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Photo by: joanneleon. July, 2013.
Photo by: joanneleon. July, 2013.
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News & Opinion
Charlie Savage of NYT, was at the trial for closing arguments.
Defense Calls Manning’s Intentions Good
A day after a prosecutor had delivered a closing argument portraying Private Manning as an “anarchist” and a “traitor,” David E. Coombs, the defense lawyer, offered a rival narrative. His client, he said, was a “humanist” and a “whistle-blower” who released only those sets of files that he believed would not cause harm but set off debate and prompt change.
[...]
“That is not anti-patriotic,” Mr. Coombs said. “That is something that is not anti-American. That really is what America is about — that we take everybody. That is the promise of the Statue of Liberty.”
[...]
He also played excerpts from an early file WikiLeaks released from Private Manning: a video of an Apache helicopter airstrike in Baghdad in which American forces gunned down a group of largely unarmed men on a street — including two Reuters journalists — and then shot up a van with children inside that pulled up to assist the victims.
“When the court looks at this, the defense requests that you not disengage, that you not look at this from the eyes of ‘this happened on a battlefield,’” he said, adding that those in the courtroom had just watched at least nine lives being extinguished. “Did they all deserve to die? That is what Private Manning is thinking as he is watching this video he is seeing and he’s questioning.”
Yochai Benkler testified for the defense some weeks ago.
Manning and Snowden Light Path for the US to Return to Its Better Self
Since the 9/11 trauma, America has allowed the national security state to ride roughshod over vital liberties. This is a turning-point
Like crime, terrorism is a fact of life. I grew up in Israel, where every unattended bag was a suspected bomb; when my family moved for a few years, it was to London in the early years of "the Troubles". On 11 September, I was living in Greenwich Village, New York; my children learned to tell south from north by looking at the World Trade Center. By the time of the Boston Marathon attack, I was living a few blocks from the Tsarnaevs' apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and spent that Friday locked down with 600,000 Boston residents as authorities searched for one wounded teenager.
I know terrorism is real. And I know fear of it distorts public judgment.
Terrorism is like a chronic illness. We have to learn to contain it and live with it. But we cannot let it change our constitutional structure.
On Wednesday, 205 representatives, liberals and conservatives, voted to say that we refuse to be defined by our fear of terrorism. Whether that vote was a victory or a defeat will ultimately be determined by what those representatives learn from their effort. If they think of it as a technical fix to Section 215 or as limited to surveillance and the fourth amendment, then Wednesday was a defeat.
Invoking 9/11, Chris Christie slams libertarians
National Security State up against a Whistleblower Revolution
There are nearly 5 million people in the United States with security clearance, and any one of them could be the next Edward Snowden or Bradley Manning. So what -- if anything - are intelligence agencies doing to better keep their secrets. And, might more whistleblowing be just thing to convince more Americans that massive domestic surveillance isn't the best way to keep us safe. Political Commentator Sam Sacks speaks with former NSA and CIA Chief Michael Hayden and whistleblower Jesselyn Radack.
Congressman Holt pushes to abolish Patriot Act
Ex-CIA Chief Hayden says Snowden neither hero, nor traitor but very troubled young man
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Blog Posts and Tweets of Interest
The Evening Blues
Holder to Russians: We Won't Torture Snowden. Honest!
Bernie Sanders Declines Secrecy Offer on Tax Plan Because He Has Nothing to Hide
Another dead transwoman of color…this time in Philadelphia (again)
"Washington has lost its political will for serious reform": Echo bubble in housing
UPDATED: North Carolina Gen. Assembly takes back 100 years of voters' rights
Christie Does a Full Guiliani on Rand Paul, Calls Him Dangerous
Whoop-de-do. Halliburton to pay fine for destroying evidence that is 0.03% of 2nd quarter profits
Sherrod Brown leading Senate pushback against Lawrence Summers
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