Chelsea Manning, the former US Army intelligence officer behind one of the biggest leaks of diplomatic and other sensitive (i.e., embarrassing) material in American history, is facing indefinite solitary confinement at the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, brig where she is serving a 35-year sentence. Formerly known as Bradley Manning, before her decision to go transgender, Chelsea is charged with four \"crimes\": <\/p>\n
While this last infraction surely is heinous, the other three seem like pure harassment. Sweeping food off a table hardly seems like a very big deal. And what about the \"forbidden\" reading material, which, in addition to Vanity Fair, apparently consisted of I Am Malala by Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, a novel entitled A Safe Girl to Love, Out Magazine, an issue of Cosmopolitan that featured an interview with Manning, and the US Senate report on torture? <\/p>\n
Okay, so Cosmo's \"20 Meanest Things Celebrities Have Said About the Kardashians\" is a bit on the subversive side, but hey, if we start censoring ourselves doesn't this mean that The Terrorists will have won? <\/p>\n
I don't mean to trivialize the cruel persecution of Chelsea Manning, but these \"charges\" are something out of Alice in Wonderland: reading them one wonders if we've gone through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole. These people aren't even pretending to be fair. <\/p>\n
The \"crimes\" of Chelsea Manning weren't crimes against people but against the US government, i.e., they were acts of conscience that should be rewarded rather than punished. Nothing she did hurt a single person, except those persons in power whose hypocrisy and venality was exposed: not a single US casualty in our interminable \"war on terrorism\" can be traced back to the leaking of the materials that have been posted on Wikileaks via Manning. Indeed, the material that was released to the world exposed the very real crimes of our rulers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world. This is Chelsea's real \"crime,\" one for which she is paying dearly. <\/p>\n
On the other hand, let's take a look at another lady who stands accused of mishandling US secrets, including material classified \"Top Secret\": Hillary Rodham Clinton. <\/p>\n
While serving as Secretary of State, she violated US government protocol by conducting both her professional and personal email correspondence on her own private server. This alone is illegal, but her crimes don't stop there. <\/p>\n
When this unusual arrangement was discovered, she refused to hand over the server: instead, she separated out those emails she deemed \"personal,\" handed some over to the US State Department, and then erased the entire contents of the server -- thus covering up whatever violations of national security standards may have occurred during her tenure. <\/p>\n
Clinton repeatedly denied having any classified documents either coming in or going out of her private inbox, but we have since discovered that this is not quite true. <\/p>\n
So far, officials have discovered that at least four emails she turned over contained classified information. Two of these were deemed \"Top Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information\" -- the highest level of secrecy in the government's classification system. If you follow that last link, it will bring you to a heading that reads: \"TOP SECRET\/\/SI\/\/TK\/\/NOFORN.\" <\/p>\n
\"Top secret\" is just what it implies: this material came from the top drawer of America's most closely-guarded intelligence. \"SI\" means \"special intelligence,\" i.e., intercepted communications of the sort collected by the National Security Agency. This category of intelligence is rated so highly that it is stored in a special facility, with precautions taken against any intrusion, whether physical or electronic. \"TK\" means the material was acquired via satellite. \"NOFORN\" means only American officials (with a need to know) are permitted access: no foreigners. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n