Whaddayathink? Are The Peeps awakening or not? I sense we’ve reached the tipping point —- but my optimism has blinded me in the past.
Here’s Julian Assange’s statement on the verdict announced today by the judge in the Bradley Manning court martial.
Statement by Julian Assange on Verdict in Bradley Manning Court-Martial |
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| By: Julian Assange Tuesday July 30, 2013 4:39 pm | |
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Julian Assange (Photo by Antonio Marín Segovi via flickr)
Today Bradley Manning, a whistleblower, was convicted by a military
court at Fort Meade of 19 offences for supplying the press with
information, including five counts of ‘espionage’. He now faces a
maximum sentence of 136 years.
The ‘aiding the enemy’ charge has fallen away. It was only included,
it seems, to make calling journalism ‘espionage’ seem reasonable. It is
not.
Bradley Manning’s alleged disclosures have exposed war crimes,
sparked revolutions, and induced democratic reform. He is the
quintessential whistleblower.
This is the first ever espionage conviction against a whistleblower.
It is a dangerous precedent and an example of national security
extremism. It is a short sighted judgment that can not be tolerated and
must be reversed. It can never be that conveying true information to the
public is ‘espionage’.
President Obama has initiated more espionage proceedings against
whistleblowers and publishers than all previous presidents combined.
In 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama ran on a platform that
praised whistleblowing as an act of courage and patriotism. That
platform has been comprehensively betrayed. His campaign document
described whistleblowers as watchdogs when government abuses its
authority. It was removed from the internet last week.
Throughout the proceedings there has been a conspicuous absence: the
absence of any victim. The prosecution did not present evidence that –
or even claim that – a single person came to harm as a result of Bradley
Manning’s disclosures. The government never claimed Mr. Manning was
working for a foreign power.
The only ‘victim’ was the US government’s wounded pride, but the
abuse of this fine young man was never the way to restore it. Rather,
the abuse of Bradley Manning has left the world with a sense of disgust
at how low the Obama administration has fallen. It is not a sign of
strength, but of weakness.
The judge has allowed the prosecution to substantially alter the
charges after both the defense and the prosecution had rested their
cases, permitted the prosecution 141 witnesses and extensive secret
testimony. The government kept Bradley Manning in a cage, stripped him
naked and isolated him in order to crack him, an act formally condemned
by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for torture. This was never a
fair trial.
The Obama administration has been chipping away democratic freedoms
in the United States. With today’s verdict, Obama has hacked off much
more. The administration is intent on deterring and silencing
whistleblowers, intent on weakening freedom of the press.
The US first amendment states that “Congress shall make no law…
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. What part of ‘no’
does Barack Obama fail to comprehend?
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