Tuesday, June 11, 2013

***Pardon Private Bradley Manning Stand-Out-Central Square, Cambridge, Wednesdays, 5:00 PM -Update –Trial Update- June11, 2013




Let’s Redouble Our Efforts To Free Private Bradley Manning-President Obama Pardon Bradley Manning -Make Every Town Square In America (And The World) A Bradley Manning Square From Boston To Berkeley to Berlin-Join Us In Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. For A Stand-Out For Bradley- Wednesdays From 5:00-6:00 PM

Finally the Bradley Manning court-martial has begun and he will now have his day in court.  On Saturday June 1 at Fort Meade in Maryland several hundred Bradley Manning supporters rallied in front of the main gate and heard a number of speeches from well-known supporters both before and after a march to a secondary gate down the road. There were a number of other solidarity rallies and events around the country and around the world as BM solidarity week continues. Check the Bradley Manning Support Network for photos and reports about the world-wide rallies. On Saturday June 8th the Smedley Butler Brigade of VFP and the Boston BM Committee  marched  in the Boston Pride Parade. Other rallies and demonstrations throughout America and internationally took place as BM solidarity week ended on an upbeat note.  Private Bradley Manning does not stand in the court room alone.  

On June 3rd the trial started at Fort Meade with many supporters in attendance in the actual court room, or via live stream in an adjacent viewing area or in the post movie theater. 70 media outlets viewed via livestream in another separate adjacent viewing area with additional media viewing in a “media” pit. Prior to the trial a few score of supporters rallied at the main gate from 7:00 to 9:00 AM to show solidarity. Several supporters remained at that gate all day.   

The first day of trial started with opening statements by both sides during the morning session. The government presented it argument that Private Manning illegally obtained quantities of classified information while stationed in Iraq and passed it on to Wikileaks. (Private Manning had already admitted to those charges in an open statement in February and stood by that plea when asked by the judge if he continue do so.). The government also argued that Private Manning’s actions aided the enemy and provides indirect material support to terrorism. The defense argued that Private Manning was motivated by his desire to shed light on American atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other nefarious actions. In the afternoon session the government began it case by beginning to establish proof of Private Manning’s illegal actions.   

Over the past several days governmental witnesses have established “change of custody” of the incriminating evidence and spoken of general regulations on classified information and other such matters. A daily summary by Nathan Fuller from the BM Support Network of the trial’s progress is available on line at http://www.bradleymanning.org/.

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Obviously the most important update today, May 31, 2013, is that Bradley Manning is finally, after over three years of pretrial detention, getting his day in court. In the lead up to that trial date on June1st there will be an international day of solidarity at Fort Meade and around the world to tell Bradley that he does not stand alone, that we have his back. That solidarity is particularly important in political prisoner cases. So plan to go to Fort Meade outside of Washington, D.C. on June 1st.. If you can’t make it to Fort Meade plan a solidarity event locally in support of this brave whistle-blower. In Boston the solidarity event is at Park Street Station downtown, the historic site of many progressive cause actions at 1:00 PM-Be there to tell Bradley you have his back.   

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Stop The Media Blackout of The Bradley Manning Trial

Despite the unprecedented and historic nature of Army whistleblower Bradley Manning’s trial, journalists have thus far been banned from recording the proceedings. Because Americans more commonly get their news through television than from any other media source, this presents a major barrier to the American public staying informed on a trial that will profoundly affect the future of our country.

It’s outrageous that the American public is being denied the right to view the trial of U.S. vs. Bradley Manning. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was appointed by President Obama to ensure civilian oversight of the U.S. military.

Go To the Bradley Manning Support Network http://www.bradleymanning.org/ and sign the petition to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel demanding that he ensure journalists can record Bradley Manning’s court martial proceedings! When you sign the petition the network e-mail system will send a message on your behalf to the office of Secretary of Defense.

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Beginning in September 2011, in order to publicize Private Manning’s case locally, there have been weekly stand-outs (as well as other more ad hoc and sporadic events) in various locations in the Greater Boston area starting in Somerville across from the Davis Square Redline MBTA stop on Friday afternoons and later on Wednesdays. Lately this stand-out has been held each week on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 PM at Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (small park at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street just outside the Redline MBTA stop, renamed Manning Square for the duration of the stand-out) in order to continue to broaden our outreach. Join us there in calling for Private Manning’s freedom. President Obama Pardon Private Manning Now!

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Those who have followed the heroic Wikileaks whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning’s case over the past year or so, since about April 2012 when the pre-trial hearings began in earnest, know that last November the defendant offered to plead guilty to a few lesser included charges in his indictment, basically taking legal and political responsibility for the leaks to WikiLeaks that had been the subject of some of the government’s allegations against him. Without getting into the arcane legal maneuvering on this issue the idea was to cut across the government’s pretty solid case against him being the leaker of information and to have the now scheduled for June trial be focused on the substantive question of whether his actions constituted “material aid to terrorism” and “aiding the enemy” which could subject Private Manning to life in prison. We noted then that we needed to stay with Bradley on this and make sure people know that what he admitted to was that he disclosed information about American military atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and other diplomatic high crimes and misdemeanors and only that. We also noted that he was, and is, frankly, in trouble, big trouble, and needs our support more than ever. Especially in light of the following:

After enduring nearly three years of detention, at times under torturous conditions, on February 28, 2013 Bradley Manning confessed that he had provided WikiLeakswith a trove of military and diplomatic documents that exposed U.S. imperialist schemes and wartime atrocities. Private Manning’s guilty plea on ten of 22 counts against him could land him in prison for 20 years. A day after Bradley confessed, military prosecutors announced plans to try him on the remaining counts, including “aiding the enemy” and violating the Espionage Act. Trial is expected to begin in early June, now scheduled for June 3rd.

In exposing the secrecy and lies with which the American government cover their depredations, Bradley Manning performed a great service to workers and oppressed around the world. All who oppose the imperialist barbarity and machinations revealed in the material he provided must join in demanding his immediate freedom. Also crucially important is the defense of Julian Assange against the vendetta by the U.S., Britain and their cohorts, who are attempting to railroad him to prison by one means or another for his role in running WikiLeaks.

In a 35-page statement he read to the military court after entering his plea (written summary available at the Bradley Manning Support Network and an audio transcript as well), Manning told of his journey from nearly being rejected in basic training to becoming an army intelligence analyst. In that capacity he came across mountains of evidence of U.S. duplicity and war crimes. The materials he provided to WikiLeaks included military logs documenting 120,000 civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and a formal military policy of covering up torture, rape and murder. A quarter-million diplomatic cables address all manner of lethal operations within U.S. client states, from the “drug war” in Mexico to drone strikes in Yemen. He also released files containing assessments of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. These documents show that the government continued to hold many who, Manning stated, were believed or known to be innocent, as well as “low level foot soldiers that did not have useful intelligence.”

The Pentagon and the Obama Administration declared war against WikiLeaks following the release of a video, now entitled Collateral Murder and widely available, conveyed by Manning, of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter airstrike in Iraq that killed at least 12 people, including two Reuters journalists. American forces are then shown firing on a van that pulled up to help the victims. Manning said he was most alarmed by the“bloodlust they appeared to have.” He described how instead of calling for medical attention for a seriously wounded individual trying to crawl to safety, an aerial crew team member “asks for the wounded person to pick up a weapon so that he can have a reason to engage.”

By January 2010, Manning said, he“began to become depressed with the situation that we found ourselves increasingly mired in year after year” and decided to make public many of the documents he had backed up as part of his work as an analyst. Manning first offered the materials to the Washington Post and the New York Times. Not getting anywhere with these pillars of the press establishment, the latter apparently not considering war crimes of its government, as opposed to all manner of foreign state activities, news fit to print in February 2010 he made his first submission to WikiLeaks. He attached a note advising that “this is possibly one of the more significant documents of our time removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of twenty-first century asymmetric warfare. Have a good day.”

The charge of “aiding the enemy”—i.e., Al Qaeda—is especially ominous. This used to mean things like military sabotage and handing over information on troop movements to a battlefield enemy. In Manning’s case, the prosecution claims that the very act of publicizing U.S. military and diplomatic activities, some of which took place years before, amounted to “indirect” communication with Al Qaeda. Manning told the court that he believed that public access to the information “could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general.” He hoped that this “might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment every day.” But by the lights of the imperialists’ war on terror, any exposure of their depredations can be construed as support to the “terrorist”enemy, whoever that might be.

The Pentagon intends to call no fewer than 141 witnesses in its show trial, including four people to testify anonymously. One of them, designated as “John Doe,” is believed to be a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. “Doe” is alleged to have grabbed three disks from bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound on which was stored four files’ worth of the WikiLeaks material provided by Manning.

Nor do charges under the Espionage Act have to have anything to do with actual spying. The law was one of an array of measures adopted to criminalize antiwar activity after U.S. imperialism’s entry into the First World War. It mandated imprisonment for any act deemed to interfere with the recruitment of troops. Among its first and most prominent victims was Socialist Party spokesman Eugene V. Debs, who was jailed for a June 1918 speech at a workers’ rally in Canton, Ohio, where he denounced the war as capitalist slaughter and paid tribute to the leaders of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Dozens of Industrial Workers of the World organizers were also thrown into prison.

In the early 1970s, the Nixon government tried, unsuccessfully, to use this law to go after Daniel Ellsberg, whose release of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times shed light on the history of U.S. imperialism’s losing war against the Vietnamese workers and peasants. Obama has happily picked up Nixon’s mantle. Manning’s prosecution will be the sixth time the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act against the source of an unauthorized leak of classified information—more than the combined total under all prior administrations since the law’s enactment in 1917.

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The Private Bradley Manning case is headed toward an early summer trial. The news on his case over the past several months has centered on the many pre-trial motion hearings including defense motions to dismiss for lack of speedy trial. Private Manning’s pre-trial confinement is now well over 1000 days. That dismissal motion was ruled on by Military Judge Lind. On February 26, 2013 she denied the defense’s motion for dismissal, the last serious chance for Bradley Manning to go free before the scheduled June trial. She ruled furthermore that the various delays by the government were inherent in the nature of this case and that the military authorities, except in one short instance, had been diligent in their efforts to move the proceedings along. For those of us with military experience this is a classic, if perverse, case of that old army slogan-“Hurry up, and wait.” This is definitely tough news for Private Manning although perhaps a good appeal point in some future civilian court review.

The defense had contended that the charges should be dismissed because the military by its own statutes (to speak nothing of that funny old constitutional right to a speedy trial guarantee that our plebeian forbears fought tooth and nail for against the bloody British and later made damn sure was included in the Amendments when the founding fathers“forgot” to include it in the main document) should have arraigned Private Manning within 120 days after his arrest. They hemmed and hawed for almost 600 days before deciding on the charges and a court martial. Nobody in the convening authority, as required by those same statutes, pushed the prosecution forward in a timely manner. In fact the court-martial convening authority, in the person of one Colonel Coffman, seemed to have seen his role as mere “yes man” to each of the government’s eight requests for delays without explanation. Apparently the Colonel saw his role as a mere clearing agent for whatever excuse the government gave, mainly endless addition time for clearing various classified documents a process that need not have held up the proceedings. The defense made timely objection to each governmental request to no avail.

Testimony from military authorities at pre-trial hearings in November 2012 about the reasons for the lack of action ranged from the lame to the absurd (mainly negative responses to knowledge about why some additional delays were necessary. One “reason” sticks out as a reason for excusable delay -some officer needed to get his son to a swimming meet and was thus “unavailable” for a couple of days. I didn’t make this up. I don’t have that sense of the absurd. Jesus, a man was rotting in Obama’s jails and they let him rot because of some damn swim meet). The prosecution, obviously, argued that the government has moved might and main to move the case along and had merely waited until all leaked materials had been determined before proceeding. The judge saw it the government’s way and ruled according as noted above.

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The defense had also pursued a motion for a dismissal of the major charges (espionage/ indirect material aid to terrorists) on the basis of the minimal effect of any leaks on national security issues as against Private Manning’s claim that such knowledge was important to the public square (freedom of information issues important for us as well in order to know about what the hell the government is doing either in front of us, or behind our backs). Last summer (2012) witnesses from an alphabet soup list of government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, etc., etc.) testified that while the information leaked shouldn’t have been leaked that the effect on national security was de minimus. The Secretary of Defense at the time, Leon Panetta, also made a public statement to that effect. The prosecution argued, successfully at the time, that the mere fact of the leak of classified information caused irreparable harm to national security issues and Private Manning’s intent, even if noble, was not at issue.

The recent thrust of the motion to dismiss has centered on the defense’s contention that Private Manning consciously and carefully screened any material in his possession to avoid any conflict with national security and that most of the released material had been over-classified (received higher security level than necessary). Much of the materials leaked, as per those parts published widely in the aftermath of the disclosures by the New York Times and other major outlets, concerned reports of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan and diplomatic interchanges that reflected poorly on that profession. The Obama government has argued again that the mere fact of leaking was all that mattered. That motion has also not been fully ruled on and is now the subject of prosecution counter- motions and has been a cause for further trial delay.

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A defense motion for dismissal based on serious allegations of torturous behavior by the military authorities extending far up the chain of command (a three-star Army general, not the normal concern of someone so far up the chain in the matter of discipline for enlisted personal) while Private Manning was first detained in Kuwait and later at the Quantico Marine brig for about a year ending in April 2011 has now been ruled on. In late November and early December Private Manning himself, as well as others including senior military mental health workers, took the stand to detail those abuses over several days. Most important to the defense was the testimony by qualified military mental health professionals citing the constant willful failure of those who held Private Manning in close confinement to listen to, or act, on their recommendations during those periods

Judge Lind, the military judge who has heard all the pre-trial arguments in the case thus far, has essentially ruled unfavorably on that motion to dismiss given the potential life sentence Private Manning faces. As she announced at an early January pre-trial hearing the military acted illegally in some of its actions. While every Bradley Manning supporter should be heartened by the fact that the military judge ruled that he was subject to illegal behavior by the military during his pre-trial confinement her remedy, a 112 days reduction in any future sentence, is a mere slap on the wrist to the military authorities. No dismissal or, alternatively, no appropriate reduction (the asked for ten to one ratio for all his first year or so of illegal close confinement which would take years off any potential sentence) given the seriousness of the illegal behavior as the defense tirelessly argued for. And the result is a heavy-handed deterrent to any future military whistleblowers, who already are under enormous pressures to remain silent as a matter of course while in uniform, and others who seek to put the hard facts of future American military atrocities before the public.

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An important statement in November 2012 was issued by three Nobel Peace Laureates (including Bishop Tutu from South Africa) calling on their fellow laureate, United States President Barack Obama, to free Private Manning from his jails. (Available on the Support Bradley Manning Network website.)

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On February 23, 2013, the 1000th day of Private Bradley Manning’s pre-trial confinement, an international day of solidarity was observed with over seventy stand-outs and other demonstration held in America and internationally. Bradley Manning and his courageous stand have not been forgotten. Go to the Bradley Manning Support Network for more details about the events of that day. Another international day of solidarity is scheduled for June 1, 2013 at Fort Meade, Maryland and elsewhere just before the scheduled start of his trial on June 3rd. Check the support network for updates on that event as well.

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6 Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Private Bradley Manning

*Sign the online petition at the Bradley Manning Support Network (for link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/ ) addressed to the Secretary of the Army to drop all the charges and free Bradley Manning-1100 plus days are enough! Join the over 30,000 supporters in the United States and throughout the world clamoring for Bradley’s well-deserved freedom.

*The government is now prosecuting Bradley for the major charges of “aiding the enemy” (Espionage Act) and “material aid to terrorism.” Everyone should contact the presiding officer of the court –martial process, General Linnington, at 1-202-685-2807 and tell him to drop those charges. Once Maj. Gen. Linnington’s voicemail box is full – you can also leave a message at the DOD: (703) 571-3343 – press “5″ to leave a comment.*If this mailbox is also full, leave the Department of Defense a written message. Do it today.

*Come to our stand-out in support of Private Bradley Manning in Central Square, Cambridge, Ma. (corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street near MBTA Redline station) every Wednesday between 5-6 PM.

*Contribute to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund- now that the trial has started funds are urgently needed! The hard fact of the American legal system is the more funds available the better the defense, especially in political prisoner cases like Bradley’s.  The government has unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Bradley. And has used them. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) the White House to demand President Obama pardon Bradley Manning.

*Write letters of solidarity to Bradley Manning while he is being tried. Bradley’s mailing address: Commander, HHC, USAG, Attn: PFC Bradley Manning, 239 Sheridan Avenue, Bldg. 417, JBM-HH, VA 22211. Bradley Manning cannot receive stamps or money in any form. Photos must be on copy paper. Along with “contraband,” “inflammatory material” is not allowed. Six page maximum. Mail sent to the above address is forwarded to Bradley.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Programs that Bradley Manning used weren’t prohibited: trial report, day 4

By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. June 10, 2013.
Chad Madaras. Sketch by Clark Stoeckley, BMSN.
Chad Madaras. Sketch by Clark Stoeckley, BMSN.
The second week of Bradley Manning’s court martial began with forensics experts returning, testimony from someone who shared Bradley’s computer, and updates on stipulations of expected testimony, but that all came after more questions about media access.
Stenographers deserve trial access
Judge Denise Lind received a motion from a third-party to allow for the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s crowd-funded stenographers to be credentialed for the media center at Ft. Meade, to provide an unofficial transcript of the proceedings. Judge Lind wouldn’t rule on the motion since it didn’t come from the defense or government, but defense lawyer David Coombs stood briefly to support it. He said the motion assists Bradley’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial and the First Amendment right to a free press.
Forensic expert: Wget not explicitly prohibited
David Shaver, head of forensic investigations for the Army Criminal Investigations Unit, has been called a few times and will likely be called back frequently to discuss the investigation of Bradley’s computer. He testified today about his review of Bradley’s searches on Intelink, the military’s secure version of Google.
Shaver testified about Bradley’s searches for ‘WikiLeaks,’ which started on December 1, 2009, and for ‘Julian Assange’ and ‘Iceland.’ A few times, his searches for WikiLeaks brought him to the Army’s 2008 Counterintelligence Special Report, but Shaver could only confirm that he successfully reached that report once.
He also talked about the program Wget, which automates downloading from the internet. Shaver said the program wasn’t specifically authorized with a Certificate of Net Worthiness (CON), but that it wasn’t prohibited either, and not having a CON didn’t mean it wasn’t allowed.
Fellow analyst: mIRC chat, other programs not prohibited
Chad Madaras was in the 2nd Brigrade 10th Mountain division along with Bradley Manning, so they were together in Ft. Drum before deploying and then together in FOB Hammer in Iraq. In Baghdad, they worked in the same unit and used the same computer but on opposite shifts: Bradley worked at night, Chad during the day.
Their shared computer was frequently slow and required ‘reimaging’ – wiping the computer fully and starting over new – multiple times. Therefore, analysts were expected to save files to CDs or to a shared drive to prevent losing any data.
Madaras testified that everyone else in their Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) used mIRC, a chat program Bradley said he used. Madaras also confirmed that music, movies, and video games were on the shared drive that all analysts could access. They weren’t explicitly allowed, but they weren’t banned either. This lends itself to the question of whether Bradley “exceeded authorized access” – the government contends he added programs that he wasn’t allowed to have.
He also confirmed that it wasn’t prohibited to explore the SIPRNet, the Secret-level, military-wide internet, for other regions of the world beyond mission scope. Bradley perused the State Department diplomatic database, and while others may not have done so, it hasn’t been established that this was a violation.
Stipulations continue
We also heard the stipulations of expected testimony from of Steve Buchanan, an NSA contractor who confirmed some basic facts about Intelink, which Shaver delved into further.
The defense and government took a two-hour lunch break to continue working on more stipulations. The military’s subject matter expert tells us that twelve stipulations have been agreed to, eight more are under negotiation, and several more may be on the way.
Afternoon session
Update: 7:00, summary of afternoon session
Tweets on trial
After nearly a three-and-a-half hour lunch break, Army CID Special Agent Mark Mander testified about his contribution in the investigation of Bradley Manning, which he called “probably one of the largest and most complicated investigations we’ve ever had.”
Mander said he used Archive.org to find a 2009 version of WikiLeaks.org that allegedly shows a ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ list of desired documents, and used Google Cache to retrieve WikiLeaks’ 2010 tweets asking for ‘.mil addresses’ and for ‘super computer time’ upon receipt of an encrypted video. The prosecution wants to authenticate these documents as relevant to Bradley’s mindset at the time of the 2010 disclosures.
But the defense established that Mander has no personal knowledge of how Archive.org or Google Cache works, whether either had been hacked, whether tweets can be deleted, or whether Bradley had viewed those pages and tweets at that time.
The defense also presented an alternate version of the ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ page, which was similar but which introduced the list as the concealed documents most sought after by journalists, lawyers, police, and human rights investigators. Judge Lind accepted both versions as evidentiary exhibits.
Sheila Glenn: Army Counterintel couldn’t confirm that enemies used WikiLeaks
Ft. Meade’s Sheila Glenn works on Army cyber counterintelligence, and she testified about the 2008 Army Counterintelligence Special Report, which she reviewed and which speculated whether foreign intelligence services or terrorist groups used or could use WikiLeaks.org to gather U.S. defense information.
She mostly confirmed important elements of the report. She read aloud,
some argue, Wikileaks.org is knowingly encouraging criminal activities such as the theft of data, documents, proprietary information, and intellectual property, possible violation of national security laws regarding sedition and espionage, and possible violation of civil laws. Within the United States and foreign countries the alleged ―whistleblowers‖ are, in effect, wittingly violating laws and conditions of employment and thus may not qualify as ―whistleblowers protected from disciplinary action or retaliation for reporting wrongdoing in countries that have such laws.
She confirmed,
Wikileaks.org supports the US Supreme Court ruling regarding the unauthorized release of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, which stated that ―only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.
A primary point of contention regarded ‘intelligence gaps,’ a subsection of the report under which it’s asked,
Will the Wikileaks.org Web site be used by FISS, foreign military services, foreign insurgents, or terrorist groups to collect sensitive or classified US Army information posted to the Wikileaks.org Web site?
Glenn testified that intelligence gaps could fall within a range of certainty, from points of knowledge that the Army wanted to confirm, to subjects about which it knows very little. At the time, she said, Army Counterintelligence could not confirm that foreign intelligence services, adversaries, or terrorist groups did collect information from WikiLeaks.org.
This week
Remaining on the list of upcoming witnesses is Matthew Hosburgh, an intelligence analyst, who’ll testify about a ‘computer chaos club’ document; Ken Moser from CENTCOM who’ll about the Farah investigation; and Chief Warrant Officer 5 Jon Larue.
***From Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Rock Night- Bill Haley's Skinnie Minnie


From The Pen Of Frank Jackman


In an earlier age women were expected to be a little more voluptuous than the Minnie of Bill Haley’s cover song. (It was only fifty some years ago, although that amount of time is probably an eternity in the fashion world, female variety, probably enough time to make such fashions retro now if a quick look around lately is any indication.) Arguably busty and hippy Marilyn Monroe was the model for from hunger Great Depression (1930s variety) and back from World War II fathers in the 1950s and that“wisdom” filtered down to the sons, or some sons. My boyhood personal preference, corner boyhood in front of Doc’s Drugstore hanging out making a profession of examining this key question of humankind as various shapes and sticks walked by preference, on the subject though was to go for Minnie, skinnie or not, in the teenage battle of "sticks" vs. "shapes." Now this struggle was on top of almost every boy’s mind whether they publically recognized it or not from about twelve when those stick girls started getting a shape and, guess what, started to turn from say just flat-out fifth grade nuisances and bothers to, well, kind of interesting all of a sudden in sixth grade. Of course today such epic battles, such epic pre-teen angst, probably no longer exits, and such doings are probably a figment of some old geezer’s imagination. Yah, right.

Remind me to tell you sometime about how a stick could turn you inside out just as easily as a shape, maybe worse because what were you doing hanging with a stick anyway when there were those interesting shapes to bother your mind. Actually since I have a minute I will tell you now. See that Doc’s Drugstore that I mentioned a minute ago had a juke box and a soda fountain and therefore was a natural attraction for every music hungry kid (and food too, remember those odd-ball school lunches that left us permanently incapable of eating good food, or it seemed like it) from Hullsville Elementary School (and later from Hullsville Junior High next door but this is about the earlier period). So one day Susie Johnson (we all had such vanilla names in those days, I was called Francis for chrissake, in that old white bread town but I think everybody had such square names even black kids) came strolling by.

Now Susie was nothing but a stick in those days, since she had been, ah, slow to develop, if you know what I mean, but, truth, I was stuck on her, stuck on her bad, as bad as a man (oops, boy) could be stuck on a girl ever since she turned from a nuisance to, well, like I said before, kind of interesting. But see, interesting or not, what Susie had was great lips, very great lips. And the reason that I knew that hard fact was because a few weeks before the time I am talking about down in Kathy Kelly’s family room, lights out, music playing, some Everly Brothers stuff that everybody, every girl everybody and so every boy who wanted to get anywhere, was crazy for Susie Johnson came over to me and gave me a big kiss from those lips. And so that day she came strolling by my corner (and many previous days as well) I was waiting for her to try her luck again. And she didn’t, not then anyway or anytime soon after that. So don’t tell me in the boy meets girl wars that some skinnie girl can’t twist a man (oops again , boy) around her little finger , don’t tell me that noise at all.

****
Skinnie Minnie lyrics-Bill Haley and His Comets

SKINNIE MINNIE - BILLY HALEY & HIS COMETS

Well my skinnie minnie has a clay as a cheek

And I was 6 feet high and one foot thin

And now I do I love her, does a boy love pie?

Well now and she has the eye pull over my eye

Skinnie Minnie she's skinnie

She ain't tall, that's all

Well Although her shadow doesn't take much ground

Well now what there is, that really gets her around

And now what are there ahead, there's a lot she'd be

{ From: http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/bill-haley-lyrics/skinnie-minnie-lyrics.html }

And now and she may not weight too much for me

Skinnie Minnie she's skinnie

She ain't tall, that's all

Well now it's hard being slimmer than a fishing pole

She (has) one hair blond and the other hair brown

And now I did the other cheek from the other side

And now I found the old yard where did she hideah,

Skinnie Minnie she's skinnie

She ain't tall, that's all






The World Can't Wait
Stop the Crimes of Your Government
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Relevant sections from the Close Guantanamo NOW message published May 23, 2013, in The New York Times:

“Obama promised to restore the rule of law. Instead he has claimed and exercised unchecked executive powers beyond what George Bush used. He refuses to prosecute officials for their use of torture, yet aggressively prosecutes any whistle-blowers who expose war crimes, most flagrantly in the torture, slander and draconian legal charges against Bradley Manning. By signing the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, Obama made indefinite detention, based on merely an accusation, the law of the land. These actions amount to institutionalizing and, in important respects, escalating the “Bush Doctrine.”

ProgressDonate to publish this message internationally.

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Alfred,

This afternoon we learned that Edward Snowden, an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton (a private contractor for the National Security Agency), claimed responsibility for the biggest intelligence leak in U.S. history. In
an interview with The Guardian, Snowden said,
Snowden“I really want the focus to be on these documents and the debate which I hope this will trigger among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want to live in.” He added: “My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”
This past Wednesday, via Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian, we learned that the National Security Agency has been monitoring business phone traffic on Verizon lines and gathering all that metadata in bulk. On Thursday the story got much bigger with revelations that the NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others. Also from the Guardian:

“On Saturday, the Guardian reported the existence of an NSA datamining program called Boundless Informant that helps analysts track and sort the voluminous electronic surveillance the agency collects, including by country. Top secret information published by the Guardian detailed that NSA harvested nearly 3bn pieces of intelligence from US computer networks in just 30 days.”
Barack Obama responding to the revelation that the NSA vacuums up data on everyone:
“in the abstract, you can complain about Big Brother and a program run amuck, but when you actually look at the details, I think we've struck the right balance.”
More on PRISM and the National Security Agency at Ft. Meade MD (where Bradley Manning is being court martialed).

From the Guardian interview with Edward Snowden:

Q: Why did you decide to become a whistleblower?

A: “The
NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting.”

Q: What about the response in general to the disclosures?

A: “I have been surprised and pleased to see the public has reacted so strongly in defence of these rights that are being suppressed in the name of security.”

Today at the Left Forum in NYC, World Can't Wait sponsored a discussion on “the National Security State, Whistle-blowers and Bradley Manning” with Jesselyn Raddack, Thomas Drake and Kevin Gosztola. We discussed the need for protest and resistance to the a lack of privacy for the people, and secrecy for the government. Thomas made a case to people who say “if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't worry” by saying things remarkably similar to what Snowden said:

“You don’t have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to have eventually fall under suspicion... and then they can use this system to go back in time and... derive suspicion from an innocent life”
The government listensHours after today's event, we learned about Edward Snowden. The Guardian reported tonight,
“Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive who famously leaked information about what he considered a wasteful datamining program at the agency, said of Snowden: ‘He's extraordinarily brave and courageous.’

“Drake was investigated so intensely by the justice department that the longtime analyst was reduced to working at an Apple store until the
Obama administration abruptly dropped charges that could have landed him in jail for 35 years.

"‘It's an extraordinarily magnanimous act of civil disobedience to disclose the Pandora's Box of the Leviathan state,’ Drake told the Guardian as he returned from a weekend appearance in New York at the Left Forum, where he spoke about whistleblowing and national security.”

In “Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?” the Washington Post says,
“Snowden wasn't crazy to question whether he'd be treated fairly by the American justice system.”

It's really up to us to create a political situation where the government is forced to back down in defending and pursuing police-state levels of surveillance, justified by “national security.”

Tomorrow, we're gathering at noon at Union Square in NYC to support Edward Snowden (details on Facebook event). When asked about the personal risks he took to make this information public, Snowden told Glenn Greenwald,

“The greatest fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change.”
What are you willing to risk for real change?
Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait
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The War of Ideas in the Middle East

What Bradley Manning showed the world about Israel/Palestine


http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/17403007cb5e5258a06e1493ecccdfc6?s=36&d=blank&r=PG

by Alex Kane on June 6, 2013 9

ManningBradley Manning leaked diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks that shed light on U.S. foreign policy and Israel/Palestine (Photo: Associated Press)

The trial of military whistleblower Bradley Manning has refocused attention on the revelations about U.S. foreign policy his actions produced. Much ink has been spilled on the headline-making news related to Iraq and Afghanistan that WikiLeaks, the organization Manning leaked to, shed light on. But WikiLeaks' and Manning's actions also exposed many important details about Israel/Palestine.

The massive amount of State Department cables that Manning handed over to WikiLeaks was a deep look into how U.S. policy on Israel, Palestine and the larger Middle East play out. Here's a look back at some of what Manning told the world about the region—a reminder why Israel/Palestine watchers should be concerned with Manning's trial and sentencing.

Israeli praise for the Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian Authority (PA) remains a buffer between Israel and a Palestinian population resentful at a 46-year-old foreign occupation. The West Bank's limited governing authority cracks down on armed resistance to the occupation and other forms of dissent while doling out salaries to employees who rely on it to make a living. It's a formula to keep the West Bank quiet as settlements expand across the occupied territory.

WikiLeaks focused attention on how important the Palestinian Authority is to Israel. In 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he wanted to” strengthen, according to one State Department cable. Another cable from that same year shows why Netanyahu wanted to boost the PA. Israeli defense ministry official Amos Gilad “noted that Israeli-PA security and economic cooperation in the West Bank continues to improve as Jenin and Nablus flourish, and described Palestinian security forces as the ‘good guys,’” as another cable reads. A separate cable also reveals that Gilad was concerned about PA President Mahmoud Abbas' longterm viability. Other cables revealed close security cooperation and intelligence sharing between the PA and Israel, though PA officials wanted to keep those activities under wraps.

Fast-forward to today, and those revelations still resonate, though the situation has changed some. Israeli actions like transferring tax revenue to the PA are about shoring up the West Bank government. For Israel, the worst thing that could happen would be for the economic unrest that rocked the PA in late 2012 to get off the ground again, threatening the stability of the authority that keeps a lid on Palestinian unrest. There's also continued concern about the PA's long-term viability. As a recent International Crisis Group report showed, the threat of a Palestinian uprising against the PA or Israel is real, though distant for now in large part because of a lack of leadership. That report also documented a deterioration in security cooperation between PA forces and Israel.

As the days drag on with little political change on the ground in the West Bank, the gap between the PA—important for Israel's stability, as WikiLeaks showed—and their constituents is bound to grow.

A Palestinian Bantustan

The Obama administration is engaged in another all-out push to jump-start the moribund “peace process” between Israel and the PA. But they have run into a roadblock: the PA's insistence that a settlement freeze be implemented and that Israel commit to the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiations. The PA, under intense pressure to cave on these demands, has good reason to play hardball, as WikiLeaks showed Benjamin Netanyahu's vision for a Palestinian state. While much of these details were known without WikiLeaks, the details in the documents are still a useful reminder of what Netanyahu says when he utters the words "Palestinian state."

In a 2007 meeting with Congressman Gary Ackerman, Netanyahu laid out his refusal to divide Jerusalem and return to the 1967 borders—core components of a viable two-state solution. Two WikiLeaks cables from 2009 reveal that once he got in the prime minister's seat, his vision stayed the same. He told a Congressional delegation that “a Palestinian state must be demilitarized, without control over its air space and electro-magnetic field, and without the power to enter into treaties or control its borders.”

Those meetings put any lip-service by the Israeli government towards a Palestinian state in its proper context. Indeed, the more honest segments of Netanyahu's current coalition have already put the kibosh on talk of a Palestinian state. Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon said June 6 that the current governing coalition is staunchly opposed to a Palestinian state.

The Gaza assault and the Goldstone report

The Israeli assault on Gaza in 2008-09 was the subject of a number of important Manning-leaked cables. The cables exposed regional cooperation with Israel while it waged a punishing air and ground campaign that resulted in the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians.

A June 2009 meeting detailed in a diplomatic cable showed that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told U.S. officials that Israel had consulted with both Egypt and the Palestinian Authority before invading Gaza. Barak asked them whether they would take over Gaza in the event of a Hamas defeat. Both said no. Other cables showed coordination while the invasion was going on. One cable revealed that the targeting of tunnels to Gaza was “coordinated with Egypt.” Another cable showed how Israel frequently consulted with PA security forces over how to control protests in the West Bank against the Gaza assault.

The fact that Israel consulted with pre-revolutionary Egypt and the PA on defeating Hamas is no surprise. The Fatah-dominated PA and Hamas have been at loggerheads ever since Fatah attempted to take control of Gaza from Hamas in the aftermath of democratic elections the Islamist party overwhelmingly won. The Fatah attempt was backed by the U.S.

And before the revolution in Egypt, the Mubarak government was a key regional ally of Israel and the U.S. Mubarak-run Egypt wanted to restrain Hamas' power in part because of the group's links to the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition group to Mubarak. But even after the revolution, Egypt has done its best not to antagonize Israel or the West. It has continued to crack down on smuggling tunnels into Gaza used for consumer goods and weapons. The one significant post-revolutionary change that has taken place is that the Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt is open for people, though its not open for goods.

WikiLeaks also showed the extent to which the U.S. shielded Israel from international action over alleged war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. One October 2009 cable detailed a meeting between UN Ambassador Susan Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Rice told Lieberman that the U.S. was doing everying it can to “blunt the effects of the Goldstone report” and that the U.S. was sure it could build a “blocking coalition” to ensure that the Security Council not take action the report. Sure enough, the Security Council helped bury the report.

Other cables show similar actions. Israel had attacked a number of UN facilities during the war, and the UN wanted to investigate those strikes. A report detailing the 9 incidents where UN facilities were struck by Israel recommended that an impartial inquiry be carried out. But WikiLeaks documents showed that after Rice brought pressure to bear on the UN Secretary General, the possibility of an independent inquiry was squashed.

Many of the revelations that Manning helped to bring into the light came as no surprise. Still, they offered intimate details of official meetings that exposed how U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is conducted. Now, Manning is facing life in prison for his actions--he's accused of violating military and civilian law. The trial is set to last for the next 12 weeks.


 
This Wednesday, the House of Representatives will vote on the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 (NDAA). This proposed NDAA would spend $640 billion, more than permitted by law, $ billions more than the Pentagon has asked for. This is an outrage!

Please send a message to your Representative! Tell him or her to support amendments to audit and tighten the Pentagon budget (while protecting healthcare and other programs for troops and veterans), bring the troops home from Afghanistan, rein in the lethal drones program, end the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that gave a green light to the past decade of endless warfare, and vote no on the overall NDAA unless amended appropriately.

Use your own words, but please emphasize that in this era of austerity--with sequester-driven cuts to Food Stamps, education, healthcare--many in Congress want to throw money at the Pentagon. Please ask your Representative to support pending amendments which would:
* Audit the Pentagon

* Cut Pork--unnecessary boondoggle weapons systems including the F-35 fighter plane, the V-22 Osprey and the Abrams tank.

* Eliminate nuclear weapons and provocative foreign military bases

* Bring the troops home from Afghanistan and vacate bases there

* Rein in the lethal drones program

* Repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)
Please send a message now and plan to follow up with a phone call on Wednesday at 202-224-3121.
For peace,
Shelagh Foreman
Shelagh Foreman
Program Director

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On The 50th Anniversary Of Medgar Evers' Murder

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/06/10/medgar-evers
***On The 50th Anniversary Of Medgar Evers' Murder -Bob Dylan's Only A Pawn In Their Game
 

 




Only A Pawn In Their Game by Bob Dylan
    Lyrics
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ’neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
 
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game
***On The 50th Anniversary Of Medgar Evers' Murder -Bob Dylan's Only A Pawn In Their Game




Only A Pawn In Their Game by Bob Dylan
    Lyrics
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ’neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game