PayPal Cuts Off Account For Bradley Manning Support

from the going-into-evil-territory dept

It's old news by this point that PayPal decided to cut off Wikileaks donations, following pressure from members of the US government (even if the State Department denies any official pressure, Joe Lieberman's public brow beating of companies shows that there was serious pressure at least from some in the government). However, Glyn Moody now points us to the news that PayPal has also decided to cut off the group "Courage to Resist," which was handling funds for Bradley Manning's defense effort. PayPal admits there's no legal basis for this. Apparently, the company just doesn't believe that some people should be allowed a fair trial:

The online payment provider PayPal has frozen the account of Courage to Resist, which in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network is currently raising funds in support of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning. PayPal was one way people--especially international residents--were able to contribute to the grassroots effort supporting the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower. "We've been in discussions with PayPal for weeks, and by their own admission there’s no legal obligation for them to close down our account," noted Loraine Reitman of the Bradley Manning Support Network (Support Network). "This was an internal policy decision by PayPal."

[....] The Support Network repeatedly requested and was refused formal documentation from PayPal describing their policies in this matter.

The report also notes that they've had a PayPal account in good standing since 2006, with no problems at all. It's only once they were taking funds for Bradley Manning that PayPal shut them down. This is somewhat horrifying, frankly, and raises serious questions about PayPal as a business worth trusting.

Filed Under: bradley manning, funding, wikileaks
Companies: paypal, wikileaks

Investigators Still Can't Find Any Evidence To Link Assange & Manning; DoD Insists It Must Be True

from the that's-called-denial-folks dept

Last month, there were already reports that the Justice Department was having trouble linking Bradley Manning to Julian Assange -- a key piece necessary to charge Assange with any sort of crime. US investigators have known for a long time that if they can't get such evidence, they don't have much of a case. Back in December, it was reported that they had even offered Manning a plea deal if he would just implicate Assange. The only problem: it appears he's not willing to do so, and there's no other evidence. In fact, all the evidence suggests what everyone said from the beginning: Manning decided to take whatever documents he took himself, and whoever uploaded it to Wikileaks (and it's still not confirmed that it was Manning, though he's obviously the most likely) did so of their own free will, not because of pressure from Assange.

The latest reports (via Julian Sanchez) suggest more of the same. The Justice Department is trying really, really hard to link the two, but seems to be quietly admitting that there may be no "there" there, and because of that, there may be no case. What's really stunning however, is that despite all of this work to try to find a simple link, and the lack of any evidence of that link, the Defense Department is still insisting that the link is there and that Assange must be charged.

I find this pretty interesting. I'm assuming the view of DoD officials is clouded by the fact that Manning, by being in the armed services, was a part of the DoD and that they can't accept the idea that he might honestly believe there were wrongdoings that needed to be exposed. They insist that Assange must have preyed on him and pushed and cajoled him into sharing the info. Of course, now the big question is what will the government do. Without this link, there's no case against Assange. So either they try some other, exceptionally weak claim. Or... the give up. They should know what the right option is, but somehow I doubt they'll choose wisely.

Filed Under: bradley manning, defense department, julian assange, justice department, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

US Investigators Can't Find Any Direct Connection Between Manning And Assange

from the so-now-what-happens? dept

US officials have been trying everything they can think of to get Bradley Manning to claim that there was some sort of conspiracy between him and Julian Assange concerning the leaked State Department cables. The US needs that in order to bring any sort of credible case against Assange in the US. Unfortunately for those US officials, so far the investigation can find no actual link between the two men, meaning that any US legal case against Assange is a pretty difficult path. It will be interesting to see what comes next. Amusingly, in our past discussions on this, some of our commenters insisted that it was "obvious" that Assange and Manning had formed a conspiracy, so I'm curious to see how they react to this bit of news.

Filed Under: bradley manning, conspiracy, julian assange, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Press Realizing That Treatment Of Bradley Manning Is Indefensible

from the surprising dept

The mainstream press has had a bit of a love-hate affair with Wikileaks over the past few months, often conflating some of the issues with Julian Assange with the overall operation itself. But what's been really troubling is how quiet the press has mainly been about the treatment of Bradley Manning, which is so severe that many people consider it to qualify as torture. Even the UN is now investigating whether the treatment qualifies as torture. Of course, even if you don't consider it torture, it's pretty clear that the treatment is designed to punish Manning, despite no trial and no conviction (or, perhaps, it's being used to pressure him to implicate Julian Assange in a potential conspiracy that might not actually exist).

However, it's nice to see at least some in the press realize this is a serious problem. The LA Times has an editorial suggesting that this treatment of Manning is clearly indefensible, and should be stopped. It does not come out and say he's being tortured and says that it's fine to punish Manning (within the limits of the law) if he's convicted, but that to do so prior to any conviction is immensely problematic:

Some see Manning as a whistle-blower who deserves leniency for exposing official duplicity; others believe that, like anyone who engages in civil disobedience, Manning, if guilty, should accept punishment for his actions. But regardless of one's view of his alleged conduct, the conditions under which he is being held are indefensible.

There's no reason that Manning can't be held under more reasonable conditions. It's sad that our government appears to not be willing to allow that to happen.

Filed Under: bradley manning, press, treatment, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

UN Investigating Whether Or Not US Is Torturing Bradley Manning

from the good-for-them dept

We recently posted about the conditions under which the US was holding Bradley Manning, the private accused of leaking documents to Wikileaks, and noting that they seemed to reach the level of torture, based on some excellent reporting by Glenn Greenwald. This news was troubling just because we should not torture at all, and was made even worse by the fact that the guy hasn't even been convicted of any crime (though, as many commenters pointed out, even if he was convicted of a crime, torture is still not appropriate). Not surprisingly, the comments on that post expressed a variety of opinions, with two specific statements repeated against my post: the first is that solitary confinement is not torture, and the second is that Manning deserves whatever he gets.

The latter response should be sickening to anyone who is an American or believes in the concept of innocent until proven guilty. It's about the most anti-American thought I can think of to say that someone deserves punishment even when they have not been found guilty of a crime. As for the first comment, as many people suggested, you should read Atul Gawande's fascinating and disturbing article on solitary confinement, and then see how you feel about solitary confinement. The number of people who claimed that people were just coddled and weak if they couldn't handle solitary appear to be quite ill-informed about the nature of solitary confinement, and I would imagine they would not last long under such conditions themselves.

Since then, a lot more information has come out, including some explicit details about the serious negative effects the treatment has had on Manning's health and mental well-being. On top of that, while the Defense Department has tried to minimize the complaints by presenting their side of the story, the article above references Manning's specific comments to one of the only two people he is allowed to meet with, which indicates that the Defense Department was not being entirely truthful. The scary part is that it really appears that the treatment is having a significant impact on his health already. Even if you believe that what Manning did was the worst thing a person could do, can we at least let him be tried before issuing punitive measures?

Separately, the UN has now said that it will investigate how Manning is being treated, though, as with so much the UN does, I do wonder how much impact they would have even if they did find the treatment to reach the level of torture.

Glenn Greenwald has another detailed report, which highlights how the US State Department has condemned solitary confinement in other countries:

As is true for so much of what it does, the U.S. Government routinely condemns similar acts -- the use of prolonged solitary confinement in its most extreme forms and lengthy pretrial detention -- when used by other countries.  See, for instance, the 2009 State Department Human Rights Report on Indonesia ("Officials held unruly detainees in solitary confinement for up to six days on a rice-and-water diet"); Iran ("Common methods of torture and abuse in prisons included prolonged solitary confinement with extreme sensory deprivation . . .Prison conditions were poor. Many prisoners were held in solitary confinement . . . Authorities routinely held political prisoners in solitary confinement for extended periods . . . All four [arrested bloggers] claimed authorities physically and psychologically abused them in detention, including subjecting them to prolonged periods of solitary confinement in a secret detention center without access to legal counsel or family"); Israel ("Israeli human rights organizations reported that Israeli interrogators . . .  kept prisoners in harsh conditions, including solitary confinement for long periods"); Iraq ("Individuals claimed to have been subjected to psychological and physical abuse, including . . . solitary confinement in Ashraf to discourage defections"); Yemen ("Sleep deprivation and solitary confinement were other forms of abuse reported in PSO prisons"); Central African Republic ("As of December, there were 308 inmates in Ngaragba Prison, most of whom are pretrial detainees. Several detainees had been held for seven months without appearing before a judge"); Burundi ("Human rights problems also included . . . prolonged pretrial detention").

Once again, it appears that the US State Department believes in different rules for itself than what it pushes on everyone else. Once again, I find that I am disappointed by my government not coming even close to the standards it purports to hold, and which it regularly argues other countries should follow as well.

Filed Under: bradley manning, solitary confinement, torture, united nations
Companies: wikileaks

So After Torturing Bradley Manning For Months, US Officials Offer Him A Deal If He Says Assange 'Conspired' With Him

from the dirty-tricks dept

This is hardly a surprise, but after locking up Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for seven months -- a condition that much of the world has deemed to be torture -- and looking for ways to use a computer hacking law to charge Julian Assange, rumors are that officials have offered Bradley Manning a plea deal, in which he would claim that Assange "conspired" with him to get and leak the documents. From all the info that's come out already, there's been little to suggest that there was any actual conspiring, but it appears that our Justice Department has decided (incorrectly) that Julian Assange is the more important target than Bradley Manning, and so it wants to bring Assange down.

Of course, as many have been saying all along, bringing charges against Assange, even with Manning accepting a plea bargain, will do serious harm to the US. It will highlight how the Justice Department twists laws in an attempt to harm the publisher of information, very much against the basic principles of the First Amendment. If this does come to pass, it will represent a massive chilling of free speech rights, from an administration that has put itself forth as a champion of such free speech rights around the globe. However, the one thing it won't do is actually chill such leaks from happening. As more and more competitors to Wikileaks pop up, you can bet that a legal attack on Assange will only increase the resolve of some of the folks behind those other offerings.

Filed Under: bradley manning, conspiracy, julian assange, plea bargain, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

US Looking To Use Computer Hacking Law Against Assange

from the stretchety-stretch-stretch dept

It appears that the US government is realizing the fact that an espionage charge against Julian Assange over Wikileaks is unlikely to succeed and would probably freak out the press (at least those in the press who remember the details of the First Amendment). So, instead, it's moved on to trying to use the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), commonly known as our anti-hacking law.

Of course, as we noted a few months ago, this law has been twisted and abused regularly to bring charges against people by pretending it covers things it doesn't. The most famous, of course, was the Lori Drew case, where prosecutors tried to charge Lori Drew with computer hacking, because she was part of a trio of people who used MySpace to bully a young girl, who later committed suicide. How was that "hacking"? Well, the prosecutors claimed that she didn't obey MySpace's terms of service, and thus "illegally accessed" MySpace. Luckily, the judge eventually tossed that out.

So what about Julian Assange? How could he have possibly violated a US anti-hacking while not being in the US at all? Well, the feds are apparently scanning through the chat logs between Bradley Manning and Adrian Lamo to see if there's any evidence at all that Assange could be charged with conspiracy under the CFAA in somehow aiding Manning in leaking the secrets. You can read the CFAA here if you want to see the full act. The argument, then, is that if they can drum up enough proof that Assange somehow aided Manning, it becomes a conspiracy and Assange can be charged under that act as well. So far, about the best they've apparently come up with is that Manning hinted that he had a "relationship" with Assange -- but the details in the chat logs suggest they talked a few times and that's about the extent of the "relationship." Separately, Assange gave Manning (and potentially other sources) a more direct FTP account to upload materials. Once again, this seems like grasping at straws, and seems so trumped up that it will continue to do more to hurt America's reputation than anything leaked by Wikileaks.

The problem is that it seems pretty clear that any association between Assange and Manning was a loose one. Suggesting that working with a source, and offering them an easy way to give you information is a conspiracy to commit computer hacking would create a massive chilling effect on anyone in the press who regularly reports on secret information. Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh and a variety of other famous investigative reporters have clearly been much more closely connected to their sources, but it would be ridiculous to charge them with "conspiracy." It's really sad that our government is wasting tax dollars trying to find trumped up charges for Assange.

Filed Under: bradley manning, hacking, julian assange, us government, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

US Is Apparently Torturing Bradley Manning, Despite No Trial And No Conviction

from the this-is-not-the-america-we-were-told-about dept

While there's been a ton of attention paid to Julian Assange's arrest and situation, much less attention has been paid to Bradley Manning, the Army Private who has been accused of being the source of many of Wikileaks' more recent leaks concerning the US government and military. It seemed like a reasonable question to ask, upon his arrest, whether or not he was simply whistleblowing or breaking the law. Certainly this is a question that is open for debate. What is pretty clear is that his intentions were absolutely to be a whistleblower.

In his internet chat with Adrian Lamo (the guy who turned him in), Manning made it clear that if he was trying to cause problems for the US or had malicious intentions, he could have sold the info to foreign governments. However, his reasoning for leaking the info was clear, saying he was hoping it would cause "worldwide discussion, debates and reform." He also noted that he was driven to do this after being involved in detaining Iraqis who had simply done a scholarly critique of the current government, which he believed went against basic free speech principles. Again, no matter what you believe about his specific actions, it's pretty clear his intent was to whistleblow. He was upset about what he felt were illegal activities and his goal was to get that information out and to create discussion leading to reform. That's the classic definition of whistleblowing.

I knew Manning had been arrested and was being held somewhere, but Glenn Greenwald is now covering how he is being tortured, despite the fact he has not been tried. He has been held in intensive solitary confinement, meaning he spends 23 hours of the day in total isolation. He has not even been given a pillow or sheets for his bed. As Greenwald highlights, there is widespread agreement that such prolonged solitary confinement is well beyond the standard level of torture, is forbidden in many modern civilizations, and leads to long term psychological issues for those who go through it.

And all this for a guy who has not even been convicted of anything.

Again: I recognize that some people believe that Manning is a "traitor" or some sort of "enemy." But even if that's the case, why should he not be put on trial for it, before he's put into solitary confinement? As Greenwald notes, "Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems." Solitary confinement is normally used as punishment for such outbreaks for those already convicted. Putting Manning in such conditions is a purely punitive attempt to torture him, without him even being convicted.

We've already covered just how bad the Defense Department is at protecting whistleblowers, but this goes way beyond any of that. The message being sent here is that, even if your intentions are to expose wrongdoing, the military may lock you up and torture you for months without end and with no due process. This is not what America is supposed to be about. We're not supposed to support torture. We're not supposed to ignore due process. We're supposed to encourage whistleblowing. Instead, we're locking it up and torturing it with no trial or conviction.

This is, frankly, horrifying.

I'm not convinced that Manning did the right thing in leaking all of those documents. Rather, I think there's a compelling argument that he went way too far in releasing way too much. But it's a point that can be debated. However, Manning has no such opportunity to debate it. Instead, he's being psychologically tortured with no method of even making his own case.

Filed Under: bradley manning, due process, solitary confinement, torture, whistleblowing, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Where's The Line Between Whistleblowing And Criminal Leaking Of Classified Works?

from the is-there-a-line? dept

Nearly 40 years ago, Daniel Ellsberg leaked what's now known as The Pentagon Papers to the NY Times, exposing a "classified" study that showed how the Johnson Administration had regularly (and systematically) lied about the war in Vietnam. The Nixon administration claimed that Ellsberg violated the Espionage Act of 1917, since they had no authority to share those classified documents. The administration also sought injunctions against newspapers for publishing excerpts of the documents. Eventually, the Supreme Court allowed the newspapers to publish. As for Ellsberg, his case went to trial, but it was thrown out due to government bungling, including wiretapping him without a warrant and slapstick government attempts to spy on and/or discredit Ellsberg. These days many people consider Ellsberg quite a hero for whistleblowing on illegal activities by the US government.

This all has become very pertinent again, as it appears that the US Army has finally charged intelligence analyst Bradley Manning with violating the Espionage Act for his leaking of certain "classified" information to Wikileaks.

And that leaves us back to square one of a very difficult question: what's the difference between whistleblowing and criminally leaking classified works? It seems like the line is pretty clear. If the "leak" is designed to expose otherwise illegal activities, that should be protected in some manner. If the leak, on the other hand, has nothing to do with exposing illegal activities and, instead, is just to reveal secret (but legal) information, it probably falls on the other side of the line. Where Manning's actions fall on this spectrum are still not at all clear -- but it seems like folks are rushing to push him into one or the other camps already. Hopefully some more details will come out and it becomes clear where he really falls (no matter what a court may decide...).

Filed Under: bradley manning, daniel ellsberg, espionage, leaking, whistleblowing

Is The Arrest Of Bradley Manning Part Of A Coordinated Effort To Discredit Wikileaks?

from the conspiracy-theory-time dept

Like many folks, I've been following the bizarre story of the arrest of Bradly Manning, an US Army intelligence analyst, who supposedly "confessed" that he was leaking tons of information to Wikileaks. However, as this story has moved forward, it's actually raised a lot more questions than it's really answered. Over at Salon, Glenn Greenwald is digging into some of the stranger parts of the story, some of which don't make much sense. Greenwald doesn't come out and make any direct accusations, but it's pretty clear that he doesn't trust or believe the stories being told by Adrian Lamo, who turned Manning in, or Kevin Poulsen, the reporter at Wired, who broke the story. Greenwald details the long and somewhat questionable history of Lamo and Poulsen -- both of whom were convicted on hacking charges at different points in their lives. I'd never noticed this, but apparently, Poulsen has basically served as Lamo's "go to" guy for getting press whenever he wants it. That could be meaningless, but there are large gaps in the details of the story that make the whole thing kind of questionable. It's also odd that, as Greenwald points out, after a few years out of the news, Poulsen just so happened to write an odd and not-very-newsworthy story about Lamo's mental health problems just a couple of weeks before this big story broke.

The other tidbit -- which very likely could be a coincidence, as it seems quite early to jump on the conspiracy theory bandwagon here -- is that back in 2008, a classified report by the US Army Counterintelligence Center suggested one way to discredit Wikileaks (which it viewed as a threat) would be the "Successful identification, prosecution, termination of employment, and exposure of persons leaking the information by the government... would damage and potentially destroy this center of gravity and deter others from taking similar actions." As Greenwald notes:

In other words, exactly what the U.S. Government wanted to happen in order to destroy WikiLeaks has happened here: news reports that a key WikiLeaks source has been identified and arrested, followed by announcements from anonymous government officials that there is now a worldwide "manhunt" for its Editor-in-Chief. Even though WikiLeaks did absolutely nothing (either in this case or ever) to compromise the identity of its source, isn't it easy to see how these screeching media reports -- WikiLeaks source arrested; worldwide manhunt for WikiLeaks; major national security threat -- would cause a prospective leaker to WikiLeaks to think twice, at least: exactly as the Pentagon Report sought to achieve? And that Pentagon Report was from 2008, before the Apache Video was released; imagine how intensified is the Pentagon's desire to destroy WikiLeaks now. Combine that with what both the NYT and Newsweek recently realized is the Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistle-blowers, and one can't overstate the caution that's merited here before assuming one knows what happened.

Separately, Greenwald breaks down Lamo's story for why he turned in Manning, and finds the whole thing quite unconvincing. In fact, he notes that, beyond contradictory reports from Lamo about whether or not he implied or outright claimed that he would offer Manning confidentiality, most of the evidence suggests that Manning was a whistleblower, not particularly unlike Daniel Ellsberg with the Pentagon Papers. That is, nothing in any of these conversations suggests an attempt to help enemies of the US, but rather to expose questionable behavior -- the very definition of whistleblowing, and the sort of thing that should be celebrated.

Admittedly, the whole story is rather strange, and lots of details are sadly hidden (another thing that Greenwald questions, since Wired or Lamo could fill in some of the big gaps to clear things up -- but neither seem willing to do so). I'm certainly not buying into any conspiracy theories at this point, but will admit that the whole story continues to raise more questions than it seems to answer.

Update: Don't miss Kevin Poulsen's response in the comments where he defends his reporting on this situation, and suggests Greenwald has it all wrong. I definitely don't buy the implication that Poulsen might be working with the US gov't -- that seems too out there to believe. However, the rest of the story still does seem weird. Lamo's turning in Manning story still doesn't add up, but it's likely an overreaction to suggest Poulsen was anything other than a reporter on this story.

Filed Under: adrian lamo, bradley manning, kevin poulsen
Companies: wikileaks