Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years

from the this-is-how-we-handle-inconvenient-truth dept

The prosecution wanted 60 years and the defense asked repeatedly for lenience. "Don't take away his youth." The final verdict will likely appease the prosecution but puts Manning in prison for longer than he's been alive.

35 years, with credit for time served -- 1,294 days, 3.5 years awaiting this trial, under circumstances the UN has deplored as "cruel and inhumane." In addition, he was dishonorably discharged and stripped of pay and allowances.

This is how the government has chosen to handle someone who exposed wrongdoing -- with a sentence that might see Manning hit the age of 57 before he's allowed to walk free. He exposed war crimes and the pettiness and deceit behind international diplomacy. He exposed the ongoing torture at Gitmo done in the name of fighting terrorism. His leaks propelled Wikileaks into the public eye.

Despite the fact his opponents testified no lives were lost because of the leaks and that most, if not all, potential damage was mitigated by Wikileaks' handling of the documents, the government still wanted him locked away. 35 years for embarrassing the republic. 35 years for not minding his own business. 35 years for attempting to show Americans what its government was actually doing under the pretenses of fighting terrorism and diplomacy. Meanwhile, those who actually performed illegal actions walk free.

This administration, much like the one before it, will not tolerate whistleblowing, failing to realize that its efforts to protect its reputation are doing far more harm than the whistleblowing itself.

Filed Under: bradley manning, whistleblowers, wikileaks

Bradley Manning Apologizes For The Harm Everyone Admits He Didn't Actually Cause

from the messed-up dept

As you may have heard, Bradley Manning took the stand at the sentencing part of the trial and issued an apology.

First, your honour I want to start off with an apology. I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States.

At the time of my decisions, as you know, I was dealing with a lot of issues, issues that are ongoing and continuing to effect me. Although a considerable difficulty in my life, these issues are not an excuse for my actions.

I understood what I was doing, and decisions I made. However I did not fully appreciate the broader effects of my actions.

Those factors are clear to me now, through both self-refection during my confinement in various forms, and through the merits and sentencing testimony that I have seen here.

I am sorry for the unintended consequences of my actions. When I made these decisions I believed I was going to help people, not hurt people.

There's more to the apology, but that's basically the first half. There's just one problem with it. There remains no evidence that he hurt anyone or the United States. We've discussed some of this before, but Rainey Reitman, over at the Freedom of the Press Foundation has a detailed breakdown of how the US government admits, quite clearly, the lack of any real damage or harm from Manning's actions:

Even when the WikiLeaks hysteria was in full swing, government officials from the State Department briefed Congress on the impact of the Wikileaks revelations, and said that the leaks were "embarrassing but not damaging." U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said that, while some of the information may have been embarrassing, "I don't think there is any substantive damage."

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has admitted the leaks caused no serious damage, telling Congress that the reactions to the leaks were "significantly overwrought." He went on to say: "Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest."

At the same time, Reuters reported that other officials were admitting in private that they were exaggerating the damage that resulted from the leaks in order to bolster the legal efforts against WikiLeaks and Manning.

This has born out in Manning's trial and sentencing hearing. It's why the government fought so hard to keep its official WikiLeaks "damage assessments" from being revealed in court. It's why, despite all the government's overwrought pronouncements early on of "blood on the hands" of those responsible, a U.S. official was forced to admit under oath in Manning's sentencing hearing that not a single person died as a result of the releases.

In fact, she notes that Manning's original assessment that he was trying to help not hurt is borne out in what actually happened thanks to his leaks:

The truth is, the public has benefited tremendously as a result of Manning's disclosures to WikiLeaks. Over the least three years, the disclosures have helped shape an international discussion about America's foreign policy. They showed Americans the true face of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- from accurate body counts in Iraq to journalists killed by American soldiers to the government blocking investigations of CIA extraordinary rendition to U.S. turning a blind eye to torture in violation of the Geneva conventions. They've exposed corruption and lawbreaking in dozens of countries around the world. They contributed to democratic movements in the Middle East, and helped spur a movement in defense of free speech online. One State Department cable was even instrumental in helping precipitate the end to the Iraq war.

Her concluding paragraph makes the point quite clearly. Embarrassment may feel like "harm" but when that embarrassment is from doing something wrong and exposing that wrongness is part of the necessary process of stopping it, that's not "harm" at all. That's the process of helping:

Bradley Manning didn't hurt us any more than a dentist hurts a patient when removing an abscessed tooth. The brief discomfort that resulted from the WikiLeaks disclosures was necessary to begin the process of healing and reform. It is a process that we do not yet know will be successful, but which began with Manning's decision to leak vital documents to WikiLeaks. And for that, we owe Manning thanks; no apologies necessary.

Obviously, the apology is effectively Manning throwing himself on the mercy of the judge -- a last gasp effort to prevent having to spend most or all of the rest of his life in jail. But, as Kevin Gosztola points out, while there are people who should have to plead for mercy from a judge, Manning should not have to, given the total lack of harm, and the tremendous help that came out of his leaks.

The conviction of Bradley Manning will go down in history as an embarrassment for the US -- much more harmful and embarrassing than anything that he leaked. The prosecution and conviction show a country that doesn't stand up for its own principles and looks to massively and disproportionately punish whistleblowers who call attention to government and military wrongdoing and coverups.

Filed Under: apology, bradley manning, harm, mercy of the court, wikileaks

It's Dangerous For Free Speech When We Confuse Leakers With Spies

from the they're-not-the-same dept

We've tried to make similar points a few times in the past about our concern with the Obama administration going after whistleblowers and the journalists who publish their leaks by using the Espionage Act more than all other Presidents in history, combined (more than twice as much, actually). But the NY Times has a great piece highlighting how the federal government now seems to completely blur the lines between being a leaker and a spy.

“Obama apparently cannot distinguish between communicating information to the enemy and communicating information to the press,” Mr. Goodale wrote. “The former is espionage, the latter is not.”

This is dangerous for a whole host of reasons -- including having an informed and knowledgeable public. But it's also dangerous from a First Amendment standpoint. Remember, the First Amendment protects freedom of expression and freedom of the press -- and both are closely linked when we're talking about whistleblowers leaking information to the public via the press. When we start turning the leakers and the press into "spies" we make that much more difficult, and as a result we have a less free society, and a much more controlling and abusive government.

Of course, some would argue that this is the goal. The very same article quotes former Bush administration apologist lawyer John Yoo -- infamous in part because of his tortured legal defense, twisting the clear meaning and intent of the Geneva Conventions in order to pretend that the US could use torture as an interrogation technique without violating the rules. Not surprisingly, Yoo doesn't have any problem at all with condemning leakers as spies.

“Manning’s defenders will say that Manning only leaked information to the 21st-century equivalent of a newspaper, and that he could not have known that Al Qaeda would read it,” Professor Yoo wrote in National Review Online.

“But WikiLeaks is not The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, and it does not have First Amendment rights,” he added. “Manning communicated regularly with WikiLeaks’ founder and would have known about the group’s anarchic, anti-U.S. mission.”

Of course, Yoo is either woefully ignorant or flat out lying -- neither of which makes him look good. First of all, the Manning/Lamo transcripts make it quite clear that Manning had very little communications with Assange. But, even more important, as research from professor Yochai Benkler made clear, prior to Manning's leaks, Wikileaks was not seen as anti-US in its mission at all. Its earlier leaks had been focused on mostly corporate and government malfeasance around the globe (mostly outside the US), such as with Bank Julius Baer. As Benkler explained:

When you read the hundreds of news stories and other materials published about WikiLeaks before early 2010, what you see is a young, exciting new media organization. The darker stories about Julian Assange and the dangers that the site poses developed only in the latter half of 2010, as the steady release of leaks about the U.S. triggered ever-more hyperbolic denouncements from the Administration (such as Joe Biden's calling Assange a “high-tech terrorist”), and as relations between Assange and his traditional media partners soured.

In early 2010, when Manning did his leaking, none of that had happened yet. WikiLeaks was still a new media phenom, an outfit originally known for releasing things like a Somali rebel leader’s decision to assassinate government officials in Somalia, or a major story exposing corruption in the government of Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya. Over the years WikiLeaks also exposed documents that shined a light on U.S. government practices, such as operating procedures in Camp Delta in Guantanamo or a draft of a secretly negotiated, highly controversial trade treaty called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. But that was not the primary focus. To name but a few examples, it published documents that sought to expose a Swiss Bank’s use of Cayman accounts to help rich clients avoid paying taxes, oil related corruption in Peru, banking abuses in Iceland, pharmaceutical company influence peddling at the World Health Organization, and extra-judicial killings in Kenya. For its work, WikiLeaks won Amnesty International's New Media award in 2009 and the Freedom of Expression Award from the British magazine, Index of Censorship, in 2008.

Furthermore, the idea that Yoo has that Wikileaks somehow "does not have First Amendment rights" because it's "not the NY Times or the Wall Street Journal" makes no sense. It's just assuming that because one brand is established and another is new that the established one automatically has greater rights than the new one. That's an argument based on nothing more than historical bias, rather than any sort of recognition of reality. Wikileaks was never focused on the US, but was focused on revealing conspiracies of all kinds -- that the US just happened to be involved in many speaks more to problems with the way the US government works, than to Wikileaks itself.

But there's a larger, more troubling, point in all of this. When we redefine whistleblower and leaker to the point that they're considered "spies," and, at the same time, accuse journalists and media outlets of being co-conspirators and not being covered by the same basic rights that we supposedly honor in this country, the further and further we get from the basic ideals of a free and fair society. Again, those in power don't seem to much care for a free and fair society -- because they're in power. But for people who would like to have a government that actually represents the people, this should be a major concern.

Filed Under: bradley manning, ed snowden, espionage, free speech, leaks, whistleblowing

CNN Reporter Reveals CIA-Benghazi Connection: Is He 'Aiding The Enemy'?

from the it's-called-journalism dept

Between the Ed Snowden and Bradley Manning situations, we keep hearing claims that those two are guilty of violating the espionage act but that also those who helped published what they leaked are guilty too. There's still an ongoing investigation into Wikileaks, and various government supporters have suggested that reporter Glenn Greenwald should be arrested as well. So, with CNN's Jake Tapper breaking some news about CIA operatives on the ground during the Benghazi attacks, Matt Yglesias makes an important, if satirical point: is this "great journalism" or is it "aiding the enemy"?.

Obviously, it's the former, but how can people argue that the reporting on the CIA revelations is great journalism, while the reporting on NSA surveillance or US military excesses are somehow "aiding the enemy"? All are disclosing secret or confidential information about the US government and its actions. All are very much in the public interest. But, for whatever reason, many people seem to want to pretend that Greenwald writing about the NSA is somehow different from Tapper revealing what the CIA was up to.

Filed Under: aiding the enemy, benghazi, bradley manning, cia, ed snowden, jake tapper, journalism, leaks, whistleblowing

US Officials Freak Out Over Russia Giving Snowden Temporary Visa

from the well-of-course dept

The news of the morning, of course, was that Russia had agreed to grant Ed Snowden a temporary one-year visa, so that he could at least leave the airport (which he promptly did). In response, US government officials seem to have lost all perspective in making it sound like this is the worst offense ever:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called it a "slap in the face of all Americans." Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., called the development a "setback to U.S.-Russia relations."

[....]

"If these reports are accurate, Americans in Washington should consider this a game changer in our relationship with Russia," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement, calling Russia's decision "provocative" and "a sign of Vladimir Putin's clear lack of respect for President Obama."

A slap in the face? A game changer? Who do they think they're kidding? The White House is being equally ridiculous if only slightly less hyperbolic, in suggesting it may cancel an upcoming Putin/Obama summit:

"We're extremely disappointed," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. "We're evaluating the utility of a summit in light of this and other issues."

You know what? These arguments would have a lot more weight if they didn't come a day after the US government was able to successfully convict a guy who leaked classified documents to the press in order to blow the whistle on government wrongdoing. And the fact is that the American public is increasingly realizing that, yes, Ed Snowden is a whistleblower, not someone guilty of "espionage." And yet the US government is trying to paint him as some sort of evil hacker spy.

However, the very fact that Congress is actually having the debate about these programs, that the NSA and the FISA Court are declassifying various documents, and that it's clear that the NSA's surveillance powers are going to be somehow limited, seems to support, very strongly, the claim that Snowden was, in fact, a whistleblower. The defenders of the government can whine and moan about this or that, but if they wanted to have any credibility on this topic at all, perhaps they shouldn't have tried to brand Snowden as a criminal when everything that's happened since has proven he's a whistleblower.

Filed Under: asylum, barack obama, bradley manning, ed snowden, russia, visa, vladimir putin

Bradley Manning Gets Punished Twice Because He Accessed Information 'With A Computer'

from the hysterical-hackers dept

Update: The original EFF post on which the below post was initially based has been retracted. While there are still significant problems with both the CFAA and the Espionage Act, and, early on, the US did attempt to effectively double charge Manning, those problems were effectively reduced/minimized during the course of the trial, such that, by the end, he wasn't getting punished twice for the same thing. We regret if there was anything misleading posted here and retract the post as well.

We've talked plenty about the CFAA -- the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act -- which has a variety of significant problems and is in need of significant reform. The biggest issue is that this law, which was written back in the mid-1980s and doesn't match at all with today's internet, really just seems to add an extra layer of punishment on other crimes if they were done "on a computer." In fact, as the folks over at the EFF are noting, among the convictions against Bradley Manning, there was the first ever conviction under a particular section of the CFAA: section (a)(1), which more or less takes the Espionage Act and adds more punishment if the "espionage" you do is via a computer:

In fact, as the Judiciary Committee Report on the 1996 amendment to the CFAA makes clear, Congress explicitly based (a)(1) of the CFAA off 793(e) of the Espionage Act. “The bill would bring the protection for classified national defense or foreign relations information maintained on computers in line with our other espionage laws,” the report says. The original CFAA, written in 1984 was modeled on another part of the Espionage Act, section 794, which has never been used in leak cases. But Congress wanted it tailored after 793(e), a statute that in recent years has been used to prosecute a record number of leakers. (Compare the text here and here.)

The statutes are so similar, in fact, it’s hard to tell them apart even when reading the Judiciary Committee’s explanation about how they differ:

Although there is considerable overlap between 18 U.S.C. 793(e) and section 1030(a)(1), as amended by the NII Protection Act, the two statutes would not reach exactly the same conduct. Section 1030(a)(1) would target those persons who deliberately break into a computer to obtain properly classified Government secrets then try to peddle those secrets to others, including foreign governments. In other words, unlike existing espionage laws prohibiting the theft and peddling of Government secrets to foreign agents, section 1030(a)(1) would require proof that the individual knowingly used a computer without authority, or in excess of authority, for the purpose of obtaining classified information. In this sense then, it is the use of the computer which is being proscribed, not the unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over the classified information itself.

Did you get all that? The Judiciary Committee basically copy-pasted the Espionage Act into the CFAA, but forbid "use of the computer" rather than accessing the documents. So there you have it: they specifically wanted to make the isolated act of using a computer a separate crime.

The implications of this are somewhat ridiculous. It basically allows the government to charge someone twice for the same thing, if they used a computer as part of the process of accessing those documents. That's what's happened with Manning. In short: accessing the information is a crime under the Espionage Act and using a computer to do it is a second crime under the CFAA. Even if you think that leaking information to the press is a form of espionage (and we think even that's ridiculous), the idea that you get charged with a second felony just because a computer was used is absolutely ridiculous. It's just yet another example of the overcriminalized world we live in today -- especially when it comes to technology.

Filed Under: bradley manning, cfaa, computers, espionage act, overcriminalization

The Bradley Manning Verdict Will Create Massive Chilling Effects For Whistleblowers And Journalists

from the shameful dept

Following the Bradley Manning verdict, a number of individuals and organizations have weighed in to highlight just how big the chilling effects of the guilty verdict will be. While being found not guilty of "aiding the enemy" meant that it wasn't the "worst case" scenario, it's still bad. Dan Gillmor does an excellent job laying out the simple facts about how the "unrelenting war" on leaks and whistleblowing will have damaging impact on the press, and by extension, the public.

For those who want to tell the public what the government is doing with our money and in our name, there are new imperatives. Governmental secrecy, surveillance and the systematic silencing of whistleblowers require updated methods for journalists and journalism organizations of all kinds. Americans pursuing this craft have to understand the risks and find countermeasures.

That is not enough. The public needs to awaken to the threat to its own freedoms from the Obama crackdown on leaks and, by extension, journalism and free speech itself. We are, more and more, a society where unaccountable people can commit unspeakable acts with impunity. They are creating a surveillance state that makes not just dissent, but knowledge itself, more and more dangerous. What we know about this is entirely due to leakers and their outlets. Ignorance is only bliss for the unaccountable.

Gillmor also quotes another journalist, Jeremy Scahill, who points out that: "We're in a moment when journalism is being criminalized."

Many in the journalism world are realizing this. Reporters Without Borders put out a statement about how damaging this is for investigative reporters and their sources:

The verdict is warning to all whistleblowers, against whom the Obama administration has been waging an unprecedented offensive that has ignored the public interest in their revelations. It also threatens the future of investigative journalism, which risks finding its sources drying up.

“The information that Manning allegedly passed to WikiLeaks -- used by newspapers such as The New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and Le Monde in coordination with Julian Assange’s website -- included revelations of grave abuses in the ‘war on terror’ launched by the Bush administration,” Reporters Without Borders said.

Similarly, the Freedom of the Press Foundation is worried about the consequences, specifically over the conviction over the CFAA and how this will impact future cases:

Manning is now the most high profile conviction under President Obama’s crackdown on leakers. As has been well documented, his administration has prosecuted more leakers under the Espionage Act that all other administration’s combined, and has cast a distinct chill over investigative journalism.

The Espionage Act, a draconian statute written in 1917 as a way to punish non-violent opponents of World War I, has unfortunately been used in recent years to equate leakers and whistleblowers with spies and traitors. Facilitating that warped view in Manning's trial, the judge ruled early on that the defense was not allowed to put forth evidence of Manning’s sole intent to inform the American public, or evidence showing that none of the information materially harmed national security.

Today's ruling also opens up a new avenue for charging leakers and whistleblowers—section (a)(1) of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which until now, has never led to a conviction. It’s was crafted in the 1990s by using some of the worst parts of the Espionage Act and adding the phrase “with a computer.”

Michael Calderone, over at the Huffington Post noted that future whistleblowers of government fraud and abuse are likely to think twice now -- which some might argue was the entire point of the overzealous prosecution.

That Manning was convicted of six counts of espionage, out of 19 counts total, highlights the Obama administration's unprecedented use of the Espionage Act to prosecute individuals for leaking information not to foreign governments, but to the media. The Obama administration has invoked the Espionage Act seven times, with the most recent example being in the case of Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor who shed light on the extent of the U.S. surveillance state with leaks to The Guardian and the Post.

Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said it's a "very scary precedent" that "despite the lack of any evidence that he intended any harm to the United States, Manning faces decades in prison."

If basic whistleblowers are frightened, it's going to make the press's job harder, and it's going to make the government's ability to commit fraud and abuse that much easier.

Meanwhile, the EFF has pointed out the ridiculousness of the CFAA conviction as a part of the ruling against Manning:

the decision today continues a trend of government prosecutions that use familiarity with digital tools and knowledge of computers as a scare tactic and a basis for obtaining grossly disproportionate and unfair punishments, strategies enabled by broad, vague laws like the CFAA and the Espionage Act. Let's call this the “hacker madness” strategy.  Using it, the prosecution portrays actions taken by someone using a computer as more dangerous or scary than they actually are by highlighting the digital tools used to a nontechnical or even technophobic judge.

In the Manning case, the prosecution used Manning’s use of a standard, over 15-year-old Unix program called Wget to collect information, as if it were a dark and nefarious technique. Of course, anyone who has ever called up this utility on a Unix machine, which at this point is likely millions of ordinary Americans, knows that this program is no more scary or spectacular (and far less powerful) than a simple Google search. Yet the court apparently didn’t know this and seemed swayed by it.

You can argue that Manning didn't follow the chain of command to blow the whistle (even though he tried) and that he released documents that he shouldn't have (even if there's no evidence that they did any real harm), but the impact of this ruling, and the eventual sentencing is going to have far-reaching implications, beyond just Manning. The government's overzealous prosecution is going to have serious chilling effects, and has opened up some highly questionable legal theories just because this leak happened "with a computer."

Filed Under: bradley manning, chilling effects, investigative journalism, journalism, whistleblowers

US Military Admits No One Died Because Of Manning's Leaks

from the right,-so... dept

One of the key talking points against Bradley Manning was how his leaks "put people in danger" and we've even seen some of the defenders of his prosecution claim that people had lost lives because of them. In fact, Army Chief of Staff Mike Mullen had directly stated that Manning (and Wikileaks) "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family." Guess what? That was all FUD. As Manning's sentencing hearing kicked off, a key government witness admitted that there were no deaths that were attributable to those leaks. That came straight from Brig. Gen. Robert Carr, who was in charge of the response to the leaks. Among other things, he also noted that since the names did not appear in Arabic, it was unlikely that our enemies would have figured out who they really were anyway.

The retired general added that some of these contacts could not be found, others had died before the WikiLeaks disclosures, and others had been insurgents rather than cooperators with coalition forces.

Carr acknowledged that none of the names of Iraqi and Afghan contacts appeared in the original Arabic.

To this point, Manning's military defenders, Maj. Thomas Hurley, asked: "We don't share an alphabet with either of those countries, do we, Sir?"

"No," Carr replied.

Hurley also prompted Carr to concede that Iraqi and Afghan nationals tend not to be "not as plugged in" as Westerners.

The report also notes that while, in the past, some have claimed that an Afghani man killed by the Taliban was a result of those leaks "the supposed informant the Taliban claimed to have executed was not in fact named in the leaked materials." In other words, all the talk of people dying because of his leaks? Not true. Yet why do we trust the government every time there's a leak when they insist that everyone's lives are at risk?

Filed Under: bradley manning, deaths, fud, impact, robert carr, wikileaks

Manning Faces Lifetime In Jail, While The Wrongdoers He Exposed Are Free

from the something's-not-right dept

With Bradley Manning found guilty on numerous counts, some are pointing out that it seems odd that he exposed so much law breaking by representatives of the US... and none of those people are facing any jail time, whereas Manning is facing life in prison. Some have tried to argue that Manning's leaks didn't reveal any abuse, and thus he's not a whistleblower. This is false. Both Greg Mitchell and Peter Walker at the Guardian have published details of things that we learned via Manning's leaks, including some serious lawbreaking by the US. Just a snippet from the Guardian:

In October 2010 came a series of revelations about events in Iraq. Chief among these was that US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers. The reports of abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks.

Another Iraq-related revelation was that the US collated details of more than 100,000 people killed in Iraq following the invasion of the country, including more than 15,000 deaths that were previously unrecorded. The tally goes against previous protestations by the UK and US that there were any official statistics on the death toll connected to the war.

And another snippet from Mitchell's list

-Egyptian torturers trained by FBI—although allegedly to teach the human rights issues.

-State Dept memo: U.S.-backed 2009 coup in Honduras was 'illegal and unconstitutional.'”

-Cables on Tunisia appear to help spark revolt in that country. The country's ruling elite described as “The Family,” with Mafia-like skimming throughout the economy. The country's First Lady may have made massive profits off a private school.

Both lists are much longer with many more examples.

Yet, the people responsible for these things, and the other reprehensible behavior that came out entirely because of the Manning leaks, appear to have not been punished at all. Something doesn't seem at all right about that. The message is: break the law while representing the US government/military? No problem! But tell people about it? Why, you need to spend the rest of your life in jail.

Filed Under: bradley manning, crime and punishment, whistleblowing

Cable News Networks 'Grant' Manning Verdict A Whole Five Minutes Of Coverage

from the pardon-the-interruption...-here's-more-Weiner dept

Bradley Manning's verdict was delivered yesterday but if you were expecting to see any coverage on the 24-hour news networks, there's a good chance you missed it, possibly by leaving the room momentarily, channel surfing, or enjoying one of the many hundreds of blinks that provide your eyes with much-needed lubrication.

According to Buzzfeed's stopwatch, the average time the major cable news networks spent on covering the Manning verdict was about 5 minutes. MSNBC topped the charts with 5 minutes and 54 seconds of Manning verdict coverage before moving on to more pressing issues (Weiner sexting presumably, if the pre-roll splash is any indication).

Can't say I blame them. There's no exciting angle to pursue, being completely devoid of partisan wrangling, sexting, royal births, or any other populist "hook." Instead, it's just a run-of-the-mill example of an embarrassed government lashing out at someone who hung a bit of its dirty laundry out to dry.

In general, these sorts of stories are only provided will-this-do minimal coverage by mainstream media outlets, many of which have become satisfied with lending credibility to administration talking points or presenting a garish caricature of the "opposing viewpoint." These roles rotate as needed, depending on the administration's party affiliation.

Manning exposed a lot of wrongdoing and questionable behavior, something that should have forced our government and military-industrial complex to take a long hard look at themselves. Instead, the administration has made every effort to shoot the messenger -- any messenger.

But screw 'em. It's not as if those seeking better coverage of events like these don't have hundreds or thousands of other sources to choose from, most of which don't feel compelled to play softball in order to protect their access to the Beltway. The downside is that those seeking new voices will be deterred by the mainstream media, which frequently paints the internet as a the world's largest Mom's basement, filled with bathrobe-wearing bloggers spouting off conspiracy theories and Tweeted banalities, bereft of tact and deference.

I'd argue that the mainstream media is the world's largest Old Boy Network, filled with shiny vacuous objects spouting off round-the-clock banalities and regurgitated talking points, bereft of skepticism or a functioning conscience.

But, you know, maybe that's just me.

Filed Under: bradley manning, cable news, coverage