Manning and Snowden have changed the discussion

When Edward Snowden gave his first public interview in Hong Kong, he said his greatest fear was the possibility that his revelations would fall on deaf ears.

Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning and Snowden have paid a steep price for their revelations of the war crimes and massive violations of the Bill of Rights by the US government against its own citizens and its vast collection of electronic communications worldwide.

Manning was sentenced to 35 years in a military stockade for telling the truth, and Snowden has been forced into exile, hunted down by the criminal administration in Washington.

But their sacrifice has not been in vain. In a real sense, Manning and Snowden have met their objective of initiating a serious discussion of these matters nationally and internationally, whatever further crimes may be inflicted on them.

Snowden’s revelations, coming after those of Manning, changed the context of Manning’s court martial. The exposure of the secret NSA programs caused many to begin to call into question Washington’s real intentions in prosecuting the soldier.

Julian Assange said Manning’s sentence was a partial victory, in that it was much less than the administration wanted. The prosecutors argued strongly for a life sentence without the possibility of parole for “aiding the enemy” – in essence, treason. Having lost that in the atmosphere created by Snowden’s revelations, their final demand was a sentence of 60 years.

Manning’s lawyers say she will be eligible for parole in about seven more years, having been given credit for the over three years she has already been held in prison, which included some months of torture.

Her defence now moves into a new phase. After she was sentenced, Manning issued a strong open appeal to President Obama for a pardon. That will be pursued legally.

Then Manning came out publicly that she would now live her life as a woman, and changed her name to Chelsea. She said she would seek medical treatments to change her physical body accordingly. The army immediately responded that it would allow no such treatments. Now Chelsea is challenging that in the courts. This is part of the fight for her to receive fair and good treatment in prison in general.

These campaigns will help keep her case in the public eye, and prepare, if necessary, to fight for her early release at the first opportunity for parole.

Ruling class worries

The New York Times editorialised that Manning’s sentence was “excessive”, while saying she deserved some punishment. The Times’ position reflects a division in the ruling class concerning the Manning-Snowden revelations.

Another indication was the close vote in the House of Representatives, which almost defunded the NSA’s program of monitoring every phone call in the US.

The Times also ran a lengthy article in its Sunday magazine of 18 August how Laura Poitras, a journalist and film-maker, who worked with Snowden and Glen Greenwald to get his revelations out to the world.

Her photo was on the magazine’s cover, with the headline “How Laura Poitras helped expose what the American government does in the name of security”. The article portrayed Snowden, Poitras and Greenwald as not only quite intelligent in how they circumvented the US repressive apparatus, but was sympathetic to their cause. Poitras deserves more credit, and I urge readers to look up this article.

Another aspect is freedom of the press, even the capitalist press. The Justice Department is seeking to force New York Times reporter James Risen to testify in its case against former CIA officer Jeffry Sterling. It alleges that Sterling leaked classified information to Risen, who used it to write about the CIA. So far Risen has resisted testifying, but he might face contempt of court charges.

The administration would like to move against the Times and other papers for printing some of Manning’s and Snowden’s revelations. It fears to create a backlash, however.

Now some officials and people in Congress are seeking to put organisations like WikiLeaks in a new category of “non-legitimate” journalism, and so not protected by constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press.

Such a move would raise its own problems for the ruling class, for example for reporting by social media. Would a teenager who posted Snowden’s documents be fair game for the spooks?

It is quite likely that Julian Assange is already under secret indictment, probably citing the Espionage Act, for publishing Manning’s material as well as aiding Snowden.

A section of the ruling class doesn’t want to go that far in tearing up the Bill of Rights.

Repercussions

Another cause for concern in ruling class circles has been the wide international repercussions of Manning’s release of State Department cables, and the wide international net of the NSA’s spying.

A recent release of Snowden documents by Greenwald, reported in Der Spiegel, of new information of US spying on Germans has created consternation in that country.

Adding to Greenwald’s release of information of US spying on Brazil, where he is living, was the detention at London’s Heathrow airport of Greenwald’s companion David Miranda for nine hours.

Miranda was on his way back to Brazil from a meeting in Berlin with Laura Poitras, who is working with Greenwald on further Snowden releases.

The British political police claimed they were acting under a law to ferret out information about terrorism.

“What’s amazing is this law, called the Terrorism Act, gives them a right to detain and question you about your activities with a terrorist organisation or your possible involvement in or knowledge of a terrorism plot”, Greenwald said.

But the spooks didn’t raise anything about terrorism when they grilled Miranda. “The only thing they were interested in was NSA documents and what I was doing with Laura Poitras”, Greenwald noted.

The British cops then confiscated all Miranda’s electronic documents and equipment. A court later ruled that his computers and records would have to be returned to Miranda, but gave the police seven days first to copy them.

The Brazilian government strongly objected. Obviously, London didn’t do this on its own, but in collaboration with Washington.

The British political police also threatened to shut down the Guardian newspaper, its editor, Alan Rusbridger, has revealed. This was in retaliation for the paper’s publishing material from Wikileaks and Greenwald.

The police said they would shut down the Guardian unless it turned over its hard drives containing the leaked material, or destroyed the hard drives. Rusbridger decided to do the latter, and destroyed them under the watchful eyes of three police thugs. This might seem ridiculous since the material on the hard drives exists elsewhere. The intent was clearly to intimidate.

The credibility of the US administration has been damaged, both by what Manning and Snowden have revealed (and there is more to come), and by the violent way it has responded to the leaks.

That this has caused consternation at the top presents new opportunities to expose the truth about Washington’s crimes. When the thieves fall out, we should take advantage.