Prosecuting selective “high crimes"

Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett

In prosecuting Bradley Manning, “‘[U.S. President] Barack Obama has now indicted as many people for whistle blowing or leaks as all previous presidents put together,’” said Nixon-era whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg. “‘[He] has now prosecuted three people two of whom are being prosecuted for acts carried out under [President] George W. Bush and for which Bush chose not to prosecute — Thomas Drake, who is under indictment, and Shamai Leibowitz, who pleaded guilty…


“‘Obama’s position of not looking backward seems to apply only to crimes like torture or illegal warrantless surveillance: he’s given absolute amnesty to the officials of the Bush administration.

“‘In the case of Thomas Drake, who told a reporter about a billion-and-half-dollar waste at the NSA; and in the case of Shamai Leibowitz, who says he exposed acts to a blogger that he regarded as illegal, [President Obama] was willing to look backward and prosecute. With Manning, he has shown more eagerness to [prosecute].’”

Bradley Manning is (or was) a top-secret credentialed U.S. Army intelligence analyst (PFC formerly SPC) accused of leaking classified documents. The United States Army Criminal Investigation Command in May 2010 arrested and detained Manning without charge for more than a month in a military jail at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. In early July, the U. S. government brought two misconduct charges against Manning for “‘transferring classified data onto his personal computer and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system’ and ‘communicating, transmitting and delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source.’”

A leaked film appeared to show a U.S. Apache helicopter crew killing civilians in Baghdad. Manning is also “suspected as being the source of the 90,000 sensitive documents about the war in Afghanistan also published by WikiLeaks. Edited by Australian Julian Assange, WikiLeaks has not confirmed Manning as the source but the Swedish site is said to be prepared to defend Manning. Computer hacker Adrian Lamo is believed to have informed on Manning.

Bradley Manning was reportedly born to English parents in the United States in 1987 then moved to Wales at the age of 13 and moved back to the States halfway through his sixth form [secondary school] studies and joined the U.S. army.


Sources
“Daniel Ellsberg: Obama tougher on leaks than any other U.S. president” (by News Source on August 2, 2010, “The Economist interviewed Daniel Ellsberg who pointed out President Obama’s hypocrisy”), War in context, http://warincontext.org/2010/08/02/daniel-ellsberg-obama-tougher-on-leaks-than-any-other-us-president/
Wikipedia
“WikiLeaks soldier grew up in Wales” (Simon Gaskell), July 29, 2010, Wales online, http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/07/29/wikileaks-soldier-grew-up-in-wales-91466-26954831/]