Chelsea Manning freed from prison

SUBHEAD: Manning served more time in prison than any other American leaker of information.

By David Kravits on 17 April 2107 for Ars Technica -
(https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/chelsea-manning-freed-from-military-prison/)


Image above: Chelsea Manning poses for new portrait with cation, " So here I am everyone!!" From (https://twitter.com/xychelsea/status/865250670831702016).

Chelsea Manning was released from the Military Corrections Complex at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas on Wednesday—nearly three decades before the Army private's sentence was up for leaking classified military documents to WikiLeaks.

The intelligence analyst, who left the barracks at 2am (CDT), was court-martialed and convicted of leaking more than 700,000 documents and video about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. She came out as a transgender woman shortly after being handed an unprecedented 35-year prison sentence in 2013.

Then-President Barack Obama commuted Manning's term in January and set a May 17 release date. Manning, whom President Trump has called a "TRAITOR" on Twitter, had been in prison longer than any other US leaker convicted under the Espionage Act. She was eligible for parole in six years.

Because Manning's conviction is under appeal, she is to remain in the military on "excess leave in an active-duty status" entitling her to healthcare, the military said. If she loses her appeal, she might be dishonorably discharged and could lose her healthcare and other benefits.

Neither the military nor Manning's supporters said where she would be living. But Manning tweeted in January she would return to Maryland, where she previously resided.

"I am looking forward to so much! Whatever is ahead of me is far more important than the past. I’m figuring things out right now—which is exciting, awkward, fun, and all new for me," Manning said in a statement.

Manning said in a petition to Obama that she "did not intend to harm the interests of the United States or harm any service members." Among other reasons, she wanted to be released in order to continue her transition-related healthcare. A White House online petition saw more than 100,000 people demand that Obama commute Manning's sentence.

"It has been my view that, given she went to trial, that due process was carried out, that she took responsibility for her crime, that the sentence that she received was very disproportionate relative to what other leakers had received. It made sense to commute, and not pardon, her sentence," Obama said of Manning's commutation during the final days of his presidency.

Manning enlisted with the Army in 2007 and leaked the documents at a Barnes & Noble in suburban Maryland. The classified files, which were on a camera's memory stick, were uploaded during a 2010 mid-tour leave from Iraq.

At trial, Manning testified about a classified video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack in Iraq that was ultimately found to have killed civilians and a Reuters journalist. "For me, that was like a child torturing an ant with a magnifying glass," Manning said. Using Tor, Manning uploaded the video and documents to WikiLeaks. The video went viral and is known as the "collateral murder" video.

In the days before Obama commuted Manning's sentence, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he would surrender to US authorities if Obama showed Manning mercy. Assange is living in a self-imposed exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London amid fears he could be charged in the US for exposing the secrets Manning leaked.

However, Assange weaseled out of his pledge, saying he meant he would surrender only if Obama allowed Manning to leave the brig immediately, not on May 17.



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Army finds against Manning

SUBHEAD: This sets a 'concerning precedent,' as US Army finds Manning guilty of bogus charges.

By Laurali McCauley on 18 August 2015 for Common Dreams -
(http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/08/18/setting-concerning-precedent-us-army-finds-manning-guilty-bogus-charges)


Image above: Ahead of the hearing, supporters delivered 100,000 signatures to the Army to drop the bogus charges. Photo by Mike Avender. From original article.

A U.S. Army disciplinary board on Tuesday found Pfc. Chelsea Manning "guilty" of four charges, including one for possessing LGBTQ reading material like the Caitlyn Jenner issue of Vanity Fair and another for having a tube of expired toothpaste in her cell.

As punishment for the alleged transgressions, the whistleblower received 21 days of recreational restrictions, excluding her from time in the gym, library, and outdoors; she faced a maximum possible sentence of indefinite solitary confinement.

However, Manning as well as her attorneys fear that the conviction, now part of her permanent record, will be used against her in future parole or clemency hearings and could potentially delay her transition to minimum security custody status by years.

Ahead of the hearing, supporters delivered 100,000 signatures to the Army liaison office, calling on the military to drop the charges.

"When I spoke to Chelsea earlier today she wanted to convey the message to supporters that she is so thankful for the thousands of people from around the world who let the government know that we are watching and scrutinizing what happens to her behind prison walls," said Chase Strangio, Manning's attorney at the ACLU. "It was no doubt this support that kept her out of solitary confinement."

"But the fact that Chelsea had to face today’s four-hour Disciplinary Board without counsel, and will now be punished for daring to share her voice, sets a concerning precedent for the remaining decades of her incarceration," Strangio continued.

"No one should have to face the lingering threat of solitary confinement for reading and writing about the conditions we encounter in the world," the attorney added. "Chelsea’s voice is critical to our public discourse about government accountability and trans justice and we can only preserve it if we stay vigilant in our advocacy on her behalf."

Earlier:

Pfc. Chelsea Manning has undergone harassment and what many deem torture, and on Tuesday the U.S. Army whistleblower is faced with a potential sentence of indefinite solitary confinement for offenses her advocates say are "extreme and ridiculous."

Ahead of the 2:30 PM EST disciplinary hearing, supporters collected 100,000 signatures which they delivered Tuesday morning to the Army Liaison office on Capitol Hill. The petition is calling on the disciplinary board to open the hearing to the public and drop the charges, arguing that the egregious punishment would be an affront to justice.

"Putting any human being in indefinite solitary confinement is inexcusable, and for offenses as trivial as these (an expired tube of toothpaste, and possession [of] magazines?) it is a discredit to America's military and its system of justice," the petition states.

However, as of this writing, the hearing remained closed with no attorney present, forcing Manning to represent herself. Supporters told Common Dreams that they expect to hear the result of the hearing by the end of the day. However, they note that if Manning does not call from the prison, it likely means that the sentence was severe.

Over the weekend, news broke that military prison authorities were denying Manning access to the facility's legal library.

As Common Dreams previously reported, prison authorities are accusing Manning of such violations as "medicine misuse," prohibited property, and disorderly conduct for such "innocuous" offenses as possessing books and magazines related to politics and LBGTQ issues. Supporters say these "trumped up" charges are being levied to silence the whistleblower, who was jailed for leaking cables that exposed U.S. military misconduct, including the killing of innocent civilians.

"The U.S. government has a terrifying track record of using imprisonment and torture to silence free speech and dissenting voices," said Evan Greer, campaign director of digital rights group Fight for the Future, which initiated the petition. "They’ve tortured Chelsea Manning before and now they’re threatening to do it again, without any semblance of due process."

Greer continues, "Perhaps the military thought that now that Chelsea is behind bars she’s been forgotten, but the tens of thousands who signed this petition are proving them wrong. Chelsea Manning is a hero and the whole world is watching the U.S. government’s deplorable treatment of whistleblowers, transgender people, and prison inmates in general."

Since Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison in August 2013, she began writing a column for the Guardian and has garnered international support, emerging as figure of free speech and transgender rights.

Chase Strangio, Manning's attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, says that thousands of signatures collected in her defense and the outpouring of support "can break down the isolation of her incarceration and sends the message to the government that the public is watching and standing by her as she fights for her freedom and her voice."

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Injustice for Chelsea Manning 8/12/15


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Injustice for Chelsea Manning

SUBHEAD: She may face indefinite solitary confinement for having Jenner Vanity Fair issue in cell.

By Ed Pilkington on 12 August 2015 for the Guardian -
(http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/12/chelsea-manning-solitary-confinement-toothpaste-army)


Image above: How Chelsea Manning sees herself. By Alicia Neal, in cooperation with Chelsea herself, commissioned by the Chelsea Manning Support Network, 23 April 2014. From (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:C_Manning_Finish-1.jpg).

Expired tube of toothpaste and Malala Yousafzai memoir also among cell items that led to US soldier being allegedly charged with four violations of custody rules. Chelsea Manning’s lawyer says charges against her are ‘utterly ridiculous’ since US army soldier was allowed to have books and toothpaste in her cell.

Chelsea Manning, the soldier and Guardian columnist, has been denied access to a prison legal library days before a crucial hearing at which she will represent herself against charges including possession of unapproved reading material, according to a message posted to her official Twitter account at the weekend.

The hearing is part of a legal process that could result in indefinite solitary confinement for Manning, for reported violations that also include storing a tube of expired toothpaste in her military prison cell.

The army has scheduled a hearing on the violations for Tuesday at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where Manning is being held. She was given a 35-year sentence for having been the source of the vast leak of US state secrets to WikiLeaks.

“Prison staff are now denying me access to the law library @ scheduled times – w/only 2 days until my board,” read the tweet, which was posted by supporters in contact with the prisoner.

A call to the US disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth was not immediately returned.

Earlier this week, Chase Strangio, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who is handling Manning’s legal dispute with the US military over her health treatment in prison as a transgender woman, told the Guardian it seemed Manning was being unfairly targeted.

“Chelsea has a growing voice in the public discussion,” Stangio said, “and it would not surprise me were these charges connected to who she is.”

A petition calling on the military the drop charges against Manning for the reported prison infractions has gained 64,000 signatures, said Evan Greer, campaign director of the activist nonprofit Fight for the Future, one of four groups circulating the petition.

The groups plan to deliver the signatures to John McHugh, the secretary of the army, in Washington on Tuesday morning, in advance of Manning’s hearing.

“This is a hearing where she’s facing a disciplinary board that has the power to essentially remand her to indefinite solitary confinement,” Greer told the Guardian. “She has to face this board without her attorneys present.

And now she’s being denied access to the resources to prepare a proper defense.

“Those things being denied paint a really grim picture of what it looks like the military’s trying to do to her, and should arouse suspicion from the public and from journalists.”

Manning has told supporters that property confiscated from her cell included the memoir I Am Malala by Nobel peace prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, the Caitlyn Jenner issue of Vanity Fair, a novel featuring trans women called A Safe Girl to Love and the LGBT publication Out Magazine.

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