Manning leaves U.S. prison 7 years after giving secrets to WikiLeaks

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Manning leaves U.S. prison 7 years after giving secrets to WikiLeaks

By Karen Dillon

REUTERS

 

FILE PHOTO - Chelsea Manning is pictured in this 2010 photograph obtained on August 14, 2013. Courtesy U.S. Army/Handout via REUTERS

 

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (Reuters) - Chelsea Manning walked out of a U.S. military prison on Wednesday, seven years after being arrested for passing secrets to WikiLeaks in the largest breach of classified information in U.S. history.

 

Manning, 29, was released from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, at about 2 a.m., the U.S. Army said in a brief statement.

 

"First steps of freedom!!" Manning wrote alongside a photograph of sneaker-clad feet that she published on social media.

 

Manning was convicted by court-martial in 2013 of espionage and other offences for furnishing more than 700,000 documents, videos, diplomatic cables and battlefield accounts to WikiLeaks, an international organisation that publishes such information from anonymous sources, while she was an intelligence analyst in Iraq.

 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a target of criminal investigations in Sweden and the United States, had promised to accept extradition if Manning was freed. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said that the arrest of Assange, who has been living in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012, was a priority.

 

Former U.S. President Barack Obama, in his final days in office, commuted the final 28 years of Manning's 35-year sentence, effective four months later. That decision angered national security experts, who say Manning put American lives at risk, but it won praise from free-speech activists, critics of U.S. war policy and transgender advocates who have embraced her transition to a female gender identity.

 

Once known as Private First Class Bradley Manning, she is likely to become a high-profile proponent for the transgender community, said Chase Strangio, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who has represented her.

 

Manning announced her gender transition while the U.S. Army was keeping her in the men's prison and forcing her to wear a male haircut. She twice tried to commit suicide and faced long stretches of solitary confinement as well as denial of proper healthcare, Strangio said.

 

Last year, the U.S. Defence Department lifted a long-standing ban against transgender men and women serving openly in the military. The Pentagon estimated it affected 7,000 active-duty and reserve personnel.

 

Although transgender people still complain of widespread discrimination in education, employment and medical care, awareness of the issue has exploded since Manning went to prison. Transgender celebrities such as Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox have become part of the mainstream.

 

"LOVE FOR MY COUNTRY"

 

In a statement to ABC News, Manning said she appreciated the support she had received from people all over the world.

 

"The past will always affect me, and I will keep that in mind while remembering that how it played out is only my starting point — not my final destination," the statement said.

 

Manning said in 2014 that she disclosed the classified information to expose truths about the civil war in Iraq "out of a love for my country."

 

In nearby Kansas City, Missouri, some 15 members of a local group called PeaceWorks demonstrated in support of Manning on Wednesday, crediting her with exposing war crimes.

 

"This is the kind of information we the people should have in order to make decisions about our leaders and who should be in office," said Henry Stoever, 68, a retired lawyer and leader of the group.

 

Among the material Manning leaked was a 2007 gunsight video of a U.S. Apache helicopter firing at suspected insurgents in Iraq, killing a dozen people, including two Reuters news staffers.

 

WikiLeaks began revealing secrets from anonymous sources in 2007 and then burst onto the wider public consciousness with a series of releases throughout 2010.

 

More recently, WikiLeaks published Democratic National Committee emails in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded the email accounts were hacked by Russian intelligence as part of a campaign by Moscow to influence the election.

 

(Additional reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City and Daniel Trotta and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Bill Trott and Leslie Adler)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-05-18

[LannaGuy]

Who cares?  he/she is lucky Obama thinks treason is ok

[Luckysilk]

Traitor 

 

If she has to go into witness protection will she be a man ?

[pegman]

18 minutes ago, LannaGuy said:

Who cares?  he/she is lucky Obama thinks treason is ok

38% still think it was ok for Trump to commit treason with Putin.

[LannaGuy]

1 minute ago, pegman said:

38% still think it was ok for Trump to commit treason with Putin.

 totally off-topic and Special Counsel will decide what has, or has not, happened in the 'Russia affair' media frenzy 

[ilostmypassword]

What I find fascinating is that to many on the right Edward Snowden is a hero.  But Chelsea Manning is a traitor.  Can someone please explain to me the distinction?

[LannaGuy]

Just now, ilostmypassword said:

What I find fascinating is that to many on the right Edward Snowden is a hero.  But Chelsea Manning is a traitor.  Can someone please explain to me the distinction?

one wore the uniform, which is FAR worse, the other was a contractor but I have never heard anyone calling either a 'hero'  (or 'heroine')

 

amazes me that one was jailed for such a heinous crime then they spent money on 'gender reassignment'  whilst in jail and gave him/her a 'commutation'  you could not make it up

 

 

 

 

[55Jay]

6 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

What I find fascinating is that to many on the right Edward Snowden is a hero.  But Chelsea Manning is a traitor.  Can someone please explain to me the distinction?

I think the gender bender issue is one of the factors. 

[harada]

There will be some broken hearts in Fort Leavenworth today. 

[Credo]

Well, there is now a vacant cell at the prison and there are a lot of candidates in Washington who will soon be eligible to occupy it.   

[thaibeachlovers]

Probably the only thing Obama actually did that I agree with. Good on him for doing so.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

4 hours ago, ilostmypassword said:

What I find fascinating is that to many on the right Edward Snowden is a hero.  But Chelsea Manning is a traitor.  Can someone please explain to me the distinction?

IMO both are heroes. Government secrecy is the greatest threat to all of us in the long run.

[daveAustin]

38% still think it was ok for Trump to commit treason with Putin.

There was bound to be one comment mentioning Trump. How boring. Have you guys got nothing better to do?

[jesimps]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

IMO both are heroes. Government secrecy is the greatest threat to all of us in the long run.

Both are traitors and deserve to go down for a FULL life term. Treachery is the worst crime of all, possibly causing the deaths of many of your own citizens and allies. 

[jesimps]

1 hour ago, daveAustin said:

There was bound to be one comment mentioning Trump. How boring. Have you guys got nothing better to do?

The US version of "But but Thaksin.....".

[grumbleweed]

While calling her a traitor let's not forget the murderous brutality she exposed

[Jingthing]

I don't know enough about the details of her case to have an informed opinion if she should have been pardoned. But I don't think her gender issues should have impacted on the decision. If she hadn't been released, the humane thing to do would have been to medically support her gender transition. Apparently there were issues with that. 

 

I think alot of opinions about her release are emotionally rather than fact based. 

[LannaGuy]

24 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

I don't know enough about the details of her case to have an informed opinion if she should have been pardoned. But I don't think her gender issues should have impacted on the decision. If she hadn't been released, the humane thing to do would have been to medically support her gender transition. Apparently there were issues with that. 

 

I think alot of opinions about her release are emotionally rather than fact based. 

No problem if he wants to be a she but not after a conviction and not with taxpayers cash!  it's almost a 'reward' for a traitorous act  of a soldier entrusted with information whilst in uniform. Wikileaks can do good work and I am for open government but this was not that by a long stretch.

[thaibeachlovers]

43 minutes ago, jesimps said:

Both are traitors and deserve to go down for a FULL life term. Treachery is the worst crime of all, possibly causing the deaths of many of your own citizens and allies. 

No doubt you can tell us how many US citizens and allies died because of the leaks?

We do know now that many innocent Iraqis were murdered by US forces. Perhaps murder only counts if it's western people?

[thaibeachlovers]

14 minutes ago, LannaGuy said:

No problem if he wants to be a she but not after a conviction and not with taxpayers cash!  it's almost a 'reward' for a traitorous act  of a soldier entrusted with information whilst in uniform. Wikileaks can do good work and I am for open government but this was not that by a long stretch.

The taxpayer should NEVER be required to pay for personal lifestyle choices. Can anyone on here imagine the Thai government paying for lady boy's operations?

I don't think she should have been jailed as long as she was, but they should not have paid for the hormones. Regardless of the wrongness, IMO, of the conviction, prison is for punishment, not a happy lifestyle.

[sanukjim]

7 hours ago, ilostmypassword said:

What I find fascinating is that to many on the right Edward Snowden is a hero.  But Chelsea Manning is a traitor.  Can someone please explain to me the distinction?

No distinction,They are both traders.They should be in prison for life or as in war time ,shoot them.

[Jingthing]

2 minutes ago, sanukjim said:

No distinction,They are both traders.They should be in prison for life or as in war time ,shoot them.

Maybe should have shot her, but in a taxpayer provided frock, thank you very much ... 

[RuamRudy]

32 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The taxpayer should NEVER be required to pay for personal lifestyle choices. Can anyone on here imagine the Thai government paying for lady boy's operations?

I don't think she should have been jailed as long as she was, but they should not have paid for the hormones. Regardless of the wrongness, IMO, of the conviction, prison is for punishment, not a happy lifestyle.

I am not sure that we should use the Thai government as the benchmark for ethical domestic policy on any front.

I don't claim to have any expert knowledge of gender assignment issues, but I think that calling it a lifestyle choice is regarded, in these more enlightened days, to be ingorant.

[RuamRudy]

25 minutes ago, sanukjim said:

No distinction,They are both traders.They should be in prison for life or as in war time ,shoot them.

You do realise that they both exposed the illegal activities of their government, don't you? Would you prefer that they did nothing and, effectively, participated in the cover up of US war crimes or illegal mass surveillance?

[LannaGuy]

Just now, RuamRudy said:

You do realise that they both exposed the illegal activities of their government, don't you? Would you prefer that they did nothing and, effectively, participated in the cover up of US war crimes or illegal mass surveillance?

Ah it's ok to wear the uniform, sign the declaration of loyalty and secretly give out information which puts your comrades at risk?  sent to jail he/she then goes on hunger strike and get's free 'gender reassignment' and is now complaining of 'routinely having to endure haircuts' whilst in jail

 

you could not make it up

[RuamRudy]

5 minutes ago, LannaGuy said:

Ah it's ok to wear the uniform, sign the declaration of loyalty and secretly give out information which puts your comrades at risk?  

The manner in how she leaked the information was certainly inappropriate, but the leaking itself was critically important and should be applauded the world over.

[sangtip2]

One was nothing more than a journalist  the other was found guilty in the eyes of a government which had committed crimes and had a  lot to hide.   Both were to be punished  neither should have been.

[grumbleweed]

1 hour ago, RuamRudy said:

I don't claim to have any expert knowledge of gender assignment issues, but I think that calling it a lifestyle choice is regarded, in these more enlightened days, to be ingorant.

Where sexuality and gender are concerned, we are born the way we are. Just like retards are born without the ability, i.e. sufficient brain cells, to understand this

[jenifer d]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The taxpayer should NEVER be required to pay for personal lifestyle choices. Can anyone on here imagine the Thai government paying for lady boy's operations?

I don't think she should have been jailed as long as she was, but they should not have paid for the hormones. Regardless of the wrongness, IMO, of the conviction, prison is for punishment, not a happy lifestyle.

transgender is NOT a lifestyle, and certainly is NOT a choice;

hormones are cheap, and the gov't did NOT pay for any operations,

as a matter of fact just the opposite; they put her into solitary confinement...

and solitary confinement is tantamount to torture, hardly a happy lifestyle

[jenifer d]

11 minutes ago, grumbleweed said:

Where sexuality and gender are concerned, we are born the way we are. Just like retards are born without the ability, i.e. sufficient brain cells, to understand this

you should study current science, and actual reality, as opposed to biased and prejudiced personal opinions; but then again, maybe you don't have sufficient brain cells to understand this