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by 8bitagent » Tue Jan 25, 2011 12:26 am
Plutonia wrote:Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake interviewed about Manning and yesterdays' events - she and David House were detained at Quantico for over 2 hours, effectively blocking David from his regular weekly visit:
by Plutonia » Tue Jan 25, 2011 12:51 am
Erm... Bradley Manning is being tortured...8bitagent wrote:Man I find her immensely attractive, on top of always appreciating her commentary on MSNBC. I can't believe how much older she is than I thought too. To contrast, I can't think of one conservative woman I find remotely attractive.
by seemslikeadream » Thu Jan 27, 2011 10:59 pm
Probe: Army was warned not to deploy WikiLeaks suspect
BY NANCY A. YOUSSEF
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Investigators have concluded that Army commanders ignored advice not to send to Iraq an Army private who is now accused of downloading hundreds of thousands of sensitive reports and diplomatic cables that ended up on the WikiLeaks website in the largest single security breach in American history, McClatchy Newspapers has learned.
Pfc. Bradley Manning's direct supervisor warned that Manning had thrown chairs at colleagues and shouted at higher-ranking soldiers in the year he was stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y., and advised that Manning shouldn't be sent to Iraq, where his job would entail accessing classified documents through the Defense Department's computer system.
But superior officers decided to ignore the advice because the unit was short of intelligence analysts and needed Manning's skills, two military officials familiar with the investigation told McClatchy Newspapers.
The commanders hoped they could address Manning's discipline problems in Iraq, the officials told McClatchy Newspapers, but then never properly monitored him. The result was a "comedy of errors" as one commander after another assumed someone else was addressing Manning's problems, one official said. Both officials spoke anonymously because they weren't authorized to discuss the investigation.
Investigators are now considering whether they should recommend disciplinary action against at least three officers in Manning's chain of command. Investigators must submit their findings to Army Secretary John McHugh by Tuesday.
It's the second time in just over a year that Army practices have come under intense internal scrutiny after a major security failing. A similar probe after an Army psychiatrist allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, killing 13, also focused on how superiors failed to take action despite signs that Maj. Nidal Hasan, who had exchanged e-mails with a radical Yemeni-American cleric, was seriously disaffected and might turn violent.
That probe, which the Pentagon has yet to make public, resulted in 47 recommendations for changes in Army procedures, including granting supervisors better access to personnel records and imposing better screening for threats from Internet sources. Although none of Hasan's supervisors have been disciplined, they still could face charges or administrative actions, Army officials have said.
The findings in the Manning investigation likely will renew concerns that commanders once again refused to address signs of a troubled soldier because they needed his skills to deploy a fully staffed unit to Iraq or Afghanistan. It could also lead to changes in how commanders deal with discipline problems or decide when not to deploy someone.
Deploying soldiers who in earlier years might have been left behind wasn't a problem exclusive to Manning's unit but a systemic issue during the height of the Iraq war, as commanders found themselves scurrying to cobble together units to deploy.
An Army report into the service's high suicide rate concluded in July that military commanders had become so focused on training troops for deployment that they no longer had the time to address issues such as alcoholism, prescription drug abuse and even violence, and instead hoped they'd disappear in combat.
Army commanders declined to comment on the record about the Manning investigation or the Hasan probe, saying they didn't want to interfere in cases where criminal charges are pending. Manning is being held at the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Va., facing eight charges that could result in a 52-year prison sentence. Hasan is awaiting court martial on murder charges in Texas that could result in the death penalty.
Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the vice chief of staff of the Army, admitted last summer when the 350-page report titled "Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention" was released that attention to disciplinary issues had waned during the rush to get troops to war.
"We prioritized, I think, the way you would want us to do, and that is to fight our nation's wars and to be ready and tactically sound to go and do the mission we were given by the country," he said then. Now, with the U.S. scheduled to have all troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, "It's time for the Army to take a hard look at itself, to sit down and say, 'OK, what are those things that came lower on our priority list that we need to reinstitute, reinforce and start doing to get at this problem?' "
Chiarelli said then that it would be fair "to say that, because of everything that we're doing, we have not paid the attention we need to on high-risk behavior."
Investigators looking at Manning's case found that while the military had followed procedures in giving Manning a security clearance, more questions should have been asked about whether he should retain it once he displayed disciplinary problems.
A central Defense Department agency, Defense Security Service, issues the clearances based on the soldier's job, need-to-know government secrets and a background check. Higher-level clearances also may include interviews by DSS. The length of time the clearance is in effect depends on the job and the level of access given.
At one point, Manning, who joined the Army in 2007, saw a mental health specialist, officials said, but it's unclear what came of that meeting. Iraq was his only deployment. He was deployed to Iraq in 2009 and served there until he was arrested in May, shortly after the first WikiLeaks posting in April.
Army Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen Jr., the commander of the Army General Command and Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., has led the wide-ranging investigation. Investigators made several trips to Fort Drum, where Manning was stationed before deploying to Iraq, and conducted scores of interviews. The findings could become part of the evidence presented at Manning's court martial.
Manning allegedly downloaded the documents while pretending to listen to music by Lady Gaga on headphones, a cover story, investigators say, to explain the sound of the computer's CD drive whirring as he copied the files.
Some human rights groups charge that Manning is being mistreated, with no ability to exercise or receive visitors and that at times, he's deprived of his eyeglasses. The Defense Department has denied these claims and another that Manning was improperly placed on suicide watch for two days as punishment. The Pentagon this week named a new detention commander but insisted the change was long planned.
Manning, 23, isn't cooperating with investigators, and prosecutors still don't know how the hundreds of thousands of documents and files he allegedly downloaded reached WikiLeaks, which has posted them on its website in four separate bursts that began in April with the release of a video showing an Army helicopter firing on civilians in Baghdad, killing two Reuters news agency employees.
The website also released tens of thousands of documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan before the current, ongoing publication of hundreds of thousands of State Department cables. That release began on Nov. 28.
by Jeff » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:11 pm
PayPal cuts service to group supporting Bradley Manning: report
By Sahil Kapur
Thursday, February 24th, 2011 -- 10:45 am
Online payment provider PayPal has apparently frozen the account of Courage to Resist, a group raising funds to support US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the whistleblower accused of passing classified documents to WikiLeaks.
The group said Thursday in a media advisory that PayPal recently chose to freeze its account -- created in 2006 -- after it began soliciting donations to support Manning. The 23-year-old, arrested in May, could face charges of espionage or treason.
He is currently being held in solitary confinement in a Virginia maximum security prison, where he sits alone in a cell for 23 out of 24 hours each day, according to Salon's Glenn Greenwald.
PayPal did not immediately return a request for comment.
According to Courage to Resist, the "Bradley Manning Defense Fund" -- run in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network -- has raised a total of $176,250 from 2,801 individuals, and an additional $60,640 for Manning's legal trust account.
"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," said Loraine Reitman of the Bradley Manning Support Network. "This was an internal policy decision by PayPal."
...
by 23 » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:22 pm
by Nordic » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:24 pm
by 23 » Thu Feb 24, 2011 1:31 pm
by Stephen Morgan » Thu Feb 24, 2011 3:04 pm
by Nordic » Thu Feb 24, 2011 3:17 pm
by Stephen Morgan » Thu Feb 24, 2011 4:33 pm
Nordic wrote:Well, I'm thinking for businesses that only take Paypal. Like on e-bay and, hell, my blackberry, if I want to buy any apps for it, it's paypal only!
by justdrew » Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:11 pm
by Pele'sDaughter » Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:37 pm
by justdrew » Fri Feb 25, 2011 11:23 am
by norton ash » Fri Feb 25, 2011 11:30 am
FYI - due to extensive pressure from the public, paypal has backtracked and reinstated their account
by Laodicean » Wed Mar 02, 2011 9:13 pm
22 New Charges Against Pvt. Bradley Manning, Accused WikiLeaks Source
The Army late Wednesday filed 22 new charges against PFC Bradley Manning, suspected of passing classified information to the WikiLeaks website. The charges include "aiding the enemy," which is a capital offense, but Army prosecutors told Mannning's lawyers that they would not be seeking the death penalty in this case.
...
Though not mentioning WikiLeaks by name the new charge sheets indicate Manning is now being charged with having illegally downloaded the hundreds of thousands of cables and military incident reports that were provided to "an unauthorized source" and ultimately made public by WikiLeaks.
The charge sheets say Manning illegally obtained and transferred 380,000 records from a U.S. military database of military incident reports in Iraq, as well as another 90,000 records from a similar database for Afghanistan. He is also charged with obtaining a video of a 2009 U.S. bombing incident in western Afghanistan that resulted in many Afghan civilian deaths, another item that WikiLeaks has promised to reveal publicly.
According to an Army press release, Manning is being charged with introducing "unauthorized software onto government computers to extract classified information, unlawfully downloaded it, improperly stored it, and transmitted the classified data for public release and use by the enemy.
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