Category Archives: Chelsea Manning

Snowden Congratulates Chelsea Manning

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The former NSA contractor warns of over-classification while speaking at an awards ceremony for the jailed WikiLeaks source

NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden in a still image taken from video during an interview by the Guardian in his hotel room in Hong Kong on June 6, 2013

Edward Snowden, whose leaks of government secrets have sparked an ongoing public debate about state surveillance in the U.S., delivered an address to the Oxford Union Wednesday congratulating Chelsea Manning on winning the Sam Adams Award for Integrity and Intelligence.

Chelsea Manning is the former U.S. Army private currently serving a 35-year prison sentence in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth for turning nearly a million classified government records over to WikiLeaks in what may have been the largest disclosure of state secrets in American history.

Im going to comment general on an issue that she raised to public prominence, thats very important but less well acknowledged, said Snowden, himself a former recipient of the award. That issue is over-classification.

Snowden used the occasion to warn of what he described as a government growing so secretive as to imperil American democracy.

In the last year the White House told us that 95 million records have been created classified and withheld from the public in the year 2012. Thats more than any other year on record and shows a trend where the government is withholding more secrets than ever, he said. Snowden called for people to push governments around the world toward greater openness.

Its this self correcting, self determining form of unapologetically American government in which Chelsea Manning so valuably participated, he said.

See his full comments below.

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Snowden Congratulates Chelsea Manning

BRADLEY MANNING versus CHELSEA MANNING! | shootthescribe

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English: Slogan for the support of the persecuted American ex-soldier who is claimed to have leaked secret documents to WikiLeaks Deutsch: Slogan fr die Untersttzung und Freilassung von Bradley Manning, der beschuldigt wird, geheime Dokumente an WikiLeaks weitergegeben zu haben (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

UNITED STATESsoldier, 25-year-oldBradley Manning who has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks considers himself a woman and wishes to be called CHELSEA! Well, this admission was so unexpected that I laughed so hard, I nearly pissed myself! I had to remind myself the man/woman committed TREASON!I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible, said Miss Manning. And I wish to be referred to as Chelsea. Well, I think a great big F**KING HELL is appropriate, dont you? So, is a struggle with gender identity mitigation enough for treasonwell thats for the lawyers, politicians and psychiatrists to work out.

Manning is expected to serve his sentence at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Will he in due course be moved to the womens sectionyour guess is as good as mine. Apparently Manning could be out in as little as seven years, whereupon she might consider a career as a lap dancer!

Regarding Mannings revelations about the American administrations supposed misdeeds during the Iraq Warso what? War IShell, and it never has been conducted according to the Marquis of Queensbury Rules. World War One trench warfare was nothing more than a slaughterhouse! Vietnam atrocities on both sides are too numerous to mention and make for dire reading anyway. The Iran/Iraq war that raged for ten years was supported militarily by anyone and everyone, and what of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan? War is hell, and for that reason it shouldnt be embarked on so frequentlyyet it is. It seems to me the world is a battlefield!

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BRADLEY MANNING versus CHELSEA MANNING! | shootthescribe

Assange story: Media watchdog dismisses complaint against Four Corners

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Feb. 14, 2014, 7:21 p.m.

Australia's broadcast media watchdog has dismissed complains that an ABC Four Corners report about WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was inaccurate and biased.

Australia's broadcast media watchdog has dismissed complains that an ABC Four Corners report about WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange was inaccurate and biased.

A lengthy investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority has found that the Four Corners program Sex, Lies, and Julian Assange, broadcast in July 2012, did not breach the ABC's Code of Practice.

The ABC report by veteran investigative journalist Andrew Fowler examined allegations of sexual assault and rape made by two Swedish women against Mr Assange in August 2010 and subsequent criminal investigations and extradition proceedings by Swedish prosecutors.

The program also discussed the possibility that Mr Assange could be extradited to the US to face charges related to the leaking of thousands of classified US diplomatic and military documents by US Army private Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning.

Two complainants asserted that Four Corners presented inaccurate information, omitted relevant information and was biased in favour of Mr Assange.

One of the complainants claimed that the entire report was skewed very heavily towards presenting only Julian Assange's perspective while ignoring the legitimacy of the Swedish case or the perspective of the two Swedish women who made the allegations.

The ABC submitted that the program included a broad range of principal relevant perspectives, none of which were unduly favoured over any other. It is important to understand that impartiality does not require that every perspective requires equal time, nor that every facet of every argument is presented. After a 17-month investigation, the ACMA concluded that Four Corners presented factual material and opinions accurately.

ACMA observed that the ABC was entitled to present and explore Mr Assange's perspective, as long as the material has been presented accurately, doesn't convey a prejudgment and does not unduly favour one perspective over another.

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Assange story: Media watchdog dismisses complaint against Four Corners

Pirates jointly nominate Manning and Snowden for Nobel …

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Representatives in the EU parliament from the Pirate Party of Sweden along with MPs from the Pirate Party of Iceland have come together to nominate whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize. Snowden has already been nominated for the prize this year by two Norwegian politicians, while Manning received several nominations last year. This year's joint nomination gives the Nobel Prize panel the opportunity to recognize and encourage the contributions of whistleblowers everywhere, while governments are increasingly trying to criminalize their noble efforts.

Chelsea Manning is widely credited with jump-starting the Arab Spring revolutions across the Middle-East, most notably in Tunisia and Egypt. Her efforts were rewarded with 35 years imprisonment while everyone from the Obama administration to Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush attempt to co-opt the credit for her bravery. Manning was demonized while the results of her whistleblowing were praised.

Edward Snowden is still a free man living under temporary asylum in Russia, but he is wanted in the U.S. to face charges of espionage and theft of government property. This alleged espionage, preferably referred to as whistleblowing, alerted Congress and President Obama to unconstitutional acts by the NSA that even they were unaware of. Because the acts against the people revealed by Snowden are indefensible, the talking heads have been forced to give lip service to the concerns of government overreach. At the same time they try to demonize the messenger while taking the credit for surveillance reform, not an end to unconstitutional surveillance, merely reform. They don't want it to end, they just want people to stop talking about it.

As we can see, today's world requires much more vigilance on the part of the people to remain free. Criminalizing the behavior of whistleblowers discourages future whistleblowers, which is precisely what is intended. A Nobel Peace Prize jointly awarded to both Manning and Snowden, however, would make the U.S. targeting of whistleblowers harder to justify. It would make it more difficult to claim they harmed national security when the same actions are recognized as bringing more peace and stability to the world as a whole. It is, therefore, the duty of the Nobel Prize committee panel, in its effort to promote peace, to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Snowden, Manning, and whistleblowers everywhere. Otherwise, Snowden might just be the last.

Exposing criminals is never a crime.

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Pirates jointly nominate Manning and Snowden for Nobel ...

UK spy agency launched cyber attack on hacktivist group Anonymous

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Washington, Feb. 06 : UK spy agency, the GCHQ, allegedly launched cyber attack on hacktivist group Anonymous, documents revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden have revealed.

The documents state that GCHQ's division, the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), carried out the alleged operations.

According to The Verge, JTRIG launched a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against the internet relay chat (IRC) rooms used by members of Anonymous, as part of the operation dubbed 'Rolling Thunder'.

It was revealed that the DDoS attack was launched following similar attack by Anonymous in 2011 on PayPal, major credit card companies, and websites of the FBI, CIA, and GCHQ as part of its 'Operation Payback,' staged in protest against the prosecution of Chelsea Manning.

The documents include a presentation titled "Pushing the Boundaries and Action Against Hacktivism" that lists Anonymous, LulzSec, and the Syrian Electronic Army as major hacktivist groups.

Meanwhile, author of the forthcoming book on Anonymous, Gabriella Coleman said that the GCHQ went too far, as its operation amounted to a crackdown on civil disobedience rather than suspected terrorists, implicating a handful of criminals at the expense of thousands.

Former head of the US National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, echoed similar views as he said that groups shouldn't be targeted for their political beliefs, but he didn't think it should negate the government's ability to identify cybercriminals online, the report added.

--ANI (Posted on 06-02-2014)

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UK spy agency launched cyber attack on hacktivist group Anonymous

Chelsea Manning and the Law – Outside The Beltway

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Bradley Mannings announcement that she wishes to be addressed as Chelsea Manning and begin living life as a woman poses some interesting legal questions.

Tom Vanden Brook and Jim Michaels, reporting for USA Today (Manning Faces Legal Minefield) provide some background:

Legal, medical and mental health professionals, even the Veterans Affairs Department, recognize that transgender men and women can qualify for medical treatment. The VA wont pay for veterans to have sexual reassignment surgery but it will pay for hormone treatment and counseling for those who qualify.

Its unknown how many transgender troops are serving. From 2001 to 2011, there were 3,177 veterans diagnosed with gender identity disorder, according to the VA. The number is increasing annually, it says. About one in 11,000 male babies and one in 30,000 female babies are born with gender identity disorder, according to the Veterans Health Administration.

The Pentagon, meantime, refuses to accept transgender troops or offer them treatment. Gay and lesbian troops may now serve openly, but transgender soldiers get discharged. And the Army says it will not treat Manning for transgender issues during the privates sentence at the Armys Fort Leavenworth prison a male-only facility.

Activists and lawyers say the Pentagon is fighting a rear-guard action that it cant win. It cant deny a prisoner legitimate, recognized therapy, they say. If Manning receives a diagnosis that he needs gender treatment, hell be entitled to therapy in prison, says Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Its really clear-cut, Keisling said. If a person gets diabetes, you treat the diabetes, she said. If you break a leg, that gets treated. If you have schizophrenia, that gets treated. It doesnt matter if it is a mental or physical health problem.

Denying therapy or surgery is the initial reaction most prisons have had. Its regularly been rejected by courts because the courts say the Constitution requires prisoners be given adequate care, said Neal Minahan, a Boston attorney who has worked on similar cases.

You cant just have a blanket ban on a medical procedure without some doctor involvement, he said.

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Chelsea Manning and the Law - Outside The Beltway

What not to say to a transgender person

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Transgender identity has been making headlines recently, from Pvt. Chelsea Manning to Katie Couric's gaffe. CNN anchor Piers Morgan has now generated controversy with his questions during a chat with author and trans activist Janet Mock. Mock will return to Piers Morgan Live tonight at 9 pm ET on CNN. This piece was originally published January 15, and has been updated.

(CNN) -- Transgender women, it seems, are all the rage.

Or more accurately, a great deal of transgender women seem to be popping up in mainstream media, their lives (and their lives as they lived them in the past) offered up for both audiences and journalists to pick through and scrutinizeand yes, sometimes marvel over.

In some cases, there has been a gratuitous outing, like in Grantland's story about the inventor of a "Magical Putter".

In others, there have been some ruffled feathers, as the mainstream world bumps up against the fact that transgender people are not only among us, but their lives are not so neatly summed up as having been "born into wrong bodies."

Transgender celebrities

Transgender celebrities

Transgender celebrities

Transgender celebrities

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What not to say to a transgender person