Chelsea Manning writes bill limiting government ability to use Espionage Act against whistleblowers

[bigtree]

Chelsea Manning retweeted
Raw Story ?@RawStory 13h13 hours ago
The US soldier imprisoned for leaking state secrets in 2010 seeks to reform laws used to prosecute journalists and whistleblowers in the name of national security http://ow.ly/MG3BO

Chelsea Manning, the US soldier serving a 35-year sentence for leaking state secrets, has written a 31-page bill that would extend protections against prosecution to anyone engaging in journalism and rein in the Espionage Act that has been used by the Obama administration to prosecute whistleblowers.

...She calls it the National Integrity and Free Speech Protection Act.

The model bill would shift the legal advantage away from government prosecutors acting in the name of “national security” and towards journalists and their sources. The proposal is significant coming from the individual who has personally felt the wrath of the US government towards official leakers more than anyone else in recent times.

The bill is an extension of a comment article that Manning wrote for the Guardian this week in which she lamented a crackdown on the part of the US government that has seen “more national security and criminal investigations into journalists and prosecutions of their sources than at any other time in the nation’s memory”. The bill takes that perceived injustice and attempts to put in place new safeguards against government overreach.

In other sections of the bill, Manning seeks to extend protections afforded to traditional newspapers and broadcasters to the 21st century breed of digital publishers. She proposes what would in effect be a federal shield law for anyone engaged in the act of journalism, which she defines broadly to include “gathering or seeking of news or information” concerning local, national or international events...


read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/chelsea-manning-writes-bill-limiting-governments-ability-to-use-espionage-act-against-whistleblowers/

[Blue_Tires]

1. I thought Manning was tried and convicted under the UCMJ?

[malthaussen]

2. 24 of the counts were drawn from civilian statutes incorporated in the UCMJ

Including 18 USC section 793(e), part of the "Espionage Act."

Anyway, nothing prevents her from having an interest in civil legislation.

-- Mal

[seabeyond]

3. manning downloaded a buncha shit to get a gotcha cause was pissed at treatment in army. nt

[bigtree]

5. that's pretty much the government defense against any claim of 'whistleblowing'

...disgruntled employee.

How do you prove that? Anyway, that assertion wasn't part of the prosecution. The espionage act doesn't provide for 'intent,' they just have to prove the act occurred.

[seabeyond]

6. i do not know about that. i do know what manning did. nt

[bigtree]

11. you know that her motives were different from what she stated?

...how?

from Democracy Now:

Manning acknowledged she gave the classified documents to WikiLeaks and explained what she wanted people to learn from her revelation...

MANNING: I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure-cooker environment of what we call "asymmetric warfare."

...Manning wasn't just some uneducated grunt handing over info that she had no way of discerning. She was an advanced system analyst. Her opening statement at her pretrial hearing gives a clearer picture of what she was collecting from the databases.

excerpt:

On several occasions during the month of March, I accessed information from a Government entity. I read several documents from a section within this Government entity. The content of two of these documents upset me greatly. I had difficulty believing what this section was doing...

I read more of the diplomatic cables published on the Department of State Net Centric Diplomacy. With my insatiable curiosity and interest in geopolitics I became fascinated with them. I read not only the cables on Iraq, but also about countries and events that I found interesting.

The more I read, the more I was fascinated with the way that we dealt with other nations and organizations. I also began to think the documented backdoor deals and seemingly criminal activity that didn't seem characteristic of the de facto leader of the free world.

Up to this point,during the deployment, I had issues I struggled with and difficulty at work. Of the documents release, the cables were the only one I was not absolutely certain couldn't harm the United States. I conducted research on the cables published on the Net Centric Diplomacy, as well as how Department of State cables worked in general...

The more I read the cables, the more I came to the conclusion that this was the type of information that should become public. I once read a and used a quote on open diplomacy written after the First World War and how the world would be a better place if states would avoid making secret pacts and deals with and against each other.

I thought these cables were a prime example of a need for a more open diplomacy. Given all of the Department of State cables that I read, the fact that most of the cables were unclassified, and that all the cables have a SIPDIS caption.

I believe that the public release of these cables would not damage the United States, however, I did believe that the cables might be embarrassing, since they represented very honest opinions and statements behind the backs of other nations and organizations.

In many ways these cables are a catalogue of cliques and gossip...

full statement: http://www.ibtimes.com/bradley-manning-news-transcript-soldiers-personal-statement-pretrial-hearing-1109173



Here's what I was talking about as far as the law (which is what Manning is arguing here) :

Daniel Ellsberg:

... the current state of whistleblowing prosecutions under the Espionage Act makes a truly fair trial wholly unavailable to an American who has exposed classified wrongdoing. Legal scholars have strongly argued that the US supreme court – which has never yet addressed the constitutionality of applying the Espionage Act to leaks to the American public – should find the use of it overbroad and unconstitutional in the absence of a public interest defense. The Espionage Act, as applied to whistleblowers, violates the First Amendment, is what they're saying.

We saw this entire scenario play out last summer in the trial of Chelsea Manning. The military judge in that case did not let Manning or her lawyer argue her intent, the lack of damage to the US, overclassification of the cables or the benefits of the leaks ... until she was already found guilty.

Without reform to the Espionage Act that lets a court hear a public interest defense – or a challenge to the appropriateness of government secrecy in each particular case –

[seabeyond]

12. i know manning downloaded 250k cables to get a gotcha. that is not a definition of whistle blower,

as far as i know.

[bigtree]

14. still nothing other than your opinion

...that she did it to get a 'gotcha.' That contradicts her testimony and other statements she made (which I took the time to excerpt and link to).

Your evidence?

[seabeyond]

20. it is not opinoon, but fact. fact. downloaded 250k cable. fact didnt know what was on them. fact,

handed over to another to find something to get on the administration.

fact. hit a woman. the commander.

no too fuckin impressed there, either.

[bigtree]

23. Manning was an expert senior systems analyst

...as she said in her statement to the court, she read the cables and knew well what they contained.

She did not 'hit a commander.' She punched a supervisor. It's not a fact that the incident led her to download and release the cables. It's not even evident from any testimony given.

Moreover, your 'facts' that you present here don't contradict or disprove her statement of intent.

[seabeyond]

24. i do not believe the contrived court statement, once defense was defined.

hit? punch? HE HIT or PUNCHED whichever you choose, the woman BOSS.

[geek tragedy]

4. Essentially, she's arguing for a repeal of the Espionage Act in its entirety

Extending whistleblower protection to 'journalists' becomes the exception that swallows the rule.

Step 1: You can't use this to prosecute journalists
Step 2: Define 'journalism' in such an expansive manner that includes Google searches-- "gathering or seeking of news or information." Or, anyone who violates the Espionage Act.

It's classic bootstrapping--anyone who violates the Espionage Act is effectively defined as a journalist--since the violation would amount to "gathering or seeking news or information." So, this is very Catch-22.

There's a debate to be had as to whether the Espionage Act should be repealed, of course. So, might as well have that debate instead of this sleight-of-hand repeal disguised as protecting journalists.

[Skidmore]

7. She may have written it but

she is not a member of Congress.

[Luminous Animal]

8. Neither are corporate lobbyists.

[Rex]

16. Keyboard rage...Manning is doing something productive! How dare she!

Good reply!

[randys1]

26. DING DING DING DING DING DING DING DING

[riderinthestorm]

9. Petraeus gets a slap on the wrist and continued access to advise Obama

Manning gets 30 years in Leavenworth.

[Oktober]

10. Manning wouldn't and shouldn't qualify as a whistle-blower anyways...

So what's the point I wonder....?

[bigtree]

13. I'll take the opinion of one of the country's most famous 'whistleblowers'

Ellsberg: "I believe Bradley Manning is the personification of the word whistleblower."

[Oktober]

18. Good for him...

Doesn't make it true...

He certainly isn't the most objective of sources either. However, if you just want someone to tell you what you want to hear that is the place to go.

[Adrahil]

21. Welp, he's wrong.

Manning exposed a LOT of classified data, including data who's legality is NOT in question, and may have put peoples' lives in danger.

Like Snowden, she was rather scattershot with what she released. I doubt she even knew what was in most of it.

Sorry, you don't get a pass for that.

[bigtree]

25. I'll take Ellsberg's word, again

... it's important to point out most of the material he put out was unclassified. The rest was classified 'secret,' which is relatively low level. All of the Pentagon Papers was classified top secret.

But in a fact no one seems to observe from his statement, Manning was working within a "SCIF," which stands for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. To get into a SCIF, a soldier needs a clearance higher than top secret. This means he had access to the highest classified material, such as communications and signals intelligence. This means he could've put out information top secret and higher, and purposely chose not to do so.


You:

"may have put peoples' lives in danger"

Proof?

[randys1]

27. And so will most who come to this without an agenda.

[Oktober]

31. No need to doubt or wonder...

It was physically impossible for Manning to have read everything he released.

[Rex]

15. Well this should piss off the keyboard warriors. Manning is doing something productive.

So that will piss them off to no end.

[bigtree]

17. I can't help thinking

...that if it had been the Bush administration in office at the time, prosecuting him, there would be no end to the praise for him here.

[Rex]

19. Bingo!

Bing to the O!

[LittleBlue]

22. Exactly

The hypocrisy is so thick on DU these days

[NaturalHigh]

28. LOL Yeah, I'm going to go out of my way to consider a "bill"...

written by a dishonorably discharged soldier who betrayed our country. Manning can run for office and practice writing "bills" after that 35-year prison sentence is served. Until then - meh.

[Maedhros]

29. You sound like a McCarthyite Republican.

Disgusting.

[NaturalHigh]

30. No, just someone who served in the military...

and has no sympathy for a traitor who released classified information.

McCarthyite Republican? Read a history book sometime. McCarthy persecuted people who were innocent of any crimes. Manning is an admitted traitor.

[Oktober]

32. Nailed it...

[KamaAina]

33. Could she run for Congress from prison?

Like Bobby Sands of the IRA did for Parliament?