Manning trial to start

[Forever_frost]

A republic is a form of government in which the country is a "public matter" (Latin: res publica), not the private concern or property of the rulers. In a republic, officers of state are appointed or elected rather than inherited. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of state is not a monarch.[1][2]

1. "republic", WordNet 3.0 (Dictionary.com), retrieved 20 March 2009
2. "Republic". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved August 14, 2010.

Right and there is a difference between a public servant and a service member. Military does not offer the public a service, they offer the nation one. They aren't here to change your tire, to stop you from getting robbed, to get your cat from a tree. They are here to protect the nation. Now, answer the question. How are you defending this traitors release of secret documents?

[AMJ]

Forever frost, anything he says is bs anyways hes a traitor him self so he'll defend his kind

[SS Junk]

So an Apache helicopter killing 12 civilians and then the pilot and gunner laughing about it is not a war crime?

You are referencing this?

If so, they were in a war zone. Are you under the impression the helicopter crew knew the ones on the ground were civilians... in a war zone?

[Moose242]

Right and there is a difference between a public servant and a service member. Military does not offer the public a service, they offer the nation one. They aren't here to change your tire, to stop you from getting robbed, to get your cat from a tree. They are here to protect the nation. Now, answer the question. How are you defending this traitors release of secret documents?

Yes.... they do by protecting the citizens interests abroad. Does that not qualify as a service? Yes they serve a nation that has a representative democracy, a la the public interest.

And no, I am not defending anything this man has done that would put our service members at risk or otherwise compromise military technology or strategy, but I do believe that the military should be required to release any and all information regarding their fuckups (you know, like every other branch of government does; And if they don't they are punished).

[exlude]

I somewhat agree, there is a problem there, though. When the IRS admits a fuck up, we aren't guaranteed to have people die the next day.

DoD admits a fuck up, there will be an increase in enemy significant actions the next week.

[Moose242]

I somewhat agree, there is a problem there, though. When the IRS admits a fuck up, we aren't guaranteed to have people die the next day.

DoD admits a fuck up, there will be an increase in enemy significant actions the next week.

If said fuckup will not lead to casualties and compromise lives, can we agree that it should be made public?

[exlude]

If said fuckup will not lead to casualties and compromise lives, can we agree that it should be made public?

Absolutely, but I think that limits the scope of fuck ups back to where we are originally, and past your intent.

We publish Army accidents. When a Soldiers dies in a car wreck, when a military vehicle rolls over, mistakes on the job, etc. But it's more mundane stuff from pissing on bodies. The "newsworthy" stuff, while we are in a counter insurgency environment, will always be followed by increased enemy activity.

[Forever_frost]

Yes.... they do by protecting the citizens interests abroad. Does that not qualify as a service? Yes they serve a nation that has a representative democracy, a la the public interest.

And no, I am not defending anything this man has done that would put our service members at risk or otherwise compromise military technology or strategy, but I do believe that the military should be required to release any and all information regarding their fuckups (you know, like every other branch of government does; And if they don't they are punished).

Remind me again how much information is rapidly released and not redacted from say, the DOJ and IRS

[Moose242]

Remind me again how much information is rapidly released and not redacted from say, the DOJ and IRS

And I think that should all be made public as well so much as it is not an invasion of an individuals privacy. Governmental actions should be completely transparent and those who hold back information should be punished. Glasnost (the Soviets got one right, but I suppose a broken watch is right twice a day).

[SS Junk]

If so, they were in a war zone. Are you under the impression the helicopter crew knew the ones on the ground were civilians... in a war zone?

Too difficult a question to answer regarding your current agenda?

[Forever_frost]

FORT MEADE, Md. – The court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, the central figure in a massive leak of government documents, is focused on secrecy and government security. Yet his trial has become a secretive drama that allows the public little insight into what's going on in the military courtroom.

One of the pretrial hearings was closed to the public. Many court documents have been withheld or heavily redacted. Photographers were blocked from getting a good shot of the soldier and even some of Manning's supporters had to turn their T-shirts inside out.
Military law experts say some of it is common for a court-martial, while other restrictions appear tailored to the extraordinary nature of the case, which has garnered an outpouring of support from whistleblowers, activists and others around the world.

"I think the judge is very concerned about not turning this trial into a theater, into a spectacle," said David J.R. Frakt, a military law expert at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and a former military prosecutor and defense lawyer. "I cannot remember a situation where there was such a high degree of civilian interest, people not affiliated with the military, having intense and passionate interest in the outcome of the case."

Manning is charged under federal espionage and computer fraud laws, but the most serious offense the military has accused him of is aiding the enemy, which carries a life sentence. His supporters call him a hero; opponents say he is a traitor for leaking the material the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

The trial for the soldier from Crescent, Okla., began Monday under a barrage of heavy restrictions.
Manning supporters wearing "truth" T-shirts had to turn them inside out before entering the courtroom. The shirts were made by the Bradley Manning Support Network in early 2012 as an alternative to "Free Bradley Manning" T-shirts banned from early pretrial hearings, spokesman Nathan Fuller said.
The military allowed the shirts Tuesday. Army spokeswoman Col. Michelle Roberts said the earlier decision made "out of a concern for public safety and to remove a potential cause for disturbance among members of the public." She said leaders assessed the situation and decided they were OK.
Since the case began, reporters covering hearings have been asked to sign a document saying they would withhold the names of spokespeople on-site because the military said some people directly involved in the case had received death threats. The Associated Press signed the document to be allowed to cover the trial, but the news organization is protesting it.

Photographers looking to snap pictures of Manning Monday missed the soldier leaving the courtroom because he was blocked by military police. On Tuesday, Manning was not surrounded.

The military also relaxed rules Tuesday about interviewing spectators outside the courtroom.

Courts-martial don't have a roadmap for guaranteeing public access like civilian courts, military law experts said.
The security in the Manning case appears determined to minimize distractions and maintain law-and-order — even if that means throwing up roadblocks to a public accustomed to transparency, experts said.

"I don't think it's good to turn the environs into an armed camp unless it is literally unavoidable," said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military law at Yale Law School. "People do occasionally act out in courtrooms, both spectators or witnesses or the accused, but I'm sure that the Army knows how to maintain order, and I'm not sure that it's necessary to do it with as heavy a hand as seems to be implied here."

Manning, 25, has admitted turning over hundreds of thousands of classified documents. His lawyer has called him a "young, naive but good-intentioned" soldier, but prosecutors say he put secrets directly into the hands of Osama bin Laden.

His trial, which is being heard by a judge instead of a jury, is expected to run all summer. Parts of it are expected to be closed.
At a pretrial hearing in April, the military judge, Army Col. Denise Lind, released written copies of two rulings to reporters. It was the first time since she got the case in February 2012 that she had made her written orders publicly available on a same-day basis.

The lack of public access to rulings and motions is being challenged in federal court by the Center for Constitutional Rights, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and a handful of journalists. Thirty news organizations, including the AP, plan to file a brief this week supporting the case.
In February, the military began releasing Lind's older rulings amid numerous Freedom of Information Act requests.

The court considers some documents so sensitive that they are stored off-site at locations in Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia. They will remain there, and even any appellate judges would have to travel to locations such as the Central Intelligence Agency to read them.
Philip Cave, a retired Navy judge advocate general, said it's not uncommon for portions of military trials to be kept away from the public.
"Does that automatically mean that there's a lack of transparency or that there's kind of hiding the ball going on? I don't think you can argue that," said Cave, who is now a military defense lawyer. "Then again," he added, "I don't necessarily believe my government. I do think they over-classify things."
The military released about 550 documents on Tuesday, including a photo of a noose Manning made from a bedsheet while he was being detained in Kuwait shortly after his arrest in May 2010.

The noose was presented as evidence at a hearing in December regarding Manning's confinement at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., to show why jailers there considered him a suicide threat.

For nine months, Manning was held alone in a windowless cell 23 hours a day, sometimes with no clothing. Lind later ruled Manning had been illegally punished and should get 112 days off any prison sentence he receives.

Army spokesman George Wright said there was "no specific trigger" for the release of documents, but the military had been working to process as many records as possible.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/06/04...#ixzz2VISt14jJ

[jasone]

I sure hope that kid gets set free.

[Forever_frost]

I sure hope that kid gets set free.

Has to be trolling

[jw33]

Verdict is in.

[Forever_frost]

http://rt.com/usa/manning-trial-verdict-judge-751/

The judge presiding over the case of Army private first class Bradley Manning will announce her verdict Tuesday afternoon from Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Col. Denise Lind, the presiding judge in the court-martial of the United States v. Pfc Manning, said Monday morning that the long-awaited verdict will be delivered at 1 p.m. EDT from the military courthouse at the Ft. Meade Army Base outside of Baltimore.


Lind has been deliberating the case since Friday afternoon when closing arguments concluded seven weeks after Manning’s court-martial got underway. She is tasked with solely deciding if the 25-year-old Army intelligence analyst is guilty of espionage, aiding the enemy and 20 other counts that could come with a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Manning has admitted to sharing massive tomes of classified data with the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. He was arrested while deployed to Iraq in 2010 and spent more than 1,100 days in pretrial detention before the court-martial began in June.

According to reports from Ft. Meade early Monday, defense attorney David Coombs expected Col. Lind to announce her verdict on Tuesday.


Once Col. Lind makes her determination, the proceedings will move into the sentencing phase. There the defense is expected to call two-dozen witnesses; the prosecution is reportedly likely to call 21.

David Coombs, defense attorney for US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning (AFP Photo / Jim Watson)David Coombs, defense attorney for US Army Private First Class Bradley Manning (AFP Photo / Jim Watson)

During the trial itself, the prosecution prompted testimony from more than 80 witnesses including Manning’s Army superiors and the forensics investigators who examined the hundreds of thousands of documents the soldier ripped from military computer networks. By comparison, Coombs called only 10 witnesses to speak and rested his case in under a week.

The prosecution hopes they’ve convinced Lind to convict Manning of aiding the enemy, a charge they’ve accused him of because the documents the soldier sent to WikiLeaks were published openly on the Web and eventually downloaded by al-Qaeda.

Coombs has called Manning a whistle-blower who wanted to expose atrocities being committed across the world in the name of the United States.

Among the material Manning admitted to leaking includes field reports from the Afghan and Iraq wars, Guantanamo Bay detainee assessment briefs, and more than 250,000 diplomatic State Department cables.