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So now we learn why Washington is giving Bradley Manning a variant of the Guantanamo treatment (presumably formally non-violent in this case) of the Guantanamo treatment. The Obama administration and its co-conspirators in Congress, Sweden, Britain, and elsewhere actually seem to face heavier sledding every day on this operation, although whether the growing opposition worldwide is becoming strong enough to stay their hand is a big question mark. We should keep in mind that Washington appears to have convened a secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia to file charges against Assange and perhaps others. Grand juries are instruments of the prosecutors and serve theit purposes. An ordinary citizen like myself may sometimes get harassed to do jury duty, but never grand jury duty. That is for those the prosecutors trust. There have been revolts of the juries from time to time, but never (as far as I know) revolts of the grand juries. They indict those whom they are asked to indict. If the government does not retreat, therefore, Assange will be indicted as a matter of course. Nonetheless, the fact that the US is banking on Manning to make a prosecution of Assange credible. is already putting more of a spotlight on the treatment he is receiving in prison although he has not been convicted of any crime. Of course, such treatment in prison is supposed to serve as proof to the public and the potential jury pool that the accused is obviously a dangerous criminal. The imprisonment of Assange in Britain in solitary confinement had in part the same purpose. To establish for the "public" that this is a dangerous criminal (or "terrorist" if you prefer) without having to present any evidence or file any charges. By the way, when I submitted, a few posts back. the NY Times article on the significant victory represented by the judge rejecting the challenge to bail, I neglected to point out a significant admission by the British prosecutioe: The Times reporters stated: In dismissing the appeal by prosecutors, Judge Ounsley said he accepted arguments by the prosecution that many of those who were posting bail for Mr. Assange were doing so because they supported WikiLeaks and might regard "absconding as a right and justified act" to keep the beleaguered Web site running. Note that the reasons for keeping in prison and solitary confinement have nothing to do with the sex abuse accusations. The reason he must be under maximum security prison conditions, despite the fact that he is charged with no offense, is that he is the leader of Wikileaks and that Wikileaks supporters have helped provide bail money. By definitionm, supporters of Wikileaks, a presumptively criminal organization according to the British prosecutor, are capable of any crime in support of the cause. The Times suggests that the judge endorsed this argument (without quoting him) but it is clear that he rejected the claim that Assange's leadership of Wikileaks justifies his imprisonment. This highlights tbe point I have been trying to make for quite a while. The issue is not whether the accusations of sexual misconduct against Assange have any basis or not (and it must be stressed that there are no charges against him, and that the evidence made publlc so far, from a legal point of view, does not clearly establish a crime). Regardless of the intentions of the women who felt (not necessarily without reason) wronged by him, the actions of the Swedish and British governments in this case have exactly zero to do with breaking new ground in the fight against sexual abuse of women. They have everything to do with Wikileaks and the damage it has done to the sacred diplomatic secrecy of the imperialist states, the US above all. In these circumstances workers and other democratic-minded people have to stand unconditionally against all the government operations against Assange -- with no ifs, ands, or buts. Fred Feldman http://www.salon.com/news/wikileaks/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2010 /12/16/wikileaks Getting to Assange through Manning By Glenn Greenwald AP Bradley Manning and Julian Assange (l to r). (updated below) In The New York Times this morning, Charlie Savage describes the latest thinking from the DOJ about how to criminally prosecute WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Federal investigators are "are looking for evidence of any collusion" between WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning -- "trying to find out whether Mr. Assange encouraged or even helped" the Army Private leak the documents -- and then "charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them." To achieve this, it is particularly important to "persuade Private Manning to testify against Mr. Assange." I want to make two points about this. First, the Obama administration faces what it perceives a serious dilemma: it is -- as Savage writes -- "under intense pressure to make an example of [Assange] as a deterrent to further mass leaking)," but nothing Assange or WikiLeaks has done actually violates the law. Moreover, as these Columbia Journalism School professors explain in opposing prosecutions, it is impossible to invent theories to indict them without simultaneously criminalizing much of investigative journalism. Thus, claiming that WikiLeaks does not merely receive and publish classify information, but rather actively seeks it and helps the leakers, is the DOJ's attempt to distinguish it from "traditional" journalism. As Savage writes, this theory would mean "the government would not have to confront awkward questions about why it is not also prosecuting traditional news organizations or investigative journalists who also disclose information the government says should be kept secret - including The New York Times." Continue reading But this distinction is totally illusory. Very rarely do investigative journalists merely act as passive recipients of classified information; secret government programs aren't typically reported because leaks just suddenly show up one day in the email box of a passive reporter. Journalists virtually always take affirmative steps to encourage its dissemination. They try to cajole leakers to turn over documents to verify their claims and consent to their publication. They call other sources to obtain confirmation and elaboration in the form of further leaks and documents. Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau described how they granted anonymity to "nearly a dozen current and former official" to induce them to reveal information about Bush's NSA eavesdropping program. Dana Priest contacted numerous "U.S. and foreign officials" to reveal the details of the CIA's "black site" program. Both stories won Pulitzer Prizes and entailed numerous, active steps to cajole sources to reveal classified information for publication. In sum, investigative journalists routinely -- really, by definition -- do exactly that which the DOJ's new theory would seek to prove WikiLeaks did. To indict someone as a criminal "conspirator" in a leak on the ground that they took steps to encourage the disclosures would be to criminalize investigative journalism every bit as much as charging Assange with "espionage" for publishing classified information. Second, Savage's story appears to shed substantial light on my story from yesterday about the repressive conditions under which Manning is being detained. The need to have Manning make incriminating statements against Assange -- to get him to claim that Assange actively, in advance, helped Manning access and leak these documents -- would be one obvious reason for subjecting Manning to such inhumane conditions: if you want to have better treatment, you must incriminate Assange. In The Huffington Post yesterday, Marcus Baram quoted Jeff Paterson, who runs Manning's legal defense fund, as saying that Manning has been extremely upset by the conditions of his detention but had not gone public about them in deference to his attorney's efforts to negotiate better treatment. Whatever else is true, the DOJ seems intent on pressuring Manning to incriminate Assnage. It would be bizarre indeed to make a deal with the leaking government employee in order to incriminate the non-government-employee who merely published the classified information. But that may very well at least partially explain (though obviously not remotely justify) why the Government is holding Manning under such repressive conditions: in order to "induce" him to say what they need him to say in order to indict WikiLeaks and Assange. * * * * * On MSNBC last night, Keith Olbermann did a segment on the conditions of Manning's incarceration, with FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley. At least on its website, CBS News also reported on the story. And I was on Democracy Now this morning elaborating on my Manning article yesterday, as well as discussing Savage's article this morning and the imminent release of Assange from prison: ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
