by television's failure to cast a transgendered actor in the role.

It's not the same, I said in one discussion, as casting a white actor as Othello. Oh yes it is, I was told. I'm usually wrong in these discussions.

I'm trying to learn.

In 2013, Bradley Manning's attorney sent a press release to the Today Show announcing Manning's intention to become a woman named Chelsea and asking that the news media refer to Manning with a female pronoun.

I balked, just a little. First of all, I refuse to do anything just because Savannah Guthrie says I have to. Also, in the case of a public figure, the job of the press is to be skeptical. Ronald Reagan claimed to be a born-again Christian. I always regarded that as unproven and subject to verification, but Reagan had more to go on. He was at least anatomically a born-again Christian.

You see what I mean? We can't accept every claim that public figures make about themselves. Dennis Rodman may claim he's Jewish, and Chris Christie might announce that he's nice. We have to check this stuff out.

With everybody else, we can be cool. Let people make their transitions, even if that means denying the reality of their assigned genitals. So what? There's way too much fussing about who uses which restroom. What is it you go in there to do, anyway? Assert your sexual identity or make pee-pee?

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In Search Of A Transgender Pronoun

Google provided WikiLeaks journalists’ metadata in Julian Assange investigation

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Sarah Harrison, assistant to Julian Assange, thanks supporters outside Ecuador's embassy in London in 2012. She is among the journalists whose details were provided to authorities. Photo: Supplied

EXCLUSIVE

Google secretly gave the emails of WikiLeaks journalists to the US government in response to an espionage investigation targeting Julian Assange, according to documents disclosed by the internet giant.

Three journalists who have worked for WikiLeaks since 2010 Sarah Harrison, Joseph Farrell and Kristinn Hrafnsson have been informed by Google that all their Gmail account content, metadata, subscriber information, and other content were provided to US federal law enforcement in response to search warrants issued in March 2012.

Julian Assange (right) and Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino address media at the Ecuadorian embassy in 2014. Photo: AP

The Google accounts of WikiLeaks staff were accessed as part of an investigation of alleged conspiracy to commit espionage. US laws referenced in the warrants include those relating to espionage, conspiracy, theft or conversion of US government property and computer fraud and abuse.

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The warrants were issued by US District Court magistrate John F. Anderson, the same magistrate in the eastern district of Virginia who, in June 2013, issued an arrest warrant for former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

Google notified the three WikiLeaks staff of the warrants on December 23, 2014. It hadhanded all the data to the US government by April 5, 2012, 32 months earlier.

The US Justice Department opened an investigation of WikiLeaks in 2010 after the website began publishing secret US diplomatic and military reports leaked by US soldier Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning. The thousands of leaked documents covered US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and the conduct of US diplomacy across the globe, generating massive political embarrassment.

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Google provided WikiLeaks journalists' metadata in Julian Assange investigation

Google handed over WikiLeaks emails

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SARAH HARRISON: Julian Assange's assistant thanks supporters outside Ecuador's embassy in London in 2012. She is among the journalists whose details were provided to authorities.

Google secretly gave the emails of WikiLeaks journalists to the US government in response to an espionage investigation targeting Julian Assange, according to documents disclosed by the internet giant.

Three journalists who have worked for WikiLeaks since 2010 Sarah Harrison, Joseph Farrell and Kristinn Hrafnsson have been informed by Google that all their Gmail account content, metadata, subscriber information, and other content were provided to US federal law enforcement in response to search warrants issued in March 2012.

The Google accounts of WikiLeaks staff were accessed as part of an investigation of alleged conspiracy to commit espionage. US laws referenced in the warrants include those relating to espionage, conspiracy, theft or conversion of US government property and computer fraud and abuse.

Reuters

Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy last year.

The warrants were issued by US District Court magistrate John F. Anderson, the same magistrate in the eastern district of Virginia who, in June 2013, issued an arrest warrant for former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

Google notified the three WikiLeaks staff of the warrants on December 23, 2014. It hadhanded all the data to the US government by April 5, 2012, 32 months earlier.

The US Justice Department opened an investigation of WikiLeaks in 2010 after the website began publishing secret US diplomatic and military reports leaked by US soldier Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning. The thousands of leaked documents covered US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and the conduct of US diplomacy across the globe, generating massive political embarrassment.

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Google handed over WikiLeaks emails

Did Manning Help Avert War in Iran?

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From the Archive: A little-noticed disclosure fromcables leaked by Pvt. Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning showedhow the U.S. government putYukiya Amano in as the UNs topnuclear inspector so he could hype claims aboutIranbuilding a nuclear bomb, as Robert Parry reported on the eve of Mannings sentencing in 2013.

By Robert Parry (Originally published on Aug. 19, 2013)

From U.S. embassy cables leaked by Pvt. Bradley Manning, you can easily imagine how the propaganda game might have played out, how Americans could have been panicked into supporting another unnecessary war in the Middle East, this time against Iran. Except that Mannings release of the documents spoiled the trick.

The gambit might have gone this way: One morning, a story would have led the front page of, say, the Washington Post citing how the widely respected International Atomic Energy Agency and its honest-broker Director-General Yukiya Amano had found startling evidence that Iran was nearing a nuclear bomb despite a longstanding U.S. intelligence estimate to the contrary and despite Iranian denials.

A protester marching in support of Pvt. Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning. (Photo credit: bradleymanning.org)

Next, the neocon-dominated opinion pages would ridicule anyone who still doubted these facts. After all, these articles would say, even the IAEA, which had challenged President George W. Bushs claims about Iraq in 2002, and even Amano, who had initially believedIrans denials, were now convinced.

Neocon think tanks would rush to join the chorus of alarm, dispatching WMD experts to TV talk shows bracing the American people on the need for military action. From Fox News to CNN to MSNBC, there would be a drumbeat about Irans perfidy. Then, as hawkish Republicans and Democrats ratcheted up their rhetoric and as Israeli leaders chortled we told you so the war-with-Iran bandwagon might have begun rolling with such velocity that it would be unstoppable.

Perhaps, only years later after grave human costs and severe economic repercussions would the American people learn the truth: that the IAEA under Amano wasnt the objective source that they had been led to believe, that Amano was something of a U.S.-Israeli puppet who had feigned a pro-Iranian position early on to burnish his credentials for pushing an anti-Iranian line subsequently, that after he was installed, he had even solicited U.S. officials for money and had held secret meetings with Israelis (to coordinate opposition to Irans nuclear program while maintaining a polite silence about Israels rogue nuclear arsenal).

However, because of the actions of Bradley Manning, the rug was pulled out from under this possible ruse. The U.S. embassy cables revealing the truth about Amano were published by the U.K. Guardian in 2011 (although ignored by the New York Times, the Washington Post and other mainstream U.S. news outlets). The cables also drew attention from Web sites, such as Consortiumnews.com.

So, the gambit could notwork. If it had been tried, enough people would have known the truth. They wouldnt be fooled again and they would have alerted their fellow citizens. Bradley Manning had armed them with the facts.

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Did Manning Help Avert War in Iran?

Julian Assange Unleashed: Hillary Clinton Is A Threat, Google Is A Monopoly And Should Be Broken Up, BoA Data Taken By …

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Julian Assange of WikiLeaks makes a balcony appearance with Noam Chomsky at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London - (AP Photo/Yui Mok, PA Wire)

Always controversial, Julian Assange gave an interview in London, where hes exiled in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he lambasted Hillary Clinton, who he called a threat to the resolution of his issues. Beyond delving on Hillarys relationship with Google, Assange also said the search giant should be broken up by regulators due to its dominant position. Assange also spoke of a secret trove of Bank of America Bank of America data he threatened to release three years ago, and of course touched on the situations of Edward Snowden, whos pursuit by the U.S. government was larger than Osama Bin Ladens, and Chelsea Manning.

Its imperative that we solve this situation before Hillary Clinton has an opportunity to become President, Assange told Argentine newspaper Perfil in an interview published Sunday. Shes been building a financial reserve and an infrastructure to run for the Presidency for the past two years and shes even reposition the Clinton Global Initiative around this aim. [] Hillary Clinton is a threat for the resolution of this situation, explained the founder of WikiLeaks, who in the past has said Google will massively support her run for President. Clinton was Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, during which WikiLeaks released confidential cables showing she had approved the spying on foreign diplomats, United Nations officials, and U.S. allies.

Assange looked notoriously older, with longer, grey hair and a beard, as a consequence of living in exile for two years in a crammed mezzanine in central London, where the embassy is located. Speaking shortly after the publication of his latest book, When Google Met WikiLeaks, Assange called for the dismantling of the search giant. Google has become the largest lobbying group in Washington, larger than Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing, he noted, after acknowledging that due to its power, its highly unlikely that anti-trust regulation would force the company run by Larry Page to break up.

Apple is the largest company in terms of market capitalization in the U.S., Google is number two. Its interesting that the natural conflict between those two, and between Microsoft and Google, hasnt led to regulatory action in the U.S., Assange said. [Google] is becoming a distributor, taking over networks of fiber optic cables, and also trying to become an editor, diving deeper into content production. That vertical integration, along with economies of scale, is reducing the capacity for people to get the information that audience wants to see. Extremely distrustful of government, Assange notes that Google was partially funded by the U.S. Defense complex in its early years, and that it is in bed with the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA spies on companies that compete with U.S. companies, he explained mentioning the case of Brazilian energy company Petrobras, and on regulators, Assange said, noting that the NSA has hacked Europes antitrust regulators, which coincidentally are investigating Google.

A few years ago in an excellent interview with Forbes Andy Greenberg, Assange revealed that he was sitting on a trove of data from a major U.S. financial institution that could bring down a bank. The speculation was that it was Bank of America, but the data was never leaked. Assange confirmed it was Bank of America, but indicated the information was ultimately taken by a former German employee who got scared, and ultimately left WikiLeaks.

On NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, currently under asylum in Russia, Assange explained that he negotiated on behalf of Snowden with countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, but their intention was to put him in Cuba. Ultimately, though, only Russia had the capacity to counteract the infiltration of the U.S. bounty hunters. When Snowden escaped to Hong Kong, we saw the largest intelligence hunt in history, even though Osama Bin Ladens was longer, for a period of two weeks, the hunt for Edward Snowden was larger.

Speaking of the former Bradley Manning, who was convicted for espionage and sentenced to 35 years behind bars, Assange explained that he expects his release after about seven years in prison. This, whether he serves seven or 35 years of his sentence, is a political matter based on political interests.

Do you feel responsible for Mannings situation, Assange was asked. Not in a causal way because the accusations against Manning are that he didnt follow security protocols. He spoke with other people, not just [WikiLeaks], and he was betrayed by someone pretending to be a journalist. Now, in terms of us being in this together, definitely.

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Julian Assange Unleashed: Hillary Clinton Is A Threat, Google Is A Monopoly And Should Be Broken Up, BoA Data Taken By ...