Via CBS News World Watch, “Marines Replace Commander in Charge of Detention of Bradley Manning, Accused WikiLeaker“:
One week ago, David Coombs, the main lawyer for accused WikiLeaks document leaker Bradley Manning, filed a complaint with military officials against Quantico Base Commander James Averhart. Coombs accused Averhart of abusing his “discretion” by arbitrarily choosing harsh – some have said tortuous – confinement conditions for Manning, who is housed in the Quantico brig.
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On Wednesday, the Marines replaced Averhart as Quantico’s commander with Chief Warrant Officer Denise Barnes, CNN reports.
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A base spokesman claims the complaint and Averhart’s removal are not related, and that the decision to replace Averhart was made back in October, CNN reports.
[…] __
Coombs has been struggling with Manning’s confinement and trial status for months now. Because Manning is being held under such harsh conditions without having been charged, Coombs has tried all manner of legal recourse, including filing a motion for Manning’s release, a motion to dismiss the trial because of its slow start, and even a request for a speedy trial last week.
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The office of Manfred Nowak, special rapporteur on torture in Geneva for the United Nations, received a complaint at the end of December from one of Manning’s supporters alleging conditions in the brig amount to torture, said a UN spokesperson. At the time of the complaint, Manning was under POI [Prevention of injury] watch, which is only slightly less harsh than suicide watch. Manning remains on POI watch to this day.
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The U.N. has begun investigating and could ask the United States to stop any violations it finds.
After another BJ post concerning Manning, a certain BJ commentor wrote:
Speaking of blegging and fund raising, any comments from the rest here on my suggestion that those actually interested in helping Bradley Manning do a fund raiser here like BJ has done for so many politicians and causes, and donate the money to Manning’s defense, instead of sitting around and bitching… ?
From what I can google, Courage to Resist is hosting the Bradley Manning Defense Fund:
2,706 individuals have donated a total $169,181! Another 596 supporters (including WikiLeaks) have given $58,799 directly to Bradley’s legal trust account. (Updated: 1pm PST Jan. 25, 2011)
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Bradley Manning’s total legal defense will cost about $115,000. We have transferred about $108,800 towards that expense so far (including direct contributions to the legal trust account), and we are committed to funding the total expense. The defense fund also supports international public outreach and activities.
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The Bradley Manning defense fund is hosted by Courage to Resist in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network. At this point donations are primarily being routed for public education and support activities. The defense fund will contribute to the remaining legal fees as needed. For more information, check out the defense fund FAQ and the defense fund fiscal report (PDF), January 25, 2011.
Does anyone here have any further information about Courage to Resist? Any suggestions about other organizations that could use funds, or publicity, in regards to Manning’s defense?
Glenn Greenwald, a man who does not believe in coincidences, has his own opinion about the change of command:
Here’s a very strange, and hopefully positive, set of events: two days ago, NBC News reported that government officials acknowledged that the Marine commander of the Quantico brig had violated regulations by imposing “suicide watch” conditions on Manning both punitively and without the recommendations of psychiatric experts… Today, CBS News reports that the Quantico commander is now being replaced; CBS certainly appears to believe that it’s related to the treatment of Manning, though the Pentagon is denying this. Whatever else is true, far more attention has been generated for the conditions of Manning’s detention than I expected when I first wrote about them.
Greenwald also reposts a comment from Atrios:
Steve
Tortuous? Anyone who thinks Manning’s confinement conditions are “tortuous” needs help, ideally in the form of a dictionary.
Svensker
The sad thing about the current state of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is that I’m afraid to donate to Bradley Manning. No Fly List, anyone?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Who requested the 706 board?
Poopyman
Replacing CWO–level personnel? Like this problem originates down at that level? Scapegoating.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Not true:
joes527
@Steve:
See definition 2. Manning has been in custody since last July, and they haven’t even gotten to the “lets charge him with something” bit yet. (Edit: Hmmm, as per comment above, this isn’t true. Still taking forever to getting to the trial bit. Not sure how that compares to other cases.)
Also see definition 3. The whole “prevention of injury” bit was the jailers being sadistic fuckers.
Poopyman
BTW, CWO4 Averhart was Brig Commander, not Quantico Base Commander.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@joes527:
First, as I linked above, Manning was charged in July.
Second, someone requested a 706 board- a sanity hearing- which will convene in February, following months of investigation. The Army has flat out denied requesting this 706 board, Manning’s attorney, Mr. Coombs, has taken the “no comment” route when questioned directly as to whether he asked for the board.
Tom Hilton
Even better idea: donate to the ACLU or any of a dozen worthwhile prisoners’ rights organizations that fight for all of the inmates who suffer unduly harsh treatment, instead of just the one guy who happens to be a cause celebre among some liberals in the blogosphere.
Just a thought.
El Cid
@Poopyman: Yes. They’re not going to replace the Commanding Officer of the entire base because of something like this.
FlipYrWhig
Free Mumia!
Poopyman
@El Cid: I was pointing out the mistake in the CBS News World Watch article, and apparently it’s propagated around the internets as well.
Attention, CBS! It’s not that hard, people.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@FlipYrWhig:
Where? I’ve already got one, but a friend of mine has been looking forever for one of her own.
El Cid
@Tom Hilton: Well, whatever you think of Manning himself, it’s clear that the reason people would give would be to either aid Manning personally or aid what they believe is some larger cause which the treatment of Manning would set a precedent for, or which the resistance to the various treatments of Manning would fight some precedent.
I don’t think this sort of donation would be being made for people that wanted to improve the conditions of the detained in general, or for completely other types of prisoners.
None of which says anything about what your opinions on Manning should be.
cat48
It might help Manning if his defenders quit saying he “hasn’t been charged” Facts do matter & the bloggers who get airtime often distort the facts which is not helpful to Manning’s defense. If one starts with misinformation deliberately, it’s hard to believe any other facts they allege to be true.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal
@Poopyman: And, of course, that makes at least two very basic errors in the piece. The CWO isn’t the base commander and Manning has been charged. And that’s aside from the question of whether Coombs is bitching about a slow process while being the one that’s slowing it down.
I think we should wait for articles that demonstrate at least a minimal concern for accuracy before coming to any conclusions.
FlipYrWhig
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: It’s interesting to me that when “mainstream” reporters have gotten involved in the story they have been rather sympathetic to the Coombs/Manning side (IMHO). That strikes me as uncharacteristic, especially given that some of the interest in the case derives from its association with WikiLeaks, which has certainly NOT been deemed a sympathetic subject. Proof that the Greenwald et al effort to throw a spotlight on the case is winning converts?
MonkeyBoy
@Poopyman:
How strange – what Google right now shows in a search that returns the CBS story is:
This text appears in previous stories.
However the actual story right now says:
CBS is not even recycling their own stories correctly.
Zifnab
Why do we always get this line? Just come clean. “Yeah, we think the guy in charge was doing a shitty job. Yeah, we yanked him. Yeah, we’re responding to public pressure.” Is that so fucking hard? At this point, a denial is virtually identical to a confession anyway.
soonergrunt
Coombs (who is a highly regarded military defense counsel–only takes Army cases, btw) cannot fairly be said to have tried all manner of legal recourse.
He only just last week filed an Article 138, UCMJ Request for Redress of Grievances, which he could have filed about a week after Manning first arrived in Quantico, and refiled or filed new ones at any point after that.
He hasn’t filed any petitions for stays or for injunctive relief from any magistrate, or from the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, nor has he appealed for a writ of habeas corpus from any military or federal district court.
I don’t know if the Marines relieved or removed the former Brig Commander, CWO4 Averhart over Manning, or if he was at retirement, or what. If he’s a CWO4, he’s been in the military a long time.
The speedy trial request will only deal with AVOIDABLE delays caused by the government. Waiting for the RCM 706 (sanity) board is non-avoidable, unless both the government and the Accused agree to waive it. Waiting for the classification review to be completed in a case that will feature a lot of classified information is a non-avoidable delay. I don’t think that the Accused is going to get relief from that avenue. I’ve been wrong before, though. Maybe I will be wrong again.
Last year, the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces decided a case where the Accused submitted that being placed on suicide watch (in violation of the US Air Force’s regulations on such) amounted to unlawful pretrial punishment under Article 13, UCMJ. CAAF awarded 88 days of confinement credit to the Accused.
US v. Williams
The relevant regulation is SECNAV Instruction 1640.9C.
I’ll have more when I get back from errands.
Ash Can
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Is it at all possible that this 706 board could speed the process and get Manning to trial faster?
ETA: Maybe I should direct this question to soonergrunt as well.
The Moar You Know
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal: I could write a novel about this. It’s one of the oldest lawyer tricks in the book, and when looking at a near-certain conviction (especially in this case as it will not be a civilian court) one of the most widely used.
Ash Can
@Zifnab: Considering the Pentagon’s stellar record of publicly admitting it whenever they fuck up, I think I’d fall over in a dead faint if they ever said anything remotely like this.
Marc
I strongly support what Wikileaks is doing. But the Manning thing is coming across as an awful lot about Greenwald and Hamsher (and a proxy attack on Obama). I’d feel a whole lot better about intervening on the side of Manning if the ACLU or Amnesty International were the ones raising the issues.
Put more bluntly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to get Manning to frame the Wikileaks folks to shut them down – but I don’t trust Greenwald to honestly report the situation, and I wouldn’t trust Hamsher with a burned out match. That doesn’t mean that Manning is being treated properly at all, but it does mean that he’d be better served if he had advocates with a more objective reputation.
JGabriel
Marc:
I’m not sure what you’re implying, but I suspect that it’s rather difficult for Manning to have much say in deciding who advocates for him from the depths of solitary in Quantico.
.
Marc
His lawyer can, for example, try to engage human rights organizations to monitor the case – or document any abuse. I was outraged when I read the initial reports too – but I’m getting a bit queasy that it’s all reports from a couple of blog sources, and that they’ve been wrong on some factual matters (such as whether or not he’s been charged with a crime.)
Poopyman
Hmmmm. Moderation hell, and I can’t suss the trigger…..
The Moar You Know
@Marc: Maybe I’m just an ignorant O-bot, but I fail to see how putting a guy in the hoosegow for revealing classified information could somehow reflect badly on Obama. The only way that you could get from “guy goes and does a public data dump of the SIPRNET” to “Obama is evil” is if you’re so consumed with Obama hatred that you’ve long since stopped processing information in a way that people would consider “sane”.
Ash Can
@JGabriel: I read “advocates” to mean, simply, “people taking the initiative to speak publicly on his behalf,” and I’m sure that’s what Marc meant too.
ETA: Of course, I’m always more than happy to speak for other people, so Marc’s perfectly within his rights to tell me to sit down and shut up. :)
Ash Can
And in other news, you can tell that Obama’s the same as W because he’s fixing the Civil Rights Commission.
Jay B.
@Marc:
Jesus that’s stupid, even by the degraded standards of stupid here.
It’s you assholes who are making this about “Greenwald and Hamsher” because of your cargo cult about who they are and what they do.
Think of it this way, if they didn’t do anything, you’d bitch about them ignoring it. Because that’s the way most of you idiots process information.
Mattminus
Even if you like the outcome of this guys actions, he clearly committed a crime (assuming that what we know is true). Why in teh hell would anyone give to his legal defense fund when there are honest to dog innocent people in jail?
He shouldn’t be tortured, but he should be man enough to face teh consequences of his actions.
If I’m misunderstanding the case, please educate me, I just know what I read in teh papers and haven’t been following it obsessively.
Loneoak
@The Moar You Know:
Because he’s being tortured? Shouldn’t that reflect badly on Obama?
But get your facts straight: he has been charged with downloading documents, not sharing them. Wikileaks pretty strenuously denies that the documents came from Manning and the military appears unable to prove it.
Silver
@Tom Hilton:
I’m going to repurpose a post from another board, that’s why the reference to Christmas is in there. For what it’s worth, if the Manning discussions never came up, I wouldn’t have watched the show in the first place.
I was laid up with the flu before Christmas, and managed to burn through a bunch of stuff on Netflix. I queued this up, due to the recent stuff about Manning (note, this is not a Manning thread, we have one for that already) and found parts of it pretty horrific:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.co…/4819/Overview
There’s a part that especially caught my notice. They are interviewing the warden, who is a late 50ish frumpy women (this isn’t sexist, it’s important to a point I’m going to make) and they are talking about the “quality of life index” that the inmates have at the facility. It’s 1-6, with a 6 being the most privileges, and a 1 being the least. When the break the rules, they go down on the scale. Then, she says the following (paraphrased, not verbatim):
“Could you or I, placed in this facility, follow all the rules? Probably not, but when we find infractions, we punish them.”
That’s the person in charge, admitting that the game is rigged, not only for the ~20-30% of the inmates with diagnosed mental illness, but for the rest as well, who by their very presence have trouble with rules to one extent or the other. BUT-she admits it would also be rigged for a “normal” law-abiding person in the same environment.
That women doesn’t look evil. It’s not tattooed on her forehead. She’s not wearing a black leather overcoat with a swastika band on her arm. She is, however, a perfect example of the banality of evil.
MikeJ
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal:
Not to mention, was his atty the one who asked for a sanity hearing while people complain that Manning is kept on suicide watch?
gwangung
@Mattminus: Just for starters…lets make sure any punishment is appropriate to the crimes he is guilty of, and not what he’s accused of or thought to be guilty of. The two may not be the same.
Gin & Tonic
@Mattminus:
Uh, maybe because he is one of them? Please show me where he has been convicted of anything. Do you remember anything about “presumption of innocence” from high school civics?
soonergrunt
@Ash Can:
Not really. According to the Manual for Courts-Martial (2008)
WARNING–5.6 MB PDF FILE.
The 706 board has to be appointed. It can comprise as little as one psychiatrist, or as many personnel as the Convening Authority or Military Judge desires, but it must include at least one psychiatrist. The board has to examine Manning, and make a report to the Convening Authority or the Article 32 Investigating Officer if before the Article 32 referral to Court-Martial, or to the Military Judge after referral as appropriate.
Once the 706 board makes it’s determination and submits that to the appropriate officer, then proceedings can continue as appropriate.
Note, RCM 706 refers to the sanity of the Accused at the time the alleged misconduct. The competency to stand trial is investigated and reported under RCM 909.
Silver
@Silver:
Dammit. Working link:
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/4819/Overview
Marc
@Jay B.:
When someone asks you to get worked up about something you have to judge whether that person knows what they’re talking about. I don’t trust Greenwald – there have been too many cases of him suppressing information that is inconvenient to his argument. And I think that Hamsher is even worse, without Greenwald’s emphasis on a civil liberties principle that I basically agree with.
So, when the two of them are the main advocates for doing something, why should I take their word for it?
Ash Can
@Gin & Tonic: That’s just silly. People charged with crimes are routinely incarcerated, unless a judge sets bond for them and they pay that amount.
Mattminus
@Gin & Tonic:
Thats a pretty dumb reply. Why do we not start a legal defense fund for everyone thats waiting for trial for anything?
Again, assuming the facts as we know them are true, how is divulging classified info not a crime?
Where’s the miscarriage of justice here?
I’m open to have my mind changed, but us anyone disputing that he released any documents?
Gin & Tonic
@Ash Can: I never argued he shouldn’t be held before trial. I was replying to the suggestion of why people might want to consider contributing to his defense. I’d also argue he is being held under possibly inhumane conditions.
Jay B.
@Marc:
Yes, if there were only someplace that would have additional information and sources about it! Imagine what it would be like if there were other ways to verify basic information than to rely on Glenn Greenwald (and having read the case against him on these threads so often, I’d love to hear your version of what he’s “suppressed”.).
If only.
Gin & Tonic
@Mattminus: Lots of high-profile accused have legal defense funds. If you don’t want to contribute, don’t. But it’s idiotic to suggest he should not have the benefit of a vigorous defense (which, since he’s a PFC, he may not be able to afford.)
If you’re so certain he’s guilty, then show your evidence. Me, I like to follow the Constitution and the UCMJ and assume that people are innocent until proven otherwise. Bradley Manning does not have to prove he is innocent, the US has to prove he is guilty. Remember?
Oh, and yes, the publisher of the documents is in fact disputing that they came from Manning.
soonergrunt
@soonergrunt: Further to that, RCM 706 requires that ALL members of the 706 board be either psychiatrists or clinical psychologists. Again, at least one member of the board must be a psychiatrist.
Gin & Tonic
@Mattminus:
Gotta reply twice, because this just burns the shit out of me. “We” do not “know” these facts. Establishing the truth or falsity of the alleged facts is the job of the court-martial. If he were a civilian, establishing the truth or falsity of the alleged facts is the job of a trial court.
If half the people on this board said that Mattminus is a goat-fucking child molester, then, assuming these facts were true, you would be despicable.
MikeJ
@Gin & Tonic: It was illegal for him to download the docs even if he isn’t where wikileaks got them. What he has publicly admitted to doing is a crime. Sure, he deserves a trial to present mitigating evidence, but that will only affect his sentencing, not his guilt.
Citizen Zed
@cat48: He hasn’t been convicted of anything.
The problem is that he’s innocent until proven guilty in a court of law – just like all the rest of us.
So to have him in solitary confinement of this type, which the Geneva Conventions define as torture, means that you and I are equally at risk of being treated this way WITHOUT TRIAL.
The Rule of Law is the issue here, folks, not the question of do we like or dislike or admire or hate any one individual.
The rule of law is vital. It applies to all or to none. That’s why I called my Representative and Senators and demanded that they look into this issue immediately; the rule of law applies to Manning as well as to all of us, or no one of us is safe from government lockup and torture just on the say so of some government official. Is that good enough for you? Doesn’t matter: the law of our great nation says otherwise. Trial by jury of peers, innocent until proven guilty, etc. The system matters, because it protects us all.
Ash Can
@Jay B.: Information aplenty, yes, but advocates not so much. Now, if the UN investigation wraps up with a finding that Manning is being treated with undue abuse, that will have some serious weight behind it.
ETA: This is not to say that I personally would believe it only if the UN says so. I happen to take a jaundiced view of the way Manning’s being treated myself. But it sure would help his cause to have someone besides Hamsher and Greenwald agitating for him.
MikeJ
@Gin & Tonic:
We know what he told Adrian Lamo. So yeah, we know the facts pretty well.
Mattminus
@Gin & Tonic:
Fair enough, but the chat logs etc. are pretty damning.
Also, as an infosec professional, I , perhaps naively, assume that it should be trivial to show whether he accessed the records in question or not. If this is not true, I’m horrified by whats going on with military systems and they should hire me ;)
My point is that this reminds me of the Free Mumia folks I knew in college. None of them actually thought he was innocent, it’s just that they didn’t see anything particularly wrong with killing a cop.
And i don’t know about half the people on this board, but ABL would probably say worse.
Cain
OT – sorry, there was no open thread to post this:
Damn guys, there has been reports that army units in the suez canal are refusing to attack the protestors (they’ve already taken over a police station there) That means possibly Egypt will no one manning the Suez Canel.
Plus it seems that protests have started in Yemen. This is some serious interesting shit that happens. I hope we don’t interfere and let nature take its course.
h/t reddit:
link here
soonergrunt
@Gin & Tonic:
He’s primarily accused of improperly accessing classified information, and placing specific pieces of that information onto his personally owned laptop, in violation of Army regulations.
The charges as currently preferred.
The first four specifications of charge II allege, among other things, that Manning communicated the information to persons not entitled to receive it, with knowledge that such information would be used to the damage of the United States.
Adrian Lamo’s chat logs, wherein a person that Lamo alleges to be Manning, states that is exactly what he did with knowledge and intent, are probably the basis for these charges, and if the Trial Counsel is remotely intelligent, he will show a copy of a file downloaded from Wikileaks and have a forensic IT person compare it to a file recovered off of Manning’s personal laptop.
If Julian Assange wants everyone to believe that Manning didn’t give him or his organization the information, he can come to the United States to testify under oath.
Gin & Tonic
@Mattminus:
I do not think Bradley Manning is innocent. I also do not think he is guilty. I’ll wait for the applicable system of justice to determine the answer to that. I know that seems to be quite the radical concept here, but it actually has some precedent in the US.
I can’t believe I have to argue this point, honestly.
joe from Lowell
@El Cid:
The problem with this is that, as Manning’s supporters continue to push the flat-out false conspiracy theory that the conditions of his confinement are somehow unique, part of a seekrit scheme cooked up by Barack Obama, Lord Voldemort, and Rahm Emmanuel, as opposed to being the way every major espionage suspect in my lifetime (Ames, the Walkers, Robert Hansen, Wen Ho Le, etc.) is treated, and the way something like 100,000 prisoners across the U.S. are treated, it serves to undermine, in a very calculated way, the broader cause.
The problem of extended solitary detention in our prisons is a big, long standing one, and people like Greenwald and Hamsher are pushing a political narrative that depends upon convincing people that Manning’s experience is somehow unique.
Gin & Tonic
@soonergrunt: I am aware of the charges and the reported evidence for them.
I’m confused as to why you want Assange to come and testify under oath that he didn’t get the stuff from Manning. It’s up to the US to *prove* that Manning supplied it to Assange.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Gin & Tonic: So you believe OJ didn’t kill Ron and Nicole and George W. Bush acted within his constitutional rights?
PIGL
@Steve: Anyone who does not understand that solitary confinement is a form a torture is no member of my species.
J. Michael Neal
@Gin & Tonic:
I did not realize that you are a court of law that is bound to wait until a trial is concluded to come to a conclusion. Out here in the real world, we come to conclusions about whether people behaved illegally prior to a trial all the time. I’m willing to bet that that’s even true of . . . well, I guess it isn’t true of you, since you are a court of law.
Based simply upon the facts we know, you have to make some heroic assumptions to conclude that Bradley Manning is, in fact, innocent of what he’s actually been charged of, including assuming that he lied to multiple people about what he did. That’s no reason not to hold a fair trial and assess it in a legal manner and whether the proof on offer meets the standards for a criminal conviction. It can fail to do so even in a situation where it’s plainly evident that the accused is guilty.
MikeJ
@Gin & Tonic:
What are your feelings on Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney for betraying the US and Valerie Plame?
How about the gang in Arizona that killed an entire family to fund a right wing militia? You won’t call them murderers? You’ll leap to their defense when anybody does call them murderers?
Guess what. They’re murderers even if they’re never convicted. If they’re not convicted I don’t think they should go to prison. That’s what the criminal justice system is for. It won’t change the fact that they are in fact murderers.
cathyx
@J. Michael Neal: Wow! Just wow. I hope you never serve on a jury.
joe from Lowell
@Gin & Tonic:
Neither the Constitution nor the UCMJ requires you, Gin & Tonic, private citizen, to assume any accused criminal is innocent.
The presumption of innocence is a doctrine that applies to the standard of evidence in a criminal trial. In no way, shape, or form does it carry even the slightest implication that private citizens are not allowed to draw conclusions about the guilt of an accused suspect.
Srsly, if you’re going to condescend to someone like you just did, make an effort to know what you’re talking about, or you’re going to end up looking like a fool.
MikeJ
@cathyx: Why? He specifically stipulated that the rules of evidence for a court and for a blog are different. It’s moronic for a commenters on a blog to refuse to call somebody who has confessed guilty.
PS
I have a modest proposal. First, back-story: Did you hear what happened to Allen Stanford? Evidently he was beaten up by fellow inmates so badly that he made have permanent brain damage. I’m glad that TPM is emphasizing that the case “is notable only in that this episode of prison violence involves a high-profile white-collar criminal.”
As someone who is predisposed to support Manning (on general anti-secrecy and anti-military grounds) and condemn Stanford, I think I should try to find a fat-cat who is predisposed to support the financier. Then we could swap: I could campaign for proper treatment for Stanford, and he could do the same for Manning. Might make us both more sympathetic to opposing viewpoints.
As a thought experiment, at least, we could all try something like that.
cathyx
@MikeJ: I really don’t think he or any of us know all of the facts in the case to make a fair judgment of guilt or innocence. You might think you do, but you really don’t.
PIGL
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: So a few high-profile contentious cases are enough to dispense with the entire concept of a fair trial under law, and just send for the rope, huh?
joe from Lowell
@Gin & Tonic:
Here that, everybody? The next person who accused George Bush or Dick Cheney of being guilty of ordering torture has Gin & Tonic to answer to.
Cuz of the Constitution or something, which he knows so much better than you. I can’t believe he has to explain this to you.
J. Michael Neal
@Gin & Tonic:
If they want to convict him of supplying the documents to Julian Assange, that’s true. If they want to convict him of the illegal actions he’s actually charged with, then they don’t have to do any such thing.
Gin & Tonic
@joe from Lowell:
Show me where I said “requires.” It does, however, allow me to assume that. Which is why I decline to join the “hang Bradley Manning” bandwagon that’s gaining steam here. You may all “know” he’s guilty. I don’t.
Srsly, this started when somebody said, in essence, “Why the fuck should I contribute to a legal defense fund for some guy who’s guilty?” Obvs, if you think he’s guilty, don’t contribute. But there is good reason to wish he has a good defense, maybe even as good as the defense that OJ Simpson had. Maybe there’s even good reason to think he’s not guilty. I don’t personally know either Adrian Lamo, or Bradley Manning, or Julian Assange, so for now I won’t make any decision on which one of them is telling more of the truth.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@PIGL: Name where anyone here said Manning was not entitled to a fair trial under law. I’m sorry that your smug sense of moral superiority is taking some hard whacks from your own hypocrisy, but that’s your problem not ours.
MikeJ
@cathyx: Those no reason to believe the chat logs are fake. There’s no reason to believe he lied to Lamo.
joe from Lowell
@PIGL:
I must have missed the part where he said that the presumption of innocence shouldn’t apply in a trial. Could you quote it for me?
Hello?
Tim
@Svensker: @Svensker:
BINGO! Which, it seems to me, is exactly what the Obama administration wants. Bastards.
J. Michael Neal
@cathyx:
Why? If I am on a jury, then I am acting as an agent of a court of law, and have to respect the standards for establishing guilt set there.
As of right now, I have not been notified that I am supposed to serve on Bradley Manning’s jury, an unlikely event given that he’s charged in the military court system. As such, I am free to come to my own conclusion based upon the information I have seen.
And you are lying if you insist that you don’t do the same thing in many instances.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Gin & Tonic:
IOKIYAWL
soonergrunt
@Gin & Tonic: And the US apparently feels they can do that to the satisfaction of either a panel of members or a military judge, or they probably wouldn’t have specified those in the charges.
So once the government says “He accessed file A123 on JWICS on such and such a date and we know this because we have his access and logon information. We found a copy of A123 on his personal computer. Forensic IT reports that it is identical in every meaningful way to the version he accessed on JWICS. Additionally, he bragged in an internet chat that he had copied thousands of files to his personal computer and then uploaded them to a server operated by a group of persons not permitted to view JWICS content. The government has downloaded a document from a public server operated byu the same organization to which the Accused claimed to have loaded classified information, among thousands of others, that matches A123 in every relevant respect.”
Now, Julian Assange can claim all day long that Manning’s documents are not the ones he’s been putting out there, but unless he or somebody else from Wikileaks testifies under oath and subject to cross examination, it has no value to impeach that aspect of the government’s case.
My posting earlier was in response to your statement
“Because I said so to the British press” is not an evidentiary standard in any court or court-martial in the US.
They can claim it all they want, but unless they’re willing to do so under oath and subject to cross examination, it means fuck all with respect the case of US v. PFC Bradley Manning.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Tim: ODS, ladies and gentlemen. Its not a pretty sight.
Gin & Tonic
@J. Michael Neal: As soonergrunt noted, the charge is
Without proving who the persons not entitled to receive it are, or proving the knowledge that such information would be used to the damage of the US, that’s a high hurdle to leap. If not Assange, then who? Sounds to me like they have to show some recipient.
J. Michael Neal
@cathyx:
I know that he ADMITTED undertaking the actions stipulated in the charges to a third party. As a general rule, that’s enough for me to come to a conclusion that it’s extremely likely that he is guilty. And, again, if you insist that you do not often do the same thing, you are lying. Whether you are lying to us, or merely lying to yourself I do not know.
cathyx
@MikeJ: I never said they were fake or real. All I’m saying is that we don’t know all the facts to make a fair assessment as to guilt or innocence. We only know what we’ve read on the web or heard through the media. I’ll guarantee that that doesn’t contain all of the facts in this case.
joe from Lowell
@Gin & Tonic:
OK.
There’s here, where you stated that it was wrong for someone to draw a conclusion about the accused’s guilt.
There’s here, where you condescendingly accused someone of not understanding or respecting the concept of presumption of innocence because he drew a conclusion about the accused’s guilt.
Is that enough?
If you want to play dumb about the well-established facts of this case and profess agnosticism, you go on with your bad self. Because, contrary to what you’ve been lecturing to we poor, deluded Constitution-haters, a private citizen like you or me is allowed to draw whatever conclusion about a suspect’s guilt we damn well please.
Actually, even someone who thinks he’s guilty can support his legal team’s efforts to change the conditions of his confinement. The law and the courts are supposed to protect even the rights of the guilty.
Mart
@The Moar You Know: Manning dumped to Wikileaks. Wikileaks dumped to 4 overseas papers. One of the papers dumped to the NYT. The 4 papers and the NYT’s have been vetting and releasing the majority of docs to the public. Manning is in jail, and DOJ is tageting Assange/Wikileaks for charges. Does the DOJ need to target the newspapers as well? They are responsible for the vast majority of the 2,000 some cables shown to the public.
When the messengers are attacked, why are the papers left off the hook?
J. Michael Neal
@Gin & Tonic:
I don’t know, but it doesn’t have to be Assange. It could as easily be someone who then sent it on to Wikileaks in turn, either with or without Manning’s knowledge. And, again, we do know that Manning admitted to a third party that he did it. As part of assuming innocence, you have to assume that he was lying about that.
soonergrunt
@Gin & Tonic: As was pointed out to me by more than one person on this board, when I tried to remind everyone that a football player wasn’t actually charged with a crime of rape and so shouldn’t be assumed to be guilty, this is the internet and not a court of law and we can say things here that have no value there.
Those people then continued that thread along the same course.
J. Michael Neal
@Mart:
No, they don’t have to target the newspapers. Keep in mind what the prosecutors seem to have as their theory of the case (which is not necessarily what they have actually charged anyone with). It appears that they think that Assange, or someone at WikiLeaks was more than just the messenger. They apparently think that someone there encouraged Manning to steal files. If I had to guess, and this part I’d say is just a guess, is that the timing of Manning’s various downloads indicates a possibility that he leaked some of the documents, and then WikiLeaks actively encouraged him to steal more.
If that’s the case, and on this part I don’t have any real conviction as to whether or not they are right, then WikiLeaks went beyond simply being a conduit for the leaks, which is not a crime, and became an actual participant in the crime.
On the other hand, there isn’t any reason to think that any of the newspapers ever had contact with Manning, let alone provided any encouragement. That’s a very important distinction.
Gin & Tonic
@J. Michael Neal: Maybe lying, maybe boasting, maybe talking trash, I don’t know, and neither do you. I’ve probably said things to people on chats or in bars or in comment threads that may not be technically “true” for a wide variety of reasons. I probably wasn’t starting center forward on the state champion high school soccer team, for instance.
If Manning admits to the truth of what he said in the logs on the stand, I’ll shut up.
joe from Lowell
@J. Michael Neal:
Indeed, Manning internet advocates are strongly pushing the theory that the conditions of Manning’s detention are an effort to get him to confirm this theory.
soonergrunt
@J. Michael Neal: They’re not charging a conspiracy at this time. They don’t have to show that Manning colluded with anybody. They need only show that he gave the documents to somebody he knew was not entitled or cleared to see them. There is no requirement under the charges as they are today for the government to show that the other party so much as looked at the documents he sent them, in order to meet the requirements of the charge. The fact that they have him telling somebody he copied 260,000 state department documents and telling that same person that he uploaded those documents to Wikileaks, and that those documents were subsequently released by Wikileaks to the entire world is more than enough.
PS
@joe from Lowell: I know that you have been strongly stating that Manning’s jail conditions are not unique, but I am curious to know your opinion on the theory that the conditions are (in part) intended to pressure Manning to implicate WikiLeaks/Assange.
It may well be the case both that normal procedures are being used and that pressure is being applied; that’s roughly my guess. I am not trying to goad you into self-contradiction because I don’t think that’s what you would be doing if you agreed, I am just curious.
MattMinus
@Gin & Tonic:
No offense (why did I type that, I’m about to call you a retard in 3…2…), but this is a retarded Sean Hannity style rhetorical gambit. Seriously, he used to use this all the time when he was shilling for obviously guilty killer cops in NYC.
Since no verdict has been rendered it would be morally wrong for people to form opinions based on what they know of the case? Really?
I am not a court, and I have no obligation to shut my brain down until a court makes a decision.
Edit: Looks like I’m a little late to this party
joe from Lowell
@soonergrunt:
If I was Wikileaks’ lawyer, I’d argue that Manning could very well be trying to protect some third-party middle man, point out that there is no evidence to back up Manning’s claim that he went right to Wikileaks, and pound the table about reasonable doubt.
joe from Lowell
@PS: I just don’t know. It could well be that both are true, and that it is S.O.P. among prosecutors and prisons to treat espionage suspects like this because they are trying to squeeze them to identify accomplices.
joe from Lowell
@MattMinus:
Sorry if I’m a bit enthusiastic, but this has been a pet peeve of mine ever since a pro-torture Bush apologist told me I wanted a lynching because I said that Bush and Cheney ordered torture. “Blah blah blah, they have the presumption of innocence, you monster!”
soonergrunt
@joe from Lowell: But again, since Manning isn’t charged as part of a conspiracy, it doesn’t matter. For anything Assange or somebody from Wikileaks might want to say to affect the outcome of the trial, they will have to testify under oath and subject to cross examination.
Amanda in the South Bay
@joe from Lowell:
IDK, if the government wanted to pressure Manning to get to Wikileaks, wouldn’t they treat him a lot nicer? If I was being punished like Manning was, I’d be a lot less willing to cooperate with the government.
Of course, IANA psychologist.
Gin & Tonic
@MattMinus: Christ almighty, I never said it would be morally wrong for people to form opinions. Three drinks ago, this began when you said
I tried to point out that a) maybe people were thinking of donating to his legal defense fund because they are not as certain as you are of his guilt and that b) maybe Manning is also one of those honest to dog innocent people. Legally, he is in fact one of those innocent people.
You and joe from Lowell and others are certain of his guilt. Fine. I’m not. If that makes me a retard like Sean Hannity, fine. I’ll refrain from saying that you are using a retarded Glenn Beck-like rhetorical argument when he convicts people you’ve never heard of of massive anti-government conspiracies.
PS
@joe from Lowell: Thanks. We may have achieved agreement.
joe from Lowell
@soonergrunt:
I was talking about a theoretical Assange trial.
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Maybe. Then again, we do know that the military – let’s not forget, he’s in military detention – hasn’t always been averse to putting the screws to someone.
joe from Lowell
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah, no. You totally did, and I’ve already pointed out to you where you did it. You were quite the angel with the flaming sword, actually. If you’ve thought better of your self-righteous denunciation, fine, but don’t pretend you didn’t argue this point. We can still read the comments from earlier in the thread, you know.
Gin & Tonic
@joe from Lowell: Sure, whatever. Flaming sword:
All full of self-righteous moral judgementitude and shit, telling people they can’t form opinions.
+4, and I should probably stop.
PS
@Gin & Tonic: There are other options. For instance, Manning may be technically guilty but admirable. Or, he may be not legally culpable but reprehensible. And so on.
I think the word “innocent” frequently gets somewhat twisted in these discussions. Also, his right to humane treatment and a speedy trial is in no way dependent on whether or not he committed the specified (or any other) crime. But many people seem to have trouble making those distinctions.
MattMinus
@Gin & Tonic:
LOL, I’m only just starting my first drink, so I’ll be getting nicer ;)
Anyway we have gone a bit far afield. I just intended to express that I thought it was weird that someone thats pretty much admitted guilt is getting so much when the victims of far greater injustice get much less.
…And I’m done arguing about.
Anne Laurie
@MikeJ:
@J. Michael Neal:
No, the best I can find with my admittedly sub-optimal googling skills is that Kevin Poulsen (journalist & acknowledged FBI/NSA informant) says that Adrian Lamo (hacker, feed for Poulsen’s FBI career, said to be Aspergers) had IM chats with Manning, where Manning said he’d downloaded a ton of information he had no military-legal right to download and turned them over to Wikileaks. Pouslen published what he said was “about 25%” of those chat logs, and said there was much, much more information on them pointing directly at Wikileaks/Assange, but it was all “too personal” to release publicly. When pushed on this topic, Poulsen eventually went on the record to say that, no, actually, the redacted portions didn’t make a direct connection between Manning and Wikileaks… but hey, who else would encourage a low-level scum-sucking drama queen of a halfblood nobody like Manning to commit TREASON and be responsible for THE DEATH OF INNOCENTS if not another l.l.s.s.d.q.h.b.n. like Assange?…
Which is what pinged my radar in the first place, because I’m old enough to remember the FBI explaining that they had records, detailed records mind you, establishing that Martin Luther King Jr. had committed unlawful sexual congress with women to whom he was not married (some of them white women!). And this therefore”proved” that MLK was not really leading a non-violent campaign for civil rights, he was just a filthy law-breaker using the sympathy of soft-handed white Northern liberals to wreak havoc against decent honest law-enforcement officials like Bull Connor. For further incidents, see anything about J. Edgar Hoover’s career, starting with the Palmer Raids in 1919, or to narrow down the timeframe read up on why Nixon thought breaking into Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrists’s office was a good idea.
If someone can point out any information about Manning’s infamous chat logs that didn’t come through Kevin Poulsen, I would be grateful, because it’s really bothering me that one such compromised source is being treated in the court of public opinion as the be-all and end-all of what “we” need to know about Manning’s offenses.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mart:
@J. Michael Neal:
Exactly!
The NYTimes’ position here would be the same as it was in the Pentagon Papers’ case: That the Times didn’t solicit the PP from Ellsberg. In this case, the Times didn’t solicit the leaked documents from WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks problem is that at the time they accepted these documents from whomever, they actively solicited purloined documents on their front page- an act of conspiracy. WikLeaks has, in the interim, removed that request from their site.
J. Michael Neal
@Anne Laurie:
You do realize that there is a very large difference between stating that they had proof that MLK had affairs and that that meant he wasn’t really leading a non-violent civil rights campaign, and stating that they have proof that Bradley Manning downloaded classified documents and given them to someone and that this means that he downloaded classified documents and gave them to someone, right? You know, the difference between a complete non-sequitor and actual evidence?
And you are aware that, in the case of MLK, they actually had what they claimed they had? That it didn’t mean at all what they claimed it did didn’t mean that they didn’t have it.
Yes, he’s a journalist. Among other things he’s published have been a number of exposes of the NSA. A brief search I made turns up zilch about him having been an informant for them. Unless it wasn’t so much being an informant for them as it was telling them about some of his own hacking after his 1991 arrest, I’m not sure what you are talking about.
Wow. That’s quite a list of charges you’ve leveled at Lamo. I’ll start from the back. As someone with Asperger’s, I have to ask, what the fuck is your point? Does that automatically make me suspect as a source, too? Let’s just say that my respect for your response took a very perceptible nosedive at this point.
He was a feed for Poulsen’s FBI career? What FBI career? Lamo was a source for Poulsen as a journalist. Based upon this, I’m pretty sure who your one source about Kevin Poulsen is, and while you may be suspicious about Poulsen, Glenn Greenwald has repeatedly lied on this subject.
And, yes, Adrian Lamo is a hacker. Of course, that’s not a useful impeachment of his credibility (or Poulsen’s, for that matter) in this case, because Julian Assange has been convicted of the same crime.
A more full description would be that he has actually published the portions of those chat logs in which Manning made the statements in question. Unless you are prepared to accuse them of fabricating the logs altogether, then lets at least accept that the chats happened.
This is, in fact, a lie. See my above link to Kevin Poulsen discussing the logs. In fact, he has said the exact opposite. He said that, while there is a lot of very personal information about Manning in the logs, there is NOT anything more of interest in regards to his connection to Assange.
I want a direct quite on this, or a retraction. Again, what I’ve found indicates that Poulsen has said nothing of the sort.
There is, of course, the fact that the DoJ has seized Lamo’s computer, which would certainly seem to indicate that there is something on it that they want. Again, if you want to claim that the logs were fabricated, come out and make the accusation.
Do you have any source other than Glenn Greenwald? Even if you want to discount any claims that Poulsen and Even Hanson make about his dishonesty, Ryan Singel has rather categorically proven that Greenwald blatantly lied in his column about the contents of their communications. There is someone in this exchange with a serious credibility problem, and it isn’t Poulsen. And, with the Asperger’s comment, someone in this thread has engaged in a rather disgusting smear job. I’ll let you try to figure out who it is.
J. Michael Neal
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
I don’t know if this would actually constitute such a conspiracy. While the NYT didn’t have an actual banner headline soliciting government employees to hand them classified information, it isn’t much of a secret that they love it when such employees do so. There is at least speculation, and, again, I can’t speak to the validity thereof, that their solicitation went well beyond that, including providing Manning with a dedicated server and a promise of legal assistance.
DougW
@Steve: Dude, don’t you get “innocent until proven guilty?” You sound like the fundamentalists of Islam… Guilty! You’re all Guilty of violations of sharia and insults to Islam. Infidels and enemy’s of the state.
Give the system a chance to work, and TRY if it’s possible to recall your civics education, that you ARE Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law…
Jesus save us from this sort of ignorance…
tkogrumpy
Pardon this old high-school dropout, but it seems to me that when they courts are seeking to sit a jury they ask whether you have formed an opinion of guilt or innocence and if you have you are shitcanned.Why would that be? Could it be that having formed an opinion as to guilt beforehand, you are unfit to serve. If you don’t accept the premise that Justice is blind, may I suggest moving to a country that shares your values.
tkogrumpy
@Anne Laurie: Bravo!
Ija
I don’t get it with the Asperger thing. Is there some conventional wisdom that says Asperger sufferer = liar? Otherwise what relevance would it have on whether or not Lamo lied about his interactions with Manning?
J. Michael Neal
@tkogrumpy: Ah, America: Love It or Leave It!
There’s nothing like the old classics, particularly when they are wrapped in complete ignorance of what statements like, “Innocent until proven guilty,” actually mean or what they apply to.
Much like cathy, if you tell me that you practice what you advocate here, you’re lying.
J. Michael Neal
@Ija: If I had to guess, it’s that Asperger’s is a mental health issue, and there are a lot of people who use those to impeach someone’s credibility. Never mind that one of the common symptoms of Asperger’s is a rather painful and naive *honesty*. That’s not to say that Lamo couldn’t be lying, but there’s no reason to think that having Asperger’s makes that *more* likely.
Perry Como
Hai guise! I have some chat logs here:
Perry Como: WTF dude?
Adrian Lamo: Yeah, I’m a fucking loser.
See! Chat logs! If you want some real lulz, put a convicted hacker on the stand and explain how he doesn’t have the ability to forge chat logs (Timestamp? touch -t, bitches)! While you’re at it, you might want to pin something on a network run by Cypherpunks.
Fucking n00bs.
J. Michael Neal
@Perry Como: Again, you do realize that, among the convicted hackers with connections to this case, one of them is Julian Assange, right?
Edit: Also, as I understand t, there is a presumption in court that the dates and other identifying information as a document are correct unles shown to be otherwise. It wouldn’t be at all difficult for someone, hacker or not, to forge the dates on documents submitted as evidence. You have to show why they aren’t valid,
Perry Como
Sure, but has Assange been charged with anything?
I ANAL, so I have no idea what the burden of proof is to enter something into evidence. Chat logs as evidence rates somewhere above the telephone game and below scribbles on a bar napkin. Seriously, if people are hanging this case on some plain text chat logs, that’s ridiculous. Anyone with a basic knowledge of computers could generate some logs right now where Glenn Beck admits he raped and killed a girl in 1990.
Anne Laurie
@Ija:
I apologize for that part. I read Poulsen consistently using the “If you critize my interpretation of Lamo’s IM chats, that means you are attacking a poor brain-cripple!” defense-by-misdirection, and as a non-neurotypical myself I hate having our (perceived) disability used to make us human shields. Different
hobbyhorseargument than the ‘Is Bradley Manning being treated more harshly than any other military prisoner in his position?”, and it was stupid on my part to include that clause. Truthfully, I think I first became aware of this argument because I read about Poulsen throwing around the “Lamo is a damaged person, so arguing with me is just like kicking a cripple” bullsht, which is in the top ten of my extensive life list of Statements That Make Me Distrust the Maker.Anne Laurie
@J. Michael Neal: I owe you an apology, too. Consider the clause withdrawn. But I still think Poulsen has his own agenda, which he may or may not have been given by the Security Wing of the federal government, and it seems like he’s using Lamo as a sockpuppet for this agenda. If it turns out I’m wrong, I will owe Poulsen an apology — as if he cared.
lol
@Perry Como:
And verbal testimony is even easier to fabricate – you just have to say it. It’ll be interesting to see if Manning’s lawyer argues that the chat logs are tampered with — I don’t know if there are any penalties for alleging evidence is false when you know it’s not. There may be cooberating evidence – the chat logs may exist in some form on Manning’s computer.
But now that I think about it, I’m not sure they’re relevant to his charges. The contents only appear relevant to tying him to Assange/Wikileaks so they may not even get introduced into evidence, except possibly to establish how they started investigating Manning.
They have all the evidence they need without the logs to convict him on his actual charges.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@J. Michael Neal:
Well…IIRC, the Pentagon Papers case was quite groundbreaking because the times had never gone so far as printing federally classified documents on its pages previous to that time.
And the fact is that even now, the Times hasn’t agreed to publish all of these documents from WikiLeaks- they’re self-censoring. As far as the Ellsberg leaks went, they absolutely knew it was whistle-blowing. Had there been whistle-blowing laws at the time, Ellsberg could have- or should have- gone that route. This is the a huge difference from the Manning (if it was in fact Manning) case, in that so many of these documents, while very embarrassing when released, do not demonstrate illegal acts on the part of the US government. I’d have a lot more sympathy for Manning- if it was indeed he who downloaded and released the documents- had he stuck with releasing documents of illegal events that were in his purview. I mean, hell, if I was pissed at Cole and hacked his computer in hopes of finding a murder confession, but then released the Punky Brewster fan-fic porn I found there, I wouldn’t be blowing the whistle on anything.
joe from Lowell
@J. Michael Neal:
Wow.
I con comfortably go forth without giving a flying fuck about what you have to say about this topic now.
You’re better than this…usually. Not on this story, though.
joe from Lowell
@DougW:
facepalm
Indeed, Jesus save us from people who think the presumption of innocence is an ethical rule about the opinions of private citizens.
Because, Good God, that is ignorant!
soonergrunt
@Anne Laurie: I’ve never seen anything of the kind by Paulson regarding Lamo.
I have seen a lot of dishonest, dishonorable bullshit by Greenwald and the greenwaldians, including claims similar to the very claims you have been making here. The Asperger’s thing is something I would never have expected from you. Really. And while I would expect some weak sauce water muddying on the Manning/Assange subject from mistermix, because it’s pretty near and dear to his heart, I wouldn’t expect the Asperger’s thing used as a character attack from him at all.
My kid has Asperger’s syndrome. This has fuck-all to do with the subject except that I have some insight into the condition after 16 years of living with it daily. That being the very reason I didn’t respond to you last night. It was offensive in the extreme for you to use it to attack someone’s character. It’s not a character deficit, it’s a perception/cognition disorder that affects socialization.
Most Asperger’s subjects do not lie. They find it extremely uncomfortable to do so, to the extent of inability to even tell white lies. If your pants make your ass look big, they will tell you so when you ask. It’s important to them that you know this, since you asked, and they are genuinely hurt that you would be upset or offended. They also tend to obey laws, rules, and directives to the letter and they tend to upset when others around them are casual with the truth or obeying the laws. They tend to be unable to judge people’s emotional states in face to face contact, and are typically very handicapped in that environment because they cannot discern non-verbal cues. They tend to prefer video games to movies, and the online world to the meat world for this very reason. They tend to be obsessive, bordering on mania, for one or two subjects, about which they can expound at length, and they can take you boredom or dislike of these subjects, or even having differing opinions regarding them as personal affronts.
soonergrunt
@DougW:
Umm, you DO realize that we’re not in a court room, right? There’s not a judge or a jury walking around your your house is there? Cause that would actually be pretty cool for a little while. You could ask them questions about the legal system and so on, but then they’ll get into last night’s left overs and you won’t have anything for lunch, and it will stop being cool.
See previous BJ threads for: Roethlisberger, Ben
Then come back and tell me about innocent until proven guilty.
soonergrunt
@joe from Lowell: It wasn’t JMichael Neal who said that. He was blockquoting, and raking over the coals, Anne Laurie who DID say that.
Tom Hilton
@Silver: I’m familiar with that dynamic from a pro bono case I worked on about 10 years ago–a class action on behalf of developmentally disabled inmates in the California penal system. (We kicked their asses: they settled, with an admission of liability, and agreed to pay for 5 years of monitoring visits. But of course the California system is still fucked up in dozens of other ways.)
One DD inmate I talked to, there was a yard down situation once and he had no idea what to do. A CO ended up shoving him to the ground–otherwise he could well have been shot. Others got repeated 115s because they didn’t understand the rules, or were preyed on by other inmates.
Tom Hilton
@El Cid: Given that the Hamsher-Greenwald party line is that Manning’s treatment is somehow unique and extraordinary, I don’t see their efforts helping any of the people who are not Bradley Manning.
Admiral_Komack
@soonergrunt:
Thank you for this information.
Anne Laurie
@joe from Lowell: That was me, and I was wrong.
@soonergrunt: You’re absolutely right, I shouldn’t have put that in there, and I’d take it out now if it didn’t feel like cheating.
soonergrunt
@Anne Laurie: Fair enough. Thank you.