News Archive - 2011-12 (December 2011)
2011-12-03 #WikiLeaks News: Urgent Action for Julian Assange; Updates on Bradley Manning case; December Events Calendar
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
It is urgent to take action to prevent Julian Assange’s extradition to Sweden, which would increase the possibility of an extradition to and indefinite detention in the United States.
Please contact your MP today.
Julian Assange’s next hearing will be on December 5 (Monday), as an historic debate on extradition reform in the UK takes place. This debate could affect the likelihood of a Supreme Court appeal against his extradition. In order for this to happen, the High Court of London must first consider his appeal to be of general public importance, as such, your support truly is crucial. Please take action today!
If you can be in London, be sure to also make it to the Demo planned outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Monday, starting at 8:30AM.
- WikiLeaks new release, the Spy Files, consisting of hundreds of documents on Surveillance Companies currently providing democratic governments and dictatorships alike with private information on the average citizen, can be found at spyfiles.org. Additionally, WikiLeaks urges everyone to crowd source the documents, using the hashtag #wlfind. More documents are yet to be published. A video of the Spy Files press conference can be found on youtube.
- Bradley Manning’s case has seen two important new developments this week: his treatment was condemned by 64 Members of the European Parliament (who request a UN torture investigator be allowed to visit Bradley Manning, declaring in a letter: “We are troubled by reports that Mr Manning has been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement and other abusive treatment tantamount to torture.”) and it was revealed the US Government is withholding favorable evidence for his defense: proof no harm against national security was found during a Defense Intelligence Agency investigation.
- Lawyers for Jacob Appelbaum, Birgitta Jonsdottir and Rop Gonggrijp will again appeal the ruling on the Twitter/WikiLeaks case. Notice of appeal document can be found here (pdf).
- A brief summary of Julian Assange’s talk at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit can be read here.
WikiLeaks Events in the month of December
Click to enlarge. The event list below the calendar has been updated.
December 1: WikiLeaks hosted an important press conference in Central London, where cooperation between Mass Surveillance Industry and Governments was exposed.
December 3: Julian Assange spoke on the topic “Democracy and Wikileaks: The Trickledown Effect” at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
December 5: Public hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice (London) to determine whether Julian Assange’s appeal will proceed to the Supreme Court. A Demo planned outside the Courts, starting at 8:30AM.
December 7: Julian Assange will have spent a year under house arrest without charge.
December 8: Kristinn Hrafnsson and founder of the Center for Investigative Journalism Gavin MacFadyen will host a WikiLeaks related panel in Bratislava.
December 16: A pretrial hearing for Bradley Manning is scheduled to begin at Fort Meade (Maryland) and is expected to last five days. Supporters will gather outside the Court.
December 17: Global Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday:
Saturday, December 17 · 12:00am - 11:30pm
[For more details, see Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday's facebook page.]
Send small gifts and birthday cards to the following address
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 6602
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
- If you live in Australia: click here to complain to the ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) about the Banking Blockade against WikiLeaks.
Julian Assange
361 days under house arrest without charge.
- new Contact your MP ahead of the December 5 historical debate on extradition, so that Julian Assange’s appeal may have an increased chance to proceed to the Supreme Court.
- new Be sure to attend the rally outside the Royal Courts of Justice if you are able to be in London this Monday.
- Liberté Info seeks volunteers to conduct an action-based campaign in defense of Julian Assange.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
556 days detained without trial.
- Learn how you can attend the Rally, Vigil and March for Bradley Manning scheduled on the first day of his pretrial hearing, December 16 at bradleymanning.org
- And on his 24th birthday, December 17:
write or send small gifts to Bradley Manning, contribute to his defense with a donation or participate in the Global Vigil planned to mark this occasion.
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
2011-12-03 A Story of PERF-idy
Image via The Daily Bail.
Ever since this Democracy Now! interview, the Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF, a previously unregarded police strategy NGO, has been receiving some clearly undesired attention. In that interview, PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler unwisely let slip that it was PERF which had been coordinating the conference calls which Oakland Mayor Jean Quan had (also unwisely) let slip had taken place.
Those conference calls, apparently two at present count (according this this tepid interview), were organised by PERF with the explicit intention of having the involved mayors and police chiefs talk about managing approaches to ‘dealing’ with Occupy Wall Street protests. These conference calls were made in the context of Mr Wexler having made the unretracted tweet that a PERF document – Managing Major Events (PDF) – was being used as ‘a guide to handling Occupy protests’.
Interestingly enough, in the aforementioned tepid interview, Mr Wexler claimed “[t]here was no agenda” for the calls; in other words, the calls weren’t structured. This should seem rather odd, as the PERF guide which he referenced in his tweet is all about structure. Indeed, the notion of an ‘unstructured’ or ‘agenda-less’ conference call is a very odd claim indeed. But, until such time as recordings of the conferences are released, one can only arch one’s eyebrows at the idea of an ‘unstructured’ or ‘agenda-less’ conference call in the modern ‘bring your work home on weekends’ business world.
Continuing on, the structural relationships of PERF also came to light around this time. Primary funding of PERF, by the organisation’s own admission[1], comes from the Department of Homeland Security and various corporate sponsors, including Motorola and Lockheed Martin [1]. Mr Wexler himself sits on the Homeland Security Advisory Council. Additionally, the Managing Major Events manual was funded by the Motorola Foundation, bringing to mind interesting questions of who, really, writes public policing policy.
[1] Link to the statement. I don’t like linking to this article, as the DHS funding information had previously appeared on PERF’s About Us page. However, the DHS mention has since been replaced with the more soothingly amorphous ‘government’ [link].
Past PERF sponsors have been revealed by WikiLeaks: PERF wrote a strategy paper (PDF) regarding ‘community policing’, and so forth, in the Jamaica Constabulary Force. This is a paper funded by the American Chamber of Commerce, or AMCHAM.
AMCHAM itself is the international arm of the US Chamber of Commerce (USCHAM) which itself is notorious for the anti-progressive plot revealed in the Anonymous/LulzSec hack of HBGary. The intent of the plot was to ‘discredit’ various ‘targets’, including the progressive policy organisation Think Progress, as well as the highly respected Glen Greenwald. HBGary, in turn, was also tapped by the Department of Justice to design an attack plot for Bank of America against WikiLeaks, which also included Glen Greenwald as a ‘target’.
In addition to the sponsorship of AMCHAM, the Jamaica policy paper was funded by the US Agency for International Development, or USAID. The paper received the full support of the US State Department, which provided a $500,000 grant to Jamaica explicitly for the purposes of implementing the PERF policy paper. Facilities were built in Jamaica, supported by the State Department grant; an AMCHAM tour of the facilities, funded by USAID, was guided by representatives of PERF. A 2008 USAID review (PDF, pg 5) of the project affirms that ”[a] study… commissioned by the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) in Jamaica and written by PERF, helped guide the design of the activity in [Jamaica].” Mr Wexler himself was very cheery (PDF) over the Jamaica project, saying in his organisation’s newsletter that it was “Taking PERF Principles Abroad”.
Passing implications of this network of sponsorship are quite interesting. AMCHAM is directly involved with crafting police strategy, by their sponsoring of PERF. Because of this, it effectively means that AMCHAM is a police policy NGO. It is not any great leap of logic to assume that USCHAM are also involved with crafting domestic police strategy as well, since their international arm has done so.
To be clear: It is not confirmed that USCHAM has itself directly sponsored a PERF strategy paper for domestic use, but at the same time it is not an unfair assumption. The implications of an organisation like USCHAM crafting police strategy are not comforting. One on hand, they fund PERF, which is an organisation writing national – and international – strategy guides for police. On the other hand, USCHAM funded HBGary’s illegal and immoral ‘attack and discredit’ plots against public policy organisations, journalists like Mr Greenwald, and otherwise chill free speech.
Turning here to PERF itself, there are an interesting number of characters embedded within the organisation. People like William Bratton, the ‘reformer’ who reshaped the New York Police Department (NYPD) along the ‘broken windows’ theory of policing. Succinctly put, the policy assumes that by having a zero-tolerance toward petty crime, major crime is reduced. This has been neatly disproven by the extremely serious, and unpunished, crimes which have been perpetrated on Wall Street. Mr Bratton is also the man whom UK Prime Minister David Cameron wished to bring on as the Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police – a move wisely blocked by his Home Secretary – due the riots following the Met’s shooting of an unarmed man. Presently, the United Kingdom is facing the most repressive and top-heavy Government in its history, including the Cromwell epoch. Mr Bratton was being brought on to ‘improve’ the functioning of the police apparatus.
Other interesting characters have been already discussed by Ayesha Kazmi on her blog:
Most notable are Miami Police Chief John Timoney and Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan. Anyone who has researched anything about shifting police tactics in the United States since 1999 would have come across these names without digging too deep. Both are responsible for coordinating notoriously heavy handed abusive policing in their respective cities; Dolan for the 2008 Republican National Convention, and Timoney for the 2003 FTAA protests that saw the genesis for the “Miami Model” of policing protests. The “Miami Model” has since become the model to emulate for subsequent protest policing, as stated by both the Miami Mayor and the Miami-Dade State Attorney.
Another notable name would be Thomas C Frazier who not only currently sits as the special advisor of the city of Oakland’s police department, but also sat on the Department of Justice’s “Less Lethals Working Group” that researches less lethal weapons such as different types of chemical agents, such as pepper spray and tear gas, projectiles, such as rubber bullets, bean bags, and pepper balls, and conducted energy devices (CEDs) such as tasers and LRADs. The 2009 DoJ review states that the use of less lethal weapons was expanding in several different law enforcement agencies throughout the United States and recommends that the DoJ “coordinate and ensure that its components develop appropriate and consistent policies to specifically address the use of less-lethal weapons, including conducted energy devices, by Department personnel and state and local law enforcement officers serving on Department task forces.”
So all and all, one must admit that PERF keeps very interesting company. This is, it seems, what Fox News labels progressive. I would suppose this comes as an endorsement of sorts. “PERF is okay because they’re not lunatics like us”, is the best translation which comes to mind.
It should go without saying that PERF is not a progressive organisation by any stretch of the imagination except Fox’s. A relationship with USCHAM, even if theoretically bureaucratically removed via AMCHAM, is highly questionable, given what is known about USCHAM’s illegal activities against individuals and organisations.
Close association with the US State Department is also not any sign of progressive ethics. Amongst other things, WikiLeaks shows us that the State Department was onboard with ’calibrat[ing] a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU’ – read: price manipulation of food prices in the European Union – in order to punish anti-Genetically Modified Foods countries in the Union. Not the paragon of sensitivity, the State Department.
This does not even return to the ethical questions surrounding members of PERF proper, nor of PERF’s sponsorship by Lockheed Martin (PDF). That is, almost certainly, only one out of a number of defence contractors providing financial support to PERF. Defence contractors are in the business of selling weapons and related hardware; it can only stand to reason that PERF, wishing to keep its sponsors happy, would design policy to favour its sponsors. The classic “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” approach to designing police strategy.
This level of symbiosis cannot, as far as I’m concerned, be over-exaggerated. Nor can the blasé and unquestioning support which the State Department showed toward PERF and their strategy paper for Jamaica. That $500,000 was a href="http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/521/521101422/521101422_200512_990.pdf">over twice (PDF, pg 5) then-Executive Director Sherwin Wexler’s yearly income, after all.
The symbiosis between PERF and the Department of Homeland Security is also one which cannot be over-exaggerated. Unfortunately, it’s the symbiotic relationship about which the least is known at present. This will change. But be that as it may, we come here to the big question which has been circulating for a very long time:
Is the Department of Homeland Security directly managing the crackdown on Occupy movements nation-wide?
According to Rick Ellis, the answer is yes: He cites an anonymous source in the Department of Justice whom he has known, by his own admission, for many years. Despite rumours and snotty comments to the contrary, he has not retracted one bit of his story.
People on the ground say yes as well: There have been sightings of Homeland Security agents at multiple Occupy movements, including Boston (via Ayesha Kazmi, who was on the ground during the 17 November march). Indeed, there is the rather mysterious arrest performed by DHS Federal Protective Services agents at Occupy Portland; an arrest on which the FPS made the following statement:
FPS is working with the Portland Police Bureau to enforce the prohibition of overnight encampments at Schrunk Plaza, while protecting the safety and security of all involved,” said Chris Ortman, an agency spokesman in Washington, D.C.
Anonymous sources and on-the-ground observations are all well and good, but they are not the proverbial ‘smoking gun’: A memo, a policy paper, something to show an irrefutable link from the ground to Homeland Security. That smoking gun is what we lack at present.
What we do have, though, is very strong correlative evidence. Tim Dolan, for example, is an excellent case study. His handling of the 2008 Republican National Convention was brutal and shocking. That does not stop the Department of Homeland Security from not only lauding the 2008 RNC as a success in police action, but also bragging about having coordinated the entire affair. Mr Dolan, to reiterate, sits on the board of PERF. It would represent a monument to stupidity to suggest that his presence in PERF is ceremonial. It is a temple to stupidity to suggest that the handling of protesters at the 2008 RNC is utterly dissimilar to the handling of Occupy protesters.
This is a thumbnail sketch of PERF; there are serious questions about the revolving doors between PERF, other NGOs, and the Federal Government proper. Even if Homeland Security is shown, emphatically and without a shadow of a doubt, to have not lifted a single finger to assist crackdowns on Occupy, PERF still represents a textbook case of nepotism and the incestuous intermingling of private, unaccountable organisations with the powers of the Federal Government.
Further correlative information can be found in PERF itself, in the form of a Mr Gerard Murphy, who is “the Director of Homeland Security and Development…” at PERF. “In this capacity he manages a variety of law enforcement and homeland security projects, and oversees the development of new project ideas.” Other activities of PERF’s Homeland Security and Development ‘division’ include “The Terrorism White Paper Series”. On the page about the ‘division’ one finds a particularly interesting quote:
The COPS Office has supported this PERF initiative to produce practical advice for resolving immediate problems related to local law enforcement’s new counter terrorism role, as well as a framework to guide the profession for the next three to five years.
COPS, as an aside, stands for Community Organised Policing Strategy, and is an arm of the US Department of Justice. Their self-description makes PERF a logical candidate for an NGO embedded in the process of establishing, well, Department of Justice approved police strategy.
For me, there have been two very interesting sides to the emerging story around PERF. Generally speaking, I would actually rank these two facets fairly equally in importance. The first, and usually most obvious, is the information which continues to come to light regarding PERF’s activities, funding, sponsors, and members. This post, as I mentioned above, is just scratching the surface of an evidently corrupt and incestuous situation.
Related to those defending PERF, in one fashion or other, are those not condemning PERF, or at the very least the police actions which are being taken supposedly under the aegis of PERF’s Managing Major Events manual. This, oddly enough, concerns PERF itself: Its reputation is one the line, considering its manual has been self-touted as the guide for ‘handling’ Occupy protests. But it also includes Human Rights Watch, whose Ms Diane Paul is a member of PERF (link, search for the name). What, exactly, the relationship between PERF and HRW is unclear. Curiously, however, HRW has only just come out with their position on police brutality – or, as they put it, ‘misconduct’ – against Occupy protesters. Their position, in essence: Police brutality is the action of ‘rogue’ police officers, in a country which has institutionalised and legalised indefinite detainment, torture, and extra-judicial executions.
The second facet is less obvious, but in my mind no less elucidating: It is the numbers of people who are rushing, and often tripping, to come to the aid of PERF. This ‘aid’ comes in many forms, ranging from outright endorsement to attempts at redirecting the scrutiny somewhere, anywhere, but PERF — “It’s not PERF! Anyone but PERF!” Dismissing the PERF story out of hand, without taking a cursory glance simply at the revolving door, is an alarming dereliction of journalistic duty. One must wonder why that duty is left derelict when so obvious a story is presented.
2011-12-03 On January 7, demand Justice
As we take December 10 to remember the human rights and freedoms we are entitled to, it is impossible to not feel how far we have fallen from our ideals of 63 years ago.
The 11th of January 2012 is the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay black hole, a place that has incarcerated 22 children, the centrepiece for the Bush regime's reinstatement of torture, and an anti-judicial experiment that has culminated this month in a bill before the US senate which proposes that US citizens should be subjected to trial by army and indefinite preventive detainment; in other words, a bill which proposes that the US military be permitted to treat US citizens as it treats the rest of the world.
Thanks to Wikileaks' release of the US state cables, we have seen the complicity of almost every country in the world in the human rights abuses of which Guantanamo has become a symbol. We have seen Canada refuse its obligation to demand the release of a Canadian child from Bagram and Guantanamo, refuse to demand that his torture and ill treatment end, and even participate in violating his human rights. We have seen Australia refuse to make an inquiry on behalf of an Australian citizen and torture victim. We have seen Ireland allowing secret rendition flights to use its airport, and we have seen Poland, Lithuania and Romania host "black site" CIA prisons. We have seen Yemen imprison truthful journalists on order from Obama, Armenian officials enable sex trafficers, and Bulgarian PM Borisov linked to oil-siphoning scandals, illegal deals involving LUKoil and major traffic in methamphetamines. We have seen known thugs as ruling politicians and citizens imprisoned for political speech. We have seen humanitarian organizations conceal human rights abuses and corporations that kill their workers.
Throughout this momentous year we have seen almost every country in the world expose themselves as military industrial regimes in which freedom of speech and assembly are met with armed violence by security forces employed to provide protection from the people, not to the people. We have seen court systems which assist banks and other corporations to violate our rights and freedoms and do not work to defend individuals. We have seen a global industry of prisons which work on a system of profit and expansion, not justice. We have seen governments which create laws in response to the needs of corporations, not individuals. This week, we have seen the vast industry of spying on individuals by corporations, in violation of our right to privacy. Throughout this year of mass arrests, we have yet to see the arrest of any of the individuals responsible for these attacks on our human rights.
On January 7, 2012, we demand the return of our justice systems to the people. We demand the release of all untried or unjustly tried prisoners and an end to the abuses of our prison systems. We join London Guantánamo Campaign, Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, and CND in calling for an immediate end to the illegal detention of people in Guantánamo. And we demand the arrest and trial of all those responsible for violating our human rights.
2011-12-03 The CIA and Mossad: a murderous alliance
Last week's arrests of a dozen alleged CIA agents in Iran threw a spotlight on long-standing, covert U.S.-Israeli actions in the Islamic republic -- including purported involvement by the CIA and Mossad in the recent killings of Iranian nuclear scientists. Though enduring, the collaboration between Western and Israeli intelligence agencies in intelligence and assassination operations reveals a relationship of cooperation and distrust.
The Mossad (Hebrew for "institution") is Israel's main intelligence agency. According to the Global Security site, Mossad also oversees "covert action and counterterrorism"; its operations are widely held to include targeted killings. At the time of its founding, the Mossad's motto was the biblical quote "By way of deception thou shalt make war." The motto was later changed to a different Proverbs passage: "Where no counsel is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety." Sources refer variously to the Mossad's international assassination unit as "Metsada," "Caesarea," or "Kidon" ("Kidon" is Hebrew for "bayonet"). Rafi Eitan, a former director of Mossad operations, compared its assassins to "the official hangman or the doctor on Death Row who administers the lethal injection. We are simply fulfilling a sentence sanctioned by the prime minister of the day."
In the past half-century, Israel has allegedly killed hundreds of members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hamas, Hebollah, and Islamic Jihad. Mossad targets have also reportedly included German rocket scientists working for Egypt in the 1960s and, from the 1980s to the present, Iraqi and Iranian nuclear scientists. Early on, the Mossad kidnapped and killed alleged Nazi war criminals; one well-known example was Adolf Eichmann, whom the Mossad abducted from Argentina and brought to Israel for trial and execution. The Mossad allegedly assassinated Moroccan politician Mehdi Ben Barka in 1965, and is said to be responsible for killings throughout Europe and the Middle East during the 1970s. In 1972, Dr. Mahmoud Hamshari was killed by a bomb placed in the telephone of his Paris apartment. Also killed in France was PLO associate Zuheir Mohsen. PFLP leader Dr. Wadie Haddad allegedly died in 1978 via poisoned chocolate. In retaliation for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, the Mossad conducted its "Wrath of God" campaign, murdering 11 of the "Black September" terrorists. The operation ended in a scandal known as the "Lillehammer affair," with the Norway killing of Ahmad Boushiki, a North African waiter whom Mossad agents had mistaken for PLO leader Ali Salameh -- alleged mastermind of the athletes' massacre. Later, the Mossad allegedly killed Salameh with a car bomb in Beirut. The Wrath of God effort additionally involved the sending of letter bombs. Purported recipients included alleged Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner and PFLP member Bassam Abu Sharif; Sharif, though badly disfigured, survived the attack.
Alleged Mossad victims in the 1980s and 1990s included Fathi Shiqaqi, leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Gerald Bull, a Canadian scientist and ballistics expert who worked for Iraq on the "Super Gun" project; they were among several individuals who died from point-blank gunshot wounds to the head. In 1997, Mossad operatives tried but failed to assassinate Khalid Meshaal, a top Hamas leader in Jordan. (After using fake Canadian passports to enter Jordan, Mossad agents injected poison into Meshaal's ear.)
Dubai police observed the "Mossad method" in the 2010 torture and killing of Hamas chief and accused arms smuggler Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel room by more than two dozen alleged Mossad agents travelling on British, Irish, French, and Australian passports obtained via forgery and identity theft. The hit squad allegedly injected Mabhouh with a heart attack-inducing drug. Although Israel has responded evasively to questions regarding its hand in the killing, a Haaretz reporter noted: "There is no need for the government of Israel to answer the question of whether Mossad agents were responsible for assassinating [Mabhouh] ... the smiles on the ministers' faces as they left the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday said it all." Sudanese officials later fingered Mossad in the missile killing of Mabhouh's successor. Since 2004 some have alleged Mossad responsibility for the Syria assassinations of Hamas officer Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil (by car bomb), Brigadier-General Muhammad Suleiman (by gunshot), and Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah (by exploding headrest). At least half a dozen other Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad members reportedly died from car bombs placed by the Mossad. In 2009, warplanes hit a truck convoy and a ship in Sudan carrying arms for Hamas, killing 119 persons. Israel was accused, but made no comment.
Close U.S.-Israel relations have reportedly existed since the beginnings of Israel's statehood. The U.S. and Israeli intelligence worked together in 1957 to create Iran's secret intelligence agency SAVAK. The book Gideon's Spies details both collaboration and tension between the Mossad and the U.S. assassination squad JSOC. Another account of the Mossad, published in 2007, describes the agency's joint operations with the CIA against Hezbollah. Mossad tactics have reportedly had significant impact on U.S. and British intelligence operations. "According to usually reliable intelligence sources," Asia Times reported, "it can be taken as highly significant that the CIA formally established an assassination team" soon after former Mossad director Meir Dagan paid a visit to former CIA director George Tenet. At least one source has indicated that, during the last Bush administration, Republican party members "authorized the entrance into the Pentagon of top Israeli Defense Force and Mossad officers, including Kidon personnel." Israel has also relied heavily on the U.S. A 2006 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks describes a meeting during which Israeli counterterrorism bureau officials requested help from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with a number of counterterrorism projects. Another cable provides insight into strong U.S.-Israeli cooperation in "combating financial flows from Saudi Arabia and Europe." Israel is also said to have played an important part in covert British counterterrorism operations. MI5 and MI6 have reportedly "shown a willingness to 'sub-contract it to Mossad'" when addressing controversial political situations.
Mossad-U.S. cooperation has, however, been marred by mutual distrust, purportedly because Mossad has often been prone to scandal and credibility issues. Both parties appear to have participated in deception. One account reports that, during the Carter administration, the CIA bribed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, providing Sadat with Israel's secret military information in exchange for Egyptian compliance with the Camp David Accords. The same source describes similar CIA intelligence-sharing with Saudi Arabia. Allegedly, Israel learned of the deception, but did not object because "America was the only ally Israel had left." Some in the U.S. have alleged Israeli involvement in the 2001 terrorist attacks -- pointing to family ties between the Mossad and at least one 9/11 hijacker, and to the fact that, one month before the terrorist attacks, the Mossad informed the U.S. that terrorists were entering the country and planning "a major assault" that would make Americans "very vulnerable." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did nothing to defuse these accusations when he stated that Israel had benefited from the terror attacks.
Recently, U.S.-Mossad efforts have purportedly focused on sabotaging Iran's nuclear program. Diplomatic cables show heavy Israeli lobbying for "robust U.S. involvement" in curtailing Iran's development of nuclear capabilities. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Iran "the main threat to Israel"; Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz characterized Iran's completion of the enrichment process as the "point of no return." Israel and the U.S. were alleged to have been behind the Stuxnet computer worm, which in 2010 sabotaged the operating systems at an Iranian uranium enrichment plant. Intelligence experts suspect that the Mossad is responsible for the recent assassinations of Iranian scientists.
Since 2007, at least five Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed by bomb, gunshot or poison. The private U.S. intelligence firm Statfor reported that the Mossad killed nuclear scientist Ardeshir Hosseinpour. In 2010, Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi died when a motorcycle rigged with explosives detonated near his home. Darioush Rezaeinejad was shot outside his daughter's kindergarten by snipers on a motorcycle; Israel and the IAEA have asserted Rezaeinejad's involvement with work on a nuclear detonator. Der Spiegel reported that "an Israeli intelligence source" admitted Mossad responsibility for the murder. Purportedly, a nuclear scientist identified as "Dr. Boronzi" was later assassinated in the same location where Rezaei was killed. University professor and nuclear physics expert Majid Shahriari was the next to die. The Mossad and CIA are also suspected of being behind the attempted assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Fereydoon Abbasi, who survived after would-be killers on a motorcycle reportedly affixed a magnet bomb to Abbasi's car door while he was driving. On November 12, a blast at an Iranian military base killed 17 people, including Brigade General Hassan Moghaddam, known as the "architect" of Iran's missile program. Commentators suggested that either Mossad or the CIA was behind the attack; a former Iranian government official stated that this and a similar 2010 incident were "part of the covert war against Iran, led by Israel." Some have reported that a joint Mossad/JSOC operation run by former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was responsible for a series of plane crashes in Iran that killed Iranian military personnel and individuals associated with the country's nuclear research facilities. In May 2009, a bomb was found on board Kish Air flight Y9-7030 MD-82, en route to Tehran.
The Iranian Intelligence Ministry has announced that it has evidence that the Mossad, CIA, and MI6 were responsible for the attacks. Encountering questions regarding Israel's involvement, one journalist states that, "[g]rinning suggestively, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak vaguely told reporters, 'Israel is not responding.'" Some describe the assassination campaign as part of a "covert war" against Iran. Such allegations may have gained strength last week, when Iran reportedly arrested 12 CIA agents. High-ranking parliamentary official Parviz Sorouri announced that the agents were operating in coordination with the Mossad and other agencies to target Iran's military and its nuclear program: "The U.S. and Zionist regime's espionage apparatuses were trying to damage Iran both from inside and outside with a heavy blow, using regional intelligence services." Last week's news follows Hezbollah's announcement that it unmasked a CIA spy ring in Lebanon earlier this year. American officials admitted the truth of this allegation; Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah lauded his group's victory over the U.S. and Israel in "the intelligence war." U.S. officials, in turn, uncovered an apparent Iranian scheme to bomb a Washington establishment, possibly in retaliation for the killings of Iranian scientists.
In November, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) asked the UN to take action against the assassination of the country's nuclear scientists. The Iranian government stated that the IAEA head had made the country's scientists into Mossad and CIA targets when the IAEA published the researchers' names in its new report on Iran's nuclear weapons program. Soltanieh said that this disclosure of the scientists' names violates the agency's rules.
Iran denies allegations that it is pursuing a nuclear weapon program. Last month, however, the IAEA released a report "presenting new evidence" to suggest that Iran is "secretly working to obtain a nuclear weapon." News items and editorials published by The Guardian, The New York Times, the BBC, and the Daily Telegraph appeared to support the IAEA's position. These views echo the substance of 2008 U.S.-EU-Canada trilateral meetings on Iran, during which the three delegations "agreed that Iran sought to undermine everything that the international community sought to achieve in the Middle East, and that its nuclear program and state sponsorship of terrorism constituted direct challenges to the international community and its norms of behavior."
Others dispute such pronouncements. In an interview last month with Democracy Now!, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh compared the allegations regarding Iran's nuclear program to the WMD claims leading to the recent war against Iraq:
"It’s just this — almost the same sort of — I don’t know if you want to call it a 'psychosis,' but it’s some sort of a fantasy land being built up here, as it was with Iraq, the same sort of — no lessons learned, obviously ... Cheney kept on having [JSOC] send teams inside Iran ... they would do everything they could to try and find evidence of an undeclared underground facility ... there's not much you can do in Iran right now without us finding out something about it. They found nothing. Nothing. No evidence of any weaponization ... no evidence of a facility to build the bomb. They have facilities to enrich, but not separate facilities for building a bomb. This is simply a fact. We haven’t found it, if it does exist. It’s still a fantasy.'"
Although Iran did investigate the possibility of making a bomb, Hersh stated, "they stopped in ’03. That’s still the American consensus. The Israelis will tell you privately, 'Yes, we agree.'" This position has been supported by Greg Thielmann, a former US State Department and Senate Intelligence Committee analyst, and by Robert Kelley, a nuclear engineer and IAEA inspector, who opined that the IAEA report "misleads and manipulates facts in [an] attempt to prove a forgone conclusion," and also "recycles old intelligence ... to bolster hard liners."
Additionally, some have pointed to an embassy cable reporting that new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano stated that he is "solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program." In a later cable, an official notes: "The coming transition period provides a further window for us to shape Amano's thinking before his agenda collides with the IAEA Secretariat bureaucracy.'" Hersh described U.S. efforts behind Amano's election as IAEA chief:
"We supported him very much ... He was considered weak by everybody, but we pushed to get him in ... He responded by thanking us and saying he shares our views ... it was just an expression of love. He’s going to do what we wanted." Hersh added: "... inside the IAEA ... they’re very bothered by the direction Amano is taking them.'"
Nevertheless, press reports note that embassy cables as late as 2009 revealed Israeli plans for "a large scale war" in the Middle East, "probably against Hamas or Hezbollah." Similarly, a 2005 cable (pre-dating the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah) revealed an "initial authorization" for an attack on Iran, and noted: "... it may not be possible to detect preparations for any military strike ... any attack order would be closely held."
2011-12-04 #WikiLeaks News: Pres. Obama and Sec. Clinton called to witness in Bradley Manning’s hearing; New Support Campaigns; Other Updates
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
- The Spy Files map has been upgraded with links to current releases’ files.
- Bradley Manning’s defense published a list of requested witnesses for the Article 32 pretrial that will begin on December 17. Names and certain parts of the text are redacted, but the content of the testimonies can, for the most part, easily be understood. 48 witnesses are listed, the description of Witness no.36 refers to US President Obama, while numbers 35 and 38 refer to Hillary Clinton and Adrian Lamo, respectively. [via @CassPF]
- Tomorrow, a decision is to be announced regarding Julian Assange’s application for a Supreme Court appeal against extradition to Sweden. He will have spent 363 under house arrest without charge, 2 days short of an entire year.
Liberté Info launched a “Free Assange Now” campaign. In the informative page dedicated to this campaign, you will find details on how to contact your MP today, before an historical debate and vote on reform of extradition rules, that will coincide with Julian Assange’s next court hearing (tomorrow). More information at swedenvsassange.com/Action
- to donate to the Julian Assange Defense Fund or the Bradley Manning Defense Fund visit swedenvsassange.com/Donate
- Veterans for Peace (UK) have planned a Vigil in support Julian Assange, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London where his extradition hearing is to take place, 8:30AM, Monday 5 December:
“Julian Assange supports us and we feel that we should do the same. Assange gave us a whole new perspective on how our governments work behind closed doors with countless illegal acts including kidnapping, crimes against humanity, renditions, murder and much more. We owe it to him to show that he is not alone.”
In Brisbane, a Vigil is also planned for the same day, from 11 AM-1:30 PM, outside the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Only if Julian Assange is denied appeal to the Supreme Court:
a rally will be held the following day, December 6, from 5:30-7:30 PM, at Brisbane Square.
Protests are planned at the US Consulate in Sydney and Melbourne, also starting at 5:30 PM.
- On December 17: Anonymous’ OpHorizon will commemorate 3 important dates: the three months that will have passed since the beginning of the Occupy movement; the one-year anniversary of the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian man whose self-immolation initiated the first of protests which became the Tunisian Revolution, and eventually cascaded into the Arab Spring and Bradley Manning’s 24th birthday.
UPDATED Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
- If you live in Australia: click here to complain to the ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) about the Banking Blockade against WikiLeaks.
Julian Assange
361 days under house arrest without charge.
- new Contact your MP ahead of the December 5 historical debate on extradition, so that Julian Assange’s appeal may have an increased chance to proceed to the Supreme Court.
- new Vigils are planned on the occasion of Julian Assange’s next hearing (December 5) in London and a Brisbane. On December 6, only if the appeal is denied Supreme Court evaluation, protests are planned in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
556 days detained without trial.
- new A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
- Learn how you can attend the Rally, Vigil and March for Bradley Manning scheduled on the first day of his pretrial hearing, December 16 at bradleymanning.org
- And on his 24th birthday, December 17:
write or send small gifts to Bradley Manning, contribute to his defense with a donation or participate in the Global Vigil planned to mark this occasion.
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
WikiLeaks Events in the month of December
Click to enlarge.
December 1: WikiLeaks hosted an important press conference in Central London, where cooperation between Mass Surveillance Industry and Governments was exposed.
December 3: Julian Assange spoke on the topic “Democracy and Wikileaks: The Trickledown Effect” at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
December 5: Public hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice (London) to determine whether Julian Assange’s appeal will proceed to the Supreme Court. A Demo planned outside the Courts, starting at 9AM.
Brisbane: Vigil outside the Department of Foreign Affairs, from 11 AM-1:30 PM.
December 6: Only if Julian Assange’s extradition appeal is denied, protests are planned in Sydney and Melbourne (US Consulate, 5:30 PM).
December 7: Julian Assange will have spent a year under house arrest without charge.
December 8: Kristinn Hrafnsson and founder of the Center for Investigative Journalism Gavin MacFadyen will host a WikiLeaks related panel in Bratislava.
December 16: A pretrial hearing for Bradley Manning is scheduled to begin at Fort Meade (Maryland) and is expected to last five days. Supporters will gather outside the Court.
December 17: Global Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday:
Saturday, December 17 · 12:00am - 11:30pm
[For more details, see Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday's facebook page.]
Send small gifts and birthday cards to the following address
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 6602
December 17: Anonymous’ OpHorizon.
2011-12-04 #WikiLeaks News: Pres. Obama, Sec. Clinton called to witness in Manning's pretrial; New Support Campaigns
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
- The Spy Files map has been upgraded with links to current releases’ files.
- Bradley Manning’s defense published a list of requested witnesses for the Article 32 pretrial hearing that will begin on December 16. Names and certain parts of the text are redacted, but the content of the testimonies can, for the most part, easily be understood. 48 witnesses are listed, the description of Witness no.36 refers to US President Obama, while numbers 35 and 38 refer to Hillary Clinton and Adrian Lamo, respectively. [via @CassPF]
- Tomorrow, a decision is to be announced regarding Julian Assange’s application for a Supreme Court appeal against extradition to Sweden. He will have spent 363 under house arrest without charge, 2 days short of an entire year.
Liberté Info launched a “Free Assange Now” campaign. In the informative page dedicated to this campaign, you will find details on how to contact your MP today, before an historical debate and vote on reform of extradition rules, that will coincide with Julian Assange’s next court hearing (tomorrow). More information at swedenvsassange.com/Action
- to donate to the Julian Assange Defense Fund or the Bradley Manning Defense Fund visit swedenvsassange.com/Donate
- Veterans for Peace (UK) have planned a Vigil in support Julian Assange, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London where his extradition hearing is to take place, 8:30AM, Monday 5 December:
“Julian Assange supports us and we feel that we should do the same. Assange gave us a whole new perspective on how our governments work behind closed doors with countless illegal acts including kidnapping, crimes against humanity, renditions, murder and much more. We owe it to him to show that he is not alone.”
In Brisbane, a Vigil is also planned for the same day, from 11 AM-1:30 PM, outside the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Only if Julian Assange is denied appeal to the Supreme Court:
a rally will be held the following day, December 6, from 5:30-7:30 PM, at Brisbane Square.
Protests are planned at the US Consulate in Sydney and Melbourne, also starting at 5:30 PM.
- On December 17: Anonymous’ OpHorizon will commemorate 3 important dates: the three months that will have passed since the beginning of the Occupy movement; the one-year anniversary of the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian man whose self-immolation initiated the first of protests which became the Tunisian Revolution, and eventually cascaded into the Arab Spring and Bradley Manning’s 24th birthday.
UPDATED Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
- If you live in Australia: click here to complain to the ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) about the Banking Blockade against WikiLeaks.
Julian Assange
362 days under house arrest without charge.
- new Contact your MP ahead of the December 5 historical debate on extradition, so that Julian Assange’s appeal may have an increased chance to proceed to the Supreme Court.
- new Vigils are planned on the occasion of Julian Assange’s next hearing (December 5) in London and Brisbane. On December 6, only if the appeal is denied Supreme Court evaluation, protests are planned in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
557 days detained without trial.
- new A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
- Learn how you can attend the Rally, Vigil and March for Bradley Manning scheduled on the first day of his pretrial hearing, December 16 at bradleymanning.org
- And on his 24th birthday, December 17:
write or send small gifts to Bradley Manning, contribute to his defense with a donation or participate in the Global Vigil planned to mark this occasion.
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
WikiLeaks Events in the month of December
Click to enlarge.
December 1: WikiLeaks hosted an important press conference in Central London, where cooperation between Mass Surveillance Industry and Governments was exposed.
December 3: Julian Assange spoke on the topic “Democracy and Wikileaks: The Trickledown Effect” at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
December 5: Public hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice (London) to determine whether Julian Assange’s appeal will proceed to the Supreme Court. A Demo planned outside the Courts, starting at 9AM.
Brisbane: Vigil outside the Department of Foreign Affairs, from 11 AM-1:30 PM.
December 6: Only if Julian Assange’s extradition appeal is denied, protests are planned in Sydney and Melbourne (US Consulate, 5:30 PM).
December 7: Julian Assange will have spent a year under house arrest without charge.
December 8: Kristinn Hrafnsson and founder of the Center for Investigative Journalism Gavin MacFadyen will host a WikiLeaks related panel in Bratislava.
December 16: A pretrial hearing for Bradley Manning is scheduled to begin at Fort Meade (Maryland) and is expected to last five days. Supporters will gather outside the Court.
December 17: Global Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday:
Saturday, December 17 · 12:00am - 11:30pm
[For more details, see Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday's facebook page.]
Send small gifts and birthday cards to the following address
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 6602
December 17: Anonymous’ OpHorizon.
2011-12-04 #WikiLeaks News: Pres.Obama, Sec.Clinton called to witness in Bradley Manning hearing; New Support Campaigns
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
- The Spy Files map has been upgraded with links to current releases’ files.
- Bradley Manning’s defense published a list of requested witnesses for the Article 32 pretrial that will begin on December 17. Names and certain parts of the text are redacted, but the content of the testimonies can, for the most part, easily be understood. 48 witnesses are listed, the description of Witness no.36 refers to US President Obama, while numbers 35 and 38 refer to Hillary Clinton and Adrian Lamo, respectively. [via @CassPF]
- Tomorrow, a decision is to be announced regarding Julian Assange’s application for a Supreme Court appeal against extradition to Sweden. He will have spent 363 under house arrest without charge, 2 days short of an entire year.
Liberté Info launched a “Free Assange Now” campaign. In the informative page dedicated to this campaign, you will find details on how to contact your MP today, before an historical debate and vote on reform of extradition rules, that will coincide with Julian Assange’s next court hearing (tomorrow). More information at swedenvsassange.com/Action
- to donate to the Julian Assange Defense Fund or the Bradley Manning Defense Fund visit swedenvsassange.com/Donate
- Veterans for Peace (UK) have planned a Vigil in support Julian Assange, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London where his extradition hearing is to take place, 8:30AM, Monday 5 December:
“Julian Assange supports us and we feel that we should do the same. Assange gave us a whole new perspective on how our governments work behind closed doors with countless illegal acts including kidnapping, crimes against humanity, renditions, murder and much more. We owe it to him to show that he is not alone.”
In Brisbane, a Vigil is also planned for the same day, from 11 AM-1:30 PM, outside the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Only if Julian Assange is denied appeal to the Supreme Court:
a rally will be held the following day, December 6, from 5:30-7:30 PM, at Brisbane Square.
Protests are planned at the US Consulate in Sydney and Melbourne, also starting at 5:30 PM.
- On December 17: Anonymous’ OpHorizon will commemorate 3 important dates: the three months that will have passed since the beginning of the Occupy movement; the one-year anniversary of the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian man whose self-immolation initiated the first of protests which became the Tunisian Revolution, and eventually cascaded into the Arab Spring and Bradley Manning’s 24th birthday.
UPDATED Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
- If you live in Australia: click here to complain to the ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) about the Banking Blockade against WikiLeaks.
Julian Assange
362 days under house arrest without charge.
- new Contact your MP ahead of the December 5 historical debate on extradition, so that Julian Assange’s appeal may have an increased chance to proceed to the Supreme Court.
- new Vigils are planned on the occasion of Julian Assange’s next hearing (December 5) in London and Brisbane. On December 6, only if the appeal is denied Supreme Court evaluation, protests are planned in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
557 days detained without trial.
- new A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
- Learn how you can attend the Rally, Vigil and March for Bradley Manning scheduled on the first day of his pretrial hearing, December 16 at bradleymanning.org
- And on his 24th birthday, December 17:
write or send small gifts to Bradley Manning, contribute to his defense with a donation or participate in the Global Vigil planned to mark this occasion.
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
WikiLeaks Events in the month of December
Click to enlarge.
December 1: WikiLeaks hosted an important press conference in Central London, where cooperation between Mass Surveillance Industry and Governments was exposed.
December 3: Julian Assange spoke on the topic “Democracy and Wikileaks: The Trickledown Effect” at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
December 5: Public hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice (London) to determine whether Julian Assange’s appeal will proceed to the Supreme Court. A Demo planned outside the Courts, starting at 9AM.
Brisbane: Vigil outside the Department of Foreign Affairs, from 11 AM-1:30 PM.
December 6: Only if Julian Assange’s extradition appeal is denied, protests are planned in Sydney and Melbourne (US Consulate, 5:30 PM).
December 7: Julian Assange will have spent a year under house arrest without charge.
December 8: Kristinn Hrafnsson and founder of the Center for Investigative Journalism Gavin MacFadyen will host a WikiLeaks related panel in Bratislava.
December 16: A pretrial hearing for Bradley Manning is scheduled to begin at Fort Meade (Maryland) and is expected to last five days. Supporters will gather outside the Court.
December 17: Global Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday:
Saturday, December 17 · 12:00am - 11:30pm
[For more details, see Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday's facebook page.]
Send small gifts and birthday cards to the following address
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 6602
December 17: Anonymous’ OpHorizon.
2011-12-06 #WikiLeaks News: Updates on Julian Assange’s extradition appeal; Other News
This is a "WikiLeaks News Update", a news update of stories relating directly to WikiLeaks and also freedom of information, transparency, cybersecurity, and freedom of expression.
During a Parliamentary debate that occurred on the same day as Julian Assange’s extradition hearing, December 5, MPs agreed without vote to demand urgent reform of the European Arrest Warrant regime and UK’s extradition treaty with the US.
It was decided on that day, Julian Assange could request a Supreme Court appeal hearing to the Supreme Court itself, given that his extradition appeal is of general public importance. Julian Assange declared he was pleased with the decision. His brief statement outside the Royal Courts of Justice:
"Today the High Court has decided that an issue that arises from my own case is of general public importance and may be of assistance to other cases and should be heard by the Supreme Court. I think that is the correct decision and I am thankful. The long struggle for justice for me, and others, continues."
His extradition appeal was mentioned during the Parliamentary debate by MP Jeremy Corbyn who stated the judges’ decision meant “any person can be extradited from the UK without charge under EAWs.” (A transcript of this debate can read here.)
Extradition procedures have been highly contested for not offering appropriate safeguards to citizens extradited from the UK, namely during the November 24 debate. Points discussed during this debate relating to Julian Assange’s extradition can be read in WikiLeaks News 2011-11-25.
Tomorrow, December 7, Julian Assange will have spent an entire under house arrest, fighting extradition to Sweden. He has not been charged with a crime in any country. During an extradition appeal hearing on the 12th July, one of the judges on his case inquired: “why go through all of this if Mr. Assange offered to be interviewed?”
Extradition of Julian Assange to Sweden would facilitate subsequent extradition the United States.
- Wall Street Journal published an article on WikiLeaks current and former associates’ Jacob Appelbaum, Birgitta Jonsdottir and Rop Gonggrijp’s appeal of court ruling demanding disclosure of their personal data by Twitter.
- 5th segment of Julian Assange’s critical analysis of WikiLeaks’ collaboration with the New York Times:
Others parts are listed in the NYTimes eXaminer website.
- The Constitutionally deplorable intentions of the United States regarding Julian Assange and WikiLeaks really is worth reading (despite the mistake on its title).
- An Australian telemovie based on the book ‘Underground’ by Dr Suelette Dreyfus and Julian Assange will be directed by Robert Conolly.
- 4 days before Human Rights Day: a video of a peaceful Occupy Melbourne protester forced to strip to her underwear by Police and Council Rangers emerges. The young woman, who was wearing a tent costume, was left crying on the ground. She is said to be extremely distressed after the episode and has now filed a physical assault complaint.
Action Campaigns
WikiLeaks
364 days of unlawful financial blockade.
- If you live in Australia: click here to complain to the ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission) about the Banking Blockade against WikiLeaks.
Julian Assange
364 days under house arrest without charge.
- Contribute to the Julian Assange Defense Fund.
- Send at least one of the several call to action draft letters addressed to European organizations and Members of the European Parliament requesting action over the unjust treatment of Julian Assange.
Bradley Manning
559 days detained without trial.
- A challenge proposed by the Bradley Manning Support Network: Stand with Bradley until his trial is over - pledge a monthly donation for the length of the trial. For more details see bradleymanning.org
- Learn how you can attend the Rally, Vigil and March for Bradley Manning scheduled on the first day of his pretrial hearing, December 16 at bradleymanning.org
- And on his 24th birthday, December 17:
write or send small gifts to Bradley Manning, contribute to his defense with a donation or participate in the Global Vigil planned to mark this occasion.
Rudolf Elmer
- Liberté Info started a campaign to make whistleblower Rudolf Elmer’s trial an international issue. The campaign page is constantly updated with new developments on his case. Readers are encouraged to share.
WikiLeaks Events in the month of December (updated)
Click to enlarge.
December 1: WikiLeaks hosted an important press conference in Central London, where cooperation between Mass Surveillance Industry and Governments was exposed.
December 3: Julian Assange spoke on the topic “Democracy and Wikileaks: The Trickledown Effect” at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
December 5: Public hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice (London) to determine whether Julian Assange’s appeal will proceed to the Supreme Court. A Demo planned outside the Courts, starting at 9AM.
Brisbane: Vigil outside the Department of Foreign Affairs, from 11 AM-1:30 PM.
December 6: Only if Julian Assange’s extradition appeal is denied, protests are planned in Sydney and Melbourne (US Consulate, 5:30 PM).
December 7: Julian Assange will have spent a year under house arrest without charge.
December 8: Kristinn Hrafnsson and founder of the Center for Investigative Journalism Gavin MacFadyen will host a WikiLeaks related panel in Bratislava.
December 16: A pretrial hearing for Bradley Manning is scheduled to begin at Fort Meade (Maryland) and is expected to last five days. Supporters will gather outside the Court.
December 17: Global Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday:
Saturday, December 17 · 12:00am - 11:30pm
[For more details, see Vigil for Bradley Manning on his 24th Birthday's facebook page.]
Send small gifts and birthday cards to the following address
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 6602
December 17: Anonymous’ OpHorizon.
2011-12-11 Bradley Manning: Hearing the Word of the Prophets
Prophets have existed since ancient times. Religions and cultural traditions from time immemorial have acknowledged their existence. Traditionally, prophets were seen as those who play a role of forecasting epochal change in society through their messages and insight.
In moments of crisis, people look for prophets. With expanding environmental degradation, political corruption and deepening economic turmoil, where can we find prophets in this modern age of crisis?
Many regard prophets as those who see the future and receive a vision. Yet, there is more to acting prophetically than this.
Prophets can be found in unexpected places. In a combat zone, where life and death converge, one can be closest to the threshold between past and future. The acts of war resisters, veterans and soldiers who from out of their moral convictions choose not to carry on killing or support war can be seen as prophetic.
There are soldiers who refused to be deployed as a result of a moral awakening. They stand at a threshold between a certain reality and the potential to transform it. It is like the voice of Dr. King was speaking to the core of their being when he said:
Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' But conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but because conscience tells one it is right.
These people found the strength and courage within to act out of hope rather than fear, choosing to break the chain of command coming from the past to live up to a higher vision what humans ought to be. They remind us how what we often call conscience is a call from the future, a gentle tapping on the shoulder.
At the 2008 Winter Soldier event, Jon Turner testified about his experiences of the routine killing of innocent people in Iraq and other war crimes. He spoke about his choice to follow a different path, “I am sorry for the things that I did. I am no longer the monster that I once was”.
More recently, former US solider Ethan McCord began speaking out about the incident in the “Collateral Murder” video released by WikiLeaks in 2010. He grabbed a little girl from amidst the carnage and ran for help. Later that day as everyone ignored what had happened, McCord could not. He recounted his experience.:
I went to my room to try to the clean the children’s blood from my uniform. Fighting back tears from what I’d seen, my emotions were taking over; the very thing that the army taught us not to do in war, I was doing. My humanity and love for the human race was overcoming everything they taught me.
Those dissidents took courageous steps to change the course of history. For them, the connection to the future is not to be experienced passively, like having visions given to them; instead they may have felt they should be active participants in manifesting it.
Prophets access a present moment where both the past and potential of the future co-exist. They choose one reality out of multiple potentialities. In this regard, the strength of prophets really lies in their courage to choose hope over fear, stepping into unknown territory to bring forth a vision of a kind of future that is imagined through their high ideals.
A similar prophetic act can live in the conviction and actions of whistle-blowers. If alleged whistle-blower Bradley Manning was the one that leaked the documents released by WikiLeaks, perhaps he too had glimpsed events that have not yet taken place.
In his alleged chat logwith Adrian Lamo before the US diplomatic cables were released, Manning shared his anticipation:
(12:52:33 PM) bradass87: Hilary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and finds an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public…=L
(1:11:54 PM) bradass87: and… its important that it gets out … i feel, for some bizarre reason
(1:12:02 PM) bradass87: it might actually change something
He might have seen the future where deep transformation is in the making and how the world might change for the better. If allegations are true and the chat logs are genuine, Manning took huge personal risks to step into that future as participant in making this vision happen. He didn’t just passively wait for someone to change the world.
(02:21:18 AM) bradass87: and god knows what happens now ….
(02:22:27 AM) bradass87: hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms
(02:23:06 AM) bradass87: if not… than we’re doomed
(02:23:18 AM) bradass87: as a species
Between fear and hope he weighed in on hope, on the human potential to do good over against the greed, despair and cynicism of humanity. He expressed his simple faith in ordinary people. It seems he genuinely believed that if this information would become available, an effective portion of global society would take action and demand justice, and on some level he was right.
Prophets spark hope for deep change. Whether Manning is really the source of those documents or not, he has already changed the course of human history. The Occupy Movement is spreading like wildfire and is a sign that the world is catching up to his courage to take hold of the future. For many he has become a symbol of the lowly David that stood up to the corporate-military complex Goliath.
Michael Moore recently acknowledged that the action of alleged whistle-blower Bradley Manning triggered the Occupy Movement:
It’s not a magazine from Vancouver. It’s not—if you want to—if you really want to pin it down to somebody, I would thank Bradley Manning … But if one courageous soldier hadn’t—allegedly—done what he had done, if he hadn’t done this, it—who knows? But it was already boiling just beneath the surface, and it just needed somebody to get it going.
He is a prophet, a hero incarcerated without due process, stripped naked and treated inhumanely. In every age and society, prophets were perceived as a threat to illegitimate power and were attacked or ridiculed.
In a recent article; Bradley Manning Finally Gets a Hearing, Kelley B. Vlahos gave a thorough update on the life of this courageous young man. She concludes with the thought that what happened to him could happen to any one of us:
Which is why when they say ‘we are all Bradley Manning,’ they mean it. In many ways this is not just about one man, but a machine that has gotten way ahead of our ability to understand or accept it.
On one hand, this is true and people need to face this harsh reality. Yet, “We are all Bradley Manning” also indicates something else. It indicates the power to access a future that intrinsically resides in each of us and that we can tap into our own prophetic voice within, as he did.
Manning had a certain faith in ordinary people and chose to act prophetically for humanity. Do we hear his voice and see what he saw as human potential? Can we find faith in the actions of ordinary people like Manning did?
In seeking a progressive path to the prophetic voice, journalism professor Robert Jensen said, “It is time for each of us to take responsibility for speaking in the prophetic voice.” [1] He reminds us how “we don’t need a prophet- we need prophets, ordinary people who are willing to tap into the prophetic voice that is within us all.”[2]
Perhaps, we are now like many other prophets that came in times of crisis, standing at a similar critical time of decision in history. As Bradley Manning’s court day is imminent this Dec 16, are we caught by the distraction of Christmas holidays? Who among us will hear the words of prophets and respond to this call from the future?
Notes:
1. Jensen, R. (2009). All my bones shake: Seeking a progressive path to the prophetic voice. Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press. p. 143.
2. Jensen, p. 161.
2011-12-12 Mosaic theory, universal surveillance and unlimited recordkeeping #SpyFiles
‘“Mosaic theory” describes a basic precept of intelligence gathering: Disparate items of information, though individually of limited or no utility to their possessor, can take on added significance when combined with other items of information.’ [1]
Mosaic theory was what caused intelligence organisations like Australia’s ASIO (Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation) in the mid 20th century to record what seemed like incredibly mundane activities and communications of what were then called ‘persons of interest’. For example, continuous surveillance of the doorway to Sydney’s Communist party headquarters - for decades. What was recorded now tells us more about the changing state of fashion than it ever told us about the (hardly dangerous) activities of those who came and went. But for ASIO, the game was to gather as much as they possibly could. Not only to attempt to build a bigger picture in line with mosaic theory, but more prosaically, to keep themselves in work in the relatively unexciting backwater - in espionage terms - that Australia was in the 1950s, 60s and 70s.
As we can see now from the ASIO archives, these surveillance activities produced mammoth quantities of records - in the form of telephone conversation recordings and transcripts, photographs, film and copies of press clippings. These were carefully gathered, collated and filed. And then, for the most part, the information sat unloved in the files unless some alert intelligence officer happened to think of some way to link a new discovery to something previously recorded. They simply did not have the tools to analyse the information they had.
With the SpyFiles release we have seen the universal surveillance state that we now live in. No longer are spying activities limited to ‘persons of interest’; we are all persons of interest. Technology has allowed State and corporate actors to implement mosaic theory on a scale never dreamt of by the spies of the Cold War. Whole countries’ communications are tracked and recorded, and the data is stored so that it can be mined for random mentions of key words which, when matched with perhaps an email, a tweet or a mobile phone call, will set off an alarm bell. Some people will say this is a sacrifice to our civil liberties that we must accept if we are to be safe. However the gradual acceptance of this scattergun approach to the collection of intelligence - about all citizens - has had other effects beyond breaches of our privacy and a gradual erosion of our civil liberties. Requests for access to government information under Freedom of Information laws are rejected not because of intrinsic sensitivities in the information but because it may form part of a jigsaw of evidence against someone at some unspecified point in the future. The same assertions based on mosaic theory are made in many jurisidictions in relation to the determination of access to archival records. So the end result is that not only are we subjected to universal, secretive and intrusive surveillance, but the data is matched with multiple other sources, kept forever, and we are not allowed access to it.
What David E Pozen termed ‘adversarial mosaic-making and informational paranoia’ in a 2005 article in the Yale Law Journal is just one of the many aspects of the state of universal surveillance we live in that has been highlighted in the grotesque sales pitches and prospectuses of the #SpyFiles. It is easier than ever before for repressive regimes, companies and our government here in Australia to establish the mechanisms necessary to create a digital archive on any of us to be used for unknown purposes in the future. Information paranoia indeed.
Footnotes
[1] David E Pozen ‘The Mosaic Theory, National Security, and the Freedom of Information Act’, Yale Law Journal, 115:628, 2005, p 630.
References
Peter Grier, ‘Washington Post series: How many security secrets did it spill?’ Christian Science Monitor, July 21 2010 http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2010/0721/Washington-Post-se...?
Kate Horowitz, ‘Uncover Australia’s secret history’, Crikey, June 20, 2011 http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/06/20/daily-proposition-uncover-australias...
David E Pozen ‘The Mosaic Theory, National Security, and the Freedom of Information Act’, Yale Law Journal, 115:628, 2005 http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/115-3/Pozen.pdf
WikiLeaks, The SpyFiles http://wikileaks.org/The-Spyfiles
2011-12-16 Handwritten Transcript of Bradley #Manning's Pretrial Hearing Day 1 #WikiLeaks
*The arrow indicates the Federal Officer who escorted me to the courthouse, and told me he was in charge of the event. The picture comes from cryptome.org
I arrived at Fort Meade, Maryland before the Visitor Control Center was open, around 6 am. I drove right up to the vehicle inspection center, and was granted entry after they had me open every door, trunk and hood, and show them my license and registration.
One of the soldiers inspecting my vehicle did not know what I was talking about when I asked him where Bradley Manning's pretrial was being held. Another stepped in and directed me.
Arriving near the courthouse, I saw an MP walking a bomb-sniffing dog through the wooded area behind the courthouse building. A bit later I approached him, and asked him where I needed to be as a member of the public to gain access to Bradley Manning's trial. He said he didn't know. He took my Passport and walked over to an SUV to make a phone call.
Soon after another SUV with four soldiers pulled up and approached me. A female soldier directed me to a theater and told me it would open at 7am.
Metal barricades, like the kind the NYPD use for crowd control, lined the theater and the courthouse, two small one-story western style brick buildings that look like a grammar school and a small town church.
At the theater the barricades were arranged like a gerbil maze, and suggested they expected long lines. I asked a soldier if I could take in pen and paper, he had to check, "because they could be considered a 'recording device'", using his fingers to make air quotes.
At 7 a.m., I asked a soldier who had opened the theater doors, if he wanted me to walk up and down the long empty maze to get to the door I was presently 20 feet from. He smiled and said no. I said, "Cause it would be really funny if you did."
Army MP's performed a personal search, including metal detectors. No electronic devices were allowed in the theater. I stuck my chewing gum on the roof of my mouth. That wasn't allowed either.
Just as they finished inspecting my belongings and person, a man in a black sports jacket, who later identified himself as a Federal Police officer, told me he would let me in, then turned to the other soldiers and said, "No one else until 8 a.m. " Beside him stood the female soldier from before.
As I sat in the empty theater, I overheard the same Federal Police officer instructing soldiers to arrest or remove anyone making a scene or disrupted proceedings. If the people, "are doodling quietly" like this lady "that is fine." I wrote in my notebook, "If the people are doodling quietly like this lady, that is fine."
Ten minutes later, he returned and informed me that there were seats available for the public in the trial room. "Do you know there are currently seats available for the public in the courtroom? Cause I was wondering why you were sitting in here." I jumped up. No, "Oh my God, can I go?"
I was told later, by the same man that the Federal Police, and he in particular, were/was responsible for orchestrating the 'event'.
He escorted me to a trailer where I was to wait until the courthouse opened. He told the soldiers that were there that I wasn't to be searched again; that I had been in his presence from the theater.
I remained in the courthouse, on the premises or the recess trailer for the entire day, without a cell phone or computer, and only my notebook and a pen.
I tried to transcribe the event, but not being an expert on the Uniform Military Code of Justice, or even the case at the very granular level, there may be errors and it may be incomplete.
You may also read Rainey Reitman's transcript at the Bradley Manning Support Network.
On arriving in the courtroom, Manning was seated next to a member of his military defense counsel. He did not engage the gallery at all, and never turned around, perhaps on advice of counsel or the prison guards.
Manning was seen to smile when they spoke. His skin was soft and dusty pink, like his de-saturated green grey blue camos, which popped in the color corrected warm white florescent bulbs that washed the courtroom.
He wore black army issued spectacle. He looked healthy and did appear to have an exercised physique.
Manning's voice was strong and respectful throughout the proceedings. At one point, during a recess, I walked to the left of the pews in the gallery behind him to try to catch his eye. He looked up, I smiled, and he smiled back, but just barely.
The courtroom was a 50 by 50 square room. There was foil behind the blinds to the left of the gallery, and foil on the windows of a door at the end of a long hallway that ran parallel to the courtroom and viewable only from the gallery.
I was told by the individual identified in the picture above, who had previously identified himself as a Federal Police officer, that the foil was there to prevent lasers from picking up the conversation in the room. But before that, he said, 'What do you mean 'foil'?"
He also told me, 20 members of the press were allowed into the gallery, and 30 members of the public.
Four to six Army MP's stood at the back entrances guarding the doors. There were four mounted cameras at the front of the courtroom and two at the back. The ceiling had white frosted glass panels where the air ducts would normally be above gallery area. There was also large inset squares of carpet about three by three feet spaced evenly throughout the ceiling, also above the gallery, I assumed for audio recording quality.
I get the feeling that the gallery is being listened to and observed both technically and also by individuals in suits. As the Chinese constitution puts it, with "various channels and in various ways."
My instinct also tells me that the individual in a suit who looks like the court bailiff is totally not a bailiff, he confers with an MP named Bradley, not Manning, seated in the corner by the prosecution next to a router looking device with an enormous antenna. The 'bailiff' also confers with the court clerk-like who sits in a concealed cubicle in front of the Investigating Officers bench.
Up front, behind the raised Investigating Officer's bench stand the US Flag, the Army Flag, and the flag for JAG. Clark Stoekly, the WikiLeaks Truck driver later tells me the chord and tassels indicate they are martial flags.
In the gallery sit Julian Assange's external counsel Jennifer Robinson, and Amanda Jacobsen from the Center for Constitutional Rights, who both filed a writ that day demanding WikiLeaks lawyers be granted access to Bradley Manning's proceedings.
Col. Jackson, military defense for Guantanamo Detainee, Omar Khadr, was also in the gallery; he sat and spoke to Ms. Jacobsen.
I had heard a discussion about Lt. Col. Jackson outside, while waiting entry to the courtroom. Lt. Hughes said, "Unless Coombs comes and says something, Jackson waits."
Jackson, of course, is most known for collapsing in the Guantanamo Bay courtroom in the middle of conducting a cross-examination of a key government witness in his defense of Omar Khadr. By the way, he was in perfect health.
I later ask Jackson a few benign questions about the Khadr case. Heather Marsh, editor in chief here at WL Central has covered Khadr quite extensively. I myself have in a cursory way in my interview of former guards and detainees at Guantanamo.
"How that case go?" I asked, Jackson and then "How many witnesses was Omar Khadr allowed vis a vis the US government prosecutors." I knew the answer to those questions. He seemed a bit uncomfortable, "I can't talk about it." He mentioned something about collapsing, and well the official story.
Someone in the gallery told me that Coombs taught two of the government prosecutors. Coomb's wife said, "Maybe one of them," but she wasn't certain.
Outside, the Federal Police officer had said, were the hearing to become classified; we would be escorted out of the courtroom to the "recess trailer".
I'd been told at the vehicle inspection station that photographs were not allowed on base. A white tarp tunnel was constructed at the entrance of the courtroom building, and photographers were instructed they could only photograph down the barrel.
On exiting the building a throng of pasty, out of shape camera operators fat jogged from a warm passenger van to their posts at one end of 'the tunnel' so they could shoot a glass door one hundred yards away.
Also in the gallery on December 16, Rainey Reitman from EFF and the Bradley Manning Support Network, and later in the day Clark Stoekley, the WikiLeaks truck driver, other members of occupy wall street, Mary Ann Wright, former United States Army colonel and retired official of the U.S. State Department, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War, and Nate, featured in the video below, a veteran for peace, who at the end of the day's proceedings, yelled, "Bradley Manning you are a hero," as he exited.
The Investigation Officer is Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and Justice Department prosecutor.
Prosecution is Captain Ashden Fein, Captain Joe Morrow and Captain Angel Overgaard.
Defense is Mr. David Coombs, Major Matthew Kemkes and Captain Paul Bouchard.
Mr. David Coombs arrives, sits to the right of Bradley Manning, looking from the back.
Then the prosecution arrives.
Captain Ashden Fein has a bound stack of papers on the prosecution table with his name "FEIN" written in capital letters with ball point pen on the stacked edge, like a high school textbook.
Two MP's in camos stand guard in the back of the gallery; one is named Wright and the other is named Bishop.
Army Reserve Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, a Justice Department prosecutor, arrives in court with a stack of papers in his hands, and sits at his raised bench.
He reminds me of Alberto Gonzalez, if Gonzalez were handsome enough, and from California, not Texas. His soft-handed mannerisms are disarmingly photogenic, and dangerous in that straight out of casting, new American sit-commie, the totalitarianism of metro sexual friendliness.
[The Investigating Officer (IO) calls the hearing to order. ]
[He then reads a statement on the 'dignity and decorum' of the event and how the gallery is expected to behave. The Investigating Officer then reads a series of statements and questions to the accused and his defense counsel.]
IO: When did the accused receive notification of pretrial date?
[There is the matter of the Lt. Col transmitting the document to Manning's defense and then defense to their client.]
IO: What is the receipt?
Coombs: November 20, 2011 November 28, 2011 [See Manning Article 32 Almanza Script]
IO: PFC Manning do you have a copy of the charges?
Manning: Yes, sir.
[IO reads charges. Next IO recites the accused, Bradley Manning, his rights.]
IO: You have a right to be present [with qualifications regarding Manning's behavior]...right to call witnesses...right to legal representation...if non-military counsel, not at expense of government...right to make a statement, or to remain silent, or to make an unsworn statement...any statement can be used against you. Military counsel can and will be provided to you at no charge. Do you understand your rights?
Manning: Yes, sir.
IO: Who do you wish to represent you?
Manning: Major Kemkes, Captain Bouchard, and Mr. Coombs.
[IO repeats his own duties, using phrases such as "I will impartially evaluate, and I will "consider the evidence impartially" like a mantra.]
IO: I am an impartial fact finder...at time I was appointed I knew very little about case...no substantive knowledge...no known correspondence except with counsel regarding administrative functions. Are there any challenges?
Coombs: Yes.
[Coombs rises and walks to the podium in the center of the courtroom, facing the IO.]
Coombs: How did you become aware of the case as the Investigation Officer?
IO: Col. Henley asked if I was available, after I said yes, I was informed.
[Colonel Stephen R. Henley is an American lawyer and an officer in the United States Army. He is notable for having been appointed the President of a Guantanamo military commission.]
[I missed one question related to when the IO was informed.]
Coombs: Who is your legal advisor?
IO: ...Lt. Col. Mark Holzer
[Lt. Col. Mark Holzer is the author of "Economics of National Security: 'Unfunding' Terror. Download PDF. As the Command Judge Advocate of 5th Special Forces Group, Major Mark Holzer reviewed rules of engagement and briefed and de-briefed SOF teams mostly in the Baghdad environs during his March to May 2003 deployment in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. See here. ]
Coombs: Which issues did you seek legal advice on?
IO: By email and conversation...one...the transfer request disclosure. Two...statement. Three...rules of the defense for extenuating or mitigating evidence. That is what I recall.
Coombs: Did you receive any other advice?
IO: Not that I recall.
Coombs: When did you undertake the Judges course?
IO: April 2010 course. [He answered twice, correcting himself. This was his first answer.]
Coombs: I was an instructor there. Did I ever teach you?
IO: No, not that I recall.
Coombs: How many court-martials have you performed?
IO: Six...all guilty. That is EC, all guilty.
[Coombs then asks IO how long he has been in civilian employment with the DOJ. ]
IO: 2002 to 2004 [date needs verification] trial attorney...20 cases prosecuted.
Coombs: Are you aware the DOJ has a case against my client?
IO: Yes.
Coombs: Have you been exposed to this info [regarding the DOJ case against Manning and Assange]?
IO: No.
Coombs: Discussed this information with anyone [referring to pretrial hearing]?
IO: ...supervisor
Coombs: Did you inform him you would be the IO for Manning's pretrial?
IO: Yes. I did.
[Coombs asks when the IO was mobilized, put on orders.]
IO: December 12, 2011.
Coombs: So up until Dec 12, 2011 you were working at the DOJ?
Coombs: Have you responded to any email from the DOJ since the time you were put on leave? Have you
perform any work for the DOJ during that time?
Coombs: What prior knowledge do you have of the matter?
IO: Aware of some articles, some TV coverage Since Dec. [did not specify year]...made a point of not reading
anything.
Coombs: Any impressions prior?
IO: Recall that I thought if allegations were true, serious matter.
Coombs: Any discussions?
IO: Not that I recall.
Coombs: Any opinions?
IO: No...generally, no. Just because something reported in paper, doesn't mean its true.
Coombs: Under R.C.M. 902A the defense asks that you recuse yourself.
R.C.M. 902A...just the mere existence of bias' as follows: Number one...your position as a prosecutor for the DOJ, a 'career prosecutor' since 2002 coupled with an ongoing criminal grand jury...they would get a plea to go after Julian Assange. DOJ has not ruled out fact they would not rule out taking this case... you deny...but listening to the facts, you are not impartial.
Number two...every one of the government's witnesses was granted. In their request they listed just the names, and no basis, yet you granted all the witnesses they requested. Defense had 19 pages of relevance for each of the 38 names it requested, 10 were government witnesses and they were granted. Of the 38, only two witnesses for the defense were granted. Then this morning two more were approved to the detriment of the defense to prepare in a case that involves death penalty.
A 'reasonable individual 'would consider that biased.
Number three...ruling on 'closure' [of trial] unchanged. Defense has argued harm would come to client if certain details were made public...affect fair trial for PFC Manning. Three times defense has asked; and three times you have refused.
Anyone who has practiced for more than a day...if individual hears something... if an individual hears something in the press, with 'again the exception of a career prosecutor'...
Number three...[Coombs repeats number three]...ruling with regard to sworn statements. Government has asked for a delay after delay because the government needed to figure out classification. So the government has finally figured out what is classified...inexplicably so it doesn't want to produce witnesses.
Unsworn statements from witnesses R.C.M. 45 [number needs verification] cannot consider unsworn statements over defense. And, the IO has gone out independently to find two cases that support the government. Three cases... went out to find 3 cases. Defense is now arguing against government and prosecutor.
You made up a test all on your own...eliminating OCA. All this has been leaked. Where is the damage or harm? And, yet government again ruled, no. The fact that you are a career prosecutor independently supports your recusing yourself.
Defense is filing a motion that you recuse yourself...defense requests that you consider recusing yourself.
[IO paused before responding then seemed to bumble procedure.]
IO: We should hear from the prosecutor.
Prosecution: We will need to review the motion.
[IO called a recess so he and the prosecution can review the motion.]
[At recess I walked near David Coombs, looked at him and ventriloquized, "Gooood jooob!" He smiled. We went to recess at 9:40 a.m. Pretrial called to order at 11:30 a.m. ]
IO: Government have you reviewed the motion? Do you wish to be heard?
Coombs: IO, you have not made your determination?
IO: Um...no. I will speak to my adviser.
Coombs: Did you not contact a chief trial judge as I had recommended? [Coombs had made a request and recommendation that the IO speak to a chief trial judge before the IO make his determination.]
Coombs: Are you currently a deputy chief at the DOJ?
IO: I recommend policy and legislation for child exploitation and obscenity section of the criminal division of the
Department of Justice...I advise trial attorneys occasionally, but not day to day.
Coombs: At the DOJ have you reviewed any material related to Manning or WikiLeaks? I mean anything from the FBI, etc...conversations...anything?
IO: No.
[Confusion arises in the courtroom as to how IO should proceed. Should the judge rule prior to prosecution response to the defense motion, or before he has consulted with a chief trial judge as requested by defense?]
[IO rules not to recuse himself.]
[IO brings up the matter of the witnesses.]
IO: Significance does not outweigh military and governmental operations...
[IO talks about telephonic being fine. Coombs and IO engage in parlay regarding what Coombs labels 'important people'.]
IO: I believe that a 'reasonable' person looking at all the facts would find myself able to be impartial.
[IO then brings up his reasoning regarding closure defense. Defense 405N806 [case number needs verification] test.]
IO: Main issue of determination for closure, 'Other measures besides closure were adequate.
[Regarding statements, he brings up 405G and 28USC1746, [case numbers need verification]
IO: Witnesses 'not reasonably available.'
Coombs: Did you make a written rule that is findable?
IO: Yes, I believe I documented.
[IO says Coomb's cited case was a court martial, not pretrial, regarding bias...]
IO: Court-martial not a pretrial, but a court-martial where the judge was openly biased...
[Prosecution speaks.]
Prosecution: US government does not think you have any bias IO. [Prosecution then rephrases.] US believe than a reasonable person would believe that you are impartial.
[Prosecution then rests.]
Coombs: It's not about your having ruled against the defense. You are a member of the DOJ with an ongoing criminal investigation... Your email in correspondence with counsel is from the DOJ.
[IO says something about connectivity. His military email doesn't work.]
Coombs: Coupled with your consistent rulings against defense. You rule for unsworn testimony for the government, but defense gets none of that...As of December 12 have you, or have you not, used your DOJ email for correspondence? Do you sit there and see how a 'reasonable' person could determine bias? This case rises and falls on classification, yet, 'these people' are 'too important' to come here.
[Coombs turns to the gallery and lifts up his hands. He says in measured tone with a dramatic beat...]
Coombs: Yet this [he points to the unimpressive, freshly painted courtroom] is the best we can do.
IO: Mr. Coombs, who are you addressing?
Coombs: The public, Sir. The government has said my client has 'blood on his hands' and that my client 'should be executed.' That is unacceptable.
[The IO rules against recusing himself. Coombs warns him prior that if he does, he will have a writ filed to a judge of appeal. Recess is called.]
IO: This hearing in session.
[Coombs asks that a transcript of proceeding be made to accompany the IO's written report concerning his non recusal. This would be a transcript up to this point in the court proceedings. There is a discussion that transcripts of court proceedings are normally summaries. This request is later granted by the US government. ]
Prosecution: Defense requests a verbatim transcript for ACCA, but the IO can't order it. It needs the US government's permission.
IO: I join in a transcript but I do not have the authority.
IO: ...previous stated fact...intend to append to report...I said I was not aware of DOJ case...I explained witnesses...explained closure...any reasonable person would not question bias.
2011-12-17 Handwritten transcript of Bradley #Manning Pretrial Day 2 #WikiLeaks
*Image by Michael Barczynski, artist and occupy participant, who allowed me to publish his sketches of the court proceedings.
These 37 pages of typed transcription were taken by hand, and may contain errors, misspellings of names, and or may be incomplete.
- The Investigation Officer is Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and Justice Department prosecutor.
- Prosecution is Captain Ashden Fein, Captain Joe Morrow, and Captain Angel Overgaard,
- Defense is Mr. David Coombs,, Major Matthew Kemkes, and Captain Paul Bouchard. ,
There were around 500 protesters outside the gates of Fort Meade on Saturday, Dec 17, 2011. #Occupy Wall Street had sent down a bus, and there were two bus loads from #Occupy in DC, both Freedom Plaza and McPherson. In addition Veterans for Peace were present at the rally and members of the Bradley Manning Support network. Individuals were represented from all over the country, and even the world.
I arrived at Fort Meade, Maryland at 1:20 p.m. and rushed into the theater just as defense was questioning the day's second witness, Special Agent Calder Robinson's testimony, via telephone from Germany.
After his testimony a recess was called and I conferred with four individuals about the morning's proceedings and the first witness that day, Special Agent Toni Graham.
One of the individuals I conferred with was Rainey Reitman of EFF and the Bradley Manning Support Network, who has compiled her own notes of day two of Bradley Manning's pretrial hearing. You can read her account at bradleymanning.org. I encourage you visit her notes for an in depth look at the day's first witness Special Agent Toni Graham.
I also encourage you to visit Rainey Reitman's account for the prosecution's first questions to Special Agent Calder Robertson.
[Prosecution rests.]
Defense: You weren't involved in collection, only evidence?
Robertson:I collected hard drives; another special agent did everything else.
Defense: Why didn't you travel from Germany to Iraq?
Robertson: The items came sealed.
Defense: Are you sure only Manning used the devices? Do you know if this computer was assigned to Manning?
Robertson: I took word of investigating authorities.
Defense: So you don't know if other individuals used the computers?
Robertson: No.
Defense: What is the difference between imaging and full forensic?
Robertson: Full forensics takes months. It's a scientific process. I did preliminary analysis not full forensics.
Defense: At the time of investigation were your certifications up to standing?
Robertson: Yes.
Robertson: I did all the forensic imaging.
Defense: Take Notes?
[I could not hear the answer.]
Defense: Cat Card access?
Robertson: Not sure.
Defense: Beyond forensic imaging and preliminary forensic, you did not do full forensic?
Robertson: That's right. Cat Card access done during full forensics.
Defense: Were the computers password protected?
Robertson: On PFC Manning personal computer, no. On all others, yes.
Defense: Did you instruct Cpt. Thomas Chirepko (unsure of spelling) on how to conduct forensic investigations?
Robertson: I did not, people on my team may have instructed him.
Defense: Is that a typical practice, to instruct people on how to obtain network logs?
Robertson: Yes, it is customary practice to obtain network logs.
Defense: Did you send software products or instructions to Cpt. Thomas Chirepko (unsure of spelling).
Robertson: Don't recall.
Defense: Did you come across evidence PFC Manning suffered from gender identity disorder?
Robertson: I am not qualified to make determination.
Defense: That he wanted to become Brianna Manning? Familiar with the name?
Robertson: I knew PFC Manning had behaviors. I know he referred to himself as 'fragile' in chat logs.
Defense: Any evidence he was homosexual?
Robertson: I don't know how to answer that question.
Defense: During your examination did you come across any evidence that PFC Manning was homosexual?
Robertson: I don't know.
Defense: You either know or you don't.
[Objection raised by prosecution as to relevance.]
IO: If you could keep questions to evidence, as to what he found. Special Agent Robertson, please answer question.
Defense: Did you come across any evidence PFC Manning was gay?
Defense: Are you familiar with the global address list?
Robertson: Yes.
Defense: Part of your work?
Robertson: No.
Defense: Come across this?
Robertson: I don't know.
Defense: On computers you worked on were there multiple user profiles?
Robertson: I don't recall.
[Prosecution re-examines the witness.]
Prosecution: Who was Cpt. Thomas Chirepko (unsure of spelling), and what did he do?
Robertson: He secured some network logs, which are official communications between computers.
Prosecution: So no imaging?
Robertson: Not to my knowledge.
Prosecution: Why did you not travel to Iraq?
Robertson: It was determined that it was not needed.
IO: Thank you Special Agent Robertson. You are permanently excused. Please do not discuss this case. If someone tries to discuss this case with you, please report it to counsel.
[Recess was taken.]
At the end of Special Agent Robertson's testimony a recess was called and I moved over to the courthouse.
In the gallery sit Julian Assange's external counsel Jennifer Robinson, and Amanda Jacobsen from the Center for Constitutional Rights, who both filed a writ the previous day demanding WikiLeaks lawyers be granted access to Bradley Manning's proceedings.
Towards the end of the day Ray McGovern sat behind me and Daniel Choi to my left. Mr. McGovern introduced himself, and we spoke about #Occupy and US Day of Rage. He gave Bradley Manning the thumbs up, when Bradley arrived in the courtroom.
[Hearing called to order. Third witness, Special Agent Mark Mander. In person. ]
[Special Agent Mark Mander was sworn in by Captain Angel Overgaard, prosecutor.]
IO: If at any time during your testimony you feel your answer is classified please inform the IO.
[Prosecution establishes Special Agent Mark Mander's credentials.]
Mander: Became a CID in 1994 with a seven-year break, in total approx 10 years.
Prosecution: How many cases?
Mander: Me and others, where I advised, 200. Been with CCIU for 4 years.
Prosecution: What computer training have you completed?
Mander: Attended training at Defense Cyber Crimes Center, courses in collection of computer evidence. 300 hours of training.
Prosecution: How many cases at CCIU?
Mander: 20 cases.
Prosecution: When did you become involved?
Mander: Initial investigation started by Camp Liberty, then CCIU became involved.
Prosecution: Role?
Mander: Case Agent on investigation.
Prosecution: Why Iraq and not CCIU?
Mander: Initial allocation was Iraq because that is where the crimes were committed. That is the policy of one office, relating to another. Initially opened by the office in the vicinity of the crime.
Prosecution: Why was it transferred?
Mander: It was determined that for search warrants and special warrants needed from a Federal judge [He mentions Google and Twitter], comus (sp.) leads, and the technical nature of the matter more suited to CCIU. Items were custodian'ed from Iraq to Dulles International Airport. I inventoried all items and carried them into the CCIU room. The majority of the investigation plan was based on Lamo of Manning and other documents obtained from PFC Manning's personnel file. CCIU obtained chats from Mr. Lamo and collected computer belonging to Mr. Lamo...on those hard drives.
Prosecution: Found anywhere else?
Mander: I believe corresponding info found from PFC Manning...
Prosecutor: What did you find?
Mander: 2007 Apache air strike video, info about Afghan war logs, detainees of GTMO, mentions of state dept cables.
Prosecutor: What did CID do?
[So to clarify, he is saying that the information was from the chat logs. And the next part he was talking very fast was him saying how they investigated based on that 'Intel']
Mander: Garani video believed to have been on shared -- by CENTCOM. Initially, CCIU attempted to connect and download those documents and that was collected as evidence. CCIU determined it was not sufficient. So CCIU sent two agents to CENTCOM in Florida where they obtained log files related to investigation. Several weeks later Deputy SJA Schoenettles (sp.) provided background info on Garani air strike. The file was BE2PAX.zip. That file was believed to be Garani air strike video. Lamo contacted us and related that he became aware on the Internet of someone that he did not know, who was part of the original decryption effort, who worked for DO[E or D ?], which we believed was Manning.
Prosecution: How did you verify?
Mander: Lamo was able to...Mr. Jason Katz. Mr. Jason Katz had previously been identified as an employee of Brookhaven National Labs. He was employed February 2009 to March 2010. His reason for being fired was for engaging in inappropriate computer activity. We additionally obtained forensic imaging, which was authorization by a network connection agreement with his government assigned and personal computer.
Prosecution: Did CID get authorization to search?
Mander: CID and the FBI obtained a Federal warrant to search, and did that search on the government work station
Mander: The file was identical. The file was named 'B.zip' within that file was another file named EEZPAX.wmb (Mander wasn't sure about .wmb) video file.
The file was encrypted and password protected. The file appeared to be same video.
The second week of June, two CCIU agents obtained circle log files...obtained IP locations of where the State
Department stored... obtained firewall logs.
During an initial attempt to get log files one person at State Dept said Intelink. Intelink allows people to find classified docs.
Prosecution: Did CID collect logs from Intelink?
Mander: Collected disk from personnel there, from IP address of the government workstation...Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).
Prosecution: Did you collect logs from CIA?
Mander: Yes.
Prosecution: Did you try to collect more from ODNI?
Mander: Keywords people searched. Also CENTAUR logs based on IP address.
Mander: CENTAUR is a government name for NetFlow logs. Connection logs to and from, time and date, length...
Prosecution: What sorts of leads did you pursue?
Mander: About June 18, 2010 I was involved in contacting and interviewing Manning's aunt. She was identified through his personnel file. Myself and four other agents, as well as Dept of State interviewed her about what she may know. We discussed a wide range of topics: family, where his mother was from, how he was brought up, and the circumstances of enlistment prior to apprehension. Manning had contacted his aunt two times while in Iraq: to ask her about the 2007 Apache video, and secondly to ask her to make a posting referencing the 2007 Apache video.
Prosecution: Did you search that residence, since it was the place of residence in his personnel file?
Mander: Yes. His belongings were obtained in a basement room. We looked through that room, and specifically for digital media, as well as anything he sent her while in Iraq. Upstairs in her room was a computer powered on while he was in Iraq. She could not use that computer.
Prosecution: Did you collect that?
Mander: Yes.
Prosecution: Visit again?
Mander: Yes.
Mander: In October a package came from the confinement center in Kuwait. After Manning's apprehension and confinement they collect his personals. The facility said that we needed a warrant to search those belongings. There was a hold up with the administration. The authorizing authority for the warrant said we shouldn't need one. By that time we got that figured out, Manning was transferred, and his effects were sent to his aunt's home, and signed by his dad.
Prosecution: What did the aunt tell you?
Mander: She had the unopened box. She saved the box and allowed us to go into basement to find other items.
Prosecution: Find anything else?
Mander: Yes. In June when we searched the room, it had no organization. She had organized his items into plastic containers. We identified numerous items that were digital media. All those items were selected. Most important, on an SD card we found various classified data. We split the room into two parts, photographed were item were found, and placed those items on the bed. When we were done we asked his aunt if she could look at items, and verify that they were his.
Mander: She verified them.
[Defense cross-examines Special Agent Mark Mander.]
Defense: You are a case agent?
Mander: Yes.
Defense: Lead case agent?
Mander: Normally in CID there is typically one agent. A case agent manages leads in case. Because of the numerous locations of investigation activity, in this instance I was the case agent on paper...supervisors took more active role.
Mander: Agent Aims and Agent King were acting operations officers.
Defense: Primary roles?
Mander: Search authorization, interviews and administrative tasks.
Defense: Not just search authorizations but federal magistrates?
Mander: In some cases at his aunt's house, we collected the items with her consent and then searched for authorization later.
Defense: So when talking about analysis on media in Iraq?
Mander: No. Special Agent Schaller (sp.), Johnson, and {another) Special Agent (I did not get his/her name).
Defense: Regarding Lamo, the detainees at GTMO, the Garani air strike, the 2007 Apache video, all that you did not see?
Mander: I did not conduct analysis.
Defense: So which agent did analyze the path to Garani?
Mander: Agent Wilbur (sp.) CCIU. At this time, I do not remember the report.
Mander: Special Agent Aims was my supervisor. The others were peers.
Defense: You were not directing them?
Mander: No
Defense: Did you have any interaction with Mr. Katz or Mr. Lamo?
Mander: Mr. Lamo contacted Special Agent Edward at CCIU. Mr. Katz...I don't believe CCIU directed Mr. Katz. That was FBI. I do not know if Mr. Katz contacted Mr. Lamo. I do not know if they had direct contact.
Defense: When did Lamo start to cooperate with CID?
Mander: Probably at end of May 2010...
Defense: Regarding the cables: Two agents went to the Department of State, did you accompany them?
Mander: No. The first group went to collect; the second was provided by the State Department.
Defense: So this is just from reports?
Mander: No.
Defense: Why would his childhood be relevant to the investigation?
Mander: It turned out not to be. Friendships he may have had...there was a great deal of concern about a foreign intelligence service. We were looking for information to prosecute. Were others involved? Military records showed Manning had lived overseas prior joining Army.
Defense: Were other people contacted or interviewed by CID?
Mander: A fair number.
Defense: Anyone followed up? Some people told me you interviewed them five or six times, and they were irritated. Is that typical?
Mander: No. It is not typical. This was not a typical investigation. One issue there was no forensics, or they were ongoing. Agents were collecting information thought to be relevant, and then we would go back with new information. That was the reason for the numerous visits.
Defense: And is it true that this was the only case you were working on? How long?
Mander: Yes. June 9 - Nov 2011 I had at times other cases, and would try to keep up, while on this case.
Defense: Whom else did you uncover doing wrongdoing?
Mander: Seven other civilians. The FBI is potentially involved. I do not know what the FBI has determined.
Defense: Do they include the founders, owners, or managers of WikiLeaks? Was WikiLeaks in this case?
Mander: Yes they are involved in certain aspects.
Defense: Is it your determination, would you agree that my client would have been unable to do this by himself?
Mander: Depends on charge. "Something by himself"...other charges require interaction with others.
Defense: Did my client possess the ability to upload from his cubical in Iraq?
Mander: Yes. He could have upload to multiple sites.
Defense: Would he not also require the cooperation of others to post to (indecipherable)?
Mander: Not if he owned site. Mr. Lamo contacted CCIU about Mr. Katz boasting about helping to decrypt. Lamo contacted CCIU about an unknown individual who was chatting with someone else. Don't know if he ever met that person.
Defense: How was he aware?
Mander: I am not aware.
Defense: Was he working with CID at the time? Before or after?
Mander: His initial information started the investigation. A person Lamo talked to told two people: Someone on a project he had worked on, and a friend. Both of those people told law enforcement. One was in the Army. The other sent an email to our office account, and left his name.
Defense: Did Lamo receive benefit?
Mander: Not that I am aware.
Defense: Who is the primary lead CCIU for WikiLeaks?
Mander: Camp Liberty, Army CID and the Department of State. Then the FBI became involved and joined the investigation. The State Department became involved immediately because of nature of information obtained in chats. A month into the investigation the FBI became involved.
Defense: What about the Department of Justice started to investigate WikiLeaks?
Mander: They spoke with advisers early in our investigation...one US attorney from the Eastern District of Virginia.
Defense: What did they say?
Mander: Ongoing discussions, best practices for investigating classified info...they advised CID.
Defense: Were they experts in this kind of investigation?
Mander: Yes.
Defense: You mentioned that when PFC Manning was confined in Kuwait, can you provide details of the search authorization?
Mander: We identified the container. We contacted the Kuwait facility to search, had and agent from CID in Kuwait to collect. The facility said we needed to have a search warrant. We contacted a magistrate. There was a legal disagreement. The magistrate felt we did not need authorization due to his status as confinee. We went back to facility, but only in regard to "safety and security"...violations of his confinement strategy, but by the time we figured that out, he had been transferred.
[Prosecution then re-examines Special Agent Mark Mander.]
Prosecution (Overgaard): Defense brought up numerous individuals being interviewed multiple times. Why did that happen?
Mander: Again, forensic examination is a slow process, as items of investigation were reported, we would contact ex co-workers and ask if they knew about the information. That was how did the process worked.
Prosecution: Why?
Mander: We were trying to identify all the evidence related to this investigation.
[Special Agent Mark Mander is excused.]
[Defense renewed its request to compel collateral evidence from DOJ.]
Defense (Coombs): As defense requested...R.C.M. 45 collateral investigation of evidence by government...this agent...that was the FBI. Prosecutor deemed to have knowledge...clearly that is the case...defense should not be operating in an information vacuum. I request you obtain information in possession by the prosecution for the defense.
[Prosecution or Investigating Officer (IO) (?) asks, "The US government does not have the approval to turn over such evidence in possession of the FBI."]
Defense (Coombs): What exactly does the government have? One. Does it exist? Two. Do they have authorization? If you deem it irrelevant, it does not stop at trial counsel. I would like that to go on record...and disclose the State Department, FBI, and DOJ.
IO: At this point your request is denied.
Defense (Coombs): It's not relevant?
IO: No. You can bring it up with the judge when or if the matter goes to trial.
[Fourth witness. Special Agent Troy Bettencourt (sp.). Testimony was accompanied by visual projection of two archives of the WikiLeaks Web site and three screenshots of @WikiLeaks tweets.]
Prosecution: Where do you work?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : The US Treasury.
Prosecution: What kind work?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Forensics for civil, criminal interaction. I was an Army CID prior to my current position...from November 2010 to December 2011 and then previously from 2001 to 2005.
Prosecution: What was your job?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : I was a special agent on the intrusion team assigned to this.
Prosecution: What training have you completed?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : I have completed courses from the government and commercial providers...NCay...Access Data...DC3...
Prosecution: Have you ever testified?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Yes...cyber crimes...general crimes.
Prosecution: What is wikileaks.org?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : WikiLeaks was founded in 2006 by an Australian national...bound to no government entity.
The same time the organization existed, the web site existed...they solicit classified, decrypted...
Prosecution: How does one submit to the web site?
[Special Agent Troy Bettencourt then goes through a user flow process that he describes as the WikiLeaks submission process...]
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : You initiate...the Web site scans your computer for the file to upload...
Prosecution: WikiLeaks is a Web site?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Yes, on the technical side it is a Web site.
Prosecution: Where are its servers?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : All over the world: Germany, Sweden, (names more countries) even Texas.
Prosecution: Where is it fiscally based?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Wherever Mr. Assange is located. At one time it was Iceland. Now it is England.
Prosecution: Why Iceland?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Iceland initiated the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative.
IO: Can you please repeat that? What did you call it? Please say that again.
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative.
Prosecution: Did WikiLeaks ever solicit?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : ...put an update..."Most Wanted List" by country...
[Special Agent Troy Bettencourt then explains the Way Back machine. On a projected screen are shown two Web archives he identifies as from May ?, 2010 and then November 5, 2009. I could not find an specific enough date for the May archive online, since I did not get the day, and there was no WikiLeaks archive available online dated November 5, 2009.]
[Prosecution shows archive of WikiLeaks Web site displaying a country listings and stops scrolling at the United States under which is a bullet points list that includes: Intellipedia, http://opensource.gov and more. Under military intelligence on the 'Most Wanted List' we see featured CIA, detainee interrogations, rules of engagement, Camp Delta, and more. Special Agent Troy Bettencourt reads allowed what is shown on the screen. At one point the Investigating Officer asks that the prosecution and Special Agent Troy Bettencourt to slow down and repeat themselves, saying that they are going too fast.]
Prosecution: Did WikiLeaks ever use social media?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Yes...very much. They still do.
Prosecution: What is twitter?
[Special Agent Troy Bettencourt answers. I did not write his answer down.]
[NB Screenshots of WikiLeaks tweets showed an older version of the WikiLeaks logo, but one that had "Free Bradley" in it. I cannot confirm that Bradley Manning noticed the banner.]
Have encrypted videos of US bomb strikes on civilians http://bit.ly/wlafghan2 we need super computer time http://ljsf.org/
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 8, 2010
NSA has a database called TRESUREMAP that stores info on millions of IP addrs. Know more? Contact us,
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 16, 2010
We would like a list of as many .mil email addresses as possible. Please contact editor@wikileaks.org or submit
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 7, 2010
[Special Agent Troy Bettencourt goes through WikiLeaks publishing dates 'First release February 2010 Reykjavik 13, March 15, 2010 Army...April 2010 edited Apache video Special Agent Troy Bettencourt says, "They termed it Collateral Murder" July 2010 Afghan War Logs...Oct 2010 Special Agent Troy Bettencourt says, "What they call Iraq War Diary" 2004 to 2009, then started to release US State Dept Cables...what they called "cablegate" "released in batches" April, detainee info at GTMO...Special Agent Troy Bettencourt finishes.]
Prosecution: You mentioned US State Dept cable 'batches'?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : 20th of August the entire document, 250,000 US State Department un-redacted cables were published on the Internet.
[Defense cross-examines the witness.]
Defense: Work with other agencies? FBI, Department of State, ICE? ... Interviewed many individuals?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : More than 10.
Defense: Interview any of PFC's Chain of Command?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Yes or contractors.
Defense: Did you interview them alone or with others?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Interviewed all but one with others. Only CID, I don't recall others.
Defense: Any audio or video?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : No.
Defense What determines if audio or video is used?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Need approval.
Defense Did you come across any evidence of Brianna Manning?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt: He had an email address, a FaceBook profile. He had emailed a member of the chain of command with a picture of him dressed as a woman.
Defense Aware of him being gay?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Yes.
Defense Ever served in the military?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Yes. Served for 12 years.
Defense During your work, was he tied to a known terrorist group?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : No.
Defense An individual interested in politics (referring to Manning)?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Friends said they would have discussions with him pertaining to politics.
Defense Evidence of him exuding odd behavior?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : Incident where Manning assaulted a supervisor...incident where he threw a computer...incident where he was found curled up in a ball.
Defense Opinion as to his military leadership?
Special Agent Troy Bettencourt : I would with the benefit of hindsight like to think I would have noticed his behavior and prevented him from deploying.
[Prosecution re-examines Special Agent Troy Bettencourt (sp.)]
Prosecution: You are CID? As CID you sign a non-disclosure agreement for government clearance. Do you believe people have a responsibility to secure classified info?
[Then the prosecution as that "If Manning is guilty for what he is accused of did Special Agent Troy Bettencourt asked if he put people's lives at risk." Defense objects. ]
[IO stops line of questions and tells Prosecution not to ask about Manning's guilt or innocence.]
[Next witness. Sergeant First Class Brian Madrid. Via telephone. Sworn in by Captain Angel Overgaard of prosecution.]
Prosecution: Are you alone, can you speak freely?
Madrid: Yes.
Prosecution: Notes related to case?
[Witness are not allowed to use notes while testifying, but the court cannot verify by telephone.]
Madrid: No.
[IO gives speech regarding notifying him if his answer is classified.]
Prosecution: When did you retired?
Madrid: Sept 1, 2010
Prosecution: How many years?
Madrid: 2 years. I work on BMI systems to exploitation...PDA, laptop, phones.
Prosecution: How do you know Manning?
Madrid: I was his Platoon Sergeant.
Prosecution: When did Manning attend...?
Madrid: April to August 2008
Prosecution: Platoon Sergeant?
Madrid: February 08 to August 10
Prosecution: MOS?
Madrid: 35 Foxtrot Military Intelligence Analyst.
Prosecution: What is the first instruction?
Madrid: Info sec...how to handle and contain classification.
Prosecution: How do you know?
Madrid: I would talk to instructors.
Prosecution: Do you need interim clearance for class?
Madrid: Yes. It's a temporary classification.
[Prosecution asks a line of questions that lead Madrid to say in June 2008 he gave corrective training to Manning.]
Prosecution: Reason for corrective training?
Madrid: Soldiers informed me that Manning was hosting videos on YouTube with titles like "Classified" "SCIF" and "Top Secret"...Soldiers said they saw three videos...I couldn't access YouTube through my work computer, so I viewed only one on of these videos on one of the soldier's laptop. This one video was meant for family and friends of PFC Manning inside barracks room, "Well I work at this super secret SCIF, I handle...."
Prosecution: What was your corrective training?
Madrid: Presentation for Friday formation. Soldier needed to present it to me first to make sure its an informative product.
Prosecution: Other?
Madrid: A typed out product that he understood he wasn't suppose to do that sort of thing...divulge his clearance would make himself a target...and a PowerPoint for Friday formation.
Prosecution: Presentation for the unit what was that?
Madrid: Infosec. How to handle it; if you are a person with access...how it could be dangerous. There are sources looking for info on military. Different types: foreign governments, enemies, spies, and hackers. Written product had references to regulations.
[Defense cross-examines Sergeant First Class Brian Madrid.]
Defense We spoke on the phone before?
Madrid: Yes.
Defense Platoon Sergeant at AIT?
Madrid: Yes.
Defense How long is the course?
Madrid: 16 weeks 3 days.
Defense Part in field, part in classroom?
Madrid: Yes.
Defense Lots of students, probably hard to get to know them all?
Madrid: Don't get to know all...But you know them.
[Defense asks how much he actually participated in the class with soldiers being trained vis a vis field. Madrid says he attends classes with soldiers.]
Defense When (Advanced Individual Training) AIT graduate they have a baseline understanding. Reasonable?
Madrid: Yes.
Madrid: Unreasonable to say they are an expert, but they are qualified by doctrine and standards.
Defense Expertise comes through honing skills?
Madrid: yes, as with any job.
Defense Did you see all the videos that Manning posted?
Madrid: I saw one.
Defense Showed it to Captain Ogletree (sp.)?
Madrid: Yes.
Defense Did the video show any classified info?
Madrid: No, but he was using buzzwords. Said they were 'Classified'.
Defense Videos intended for friends and family?
Madrid: Yes.
Defense Did the video say he missed his family?
Madrid: Don't recall
Defense Showed his barracks? March to class?
Madrid: Yes.
Defense How hard PT training was?
Madrid: Yes.
Defense Are 'SCIF', 'Top Secret', and 'Classified' - the buzzwords classified?
Madrid: No but they are taught not to do it.
Defense So corrective training?
Madrid: Yes.
Defense This incident...not so important that you suspend clearance?
Madrid: Don't have that authorization.
Defense Do you know if his clearance was suspended?
Madrid: No it was not. He couldn't have completed the course if it was.
[Prosecution re-examines Sergeant First Class Brian Madrid.]
Prosecution: Why shouldn't they use buzzwords?
Madrid: If they identify themselves with their security clearance they can be targeted.
Prosecution: You had nothing to do with instruction but sat thru their courses.
Madrid: Yes.
Prosecution: All of the training?
Madrid: Yes.
Prosecution: Did you sit through the first block? Did you learn you are can't transmit to someone unauthorized?
Madrid: Yes.
[Sergeant First Class Brian Madrid is permanently excused by court.
Next Witness is Captain Steven Lim, one of Manning's superiors in Iraq. Lim is currently Deputy G2 at Fort Meade. He plans resources and training for reserves as they deploy.]
Lim: Our job comprehensive intelligence products. Take different forms of intelligence to meet commander's needs to make decision.
Lim: Army 9 years, Intel 5 years. Before Air Defense Officer.
Prosecution: Training?
Lim: Military intelligence... Captain's Career Course... Then graduate level advanced course in intelligence as future battalion officers...
Prosecution: Duties as Intel?
Lim: 2nd Brigade Military Intelligence (MI) Company Command... Deployed three times... Two times as Intel... All deployments to Iraq... Final Fob Hammer, Iraq.
Prosecution: When did you arrive?
Lim: March of 2006.
Prosecution: Position?
Lim: Infantry Battalion S2
Prosecution: What did you do?
Lim: Used my small staff of Intel analysts with combat Intel officer for operations. October 2008 and July 2009. We did two rotations six or seven months. We were going to go to Afghanistan. My job...Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) major units...to validate prior to deployment.
[Lim says he met Manning his second time in Iraq.]
Prosecution: What job did you have at brigade?
Lim: Military Intelligence (MI) Company Commander. Assistant Brigade S2.
Prosecution: Manning?
Lim: Intel Analyst with Brigade 35 Fox identifier.
Prosecution: What are the pre-requisites for 35 Fox?
Lim: Graduate AIT training. Top Secret clearance.
Prosecution: How get Top Secret Clearance?
Lim: Good credit. No past felonies. Good behavior. American citizen.
Prosecution: Can any soldier get 35 Fox ?
Lim: Higher GI score than others.
Prosecution: What does that mean?
Lim: Smarter than other soldiers.
Prosecution: Training?
Lim: One. Collection on Systems...aerial platforms...ground base systems...collection platforms and devices. Two. System. All source DGA system. Distributed Common Ground Army. Laptop terminal, where Intel has all resources...with Microsoft Office Suite, Geo-plotting. Found on SIPRNet.
Prosecution: What kind of training do they receive in broad sense?
Lim: Some security training...classification privileges...how to mark. Making sure data is labeled correctly.
Prosecution: Are 35 Foxes trained on recognizing marks?
Lim: Yes.
Prosecution: Sharing. What are the requirements?
Lim: Make sure person has proper access. Should be common sense. We deal with more classified material.
Prosecution: What other systems?
Lim: UADS, other ground base assets, data pulled into SIPRNet...conducting research to narrow down info...
Prosecution: Why?
Lim: When you are making a product, you need to nail down product... CIDNE database, Query-Tree...
Lim: CIDNE database is a combined information data network that references all kinds of intelligence: human intelligence, controlled debriefs, state dept debriefs...
Prosecution: Who uses it?
Lim: All sorts of personnel...even medical.
Prosecution: Do 35 Foxes use CIDNE too?
Lim: Yes... Query-Tree, our secret version of Google.
Prosecution: How often do they use CIDNE?
Lim: In a combat environment, everyday.
Prosecution: Why distinguish?
Lim: In garrison environment duties are physical security, system security, assisting on inspection...not as much analysis.
Prosecution: How do they assist?
Lim: QIQC. Quality Insurance Quality Control.
Lim: Majority of units focus on enemy a couple months before deployment [Meaning they practice Intel search and analysis.]
Prosecution: What do you remember about Manning?
Lim: Not a lot. We were really busy.
Prosecution: Was everyone working on simulation?
Lim: Yes.
Lim: Commanders all rely on products...based off something he requests.
Prosecution: Your job is to answer questions of your Commander?
Lim: Yes.
Lim: All historical analysis. Provide historic enemy activity. Put it all together in a product. Then go thru QIQC to make sure product is in line with Intel. Then follow up.
[Next line of questions related to when Lim was promoted.]
Lim: After Second GFC rotation. Once we were deployed.
Prosecution: When?
Lim: January 2010. Replaced guy who could not explain to the commander in the way the commander needed. We were focused on the enemy, and to help troops on the ground.
Prosecution: Manning was on 'Shia threat'? He was put on 'Shia'?
[NOTE: Lim made reference to some analyst placed on 'Sunni threat', some on 'Shia threat'.]
Lim: Manning was focused on 'Shia threat' based on attack patterns...on Shia enemy at Fob Hammer, Iraq.
Prosecution: Where was your office located?
Lim: Command Group.
Prosecution: Anyone in brigade top secret?
Lim: They work on signal intelligence.
Prosecution: Could you get onto network in SCIF? Did you have SIPRnet?
Lim: Yes.
Prosecution: What else?
Lim: NIPRnet and SIPRnet...
Prosecution: SIPRnet secret?
Lim: Yes.
Prosecution: D6 Secret?
Lim: Yes.
Prosecution: Were computers you had on network?
Lim: Yes.
Prosecution: Classified hard drives?
Lim: Yes. We had info that was releasable to Iraqis, translated for Iraqi soldier in Arabic.
Lim: That was a specific caveat. We partnered with Iraq. We were authorized to release that information to Iraqi defense forces, because that was part of our mission to train the Iraqi's how to use information and to share information with Iraqis.
Prosecution: What type of threat did Shia pose?
Lim: One to five attacks a day.
Prosecution: How is that information accessible?
Lim: Able to pull data of historical attacks from the CIDNE database.
Prosecution: Did Manning ever investigate IEDs from Shia attacks?
Lim: Yes
Prosecution: Could an individual create that work product alone?
Lim: No. It was based off the commander needs, not individuals.
Prosecution: Manning's strengths?
Lim: Statistics. Predictive analysis. Putting that into ArcMap to give visual picture.
Prosecution: Easy process?
Lim: Statistics, yes. Not easy...challenging system to use.
Prosecution: Is this the type of process referenced to data mining?
Lim: Yes. If you didn't use the system a lot...it took some technique, and a lot of practice.
Prosecution: Manning's weakness?
Lim: Trying to get point across. Public speaking.
Prosecution: Do you know anything about NetCentric diplomacy?
Lim: No.
Prosecution: Work related searches? Iceland?
Lim: No.
Prosecution: Julian Assange?
Lim: No.
Prosecution: 15, 6?
Lim: No.
Prosecution: CENTCOM Web site?
Lim: Maybe.
Prosecution: CENTCOM legal?
Lim: No.
Prosecution: GTMO detainee assessments?
Lim: No.
Prosecution: How is classified information detected?
Lim: Those who didn't have access, no passcode. Only special soldiers have direct log onto segregated information.
[Note He referred to special soldiers on the ground, I believe who were reporting information.]
Prosecution: What prevented soldiers from burning CDs?
Lim: Well we can't watch every person, 24 hours a day. We signed non-disclosure agreements.
[Prosecution then leads to question about behavioral incidents with Manning.]
Lim: From my knowledge...nighttime supervisor reprimanded Manning for arriving late, and Manning flipped table.
Prosecution: Result?
Lim: Took Manning to a behavioral specialist...brigade S2 not given...action wasn't drastic enough to remove him...we needed analysis...we needed work.
[Then Lim talks about how Manning was placed from SCIF to supply section while he was on environmental leave, so he only heard about it.]
Lim: Manning's security changed to derogatory [derog] after an assault on Specialist Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman.
Prosecution: In the six years you have been...have you had soldiers with minor behavioral issues?
Lim: Yes. Did you permanently remove them?
Lim: No.
Prosecution: Would you say PFC Manning has brought discredit on the Army?
Lim: Yes.
[Defense OBJECTED to line of question. There is a parlay about relevance. I wrote down that the IO OVERRUED, but I am not certain if that is accurate.]
[Defense cross-examines the witness. Defense (Coombs) first speaks about the deployment.]
Defense (Coombs): What were your duties?
Lim: Battalion S2, MI Commander. One Commander per Brigade Combat Team.
Defense (Coombs): 'All Source Intel' officers transferred?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Since 2002?
Lim: Yes. Human Intel. Signal Intel.
Defense (Coombs): Who was not deployed? What guidance did you receive on whom not to deploy?
Lim: All able body persons, not withstanding pending medical issues.
Defense (Coombs): Pressured to take people to meet numbers?
Lim: Due diligence to take as many people as you can...
Defense (Coombs): Only those that absolutely cannot?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): To not take someone what was the protocol?
Lim: Chain of Command.
Defense (Coombs): Who was the approving authority?
Lim: Brigade Commander.
Defense (Coombs): You were Assistant Brigade S2 October 2009 and Military Intelligence (MI) Commander at same time?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Responsibilities?
Lim: Attend meeting. Take his requests and issue taskings ...
Defense (Coombs): What sort of interactions did you have with Headquarters?
Lim: A little bit of interaction. Lance dealt mostly with Headquarters.
Defense (Coombs): How long as Assistant Brigade [S2]?
Lim: October 2007 to January 2010. February 6 there was a changed command.
Defense Captain [Casey] Martin [Married name is Fulton] then made you Brigade S2?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): When did he take over?
Lim: Week or so before he changed my command sometime January.
Defense (Coombs): Why? Because that is not typical, right?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): ...cause you don't want to change command up during deployment?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): My Brigade Commander wanted me to be the S2.
Defense (Coombs): How far is your office from the SCIF?
Lim: 10 seconds.
Defense (Coombs): How many officers?
Lim: 10.
Defense (Coombs): Who was in charge of the night shift?
Lim: Pageant...Specialist...now a Sergeant.
Defense (Coombs): Night shift non commissioned officers?
Lim: Yes. We took the most senior mature specialists for night shift.
Defense (Coombs): Manning worked first at night. As S2 did you have an opportunity to observe Manning?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Manning was only in army for a few years:
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Fort Drum was his first assignment?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): His first duty assignment?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Would you consider his training minimal?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): So other than D6 training nothing else?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): Any training on classification outside AIT? Do you know if he received any training?
Lim: I gave a short class from core MNOJ (sp.?) seniors getting classification.
Defense (Coombs): It was not designed for 35 Foxes, though...
Lim: It could have been...
Defense (Coombs): (repeats) But, it was not designed for 35 Foxes?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): Occasionally work with individuals for more guidance?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Nightshift takes up tasks the dayshift couldn't get done?
Lim: Yes. And, it is easier to do research at night. It's quieter.
Defense (Coombs) There were a Shia and Sunni threat teams?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): At the time Manning was promoted?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Based on his time in service?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Junior spec?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): First duty...junior member of the military?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Got really good at computer programs, graphs, brass?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You would look at finer points to give him guidance?
Lim: Yes
Defense (Coombs): You said, if he really didn't know how to deal with a project, he would stop working?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Take him a while to complete?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Nothing abnormal?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Was he the best 35 Fox you had worked with?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): He was moved to dayshift?
Lim: Yes. There is more supervision. More guidance.
Defense (Coombs): Know why moved back on nightshift?
Lim: I do not know.
Defense (Coombs): Do you know why [Major] Clausen was removed [Lim was promoted to Clausen's post]?
Lim: He could not communicate information to the Commander in a way Commander needed.
Defense (Coombs): Clausen was not a hands-on leader? Did he show up?
Lim: No, he was not a hands-on leader. He was there a couple times a day.
Defense (Coombs): Did Clausen brief you on personnel?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): That atypical?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): At the time, were you took over aware of behavioral problems?
Lim: Only what I observed. Nothing more.
Defense (Coombs): On December 20, 2009 what were you told about Specialist Pageant during a counseling session? Were you told Manning was furious? Upset?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Were you told Manning flipped a table, damaged computer and government property?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): Told 'minor' outburst has to be restrained by Showman [Chief Warrant Officer 4] Airsman [sp.]?
Lim: No
Defense (Coombs): That he was going for his weapon?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): That Showman [Chief Warrant Officer 4] Airsman [sp.] had to dragged him out of SCIF?
Lim: No.
[Lim looked increasingly surprised during cross-examination.]
Defense (Coombs): If you were told this behavior would you consider that a 'minor' incident?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): Would that qualify for a 'derog' (derogatory classification)
Lim: Yes, if ruled by the proper authorizing authority.
[Discussion of a derogatory classification then followed.]
Lim: I thought it was a little weird the lack of response to that incident. In casual conversation I talked about what I would do in that situation... I would have done a 'derog'.
Defense (Coombs): When you gave that recommend did they follow it?
Lim: No, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): On December 20 2009 Manning became emotional, shoved a chair and began yelling. Did you hear about this?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): Would this be acceptable?
Lim: No Sir.
Defense (Coombs): Did you know he wrote memorandums?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Did he [Clausen] share those?
Lim: Yes, very shortly after.
Defense (Coombs): Did you read any?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Do you know why Master Sgt. Paul Adkins was dealing with Manning?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): You received a letter of admonishment from [General Robert L.] Caslen on March 2, 2011?
[Defense quotes letter] 'You should have been aware of Master Sgt. Paul Adkins from case and the discipline of enlisted soldiers." Master Sgt. Paul Adkins never shared that information till after?
Lim: I was fairly concerned.
Defense (Coombs): Shocked?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): What did you do?
Lim: I counseled him. [General Robert L.] Caslen
Defense (Coombs): Did you shared with him the email that PFC Manning wrote to Master Sgt. Paul Adkins with a picture of himself dressed as a woman...and how his gender identity affects him? How it impacts his ability to think in April 2010. That the letter was not shared with you till after the arrest of PFC Manning?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Did you counsel him in writing?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You said it was obvious Manning was suffering from the 2009 email. Should his security clearance have been removed, and he removed from the SCIF?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Fair to say that the later offense may not have happened?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): And, these offenses (charges) may not have happened?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Did Master Sgt. Paul Adkins have duty to report a 'derog'?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Did these concerns predate deployment?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): How quickly could you turn off access? Immediately?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Did the SCIF have Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)?
Lim: Told there was one, never saw it.
Defense (Coombs): Fair to say, it didn't?
Lim: Can't say that.
Defense (Coombs): If there weren't an SOP, would be problem?
Lim: Yes. We got an SOP accreditation. I assumed it had an SOP.
Defense (Coombs): Would you be surprised to learn SCIF was not accredited?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): When did that responsibility switch over to Master Sgt. Paul Adkins?
Lim: I want to say 2nd or 3rd week of 2010.
Defense (Coombs): Responsible for day to day infosec of SCIF?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Any SSR training for Master Sgt. Paul Adkins?
Lim: I believe a small class.
Defense (Coombs): There is a proper SSR course?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Is SSR supposed to inventory CDs and DVDs?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Suppose to be externally labeled?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Bear an external form [a classification mark]?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): How it is labeled?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Why?
Lim: That way you don't put a classified disk into an unclassified machine.
Defense (Coombs): I've seen photos of the SCIF with CDs all over the place?
Lim: Haven't seen those photos. At times the SCIF can be disorganized.
Defense (Coombs): When I zoom in to those photos there are unlabeled CDs all over the place. Is that now how it was?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Were soldiers allowed to bring in personal CDs?
Lim: Music CDs that were unopened.
Defense (Coombs): Were you allowed to leave SCIF with CD?
Lim: For official purposes...
Defense (Coombs): How was it enforced?
Lim: No. You trusted people.
Defense (Coombs): Any sort of protocol for soldier burning something onto a disk?
Lim: Someone would review it.
Defense (Coombs): How was that enforced?
Lim: If you don't grab it, you don't take it out...
Defense (Coombs): Music on same computer as SIPRnet? Correct, by rules?
Lim: No Sir.
Defense (Coombs): Watching movies in SCIF?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Movies on SIPRnet played on D6 machine? Games played?
Lim: I did not.
Defense (Coombs): Games stored on SIPRnet?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Programs that had been downloaded by soldiers?
Lim: I did not see.
Defense (Coombs): Ever hear of anyone saying that they had to install applications for products?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): Were you responsible for classification decisions?
Lim: No. It would be the originating authority, who reclassifies information.
Defense (Coombs): Did you ever see CENTCOM classification guidelines, Multi-National Corps - Iraq (MNCI) classification guidelines from your experience? Did everyone use classification guides?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): Any training on how to use classification guidelines?
Lim: No, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): How long was your training?
Lim: About an hour...[presentation with] 100 slides.
Defense (Coombs): Ever decide how long an item should be classified?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): As more time passes, potential harm decreases?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Ever see any declassification dates?
Lim: No. Just wasn't there.
Defense (Coombs): Any thought given to how long it needed to b classified?
Lim: No, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): What is the job of an analyst?
Lim: Mission to take and build product or end product for end users. Lots of reading, research.
Defense (Coombs): What sort of skills?
Lim: Comprehensive writing, good briefing, someone who can think outside the box...
Defense (Coombs): Creative?
Lim: Yes Sir.
Defense (Coombs): Where does an analyst get info?
Lim: Databases, other sources, people...
Defense (Coombs): 'All Source' analyst means you look at everything?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): How was the CIDNE database used?
Lim: Like Google, you have to filter and decipher information he (commander) wants and pull human Intel, civil debriefs...
Defense (Coombs): SigActs [Significant Acts] big part of the database, important?
Lim: Yes. Plug in date and see what events happened in that area.
Defense (Coombs): So SigActs on CIDNE were big historical documents? What was is going to happen in the future?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): SigActs contain future operations?
Lim: Possible. Less often.
Defense (Coombs): SigActs how were they created?
Lim: Ground units...as it happens, op enter, generate, command post, and adjudicates...
Defense (Coombs): Why would a SigAct be created?
Lim: For history, research and analysis...
Defense (Coombs): Is SigActs something for an analyst to look at?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Names of people, key government sources?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): If someone says SigActs compromise key sources is that true?
Lim: No. Not related to human intelligence sources...
Defense (Coombs): What are HUMINT reports [Human intelligence]?
Lim: Report that documents one soldier's interaction with another person.
Defense (Coombs): You never put names in SigActs?
Lim: Yes, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): Ludicrous to say the report names?
Lim: Yes, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): SigActs traditionally reported as on or immediately thereafter, and tend to be wrong?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): May be updated?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): So after 72 hours outdated?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): So after 72 hrs they become part of the historical documentation?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): So then it's historically significant at scale?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Most names would be phonetically written down, right?
Lim: Yes
[Defense says there are many ways to spell and search for Mohammed in SigActs.]
Defense (Coombs): Goes back to SigActs not most accurate. Do you know analyst had access to diplomatic cables?
Defense (Coombs): Do you know what NetCentric diplomacy is? Regarding net-centric diplomacy, how did you grant access to cables?
Lim: I gave them link through email. Got from headquarters. They said pass along. Felt at time we were so focused on the ground, and needed bigger picture...
Defense (Coombs): So you handed out link and you were saying, 'Go get on and take a look'?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Was there a password?
Lim: No
Defense (Coombs): Millions of people have access to these documents?
Lim: Enormous amounts.
Defense (Coombs): So this isn't like a super secret place to go...just diplomatic cables? If it didn't have a password it was SECRET or below? If it were TOP SECRET it would not be on SIPRnet?
Lim: No, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): In March 2010 did you know about an equal employment complaint?
Lim: Yes. It involved intense threats.
Defense (Coombs): Find out about whom it was regarding?
Lim: No, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): Did you talk to Master Sgt. Paul Adkins about the letters?
Lim: Felt like medical professional, the medical system should handle it.
Defense (Coombs): Know why he was reduced?
Lim: No.
Defense (Coombs): Who was the Master Sergeant Senior? Can you explain to a non-military person?
[IO objects to Defense language.]
IO: Whom are you speaking to?
Defense (Coombs): He's the highest-ranking person in SCIF? Sets the tone in SP section?
Lim: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Is that what he did?
Lim: No.
[Prosecution re-examines Capt. Steven Lim.]
Prosecution: Was Manning a smart soldier?
Lim: Yes
Prosecution: Rely on him?
Lim: Yes.
Prosecution: Rely on his information during deployment.
Lim: Yes.
Prosecution: Did he understand information management?
Lim: Yes.
Prosecution: Why do you say that?
Lim: We went through that training.
Prosecution: Why specifically for Manning?
Lim: Because it was his job to know.
Prosecution: Was any soldier authorized to burn CD and take it out for personal use?
Lim: No.
[End of Bradley Manning Pretrial Day 2.]
2011-12-18 Handwritten transcript of Bradley #Manning Pretrial Day 3 #WikiLeaks
*Myself pictured with Daniel Choi on December 18, 2011. Choi was also in attendance at Fort Meade, MD. You can hear him describe the abuse he experienced at Fort Meade, MD on December 19, 2021 on democracynow.org. He was reportedly thrown to the ground, handcuffed, had his rank ripped off his unifom, and was forcibly ejected from the pretrial proceedings.
I sat next to or near Daniel Choi in the courtroom on both Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. I only saw Daniel Choi behaving in a respectful manner during the proceedings or while the court was at recess - both in the gallery or on the premises. The Federal Police Officers began watching the public in attendance more overtly - even hanging around to watch us outside the security perimeter of the courthouse - when Daniel Choi showed up on Saturday.
Unlike Friday all day, and Saturday morning, when Daniel Choi was not in the public gallery, Bradley Manning exited with armed soldiers through the public gallery when recesses were called or at the end of the day.
Starting Saturday afternoon - after Daniel Choi showed up - the public was told to leave the gallery before the guards would even move Bradley Manning, or Bradley Manning was exited through the back.
In fact, after the morning's proceedings on December 18, 2011, I moved to a back row on the defense side of the gallery, and away from Daniel and the others who were talking at a recess. I did this in order to collect myself for the task of transcription.
From my new position, I watched one unidentified, caucasian, middle-aged man in a dark suit wearing glasses with dark curly hair - stand and lean against the middle pew on the prosecution side of the gallery - 3 feet away from Daniel Choi and a little back.
This man watched Choi - never once lifting his eyes for about five minutes - until he caught me looking at him watching Choi in a like manner to himself. He then looked over at one of the soldiers guarding the proceeding, who was dressed in a similar military uniform as Daniel. They both raised their eyebrows at each other.
I had arrived at the Fort Meade, MD courthouse at 8:00 a.m. on December 18, 2011. The following 32 pages of typed transcript were taken by hand and may contain errors, misspellings of names, and or may be incomplete.
-
The Investigation Officer is Paul Almanza, an Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel and Justice Department prosecutor.
-
Prosecution is Captain Ashden Fein, Captain Joe Morrow, and Captain Angel Overgaard.
- Defense is Mr. David Coombs, Major Matthew Kemkes, and Captain Paul Bouchard.
Day began with prosecution and defense teams exiting the courtroom together - possibly to meet in chambers for an R.C.M. 802 conference. They exited together through the back. At one point, a member of the prosecution returned and told the gallery that it would be 5 more minutes.
[If I am not mistaken, one matter had been left open and awaiting prosecution's response. It may have been regarding the defense's request regarding a written response from prosecution about the information that the U.S. government had in its possession, and particularly the F.B.I., remember that on December 17, 2011 Coombs had said:
Defense (Coombs): What exactly does the government have? One. Does it exist? Two. Do they have authorization? If you deem it irrelevant, it does not stop at trial counsel. I would like that to go on record...and disclose the State Department, FBI, and DOJ.
I am not sure if this was the matter being discussed by defense and prosecution. The previous night prosecution had asked for more time for review regarding a matter...]
[Defense arrives. Prosecution arrives. Investigating Officer calls the hearing to order. Speech to gallery on "decorum and dignity" of the courtroom. ]
[First witness. Captain Casey Martin [married name is Fulton]. In person. Sword in.]
Prosecution: Current job?
Fulton: Officer in Charge of Squadron Intelligence.
Prosecution: What do you do?
Fulton: Multiple Intel collection...analysis.
Prosecution: Are you an Intelligence Officer?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: That what you do?
Fulton: All Source Intel.
Prosecution: How long?
Fulton: Six years.
Prosecution: Training?
Fulton: Officer's basic courses...then military Intel courses.
Prosecution: What was your previous position?
Fulton: Assistant Officer in charge as Lt. Platoon Leader....Brigade Officer in charge...Brigade Assistant S2.
Prosecution: How many times have you been deployed?
Fulton: Two times. Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008, and Iraq from 2009 to 2010. I arrived in Iraq in 2009, was deployed in October.
Prosecution: Why did you arrive so close?
Fulton: ...just graduated.
Prosecution: What were your duties?
Fulton: S2...Intel Security for deployment operations order...instruction ordered to get in country...lay down of threat for the environment.
Prosecution: When did you first meet PFC Manning?
Fulton: September of 2009.
Prosecution: How did you meet him?
Fulton: Ask in the shop who knew about the threat in Iraq...I was directed to Pfc. Manning...told he had a good idea...
Prosecution: What do you mean?
Fulton: According to the person who directed me to him, he [Manning] had a better understanding than the others.
Prosecution: In your experience was that true?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: What were his duties?
Fulton: All Source Analyst.
Prosecution: What is that?
Fulton: Gathered different Intel, disciplines, and filtered together...
Prosecution: So "all source"...?
Fulton: ...pull together.
Prosecution: How does one become an "all source"?
Fulton: Higher score, TOP SECRET clearance...
Prosecution: What are the requirements for TOP SECRET clearance...?
Fulton: Background investigation...U.S. citizen...
Prosecution: Why do 35 Foxes have TOP SECRET clearance?
Fulton: Because in order to...they have to be able to pull information from different class levels.
Prosecution: Are you familiar with their training?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: What is operational training?
Fulton: How basic things you may do can compromise security. For example, if you post a picture of yourself on base on FaceBook, although your intent might not be to compromise security, the enemy can use the information against U.S. forces.
Prosecution: 35 Foxes learn that?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: What is infosec?
[Defense OBJECTION Coombs walks right up to the witness booth past prosecution at the center podium, and begins questioning Fulton.]
Defense (Coombs): Have you ever been an instructor of 35 Foxes?
Fulton: No. But, I have assisted in their training.
Defense: Ten day trainings?
I.O. to Prosecution: Do you have any additional questions to lay foundation?
Prosecution: How many new junior enlisted soldiers?
Fulton: At least seven currently...and I don't know who else arrived.
Prosecution: Out of those ten, any receive AIT at your unit?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Did they receive other training?
[Defense OBJECTION Leading. I.O. OVERRULES.]
Prosecution: So any training they would receive from AIT [Advanced Individual Training]?
Fulton: Correct.
Prosecution: What is InfoSec?
Fulton: Basically means information...both classified and non classified management.
Prosecution: Can you be more specific?
Fulton: How to collect, mark, and destroy.
Prosecution: What do you mean by 'marked'?
Fulton: TOP SECRET is top secret...SECRET has certain caveats...UNCLASSIFIED...CONFIDENTIAL.
Prosecution: Can you give me an example?
Fulton: UNCLASSIFIED has a green mark top and bottom...SECRET...top and bottom.
Prosecution: How about in a digital system?
Fulton: Same way...
Prosecution: As part of InfoSec training, what is presumption...?
[Defense OBJECTION Re: Training. I.O. OVERRULES.]
Prosecution: So as part of training what is taught about what a soldier is to presume?
Fulton: Unauthorized disclosure.
Prosecution: Why?
Fulton: ...responsibility there is of no unauthorized disclosure of authorized info...
Prosecution: Why?
Fulton: Because if it's marked CLASSIFIED, it is CLASSIFIED.
Prosecution: Is it the job of the analyst to determine classification?
Fulton: No. If it is marked CLASSIFIED, assume it is CLASSIFIED.
Prosecution: Why is that?
Fulton: [She pauses. Throughout the prosecutions questioning of her, she takes very long pauses to answer her questions. Like she has to search for answers.] Because that is done by someone in authority.
Prosecution: You have authority?
Fulton: No.
Prosecution: Anyone in your group?
Fulton: No.
Prosecution: Has to be appointed by the Secretary of the Army. Is that so?
Fulton: I believe so.
Prosecution: [Missed question]
Fulton: There is an ability to chat with other analysts...pulls database...provides map like diagram...personality based.
Prosecution: What does it pull from?
Fulton: CIDNE [Combined Information Data Network Exchange . That has become the database everyone uses.
Prosecution: Everyone?
Fulton: Military and other defense agencies.
Prosecution: Is CIDNE just an Intel platform?
Fulton: I don't really think so. That is all I use it for.
Prosecution: Human Intel, Tack raps [Signal Intel reports], Significant Activity [SigActs] reports...Those reports have classification marks?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: How would you know that documents are classified?
Fulton: Marks. [She explains marks.]
Prosecution: When you pull...is it in a database...?
Fulton: Say again.
Prosecution: A dual user interface...does it require fields, or is it a blank slate...? [Prosecution searches for a way to explain the user interface intelligibly. He uses Microsoft Word as an example of a 'blank slate' ...in my opinion his question was stated very unclearly...]
Fulton: I think fields.
Prosecution: Is there a classification field?
Fulton: I don't know.
Prosecution: What sort of fields exist?
Fulton: Assassinations. Threats...
Prosecution: Dust worm procedures...?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: What is that?
Fulton: When military are kidnapped.
Prosecution: Grid quadrants?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Sources of Intel provided to members of Army in Iraq?
Fulton: There could be...[She then asks...] Are you talking about CIDNE or Significant Activity?
Prosecution: Is there a difference?
Fulton: So CIDNE contains types...
Prosecution: So positions of U.S. forces is contained in the data...?
[Defense OBJECTION Also, Fulton is speaking with pauses and very low volume. I.O. says, her answer sounded like, "Maybe."]
Prosecution: Does the CIDNE database contain information of the coordinates of US forces?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Between 2009 and 2010 how U.S. forces reacted to I.E.D. attacks?
Fulton: Yes.
[Defense OBJECTION Relevance.]
Defense: Pfc. Manning is not charged with CIDNE database...and as I understand...no SigActs...
[I.O. SUSTAINS..."Briefly." Defense (Coombs) gets up and walks over to witness booth past prosecution who is standing at the center podium in the courtroom.]
Defense: CIDNE database has a lot of info...SigActs are a small part?
Fulton: I would say small.
Defense: SigActs won't have source names?
Fulton: Depends on how it is written.
Defense: So the SigActs that my client is charged with...whole bunch...not other stuff?
[An argument between defense and prosecution ensues over what Pfc. Manning is charged with and how relevant prosecution's questions are...defense or prosecution says, unclear who. Needs verification as to who is speaking, "He is charged with CIDNE-Iraq and SigAct-Iraq..."]
Prosecution: Charge Sheet... Spec 4, Charge 2... Compromise Iraq database... 382,000 documents...
Defense: Maybe prosecution can state what documents are, all SigActs.
[I.O. gets impatient with Defense. I.O. OVERRULED.]
Prosecution: So we are talking about different types of information...December 2009 to January 2010...different indirect fire methods, techniques, tactics, and procedures...?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: ...for enemy attacks?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Different techniques for I.E.D. attacks?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Different techniques for rescue?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: When we stated...talk about the system? What is Intelink?
Fulton: It is a system.
Prosecution: Where do you find it?
Fulton: On SIPRnet.
Prosecution: How is it used?
Fulton: Where you would try to find information...not readily available.
Prosecution: What type of information would come back?
Fulton: PowerPoint presentations, reports, word documents which would be reports...
Prosecution: Was that undertaken by 35 Foxes on a daily basis?
Fulton: Maybe not.
Prosecution: Weekly?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: When you arrived in Iraq what were your duties?
Fulton: Doing all analysis of future threat.
Prosecution: What kind?
Fulton: When creating a future operations order...in order to help the commander, you need you need to understand what they are going to do first.
Prosecution: What kinds of things do you want to know?
Fulton: Everything you can know about the enemy.
Prosecution: Did 35 Foxes help?
Fulton: Yes. They are comprehensive projects in a condensed timeline. Easier to shop out (research parts)...
Prosecution: Who relied on these products?
Fulton: The commander.
Prosecution: Can you give an example? How would you give a question and get an answer from a 35 Fox?
Fulton: If we had a fire threat...use D6 to search all indirect fire threats to lay info of in operational environment...then take all human reporting...pull HUMINT [Human Intelligence] and the enemy threat network: Which routes? How they travel? Where they store munitions? And then would direct assets on the ground for collection of Intelligence...to disruption zones...enemy locations or prevent attacks.
Prosecution: Disruption zones?
Fulton: Enemy intends to disrupt but not to defeat.
Prosecution: Overlays?
Fulton: Taking information and overlaying it on top of each other.
Prosecution: Sit temp [I am not certain if this is the correct spelling of a word or if the word is slang]?
Fulton: Situational locations of the enemy.
Prosecution: Cache locations?
Fulton: Cache?
[Prosecutor apologizes for mispronouncing cache with two syllables.]
Fulton: Where they store munitions.
Prosecution: How would 35 Foxes get the information?
Fulton: ...pull from CIDNE...most came from CIDNE.
Prosecution: Would a person not familiar with the system be able to pull information?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Why?
Fulton: Because it has to be filtered. For example. Query-Tree uses bullion logic...combination of words...otherwise superfluous...same with CIDNE, needs to be filtered.
Prosecution: If you relied on "all source" they would have to pull it through...?
Fulton: Correct.
Prosecution: When did you become an Intel officer?
Fulton: Late January.
Prosecution: Mission?
Fulton: To provide best threat product to commander. Our focus was election security.
Prosecution: When?
Fulton: March.
Prosecution: Main focus March 2010 F.O.B. Hammer?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Other focuses?
Fulton: Before that?
Prosecution: Day to day?
Fulton: Disrupt enemy operations.
Prosecution: Where was your office?
Fulton: In S.C.I.F.
Prosecution: What is "S.C.I.F."?
Fulton: Specialized Compartmentalized Information [She pauses.] I do not know.
[S.C.I.F. stands for "Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility"]
Prosecution: What does it stand for?
Fulton: Good question.
Prosecution: Did Manning work in the S.C.I.F.?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Your office was in the S.C.I.F.?
Fulton: Yes...Back room was [indecipherable] Signals.
Prosecution: What is NIPRnet?
Fulton: Unclassified. SIPRnet up to SECRET.
Prosecution: Did any "all source" analysts have access to higher access?
Fulton: No.
Prosecution: ...ability to discuss?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Highest level you could access was SECRET?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Requirement to burn C.D.s?
Fulton: The reason for the ability to burn C.D.'s was to share information with Iraqis. It was part of the mission.
Prosecution: Allowed for any other means?
Fulton: No.
Prosecution: While deployed with Second Brigade... [indecipherable maybe "description] ...of general security?
Fulton: Don't release info to family. Don't go on FaceBook.
Prosecution: What about InfoSec?
[Defense OBJECTION Unsure of I.O.'s ruling. Indecipherable.]
Prosecution: Were computers on shared network accessed by "all Source"?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Classification?
Fulton: SECRET.
Prosecution: What were rules of pulling information off network?
Fulton: [She asks] Accessing?
Prosecution: Yes.
Fulton: There weren't any restrictions because it was a shared network. It was easier to move information back and forth.
Prosecution: Rules for pulling information off?
Fulton: No way you would pull off information that wasn't pertinent.
Prosecution: What makes it appear classified?
Fulton: That it is on a classified system or a machine that is classified. If there is information on a classified system, once something is on a classified system, assumed classified and cannot put on an unclassified...
Prosecution: How was authorization for the 2nd Brigade tech...maintain [indecipherable]?
Fulton: Don't know.
Prosecution: Pull to a personal computer?
Fulton: ...because that is unauthorized disclosure.
Prosecution: Is that something 35 Foxes would know?
Fulton: At minimum they signed SF312 a Non Disclosure Agreement. They also have been trained.
Prosecution: Is that supervised one hundred percent of the time?
Fulton: Impossible.
Prosecution: Why?
Fulton: Because of limited amount of supervision.
Prosecution: What do you rely on?
Fulton: That they have understanding of their job and take pride in their work.
Prosecution: What were Manning's strengths?
Fulton: He was very good at compiling data.
Prosecution: Can you give me an example?
Fulton: I had him work with D6...laying Human Intel onto a map...He could import and export Excel spreadsheets... So looking at number of spreadsheets...easier to use excel than input one at a time.
Prosecution: How often?
Fulton: Occasionally.
Prosecution: Would he have to have an understanding of the data?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: Full time duties?
Fulton: Violent extremist threat...
Prosecution: Based on that, was there a reason for him to be investigating G.T.M.O. S.O.P.'s?
Fulton: No. Not regarding Iraq.
Prosecution: A reason for him to be searching for Iceland?
Fulton: No.
Prosecution: For Julian Assange on SIPRnet?
Fulton: No.
Prosecution: 15-6 investigations?
Fulton: No.
Prosecution: S.J.A. [Staff Judge Advocate] Web site?
Fulton: No.
Prosecution: Pulling all the data from the CIDNE-Afghanistan database?
Fulton: No.
Prosecution: Were you aware of the 2007 Apache video?
Fulton: [Specialist] Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman was playing on personal computer before April 1 [2010].
Prosecution: What computer?
Fulton: Her work station comp.
Prosecution: She had it on SIPRnet system?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: So a classified system?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: When did you become aware?
Fulton: Not sure. It wasn't exactly... didn't really know until Manning was arrested.
Prosecution: Did you ever have a conversation about the video?
Fulton: I asked group if they had seen the video, and how that would affect us if it became public in a deployed environment. Manning said, "No. That is the same video on our shared drive." I said, "No. It is shorter." I would have to compare...last verbal conversation...
Prosecution: Did you have non-verbal conversation about the video?
Fulton: He sent email with two video clips, one of the Apache video, both side by side.
Prosecution: Was the video released through the Internet the one on your shared drive?
Fulton: That was the indication. Not sure.
Prosecution: Email is on SIPRnet?
Fulton: Yes. SIPRnet
Prosecution: Captain Fulton, were you aware of an Army investigation related to that video?
Fulton: Not sure.
[Defense cross-examines the witness.]
Defense (Coombs): Became part...2009?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Your duty was Assistant S2?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Deploy as S2 Plans Officer?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You worked out of the SCIF on operation orders for election security?
Fulton: Yes.
[Coombs would often use this style for cross-examination of witnesses. He would conduct a recap narrative-like, easy going exchange, which required a simple yes or no. More often, simply yes to his line of argument. He did this in the way a dog might urinate on a neighborhood fence, and not in a rude manner. He simply made the story his, so you forgot the prosecutors' in his retelling. Coombs also used his intellect as much as he used physical space in the courtroom. In a confident and graceful manner, he simply asserted himself between the nervous prosecutors and the show dog I.O., the way a real alpha defense lawyer like Coombs could.]
Defense (Coombs): Election security...helping the commander make decisions?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Mission was related to elections?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Product was important?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Election security was the main mission?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You were not in the chain of command...your relationship with Manning was merely counseling?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): One soldier you relied on was Manning?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Manning was good for putting projects together?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Knew how to use excel, and could plot data points?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): N.D.M.P. [Network Data Management Protocol] ...heavy Intel...you needed his assistance for steps?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): ...lengthy and robust?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Asked him to create data-maps and slides?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): He completed them in a timely manner?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Assigning him frequently?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): ...primary mission?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Did a lot of work from November 2009 to 2010 that had to be completed in a timely manner?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You would go to him because he was good with computers?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Go to him because he was interested in the topics?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Sometimes he would find information for you based on discussions you had had?
Fulton: Yes. [Her voice got softer as Coombs line of questions continued, and I got the feeling she exhibited compassion, perhaps even liked Manning.]
Defense (Coombs): Exciting to have someone like Manning?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Didn't believe he was a good analyst?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): ...because they needed to grow?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Not like being an analyst is an easy thing?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): He was still learning?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): So because he was still learning, he was just tasked to get the data?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Then you would do analysis?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Your way of training was to ask questions?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Not surprising, you would even go through the data, even though he was not an analyst [Need verification. I think this is where he asked her if she would go through the data with Manning.]?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Person who was Staff Sergeant [I wrote phonetically "Ballard"] ...?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): People in the S.C.I.F. listen to music?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Soldiers would pull the music from the shared drive and put on the D6?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): That was common?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Not acceptable?
Fulton: What do you mean?
Defense (Coombs): Should they have had music on the shared drive? So no one ever told you music was a violation?
Fulton: No.
Defense (Coombs): So they would pulled the music from the shared drive and put it on players, that ok?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): If people watched movies they purchased from Iraqi nationals, pirated versions, was that ok?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): There were games on the shared drive, soldiers played those games on the D6?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): D6 machines used primarily for...?
Fulton: Analysis.
Defense (Coombs): mIRC chat as a baseline?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): In fact, mIRC chat was installed on your machine as an executable desktop application?
Fulton: I think so.
[Defense (Coombs) explains that the program ran from the desktop and was executable. Downloaded and installed.]
Defense (Coombs): And you needed it, because it helped you communicate. As you also believed Google Earth was part of the program (of tools)?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): It was installed as a desktop application?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): And you would use Google Earth?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Did you see Manning talk to [Master Sergeant] Adkins prior to the incident with [Specialist] Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): What did you see?
Fulton: Manning was upset and sitting on the floor.
Defense (Coombs): Arms around his knees, would it be correct to say he was curled up in a ball on the floor?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): That is not common, is it?
Fulton: No.
Defense (Coombs): Did you speak to -- to find out what was going on?
Fulton: No.
Defense (Coombs): Were you present with the incident with [Specialist] Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You had released [Specialist] Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman, but you brought her back?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You were looking for information, and no one could find it, Manning had tried to find it, and you needed the information?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): So you had instructed someone go and wake [Specialist] Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman up?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): And [Specialist] Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman was irritated?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You had your back to --- because you were on the phone --- and you heard [Specialist] Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman was irritated with Pfc. Manning?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): And she was irritated because he was playing a game?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You knew Manning had already looked for the information?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You heard Manning say, "You need to calm down," to [Specialist] Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman...with [Specialist] Schulman [Jihrleah] Showman on the ground... [I did not write down the entire question, may have been two questions]?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): She had said he had struck her, and she had a red mark on her face?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You told [Master Sergeant] Adkins that --- needed to be taken from him...needed to go to behavioral specialist because that was the standard response?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Why?
Fulton: What do you mean? When you have an interaction like that between soldiers...I wanted him removed...especially in a deployed environment...you want to find out what is wrong.
Defense (Coombs): Did you feel that a 'derog' was necessary?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Derog, his security clearance suspended, revoked?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Derog...call into question of whether they should have security clearance...some examples of reasons for derog are: Behavioral...lying to superiors...?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): So obviously...derog process makes sure you track negative actions?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Soldiers and leaders have a responsibility to report behavioral issues with people who have security clearances?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): So especially security persons had a responsibility for security clearance?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): And, it was [Master Sergeant] Adkins duty to report...?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): So if a soldier exhibited behavior that was untrustworthy or if a soldier exhibited mental problems...?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Where you aware of the Manning [Sergeant] Padgett incident?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): 2009 end of ...deployment ? [Not clear from my notes.]
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Based on a conversation with [Master Sergeant] Adkins, what were your thoughts on the derog, you agreed?
Fulton: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): How quickly can a persons access be pulled?
Fulton: Immediately.
Defense (Coombs): Once a soldier is 'derog'ed' do they have access?
Fulton: No.
[Prosecution re-examines Captain Casey Fulton]
Prosecution: Captain Fulton, after Manning assaulted -- he was removed from the S.C.I.F. on May 7, 2010?
Fulton: I don't know. [She may have added, "In May..." I believe she was saying she was not sure of exact date.]
Prosecution: Did he receive averse action?
Fulton: Yes.
Prosecution: All soldiers, and especially 35 Foxes .... not to disclose?
Fulton: Yes.
[Defense re-examines the witness.]
Defense: Your clearance is dependent on, ongoing behavior?
Fulton: Yes.
[Captain Fulton is excused. Recess. I.O. calls next witness. Master Sergeant Paul Adkins. In person. Sworn in by prosecution.]
Prosecution: ...your name...?
Adkins: I invoke my Article 31 rights.
I.O.: Are there any questions that you could be asked will not cause you to invoke Article 31 completely.
Adkins: No.
[Defense (Coombs) OBJECTION. Cites case law and argues that Article 31 did not apply to an Article 32 hearing.]
Defense (Coombs): We believe this is an inappropriate [I wrote in my notes indecipherable "966. Cas. Dec."] ...does not apply at Article 32 hearing...administrative appellate matter, not a criminal matter... R.C.M. 704(e) convening authority [Urging I.O. and Prosecution to grant Master Sergeant Adkins immunity, and compel him to testify.]
Prosecution: We will not do this.
I.O.: I find that this witness is unavailable.
[Next witness. Warrant Officer 1st Class Kyle Balonek. Via telephone.]
Balonek: On my behalf of my attorneys advice, I invoke my right to remain silent.
I.O.: Are there any questions we could ask you that you would not invoke Article 31 rights?
Balonek: No.
[Defense OBJECTION Refers to previous reason.]
I.O.: Thank you Mr. Balonek. I find that this witness is not available.
[Next Witness. Sergeant Madaras. Via telephone. Sworn in by prosecution.]
Prosecution: Are you in an area where you can speak freely?
Madaras: Yes.
Prosecution: No notes?
Madaras: Yes.
Prosecution: How do you know Pfc. Manning?
Madaras: Met at Fort Drum...deployed to Iraq.
Prosecution: When?
Madaras: Sometime in 2008...in the smoking area.
Prosecution: M.O.S.?
Madaras: 35 Fox Intel Analyst.
Prosecution: Manning?
Madaras: 35 Fox Intel Analyst.
Prosecution: Do you remember what you learned?
Madaras: Learned how to do military symbols...how to present a PowerPoint...how to use multi-- [indecipherable] workstation...
Prosecution: What did you learn about the classification system?
Madaras: Its importance...and the different classifications.
Prosecution: What did you learn about classification?
Madaras: Proper clearance and access.
Prosecution: Learn about publishing information on the Internet?
Madaras: Not that I recall.
Prosecution: When did you arrive at 2-10 [2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division] ?
Madaras: [missed answer].
Prosecution: What did you learn...?
Madaras: D6 class...August of 2008.
Prosecution: What other classes...?
Madaras: Some mainly military writing style classes...
Prosecution: What did you learn about the D6...?
Madaras: ...like using a map...built stuff onto it to present to audience...?
Prosecution: Anything else...?
Madaras: J.R.T.C. [Joint Readiness Training Center] rotations [either Madaras or Manning wasn't sure if he was with J.R.T.C. [Joint Readiness Training Center] Afghanistan.]
Prosecution: What did you do?
Madaras: Simulation.
Prosecution: Did you work with Manning [at Fort Drum. They were also on opposite shifts in Iraq.]?
Madaras: He worked day, and I worked night.
Prosecution: Did you deploy with him?
Madaras: ...left in 2009. Pfc. Manning showed up a few weeks later.
Prosecution: Where did you work?
Madaras: Brigade S.C.I.F. F.O.B. Hammer.
Prosecution: Where did Manning work?
Madaras: Same.
Prosecution: What was your job?
Madaras: Shia team analyst.
Prosecution: Manning?
Madaras: Same. I worked day, and he worked night. Then we switched.
Prosecution: The two of you shared a work station...?
Madaras: Yes...just times where we shared... [he says there were two computers]...Dell 6300...
Prosecution: And the second?
Madaras: Alienware.
Prosecution: Did you often use the Alienware?
Madaras: Towards the end. Manning, he did. Before that the Dell.
Prosecution: What was the mission of the Brigade?
Madaras: Support.. [indecipherable].
Prosecution: What did you do...?
Madaras: Read reports, link together to get... [indecipherable]
Prosecution: Did you share products with Manning?
Madaras: Majority of the time, Manning did not complete projects.
Prosecution: What programs did you use?
Madaras: Intelink, Arc map, CIDNE Iraq...
Prosecution: So, you personally used Intelink?
Madaras: Yes, M'am.
Prosecution: On those two computers, ever search for Iceland? [Prosecution goes on with a list...] Retention? Birgitta Jónsdóttir? CENTCOM? Reykjavik? WikiLeaks? Julian Assange?
Prosecution: Ever use Intellipedia?
Madaras: Yes.
Prosecution: What would you search for?
Madaras: Terrorists groups...um like Shia groups.
Prosecution: Ever use Pfc. Manning's user profile?
Madaras: No.
Prosecution: Did your computer ever operate out of the ordinary?
Madaras: Yes. I would leave shift the computer would be working fine, come in and it would be crashing a lot. Consistently had problems, would have to get Mr. Allan Lomens Milliman to reimage.
[Defense cross-examines the witness.]
Defense (Coombs): We have spoken before on the telephone. You met Manning first in 2008?
Madaras: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): In the smoking area?
Madaras: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): You could tell he was interested in U.S. politics?
Madaras: He use to talk about his workplace... NVC [?] ... politicians would come in...
Defense (Coombs): Both J.R.T.C. [Joint Readiness Training Center] in 2009?
Madaras: Yes.
Defense: Opposite shifts?
Madaras: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): Was Pfc. Manning in charge of fixing computers? Knew how to work on computers?
Madaras: I don't know if he was "in charge" of computers.
Defense (Coombs): You said he always knew how to fix computers? [Missed Madaras answer.]
Defense (Coombs): At training did receive any training on not placing executable files on the desktop?
Madaras: No.
Defense (Coombs): Worked as an Intel analyst...?
Madaras: Shia group.
Defense (Coombs): In this situation you worked day and Manning work nights?
[I missed two questions.]
Defense (Coombs): You said many times Manning did not complete his work?
Madaras: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): ...but you are not sure if he was tasked with other work?
Madaras: Yes. That happened sometimes.
Defense (Coombs): During deployment did you see any outburst from Manning...?
Madaras: Saw.... [indecipherable].
Defense (Coombs): Did you see the event where Manning was asked to move a projector?
Madaras: Was getting ready for the shift change. Know... [indecipherable] asked Manning to do it...tried to calm him down...took him outside.
Defense (Coombs): Was he counseled in writing?
Madaras: No.
Defense (Coombs): Ever removed?
Madaras: No.
Defense (Coombs): ...one or two occasions...put weapons in rack and then...anyone...is that appropriate conduct for soldiers?
Madaras: No, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): Ever see Manning become non-responsive?
Madaras: ... [Master Sergeant] Adkins called his name and he would just stare.
Defense (Coombs): Unit members felt Pfc. Manning would do harm to himself?
Madaras: Um...no.
[Prosecution OBJECTION. Defense explains he wants Madaras to tell the court what he knows.]
Defense (Coombs): Were you afraid that Pfc. Manning would do harm to himself?
Madaras: I did not have that fear. There were some people who were worried.
Defense (Coombs): Did Manning have any friends?
Madaras: ...saw him talking to Sadler (sp.) Never saw him talking with others...maybe not directly. We would always see him running at night and say, "What is he doing...?"
[I.O. OBJECTION. Defense OBJECTION to I.O. Cites R.C.M [405(h) or (s) 18. Heated response from Defense.]
Defense (Coombs): The I.O. should not be allowed to ask questions as part of my discovery. My right is separate from what you determine as relevant.
I.O.: I ask that you keep it to what he knows.
Defense (Coombs): Was Manning an outcast?
Madaras: I don't know if he was picked on...separated himself.
Defense (Coombs): Listen to music on shared drive that was played on the D6?
Madaras: Yes, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): Playing videogames on D6A?
Madaras: Games that were already on the system.
Defense (Coombs): You said your machine was always broken...if you have too much information on the desktop of your D6A machine it might crash, right?
Madaras: Yes.
Defense (Coombs): When someone's machine was running slow, Manning would try to fix it?
Madaras: Not that I know of.
Defense (Coombs): Did D6A have mIRC chat?
Madaras: He did have it installed.
Defense (Coombs): You thought mIRC was mission critical - running as an executable?
Madaras: If that is what it does, Sir.
Defense (Coombs): You thought it allowed you to do your job?
Madaras: Yes...communicate with other units.
Defense (Coombs): So if someone wanted to add information to a D6 machine how would you go about doing that?
Madaras: I don't know.
Defense (Coombs): And that is because you don't know much about computers...
Madaras: Yes, Sir.
[I am not certain if the prosecution re-examined Madaras, I have a note regarding prosecution asking him about the non disclosure agreement soldiers signed. Witness is excused permanently.]
Time did not permit me to stay due to a long drive back to New York City and work related responsibilities. I reluctantly left Fort Meade.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT BUT NOT END OF DAY]
MISSED JASON MILLIMAN.
MISSED CAPTAIN THOMAS CHEREPKO.
MISSED CLOSED SESSION WHICH INCLUDED "RELEVANT GOVERNMENT AGENCIES"
MISSED TESTIMONY AND FIRST APPEARANCE OF SPECIAL AGENT DAVID SHAVER
This is the end of the transcriber's transcript of December 18, 2011 Article 32 Pretrial hearing of US v. Pfc. Bradley Manning, but it was not the end of the day. There was a closed session which allowed also "relevant Government agencies" and the first appearance of Special Agent David Shaver, Computer Crimes Investigative Unit [CCIU]. For those and all the other witnesses see Rainey Reitman's Detailed Notes and Kevin Gosztola's Live Blog.
For an additional transcript of the day's following witnesses, obtained by a journalist who wishes to remain anonymous:
- Captain Casey Fulton
- [Former Master Sergeant, now Sergeant 1st Class (demoted by administrative action concerning the alleged leaks)] Paul Adkins
- Chief Warrant Officer 1st Class [now retired] Kyle Balonek
- Sergeant Chad Madaras
- Jason Allen Milliman
- Captain Thomas Cherepko
2011-12-19 Summary of PFC Bradley Manning’s Pre-Trial Hearing, Dec 16-18
Bradley Manning's pre-trial hearing began at 9:00 AM on Friday, December 16 and it is expected to continue until December 23. It must be noted that this is not a trial but a hearing to decide whether or not there are reasonable grounds to charge PFC Manning and continue with a court-martial hearing. That being said, there will be no "guilty" or "not guilty" verdict at the end of these hearings. Journalists who were allowed to sit in on the hearings were warned of "regular blackouts" while the court went in to private session.
There are a total of 34 counts against PFC Manning, the most serious of which is UCMJ Article 104, "Aiding the Enemy."
Defense: Mr David Coombs, Major Matthew Kemkes, Captain Paul Bouchard
Prosecution: Captain Ashden Fein, Captain Joe Morrow, Captain Angel Overgaard
Investigative Officer: Lieutenant Colonel Paul Amanza
Day One:
Early into the first day of hearings, PFC Manning's defense lawyer David Coombs
filed a motion requesting that LTC Paul Almanza, the presiding investigative officer, recuse himself. Mr Coombs listed four reasons for this request:
- He has served as a prosecutor under the Department of Justice since 2002, which is currently involved in an ongoing investigation into WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange.
- The government had all its 20 requested witnesses granted, while only 12 of the defense's 48 requested witnesses were granted, 10 of them also being on the government's list.
- Mr Coombs had requested multiple times that specific, limited parts of the hearing to be held in private, to avoid media prejudice, but this was denied.
- No witnesses are being called who could challenge the nature of the leaked documents and question whether it harmed national interest.
Mr Coombs also brought up the fact that the government has asked for multiple delays and had them all granted.
In response to this, LTC Almanza said he was appointed to the case in August 2010, but was only aware of allegations that appeared on television or in articles. He said he made an effort not to read articles related to the case, and that he did not form opinions.
After a recess the US Government lawyer, Ashden Fein, stated he did not find LTC Almanza to be biased and that he does not need to recuse himself. Mr Coombs continued to question LTC Almanza, reiterating that being a part of the Department of Justice was enough of a reason for him to recuse himself. He also stated that hundreds of others could have been chosen for the investigative officer (IO) position. LTC Amanza cited a case where a DoJ member had been the IO. LTC Amanza refused to recuse himself, which led to Mr Coombs filing a writ for stay of proceedings.
The only time PFC Manning spoke during the hearing was to confirm that he understood the charges against him, his right to representation, and whether he was satisfied with his counsel.
Towards the end of this day's proceedings, a petition was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights who represent Julian Assange. The petition demanded that WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson and CCR lawyer Amy Jacobsen be granted access to the entirety of PFC Bradley Manning's hearing.
The day ended with neither the defense nor the prosecution having read their opening statements.
(Courtroom sketch of PFC Bradley Manning listening as his defense attorney David Coombs speaks. Photo: AP/William J. Hennessy Jr.)
Day Two:
The writ for stay of proceedings which Mr Coombs filed at the end of yesterday was denied.
Prosecution Witness: Special Agent Toni Graham
Toni Graham is a special agent for the US Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID). She was calling in from Schofield Barracks in Hawaii via cell phone and was inaudible to the court. Mr Coombs asked for a recess so Graham could get access to a landline phone.
Toni Graham testified about the authorized search and seizure of PFC Manning's computers, living quarters, and any computers he would have accessed on the base. Graham described finding a CD labeled July 12, 2007, which contained the Apache helicopter attack video now known as "Collateral Murder", in PFC Manning's room in a box ready to be mailed. Graham also spoke of finding documents in PFC Manning's room that related to gender identity disorder.
The defense pressed Graham on whether or not the Apache helicopter video was classified. Graham said she did not know, but MAJ Matthew Kemkes, one of PFC Manning's lawyers, confirmed that it was unclassified.
Graham was also asked about the sworn affidavit she signed that was used to justify PFC Manning's containment at Quantico Marine Base. She said that she had traveled to Iraq to carry out an initial investigation into PFC Manning after information had been passed to the military from a confidential source (presumably Adrian Lamo). She said the
FBI had vouched for the integrity of the source, and that the only information from the source that was verified before the affidavit was signed was that relating to PFC Manning's background and role in the military.
Prosecution Witness: Special Agent Calder Robertson
Special Agent Calder Robertson is a forensic IT expert who conducted forensic imaging analysis of PFC Manning's computers and hardware. He is based at the US Army's Computer Crimes Investigation Unit in Germany.
Robertson was questioned about PFC Manning's mental distress. He said he was not aware PFC Manning was gay, but that his female persona "Breanna" sounded familiar.
Prosecution Witness: Special Agent Tony Bettencourt
Tony Bettencourt is also a special agent for the US Army CID. He outlined his perception of WikiLeaks, calling it an "intelligence agency of people bound to no government or entity" and saying that it "solicits submissions." He described the previous method of uploading documents to WikiLeaks via electronic drop box, and spoke of their servers in multiple countries. He also stated there was a "most wanted" list on the website, which listed specific information WikiLeaks was interested in.
Prosecution Witness: Captain Steven Lim
CPT Steven Lim was the superior officer in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) where PFC Manning worked. He testified about the security in the SCIF. Training for SCIF security was a one hour session featuring 100 slides. According to protocol, CDs and DVDs were allowed to carry classified information, but must be labeled. Soldiers were also allowed to bring in their personal music CDs. Mr Coombs mentioned he had seen photos of the SCIF in which CDs were strewn about, unlabeled. There was also no system for checking if classified information was removed from the building. Music, movies, and games had been found on both NIPRNet (unclassified) and SIPRNet (classified) computers.
CPT Steven Lim spoke of being given a set of memorandums from SFC Paul Atkins, PFC Manning's immediate supervisor, which detailed PFC Manning's emotional behavior dating back to before he was deployed to Iraq in October of 2009. SFC Atkins did not inform anyone else about these issues until PFC Manning was arrested on June 3, 2010. CPT Lim testified that if he had known of an incident in which PFC Manning reached for a gun from a gun rack, he would have recommended PFC Manning be issued with a "Derogatory Comment", which in turn would have stripped him of his security clearance. SFC Atkins was demoted from his previous rank, Master Sergeant, for failure to pass on crucial information related to PFC Manning.
Prosecution Witness: Special Agent Mark Mander
Special Agent Mark Mander is part of the Army Computer Crimes Investigative Unit. He had obtained chat logs from Adrian Lamo and noted that a copy of the chat logs were also found on property collected from PFC Manning.
Mander described a second individual, Jason Katz, who Lamo had revealed was helping to decrypt a video of the Granai Airstrike. Mander said there was a zip file on Katz's computer called B.zip, which contained a video file "BE22PAZ.wmv" which, when the password was provided, opened into the video of the Granai Airstrike.
Special Agent Mark Mander, along with four other agents, searched the home of PFC Manning's aunt, Debra Van Alstyne. The agents searched the home at least twice and collected PFC Manning's computers. Mander testified how PFC Manning had phoned his aunt and asked about the 2007 Apache helicopter video and how it was being received in the US, and also asked her to make a post to the Facebook page about the video.
Today the Center for Constitutional Rights again filed for WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson and CCR lawyer Amy Jacobsen access to the hearings, after its former request was denied.
(PFC Bradley Manning's defense attorney, David Coombs, leaving a courthouse in Ft. Meade, MD. Photo: AP/Patrick Semansky)
Day 3:
The prosecution continued to call witnesses today.
Prosecution Witness: Sergeant Chad Madaras
SGT Madaras worked was a fellow intelligence analyst of PFC Manning's and worked in the same area as him, although on different shifts. They used the same computers. SGT Madaras testified that the "majority of the time" PFC Manning's tasks were unfinished and passed to him on the following shift. Later, when questioned by Mr Coombs, SGT Madaras said that some of the time PFC Manning did great work.
SGT Madaras was asked if he had searched phrases such as "WikiLeaks", "Julian Assange", and "Reykavik", to which he said he didn't. The prosecution also asked whether he had used Intellipedia to search information on the Guantanamo database, to which he also said he didn't. SGT Madaras also testified that he had never used PFC Manning's log-in and that he didn't know his passwords.
Mr Coombs also questioned SGT Madaras about PFC Manning's behavior. SGT Madaras testified about events where he'd seen PFC Manning slam items into his work station, but that no disciplinary action had been taken. He also said he had seen PFC Manning be irresponsive at times and stare into his computer screen. SGT Madaras said that PFC Manning didn't really have friends, and that he was picked on sometimes. He believed that PFC Manning was an outcast.
Prosecution Witness: Captain Casey Fulton
Captain Casey Fulton worked with PFC Manning in the SCIF as a superior intelligence officer. She testified about the type of work he did for her, including finding and compiling information, and said he did "good work" and was "good with computers."
CPT Fulton testified about the Apache helicopter video. She said a fellow analyst of PFC Manning's had it on her computer. CPT Fulton said that she had a group discussion with soldiers in the SCIF about the video after it had been released by WikiLeaks, and that afterwards PFC Manning came to her and said he thought it was the same video on their shared network drive.
When discussing music and videos being stored on shared network drives, CPT Fulton testified that she did not know it was wrong for soldiers to do so. She said that pirated movies bought from Iraqis were brought into the unit.
CPT Fulton said she believed a "Derogatory Comment" should have been issued to PFC Manning after the incident in which he reached for a gun from a gun rack, and also when he assaulted a fellow intelligence analyst.
Unavailable Witnesses
Two witnesses who were called to testify were deemed "unavailable" after invoking their Article 31 rights. These were Sergeant First Class Paul Adkins and Warrant Officer One Kyle Balonek, who refused to testify due to advice by legal counsel. SFC Adkins was PFC Manning's direct supervisor and set guidelines of what was and wasn't acceptable. He was one of the fifteen people disciplined in relation to improper decisions which put PFC Manning in a position to leak documents. In April 2010 he received an email from PFC Manning which said he was suffering from gender identity disorder and included a photo of PFC Manning dressed as a woman. SFC Adkins did not share this information with the chain of command, which is why he was disciplined.
Prosecution Witness: Jason Milliman
Jason Milliman is a field service engineer. He was uncooperative when asked if Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS-A) machines could crash if not defragmented properly. Mr Coombs also stated that the testimony he was giving was different than his sworn statement from January 2011, which said about a course beginning intelligence analysts take, "only set amount of time to learn a set amount of skills."
Prosecution Witness: Captain Thomas Cherepko
CPT Cherepko was an information assurance manager at PFC Manning's unit at Fort Hammer. During his cross-examination, he said that he didn't know if he was supposed to conduct security assessments of the network or if he had to make sure computers were certified or accredited. He said he had never submitted a Defense Information Certification and Accreditation Process (DICAP) package to verify if his systems met Department of Defense requirements security, and that he did not know how to do such a thing. Mr Coombs noted he had received a letter of admonishment for failure to ensure his brigade was properly certified and accredited.
Mr Coombs continued the cross-examination and asked if CPT Cherepko viewed SCIF inspections as part of his job, to which he replied that he didn't know and was unsure if the SCIF was inspected. In response to unauthorized music being stored on SIPRNet machines, CPT Cherepko said he removed music files when he found them, but said nobody was punished for putting music on the computers. Although he did say he informed higher officers, but could not recall their responses.
CPT Cherepko also stated that there was "no technical restriction from burning a CD with classified information on it."
Prosecution Witness: Special Agent David Shaver
Special Agent David Shaver is a computer crimes investigator. He testified that he found more than 10,000 sensitive documents on PFC Manning's work computer, and that they seemed to be in the process of being downloaded and moved. He also testified another machine had been used to search "WikiLeaks" and "Julian Assange" over 100 times.
Shaver will be cross-examined on Monday when the hearing resumes.
2011-12-20 Is #NDAA the Ultimate Power for the 1% and the Death Knell of the Bill of Rights?
(Updated on Jan 1, 2012)
The Occupy movement that spread around the US just marked its 3-month anniversary. The movement was first ignored by the mainstream media, then ridiculed. Over time, with the spreading police crackdowns, it is beginning to reveal the true state of America.
For those who identify themselves as the 99%, this movement has come to represent a reclaiming of the public space, a renewal of community and a resurgence of intrinsic citizen power. At the same time, government and police reactions reflect the very struggles that many working class Americans have been experiencing. For instance, the police eviction of camps is just what police have been doing for the banks, evicting millions of homeowners from their houses through legal fraud. From Liberty Square to Bradley Manning Plaza in San Francisco, brazen police attacks against people gathering peacefully have signaled the position of the current government on the direct democracy that has begun to emerge on the streets.
Peaceful protesters in Occupy camps and marches were met with extreme police crackdowns. From students in Denver, to an elderly woman in Seattle, from Oakland to Houston, people were pepper sprayed, physically assaulted and arrested without reason. These violent scenes can make one for a moment wonder if this can happen in the US.
As Obama is finishing his first term in the White House, his political rhetoric of hope and change that once lit up an apathetic youth in the US is now viewed with a sense of betrayal and deep disappointment. With the expansion of the wars in Afghanistan and other countries and the continuation of torture in Guantanamo Bay, those who voted for the clever rhetoric now are beginning to realize that the lesser of the two evil always ends with evil. Yet, there are some Obama apologists who still do not to want to face the truth, making excuses and clinging to the last bit of false hope.
This illusion is quickly fading with the US Government’s treatment of the occupy movement. Obama has shown how he is not interested in the 99 percent, who are his supposed constituents and instead it is becoming clearer that he serves the 1 percent. One can note how similar those scenes of police repression of Occupy camps appear to the political climate after 911. Occupiers were exercising the rights supposedly guaranteed under the First Amendment and now these peaceful citizens are starting to be treated as if they are the enemies of the State. In fact, the Department of Defense categorizes certain activity of protest as ‘low-level terrorism”.
During the Bush Administration, the absurd ‘War on Terror’ was declared. It was a manufactured fear-based program of the big lies that had to do with Muslims in the Middle East being a threat to people in the US with mythical ‘weapons of mass destruction’. This had a distinctly Orwellian ring to it. Renowned scholar and dissident Noam Chomsky called outthis hypocritical Bush-Cheney line by characterizing the US as the actual largest exporter of terrorism. But what has happened since then?
Obama was carried into power on vague promises that turned out to be huge lies from the start. He soon became the first president to openly assassinate US citizens and supports the stripping of basic Constitutional civil liberties through arrogant executive mandates and unconstitutional legislation.
On the last day of 2011, president Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This may be the final nail in the coffin of the grand US experiment. During Cheney’s manufactured “War on Terror”, the Patriot Act was passed that basically denied Constitutional rights to certain groups of people. Now with the NDAA, the key difference is it strips the most vital constitutional protection from all US citizens. It takes away Habeas Corpus, so anyone can be detained indefinitely without trial just by being called an enemy of the State. This is the foundation of all the other rights in the first ten Amendments. The NDAA also eliminates the Posse Comitatus Act that prevented the US military from attacking its own people. The balance of the Constitutional protections of US citizens from abuse by the Federal government rests on this one provision; the right to access to timely public court hearing if one is detained. Without this, there is fundamentally no difference between the legal structure of the US and any full-fledged fascist state.
This bill immediately brought up concerns from the Japanese American communities who knew from their own experience how this might be used. Chris Anders, senior legislative counsel in the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Legislative Office spoke of this in an interview on DemocracyNow:
One of the things that’s been really helpful in this debate is the Japanese American Citizens League has come out strongly against this legislation. And one of the things that they are worried about and that they’ve drawn a direct line from is what happened during World War II, where there was an internment of Japanese Americans based on nothing more than suspicion or just, you know, plain-out, old racism, where there was that internment experience of people indefinitely detained without charge or trial …
We don’t have to go far back in a history to see the consequence of this kind of law. The ‘Patriot’ Act of the Bush-Cheney regime gave the corporate and political elite more power by enacting the ability to claim their enemies to be enemies of the state. All they had to do is to point a finger at someone and the rest would be taken care of by the corporate media, amplifying the image of the target. Though this was largely used for ‘bogie-men’ in other lands for resource grabs and to keep the US populace scared, some US citizens were also targeted.
Politicians embedded the rhetoric of homeland security and painted public perception of a terrorist being a mad Muslim in a cave. This was done by way of fear and three conveniently collapsing skyscrapers. With Colin Powell’s lies about Weapons of Mass destruction, this ‘War on Terror’ took root to become what it really is, a war of terror declared on innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan in a blatant resource grab.
The field of fear was ripped wide open and now politicians and pundits get away with inciting murder by publicly calling for abduction or assassination of Julian Assange with no evidence put forward that he broke any laws, let alone there being any charges brought against him. Recently, Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich joined the choir , calling Julian Assange a terrorist, saying that he should be treated as an enemy combatant and that WikiLeaks should be shut down. This is another ominous precedent. Now the NDAA creates a possibility for this kind of action to be taken against US citizens on American soil by the US military.
In a recent article on Salon.com, constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald debunked the myths portrayed by Obama apologists about this controversial bill. He went through it point by point, showing how it expands the scope of the War on Terror as defined by the original 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF)and allows its full force to be brought against the American people:
It allows the President to target not only those who helped perpetrate the 9/11 attacks or those who harbored them, but also: anyone who “substantially supports” such groups and/or “associated forces.”
The last ten years have shown that the people who are identified as “substantially supportive or associates” are determined by the president or the army and this is done without even bothering to offer evidence or justification.
So, if Americans are targeted abroad at the president’s wish and those at home are increasingly speaking out against the destruction of the real economy by the very bankers and warlords that have consistently filled the cabinets of the last three presidents, all it takes is the US government calling someone a terrorist, which is a code word for anyone considered a threat to these entrenched powers. Then, that person can be indefinitely silenced. It is in this ability to incarcerate indefinitely without charge, simply by defining or labeling people for political ends that the real danger of this bill lies, not to mention its blatant unconstitutionality. It should be noted that the current makeup of the Supreme Court does not inspire confidence that they will uphold the highest law of the land from this existential threat.
Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one. – Benjamin Franklin
These words are from one of the architects of the Constitution. By allowing this kind of law to be enacted, America may be entering the final descent, totally betraying the very ideals upon which it was founded. The US Constitution was based on the premise that no one can be above the law. Yet, this type of law (the NDAA) and all the precedents set in the last 10 years serve only to gut the highest law of the land and put the privileged 1 percent above the law. This is the final result of what Glenn Greenwald termed a two-tiered system of justice.
During his presidential campaign, Obama’s slogan of “Change you can believe in” caught the hearts of many American people. Yet, his actions since he was elected especially the signing of the NDAA has made it clear that he has never had any interests in supporting human and civil rights of anyone in the world including US citizens. Is this the true nature of the “change” that he was promoting during his campaign? This is like Blackwater, the mercenary army, changing its name when it started to get bad reputation. The 2008 election was simply a cosmetic regime change from Bush-Cheney Exxon Mobile to Obama-Goldman Sachs; both parts of one Wall Street-Military-Industrial complex desperately trying to prop up a crumbling fear-based global empire.
Prior to WW2, many Jews in Germany fled their country to the US to seek asylum from the Nazi death camps. It is often said that history repeats itself. Ironically, the country that once was a safe haven for refugees from fascism may now see their own citizens emigrating to countries like Germany because of a total lack of protection from abuse by their own government. That would be a sure sign of an emerging totalitarian regime.
One thing is for sure, a law like this would only be enacted by a government that fears its own people. Perhaps one good thing to come from this is that the wall of illusion has finally come crashing down for those who are willing to see who Obama really is. If people find courage to reject the manufactured fear foisted on them, then like a phoenix, it is possible to find real hope in a new kind of Democracy that will arise from the ashes of this once great nation.
2011-12-20 Summary: PFC Bradley Manning Pre-Trial Hearing Day 4
Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing began at 9:00 AM on Friday, December 16 and it is expected to continue until December 23. It must be noted that this is not a trial but a hearing to decide whether or not there are reasonable grounds to charge PFC Manning and continue with a court-martial hearing. That being said, there will be no “guilty” or “not guilty” verdict at the end of these hearings. Journalists who were allowed to sit in on the hearings were warned of “regular blackouts” while the court went in to private session.
There are a total of 34 counts against PFC Manning, the most serious of which is UCMJ Article 104, “Aiding the Enemy.”
Defense: Mr David Coombs, Major Matthew Kemkes, Captain Paul Bouchard
Prosecution: Captain Ashden Fein, Captain Joe Morrow, Captain Angel Overgaard
Investigative Officer: Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza
(Bradley Manning being escorted from a military vehicle at Ft. Meade, MD. Photo: AP/Patrick Semansky)
Day 4:
At the end of yesterday’s hearing, LTC Almanza permitted the Government’s request to remove journalists and members of the public from viewing portions of today’s hearing. Coombs’ objected to this, but no further action was taken.
Today’s hearing did not resume at the scheduled 9AM, due to meetings with LTC Almanza and the prosecution and defense.
Prosecution Witness Testimony: Special Agent David Shaver
Shaver had testified yesterday about searching PFC Manning’s computers and was cross-examined by the defense today.
Shaver said he found an SD card in PFC Manning’s aunt’s house which contained 100,000 Combined Information Data Network Exchange (CIDNE) reports from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as some photos and videos of PFC Manning. These files were located in unallocated space, which means they had most likely been deleted. Two .csv files were found, one containing 91,000 CIDNE reports from Afghanistan, and the other containing 400,000 CIDNE reports from Iraq. Both were unlocked with the password “TWink1492!!,” which was also PFC Manning’s log-in password to his MacBook. A text file was also found which contained the following, according to Wired:
“Items of historical significance of two wars Iraq and Afghanistan Significant Activity, Sigacts, between 00001 January 2004 and 2359 31 Dec 2009 extracts from CSV documents from Department of Defense and CDNE database. These items have already been sanitized of any source identity information.
“You might need to sit on this information for 90 to 180 days to best send and distribute such a large amount of data to a large audience and protect the source.
“This is one of the most significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare.
“Have a good day.”
Prosecution Witness Testimony: Specialist Eric Baker
SPC Baker served with a military police detachment and was PFC Manning's roommate in Iraq. He testified that he did not interact with PFC Manning very often, and that PFC Manning was often on the computer. He said that he never used PFC Manning's MacBook Pro.
When questioned by the defense, SPC Baker said that early on PFC Manning had said things which led him to believe PFC Manning was gay, and from then on talked to him only when necessary.
Prosecution Witness Testimony: Mark Johnson
Mark Johnson is a digital forensics contractor for ManTech International who works for the US Army Criminal Investigation Command (CCIU). He did forensic testing on PFC Manning’s personal MacBook Pro laptop.
Johnson testified about finding Adium, an instant messaging program, on PFC Manning’s computer along with chat logs between him and a person using the handle “dawgnetwork@jabber.ccc.de,” whom Johnson believed to be Julian Assange. Another handle was on PFC Manning’s buddy list, “pressassociation@jabber.ccc.de,” which was associated with two names, Julian Assange and Nathaniel Frank. Johnson said it was odd for someone to assign two names to one alias. Johnson spoke of yet another set of chatlogs, this time between PFC Manning and Eric Schmiedl, assumed to be a photographer, where PFC Manning admits to being the sound of the “Collateral Murder” video.
Johnson also testified about another text file being found with contact information for “MR JULIAN ASSANGE” which listed an Icelandic telephone number.
CPT Morrow, one of PFC Manning’s defense lawyers, asked about one of the charges related to releasing the Army’s Global Address List (GAL), which contained email addresses for all soldiers based in Iraq. Johnson testified that he had found a task instruction on the computer about obtaining the GAL, as well as Exchange-formatted email addresses, but said there was no evidence of this being released.
PFC Manning Supporters Hassled
During a recess Daniel Ellsberg, famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers, approached PFC Manning to introduce himself, but was quickly escorted out of the courtroom. He was later allowed to return.
Meanwhile, former Army Lieutenant Dan Choi was arrested at Fort Meade for what the Army says was “creating a disturbance.” Choi says he was simply calling out to SSG Leo. His rank was ripped off and he was escorted off the base.
The hearing will continue at 9AM tomorrow.
2011-12-21 Summary: PFC Bradley Manning Pre-Trial Hearing Day 5
Bradley Manning's pre-trial hearing began at 9:00 AM Friday, December 16. It must be noted this is not a trial but a hearing to decide whether there are reasonable grounds to charge Manning and continue with a court-martial hearing. That being said, there will be no "guilty" or "not guilty" verdict at the end of these hearings. Journalists allowed to sit in on the hearings were warned of "regular blackouts" while the court went in to private session.
There are a total of 34 counts against PFC Manning, the most serious of which is UCMJ Article 104, "Aiding the Enemy."
Defense: Mr David Coombs, Major Matthew Kemkes, Captain Paul Bouchard
Prosecution: Captain Ashden Fein, Captain Joe Morrow, Captain Angel Overgaard
Investigative Officer: Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza
Day 5:
Today was the prosecution's final day to call witnesses.
Prosecution Witness Testimony: Jirhleah Showman
Jirhleah Showman was a fellow intelligence analyst of PFC Manning's, but has been out of the Army since July 2011. She testified over the telephone.
Showman testified about FSE Milliman having to fix PFC Maning's computer at least twice a week. When asked about her and PFC Manning's training, she said they learned "how to be an all-source analyst, how to handle, disseminate, and destroy classified information and what impact improper dissemination of classified information would have on the country."
Showman said that PFC Manning was removed from the Brigade on May 9 after assaulting her. She said he punched her in the face unprovoked and displayed other uncontrollable behaviors. Showman stated she had gone to their supervisor MSG Adkins on multiple occasions to tell him PFC Manning was not fit for deployment or a security clearance, and needed counseling and discipline.
A second event was described by Showman in which PFC Manning had flipped a table and caused a computer to break. Showman said that PFC Manning had also told her he regularly felt paranoid. A third incident was also described where PFC Manning was screaming and salivating after being approached for waking up late. According to Showman, PFC Manning said he could not handle messing up.
The 2007 Apache helicopter video ("Collateral Murder") was located on Showman's computer. She testified that she had viewed it for no specific reason, along with other videos. Showman says that she and 3 or 4 other soldiers viewed the video, which is how PFC Manning would have seen it. The other soldiers who watched it would ask why the van in the video was fired upon, but there was no discussion about "Rules of Engagement."
Prosecution Witness Testimony: Staff Sergeant Peter Bigelow
SSG Peter Bigelow worked with PFC Manning in the supply room, where he was transferred after being removed from the SCIF. He testified via telephone from a NATO base in Italy.
PFC Manning is believed to have used SSG Bigelow's laptop, as well as another computer located in the supply room. It was suggested in court that PFC Manning used SSG Bigelow's laptop to search for information on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. When questioned about this, SSG Bigelow said he had never heard of Julian Assange.
Prosecution Witness Testimony: Special Agent David Shaver
SA David Shaver returns again to testify after being present on both the 3rd and 4th days of the hearing.
He readdressed searching Jason Katz' computer for a video of the Granai Airstrike. SA Shaver testified that the video found on Katz' computer was not of the Airstrike. Katz seemed to be in the process of trying to decrypt the video file.
SA Shaver also testified that the chat logs from Adrian Lamo's and PFC Manning's computers were the same except for a few network connectivity issues that appeared.
Prosecution Witness Testimony: Special Agent Antonio Edwards
SA Antonio Edwards is an investigator for the CCIU and works for the Army CID.
He first became involved in this case when he was contacted via email by Mr. Chet Uber, who said he was aware of an individual in contact with an US Army intelligence analyst who was sending information to WikiLeaks. SA Edwards was then put in contact with Lamo.
SA Edwards said Lamo acted as a confidential informant for the Army CID, but that he was not given any other money than "reasonable expense reimbursement."
(Adrian Lamo being escorted into the courthouse for PFC Bradley Manning's hearing. Photo: AP/Patrick Semansky)
Prosecution Witness Testimony: Adrian Lamo
Before taking the stand, SA Edwards described Adrian Lamo's role as a government informant. He was in this position from July 2010 until "three to four months ago."
Lamo described being contacted on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) by someone with the handle 'bradass87.' He also said he received emails from someone at the 10th Mountain Division, which was PFC Manning's unit. Lamo testified that he confirmed these were from PFC Manning after receiving a friend request from him on Facebook. Lamo says he was given a username and password to the Army portal, but never used it because he thought it would be a crime.
Lamo testified to providing a 500GB hard drive, a net book, and two thumb drives to a special agent, though he was unable to state who he gave it to exactly.
The prosecution asked if Lamo had Asperger's syndrome, which Lamo responded to affirmatively. He said he's been successfully treated with medication and his current state is the same as that when he reported PFC Manning. Lamo's history of hacking and his status as a convicted felon was also described.
The defense questioned Lamo about many specifics of the chat logs between him and PFC Manning. When asked if PFC Manning had been looking for guidance in his situation, Lamo responded that it seemed he was looking to brag about what he'd done.
Prosecution Witness Testimony: Troy Bettencourt
Troy Bettencourt had previously testified Saturday. He agreed with the defense's case that the Army failed in its handling of PFC Manning.
PFC Bradley Manning's Reaction to the Hearing
Bill Hennessey, the man who has been doing the courtroom illustrations for this hearing, had this to say about PFC Manning:
"He is very controlled and pays close attention to the proceedings. The only time I have really seen him react was on the first day of proceedings when they said the penalty for this case was potentially the death penalty. I think it really struck him. He really sunk in his chair."
The hearing resumes tomorrow at 9AM with the defense calling witnesses.
2011-12-22 Summary: PFC Bradley Manning Pre-Trial Hearing Day 6
(PFC Bradley Manning stepping out of a security vehicle outside a courthouse in Fort Meade, MD. Photo: AP/Patrick Semansky)
Bradley Manning’s pre-trial hearing began at 9:00 AM on Friday, December 16. It must be noted that this is not a trial but a hearing to decide whether or not there are reasonable grounds to charge PFC Manning and continue with a court-martial hearing. That being said, there will be no “guilty” or “not guilty” verdict at the end of these hearings. Journalists who were allowed to sit in on the hearings were warned of “regular blackouts” while the court went in to private session.
There are a total of 34 counts against PFC Manning, the most serious of which is UCMJ Article 104, “Aiding the Enemy.”
Defense: Mr David Coombs, Major Matthew Kemkes, Captain Paul Bouchard
Prosecution: Captain Ashden Fein, Captain Joe Morrow, Captain Angel Overgaard
Investigative Officer: Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza
Day 6:
Today was the first day the defense got to call witnesses. The first day was spent debating whether the IO was suited for the hearing, and the following four days consisted of the prosecution calling their witnesses.
Defense Witness Testimony: Sergeant Daniel Padgett
SGT Daniel Padgett worked in the SCIF with PFC Manning. He was tasked to be the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCIOC), even though he had no formal training and was not an NCO at the time.
SGT Padgett testified about an incident involving PFC Manning in which he flipped over a table which had computers on it. SGT Padgett said he was counseling PFC Manning after he had been late for duty and that PFC Manning stared blankly ahead and then flipped over the table. Contrary to the testimony of CPT Lim and CPT Fulton, SGT Padgett said PFC Manning did not reach for a gun from the gun rack, and was restrained by soldiers to keep him from getting anything that could harm himself. SGT Padgett said he could not recall talking to MSG Adkins or any commanding officers about the incident. There was also no disciplinary action against PFC Manning.
CPT Overgaard of the prosecution cross-examined SGT Padgett about whether or not music was authorized in the SCIF. SGT Padgett said that there were music files on the shared drive, and that soldiers had been allowed to bring CDs in, as long as they were not rewritable. He said there were no movies on the shared drive.
SGT Padgett was also asked about Operation Security and his training thereof. SGT Padgett said he had never signed a non-disclosure agreement reminding him to safeguard classified information, but he also said that soldiers were expected to do so, especially those with security clearances. CPT Overgaard asked SGT Padgett if he had ever burned classified information on a CD for personal use. He answered, “No.”
Defense Witness Testimony: Captain Barclay Keay
CPT Barclay Keay a supervisor of three soldiers on the night shift in the SCIF, including PFC Manning. CPT Keay said there were no non-commissioned officers (NCOs) during the night shift because it was not as active as the daytime.
CPT Keay testified that he saw soldiers watching video clips and listening to music, but had never seen them playing video games on the computers. CPT Keay had given a sworn statement to the Secretary of the Army investigator which said he did not find it appropriate to have any media in the SCIF. He thought having media on the computers would be seen negatively and that the military should not be so liberal about it. Despite believing it to be inappropriate, CPT Keay was told that allowing the soldiers to have music was an “accepted practice” and helped the soldiers to be “more productive.”
CPT Keay also said he believed PFC Manning wanted to be a good soldier, and that he tried to do—and did—good analytical work.
PFC Manning was asked by LTC Almanza if he wished to make a statement, to which he replied, “No, Sir.”
Comments on Small Number of Witnesses Called by Defense
A national security attorney, Mark Zaid, said it was not surprising for the defense to only call two witnesses:
”For one thing, an Article 32 (hearing) serves as an opportunity for the defense to obtain pre-trial discovery, and particularly information they do not know. Additionally, the likelihood of stopping charges from going forward is non-existent in this case so there is little value in telegraphing to the prosecution information the defense may possess but might not yet have revealed.”
Though this seems to contest with the defense’s original request for 48 witnesses, and the response they filed after the government denied all requested witnesses.
After calling their witnesses, the defense rested their case. Tomorrow both the defense and prosecution will give their closing statements. By January 16, the Investigative Officer LTC Paul Almanza will make a recommendation on whether or not PFC Manning should face court martial and if so, on which charges.
2011-12-24 A proposal for governance in the post 2011 world
Optimism is a political act. In fact, these days, cynicism is obedience. - Alex Steffen
The world is long overdue for a completely new system of governance. The need for political representation or a paternalistic and opaque authority has been removed by technology. Governance by nation states is now as arbitrary and illogical as city states were earlier found to be. Corporations have the freedom to live in a world without borders or social responsibility, to own property no individual can claim and to control a one world government and legal system, with insupportable consequences for the world's resources and individual rights. To effect the change we require in 2012, to give individuals control and responsibility, to bring regional systems under regional governance and protect the heritage of future generations, we need a new political model.
Individual Rights
In any system where groups have power, individual rights are always at risk. Both pure democracy and communism have brought human rights horrors every bit as reprehensible as fascist states; in order to guard against genocide, torture, and other persecution of individuals in the name of the greater good, a system must safeguard individual rights above all other authority.
Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies that individual rights are to be applied equally without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. With the addition of age, this would prevent discrimination against any group. Groups are not individuals and no group is entitled to special and further rights or protections under individual rights.
A recognition of individual rights will include life, liberty, security of person, access to the basic essentials of life including knowledge, privacy and personal autonomy in matters not affecting the rest of society, free development of personality and potential, and a fair legal system which does not promote wishes of the group over rights of the individual.
Autonomous peer to peer user groups for systems
Governments up till now have been run by hierarchical groups, which act as the final authority on all topics for an entire region for an arbitrarily specified length of time or until they are overthrown by another group. What these authorities govern is a series of systems, controlled by the state or corporations, and run as dictatorships where workers' individual rights are exchanged for the basic necessities of life. These systems have profit for the top of the hierarchy as their objective; they are not set up to provide an efficient or superior service or product to the users.
If these systems were organized as autonomous, transparent, porous, peer to peer user groups, they would be far better governed by themselves. The current political structure does not recognize that every system is not of concern or interest to everyone in the region, or that some users have far greater knowledge and expertise in specific areas than others. We need a system where responsibility and control rests with the entire user group and expertise is acknowledged and put to best use.
Autonomous: each user group should consist of all people affected by the system and no people not affected by the system.
Transparent: all information related to the system must be fully transparent in order for users to participate in tasks or auditing.
Porous: contribution at all levels of each user group must be open to all users with acceptance by peer review.
Peer to peer: each user group should consist of users: audit and provide feedback, contributors: interested users who periodically present work for acceptance by the members, members: have acquired expertise and been accepted as full contributing members by the user group, and a core group: recognized by the group as having the necessary level of expertise to provide direction for the system.
Meritocracy: A side effect of these user groups is that they provide workers with the three motivators which provide the greatest job satisfaction, autonomy, mastery and purpose. People can work on anything they like, they are not required to submit resumes, acquire accreditation, seniority, or approval from an individual authority. If their work is good enough it will be accepted by the user group. Everyone can work on the system that interests them, doing the jobs at the level they are capable of, with as much or as little involvement as they choose.
Systems should be organized by user groups, not by nations or treaties. International systems would include things such as the internet, telecommunications and knowledge, local systems would include things such as transit, food production and social services, and in any situation where only one family or an individual is affected, the responsibility would lie with only them. Each local user group or individual would have access to outside user groups for trade, shared knowledge, disaster relief, etc., autonomous but networked.
Global commons
Anything which is not only of global interest but also does not belong to any one generation cannot be destroyed and cannot be claimed as the property of any individual, group, corporation or government. Global commons would include space, the atmosphere and electromagnetic field, deep sea ocean, land and water masses of sufficient size to have global impact, areas of the biosphere which are rare or important enough to be of global concern, and knowledge. Knowledge includes discoveries, history, creative works, and the information people require in order to govern themselves and excludes personal information regarding individuals. There should be no restriction on the use of ideas, although creativity needs to be compensated and credited.
Anything belonging to the global commons must be held under stewardship of a porous and transparent peer to peer organization set up for the purpose, and the mandate for all global commons must include the protection and preservation of the commons. All systems which affect the commons must work with the commons in their design and implementation.
Continuing articles:
Concentric User Groups and Epistemic Communities
Resources:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation - TED Talk
Bettermeans: How does an open enterprise work?
Cooperative Economy in the Great Depression
Image credit MauroB
2011-12-26 Oltman in secret highlevel Quantico meeting re #Manning's illegal pretrial confinement
This month new and incriminating details have come to light about a secret meeting of high-level Quantico officials that took place on January 13, 2011, resulting in Manning's illegal punitive pretrial confinement.
On March 2, 2011, PFC Bradley Manning, then confined under Maximum custody and Prevention of Injury Watch (POI) at Quantico, where he had been since July 29, 2010, was told that his Article 138 request to be placed under Medium custody and removed from harsh and punitive pretrial confinement was denied by Daniel J. Choike, Quantico base commander (pictured at the left).
The continued placement of Manning under such terms and conditions, indeed the exacerbation of his illegal pretrial confinement in March, when he was stripped every evening and forced to stand at attention naked every morning until his unexpected transfer to Fort Leavenworth on April 20, 2011, happened despite numerous cited evaluations by brig personnel, including brig psychiatrists, who recommended his removal from Maximum Custody and POI Status.
Defense had filed the original Article 138 request on January 19, 2011, one day after Manning was placed under "suicide risk", which resulted in his remaining in his cell for 24 hours a day and being stripped of all clothing with the exception of his underwear. His eyeglasses were also removed, which left him, as he describes in "total blindness". According to defense documents, the stripping and interrogation that Manning endured was videotaped by the Quantico facility.
Manning recounts his harassment and placement under "suicide risk" the day after a January protest was held outside Quantico here.
On April 19, a day before Bradley Manning's unexpected transfer to Fort Leavenworth, defense reported finding out about a January 13, 2011 secret high-level meeting, and suspected their knowledge of the meeting may have led to the Department of Defenses' about-face on Manning's illegal pretrial confinement:
"The defense recently received reliable reports of a private meeting held on 13 January 2011, involving high-level Quantico officials where it was ordered that PFC Manning would remain in maximum custody and under prevention of injury watch indefinitely. The order to keep PFC Manning under these unduly harsh conditions was issued by a senior Quantico official who stated he would not risk anything happening "on his watch." When challenged by a Brig psychiatrist present at the meeting that there was no mental health justification for the decision, the senior Quantico official issuing the order responded, "We will do whatever we want to do." Based upon these statements and others, the defense was in the process of filing a writ of habeas corpus seeking a court ruling that the Quantico Brig violated PFC Manning's constitutional right to due process. See United States ex. rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 74 S.Ct. 499 (1954) (violation of due process where result of board proceeding was predetermined); United States v. Anderson, 49 M.J. 575 (N.M. Ct. Crim. App. 1998) (illegal punishment where Marine Corps had an unwritten policy automatically placing certain detainees in MAX custody). The facts surrounding PFC Manning's pretrial confinement at Quantico make it clear that his detention was not "in compliance with legal and regulatory standards in all respects" [link added] as maintained at the Pentagon press briefing. (Source: David Coombs, Why Was PFC Manning Moved to Fort Leavenworth?)
Earlier this month Manning's defense had submitted a list of witnesses they requested for the Article 32 pretrial hearing that concluded last week. Further details about the secret high-level meeting and the former Security Battalion Commander in charge of Quantico, Col. Robert G. Oltman (pictured at the left), were contained under witness 46:
XXXXXXXXXX He will testify that during a meeting early in January of 2011, the [former] Security Battalion Commander in charge of the Quantico Brig. XXXXXXXXXX [ Col. Robert G. Oltman], clearly stated to the Brig Staff that, "I will not have anything happen to Manning on my watch... So, nothing is going to change... He won't be able to hurt himself and he won't be able to get away, and our way of making sure of that is that he will remain on Maximum Custody and POI indefinitely." He will testify that one of the other Brig psychiatrists, XXXXXXXXXX then said, "You know Sir, I am concerned because if you are going to do that, maybe you want to call it something else because it is not based upon anything from behavioral health." In response, XXXXXXXXXX will testify that XXXXXXXXXX said, "We will do whatever we want to do. You make a recommendation and then I have to make a decision based upon everything else." XXXXXXXXXX will testify that XXXXXXXXXX then said "Well then don't say it is based upon mental health. You can say Maximum Custody, and just don't put that we [behavioral health] are somehow involved in this." XXXXXXXXXX replied, "Well, that is what we are going to do." XXXXXXXXXX will testify that he spoke with others at the Brig to see if they knew why the Brig was so heavy handed on PFC Manning. He will testify that the others at the Brig told him that they have never seen anything like this before. XXXXXXXXXX will testify that others told him that they were afraid to speak out about the situation given the concern of what would happen as a result of any complaint about PFC Manning's treatment.(Source: Defense Article 32 Witness List)
Under witness 47:
XXXXXXXXXX He will testify that neither the [former] Quantico Brig Commander, XXXXXXXXXX [CWO4 James Averhart ], nor the [former] Security Battalion Commander, XXXXXXXXXX [Col. Robert G. Oltman] gave him any reason for maintaining the Prevention of Injury precautions other than stating it was for PFC Manning's safety. He will testify that XXXXXXXXXX intimated that he was receiving instruction from a higher authority on the matter but did not say who was providing this direction. XXXXXXXXXX will testify that he knew that the higher base authorities had frequent (sometimes weekly) meetings to discuss PFC Manning. XXXXXXXXXX will testify that he gave weekly status reports stating that he felt the POI precautions were unnecessary. XXXXXXXXXX will testify that he recalls a meeting with XXXXXXXXXX where he stated that PFC Manning would remain in his current status Maximum Custody and POI unless and until he received instructions from higher authority to the contrary. XXXXXXXXXX cannot recall XXXXXXXXXX exact word, but he does recall that XXXXXXXXXX made it clear that nothing would change with PFC Manning regardless of his behavior of the recommendations of behavioral health. (Source: Defense Article 32 Witness List)
Article 13 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice states: "No person, while being held for trial, may be subjected to punishment or penalty other than arrest or confinement upon the charges pending against him, nor shall the arrest or confinement imposed upon him be any more rigorous than the circumstances required to insure his presence, but he may be subjected to minor punishment during that period for infractions of discipline."
On his blog, David Coombs has hinted at or explicitly stated that he intends to file an Article 13 defense regarding Manning's illegal and punitive pretrial confinement at Quantico. See June 21, 2011; April 19, 2011; and December 21, 2010
On November 22, 2011, defense also filed the following request for the production of evidence of the Quantico video of Manning being stripped and interrogated:
(CWO4 James Averhart, former Quantico brig commander, pictured to the left)
"On January 18, 2011, defense was notified that PFC Manning at the direction of XXXXXXXXXX [CWO4 AVERHART], was placed in suicide risk. This decision was made over the recommendations of XXXXXXXXXX [CAPT. HOCTER] and the defense appointed XXXXXXXXXX [CAPT. BRIAN MOORE]. When PFC Manning was being ordered to surrender his clothes as part of the unnecessary suicide risk, the Brig made the decision to videotape this event along with an interrogation of PFC Manning by XXXXXXXXXX and others. On 19 January 2011, the defense filed a preservation of evidence request with the government and a request for the production of the video. The government has yet to respond to the defense request. The defense believes the video will support PFC Manning's claim of unlawful pretrial punishment." (Source: Manning Defense Request for Evidence)
The names were sourced from other defense documents. See:
"4.) On 18 January 2011, over the recommendation of Capt. Hocter and the defense psychiatrist, Capt. Brian Moore, CWO4 Averhart placed me under suicide risk. The suicide risk means that I sit in my cell for 24 hours a day. I am stripped of all clothing with the exception of my underwear. My prescription eyeglasses are taken away from me. I am forced to sit in essential blindness with the exception of the times that I am reading or given limited television privileges. During those times, my glasses are returned to me. Additionally, there is a guard sitting outside my cell watching me at all times." (Source: Bradley Manning, Article 138 Complaint)
Further, David House says he has been asked by Manning's attorney not to make public assessments on his friend's deterioration while at Quantico. (Source: democracynow.org)
David Coombs also requested a "[c]opy of all audio and video surveillance of the visitation booths at Quantico, Virginia when individuals, including defense team members, met with PFC Manning. The defense also requests a copy of all audio and video surveillance of the visitations rooms at… Fort Leavenworth when individuals including defense team members, met with PFC Manning." (See 8e of Manning Defense Request for Evidence)
2011-12-28 Redefining Power; Revolution in the WikiLeaks Era
Modified by idlewild606
In mid-September, Occupy Wall Street began in downtown Manhattan. For over a century, Wall Street has represented wealth and political power. Now, the streets of the financial district that only months before gleamed with the facade of enduring capitalism were flooded by ‘occupiers’, revealing the truth behind the broken promises of equal opportunity and corrupt excess of corporate America.
Here were people from all walks of life, foreclosed and unemployed, students with debts and those who struggle with a pay-or-die medical system. As the people marched with a mixture of jubilation and outrage against the plutocratic takeover of power, the glorified spectacle of the American Dream crumbled in the background.
No one can deny that the Occupy Movement struck a chord with the rank and file of America as it quickly spread nationwide. A couple months in, students at UC Berkeley pitched tents on the Mario Savio steps in front of Sproul Hall. When UC police came to dismantle the tents, students linked arms, standing up for their right to freely express themselves. Facing them, armed police violently jabbed them with sticks. This contrast became obvious to the world immediately as the YouTube video of the police attack went viral.
Days later, public outcry against the brutal Cal police action built strong momentum for the movement. During the Mario Savio Memorial Lecture, Occupy Cal exploded in numbers. Thousands of students and protesters gathered outside Sproul Hall in a scene reminiscent of 60’s Berkeley. We were witnessing the revival of the Free Speech Movement.
People began to acknowledge that Occupy was the biggest social movement since the anti-war and civil rights protests. The Occupy movement is surely built on past struggles and traditions of activism, yet there is something unique here that was not present in previous movements. So how is this different now than the Civil Right Movement or even the more recent protests against the WTO and G20?
In my article, The Rise of the Occupy Insurgency, the World First Internet Revolution, I explored the role of the Internet in recent revolutions around the world. Although social media and online connection has had significant impact on the birth of the Arab spring and Occupy Movement, there is something else that sets them apart from all that came before.
There is no doubt that the rise of WikiLeaks, the world's first stateless, non-aligned media entity triggered deep political changes on a global scale. Their actions exposed the tyranny and systematic subversion of justice that has become the norm within the global political economy. This small non-profit entity challenged the near total failure of traditional journalism that has mostly served entrenched power. Yet, a less noticed aspect of WikiLeaks's impact lies in its effect on uprisings around the world.
Nov 28th marked the one-year anniversary of the WikiLeaks Cablegate release. The US embassy cables revealed deep-seated corruption and illegitimacy of many Middle Eastern dictatorships. Constitutional attorney and author Glenn Greenwald acknowledged the significance of the Wikileaks US State Dept. documents and the impact of these cables on the recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. In reflecting on the past year, Amnesty International noted the role of the leaked documents in triggering these revolutions:
“The year 2010 may well be remembered as a watershed year when activists and journalists used new technology to speak truth to power and, in so doing, pushed for greater respect for human rights,"
Direct connection through social media and wireless technology helped spread this information and confirmed people's suspicions, sparking a transformation of pervasive defeatism and despair into collective action in the streets. And further, this influence has stretched into the current Occupy Movement.
By tracing the impulse behind the Occupy movement back to the release of the US Army helicopter gunship Collateral Murder video, Phillip Dorling pointed out how the Occupy Movement is based on the work of Wikileaks:
What is not well known, and has gone unreported, is the key role that WikiLeaks supporters have played in igniting the surge of internet-based activism that has so far resulted in protests in reportedly more than 1000 cities in 82 countries.
Michael Moore at Occupy SF went further to say that the action of alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning triggered the Occupy Movement. America’s most famous whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg also spoke on the first day of Manning’s pretrial:
The Time magazine cover gives......an anonymous protester, as "Person of the Year," but it is possible to put a face and a name to that picture of "Person of the Year." And the American face I would put on that is Private Bradley Manning... And, the combination of the WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning exposures in Tunis and the exemplification of that by Mohamed Bouazizi led to the......nonviolent protests, that drove Ben Ali out of power, our ally there who we supported up 'til that moment, and in turn sparked the uprising in Egypt, in Tahrir Square occupation, which immediately stimulated the Occupy Wall Street and the other occupations in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Now from the Middle East to Spain and Greece and the London riots to the current Occupy movement, we are seeing the waves of action for self-determination reaching the West. After the rise of WikiLeaks, the social and political climate has fundamentally changed. What is different in this WikiLeaks era? It is nothing less than a total shift in consciousness. Beneath the surface of events, a new way of thinking is emerging and changing how people relate to one another.
Power Shifts
As noted, there are similarities between the Occupy Movement and struggles in the past. One common thread is that they start as resistance, opposing injustice. For instance, the Civil Right Movement was waged against the racist application of law that denied basic human rights for blacks. The Battle of Seattle tried to stop the undemocratic and exploitative economic structures of the WTO. The Occupy Movement also express deep distrust and anger regarding inequality and the global oligarchy's rampant looting of the populace. Yet there is something new unfolding.
It's too early to tell what direction Occupy will go as it just had its three month anniversary. But, in the big picture, there is an undeniable shift in power dynamics. Resistance is a condition that assumes a lack of power. People are no longer simply resisting. During a general assembly at Occupy Oakland, a man spoke of how there is a difference between revolution and reform. He said that the Occupy Movement is clearly calling for revolution. While social movements in the past involved people making demands of their leaders, this one is bypassing said 'leaders', because they are seen as irreversibly corrupted by a system that is rotten to the core. This movement has been criticized by mainstream media for lack of specific demands for reform, but many see this as its inherent strength. It is clear that people are saying and doing things that only a few years ago would have been inconceivable. The level of creativity and autonomy of this movement indicates something very new is afoot.
Occupiers are not just sitting and waiting for politicians to deliver change. They are taking action, moving their money to credit unions, feeding one another, creating their own media and sorting out how to live together without corporate or political influence.
What makes the Occupy Movement different is this change in perception about the basic illegitimacy of current government and the sense of the individuals capacity to give direction to their own lives. This combination brought an avalanche of global awakening. Now people are starting to communicate about the root causes of oppression and injustice and bringing new solutions to the table.
The Robber Barons of Wall Street have been destroying the very fabric and economic foundation of the World Economy. Occupy Wall Street is revealing this truth and challenging the American middle class to get up and do something about it. This Occupy movement is also an act of refusal to engage in rigged political games. People are no longer interested in negotiating with politicians as they become more aware of the fact that the whole system is corrupt beyond reform. This trend was set in the Arab World, especially in Egypt after the Egyptians drove Mubarak out of the country and were then still faced the root causes of oppression. The Egyptians and Tunisians started to realize that the problem is much bigger than just their provincial dictators. It is not one country's problem alone, but is tied up with an international system of financial corruption, much of which emanates from the US and Europe.
In the article Bankers Are the Dictators of the West, Robert Fisk brought out the parallel between uprisings in the Arab Spring and the waves of Occupy movement in Western society. He described how tens of thousands in the streets in the Middle East was a revolt against dictators that control the future of their countries and their people. Similarly in the West, people are fighting against their own dictators:
The banks and the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like the Mubaraks and Ben Alis, the banks believed – and still believe – they are owners of their countries.
The Arab Spring and Occupy Winter have inspired each other. One recent example of this link was when Tunisians launched an all-out assault on US president Barack Obama’s Facebook page. In only a few hours over 50,000 comments were posted on his 2012 presidential campaign page. Most of them were ridiculing the leadership and US foreign policy, while supporting the ‘occupy’ encampment spreading across America. From Tahrir Square to Liberty Plaza, people are fighting for a common dream of organizing society based on principles of sharing and collaboration.
Global Allegiance
The sea of solidarity and support that came from people in Egypt, Tunisia and the southern European countries for the Occupy Movement was a testimony of a global realization of illegitimacy of the current governance structures. Now this allegiance is spreading to every corner of the planet. On Nov 22, South Korean activists joined the Occupy Wall Street protesters to rally against free trade deal between Seoul and the United States. These waves are spreading into countries such as Russia, China and India.
We now know that what is decimating our cities and economies is wholesale fraud by institutions and empirical oligarchs. One inside trader confessed the fact that “Governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs does.” But, what is changing is that a majority of the people are starting to realize what is happening in their country is also happening in Greece, Iceland, India, Egypt and all around the world.
This type of transnational allegiance is also a guiding force behind the loosely tied online collective Anonymous. 2011 was a year when Anonymous came to the forefront of the public eye. Guy Fawkes masks have become powerful symbols that transcend race, color and nationality, embodying a sense of shared morals and ideals popping up on the streets and Internet screens around the world.
… something unexpected is happening..... We are questioning the old assumptions that we are made to consume not to create, that the world was made for our taking, that wars are inevitable, that poverty is unavoidable. As we learn more about our global community a fundamental truth has been rediscovered: We are not so different as we may seem. Every human has strengths, weaknesses, and deep emotions. We crave love, love laughter, fear being alone and dream for a better life.- V
Anonymous is tapping into a future for mankind where people form legion with others around the world first and their local regions second. In this sense, Anonymous is a kind of precursor to a world beyond the nation-state, embracing ‘festive citizenship’. WikiLeaks and Anonymous have this in common; they are founded on the ability to transcend borders. They both commit to free flow of transnational communication and an open source approach to political power. Similarly, the Occupy Movement quickly spread around the world within weeks, creating simultaneous actions in multiple cities. They did this by using open source methods and direct online connection for mutual support.
It is very hard for authoritarians to fight this trans-border movement. It is similar to websites and chat rooms. One can be taken down, but a new one pops up somewhere else to mirror or expand on the original site. In a sense, this is the true force of globalization. On the surface, language and specific solutions might be different, yet people around the world are uniting, standing up for universal rights and a common morality.
After the police brutality in Occupy Oakland, the eyes of the whole world were on one city and it energized the movement. The New York Occupy Wall Street General Assembly pledged to send money and tents while Egyptians in Cairo marched in solidarity. People around the globe watched the livestream of the police raid and eviction of Zuccotti Park and began to see the facade of Western democracy beginning to crumble.
When the Civil Rights Movement took place in the US, it was within the framework of the nation-state. The Battle of Seattle and anti-G20 gatherings protested corporate globalization, yet were always physically held in one city and trapped in an enclosed and blithely insular system. On the other hand, in the Occupy Movement, people are grounded in their locality, but connected globally. One OWS participant said:
… wherever you are in your community is where you occupy. You go to your community, there is Occupy Brooklyn, Occupy Harlem, Occupy the Bronx, Occupy North Carolina.....That’s what Occupy is about. It's not about Occupy Wall Street, its about Occupy everything.
They are staying right where they are, reclaiming their own cities, enacting general assemblies, while staying in touch with inspiring collective efforts worldwide. Occupiers are now joining foreclosed homeowners to occupy their own houses. After serving in the military overseas, veterans like Scott Olson are now truly serving their country in the Occupy Movement.
Previously, protests were one-day events with permits and allocated free speech zones. Occupy on the other hand is a continuous process working both inside and outside of the system. For instance, OWS chose a neighborhood park as a place for their residence, and this encampment at Zuccotti park was possible through a loophole in the regulations. During the months they occupied this park they set the model of Occupy as something ongoing and universally applicable. In the article at Global Guerrillas Beyond Zuccotti, John Robb showed how Occupy “developed a recipe for how to set up a temporary autonomous zone (what's often called a TAZ) … that “is outside of the control of the nation-state and global marketplace”. TAZ is an open space such as free wifi hub or a mobile temporary community.
With foreclosures and unemployment running rampant, camp sites are popping up around hundreds of cities. The tent has become a symbol for this movement. It represents mobile ideals that take root, rather than a floating thought that comes and goes. The new-found power of collaboration and allegiance is undeniably transforming the sense of self from an isolated being with little to offer the world. Now, individuals are finding new identities as a collaborative beings with the right to share their impulse for self-determination in a direct way.
Identity beyond Recognition
Police crackdowns on the Occupy Movement have revealed that what used to be public and of the commons is now becoming increasingly privatized. These evictions of the occupation camps are a good example of this. The obvious guidance by Homeland Security officials of anti-Occupy police efforts in the coordinated eviction of camps is also what police and banks have been doing for years: evicting millions of homeowners from their houses by way of legalized fraud. It also reveals at a deeper psychological realm, how the influence of oppressive forces that leads to the breakdown of national identity and the final loss of trust in deception-based and exploitative systems of governance.
Philosopher Kelly Oliver, in Witnessing beyond Recognition looked into identity formation of colonized peoples in Franz Fanon, who was considered to be an important spokesperson for the oppressed. She pointed out how Fanon saw the power dynamics between oppressor and those who were colonized and how it manifested internally in the desire to be recognized on the part of the oppressed. Oliver quoted Fanon, saying that, “the recognition model of identity (is) the particular pathology of colonial or oppressive cultures” (p. 23) and that, “while it seems obvious that oppressed people may engage in struggles for recognition in response to their lack of recognition from the dominant culture, it is less obvious that recognition itself is part of the pathology of oppression and domination" (p. 23).
Some might say comparing current events with colonial times is a bit of a stretch as we now live in a post-modern time and colonization is supposedly a thing in the past. Yet, it is important to see the threads throughout history that are often not so visible.
Western civilization has a dark history of colonizing and subjugating certain groups, races and nations under Anglo-Saxon and Judeo-Christian values. Moving out of the colonial period into modern times, similar dehumanization forces are apparently at work. Now, they are carried through artificial entities called corporations. They are not human, but given the same rights as humans, with hundreds of times the power and few of the responsibilities. This exponentially increasing power is enslaving humanity to the religion of profits at any cost and every-increasing expansion of power and reach. Corporations in this context are systematic oppressors, colonizing public space. The people's primary identity has become that of consumer and any real power has been stripped away. In this, the old gradations of privilege remain according to standard patriarchal hierarchies of race, gender and class. Oliver continues to digest Fanon’s analysis:
What Fanon realized is that the logic of recognition that is part and parcel of colonialism and oppression makes those in power the active agents of recognition and those without power the passive recipients. (pp. 28-29)
Corporate values take center stage pushing away all other values into the margins. Celebrity culture is really a reflection of this pathology of recognition. Pop stars like Britney Spears and show business politicians like Barrack Obama strive to be recognized within the spectacle of the mainstream spotlight.
In the civil right movement, black people demanded that whites acknowledge their basic human rights. Having allies in sympathetic white people was crucial for that movement, just as with the woman’s liberation movement, support from men was key. In the Battle of Seattle, people from all backgrounds gathered to petition against the global corporatism that was well underway. Granted, in all these cases there were some victories within the system, yet these efforts still labored within the power dynamics of outer recognition models of identity. None can deny that in all these movements, the structures and dynamics of power were not fundamentally changed.
Deepening Fanon’s understanding, author and social activist bell hooks pointed out how it is necessary to shift from a recognition model of identity and to assert one’s own subjectivity, independent from oppressive forces, in order to claim one's own power:
Fundamental to the process of decentering the oppressive other and claiming our right to subjectivity is the insistence that we must determine how we will be and not rely on colonizing responses to determine our legitimacy. We are not looking to that Other for recognition. We are recognizing ourselves and willingly making contact with all who would engage us in a constructive manner. (p. 22, 1990)
What has happened all around the world in the last year is that people are challenging these hierarchical structures of power that deny a way of knowing informed by their own experience. In the Occupy Movement, people are realizing that recognition from a master (credentialed professional or perceived authority) is no longer necessary and that one can become master of one's own life. True power ultimately streams from within and cannot be granted from outside. This shift away from the recognition model of identity is both manifested and fostered by Anonymous and Occupy Movement’s leaderless principles.
Leaderless Principle
This leaderless element has multiple dimensions. On the surface it can appear as a practical question. Compared to the Civil Rights Movement in the 60’s, now the old models of dissent have become less effective. Individuals who rise above the crowd stick out and more easily become targets of State oppression. A charismatic leader guiding a movement also had more meaning back then. Once those in power detect the head of a movement, what has been incubating underneath as potential is susceptible to subversion. Before information can be mobilized and ideas fully matured, they can be squashed. With previous models of activism, one only needed to take out the spokesperson to kill the unifying message. We saw this with the assassination of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. The movements then appeared to lose energy and direction once the leaders were gone. Now an organism without a head offers great advantage in mobilizing ideas quickly beneath the radar. Most importantly, it helps distribute power in the hands of many people. There is something beautiful and profoundly symbolic about the Anonymous image of the suited man without a head that conveys the transformation of corporate hierarchy into a space for true human community.
Beyond the practical necessity, the structure of having more than one spokesperson indicates a move away from a recognition model of identity. More people are coming to realize that everyone can tap into their own power and fully count themselves in to become their own leaders in concert with others. For instance, take a look at the phenomenon of the People’s Mic. In a corporate system, a microphone represents an amplification of ego and activation of individual power. In most cases, as with the celebrity culture, access to this position is limited to those already endowed by the system with that privilege. The People’s Mic on the other hand is inherently communal by using a sound system of simple amplification of an echoing choral human voice. It decentralizes power and gives space for everyone to equally speak within an immediately empathic feedback loop.
Like retweeting in the direct democracy of social media, instead of one voice dominating discourse, diverse views are invited in, echoed and amplified in authentic resonance toward dialogue. This is a philosophy that works to counter the celebrity worship of the individual and hierarchical distribution of power. It is also another essential aspect of Anonymous culture; acknowledging empathic connection and collaborative effort out of shared ideals, rather than an anointed leader held above all others. Whether consciously or not, this Anonymous ethic has served as a model for the OWS movement. Instead of following false gods like Donald Trump, Paris Hilton and puppet politicians, people can now turn inward or to each other to amplify the source of creative power-the human being that speaks and acts in resonance with his fellow man.
This emerging leaderless culture is a gradual moving away from the desire for recognition at the center and toward the realization that individual power is not conditioned or determined by outside authority. It is a reorganizing social principle that totally redefines power.
Redefining Power
So how did WikiLeaks contribute to this power shift? WikiLeaks, as an activist organization was built on an uncompromising commitment to justice. On Nov 26 the organization was given the Walkley award, the Australian equivalent of the Pulitzer for excellence in journalism. The panel noted the group’s “courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency”.
Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks has become a center of focus in the public eye. Yet, if we look deeply at what is unprecedented about this journalistic and activist enterprise, we can see that this organization is also based on a kind of mutuality similar to the working of Anonymous. It is not really one person leading the charge. One side of their operation depends on a rigorous and innovative approach to technology. Western society has increasingly become lawless when it come to checks on power of those with money. On the other hand, WikiLeaks by applying the best laws around the world has developed an infrastructure and approach that bypasses established national political controls that stifle dissent or free flow of crucial information. The other side of the WikiLeaks equation are those whistleblowers who have the moral courage to step forward and expose injustice. Needless to say, without the technical foundation and global platform, the organization could not function. But, it is also true that without dissenters inside the system and support from the general public, WikiLeaks success would not have been possible. Neither alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning nor Julian Assange could have changed history without the other. It is the individual’s simple commitment to justice when linked with other's passion that in this case made the difference, transforming technology in service to our higher humanity.
The source of this power is the courage and commitment to justice demonstrated by a person like Manning. When one accesses this commitment within themselves, fear begins to dissolve, as it cannot co-exist with real courage. When WikiLeaks was met with the financial blockade by PayPal, VISA and MasterCard, Anonymous stepped forward to defend what they saw as an attack on the principle of free speech. Truly, what they were defending was the courage to stand up and fight such intrenched power. The morals and ideals that are so vital to a healthy society have steadily been eroded. By turning the tide of technology, these morals are now receiving a new breath of life.
WikiLeaks is based on the conviction that when corruption of powerful organizations is exposed to the public, there is potential for great change. Leaks driven by conscience can become a kind of explosive compassion which opens systems that have been closed and contaminated with corruption and apathy. In the past, governments and corporations could hide their actions behind smooth rhetoric and propaganda. Now citizens equipped with cell phones and cameras surround those who oppress and then leak or share the actual footage immediately to the world to witness. It is the basic math of social change that says the more unjust actions are witnessed by a certain percentage of the populace, the more people will realize the true state of governments and powerful institutions.
Continued crackdowns in Egypt and now Occupy police-state responses throughout America are exposing governments with their true colors of oppression. The delusional facade of illegitimate authority covering interlocking patronage networks is quickly crumbling before the eyes of the world. The more police and military attack innocent people, the more the thin veil of false power is exposed. A video of a crackdown goes viral on the internet and in the next few days the crowd multiplies with solidarity across borders. We saw examples of this in Occupy Wall Street and Oakland where after brutal raids, the people are more united and committed and so the protest grows.
What happens when the facade of legitimacy begins to fall? People recognize the real source of power is actually within themselves and they start to find their own moral authority. This is what we are witnessing with Occupy Movements and popular uprisings around the world. Berkeley professor Robert Reich, who was a keynote speaker at Mario Savio memorial lecture, said to the thousands gathered, "Moral outrage is the beginning. The days of apathy are over, folks. And once it has begun it cannot be stopped and it will not be stopped."
Those in the Occupy Movement are inserting themselves into the public space with this newly claimed power. In the article, A New Culture of Resistance: from WikiLeaks to the Squares, FuturePress elucidated the new meaning of the term ‘occupy’ as being an act of generating creative power as much as one of resistance;
Occupations “also serve as an impulse towards autonomy from these rules in order to partially recreate reality. As a result, most occupied squares became temporary autonomous zones, experiments in collaborative administration that operated in a parallel plane to the system. They actually serve as forces of outward change from within: they are recursive”.
This shift was reflected in the transformation of the word ‘occupation’ itself. It has for so long been a dirty noun, meaning to invade and colonize, as in the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the myriad of US military bases around the world. People have reclaimed this fallen term to occupy, changing it into an active verb with new meaning. The powerful transformation of words affect public sentiment. Geoff Nunberg, the linguist contributor on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross chose the word “Occupy” to be the word of the year. He described how “it is a new meaning of the verb, for a form of protest adapted to the age of smartphones and Twitter...”.
It is clear that technology and information sharing have something to do with making possible the shift of power seen in recent uprisings around the world. Indeed, the expressed aim of WikiLeaks is to free suppressed knowledge, with the idea that what is concealed has a greater potential for reform. Yet, revelation of secrets is not enough. The key element is what happens when freed knowledge is infused with individual willpower. When one becomes an active agent, first perhaps in cyberspace, then evolving intention into physical deeds, information begins to gain new meaning. It is transformed into something that personally affects and moves one emotionally. When this is shared it can fuel people into action in such a way that social networks become creative shields against oppressive forces. Technology, when infused with real human passion immediately connects one with others in common purpose and networks begin to function like living organisms that can then grow and flexibly change shape with the needs of the commons.
One example of this coalescing power is seen in the Internet meme. After the repellent UC Davis pepper spray incident, photoshopped images of campus officer Lt. John Pike pepper-spraying the students become a fast spreading internet meme. From pepper spraying the Last Supper to The signers of the Declaration of Independence, he was all over history and the Internet. In the article #Occupy: The Power of Revolution When It Becomes Memetic, Grant explained how:
What we are seeing is the spread of meme, a meme centered on authenticity, truth, fear, anger, and honest emotion, where the energy formally put into making response videos and remixes is put towards activism.
The power of Lulz is crowd-sourced and re-formed to spice up the information in a kind of culture-jamming ripple effect, bringing on a 'reingestment' and reinvestment of human caring. Information transformed this way is contagious, and not only brings public awareness to the incident, but also tends to uplift public morale and belief in the greater good.
Months before the spark of the Occupy Movement was lit, WikiLeaks tweeted:
It is clear that the rule of law is breaking down all over the West. Many are now held for days or years without charge... (1) As such we can drop any pretense of legitimate governance. It is just one wretched, scheming network of patronage and power. (2) It is not reformable, although it might be destroyable. We must create our own networks of trust and authority and live within them. (3)
Revolution in the WikiLeaks era shakes up the indoctrinated idea that people don’t have the power to create their own society. The illegitimacy of the current interlocking regimes of corporate corruption is now undeniable as we awaken to the simple truth that the only power governments and institutions have is that which we grant to them. It is after all, human beings that have created and now sustain them.
This realization of personal power redefines the conventional idea of power. It does not mean to exploit or dominate. It is not the power over others but the ability to connect and collaborate with fellow citizens; to create totally new communities that reflect communal values. This newly gained power cannot come from the top, but streams from inside out.
In mid-October, Julian Assange spoke in front of the London Stock Exchange for OccupyLondon:
What we face today is the systematized destruction of the rule of law. People are being laundered through Guantanamo Bay to evade the rule of law, and money is being laundered through the Cayman Islands and London to evade the rule of law. This movement is not about the destruction of law, it is about the construction of law.
Rather than passive resistance, what we are seeing in these Occupy camps around the world is people beginning to assert their power, bringing the rule of law back into society. With tents carving out a new space, self sufficient organizing is happening on the ground. Powering laptops by bicycle generators, creating libraries and medical centers, encampments have been growing into autonomous open source communities that model sustainable, non-extractive social forms.
After recent police raids and evictions of camps at Liberty Square and the largest Occupy encampment in LA on Nov 28, it is clear that the collective imagination cannot be squashed. The discussion continues as to where and what to occupy next.
The secret of this awaked morality is that individuals coming together can accomplish something that one person alone cannot. General assemblies are forming a new court of public opinion. Mic check is becoming a new check and balance on power. The old authorities are now going on trial in this Court of public opinion. Anyone can get tickets for public speaking events. People are no longer relegated to just being a receiving audience. They can participate and have their own voices heard by together mic checking wherever necessary. Occupy protesters in Washington, D.C., took over a meeting at the Chamber of Commerce and disrupted a speech by BlueCross BlueShield CEO Scott Serota. Students at Princeton also used this method to challenge JP Morgan-Chase. Karl Rove also got mic checked as did president Obama. In Melbourne people mic checked the mayor; “We occupy because another world is possible.”
Revolution in the WikiLeaks era is the awakening of innate power of the individual within a sense of collective responsibility. True significance and power is found when single intent is multiplied by others who gather in the spirit of collaboration.
“Courage is contagious.” The WikiLeaks motto that at first may have appeared naively idealistic, now seems auspicious and prophetic. This spirit has inspired frozen hearts that have been infected by apathy and fear. Who would have expected how fast it would spread? We don’t know exactly where this courage is taking us. But we know one thing for sure. Collective creative power has no more limits than the sky. We live in exciting and historic times when forgotten virtues of humanity once again occupy the heart. When we allow what moves within to guide our actions, we open the door to a new civilization.
References:
hooks, b. (1990). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston: South End Press.
Oliver, K. (2001). Witnessing beyond recognition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
French translation available here at fruncut.org
2011-12-30 The Year in Review: They should have left that street vendor alone!
2011 actually started on December 17, 2010 although none of us knew it at the time. On that provident day a fruit peddler in Tunisia decided that he was mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. In the year since then, his sentiment has been echoed by millions around the globe in the greatest show of people power that we have seen in more than 40 years.
Mohamed Bouazizi, who could find no other work and took to selling fruits and vegetables, had grown tired of the police harassment. When his complaints to city hall went unanswered, he doused himself with gasoline and lit a fire that is blazing still.
Had his act of defiance happened in any earlier epoch, it most likely would have gained little notice outside of word of mouth, but we now live in an age when word of mouth spans the globe. We have the technology, even in North Africa.
So news of his defiance spread throughout Tunisia in a flash and the people rose up to demand justice from the government. Then, via WikiLeaks, the Tunisian people found out just how corrupt their government really was and started to demand an end to the 20 year rule of Ben Ali. When they did this, their struggle took a revolutionary turn.
The source of that revelation was an unlikely one. A group of hackers, computer nerds, that made it their business to make government and corporate secrets public, with the aid of another hacker inside the digital pentagon, released the US State Department Tunis Embassy cables that gave details supporting what everybody already suspected about the president-dictator. Then on the 2nd day of the new year, the hacker activist group Anonymous, led by its Tunisian members, organized international support for this uprising with #OpTunisia, mainly by spreading the word, keeping the people's lines of communications up while disrupting government PR efforts and gathering Intel.
By the middle of January, Ben Ali was getting out of Dodge and protests were breaking out in Libya and Algeria. By the end of January, Egypt was fully involved and the world knew that it would be an Arab Spring. The global activist network in support of these struggles was also rapidly developing. A dense network of websites, YouTube pages, facebooks pages, Twitter accounts and other Internet resources had to be managed. The technology progressed within the year too. Cell phone cameras and YouTube were the weapons of choice from Tunisia through Libya but by Occupy Wall St., smart phones and live streaming video were coming into their own. Twitter was everywhere. The lessons of the struggle spread rapidly. In Egypt, Anonymous responded with #OpEgypt and when Mubarak tried to cut the Internet, Google came up with Speech-to-Tweet.
Before February 2011 was half over, a second dictator, Egypt's Mubarak was forced to end his 30 year rule. More protests sprung up in Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, Palestine & Syria. Things were moving very fast. #OpLibya and #OpAlgeria were actually discussed in Anonymous before #OpEgypt demanded their attention. I think most in the global activist network that grew up to support the Arab Spring thought Libya or Algeria would be next, Egypt was the big enchilada and would be much later, but things were already moving at lighting speed. I made my contribution mainly in agitprop work, writing in the DailyKos and then joining the staff of WikiLeaks Central, where my beat was Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria and Libya. Libya became my longest self-assignment and so far, the toughest dictator to crack.
In Libya, the Arab Spring finally met a dictator that had an army that would massacre its own people when ordered to, something the armies in Tunisia and Egypt had refused to do. Because of this, the Libyan people were forced to make their revolution the old fashion way, by armed struggle. They built a true people's army, the Libyan working class - armed, and with some help from above by western interests keen to get the oil flowing again, they vanquished a brutal dictator that had savaged Libya for more than 40 years. The new government estimates that the civil war cost some 30,000 Libyan lives and, according the Democracy Now and the NY Times last week, less than a hundred of those were civilians killed by NATO. The Libyans won their liberation at the greatest cost of any in the Arab Spring, but they also won the most thoroughgoing revolution of them all, the only one in which the old army and all institutions of the old regime have been abolished.
With Qaddafi leading the charge, the response of regimes in Yemen, Bahrain and Syria veered toward the use of live fire and military power on peaceful protests. Rivers of the people's blood watered the Earth in 2011 as a result, but nowhere did the people back down or let up. More than 5,000 protesters have been murdered by the monster Assad in Syria this year and still they keep coming. 70,000 protested in Homs Tuesday and 40 more were killed.
As the year progressed, the struggle exampled by the people of North Africa began to be taken up all over the world. When they went to the streets in Belgium, they spoke of Tahrir Square. In Greece and Spain, massive numbers took to the streets to protest austerity measures. In Chile, and London students went on strike. In Bolivia, they took the protest on the road. I even saw a Guy Fawkes mask in a Moscow demonstration this week.
Twitter became the communications tool of choice for activists all over the planet. Facebook played an important role too, but so did chat, piratepad and other less well known means of digital collaboration. For a while an innocuous Egyptian dating site was a place beneath the radar where a lot of revolutionary "hook-ups" took place. Google brushed up their Arabic translation capabilities a little more than a year ago as in anticipation, and again in Libya they provided that important Speech-to-Tweet service when Qaddafi tried to cut the cord.
During the long Libyan struggle this global support network of information activists began discussions and planning to bring the Arab Spring home. WikiLeaks Central initiated the US Days or Rage campaign in March. Anonymous also started making plans, AdBusters started a campaign and the Occupy Wall Street movement was born out of this network just as the Libyan struggle was being brought to a successful conclusion, Occupy Los Angeles started on October 1st, and together with hundreds of similar occupations all over the planet, Occupy Venice started soon afterwards. The Arab Spring had come home.
Abraham Lincoln once called the United States the "Last Best Hope of Earth." He was wrong. He was exaggerating. While ending slavery was important and even preserving the union had some progressive value, it was still too early to speak of last chances. The Earth was still a little too young then but things have change greatly in the 150 years since he made his claim and 2011 has shown us something else, it has shown us how desperate the plight of the planet now is.
From Japan we learned what a disaster nuclear power is, all across the planet thousands lost their lives and livelihood as global warming flooded some areas while drying up others. Imperialist wars expanded in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the so-called advance countries, millions of people went unemployed and homeless while the bankers fiddled and the world economy burned. It is no longer a question of hyperbole to speak of last chances for the planet because we are all staring into the abyss.
But in 2011 we also saw this revolutionary spirit, which really is the "Last Best Hope of Earth" come clear around the globe and into our backyards. Let us all work to make 2012 a year of even greater triumph for the people's movement, 2011 was only the beginning. This planet can only be saved if world finance capital is overthrown and the home of finance capital is still the United States. We are still in the belly of the beast. Let's make 2012 the year of the American Spring.
2011-12-31 A Stateless War
Originally posted on September 12, 2010 reposted in celebration and gratitude for all that has happened in the 15 1/2 months since. Wishing us all great progress in 2012.
Image credit DaliRau
About this huge, world wide war that most of the population doesn’t seem to have realized we are in yet. An elementary overview.
What war?
The military industrial complex against the anonymous cloud, with an ignorant populace as the prize.
This is a war about information, governance, trade, ownership, personal and environmental health … in short, everything. The establishment is the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) . You know them, these are your banks, the government you elected, the big businesses, the lackey media and the organized crime. You know them, maybe you trust them, you may have started feeling a little, or more than a little, uneasy about them in the past decade or several.
The revolutionaries are the Anonymous Cloud. You know them too. These are the people who have caused every successful revolution the world has ever seen. They have been likened to a flock of birds, a group of individuals who happen to decide all at the same time to head in the same direction. Some split off, in groups or singly, some are shot, but the flock will continue. If the entire flock is captured, a new flock will form. The idea is the thing, and if the idea is right it will survive.
Occasionally a leader will come out and draw some focus, a Martin Luther King or perhaps a Malcolm X or even a Rosa Parks. Usually there are many leaders. In a war as huge as this, there will be many, many, leaders, in every location and aspect of the war. This is not a war for followers. It is the responsibility of each person to become as educated, informed and healthy as possible if you are to make a contribution.
Why do we need a war?
Most of you have probably noticed that most of the world is already at war, has been for a very long time, and there does not seem to be an end in sight or any plans for an end. But some people still have not noticed that this is not a Muslims vs. Christians war, or a United States vs. the world war, it is a war of the MIC against the general populace. This is a war where the populace is kept sickly, ignorant, desperate and above all fearful to keep them from rising up against the MIC. The tools used are drugs (legal and illegal), poor nutrition, environmental hazards, misinformation, blocked access to good information, poverty, stress, crime and, above all, war. The weapons against them will be information, solidarity, good health, great optimism, and mass participation in every aspect of government.
Where is the War?
The internet is the most important location, but not the only location. Wherever communication is possible. A true democracy is conducted in the open, and open government is the enemy of all bad government.
When is the War?
I will hopefully write an article about pivotal times and events one day soon. Like all large conflicts, this war is a continuation of cycles that began a long time ago. In this case, the beginnings of hacking and BBS networks would probably mark the prologue. This summer which presented so many huge triggers: the BP oil spill, the Afghanistan escalation, the Iraq pullout/non-pullout, and, most of all, the Wikileaks dump of Afghanistan documents on July 25, 2010, will almost certainly be marked as the beginning.
How do we fight this war?
That is what this blog is about. Get healthy, get strong, get educated and informed, and start contributing to your own governance.
2011-12-31 Response to A Proposal on Governance
Ms Marsh wrote this proposal on the 24th of December, regarding her thoughts on the organisation of political and economic systems "post-NDAA", or National Defence Authorisation Act. As a brief aside, the NDAA is the US military's appropriations bill, but with benefits. It allows for indefinite military detainment, and the converting of the United States proper into a 'front' in the 'Global War on Terror'.
In my opinion, the core of Ms Marsh's proposal is a reaction to the problem of centralisation. This problem takes many forms, but for my purposes I believe Ms Marsh was focused on just two facets: Economy and political centralisation. An example of each facet, respectively, is global corporate Capitalism and the nation-state.
Reading Ms Marsh propose with this in mind, I think, lends greater weight to her critique and solutions. The adage of 'live local, think global' comes to mind. In essence, the predominance of economic and political organisation will occur within only about two or three degrees of separation, in context of affinity groups of such a size which are capable of providing self-oversight.
Here we run head-long into the nation-state and its wealth of problems. A small piece of semantics, however, as this is a term which needs to be brought back to its true definition: A State composed of one Nation, as in a group of people who share a common identity. Hence the concept of 'national identity', as part of the defining characteristic of a nation-state.
The 'nation' and 'national identity are both quite artificial, and are constructed around notions or ideas which likewise are typically constructed. All is done in the interests of the proverbial 'nation-building', which Otto von Bismarck exemplified when he and the Prussian government created the notion of a Germanic people, and the nation-state of Germany. Out of a plethora of distinct local cultures - consider how complex the 'Germanic' region was until its unitisation - both a single people and a single State was forcibly amalgamated.
This centralisation of local cultures into a 'national' culture is part and parcel of the centralisation of political power which occurs in the creation of the nation-state. It is the same set of ethics which justify nation-states that were bandied about as justification for invading Iraq: By top-down forcible reshaping (or re-engineering) of people, better results can be created. More honestly, "might makes right, and since we're right more people should be like us". This holds true from Bismarck to Barack Obama.
And so we simply toss out the nation-state as the latest in a long line of failed Liberal and Neo-Liberal human experimentation programmes. Indeed, an entirely separate and convincing argument can be made that war crimes like ethnocide and genocide are intrinsic to the creation and maintenance of the nation-state model. Genocide, for example, is a species of centralisation, and one can easily see how this is so in the behaviour of Israel toward Palestine. Genocide is an exercise of raw power by the central authority of a nation-state, in pursuit of a purer 'national' identity.
In abandoning the nation-state, a huge amount of centralising forces are likewise abandoned. No 'national' identity with which to oppress those who do not conform; no centralised government consolidating political power in itself to ensure enforcement of said 'national' identity; no 'national' economy to incentivise conformity and punish independence. The list goes on.
In essence, abandon the extant global economic and political settlement.
A problem of sorts here arises: With the abandonment of the present settlement, which does facilitate a modicum of what Ms Marsh seeks, how will restructured settlements of the future better realise 'living local and thinking global'?
To answer this question, I propose to pick apart the phrase in order to examine its implications. 'Think global' obviously suggests a highly and smoothly interconnected world, where an individual can gather information and interact with people on a global scale. At present, the Internet is the premier tool for facilitating this level of interconnection, and this why free, quality access thereto must be imminently available to all who desire such access. In this way access to the Internet can and should be legally considered an inviolable global human right. This is a position which cannot be compromised; Access to the Internet is a non-negociable point of law in these future settlements.
It must be said, however, that the concept of 'law' has been giving a rather bad presentation of late, what with all the bank fraud and genocide running rampant whilst peaceable protesters are beaten and arrested. Even so, I have to disagree with people who call
for the abandonment of 'law' and governance: The concept of law as a body of rules and standards is not going away. Law is a sine qua non of complex sedentary societies. Without law, complex systems like the Internet simply cannot and will not exist.
By extension out of the necessity of law is also the necessity of the State, as the institution which contains the body of law, precedence, and traditions. There is no written history which predates the State. Indeed, writing was seemingly developed for two major purposes: Commerce and law.
Concomitant with law and the State is the necessity of maintaining them, which gives rise to the defence of the common peace: Some sort of 'officers of the peace' for internal concerns, and some sort of militia for external concerns. Complexity, obviously, comes with complexity; Parts of a complex system cannot be chopped out when found inconvenient, as said system cannot exist without its components.
To summarise this, one cannot have the Internet without the institutions which facilitate, nourish, and defend its existence. These institutions, however, can and must be deeply restructured from what we know today: Insanely centralised and centralising institutions which seek to accumulate evermore power in fewer and fewer hands. An Internet-based society cannot coexist with a centralising economic and political settlement. One must and will give way to the other, and I fully believe the Internet-based society has the better prospects for the future.
The Internet is a system which favours broad distribution by its very nature. The more it is distributed, the stronger, faster, and more resilient and complex it becomes. It should only seem natural that any future settlements would reflect this structure to the utmost.
Hence we come to 'living local'. A rhetorical question: What is - and has been - the most basic unit of political and economic organisation? The answer is threefold, but simple: Villages, towns, and cities. In other words, those urban fields which human beings innately create, regardless of culture, and which see elaboration in geometric proportion to the number of people who call that same urban field 'home'. There is one thing, and one thing only, which predates the rise of the written word, and even agriculture, and that is the urban field.
Put bluntly, settlements forged by Internet-based societies will by their very nature favour strongest the urban field. But I needn't resort simply to appeals to history in order to make that case. The very nature of the Internet, and the information it distributes, buttresses my point. Allow me to elaborate further:
Information, quite simply, is power. Its concentration (ie centralisation) represents the concentration of power, axiomatically. One of the primary ways a city (eg Washington, D.C.) or country (eg the USA) can consolidate power is by consolidating information. This, as an aside, is a primary, though unspoken, reason why WikiLeak's Cablegate release was met by such an aggressive response from the US and others. Information (power) was being de-concentrated and transmitted into a nascent, global, information-distributing settlement - the Internet. As incompetent as the United States Government is, it can on at least some level recognise the proverbial 'existential threat' which the Internet represents to its very structure.
To expand upon this, the Internet represents a vast levelling of the information playing field; Information, and therefore power. Within the dynamics of an Internet society-forged settlement, any city - any individual - can be informationally self-sufficient.
Let us pause to consider what this means.
Why have the Bureau of Labour and Statistics (or Statistics Canada, et cetera) take months to aggregate economic data of highly dubious utility, when a city could crunch its own numbers every hour on the hour and then share that information globally? Why have the Federal Reserve System or the Bank of Canada basing monetary policy on aggregated economic data (also of dubious utility) when each city could have its own currency which competes for value in a globally-connected exchange? Why have fiscal policy set by ivory-tower Federal Governments - or highly remote State/Provincial Governments - when each city could shape its fiscal policy based upon the interactions between its own economic information and global factors?
I am obviously passionate about this topic, so I will cut myself off at this point and leave further elaborations to you, dear Reader. I also invite you to consider how valuable this information would be to the individual in the context of their small businesses or where they might seek to invent in a place to call home.
To reiterate, the Internet is a dynamic, growing, evolving, and global creature all its own. The only way it strengthens is by increasing its distribution across the entire planet. In this way it both becomes more resilient, and flies directly in the face of the extant political and economic settlement.
It is a historical truism that superior forms of transmitting information always win against opposition to their spread and adoption. Those societies or communities which embrace the superior form are deeply restructured by that embrace, but in the end they are the better for it. The losers are those who resist and seek to throttle - or even prevent - the spread of some new form of information conveyance. And in the end, these oppositions are themselves restructured, albeit against their will.
The global restructuring is irresistible, unstoppable, and ongoing; It will restructure the entire world, permanently. In this way, there is no choice in whether or not to 'permit' the changes which Ms Marsh described, and which I hope to have elaborated in my own way, as that would entail the effective intercession of gatekeepers or choke-points. The global revolution will not be televised, but it will be tweeted, blogged, and livestreamed.
A glass raised to the health and prosperity of you and yours in the coming year. Keep calm and carry on.