Bradley Manning: top US legal scholars voice outrage at 'torture'

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

More than 250 of America's most eminent legal scholars have signed a letter protesting against the treatment in military prison of the alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, contesting that his "degrading and inhumane conditions" are illegal, unconstitutional and could even amount to torture.

The list of signatories includes Laurence Tribe, a Harvard professor who is considered to be America's foremost liberal authority on constitutional law. He taught constitutional law to Barack Obama and was a key backer of his 2008 presidential campaign.

Tribe joined the Obama administration last year as a legal adviser in the justice department, a post he held until three months ago.

He told the Guardian he signed the letter because Manning appeared to have been treated in a way that "is not only shameful but unconstitutional" as he awaits court martial in Quantico marine base in Virginia.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/10/bradley-manning-legal-scholars-letter

[ProSense]

1. Now the media is recycling news to stir up outrage?

From the OP link:

<...>

The list of professors who have signed the protest letter includes leading figures from all the top US law schools, as well as prominent names from other academic fields. Among them are Bill Clinton's former labour secretary Robert Reich, President Theodore Roosevelt's great-great-grandson Kermit Roosevelt, the former president of the American Civil Liberties Union Norman Dorsen and the novelist Kwame Anthony Appiah.

The article is about the March 15 letter, and was based on media reports.

UPDATE:Our initial draft relied on news reports in the major news outlets. Comments we received since then lead us to think that two facts may be overstated in the original draft:
1. The instance of forced nudity overnight and in morning parade apparently occurred once. The continuing regime apparently commands removal of Pvt. Manning's clothes and his wearing a "smock" at night.
2. The shackling apparently occurs when Private Manning is moved from his cell to the exercise room, but not while walking during the one hour of exercise.

Other responses we have received suggest that there are claims of myriad other abuses that make conditions worse in various ways than we describe. We do not, and cannot, seek to adjudicate these factual claims. The conflicting responses underscore the need for a public, transparent, and credible response to the reported abuse, and cessation of those among them that cannot be justified.

[PSPS]

6. This is UK media. The US "media" ignores this travesty.

[No Elephants]

9. As though a story about the U.S. torturing a U.S. citiizen who has not been tried can be ovedone.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Kicked and Most Urgently Recommended. nt

[Taft_Bathtub]

3. "Could even"?!?

Is there even a debate here? This is torture, the US tortures. Stop dancing around the issue.

[girl gone mad]

4. k & r

[smuglysmiling]

5. we live in the new USSR

the United States Security Republic!

[Judi Lynn]

7. WikiLeaks: Bradley Manning treatment may be 'illegal and unconstitutional'

WikiLeaks: Bradley Manning treatment may be 'illegal and unconstitutional'

The "degrading and inhumane" treatment of Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of leaking classified cables to WikiLeaks, has been denounced as "illegal, unconstitutional and could even amount to torture".

By Chris Irvine 9:00PM BST 10 Apr 2011

Pte Manning, who has been charged on 34 counts, including illegally obtaining 250,000 US government cables and 380,000 records related to the Iraq war, is being held in solitary confinement in a maximum security military prison. He is shackled at all times.

In a letter signed by more than 250 of America's leading legal scholars, published in the New York Review of Books, the signatories claim his alleged treatment is a violation of the US constitution, specifically the eighth amendment which forbids cruel and unusual punishment and the fifth amendment which prevents punishment without trial.

"The administration has provided no evidence that Manning's treatment reflects a concern for his own safety or that of other inmates," the letter states. "Unless and until it does so, there is only one reasonable inference: this pattern of degrading treatment aims either to deter future whistleblowers, or to force Manning to implicate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a conspiracy, or both."

The list of signatories includes Laurence Tribe, who worked as a legal adviser in the US justice department until three months ago, and was writer by Bruce Ackerman from Yale University and Yochai Benkler of Harvard.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8441740/WikiLeaks-Bradley-Manning-treatment-may-be-illegal-and-unconstitutional.html

[tiny elvis]

8. foremost liberal? is tribe the foremost const authority or not?

telegraph describes him differently

[No Elephants]

10. Good catch. Tribe is definitely in the top 5, if not #1. Never saw or heard him described as

anything but a Constitutional scholar, Constitutional expert, Constitutional law prof., etc.

Discerning the politics of an honest Constitutional scholar is hard bc the Constitution has a definite "liberal bias," much like the American Revolution.

"The list of signatories includes Laurence Tribe, who worked as a legal adviser in the US justice department until three months ago....

I wonder why he left.

[No Elephants]

11. Bushco needs to stop torturing, esp. U.S. citizens. TAMA.

Transparency Award, my ass.

[_ed_]

12. Any Democrat who supports the torture of Manning

should send Pres Bush a big apology for being so two-faced about American policy. Democratic torture good; Republican torture bad.

And before someone tries to argue that forced nudity and solitary confinement are not torture, that's the same thing Bush, Rove, etc. said for years about their torture regime. And, John McCain once said one of the worst aspects of his torture -- worse than the beatings -- was solitary.

[Freddie Stubbs]

13. Has Manning's attorney made these arguements to a judge?