Bradley Manning ensured leaks would not harm US, lawyer insists

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Bradley Manning ensured leaks would not harm US, lawyer insists

Ed Pilkington in Fort Meade, Maryland
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 January 2013 19.27 GMT

Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of instigating the largest leak of state secrets in US history, consciously selected the information he passed to WikiLeaks to ensure that it would be of no harm to the US and would not aid any foreign enemy, his lawyer argued on Tuesday.

David Coombs, Manning's civilian lawyer, revealed at a hearing at Fort Meade military base in Maryland what is likely to be a central pillar of the defence case at the soldier's court martial. A full trial is scheduled to start on 6 March.

Coombs said that the defence would be calling as a witness Adrian Lamo, the hacker who alerted military authorities to Manning's WikiLeaks activities, to give evidence about the web chat he had with Manning shortly before the soldier's arrest in Iraq in March 2010. The content of the web chat, Coombs suggested, would be used by the defence to show that Manning selected information to leak that "could not be used to harm the US or advantage any foreign nation".

The issue of Manning's motive in allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables and war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq to WikiLeaks goes to the heart of the case against the soldier, Coombs argued. The most serious charge against him, "aiding the enemy", that carries a maximum sentence – in this case of life in military custody with no chance of parole – rests on the US government proving that Manning knew, or reasonably should have known, that the leak would be exploited by anti-US forces.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/08/bradley-manning-hearing-fort-meade-lawyer

[idwiyo]

1. He exposed war crimes and is going to prison but war criminal gets nomination to become head of

CIA.

It pays to be a war criminal.

[Recursion]

3. I'm still waiting for these war crimes he allegedly exposed

He exposed State Department cables and emails among mid-level Iraq and Afghanistan commanders. The Gitmo dump was not from Manning, or if it was, neither he, Lamo, nor the government have claimed so.

[idwiyo]

4. Collateral Murder video.

Link to the video:

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D5rXPrfnU3G0

[Recursion]

6. Where the helicopter shoots armed men out after curfew and the journalist who was with them?

Yeah, sorry, I meant actual war crimes.

[msanthrope]

12. Don't bring facts into this. nt

[idwiyo]

20. Armed with what? Video camera? Interesting how you didn't mention kids. Guess they don't count.

[idwiyo]

21. See post #22

[Luminous Animal]

2. Kevin Gosztola is liveblogging the proceedings here:

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/01/08/bradley-mannings-january-motion-hearing-day-1/

On twitter here:
https://twitter.com/kgosztola

Alexa O'Brien here:
https://twitter.com/carwinb

Ed Pinkerton from The Guardian here:
https://twitter.com/Edpilkington

Nathan Fuller here:
https://twitter.com/nathanLfuller

[idwiyo]

5. Thank you for the links.

[Luminous Animal]

7. You are welcome.

[msanthrope]

8. Not a single charge dropped. About 4 months off a potential life sentence. Not looking

good for Manning.

[msanthrope]

9. Did he read everything he leaked? nt

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

10. I'm sorry...

Manning was a 23-year-old Pfc. who'd been in the service for less than three years when he started feeding information to Wikileaks. There's simply no way for him to have had the ability to determine (on his own) whether the information he was leaking who have been a significant security breach.

He may have been justified in what he was doing, but this is a silly argument from his defense team.

[msanthrope]

11. It's the only argument they have left....he's got a great defense attorney, but

Manning did himself no favors with his actions and the evidence trail he left.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

13. That's the problem with acts of civil disobedience...

You do the crime, you have to do the time.

I don't know any legal avenue for him to be acquitted.

[Recursion]

14. Pretrial punishment has in a few cases...

... made the Presiding Officer declare a prosecution hopelessly prejudiced. I'm no fan of Manning but the DoD has really fucked up here, both by making him a martyr and potentially blowing the case.

[msanthrope]

15. He should take the deal offered and start talking. nt

[hughee99]

17. Couldn't agree more!

This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the OP.

[Robb]

16. Establishing a benign motive is sort of like showing little harm was done...

...it doesn't change the conviction, only the length of sentence.

[jeff47]

18. Really? He manually reviewed gigabytes of data?

Including all sorts of information that he really had no expertise about? (Example - I don't know what about the optics in an Apache are classified, but we now have lots of information about them due to the video he leaked)

[rhett o rick]

19. The trial is a shame. Manning is not one of the elite and his actions embarassed the elite.

He is toast. Sadly there are those that also are not of the elite that side with the elite for different reasons. Some dont like whistle blowers because they chip away at our security bubble. Some side with the elite because they worship the elite and want to emulate them.

We are in a class war and our side is losing.

[idwiyo]

22. Manning should have been tried and acquitted on the same grounds as B-52 Two and other people

who tried to do their best to stop the illegal wars and the slaughter of civilians.




B-52 Two:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/may/26/iraq.iraq

Pitstop Ploughshares group:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitstop_Ploughshares
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77460