December 22, 2011
Hearing in Soldier’s WikiLeaks Case Ends
By GINGER THOMPSON, NY TIMES
LINK

FORT MEADE, Md. — The military hearing against Pfc. Bradley Manning closed on Thursday, with lawyers and onlookers alternately portraying the young soldier as a traitor who acted with premeditation and as an emotionally troubled whistle-blower.

In their summary arguments — bringing a close to proceedings held over nearly a week to determine whether there is enough evidence to court-martial Private Manning — military lawyers accused him of deliberately using his training as an intelligence analyst and his security clearances to leak tens of thousands of classified diplomatic cables, intelligence reports and a video of a military helicopter attack that left 11 people dead.

The prosecutors showed what they described as a propaganda video by Al Qaeda in which a terrorist operative cited the leaks as useful for identifying targets for attack. One prosecutor, Capt. Ashden Fein, pounded on a podium and said Private Manning “aided in the publication of those files, knowing that our enemies would use those files.”

Private Manning’s lawyers did not argue that he was not responsible for the leaks. However, they likened the military’s case to a “Chicken Little response,” saying that none of the information funneled to the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks had damaged national security and that the government was overcharging their client, who faces life in prison.

“The sky is not falling,” said one of the lawyers, David Coombs. “The sky has not fallen. The sky will not fall.”

Mr. Coombs portrayed Private Manning as a man struggling with emotional issues, stemming primarily from years of having to hide that he felt he was born a woman in a man’s body. His lawyers said that he had reached out to his commanding officers for help and emotional support, but that they ignored his problems. And, the lawyers said, Private Manning saw himself as a whistle-blower, not a traitor.

“My client was young,” Mr. Coombs said. “He thought he could make a difference.”

After the hearing this week, which is the military equivalent of a grand jury, a decision will be made about whether to conduct a full court-martial. That process is likely to take several weeks.

Legal experts agreed it was almost certain that the 24-year-old soldier would be tried on at least some of the 22 charges against him, which range from aiding the enemy to adding unauthorized software to a classified computer. If he is court-martialed on the more serious charges, Private Manning could be executed, though prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. Private Manning could also be sentenced to life in prison, but Mr. Coombs suggested that a more appropriate punishment would not exceed 30 years in prison, pointing out that such a sentence would put his client in jail longer than he has been alive.

Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School, said he saw weaknesses on both sides of the case. The hearing, for example, was overseen by a military reservist who works as a Justice Department official and was formerly a prosecutor, raising questions about a conflict of interest. And he said he was skeptical that the military had enough evidence to show that Private Manning was guilty of aiding the enemy.

But Mr. Fidell also said it was unlikely that Private Manning’s case would be helped by arguments that his superior officers ignored numerous warnings about his emotional distress.

“Unless his behavior rises to the level of an insanity defense, which it does not, it won’t have any effect on questions of guilt or innocence,” Mr. Fidell said. “Putting blame on tone-deaf superiors does not excuse what he did.”

The case has ignited debates beyond the drab little courtroom at Fort Meade, raising questions about whether the government keeps too many secrets and whether the military systematically fails to provide support to minority, gay and transgender soldiers.

Daniel Ellsberg, the whistle-blower responsible for this country’s last big leak of government secrets, the Pentagon Papers, has thrown himself into the center of these debates as an outspoken supporter of Private Manning’s. He was thrown out of the courtroom at one point this week for attempting to speak to the soldier during a recess.

“It’s not that whistle-blowers believe there is no need for some things to be kept secret,” Mr. Ellsberg said. “It’s that they believe some things are wrongfully kept secret.”

December 20, 2011
Last Witness for Military Takes Stand in Leak Case
By GINGER THOMPSON, NY TIMES
LINK

FORT MEADE, Md. — The government’s arguments in the case against Pfc. Bradley Manning came to a dramatic conclusion Tuesday when the computer hacker who turned him in to the authorities took the stand to explain his role in the investigation, revealing at one point that he was simultaneously trading computer messages with Private Manning while sharing information from those chats with the authorities.

The hacker, Adrian Lamo, said in a military courtroom here that he began exchanging instant messages and e-mails with Private Manning in early May last year, and decided to go to the authorities right away because the soldier made claims of “acts so egregious it required that response.”

Private Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst, stands accused in the most significant leak of government secrets since the Pentagon Papers. Since Friday, the military has been conducting a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to court-martial him on charges of funneling tens of thousands of diplomatic cables and intelligence reports to WikiLeaks, which shared them with several news organizations, including The New York Times, and ignited international outrage.

The hearing, which is expected to last through the end of the week, has given much of the world its first look at Private Manning, 24, who, even in his uniform and dark-rimmed glasses, barely looks old enough to drink. Mr. Lamo’s appearance stirred some of the most emotional exchanges in these proceedings, with defense lawyers attacking him for betraying a troubled soldier who had gone to him for moral support.

David Coombs, a defense lawyer, asked Mr. Lamo about chats in which he told Private Manning that the contents of their communication would remain private. Mr. Lamo told Private Manning that he should consider him as a “minister or a journalist,” adding that their chats would be treated as “a confession or an interview, never to be published.”

Less than a month later, however, Mr. Lamo had shared the chats with both the authorities and the news media.

Mr. Coombs attempted to press the matter for several minutes, with Mr. Lamo evading his questions. Finally, Mr. Coombs asked, “Do you believe Mr. Manning was coming to you for moral support?”

Mr. Lamo was unapologetic, saying, “I think he wanted to brag about what he had done.”

Throughout the hearing, Mr. Manning’s lawyers have attempted to portray their client as a deeply troubled young man, struggling with gender identity issues during a time when the military was governed by the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibited gay men and lesbians from serving openly.

The lawyers have argued that commanders were well aware of the soldier’s turbulent emotional state when they cleared him to handle some of the military’s most sensitive files, and that the military’s controls over those files were lax, at best.

“The government has told you a lot about how things happened,” an exasperated Mr. Coombs said during Tuesday’s proceedings. “We are trying to tell you why things happened. That’s just as important.”

Testimony by one of Private Manning’s former supervisors seemed to support the defense argument. Jihrleah Showman, who also worked as an intelligence analyst, said she had warned commanders on several occasions that Private Manning was in severe emotional distress and should not be allowed to handle classified material.

Ms. Showman said she told commanders that she believed Private Manning suffered “elevated levels of paranoia,” and that he reported feeling as if he were constantly being watched.

She said the soldier’s outbursts were so “uncontrolled” that she believed he posed a threat to himself and to others. And she said she urged her commanders not to deploy him to Iraq.

She described three occasions that she said exemplified Private Manning’s erratic behavior, including one when he was “screaming at the top of his lungs and waving his hands” at an officer. In a second incident with a different officer, Ms. Showman said, Private Manning flipped over a table and lunged at him. And in the third incident, Ms. Showman said, Private Manning punched her in the face.

She said the attack was “unprovoked.”

The Shamful Abuse of Bradley Manning

Welcome To The United Police States of America

The Strange and Consequential Case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks

The Obama Administration Prosecutes Whistleblowers, Lets Those Who Commit Illegal Acts Avoid Prosecution