Chelsea Manning, a free woman.
Human Rights Watch is glad that Chelsea Manning is free. A statement from the group’s General Counsel’s office notes that Manning’s “absurdly disproportionate” 35-year sentence for passing classified documents to Wikileaks in 2010, commuted by Barack Obama on his last day in office, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act of 1917, which they warn still stands ready for use against the next potential whistleblower.
The Act was intended to punish those who leak secrets to foreign governments, but the US government is increasingly keen to turn it against those who give information to journalists. Critically, those prosecuted under the Act can’t argue they intended to serve the public interest, and prosecutors don’t have to prove that national security was harmed at all, much less that it outweighed the public’s right to know.
So as Manning walks free after seven years and 120 days (or “just seven years,” as USA Today had it—5/17/17), some of it in solitary confinement, it’s worth remembering that corporate media did virtually nothing in support of her clemency, even though her revelations were the basis for countless media reports—including revelations about a 2007 US military attack in Iraq that killed two Reuters journalists.
As FAIR analyst Adam Johnson (1/18/17) noted, it’s a strange day when the US president is to the left of the country’s editorial pages. But even though her conviction posed and poses a chilling threat to all media sources who seek to expose government wrongdoing, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today ran no editorials supporting Manning’s release.
The Washington Post ran three op-eds calling for leniency for Roman Polanski vs. none for Manning, but maybe the best reflection of things: The US counter-intelligence official who led the Pentagon’s review into the fallout from the WikiLeaks disclosures testified that no instances were ever found of any casualties resulting from the releases. But on her sentence commutation, the outraged tweet “How many people died because of Manning’s leak?” came from none other than the New York Times‘ Judith Miller, whose front-page promotions of bad intelligence paved the way for the Iraq War.
I’m horrified by your assertion that the Washington Post published three editorials asking for leniency for Polanski but none for Chelsea Manning. I’m not a huge fan of the Post, but I would never believe they could be so irresponsible! I’ve looked, but cannot find these 3 editorials. Can you please give the dates?
The three op-eds are documented in this FAIR post by Adam Johnson–
https://fair.org/home/manning-sentence-commuted-no-thanks-to-corporate-media-opinion/
Hi, I just googled” Washington Post asks for leniency for Roman Polanski” and got the 1st one for Sept. 29, 2009 written by a lady named Anne Applebaum.
The information goes on with people commenting and then other sites jump in and more about what Switzerland did, plus Roman Polanski’s wife being murdered,,,,,, so I just usually google with a question and find lots of stuff. Try that. : )
Which poses the obvious question: How many deaths can be attributed to Judith Miller’s neocon cheerleading ? One answer. “All of them”.
Gary Williams EXACTLY. Judith Miller should have been the one in solitary and its clear she is a recidivist, repeat offender.
We need a whole another branch of government-Whistleblowers, because the current configurement is failing badly for our system of government. We need more Chelsea Mannings.
WA Post has been a CIA rag for a long time. Search “Katherine Graham CIA WA Post” and then “Jeff Bezos CIA Wa Post.” Nothing they produce should be trusted. This article accurately lists some of the top fake news sites. Good job!
Chelsea Manning is a hero, and all who disparage her and WikiLeaks like Judith Miller ought to douse themselves with the oil they made from Iraq and light themselves on fire.