July 29, 2013

Major Opinion Shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA Surveillance and Privacy

Major Opinion Shifts, in the US and Congress, on NSA Surveillance and Privacy
Pew finds that, for the first time since 9/11, Americans are now more worried
about civil liberties abuses than terrorism
Monday, July 29, 2013 * The Guardian * by Glenn Greenwald

Numerous polls taken since our reporting on previously secret NSA activities first began have strongly suggested major public opinion shifts in how NSA surveillance and privacy are viewed. But a new comprehensive poll released over the weekend weekend by Pew Research provides the most compelling evidence yet of how stark the shift is.

Among other things, Pew finds that "a majority of Americans – 56% – say that federal courts fail to provide adequate limits on the telephone and internet data the government is collecting as part of its anti-terrorism efforts." And "an even larger percentage (70%) believes that the government uses this data for purposes other than investigating terrorism." Moreover, "63% think the government is also gathering information about the content of communications." That demonstrates a decisive rejection of the US government's three primary defenses of its secret programs: there is adequate oversight; we're not listening to the content of communication; and the spying is only used to Keep You Safe™.

But the most striking finding is this one:

"Overall, 47% say their greater concern about government anti-terrorism policies is that they have gone too far in restricting the average person's civil liberties, while 35% say they are more concerned that policies have not gone far enough to protect the country. This is the first time in Pew Research polling that more have expressed concern over civil liberties than protection from terrorism since the question was first asked in 2004."
For anyone who spent the post-9/11 years defending core liberties against assaults relentlessly perpetrated in the name of terrorism, polling data like that is nothing short of shocking. This Pew visual underscores what a radical shift has occurred from these recent NSA disclosures:

July 29, 2013

Ray McGovern: "Puttin' the Pressure on Putin" (Re: Snowden/NSA)

Puttin' the Pressure on Putin
Sunday, July 28, 2013 * Common Dreams
by Ray McGovern, Former CIA Analyst

The main question now on the fate of truth-teller Edward Snowden is whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will see any benefit in helping stop the United States from further embarrassing itself as it prances around the globe acting like a “pitiful, helpless giant.” That image was coined by President Richard Nixon, who insisted that the giant of America would merit those adjectives if it did not prevail in South Vietnam.

It is no secret that Putin is chuckling as Attorney General Eric Holder and other empty-shirts-cum-corporate-law-office-silk-ties – assisted ably by White House spokesperson Jay Carney – proceed willy-nilly to transform the Snowden case from a red-faced diplomatic embarrassment for the United States into a huge geopolitical black eye before the rest of the world.

Reminding the planet how out of step the United States has been from most of the civilized world, Holder offered a written promise to the Russians on July 9 (and released on Friday) that Snowden would neither be tortured nor put to death for disclosing secrets about how the National Security Agency has been spying on Americans and pretty much everybody else on Earth.

Holder assured the Russian Justice Minister that the U.S. “would not seek the death penalty for Mr. Snowden should he return to the United States.” Holder also saw fit to reassure his Russian counterpart that, “Mr. Snowden will not be tortured. Torture is unlawful in the United States.” Wow, that’s a relief!

The United States is so refined in its views on human rights that it won’t torture or execute a whistleblower. Of course, that only reminded everyone that the United States is one of the few advanced societies that still puts lots of people to death and was caught just last decade torturing detainees at CIA “black sites,” not to mention the brutal treatment of other prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

And, there was the humiliating treatment afforded another American whistleblower, Private Bradley Manning, whose forced nudity and long periods in solitary confinement during eight months of confinement at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, just outside of Washington D.C. prompted international accusations of torture.

Holder’s strange promise may have been designed to undercut Snowden’s bid for asylum, but it also reminded the world of America’s abysmal behavior on human rights.

Holder’s strange promise may have been designed to undercut Snowden’s bid for asylum, but it also reminded the world of America’s abysmal behavior on human rights. And, even if the United States promises not to torture someone, government lawyers have shown how they can play games with the definition of the term or just outright lie. Holder’s reputation for veracity is just a thin notch above that of National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who admits he has chosen to testify under oath to the “least untruthful” things.

Perhaps no one has told Holder how shockingly out of step with other civilized nations the U.S. finds itself on the issue of capital punishment. Just calling attention to that is a diplomatic gaffe of some proportion. The global trend toward abolition of the death penalty is unmistakable and increasing. The United States even is the outlier on this issue when compared to “brutal” Russia. In Russia, there has been a moratorium on executions since 1996, although it is still technically lawful.

The European Union holds a strong and principled position against the death penalty, and the abolition of capital punishment is a pre-condition for entry into the Union. The U.S. enjoys the dubious distinction of joining a list with China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia as the leaders in executing people.

Closing the Barn Door Too Late

Holder’s high-profile push to get the Russians to hand over Snowden damages the United States in other ways, too, such as reminding the world how the U.S. government has violated the privacy rights of people everywhere, including in allied countries. There is a reasonable argument to be made that the smartest U.S. move would be to simply leave Snowden alone.

Depending on your perspective, Edward Snowden has already done his damage – or, in my view, accomplished his patriotic duty of truth-telling – demonstrating with documents how the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have trashed the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/28-5

July 28, 2013

US Officials Attack Leaked Report on Civilians Drone Deaths

US Officials Attack Leaked Report on Civilians Drone Deaths
Unnamed government officials call report 'far from authoritative'
Friday, July 26, 2013 * Bureau of Investigative Journalism
by Chris Woods

US officials are claiming that an internal Pakistani assessment of civilian deaths from US drone strikes – obtained and published in full by the Bureau – is ‘far from authoritative.’

The secret document was obtained by the Bureau from three independent sources. It provides details of more than 70 CIA drone strikes between 2006 and 2009, and was compiled by civilian officials throughout Pakistan’s tribal areas.

They noted that at least 147 of 746 people listed as killed in CIA drone strikes between 2006 and 2009 were said to be civilians. That number could be as high as 220 civilian dead, the leaked report indicates.

Now unnamed US officials are questioning the contents of the leaked report. A written statement has been provided to news organisations including the Bureau.

The statement notes that the leaked document was based on ‘indirect input from a loose network of Pakistani government and tribal contacts’. As such, an official indicated, ‘the result is a report whose findings are far from authoritative’.

The same statement added: ‘The notion that the United States has undertaken operations in Pakistan that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Pakistanis is ludicrous. There is no credible information whatsoever to substantiate the report’s distorted figures.’

Voice of America also reported receiving a written statement from US officials. Its version cited one as saying that the leaked document is not credible since it relies ‘in part on erroneous media reporting’.

Pakistan estimates

There seems little gap between Pakistan’s official position on civilian casualties, and the contents of the leaked report obtained by the Bureau.

Earlier this year Ben Emmerson QC, the UN’s special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, was officially informed by Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs that CIA drones had so far killed at least 2,200 people in the country, including at least 400 civilians.

The figures were disclosed to Emmerson as he made a three-day visit to the country. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which compiled the figures, said a further 200 of the total dead were also likely to be civilians.

And reporting on leaked US intelligence documents obtained by news agency McClatchy suggests that US records privately indicate civilian deaths where publicly the administration denies them.

Those documents, which have not yet been published, are said to cover two periods: 2006 to 2008, and January 2010 to September 2011, and indicate that what US officials say publicly about drone strikes does not always match intelligence reports.

Pakistan’s government has so far refused to confirm the authenticity of the latest leaked document obtained by the Bureau – though it is not contesting the report’s claims of high civilian deaths.

‘I am not in a position to authenticate the veracity of this report, but the facts that are being revealed are something which is not new,’ Foreign Ministry spokesman Aizaz Ahmed Choudhry told Voice of America. ‘ We have always said that drone strikes cause civilian casualties.’

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/26-0

July 28, 2013

Oops! Surveillance Video Catches Police Informant Planting Crack On Business Owner

This guy was going to face up to 25 years in prison, based on a Cops "informant"
planting "evidence" in the guy's store. If the guys lawyers hadn't kept insisting
that the court allow a review of the surveillance video, the guy would STILL be
facing 25 years, for nothing.

I love it when stuff like this gets exposed. Bring on the S-U-N-L-I-G-H-T !

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Surveillance Video Catches Police Informant Planting Crack On Business Owner
The latest example of why paid police informants are not always a good idea.
Alternet * July 26, 2013 * Kristen Gwynne

The Black male owner of a head-shop selling so-called "tobacco" products in Scotia, New York seems to have been the victim of a police informant's set-up. Surveillance video from Dapp City Smoke Shop shows an unnamed white man in a leather jacket pull what appears to be crack cocaine out of his pocket and place it on the counter. The paid, confidential informant for the Schenectady County Sheriff's Office then photographs the drugs as "evidence."

Head-shop owner Donald Andrews was charged with felonies -- criminal sale and criminal possession of a controlled substance -- that could have put him behind bars for 25 years. Forced to close his store, Andrews had spent three weeks in county jail before his lawyer insisted the grand jury view the surveillance footage. On April 25, after authorities saw the tape, charges were dropped.

This week, the community gathered at a Christian Leadership Conference and expressed their concern with policing tactics, particularly incentivizing bogus busts by using paid informants. Many of them, facing their own charges, have a lot at stake in procuring convictions, however unethically. Community members also expressed concern that the set-up was racially motivated.

"With an informant like this, he will lie and plant things and he can't really be trusted," Robert Outlar, told NEWS10 at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Many of Andrews' supporters are concerned the same paid informant has acted afoul before, prompting calls for District Attorney Robert Carney to review past cases with which he was involved. The Schenectady County Sherriff Dominic Dagostino however, told NEWS10 he does not believe there are other problems related to the informant. How he could be so sure, given the circumstances, is not clear.

"We believe that police used this same person on other matters, including those involving residents who may have pleaded guilty out of fear of lengthier incarceration or after having concluded that no one would believe they were framed if they denied the accusations," Outlar also said.

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/surveillance-video-shows-police-informant-planting-drugs

July 27, 2013

The Iron Fist in the Velvet Glove: or Dream Now, While You Still Can.

Once the Iron Fist comes fully out of its Velvet Glove, all bets will be off. And since there is no telling anymore exactly when all the lights may go suddenly and completely dark, I may as well say it now, or forever hold my peace. Judging by the dense volatility going on behind the Curtain, it appears that the dreaded moment may be closer than anyone might care to imagine.

The culmination of the Manning, Assange, Snowden collective revelations has thrown our 100%-Saturation-Surveillance & Security State (you know, the guys who really ‘run things') into a hissy-fit because they were caught with their pants down, for all to see. Now literally every US citizen knows that they have been -- and are still being -- buggered by Big Brother. Now we are all “suspected terrorists”, until proven innocent by the NSA plowing through all our daily phone calls and emails. Privacy is a thing of the past, or so we are being told to “get over it”, to passively accept as “just the way it is”. Fuck that.

Unless you just fell off a turnip truck, the end of US Constitutional Democracy as we knew it probably does not come as a complete surprise. After all, we’d all been warned. Occupy Wall Street -- along with it’s brutal repression at the hands of our militarized police state -- said it loud and clear: “WE”VE ALL BEEN HAD!! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! WE THE 99% WANT OUR COUNTRY BACK!” But no, these voices were calously silenced by kettling pepper-spraying, club wielding, gun-toting militarized thugs, the same ones hired with tax dollars by the public, to supposedly “protect and serve” the public.

The deathly silence that befell our nation in the wake of the demise of OWS, still stinks in the air. The message from armed-to-the-teeth Big Brother is clear. “Trust and Obey. There is NO other way. Do it or we’ll beat you, kill you and/or imprison you!!” Now who can argue with that logic? Never mind that this amounts to a complete nullification of the US Constitution & Bill of Rights. Move along now. Nothing to see here.

Anyway I digress. I want to express my love and appreciation for the United States of America, as a citizen by birth, as a passionate Left-leaning patriot, as a life-long champion of human rights and more just (cooperative) economics. I hereby cry out for a renewed sense of what is possible, for imagination geeks & day dreamers everywhere, this is your call to actively participate in collaboratively dreaming our collective selves up to the highest. John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ comes to mind. Albert Einstein comes to mind. MLK Jr.’s I Have A Dream speech comes to mind. Daniel Ellsberg comes to mind, as do John & Robert Kennedy.

When it comes to dreaming up a better world, a dear friend of mine also comes to mind: Paul Levy. He recently authored a book on archetypal evil, called “Dispelling Wetiko: Breaking the Curse of Evil”. I served as one of 3 first-in-line editors on the book. Here are are a few quotes from the book:

What people are saying about the Wetiko book:
Sting writes: “The world would be a better place if everyone read this book”.
Thom Hartmann: “Paul Levy summons us by Wisdom’s call to community, action and our higher humanity. Truly initiatory, this book is inviting us to step through the Looking Glass and consciously participate in our own evolution. In exposing our psychic blindness, Levy is helping us to open our eyes and see”.

Paul Levy website:
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/wordpress/

So dream on DU. I love you all, regardless of whether we agree or not; and if we disagree, then I forgive you for being a dumb-ass. ~99th_Monkey

July 27, 2013

Amy Goodman: "America's Real Subversives: FBI Spying Then, NSA Surveillance Now"

America's Real Subversives: FBI Spying Then, NSA Surveillance Now
As the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington nears, let's not forget the history of agency overreach and abuse of power
July 26, 2013 * Common Dreams * by Amy Goodman

As the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington approaches, commemorating that historic gathering where Martin Luther King Jr gave his famous "I have a dream" speech, it is important to recall the extent to which King was targeted by the government's domestic spying apparatus. The FBI operation against King is one of the most shameful episodes in the long history of our government's persecution of dissenters.

Fifty years later, Edward Snowden, who is seeking temporary asylum to remain in Russia, took enormous personal risk to expose the global reach of surveillance programs overseen by President Barack Obama. His revelations continue to provoke worldwide condemnation of the US.

In a heavily redacted, classified FBI memo dated 4 January 1956 – just a little more than a month after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger – the Mobile, Alabama, FBI office stated that an agent "had been assigned by [redacted] to find out all he could about Reverend Martin L King, colored minister in Montgomery and leader in the bus boycott … to uncover all the derogatory information he could about King."

The FBI at that time was run by its founding director, J Edgar Hoover, who was deploying the vast resources he controlled against any and all perceived critics of the United States. The far-reaching clandestine surveillance, infiltration and disruption operation Hoover ran was dubbed "COINTELPRO", for counterintelligence program.

The FBI's COINTELPRO activities, along with illegal operations by agencies like the CIA, were thoroughly investigated in 1975 by the Church Committee, chaired by the Democratic US senator from Idaho, Frank Church. The Church committee reported that the FBI "conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of first amendment rights of speech and association." Among COINTELPRO's perverse activities was an FBI effort to threaten Martin Luther King Jr with exposure of an alleged extramarital affair, including the suggestion, made by the FBI to King, that he avoid embarrassment by killing himself.

Following the Church committee, Congress imposed serious limitations on the FBI and other agencies, restricting domestic spying. Among the changes was the passage into law of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa). Fisa compelled the FBI and others in the government to go to a secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in order to engage in domestic wiretapping.

Then came 11 September 2001, and the swift passage of the Patriot Act, granting broad, new powers of surveillance to intelligence agencies, including the FBI. Section 215 of that act is widely criticized, first for allowing the FBI to obtain records of what books people are signing out of the library. But now, more than 10 years later, and thanks to the revelations that have come from the Snowden leaks, we see that the government has used this law to perform dragnet surveillance on all electronic communications, including telephone "metadata", which can be analyzed to reveal intimate details of our lives, legalizing a truly Orwellian system of total surveillance.

In what is considered to be a litmus test of the potential to roll back the Obama administration's domestic spy programs, a bipartisan coalition of libertarian Republicans and progressive Democrats put forth an amendment to the latest defense authorization bill. Justin Amash, a Republican, and John Conyers, a Democrat, both of Michigan, co-sponsored the amendment, which would deny funding to the NSA to collect phone and data records of people who are not subjects of an investigation.

The White House took seriously the potential that its power to spy might get trimmed by Congress. On the eve of the debate on the Amash/Conyers amendment, House members were lobbied by NSA Director General Keith B Alexander, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, as well as by hawkish members of the congressional intelligence committees.

The amendment was narrowly defeated. A full bill that would similarly shut down the NSA program is currently in committee.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, and the journalists who are writing stories based on his whistleblowing, we now know that the Obama administration is collecting oceans of our data. Martin Luther King Jr was a dissident, an organizer, a critic of US wars abroad and of poverty and racism at home. He was spied on, and his work was disrupted by the federal government.

The golden anniversary of the March on Washington is 28 August. Deeply concerned about the crackdown on dissent happening under Obama, scholar Cornel West, professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, wondered if "Brother Martin [King] would not be invited to the very march in his name."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/07/26

July 27, 2013

The militarization of America

The militarization of America
By Bill van Auken * OpEdNews * 7/26/2013

This week's deployment of Blackhawk helicopters in Chicago is only the latest in a series of "urban warfare training" exercises that have become a familiar feature of American life.

As elsewhere, this exercise was sprung unannounced on a startled civilian population. Conducted in secrecy, apparently with the collusion of local police agencies and elected officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, the ostensible purpose of these exercises is to give US troops experience in what Pentagon doctrine refers to as "Military Operations on Urban Terrain."



Such operations are unquestionably of central importance to the US military. Over the past decade, its primary mission, as evidenced in Afghanistan and Iraq, has been the invasion and occupation of relatively powerless countries and the subjugation of their resisting populations, often in house-to-house fighting in urban centers.

The Army operates a 1,000-acre Urban Training Center in south-central Indiana that boasts over 1,500 "training structures" designed to simulate houses, schools, hospitals and factories. The center's web site states that it "can be tailored to replicate both foreign and domestic scenarios."

What does flying Blackhawks low over Chicago apartment buildings or rolling armored military convoys through the streets of St. Louis accomplish that cannot be achieved through the sprawling training center's simulations? Last year alone, there were at least seven such exercises, including in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Tampa, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Creeds, Virginia.

The most obvious answer is that these exercises accustom troops to operating in US cities, while desensitizing the American people to the domestic deployment of US military might.

Preparations for such deployments are already far advanced. Over the past decade, under the pretext of prosecuting a "global war on terror," Washington has enacted a raft of repressive legislation and created a vast new bureaucracy of state control under the Department of Homeland Security. Under the Obama administration, the White House has claimed the power to throw enemies of the state into indefinite military detention or even assassinate them on US soil by means of drone strikes, while radically expanding electronic spying on the American population.

Part of this process has been the ceaseless growth of the power of the US military and its increasing intervention into domestic affairs. In 2002, the creation of the US Northern Command for the first time dedicated a military command to operations within the US itself.

Just last May, the Pentagon announced the implementation of new rules of engagement for US military forces operating on American soil to provide "support" to "civilian law enforcement authorities, including responses to civil disturbances."

The document declares sweeping and unprecedented military powers under a section entitled "Emergency Authority." It asserts the authority of a "federal military commander" in "extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances." In other words, the Pentagon brass claims the unilateral authority to impose martial law.

These powers are not being asserted for the purpose of defending the US population against terrorism or to counter some hypothetical emergency. The US military command is quite conscious of where the danger lies.

In a recent article, a senior instructor at the Fort Leavenworth Command and General Staff College and former director of the Army's School of Advanced Military Studies laid out a telling scenario for a situation in which the military could intervene...

"The Great Recession of the early twenty-first century lasts far longer than anyone anticipated. After a change in control of the White House and Congress in 2012, the governing party cuts off all funding that had been dedicated to boosting the economy or toward relief. The United States economy has flatlined, much like Japan's in the 1990s, for the better part of a decade. By 2016, the economy shows signs of reawakening, but the middle and lower-middle classes have yet to experience much in the way of job growth or pay raises. Unemployment continues to hover perilously close to double digits..."

In other words, the Pentagon sees these conditions -- which differ little from what exists in the US today -- producing social upheavals that can be quelled only by means of military force.

What is being upended, behind the scenes and with virtually no media coverage, much less public debate, are constitutional principles dating back centuries that bar the use of the military in civilian law enforcement. In the Declaration of Independence itself, the indictment justifying revolution against King George included the charge that he had "affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power."

Side by side with the rising domestic power of the military, the supposedly civilian police have been militarized. An article published by the Wall Street Journal last weekend entitled "The Rise of the Warrior Cop" graphically described this process:

"Driven by martial rhetoric and the availability of military-style equipment -- from bayonets and M-16 rifles to armored personnel carriers -- American police forces have often adopted a mind-set previously reserved for the battlefield. The war on drugs and, more recently, post-9/11 antiterrorism efforts have created a new figure on the US scene: the warrior cop -- armed to the teeth, ready to deal harshly with targeted wrongdoers, and a growing threat to familiar American liberties."

The article describes the vast proliferation of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) units to virtually every town in America, fueled by some $35 billion in grants from the Department of Homeland Security, "with much of the money going to purchase military gear such as armored personnel carriers."

More: http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-militarization-of-Amer-by-Bill-van-Auken-130726-22.html

July 27, 2013

Edward Snowden better off in Russia than US, his father says

It's a sad day for America when Russia is "safer" than the USA for a Whistle-blower

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Edward Snowden better off in Russia than US, his father says
NSA whistleblower's father says he has lost faith in the US justice department and his son needs a safe haven
Associated Press in McLean, Virginia * The Guardian * Friday 26 July 2013 21.16 EDT

The father of the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden says his son has been so vilified by the Obama administration and members of Congress that he is now better off staying in Russia.

Lon Snowden had been working behind the scenes with lawyers to try to find a way his son could get a fair trial in the US. Edward Snowden has been charged in federal court with violating the Espionage Act by leaking details of NSA surveillance.

But in a telephone interview with the Associated Press, the elder Snowden said he had lost faith in recent weeks that his son would be treated fairly by the justice department. He now thinks his 30-year-old son is better off avoiding the US if possible until an administration that respects the constitution comes into office.

"If it were me, knowing what I know now, and listening to advice of sage people like [Pentagon Papers leaker] Daniel Ellsberg ... I would attempt to find a safe haven," Snowden said.

As a military analyst more than four decades ago, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret study of America's involvement in Vietnam, to newspapers.

The elder Snowden said he thought Russia was probably the best place to seek asylum because it was most likely to withstand US pressure. Edward Snowden applied for temporary asylum in Russia last week.

July 27, 2013

Bradley Manning's 'sole purpose was to make a difference'. (defense's closing arguments)

Bradley Manning's 'sole purpose was to make a difference', lawyer insists
In closing arguments, defence lawyer paints portrait of Wikileaks source as someone without 'evil intent'
Ed Pilkington at Fort Meade * The Guardian * Friday 26 July 2013 15.27 EDT

The lawyer representing the WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning has asked the judge presiding over the soldier's court martial to decide between two stark portrayals of the accused – the prosecution's depiction of him as a traitor and seeker of notoriety, and the defence's account that he was motivated by a desire to make a difference in the world and save lives.

Over four hours of intense closing arguments at Fort Meade in Maryland, David Coombs set up a moral and legal clash of characterisations, between the Manning that he laid out for the court, and the callous and fame-obsessed Manning sketched on Thursday by the US government. "What is the truth?" the lawyer asked Colonel Denise Lind, the presiding judge who must now decide between the two accounts to reach her verdict.

"Is Manning somebody who is a traitor with no loyalty to this country or the flag, who wanted to download as much information as possible for his employer WikiLeaks? Or is he a young, naive, well-intentioned soldier who has his humanist belief central to his decisions and whose sole purpose was to make a difference."

Coombs answered his own rhetorical question by arguing that all the evidence presented to the trial over the past seven weeks pointed in one direction. "All the forensics prove that he had a good motive: to spark reforms, to spark change, to make a difference. He did not have a general evil intent."

Coombs ridiculed the prosecution case as a "diatribe" and said that its account of his client as someone who only cared about himself as the opposite of the truth. "He is concerned about everybody, he is concerned to save lives."

The lawyer continued: "He felt were were all connected to everybody, we had a duty to our fellow human beings. It may have been a little naive, but that is not anti-American, it is really what America is about."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/26/bradley-manning-wikileaks-defence-lawyer

July 26, 2013

Manning Trial Today: Tensions flare between military & journalists during closing arguments

Tensions continued to flare between the military and journalists covering the closing arguments in the Bradley Manning trial on Friday.

On Thursday, journalists reported that armed military officers were walking the aisles of the media center, leaning over and looking at their computers, and telling them they were barred from tweeting.

HuffPost's Matt Sledge, who is at Fort Meade, wrote that the ramped-up security was a result of a direct order from Denise Lind, the military judge overseeing the trial.

O'Brien said things were "less tense" than on Thursday, but there were clearly lingering issues, judging from the tweets being sent out:

TWEETS at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/journalists-bradley-manning-trial-libya_n_3660309.html?utm_hp_ref=media