Free Chelsea Manning Now!
Update 10/16/13: New WikiLeaks-like program to assist news organizations; Remembering the Iraq War Logs release
The future of internet whistleblowing? On the heels of army whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s sentencing, non-profit organization Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) has announced that they will be helping mainstream news outlets to install software allowing sources to communicate with them anonymously. They are calling the program SecureDrop, and it uses code that was designed by Aaron Swartz, the young coder and activist who tragically committed suicide following harsh federal prosecution for downloading and sharing academic articles with the public. FPF’s project demonstrates how the idea of the internet as a forum for democracy and bringing transparency to those in power lives on, news we believe Chelsea will be only happy to hear.
One of the documents that whistleblower Manning is most famous for releasing is the Iraq War Logs, which gave unparalleled insight into the inner-workings of the Iraq War, as well as statistics on important incidents such as reports of torture and civilian casualties. Now, Al Jazeera reports on a new study published by researched in the US, Canada and Iraq that estimates the Iraqi casualty even higher at 500,000, when including deaths caused by the destruction of medical infrastructure. Perhaps most strikingly, they also report on a polling of US citizens from 2007 which showed that while most opposed the war, all but a small percentage of people vastly underestimated the number of civilian casualties.
It was in October of 2010 when WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs. While studies such as that reported by Al Jazeera have been criticized on their methods, the Iraq War Logs gave the public a primary source. As we remember the third anniversary of that groundbreaking release, we are asking people to organize members of their community to write letters to the Convening Authority in support of Chelsea’s release. Learn more about getting involved here.
One of the documents that whistleblower Manning is most famous for releasing is the Iraq War Logs, which gave unparalleled insight into the inner-workings of the Iraq War, as well as statistics on important incidents such as reports of torture and civilian casualties. Now, Al Jazeera reports on a new study published by researched in the US, Canada and Iraq that estimates the Iraqi casualty even higher at 500,000, when including deaths caused by the destruction of medical infrastructure. Perhaps most strikingly, they also report on a polling of US citizens from 2007 which showed that while most opposed the war, all but a small percentage of people vastly underestimated the number of civilian casualties.
It was in October of 2010 when WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs. While studies such as that reported by Al Jazeera have been criticized on their methods, the Iraq War Logs gave the public a primary source. As we remember the third anniversary of that groundbreaking release, we are asking people to organize members of their community to write letters to the Convening Authority in support of Chelsea’s release. Learn more about getting involved here.
From pardon.privatemanning.org: “I am Sangeetha Delampady, a cyber laws and Japanese language student from Bangalore, India and I support Chelsea Manning because she stood up for what is good for humanity. She has done nothing wrong, and doesn’t deserve to be treated like a criminal. Chelsea deserves justice and to be free.”
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