Federal Appeals Court Denies Chelsea Manning's Bail Request

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ― A federal appeals court on Monday denied a request by former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to be released from jail on bail, and upheld a lower court’s decision to hold Manning in civil contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury.

The ruling marks a blow for Manning, who has been detained since March after she declined to answer questions in connection with the government’s long-running investigation into Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange.

A spokesman for Manning and Manning’s attorney could not be immediately reached for comment.

Harvard rescinds Chelsea Manning's visiting fellowship after CIA chief protests

Harvard University has rescinded an offer to make Chelsea Manning a visiting fellow after the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, cancelled an appearance at the university.

Pompeo had been scheduled to appear at Harvard’s John F Kennedy school of government to give a speech on global security concerns, but withdrew on Thursday, calling the university’s invitation to Manning a “shameful stamp of approval”.

The Long, Lonely Road of Chelsea Manning

On a gray morning this spring, Chelsea Manning climbed into the back seat of a black S.U.V. and directed her security guard to drive her to the nearest Starbucks. A storm was settling over Manhattan, and Manning was prepared for the weather, in chunky black Doc Martens with an umbrella and a form-fitting black dress. Her legs were bare, her eyes gray blue. She wore little makeup: a spot of eyeliner, a smudge of pink lip gloss.

At Starbucks, she ordered a white-chocolate mocha and retreated to a nearby stool. Manning has always been small (5 foot 4), but in her last few months at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, she jogged religiously, outside in the prison yard and around the track of the prison gym, and her body had taken on a lithe sharpness, apparent in the definition of her arms and cheekbones. She looked healthy and fit, if a little uneasy, as people who have served long spells in prison often do.

The Inside Story of Chelsea Manning’s Unlikely Release From Prison

When Chelsea Manning asked President Barack Obama to commute her prison sentence last November—after more than six grueling years behind bars—few thought she had much of a chance. The intense politics surrounding Manning’s conviction for the largest leak of state secrets in US history suggested that her freedom remained a long shot. “We didn’t really think it would work,” Nancy Hollander, a criminal defense lawyer who represents Manning, told me recently.

Compromise does not work with our political opponents. When will we learn?

Barack Obama left behind hints of a progressive legacy. Unfortunately, despite his faith in our system and his positive track record on many issues over the last eight years, there have been very few permanent accomplishments.

This vulnerable legacy should remind us that what we really need is a strong and unapologetic progressive to lead us. What we need as well is a relentless grassroots movement to hold that leadership accountable.

Five Reasons that President Obama Was Right to Commute Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

On Tuesday, three days before the end of Barack Obama’s term as President, the White House announced that he had commuted the sentences of two hundred and nine people, including Private Chelsea Manning, who was arrested, in 2010, for giving hundreds of thousands of files classified as secret—the revelation of which caused diplomatic tumult and other difficulties for the United States—to WikiLeaks. Manning had been court-martialed and sentenced to thirty-five years in military prison. Under Obama’s order, she will be released in May, after being incarcerated for more than six years. Here are five reasons that Obama’s decision on Manning was the right and just move.

Along With Chelsea Manning, Obama Granted Hundreds Of Federal Drug Offenders Early Freedom

WASHINGTON ― In one of his final acts in office, President Barack Obama granted clemency to 209 federal prisoners on Tuesday, almost all of whom were convicted of drug crimes.

Obama has now granted more commutations than any president in American history, according to White House Counsel Neil Eggleston. The number of federal prisoners who have had their sentences commuted during Obama’s presidency totals 1,385 individuals, though many of those who had their sentences shortened will spend several more years behind bars. The latest group includes more than 100 individuals who believed they would die in prison, as they’re serving life sentences, according to the White House.

Julian Assange reneges on promise to accept extradition if Chelsea Manning’s sentence is commuted

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is reneging on the promise he made last week to accept extradition to the United States if President Barack Obama granted clemency to Chelsea Manning.

“Mr. Assange welcomes the announcement that Ms. Manning’s sentence will be reduced and she will be released in May, but this is well short of what he sought,” said Barry Pollack, Assange’s U.S.-based attorney, in an email to The Hill on Wednesday.

Chelsea Manning: government anti-leak program a 'blank check for surveillance'

Thousands of US government employees under permanent surveillance are being investigated for signs of “greed”, “ego”, money worries, disgruntlement or other flaws in the hope of intercepting the next big official leak, according to a document obtained by Chelsea Manning.

The extent of the government’s internal surveillance system designed to prevent massive leaks of the sort linked to WikiLeaks and the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is revealed in the document, published here by the Guardian for the first time. The US soldier, who is serving 35 years in military prison as the source of the 2010 WikiLeaks disclosure of secret state documents, requested her own intelligence file under freedom of information laws.

Transphobia at the Intersection of the Military and Prison Industrial Complexes

My home - or, at least my place of residence for the time being - is the US Disciplinary Barracks, the United States' crown jewel military prison. Being both a military institution and a prison, it lies in a unique, though not necessarily uncommon, intersection of two of the world's largest institutional ecosystems: the military-industrial complex and the prison industrial complex.

My status as a trans woman in a military prison places me in the unique position in which the extraordinary administration, regulation, surveillance and policing of gender norms, expectations, vices and virtues clash with my most fundamental understanding of my identity and how I intend to express myself as a female. For instance, although I am now being allowed to wear female undergarments, use cosmetics and take hormones, I am not allowed to grow my hair beyond the two inches authorized by the military.

No Chelsea morning for hypocritical world leaders in Paris

When a former U.S. army private awoke in her jail cell just over a week ago -- some 17 months into a 35-year jail sentence -- she could have been forgiven for thinking, in the immediate aftermath of the terrible Paris magazine attacks, that the commutation of her punitive sentence for exercising freedom of speech and conscience was about to be placed on President Obama's desk. Obama, like many world leaders, had just issued stunning, passionate statements about freedom of the press, human dignity, and all the great things that make countries like Canada and the U.S. just so undeniably terrific.

Shooting the Messenger

There is a deeply misguided attempt to sacrifice Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning and Jeremy Hammond on the altar of the security and surveillance state to justify the leaks made by Edward Snowden. It is argued that Snowden, in exposing the National Security Agency’s global spying operation, judiciously and carefully leaked his information through the media, whereas WikiLeaks, Assange, Manning and Hammond provided troves of raw material to the public with no editing and little redaction and assessment. Thus, Snowden is somehow legitimate while WikiLeaks, Assange, Manning and Hammond are not.

News Outlets Continue To Refer To Chelsea Manning As 'He'

The news on Thursday that Bradley Manning wanted to be known in future as a woman named Chelsea led to controversy when several news outlets continued to refer to Manning as "he."

Manning made her announcement in a letter that was first read on the "Today" show. Despite her stated desire, the Associated Press and Reuters both steered clear of using "she" in their pieces on the story.

Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers Whistleblower, Sees Bradley Manning's Conviction As The Beginning Of Police State

The NSA surveillance of millions of emails and phone calls. The dogged pursuit of whistleblower Edward Snowden across the globe, regardless of the diplomatic fallout. And the sentencing of Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for giving a cache of government files to the website WikiLeaks. Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg sees these events as signs that the United States is becoming a police state.

"We have not only the capability of a police state, but certain beginnings of it right now," Ellsberg told HuffPost Live Wednesday. "And I absolutely agree with Edward Snowden. It's worth a person's life, prospect of assassination, or life in prison or life in exile -- it's worth that to try to restore our liberties and make this a democratic country."

Bradley Manning To Barack Obama: I Did It 'Out Of Love For My Country'

FORT MEADE, Md. -- The text of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning's statement that will be sent to the president, as read by defense attorney David Coombs following Manning's sentencing Wednesday:

The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We've been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this fact we've had to alter our methods of combating the risks posed to us and our way of life.

In Chelsea Manning, We Finally Have a Scapegoat for the Iraq War

Update, 8/22/2013: Yesterday, Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Today, Chelsea Elizabeth Manning announced through her lawyer that she will live the rest of her life as a woman, and we have amended our comment from yesterday in conformity with who she is. Chelsea Manning will most likely be imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth, which like all other US military prisons and many civilian ones, does not provide hormone therapy or gender transition surgery to transgender prisoners. These policies should be reversed immediately.
 
The best way to cope with humiliating military disaster is to find a scapegoat. For the Germans after World War I, it was leftists and Jews who “stabbed the nation in the back”—the Dolchstoßlegende that set the global standard. In the resentful folklore that grows like kudzu around our Vietnam War, American defeat is blamed on the hippies and anti-American journalists who sabotaged a military effort that was on the verge of total victory. (More sophisticated revanchists season this pottage with imprecations against General Westmoreland’s leadership.)