The irony of personal freedom is that those who fight for it are robbed of their own. Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly explores the tension between the idea of liberty and the fate of those in pursuit of it by following the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei as he creates @Large, an ambitious site-specific exhibition on Alcatraz Island.

The documentary, directed by Cheryl Haines, examines human rights issues by connecting Ais personal history and activism with the history of Alcatraz and with those of other political dissidents across time and the world. Also explored are the challenges of producing site-specific work, made more complex by an artist who can never see the space (Ai was under house arrest in Beijing at the time), as well as a brief meditation on the role of public art. The result: a dizzying narrative that doesnt leave much room for processing.

When the film does slow down, it shines. Interviews with Ai and his mother reveal the psychological impact of the familys exile to a labor camp in northeast China in the late 1950s, and directly link to two main components of the exhibition: Trace, a room with Lego portraits of 176 people imprisoned for their beliefs laid out on the floor; and Yours Truly, another room where visitors are able to write postcards to a select number of those incarcerated people, which would later be mailed.

The film explores the positive impact of this analog correspondence and features interviews with Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who in 2010 leaked archives of military and diplomatic documents, and John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. agent who confirmed the agencys use of torture.

Even for those familiar with Ai and his work, the films offerings of fascinating insights into his personal life and an exploration of the stakes of personal freedom make it a worthy viewing experience.

Ai Weiwei: Yours TrulyNot rated. In English, Mandarin and Arabic, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 16 minutes. Watch through virtual cinemas.

Original post:
Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly Review: On the Irony of Personal Freedom - The New York Times

from the several-versions-of-truth-and-this-one-is-the-DOJ's dept

The government is still trying to get Julian Assange out of the UK so it can ring him up on a variety of charges related to obtaining and publishing a large number of sensitive documents. Most of the charges are still related to the documents obtained from Chelsea Manning. The DOJ wants to use the oft-abused CFAA to put Assange behind bars because he supposedly helped Manning hack a CIA database.

Another indictment [PDF] has been issued by the DOJ, making this its third attempt to throw the book at Assange. If the DOJ can prove Assange contributed to hacking attempts, it may end up with a case worth pursuing. But much of what the indictments deal with is normal journalism behavior: the cultivation of sources and the encouragement of sources to locate/leak newsworthy documents. The blurry line the DOJ is walking on is the same line the previous administration seemed to feel wasn't worth crossing, no matter how much harm/embarrassment Assange had caused with the release of sensitive documents.

The latest indictment expands the government's espionage theories. The government's second superseding indictment deals with Assange's alleged "unlawful overt acts:" the hacking attempts supposedly made targeting Defense Department computers, possibly with the aid of Chelsea Manning and other Wikileaks associates.

Much of this expanded narrative seems to rely on the input of FBI informants, including Sigurdur Thordarson, who was convicted twice for sex with minors after he began working for the FBI in 2011. Sketchy contributors aside, there are some major omissions in the government's narrative.

First, as Dell Cameron points out for Gizmodo, the indictment casually ignores the government's contribution to cyber attacks on American businesses located overseas, as well as some foreign government targets. But there is a significant omission in the new indictment. And the purpose of this crucial admission appears to be an attempt to link Assange to a data breach he never participated in.

A section of the indictment titled Sabu, Hammond, and ASSANGE begins on the date December 25, 2011, and refers to an attack on servers belonging to a private firm identified only as Intelligence Consulting Company. This is obviously Stratfor, the Austin-based private intelligence company whose millions of pilfered emails comprise the WikiLeaks drop known as the Global Intelligence Files.

DOJ omits several crucial details about the Stratfor hack in its attempts to name Assange as a conspirator in a breach that happened without his knowledge. Most notably, prosecutors exclude that the actual breach of Stratfors security, in late 2011, occurred 83 days prior to the events they describe, unknownst by anyone DOJ identifies as part of the conspiracy, including Assange.

Assange and Wikileaks may have helped distribute the documents obtained in the breach and there does appear to be evidence Assange provided the hackers with some tools for searching the stash of five million emails, but there's nothing in the indictment that ties Assange to the underlying hacking. The only thing in the indictment is stuff the DOJ is generously calling "evidence."

At best, these are copies of exchanges taken from chat rooms in which a user claims to be Assange, which is not likely to hold up in court.

To be sure, indictments are often a pile of helpful omissions designed to speedily initiate prosecutions. But the more the government adds to its accusations, the more glaring its omissions become. This case was already problematic -- willing to walk right up to the First Amendment and dare it to do something about it. Now it's become more farcical, with the government accusing someone of doing something it appears clear they didn't do and bolstering it with half-truths about the FBI's own involvement in malicious hacking efforts.

Filed Under: cfaa, doj, extradition, hacking, indictment, julian assange, leaksCompanies: stratfor, wikileaks

Follow this link:
New Indictment Tries To Tie Julian Assange To A Hacking He Had Nothing To Do With - Techdirt

Now, as Assange fights extradition to the United States from a courtroom in the United Kingdom, the same media organisations that worked with WikiLeaks to share stories of government misconduct remain silent about a case with an obvious negative impact on press freedom and democracy.

Find out what happened and how DiEM25 is committed to preventing this injustice against Assange, WikiLeaks, and the free press.

Slavoj iek, philosopher and DiEM25 Advisory Panel member, on Julian Assange.

WikiLeaks began in 2006 out of a radical belief in transparency. The objective of the organisation was simple: create an online platform for whistleblowers to make secret documents publicly available.

Founder Julian Assange relied on prior experience in computer technology and privacy protection to build the organisation. This included partaking in the early developments of encryption technology, as well as providing technical skills to help authorities expose an underage sex ring in his native Australia.

This belief in encryption technology and exposing injustice made WikiLeaks standout to whistleblowers. They could now share classified documents and evade detection with WikiLeaks encrypted dropbox.

WikiLeaks first big break came in April 2010 with the release of US Army files provided by intelligence officer Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning. Most striking from the release hundreds of thousands of classified files from the US Army about the war in Iraq was the collateral murder video of US soldiers fatally shooting 18 people, including two Reuters journalists.

WikiLeaks followed the Manning leaks with the Afghanistan War Logs (July 2010), the Iraq War Logs (October 2010), Cablegate (November 2010) and the Guantnamo files (April 2011).

The Cablegate Files marked the largest and most newsworthy of these releases. WikiLeaks worked with Western media organisations including New York Times, Guardian, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, and El Pais to release a quarter of a million US diplomatic cables. The information shared in these cables revealed US spying on the United Nations and other world leaders, tensions between the US and allies, and corruption in countries throughout the world documented by US diplomats.

The disclosures of 2010-2011 from WikiLeaks have been cited as a driving factor in the Arab Spring protests of 2011, ending public business done in private, and the beginning of what appeared as the golden age of whistleblowing.

Political pressure quickly grew against WikiLeaks and Assange.

The US government and financial institutions went after WikiLeaks on a multitude of fronts: shutting down donations, blocking access to the WikiLeaks website, threatening prosecution, and asking allies to open criminal cases against the organization. Specifically, its founder and spokesperson: Julian Assange.

Confronted with mounting pressure on WikiLeaks, Assange fled to Sweden, where whistleblowers and journalists enjoy more legal protection.

However, Assange was soon the subject of controversy in the country: two women accused the WikiLeaks founder of molestation and rape. A preliminary investigation was opened by Swedish prosecutors after Assange reported for questioning about the allegations. The rape allegation was soon dismissed and the arrest warrant for Assange was dropped less than a day after it was issued.

In the meantime, Assange relocated to London after his request for a work and residency permit was denied by the Swedish government. Upon hearing of an Interpol warrant for his arrest after the preliminary investigation was reopened by Swedish prosecutors, Assange turned himself over to the UK police.

After initially receiving bail, a UK court soon issued his extradition to Sweden to answer further questions about the allegations.

Fearful of a sealed indictment in Washington that would lead to his extradition to the United States by the Swedish government, on June 19 2012 Assange skipped a bail hearing in the UK and took refuge in the Embassy of Ecuador in London.

On August 16th 2012, Assange was granted political asylum by Ecuadors president Rafael Correa because of political persecution and prospect of an unfair trial in the US.

Assange announced his asylum on the now famous balcony across from Harrods in London.

While in the embassy, Assange continued to publish WikiLeaks material, including the Saudi Cables and Stratfor Leaks.

The Saudi Cables exposed the Middle Eastern kingdoms checkbook diplomacy to undermine Iran and their strong dislike for Israel. Meanwhile, the Stratfor Leaks explored how the US-based private intelligence company monitored activists, made payments to the controversial Pakistani intelligence service, and engaged in insider trading.

Though, most notable during this period was WikiLeaks involvement in securing asylum for whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In the meantime, a tug of war continued between Assange and Swedish prosecutors, (along with the US and the UK). The Assange legal team requested Swedish lawyers interview the WikiLeaks founder at the embassy in London or over video link. They declined until 2015, when lawyers from the Swedish government interviewed Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy.

The preliminary investigation was eventually dropped in 2019 after years of international pressure, including a UN panel describing Assanges asylum as arbitrary imprisonment and, by UN representative Nils Melzer as physiological torture.

WikiLeaks and Assange came under a different kind of pressure during the 2016 US election.

WikiLeaks was embraced by then-candidate Donald Trump during the heat of the presidential campaign infamously claiming he loved WikiLeaks after the release of emails from Hillary Clintons campaign chair John Podesta showing quid pro quo foreign policy, financing by US allies of terror group ISIS, and working to elevate pied piper candidates like Donald Trump to be Clintons challenger.

While US intelligence claim the Podesta emails were funneled to WikiLeaks by Russia-linked hacker Guccifer 2.0, they did not find any evident forgeries in the content of the emails.

Whatever admiration candidate Trump had for WikiLeaks was quickly lost after his entry to the White House.

Three months into the new administration, Trumps newly appointed CIA director Mike Pompeo declared WikiLeaks a hostile non-state actor. The agency worked behind the scenes with Trump donor Sheldon Adelson to spy on meetings Assange had with his lawyers in the Ecuadorian embassy.

Meanwhile, Democrat senators in the US pressured Ecuadors new president Lenn Moreno to cut ties with Assange because WikiLeaks continues to undermine democracies globally.

Soon enough, Assange was accused of violating terms of his asylum by publishing material on news events in Ecuador (as well as commenting on the Catalonia independence movement of 2017 and leaking CIA spycraft tools with the Vault 7 release).

Finally, Moreno allowed British police to enter the embassy and arrest Assange on April 11 2019, marking the first time in history a government allowed a foreign law enforcement agency to enter its sovereign territory and arrest one of its citizens.

The original US case against Assange accuses the WikiLeaks founder of conspiring with Chelsea Manning (then Bradley) in 2010 to commit intrusion of a government computer. This charge grew in May 2019 to 18 counts under the Espionage Act, which targets Assange as a publisher of government documents.

Before Trump, the Obama administration considered charging Assange with the Espionage Act a World War I based law used by the administration more than all predecessors combined but dropped their pursuit over First Amendment concerns. Specifically: if the government prosecuted WikiLeaks and Assange for revealing secrets, they would also have to prosecute US news organisations and journalists like the New York Times and Washington Post.

Such a revelation seems to add legal protection to Assange, despite the Trump administrations war on the press; a war which the WikiLeaks founder is scarcely mentioned as a casualty. Yet its been revealed the judge overseeing the case, Vanessa Baraitser, has connections to corporations exposed by WikiLeaks.

Recent developments are even more troubling for Assange, with indictment charges expanding in scope, the reliance of US prosecutors on evidence from a deemed psychopathic FBI informant who infiltrated WikiLeaks, and speculation about the fairness of the trial after the WikiLeaks founder was stripped naked and had legal documents taken from him.

To lock away a journalist for exposing secrets defines authoritarianism. Recent events have showcased the increasing deterioration of our democratic institutions. This years COVID-19 pandemic, and documented accounts of police brutality worldwide have shed light on the disregard of many democratic governments for their own citizens lives.

We need to protect people like Julian Assange now more than ever. Whistleblowers ensure the functioning of our democracies by revealing what is being done by governments in the name of citizens.

As a movement committed to the belief that transparency makes strong democracies, we stand with and will fight for Julian, WikiLeaks, and the free press.

Sign DiEM25s Dont Extradite Assange petition.

#FreeAssange

Do you want to be informed of DiEM25's actions? Sign up here

Read more:
The real war against the press: Julian Assange as public enemy number one - DiEM25

I knew command was supposed to change you, I just didnt expect it to be this much.

The pictures are two years and a lifetime of experiences apart.

Here are five lessons learned along the way:

1) Authenticity Is Powerful

Opening up about who I am as a transgender person created the space for trust. Not the kind of trust that comes from knowing the person next to you will accomplish the mission, but the kind of trust where people put their faith in you to help them through difficult times. More than once, I was told some variation of If I didnt know your story, I wouldnt be sharing this

Vulnerability as a leadership trait is a relatively new concept, particularly in the military, but it rings true for me. Through my wife, I learned I had a bit of a Captain America image for much of my career. People thought I did things the right way, but was perceived as arrogant or unapproachable. Coming out was the crack in my shield that let other people in and my empathy out.

In the years between coming out and my transition I didnt hide what could be seen as my vulnerability, but I wasnt actively broadcasting it beyond those who needed to know. However, as an outspoken advocate whod done a lot of press and looked quite different on duty than off, I was very Googleable. Everyone going into command should expect that your people will look you up. I could have avoided addressing my vulnerability, but acknowledging my challenges allowed others to see that I could be open to theirs.

Removing barriers to authenticity should increase service member retention, but I guarantee it enhances performance. Living as my authentic self improved my job performance in subtle and obvious ways. Prior to coming out, there was a filter in my brain processing every thought before it could become a word or an action. It may have been only a split-second delay that prevented me from talking about what I did on the weekend, but it was there, and it was strong. It was the same filter that LGB service members had to deal with under Dont Ask, Dont Tell when talking about their relationships. We all had a fear that the most innocent of slip-ups could cost a career for something that had nothing to do with our ability to serve. Being open meant the mental energy previously reserved for conforming, even if it was to a perceived expectation, or hiding an identity, could now be dedicated to the mission.

Following a Supreme Court ruling allowing implementation, a policy was implemented in March of 2019 stating that anyone who did not have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria within the next month would not be allowed to transition. That led to a lot of introspection; Id always fought the diagnosis because it had a condition stating you had to exhibit clinically significant distress. I hated that concept, as I was neither sick nor broken, but I had to get it if I was to be myself. In that month, I had to attend a dinner at the Bolling AFB O-Club with Generals and senior officials from other government agencies. As I put on my sport coat and looked in the mirror, I said This isnt right. Within days, after challenging discussions with my wife, I talked to my doctor about receiving a diagnosis.

My filter is now completely gone. Living as my authentic self is critically important to me, but its also made a world of difference to those around me.

2) I Opened My Eyes

When I came out as transgender I worked in the Pentagon and was often invited to meetings with senior leadership because of my position. I began to notice the composition in each room; it was heavily white and male. Almost subconsciously, I started counting women and minorities in the meetings and thought about how intimidating that may be for many of them, particularly if theyre the only one. Ive since discovered that reading the room is a fairly common tactic for women and minorities and some will even adjust their strategy based on it. It wouldnt be the last thing I noticed.

I always considered myself aware of challenges faced by minorities, to the extent that someone raised in a lily-white, upper-middle-class suburb could be, but becoming a visible member of a minority group in my late 30s opened blinders I didnt even realize were there.

I always considered myself aware of challenges faced by minorities, to the extent that someone raised in a lily-white, upper-middle-class suburb could be, but becoming a visible member of a minority group in my late 30s opened blinders I didnt even realize were there. I began to see barriers for others where I never would have imagined them before. I worked hard to educate myself, by listening to my friends and colleagues of color and by reading rather than scrolling past stories and links I might otherwise have skipped in the past. I learned how the attitude of not seeing color (or only seeing blue as has been said in the Air Force) can be perceived negatively, not the positive that so many seem to believe. I now know I dont see color is akin to saying I dont see the real you, your lived experiences, or your perspective. It shuts down sharing what we might need to hear and understand.

Most importantly, I took to heart just how much I didnt know and opened myself to learning and listening more.

3) Ability Hides in Diverse Minds

In his commencement speech to the graduates of the National Defense University on June 11, 2020 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said We all need to do better. For example, although the United States military has a higher proportion of African Americans serving in our ranks than in society at large, only 7% of our flag and general officers are African American. The Navy and Marine Corps have no African Americans serving above the 2-star level, and the Army has just one African American 4-star. [Authors note: The US Census Bureau estimates that African Americans are 13.4% of US population in 2019]

If the United States is to fight and win future wars, it will be done with brainpower. If those brains happen to be inside a transgender body we need to actively recruit and retain them. Turning away an individual who might be the innovative spark we need to revolutionize the way we fight in new domains would be disastrous. It deprives us of the future leaders that CJCS pointed out are missing. If the services dont seem like an attractive option, or worse, actively push away LGBTQ individuals, people of color, women, and other minorities through harassment, discrimination, or a mismatch between stated values and the culture of the services, we are hurting our capability and readiness.

Seeking and nurturing the abilities and strengths gained through diversity is a job for leaders. We must create and enforce a culture that promotes the dignity of every individual. At my first team meeting after taking command, I discussed my 3Ds: Diversity, Development, and Delight. I wanted everyone to know how much I valued them regardless of their background, that I would make time to help them develop, and that I was going to do my best to make sure we all enjoyed it along the way. Leaders who embrace diversity lay the foundation for a 4th D: Dividends for the nation.

4) The Pressure Is Intense

As recently as 2008, less than 1 in 12 Americans said they knew a trans person, by 2015 (just before open service was allowed in the military) it was only up to 1 in 6. Ask a trans person how many times theyve heard Oh, youre the first transgender person Ive ever met, treated, or worked with and youll probably hear More than I can count. Being the first anything someone meets is both a blessing and a curse; whatever you do, for good or ill, can be seen as a reflection of your whole minority group. Trans people are portrayed as negative stereotypes in popular culture (villains in movies) and some have formed opinions that military trans people are traitors (how they might see Chelsea Manning) or that well be hormonal disasters and will rage or weep over our gender identity when the bullets are flying. Being the first transgender person someone meets is an opportunity to confirm or destroy those stereotypes.

A year after coming out I moved to a position in Air Force International Affairs and worked for a Colonel on his final assignment. When I met him, I explained my situation and he responded that I was the first trans person hed ever met, but he expected me to take care of what I needed to do. At his retirement 10 months later, he told me that I broke his stereotype of what a trans person was simply by coming to work and doing my job every day. I shudder to think what his stereotype had been, but I was glad he gave me the opportunity to change it.

Being the first also means trans people must be educators and serve as their own best advocates. In many cases the patient must teach the doctor that they arent fragile and the Airman must teach the Commander how to navigate policy. Its not a comfortable position for people in a military culture where we expect to look up and receive wise counsel from our seniors. (Need a transition?)

Command is often described as living in a fishbowl where your every action is watched and analyzed. Add the stress of being the first or only minority in the role and its like being the ant on a sunny day and everyone around you is a kid with a magnifying glass. This describes the concept of minority stress, which distinguish(es) the excess stress to which individuals from stigmatized social categories are exposed as a result of their social, often a minority, position. This stress, particularly when it comes directly from the president tweeting that transgender people are a burden and disruption to the military and should not serve, combined with the desire to set a positive example, leads many trans people to hold themselves to an even higher standard than whats expected, which in turn reinforces the stress. Some dont make it, or choose not to face it, but surviving that pressure forges impressive character.

5) Im a Better Leader Now

Two years of command brought many challenges, but the most difficult items to deal with were the people-centric issues. Suicide, sexual harassment and retaliation, hostile work environments, inappropriate relationships, and officer misconduct are just a few of the things Ive learned far more about than I ever imagined. As an engineer, I studied root cause analysis methods that figure out exactly why and how problems occur, but its much harder to pull the why out of a person than the how out of a machine. However, everything I learned from my experience as a trans person made me a better listener, grew my empathy, and pushed me to evaluate the situation beneath the surface. For example, my organization held discussions on race and racism less than a week after George Floyd was killed, well before most of the force as guidance to do so started to trickle down from senior leaders. Our discussion led to people of color sharing revelatory information which enabled me to help them; something that might not have happened without previously building trust through the skills I learned.

This is not to say I didnt make mistakes, I made a lot of them! But without the lessons of being trans, I might have made more of them and I might not even have made it to a command position. A week after I came out as transgender, my organization at the Pentagon got a new two-star general. On his second day, I talked to him for an hour and a half about transgender service issues. I had never spent more than 5-10 minutes alone with a general and they were miserable career counseling experiences. This was different; he listened more than he talked. As a pilot, he related his experiences from the Dont Ask, Dont Tell era where everyone in the squadron knew who was gay, but it didnt matter. What mattered was that the person flying on your wing knew the mission and was capable of executing it.

A week later I got a call from him asking if I wanted to be his executive officer. It was a chance to see the Air Force from a different perspective and to learn from someone I deeply respected. I was probably the first person in the Armed Forces to be offered a job because I was transgender instead of being fired for it. Not only did I learn so much, but as a Major being considered for promotion and command, having a general officer as my direct supervisor gave me an advantage I wouldnt have had otherwise.

Being trans also gave me an opportunity to develop my leadership skills outside of my duty, but still within the military community. In 2014 I joined SPART*A, an organization that educates and advocates on behalf of trans service members while also providing peer support. Within SPART*A I got to see the struggles trans service members faced across the military and how they were often amplified if the person wasnt white or an officer. In almost every assignment Ive been in prior to command, Id been near the bottom of the org chart and had directly supervised only one person for one year, but within SPART*A I was suddenly the senior Air Force officer and building leadership skills that ensured we took care of people and accomplished our mission.

As I look back at command, I see things I wish I had done differently, some of which still keep me up at night, but I also see success and the shared joy that comes with a job well done. I learned that it wasnt my own success that drove me, it was watching my folks win two Team of the Year awards, getting others promoted, and hearing thank you for listening. Without the skills I learned along the way, I dont know if that would have been possible or if I could have supported others in the way Ive been supported.

Ultimately, my story isnt about what we accomplished. Its about grabbing an opportunity and turning what could have been a liability into professional strengths. Today, Im grateful I admitted that the person wearing the sports coat in my mirror could be better, that the mirror now reflects the real me, and that I was able to make the journey with my Air Force family.

Lt. Col. Bree B. Fram is on her way to the Naval War College in Newport, RI. She recently completed a command assignment as Materiel Leader, Cyberspace Integration and Transition at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome New York.

Go here to read the rest:
A Command Transition - Inkstick

Chelsea Manning, original name Bradley Edward Manning, (born December 17, 1987, Crescent, Oklahoma, U.S.), U.S. Army intelligence analyst who provided the Web site WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of classified documents in what was believed to be the largest unauthorized release of state secrets in U.S. history.

Britannica Quiz

Famous American Faces: Fact or Fiction?

There was a real person called Johnny Appleseed.

Manning was a precocious child, demonstrating an aptitude for computers and excelling in academics. Manning was raised as a boy, and, as a young teenager, he told his mother and close friends that he was gay. Mannings parents divorced in 2000. As relations soured with Mannings father, the teen and his mother moved to Wales. In 2005 Manning returned to the United States to live with Mannings father in Oklahoma City and worked at a software company. Manning displayed talent as a programmer but also behaviour that was becoming increasingly detached, and coworkers found it difficult to communicate with Manning. Manning was eventually fired from the job and kicked out of Mannings fathers home. Manning drifted across the country, settling with a relative in Maryland before joining the army in 2007.

Manning finished basic training in April 2008 and then attended intelligence school at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Manning received a top-secret security clearance and, upon graduating from the course in August 2008, was assigned to the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum in New York. Although aware of the constraints of the militarys Dont Ask, Dont Tell (DADT) policy, Manning was open about sexuality, discussing DADT with local media and posting about a relationship on Facebook. Manning deployed to Iraq in October 2009 and was stationed at a forward operating base east of Baghdad and was privy to a wealth of top-secret documents. It was alleged that the following month Manning contacted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with the intention of releasing classified information to the public.

In February 2010 WikiLeaks posted a classified diplomatic cable that had been dispatched by the U.S. embassy in Reykjavk, Iceland. It marked the beginning of a flood of classified documents, including the April 2010 release of a video that showed a U.S. helicopter crew firing on a group of people that included two Reuters employees. About that time, Mannings job performance became erratic, and Manning was demoted pending an early discharge. Manning contacted former hacker Adrian Lamo in May 2010, and the two began an online correspondence. Manning told Lamo of having downloaded hundreds of thousands of documents from secure government computers and forwarding them to WikiLeaks. Within days Lamo notified the army, and Manning was arrested later that month. Manning was confined pending trial by court-martial and ultimately was charged with more than two dozen offenses, including the capital offense of aiding the enemy.

Beginning in July 2010, Manning was held for nine months at a U.S. Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. During that time, Manning was subjected to treatment that was ruled to be excessively harsh, and Manning was awarded a small sentence reduction as compensation. After more than 1,000 days of pretrial incarceration, in February 2013 Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of the lesser counts that were pending. Although those charges carried a potential maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, military prosecutors chose to continue with the court-martial and pursue the additional charges against Manning. In July 2013 Manning was found not guilty of the most serious of those offensesaiding the enemybut was convicted of numerous other counts, including espionage and theft. The following month Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The day after the sentence was announced, Manning said in a statement that I am a female and asked to be referred to as Chelsea Manning. While imprisoned, Manning sought treatment for gender dysphoria, but the Department of Defense refused the request, and in 2014 the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on her behalf. In 2016 Manning staged a hunger strike, and, after 10 days, army officials agreed to allow her to pursue treatment, including gender reassignment surgery. In January 2017 U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, as one of his final acts in office, commuted the bulk of Mannings remaining sentence, and she was released from prison on May 17, 2017. In January 2018 Manning announced that she was seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Maryland. However, she lost in the primary.

In February 2019 Manning publicly disclosed that she had received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury. Although granted immunity, she refused to answer questions about WikiLeaks, and in March she was jailed for contempt of court. Manning was released upon the expiration of the grand jurys term in May 2019, but she was served with another subpoena while she was still in custody. This raised the possibility of a second contempt finding, and Manning was, in fact, returned to jail just a week later. She remained incarcerated until March 2020, when Mannings attorneys reported that she had attempted suicide. Manning was transferred to a hospital, and a judge ruled that she was no longer required to testify.

Read this article:
Chelsea Manning | Facts, Biography, & WikiLeaks | Britannica

Chelsea Manning is back in the Big Apple sharing the first photo of herself since she attempted suicide in jail.

Hi all been staying safe inside a lot, Manning wrote on Twitter, flashing a peace sign alongside a friend in the street in Brooklyn as they say they were delivering personal protective gear to some of those most in need.

It was the first time the Army intelligence officer-turned-leaker had been seen since she tried to kill herself in Virginias Alexandria Detention Center last month, where she was being held for refusing to testify to a grand jury about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The next day, a federal district judge ordered her released, NPR noted at the time.

Manning, 32, was wearing a sky blue top, mask and gloves as she posed for her Brooklyn photo late Tuesday afternoon.

Doing what i can to help collect & distribute PPE to some of those most in need, she wrote. Thankful for all your wonderful love and support! we will get through this together, she said, with a string of emojis, including a heart, a rainbow and a masked face.

She was photographed with Janus Rose, a senior editor at Motherboard and a Post-Apocalyptic Delivery Dyke, according to Roses Twitter profile.

THANK YOU @xychelsea for donating PPE to mutual aid volunteers in brooklyn!! its pretty bleak out there and im so relieved to see her safe and out of jail, Rose wrote.

Fun fact: i teased @xychelsea relentlessly when she bought boxes of masks and nitrile gloves in 2017 i now humbly rescind my remarks and recognize our Quarantine Prepper Queen, Rose added.

Manning previously spent seven years in military prison for leaking thousands of sensitive and classified documents to WikiLeaks.

President Barack Obama commuted the remainder of her 35-year sentence just days before handing the White House over to President Trump.

Read the original here:
Chelsea Manning out of jail, back in NYC after suicide attempt

The coronavirus pandemic has shown the healthcare industry that it needs to decide whether its playing basketball or soccer, journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell said.

Gladwell, the opening keynote speaker at Americas Health Insurance Plans annual Institute & Expo, said the two sports exemplify the differences in thinking when one tackles problems using a strong link approach versus a weak link approach.

In basketball, he said, the team is as strong as its strongest, most high-profile players. In soccer, by contrast, the team is only as strong as its weakest players.

Fierce Innovation Awards : Healthcare Edition 2020

Submit your entry to demonstrate innovative solutions that have the greatest potential to save money, engage patients, or revolutionize the industry.

For healthcare organizations, that means making investments in the weakest linkssuch as harried clinicians who may need more trainingandlow-income communities that cannot affordor accesscoverageratherthanthe stronger links, like building out teaching hospitals and physician specializations.

In healthcare, this is a chance for us to turn the ship around and say we canbenefitfar more from making health insurance moreplentifuland more affordable, Gladwell said.

RELATED:CDC releases new safety advice saying the pandemic is not over as states reopen

Gladwell emphasized that healthcare is far from the only industry to largely followa strong link approach to improvement. In higher education, for example, much of the investment and funding goes to Ivy Leagueinstitutionsandotherwealthy, top-performing universities.

Meanwhile, the education system could see significant benefits if it invested in the weak links like community colleges and bringing down tuition, Gladwell said.

Its a similar story in national securityand that strong link thinking led to two of the largest security breaches in American history, Gladwell said. Both Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning were relatively low-ranking people within the security apparatus, but they were able toaccess critical files and release them.

I wouldarguethat strong linkparadigm has dominated every part of American society, Gladwell said. We have really put our chips down on the 'strong link' paradigm.

RELATED:Trump administration pushes for healthcarefacilitiesto reopen

How could a weak link approach have impacted the response to the COVID-19 pandemic? Gladwell argues that, for instance, widespread testing is hampered by a lack of supplies like nasal swabs. Investment in the supply chain could have mitigated that challenge, he said.

The virus also disproportionately impacts people with certain conditions, notably diabetes. A broader focus on preventing and treating obesity could have had a large impact on how the pandemic played out, he said.

With this particular pandemic, I think were having a wake-up call, Gladwell said.

Originally posted here:
Gladwell: COVID-19 should push healthcare to consider its 'weak links' - FierceHealthcare

WASHINGTON The 2016 theft of secret C.I.A. hacking tools by an agency officer, one of the largest breaches in agency history, was partly because of failures to install safeguards and officials who ignored the lessons of other government agencies that saw large breaches when employees stole secrets, according to an internal C.I.A. report released on Tuesday.

The C.I.A. fostered an innovative culture within its hacking team, which took great risks to create untraceable tools to steal secrets from foreign governments. But that team and its overseers were focused on building cutting-edge cyberweapons and spent too little energy protecting those tools, failing to put in place even common security standards like basic monitoring of who had access to its information, the report said.

The agency should have known better, the report concluded, given that the theft came years after highly public disclosures by the former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who stole data from the Pentagon and State Department, and the former contractor Edward Snowden, who took information from the National Security Agency. Both helped expose those secrets.

In March 2017, WikiLeaks published some of the C.I.A.s most valuable hacking tools, which it called Vault 7. The WikiLeaks disclosure revealed some of the ways that the C.I.A. could break into foreign computer networks or activate the camera or microphone on electronic devices to eavesdrop on adversaries.

In the wake of that breach, Mike Pompeo, then the C.I.A. director, ordered a secret review of the leak and why the agency had not detected it. The report said that because of a lack of safeguards or activity monitoring, the agency could not determine the precise scope of the loss.

The C.I.A.s WikiLeaks task force, not the agencys independent inspector general, compiled the report. The task force was assembled to examine the theft of the hacking tools and develop procedures to prevent future leaks.

The report had been partially declassified for the trial this year of Joshua Schulte, a former C.I.A. officer accused of giving the information to WikiLeaks. During the trial, defense lawyers read excerpts from the report but were not allowed to release even the redacted pages. Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made the report public on Tuesday, and The Washington Post first reported a fuller version of its findings.

The C.I.A. declined to comment directly on the report. Timothy L. Barrett, the agency spokesman, said the C.I.A. was working to incorporate best-in-class technologies to keep ahead of and defend against ever-evolving threats.

An agency employee was to blame for the theft of the data, the report said, without naming Mr. Schulte in the portions released publicly. Mr. Schultes trial ended with the jury divided on whether to convict him of the most serious crimes he was charged with, including illegal gathering and transmission of defense information. Mr. Schulte was convicted of contempt of court and making false statements to the F.B.I.

The government has said it intends to retry Mr. Schulte.

The report said the theft was the greatest data loss in the agencys history. As much as 34 terabytes of information up to 2.2 billion pages were stolen, revealing the C.I.A.s secret hacking methods.

Security on the elite hacking team was lax. Team members shared administrator passwords, and blocks on removable media, like thumb drives or writable discs, were ineffective. Those vulnerabilities made it easier for an insider to steal the C.I.A.s data.

The loss to the agency was enormous. When WikiLeaks released the information, foreign governments were able to quickly fix vulnerabilities, kicking the C.I.A. out of their networks and cutting off its ability to listen surreptitiously to some devices.

But it is difficult to assess the precise loss to the C.I.A.s hacking team. The report did say that the agency had moderate confidence that WikiLeaks did not get all of its hacking tools. Some were better protected on a so-called Gold folder.

The report was heavily redacted and had at least 30 missing pages. Mr. Schultes defense had to fight the government to see even a portion of the report and was not allowed to release the document during the trial, said Sabrina Shroff, his lawyer. Ultimately, she said, she saw only about a quarter of the report.

From the beginning of this case, the government sought to hide this report, she said. We had to litigate and claw our way to get an extra word made available to the defense. To this day, I have not seen the entirety of the report.

Insider threats are almost impossible to eliminate. But security measures can make it more difficult for disgruntled employees to steal classified information. By 2017, the threat of WikiLeaks should have been plain to anyone in an intelligence agency, the report said.

For nearly a decade WikiLeaks has exploited the digital realm to profoundly reshape opportunities for individuals sworn to protect our nations secrets to leak classified or sensitive information, the report said.

The report outlined a system where different arms of the agency developed their own information technology capabilities and systems of policing themselves. That culture of shadow I.T. created unacceptable risk for the C.I.A.

The hacking teams tools were on computer systems that lacked the ability to audit the information stored on them. The C.I.A., according to the report, did not learn about the loss until a year after it occurred, when WikiLeaks announced in March 2017 that it had the Vault 7 data.

In a letter to John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, Mr. Wyden said the report suggested that Congresss decision to exempt intelligence agencies from federal cybersecurity requirements was a mistake.

Mr. Wyden said that vulnerabilities remained within the intelligence communitys information technology.

The lax cybersecurity practices documented in the C.I.A.s WikiLeaks task force report do not appear limited to just one part of the intelligence community, Mr. Wyden wrote.

David E. Sanger contributed reporting.

View original post here:
C.I.A. Failed to Defend Against Theft of Secrets by Insider, Report Says - The New York Times

At the centre of the sordid tale of Jeffrey Epstein lies a single, glaring truth: Epstein could never have done the unspeakable things he did if he hadnt existed in a world that allowed him to amass unlimited wealth.

Thats not the argument of Alana Goodman and Daniel HalpersA Convenient Death: The Mysterious Demise of Jeffrey Epstein, part of a spate of new reporting on Epsteins life, crimes, and outlandish death. As reporters for the right-wingWashington Examinerand various conservative media before that, its unlikely that the authors were aiming to write a parable about the perils of concentrated wealth in the hands of amoral financiers and the need to redistribute it.

Rather, Goodman and Halper have produced a well-reported, down-the-line book on the Epstein saga, a story that, by its very nature, makes that case for them. The story of Epstein and his crimes is impossible to untangle from the matter of wealth and power: who has it, who doesnt, what theyll do to get it, and the terrible things they can do once they have it.

A Convenient Death: The Mysterious Demise of Jeffrey EpsteinAlana Goodman and Daniel HalperBarnes & Noble

Epstein himself was New Money, his drive for riches fuelled, the authors report, by bitter memories of a dreary upbringing in an immigrant family firmly on the lower end of the middle class.

As they and other recent Epstein-centric media argue, these working-class roots drove Epstein to craft a lifestyle of gleaming luxury for himself, and made his eventual imprisonment in a rat-and-roach-infested Manhattan jail particularly traumatic.

As we now know all too well, Epstein used his charm, charisma, and lack of ethical scruples to springboard himself out of the low-income trap having dropped out of college and found himself working as a roofer and into a teaching position at a preppy high school he wasnt remotely qualified for, one he used as another stepping stone into the world of the elite. After that, it was only a few rungs more before Epstein had his hands on the near-limitless fountain of cash he soon used to construct the sexual pyramid scheme that structured his days, waving around the money he had always craved to lure young girls who had none of it.

Money and wealth explain virtually every facet of Epsteins crimes. How did he get away with these schemes for years under the noses of the Palm Beach Police Department, eventually escaping with barely a slap on the wrist? It may have helped that he had given the department and the city government tens of thousands of dollars, and hired a top prosecutors husband as his attorney.

How did he avoid even media scrutiny for as long he did? Epstein paid for glowing coverage that oversold his philanthropy, and dangled job offers in front of journalists. The evisceration of the now-defunct muckraking websiteGawkerat the hands of billionaire Peter Thiel made it even harder to report on him, argues one reporter, whose salacious, on-the-record piece about Epstein, his alleged co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, and an unnamed billionaire, died at the hands of legal threats by the latter.

Also read: Disgraced US Financier Jeffrey Epstein Dies by Suicide: Media Reports

Money and wealth also explain Epsteins infamous network of relationships. We already know how the prospect of loose millions dropping from Epsteins pockets drew scientists and intellectuals to his amateur salons (What does that got to do with pussy!? were among Epsteins contributions to these intellectual soires).

And we also know the role money played in Epsteins friendship with Prince Andrew, who begged the pedophile financier to help bail out his debt-ridden ex-wife. So, too, does it explain his connection to Bill Clinton, who had privately made known his intent to spend roughly half my time making money after leaving the presidency, and whose Global Initiative at the Clinton Foundation, the authors report, may have gotten its seed funding from Epstein.

In fact, its the reporting on Clintons Epstein-related misadventures that may well draw the most interest in the book (andso far already has). Goodman and Halper tease out new details about the two mens relationship, demystifying it in a way that is both damning and exonerating for the former president.

On the one hand, multiple sources suggest Clinton wasnt having underage sex around Epstein. On the other, the reason hewashanging around the pedophile is little better for a man who continues to be one of the Democratic Partys leading lights: he was having an affair with Maxwell, the woman who procured and abused girls with Epstein. That this revelation might actually somewhatimprovehis public standing after years of speculation speaks to the legendarily bad judgment and greed of the former president.

Little St. James Island, one of the properties of financier Jeffrey Epstein, near Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. Photo: Reuters/Marco Bello

Readers of the book will find plenty more details about the two mens friendship that reflect poorly on the former president, including the possibility, supported by circumstantial evidence, that it was his former national security advisor who tipped Epstein off to an impending police raid in 2005, allowing him to spirit away his computers and other electronics off the property before the authorities came knocking.

Suffice it to say, Goodman and Halper, together with Netflixsnew Epstein documentary, give a fairly definitive debunking to Clintonsoverwrought denialsinsisting not just that he didnt know about Epsteins crimes, but that he barely knew the man at all honest! Nonetheless, just as we saw with Russiagatesembarrassing flopin 2019, these expositions serve as a useful reminder that reality is often at least a degree or two more banal than the sometimes-wild conclusions that scraps of evidence seem to point to.

This is also a worthwhile lesson when it comes to the mystery at the centre of the book and, in retrospect, Epsteins life: why and how he died. Anyone looking for a definitive answer to whether Epstein was killed by his own hand or someone elses wont find it here indeed, its unlikely theyll find it anywhere. But Goodman and Halper comprehensively lay out the facts of Epsteins incarceration and death, devoting ample time to multiple theories.

Theres more than enough reason to believe Epstein may have marshalled his considerable resources to escape justice by killing himself, from his documented fear and unhappiness at the prospect of a life in squalid captivity, to changing his will in the eleventh hour, and the fact that he had already finagled some special privileges while in prison. Theres even evidence that Epstein may have viewed attempting suicide as a gambit to get transferred out of the facility. Still, too much exists to swallow the official story, from the series of mistakes and coincidences that gave Epstein the breathing room to die with no witnesses or surveillance footage, to the unusual to say the least autopsy results and treatment of the crime scene, to Epsteins determination to fight the case, and various other inconsistencies.

One thing seems clear: whether it was negligence or foul play, keeping Epstein alive was far from a priority for many powerful people, given not just what he knew, but what was almost certainly a sprawling blackmail operation he was running. If the ruling class had wanted him alive, Epstein probably would still be here today.

Also read: US Financier Jeffrey Epstein Charged With Sex Trafficking of Minor Girls

Just look at how Chelsea Manning, who committed a crime the US power eliteactuallycared about publicly revealing Americanwar crimes wasplaced on round-the-clock suicide watchfrom almost the moment she was arrested, locked for twenty-three-and-a-half hours a day in a tiny concrete hole with only a mirror, a lamp, and anti-suicide smock, stripped of all of her clothes, even her underwear and flip-flops, lest they be used in exactly the way Epstein allegedly used his clothing and bedding to off himself. Yes, they wanted her to suffer, but they also wanted to see her convicted in court, and they took no chances. Epstein didnt get the same treatment because at the end of the day, the people who run the world didnt care if or perhaps even prayed that he wouldnt make it that far.

There is only one definitive conclusion the authors come to: We dont need to know what happened to know weve probably been lied to. With Epstein gone, its now with his soul mate and alleged co-conspirator Maxwell that any further answers lie, though dont hold your breath: if she is ever taken into custody, its not hard to imagine history repeating itself.

Without answers, there will be no end to speculation about the truth of Epsteins life and death, and the true scale, depth, and nature of the criminal operation he was running. Whatever scenario you conjure, however outlandish, banal, or sinister it might be, never forget it could only be possible thanks to the economic and political system that Epstein and all of us were born into, but never asked for.

Branko Marcetic is a Jacobin staff writer and the author of Yesterdays Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

This article was published on Jacobin. Read the original here.

Read more from the original source:
Jeffrey Epstein Was the Monster Capitalism Made - The Wire

A FORMER Ireland cricket star has told how he swapped his bat and ball for a life of music and activism.

Roger Whelan, 39, spent six years in the national squad and in 2007 he famously bowled out legendary Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar, who is widely recognised as the greatest batsman of all time.

2

2

In all, Whelan won three full caps and his three international wickets also included South African star AB De Villiers and Englands Ravi Bopara.

But the singer-songwriter who performs as The RoJ LiGht told how he was left burnt out by the sport and eventually decided to leave in 2007 to pursue music.

He said of his time in green: I was in the squad for six years and went on multiple training camps and tours overseas. I really enjoyed the experience and made life-long friends in the process.

If Im being honest I burnt myself out completely. For three or four years towards the end I took it all very seriously, training every day, no drinking, nights out etc.

As a fast bowler I felt like I needed to be in top physical shape all the time and it took a toll on the body.

I wanted a break and music was obviously my real passion.

Pretty soon after I went to America to play gigs and dove into recording my first album Justice For Believers.

Much of Rogers music is inspired by his work as an activist. He was one of the leaders of the campaign to free US army whistle-blower Chelsea Manning.

And he told how his activism began around the same time he left cricket.

He said: Funnily enough just after I retired from cricket as it happened, I met an activist musician brother of mine Paul OToole in Waltons Music who really fired up my already-growing interest in politics and the injustice in the world.

He was heavily involved in the Irish anti-war movement during the second Iraq war and protests down in the US army base at Shannon airport.

Through him I came across a Peace and Justice organisation called Afri, based in Dublin.

They opened up a whole world for me and I started working part-time for them as their filmmaker and resident musician and I havent looked back since. Roger has now released his second album, a collection of 15 indie rock songs which are inspired by social issues such as homelessness and direct provision.

He said: I feel there arent enough artists speaking out against the established powers and giving a voice to the working class, the oppressed and those in need.

In this over-globalised and corporatised world, theres a very real danger we lose whats really important to all of us. The average everyday person is what makes this world go around in every sense.

And whats important to us is love, connection, family, friends and community.

I believe a small gesture of kindness can change a persons life in a very profound and positive way and thats what I base my philosophy on.

With all live gig plans now on hold, The RoJ LiGht has been focused online and recently shared the stage with Colm Mac Con Iomaire and others as part of Afris virtual famine walk event.

Latest

'BEEN A RIDE'Conor McGregor RETIRES from UFC at 31 as MMA legend makes emotional goodbye

NOT SO KEANEKeane snubs Scholes, Giggs, Rooney, Ferdinand & Neville in his best Man Utd XI

OLD NEWSJustin Gaethje mocks Conor McGregor's retirement saying he's 'on another bender'

NO QUALMSUFC chief White launches X-rated rant after McGregor announces shock retirement

Video

OUTSTANDINGWatch Sean O'Malley destroy Wineland with 'best walkaway KO EVER' at UFC 250

Revealed

TROUBLE AND WIFETyson stormed into Trump's office and raged 'are you f******g my wife?'

He is doing his best to see the positives of the pandemic as he releases his virtual album.

The ex-cricketer said: Im an optimist and its important to look for the positives in any situation so although this pandemic has been heartbreaking and very difficult for most people and businesses, its also a long-overdue welcome break for our planet.

Hopefully people have felt a deeper connection with nature during this time.

The RoJ LiGhts album Sacred Moods is out now on all digital platforms.

Go here to read the rest:
Former Ireland cricket star Roger Whelan happy to swap ball and bat for music career and activism - The Irish Sun