Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Across the Pond: This week, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was released on bail from a London prison. Assange will remain under “mansion arrest” at the 600-acre estate of Vaughan Smith, a London restaurateur and former war correspondent. He plans to fight extradition to Sweden where he would face sex crimes allegations.
Back Here at Home: Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U. S. Army intelligence specialist who has been accused of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, has been held
in solitary confinement at the marine brig in Quantico, Virginia, for five months. Before being transferred to Quantico, Manning was held in a military jail in Kuwait for two months. Manning will face a court martial on charges that he provided Wikileaks with classified information in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Bradley Manning is being kept under constant surveillance and is “under a regimen of authority-administered anti-depressant drugs.” He is reportedly not permitted to have a pillow or sheets—and not permitted to exercise. He is allowed out of his cell for just one hour a day.
According to MSNBC, Manning is being held under harsher conditions than “Bryan Minkyu Martin, the naval intelligence specialist who allegedly tried to sell military secrets to an undercover FBI agent.” Minkyu, who is awaiting trial, is not being held in solitary confinement.
From Glenn Greenwald: “Just by itself, the type of prolonged solitary confinement to which Manning has been subjected for many months is widely viewed around the world as highly injurious, inhumane, punitive, and arguably even a form of torture.”
All this harsh treatment—and Manning hasn’t even been convicted of the crime for which he has been charged.
For further reading on a related topic: DOJ Says Pentagon Isn’t Properly Protecting Whistleblowers (Turley Blawg)
Sources:
The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention by Glenn Greenwald (Salon)
Forgetting Bradley Manning by Laura Flanders (The Notion: The Nation’s Group Blog)
Bradley Manning’s Personal Hell (MSNBC)
Photo of Bradley Manning courtesy of the Bradley Manning Support Network
BBB,
I have worked extensively in government at the municipal level. Most information that was considered (in municipal terms) confidential, was information being hid from the public to prevent embarassment of particular officials. Past history has shown that the Feds have used “classified” mostly as a means of covering up their own ineptitude or villainy. When her husband gained their disapproval the Bush administration had no qualms about releasing Valerie Planes work, which really did put her in potential danger. “Classified” is mostly a racket that our government uses to keep the rest of us misinformed. See Pentagon Papers and Church Committee findings.
AS for this soldiers torture you’re right exagerations may be occuring, but aslas we have Guantanamo to give lie to that.
…having said that, Annie’s right about some groups faring better than others.
“Well, we had a great country while it lasted.” -Otteray Scribe
We did. “…but yesterday’s gone.”
I had a college friend who was of Japanese descent. His parent had been sent to the internment camps – the good old days.
O.S. It was a great country if you were white, protestant and male.
OS,
“Based on what has been leaked about his detention conditions, he is under sensory deprivation, so the chances of him getting any kind of physical, sensory or mental stimulation is minimal.”
What standard are you using when you say that “he is under sensory deprivation”?
If I travel by air or out of the country, I plan to take only a cheap laptop that has nothing on it except the most basic word processor so that I can do my work. Same for flash drives. If they are confiscated or scanned for any reason, there will be nothing there except the blogs or news pages I follow. Not that I have anything incriminating, but because what I have on my computer is none of the government’s damn business. I have been advised by my geek friends to use a cheap laptop because if it is seized for any reason–or no reason–I lose very little.
Do NOT buy one at a pawn shop because for all you know, a forensic scan of the hard drive could reveal something like the previous owner’s cache of kiddie porn or worse.
Ummm.. Should be “1984.”
I read Orwell’s ?1984″ when it was first published back in 1949. My reaction to it was that “it cannot happen here.” We had just fought a war against oppression. I recall the stories of the secret police and Gestapo stopping people in the streets, demanding they “show their papers.” And people were even expected to rat out their neighbors. Children we expected to tell the authorities if their parents were reading the wrong books or listening to the wrong radio programs. I thought that horrible then and I still think it flies in the face of all we have held dear as a democracy.
Well, we had a great country while it lasted.
Buddha,
Glenn Greenwald talks about the WAPO article in his piece at Salon today.
From Glenn Greenwald (12/20/2010)
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/20/surveillance/index.html
Excerpts:
But what makes all of this particularly ominous is that — as the WikiLeaks conflict demonstrates — this all takes place next to an always-expanding wall of secrecy behind which the Government’s own conduct is hidden from public view. Just consider the Government’s reaction to the disclosures by WikiLeaks of information which even it — in moments of candor — acknowledges have caused no real damage: disclosed information that, critically, was protected by relatively low-level secrecy designations and (in contrast to the Pentagon Papers) none of which was designated “Top Secret.”
It’s crystal clear that the Justice Department is engaged in an all-out crusade to figure out how to shut down WikiLeaks and imprison Julian Assange. It is subjecting Bradley Manning to unbelievably inhumane conditions in order to manipulate him into providing needed testimony to prosecute Assange. Recall that in 2008 — long before anyone even knew what WikiLeaks was — the Pentagon secretly plotted on how to destroy the organization. On Meet the Press yesterday, Joe Biden was asked whether he agreed more with Mitch McConnell’s statement that Assange is a “high-tech terrorist” than with those comparing WikiLeaks to Daniel Ellsberg, and the Vice President replied: “I would argue that it’s closer to being a high tech terrorist. . . .” “A high-tech terrorist.” And consider this pernicious little essay from Eric Fiterman — a former FBI special agent and founder of Methodvue, “a consultancy that provides cybersecurity and computer forensics services to the federal government and private businesses” — that clearly reflects the Government’s view of WikiLeaks:
In the WikiLeaks case, a fringe group led primarily by foreign nationals operating abroad is illegally obtaining, reviewing and disseminating American intelligence information with the stated intent of hurting the United States (WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange himself made this declaration). That not only meets the definition of aggressive, hostile and war-like activity, but squarely targets America’s diplomatic positions and intelligence interests while inflicting collateral damage against our financial institutions and service providers who cut-off their relationship with WikiLeaks. This, folks, is war.
That’s the mindset of the U.S. Government: everything it does of any significance can and should be shielded from public view; anyone who shines light on what it does is an Enemy who must be destroyed; but nothing you do should be beyond its monitoring and storing eyes. And what’s most remarkable about this — though, given the full-scale bipartisan consensus over it, not surprising — is how eagerly submissive much of the citizenry is to this imbalance. Many Americans plead with their Government in unison: we demand that you know everything about us but that you keep us ignorant about what you do and punish those who reveal it to us. Often, this kind of oppressive Surveillance State has to be forcibly imposed on a resistant citizenry, but much of the frightened American citizenry — led by most transparency-hating media figures — has been trained with an endless stream of fear-mongering to demand that they be subjected to more and more of it.
**********
UPDATE: Two related points:
(1) Joe Biden not only voted for the Iraq War, but was Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in 2002 as the Senate authorized that attack, one which resulted in the deaths of well over 100,000 innocent human beings and which was launched under the strategic banner of “Shock and Awe,” designed explicitly to terrorize Iraqis out of resisting through the use of a massive display of urban devastation. Julian Assange has never authorized any violence, never killed anyone, never advocated killing anyone, and never threatened anyone’s death. Yet the former can accuse the latter of being close to a “high-tech terrorist” without many people batting an eye — illustrating, yet again, what a meaningless and manipulated term “Terrorism” is; to the extent it means anything, its definition is this: “those who impede or defy American will with any degree of efficacy.”
(2) Of all the surveillance state abuses, one of the most egregious has to be the Government’s warrantless, oversight-less seizure of the laptops and other electronic equipment of American citizens at the border, whereby they not only store the contents of those devices but sometimes keep the seized items indefinitely. That practice is becoming increasingly common, aimed at people who have done nothing more than dissent from government policy; I intend to have more on that soon. If American citizens don’t object to the permanent seizure and copying of their laptops and cellphones without any warrants or judicial oversight, what would they ever object to?
“It describes a web of 4,058 federal, state and local organizations, each with its own counterterrorism responsibilities and jurisdictions. At least 935 of these organizations have been created since the 2001 attacks or became involved in counterterrorism for the first time after 9/11.”
(from the excerpt of “Monitoring America” posted by Buddha)
=============
The report might have been titled, “Wake up, America.” (I don’t recall seeing this piece of the original report, but it’s not surprising. It certainly confirms what I already know.)
We have a system that’s out of control. Beyond that, crimes are being committed.
As is the case with Bradley Manning, the system is going after individuals in our communities and attempting “to break them” in any number of cruel and sadistic ways. But, as I’ve said before, who would ever believe it?
We’ve seen a massive concentration of money and power in our security apparatus. And the result is truly Orwellian.
Julian Assange said, “By year’s end, lights on, rats out.” We sorely need the light… and the rats are multiplying.
Monitoring America
by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin
“Nine years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.
The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation’s history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.
The government’s goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI, which is in charge of terrorism investigations in the United States.
Other democracies – Britain and Israel, to name two – are well acquainted with such domestic security measures. But for the United States, the sum of these new activities represents a new level of governmental scrutiny.
This localized intelligence apparatus is part of a larger Top Secret America created since the attacks. In July, The Washington Post described an alternative geography of the United States, one that has grown so large, unwieldy and secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or how many programs exist within it.
Today’s story, along with related material on The Post’s Web site, examines how Top Secret America plays out at the local level. It describes a web of 4,058 federal, state and local organizations, each with its own counterterrorism responsibilities and jurisdictions. At least 935 of these organizations have been created since the 2001 attacks or became involved in counterterrorism for the first time after 9/11.
The months-long investigation, based on nearly 100 interviews and 1,000 documents, found that:
* Technologies and techniques honed for use on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan have migrated into the hands of law enforcement agencies in America.
* The FBI is building a database with the names and certain personal information, such as employment history, of thousands of U.S. citizens and residents whom a local police officer or a fellow citizen believed to be acting suspiciously. It is accessible to an increasing number of local law enforcement and military criminal investigators, increasing concerns that it could somehow end up in the public domain.
* Seeking to learn more about Islam and terrorism, some law enforcement agencies have hired as trainers self-described experts whose extremist views on Islam and terrorism are considered inaccurate and counterproductive by the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies.
* The Department of Homeland Security sends its state and local partners intelligence reports with little meaningful guidance, and state reports have sometimes inappropriately reported on lawful meetings.”
Read the rest at: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america/?hpid=topnews
anon nurse,
Nal left a link earlier to Manning’s lawyer’s website. Here’s an excerpt from his lawyer’s description of a typical day for Manning:
He is prevented from exercising in his cell. If he attempts to do push-ups, sit-ups, or any other form of exercise he will be forced to stop.
He does receive one hour of “exercise” outside of his cell daily. He is taken to an empty room and only allowed to walk. PFC Manning normally just walks figure eights in the room for the entire hour. If he indicates that he no long feels like walking, he is immediately returned to his cell.
http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2010/12/typical-day-for-pfc-bradley-manning.html
OS,
Great job. Hearing it from someone like you who has worked in the detention field, the treatment is even more disturbing.
AY, thanks for the information on the UCMJ.
OS,
Yeah. I found that story fairly distressing too. But there is consolation that wireless nodal technologies lend themselves to all kinds of work arounds for distribution and there are people out there looking to remove DNS control from the exclusive realm of ICANN/government hands. You might find this article interesting:
http://www.itworld.com/legal/129947/net-censorship-dns-alternative
BIL:
I think the timing is more than curious strange that the UN has decided to make a move toward putting the Internet under the control of world governments, with a plan to freeze out independent extra-governmental entities such as Internet Solutions.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/plans-panel-governments-set-policies-policing-internet/
The camel has his nose in the tent. Well, the Internet was a good idea while it lasted.
Otteray Scribe, Thanks for answering my question. And what Buddha said…
A couple of interesting links:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/campaign-free-bradley-manning
OS,
I couldn’t agree with you more. Their treatment of Manning is stopping just short of more active torture techniques like waterboarding. He had the fortitude to do the right thing in accordance with his oath to defend the Constitution. I just hope he has the fortitude to come out of the sensory deprivation with his wits and willpower in tact.
Anon Nurse:
Based on close to 40 years of working in various detention facilities, I doubt seriously that he gets any time outdoors. The only time that might happen is if he is being taken from one building to another, and for all we know, those kinds of transfers take place at night. The natural light in a cell is limited at best, and in some prisons there are cells that have no windows. Based on what has been leaked about his detention conditions, he is under sensory deprivation, so the chances of him getting any kind of physical, sensory or mental stimulation is minimal. They do not allow him to exercise and if he tries to do sit-ups or push-ups, he is stopped. The conditions are punitive, even though he has not been convicted of anything. I always thought the punishment was supposed to come AFTER adjudication, not before.
This is about breaking him, just as they broke Jose Padilla.