A verdict from the judge in the court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning will be announced Today at 1 p.m. ET. The verdict found Manning not guilty of Espionage, (see below) guilty of a lesser charge (see below) and guilty of the charges he pleaded guilty to. He faced a maximum sentence of 136 years had he been convicted, but its unclear what the reduced charges carry. The sentencing phase opens Wednesday and could last several weeks
If found guilty on the aiding the enemy charge, Manning could be sentenced to life in prison. He has pleaded guilty to nearly a dozen lesser charges that carry a sentence of up to 20 years behind bars.
Both Snowden and Manning have argued that they were concerned about the direction US intelligence was taking and the resultant abuses of many principles embodied in our Bill of Rights that most Americans have grown up taking for granted we just didn't do.
The kidnapping, torture, and murder begun by the Bush administration in Iraq in pursuit of its campaign slogan war on terror after 9/11 which was the cause of Manning going to Wiki Leaks has now been extended to the "get it all" metadata collection, of General Alexander leaked by Snowden.
FISA, and the Patriot Act, GITMO, Military Commissions, the Detainee Treatment Act, Indefinite detention, assassination, drones, bother all of us.
Authorities have accused Manning of delivering three quarters of a million pages of classified documents and videos to the secret-sharing site WikiLeaks, which has never confirmed the soldier was the source of its information. The material covered numerous aspects of U.S. military strategy in Iraq, gave what some called a ground view of events in the Afghanistan war and revealed the inner workings of U.S. State Department diplomacy in leaked cables.
Manning testified that he was prompted to act when he realized that intelligence was creating poorly checked out lists of people who were being put at risk of all of the above without anything resembling due process.
When he entered his guilty pleas on the lesser charges earlier this year, Manning spent more than an hour in court reading a statement about why he leaked the information.
He said the information he passed on "upset" or "disturbed" him, but there was nothing he thought would harm the United States if it became public. Manning said he thought the documents were old and the situations they referred to had changed or ended.
"I believed if the public was aware of the data, it would start a public debate of the wars," he said during his court-martial. He said he was "depressed about the situation there," meaning Iraq, where he was stationed as an intelligence analyst.
The real threat presented by the administrations response to both Manning and Snowden is treating their actions as espionage rather than whistle blowing. Most of us are probably angrier and more outraged by the response which seems to want to stifle responsible investigative reporting as well as the leaks, than we are by any threat to our national security posed by the embarrassment of having our State Department bloopers revealed.
After WikiLeaks published a trove of documents related to the Afghanistan war in 2010, the site became an international sensation, as did its chief, Julian Assange.
"We call those types of people that are willing to risk ... being a martyr for all the rest of us, we call those people heroes," Assange told CNN's Jake Tapper. "Bradley Manning is a hero."
Assange described the case against Manning, specifically the aiding the enemy charge, as a serious attack against investigative journalism.
"It will be the end, essentially, of national security journalism in the United States," he said on the eve of the verdict.
Both Snowden and Julian Assange are forced to seek asylum overseas from the United States descent into totalitarianism even as internationally the disgraceful way we are behaving becomes additive with Abu Garube as pointed out by international reaction to the recent escape of 500 prisoners from that notorious facility.
Assange spoke from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London. He sought refuge there to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sex crimes. Assange has said he thinks the claims against him are Washington's way of getting him arrested so that he can be extradited to the United States to face charges.
The verdict:
Violated Articles of the Uniform Code of Military Justice
Not guilty (2)
Guilty plea accepted (3)
Guilty (17)
Article 104
Aiding the enemy
Charge 1, Specification 1
Aiding the enemy
Maximum sentence: Life
Plea: Not guilty
Article 92
Failure to obey a lawful order
or regulation
Charge 3, Specification 1
Bypassing security
Maximum sentence: Two years
Plea: Not guilty
Charge 3, Specification 2
Unauthorized software
Maximum sentence: Two years
Plea: Not guilty
Charge 3, Specification 3
Unauthorized software
Maximum sentence: Two years
Plea: Not guilty
Charge 3, Specification 4
Unintended system use
Maximum sentence: Two years
Plea: Not guilty
Charge 3, Specification 5
Storing classifed info
Maximum sentence: Two years
Plea: Guilty
Article 134
Computer Fraud and
Abuse Act
Charge 2, Specification 13
U.S. State Dept. records
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Guilty to lesser offense
Charge 2, Specification 14
Classified cable
Maximum sentence: Two years
Plea: Guilty to lesser offense
Article 134
Espionage Act
Charge 2, Specification 2
Iraq airstrike video
Maximum sentence: Two years
Plea: Guilty to lesser offense
Charge 2, Specification 3
Classified memos
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Guilty to lesser offense
Charge 2, Specification 5
Military records
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Guilty to lesser offense
Charge 2, Specification 7
Military records
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Guilty to lesser offense
Charge 2, Specification 9
Database files
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Guilty to lesser offense
Charge 2, Specification 10
Military records
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Guilty to lesser offense
Charge 2, Specification 11
Afghan airstrike video
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Not guilty
Charge 2, Specification 15
Army record
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Guilty to lesser offense
Article 134
Stealing government property
Charge 2, Specification 4
Military records
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Not guilty
Charge 2, Specification 6
Military records
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Not guilty
Charge 2, Specification 8
Database files
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Not guilty
Charge 2, Specification 12
U.S. State Dept. records
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Not guilty
Charge 2, Specification 16
Server address list
Maximum sentence: 10 years
Plea: Not guilty
Article 134
Wanton publication of intelligence on the Internet
Charge 2, Specification 1
Publication of intelligence
Maximum sentence: Two years
Plea: Not guilty