Chelsea Manning – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chelsea Manning In April 2012 when known as PFCBradleyManning Born Bradley Edward Manning (1987-12-17) December 17, 1987 (age26) Crescent, Oklahoma, U.S. Knownfor Release of classified U.S. government documents to Wikileaks

Criminal charge

Criminal penalty

Chelsea Elizabeth Manning[4] (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier who was convicted in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after releasing the largest set of classified documents ever leaked to the public. Manning was sentenced in August 2013 to 35 years confinement with the possibility of parole in eight years, and to be dishonorably discharged from the Army.[2] Manning is a trans woman and in a statement the day after sentencing said she had felt female since childhood, wanted to be known as Chelsea, and desired to begin hormone replacement therapy.[4] From early life through much of Army life, Manning was known as Bradley, and was diagnosed with gender identity disorder while in the Army.[5]

Assigned in 2009 to an Army unit in Iraq as an intelligence analyst, Manning had access to classified databases. In early 2010 she leaked classified information to WikiLeaks and confided this to Adrian Lamo, an online acquaintance. Lamo informed Army Counterintelligence, and Manning was arrested in May that same year. The material included videos of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables; and 500,000 Army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs. Much of the material was published by WikiLeaks or its media partners between April and November 2010.[6]

Manning was ultimately charged with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, which was the most serious charge and could have resulted in a death sentence.[7] She was held at the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico in Virginia, from July 2010 to April 2011 under Prevention of Injury statuswhich entailed de facto solitary confinement and other restrictions that caused domestic and international concernbefore being transferred to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she could interact with other detainees.[8] She pleaded guilty in February 2013 to 10 of the charges.[9] The trial on the remaining charges began on June 3, 2013, and on July 30 she was convicted of 17 of the original charges and amended versions of four others, but was acquitted of aiding the enemy.[1] She will serve her sentence at the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.[10]

Reaction to Manning's disclosures, arrest, and sentence was mixed. Denver Nicks, one of her biographers, writes that the leaked material, particularly the diplomatic cables, was widely seen as a catalyst for the Arab Spring that began in December 2010, and that Manning was viewed as both a 21st-century Tiananmen Square Tank Man and an embittered traitor.[11]Reporters Without Borders condemned the length of the sentence, saying that it demonstrated how vulnerable whistleblowers are.[12]

Born Bradley Edward Manning in 1987 in Crescent, Oklahoma, she was the second child of Susan Fox, originally from Wales, and Brian Manning, an American. Brian had joined the United States Navy in 1974 at the age of 19, and served for five years as an intelligence analyst. Brian met Susan in a local Woolworth's while stationed in Wales at Cawdor Barracks. Manning's sister was born in 1976. The couple returned to the United States in 1979, moving first to California, then to a two-story house outside Crescent, with an above-ground swimming pool and 5 acres (2 hectares) of land where they kept pigs and chickens.[13]

Manning's sister Casey, 11 years her senior, told the court-martial that both their parents were alcoholics, and that their mother had drunk continually while pregnant. Captain David Moulton, a Navy psychiatrist, told the court that Manning's facial features showed signs of fetal alcohol syndrome.[14] Casey became Manning's principal caregiver, waking at night to make the baby a bottle. The court heard that Manning was fed only milk and baby food until the age of two, and was always small for her age; as an adult she reached just 5ft 2in (1.57m) and weighed around 105 pounds (47.6kg).[15]

Manning's father took a job as an information technology (IT) manager for a rental car agency, which meant he had to travel. The family lived several miles out of town and Manning's mother was unable to drive. She spent her days drinking, while Manning was left largely to fend for herself, playing with Legos or on the computer. Brian would stock up on food before his trips, and leave pre-signed checks that Casey mailed to pay the bills. A neighbor said that whenever Manning's elementary school went on field trips, she would give her own son extra food or money so he could make sure Manning had something to eat. Friends and neighbors considered the Mannings a troubled family.[16]

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Chelsea Manning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia