Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence

Chelsea Manning

Chelsea Manning (depiction accompanying name change at Huffington Post:

Know all ye by these presents that Chelsea Manning is hereby awarded the Corner-Brightener Candlestick, presented by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.

The Sam Adams award is in the form of a candlestick holder, as it celebrates the shining of light into the murkiest areas of human activity. This Chelsea Manning did to tremendous effect. Never before had the potential of the information age to expose the evildoing of the powerful, been so fully exploited and revealedChelsea’s work opened up a new era in the relationship between governors and governed.

Chelsea, you acted from motives of compassion for the victims of war crime and concern that the policy of your country was creating rather than reducing violence and terrorism, while the true facts were consistently withheld from the public. The articulacy, good sense, and
genuine humanitarian concern which characterise your defence statement at your show trial, will eventually be recognised widely as a classic and lasting testimony of the very best of the human spirit.

It says everything you need to know about Barack Obama’s United States that one of its noblest citizens now languishes in one of its jails. Chelsea, you are more free than all those who spend their lives covering up for evil. We applaud your courage, dignity and integrity and we want you to know that, wherever you may be, we are always with you and supporting you. It is an enormous honour for me, Ambassador Craig Murray, to present you with this, the Sam Adams Award.

Presented this 19th day of February 2014 by admirers of the example set by the late CIA analyst, Sam Adams.

Related Articles

Solidarity with Chelsea Manning: Oxford Vigil and Sam Adams Award

On the day that Chelsea Manning was to be awarded in absentia the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence, supporters from Oxford and beyond gathered on Cornmarket for a couple of hours in the afternoon for a solidarity vigil.

Read the entire article here.

Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden Criticize the “Decline” of US Democracy

Former US Army soldier Chelsea Manning received the 2014 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence from ex-intelligence officials for providing WikiLeaks with classified documents chronicling the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, in a ceremony held at the Oxford Union on Wednesday evening.

Read the entire article by Silkie Carlo here.

Chelsea Manning’s Acceptance Speech

Chelsea E. Manning
89289
1300 North Warehouse Road
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-2304

2014.02.19

Statement thru Aaron Kirkhouse
For Public Release

The founders of America-fresh from a war of independence from King George lll-were particularly fearful of concentrating power. James Madison wrote that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” (See: Federalist Papers, No. 47 (1788))

To address these concerns, the founders of America actively took steps when drafting the Constitution and ratifying a Bill of Rights-including protections echoing the Libertarianism of John Locke-to ensure that no person be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

More recently, though, since the rise of the national security apparatus-after a brief hiatus between the fall of the Soviet Union and the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center-the American government has been pursuing an unprecedented amount of secrecy and power consolidation in the Executive branch, under the President and the Cabinet.

When drafting Article lll of the American Constitution, the founders were rather leery of accusations of treason, and accorded special protections for those accused of such a capital offense, providing that “[n]o person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”

For those of you familiar with the American Constitution, you may notice that this provision is under the Article concerning the Judiciary, Article lll, and not the Legislative or Executive Articles, land ll respectively. And, historically, when the American government accuses an American of such crimes, it has prosecuted them in a federal criminal court.

In a recent Freedom of Information Act case (See: New York Times v. United States Department of Justice, 915 F. Supp.2d 5O8, (S.D.N.Y.,2013.01.03)) – a seemingly Orwellian “newspeak” name for a statute that actually exempts categories of documents from release to the public-a federal district court judge ruled against the New York fimes and the American Civil Liberties Union. The Times and the ACLU argued that documents regarding the practice of “targeted killing” of American citizens, such as the radical Sunni cleric Anwar Nasser al-Aulaqi were in the public’s interest and were being withheld improperly.

The government first refused to acknowledge the existence of the documents, but later argued that their release could harm national security and were therefore exempt from disclosure. The court, however, felt constrained by the law and “conclud[ed] that the Government [had] not violated the FOIA by refusing to turn over the documents sought in the FOIA requests, and [could not] be compelled . . . to explain in detail the reasons why [the Government’s] actions do not violate the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

However, the judge also wrote candidly about her frustration with her sense that the request “implicate[d] serious issues about the limits on the power of the Executive Branch under the Constitution and laws of the United States,” and that the Presidential “Administration ha[d] engaged in public discussion of the legality of targeted killing, even of fAmerican] citizens, but in cryptic and imprecise ways.” In other words, it wasn’t that she didn’t think that the public didn’t have a right to know-it was that she didn’t feel that she had the “legal” authority to compel disclosure.

This case, like too many others, presents a critical problem that can also be seen in several recent cases, including my court-martial. For instance, I was accused by the Executive branch, and particularly the Department of Defense, of aiding the enemy-a treasonable offense covered under Article lll of the Constitution.

Granted, I received due process. I received charges, was arraigned before a military judge for trial, and eventually acquitted. But, the al-Aulaqi case raises a fundamental question: did the American government, and particularly the same President and Department, have the power to unilaterally determine my guilt of such an offense, and execute me at the will of the pilot of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle?

Until documents held by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel were released after significant political pressure in mid-2013, I could not tell you. And, very likely, I do not believe I could speak intelligently of the Administration’s policy on “targeted killing” today either.

There is a problem with this level of secrecy, obfuscation, and classification or protective marking, in that they supposedly protect citizens of their nation; yet, it also breeds a unilateralism that the founders feared, and deliberately tried to prevent when drafting the American Constitution. Now, we have a “disposition matrix,” classified military commissions, and foreign intelligence and surveillance courts-modern Star Chamber equivalents.

I am now accepting this award, through my friend, former school peer, and former small business partner, Aaron, for the release of a video and documents that “sparked a worldwide dialogue about the importance of government accountability for human rights abuses,” it is becoming increasingly clear to me that the dangers of withholding documents, legal interpretations, and court jurisprudence from the public that pertain to the right to “life, against such human rights abuses.

When the public lacks the ability to access what its government is doing, it ceases to be involved in the governing process. There is a distinct difference between citizens, in which people are entitled to rights and privileges protected by and from the state, and sublects, in which people are placed underthe absolute authority and control of the state. In essence, this is the difference between tyranny and freedom. To echo a maxim from Milton and Foes Friedman: a society that puts secrecy-ln the sense of state secrecy-ahead of transparency and accountability will end up neither secure nor free.

Thank you,

CHELSEA E. MANNING

Chelsea Man­ning Awar­ded Sam Adams Integ­rity Prize for 2014

More articles about Chelsea Manning

Janu­ary 16, 2014

The Sam Adams Asso­ci­ates for Integ­rity in Intel­li­gence (SAAII) have voted over­whelm­ingly to present the 2014 Sam Adams Award for Integ­rity in Intel­li­gence to Chelsea (formerly Brad­ley) Manning.

A Nobel Peace Prize nom­inee, U.S. Army Pvt. Man­ning is the 25 year-old intel­li­gence ana­lyst who in 2010 provided to WikiLeaks the “Col­lat­eral Murder” video – gun bar­rel foot­age from a U.S. Apache heli­copter, expos­ing the reck­less murder of 12 unarmed civil­ians, includ­ing two Reu­ters journ­al­ists, dur­ing the “surge” in Iraq. The Pentagon had repeatedly denied the exist­ence of the “Col­lat­eral Murder” video and declined to release it des­pite a request under the Free­dom of Inform­a­tion Act by Reu­ters, which had sought clar­ity on the cir­cum­stances of its journ­al­ists’ deaths.

Release of this video and other doc­u­ments sparked a world­wide dia­logue about the import­ance of gov­ern­ment account­ab­il­ity for human rights abuses as well as the dangers of excess­ive secrecy and over-classification of documents.

On Feb­ru­ary 19, 2014 Pvt. Man­ning — cur­rently incar­cer­ated at Leaven­worth Prison — will be recog­nized at a cere­mony in absen­tia at Oxford University’s pres­ti­gi­ous Oxford Union Soci­ety for cast­ing much-needed day­light on the true toll and cause of civil­ian cas­u­al­ties in Iraq; human rights abuses by U.S. and “coali­tion” forces, mer­cen­ar­ies, and con­tract­ors; and the roles that spy­ing and bribery play in inter­na­tional diplomacy.

The Oxford Union cere­mony will include the present­a­tion of the tra­di­tional SAAII Corner-Brightener Can­dle­stick and will fea­ture state­ments of sup­port from former SAAII awardees and prom­in­ent whis­tleblowers. Mem­bers of the press are invited to attend.

On August 21, 2013 Pvt. Man­ning received an unusu­ally harsh sen­tence of 35 years in prison for expos­ing the truth — a chilling mes­sage to those who would call atten­tion to wrong­do­ing by U.S. and “coali­tion” forces.

Under the 1989 Offi­cial Secrets Act in the United King­dom, Pvt. Man­ning, whose mother is Brit­ish, would have faced just two years in prison for whis­tleblow­ing or 14 years if con­victed under the old 1911 Offi­cial Secrets Act for espionage.

Former senior NSA exec­ut­ive and SAAII Awardee Emer­itus Thomas Drake has writ­ten that Man­ning “exposed the dark side shad­ows of our national secur­ity régime and for­eign policy fol­lies .. [her] acts of civil dis­obedi­ence … strike at the very core of the crit­ical issues sur­round­ing our national secur­ity, pub­lic and for­eign policy, open­ness and trans­par­ency, as well as the unpre­ced­en­ted and relent­less cam­paign by this Admin­is­tra­tion to snuff out and silence truth tell­ers and whis­tleblowers in a delib­er­ate and pre­med­it­ated assault on the 1st Amendment.”

Pre­vi­ous win­ners of the Sam Adams Award include Coleen Row­ley (FBI); Kath­ar­ine Gun (formerly of GCHQ, the National Secur­ity Agency’s equi­val­ent in the UK); former UK Ambas­sador Craig Mur­ray; Larry Wilk­er­son (Col., US Army, ret.; chief of staff for Sec­ret­ary of State Colin Pow­ell); Julian Assange (WikiLeaks); Thomas Drake (NSA); Jes­selyn Radack (former eth­ics attor­ney for the Depart­ment of Justice, now National Secur­ity & Human Right Dir­ector of the Gov­ern­ment Account­ab­il­ity Pro­ject); Thomas Fin­gar (former Deputy Dir­ector of National Intel­li­gence, who man­aged the key National Intel­li­gence Estim­ate of 2007 that con­cluded Iran had stopped work­ing on a nuc­lear weapon four years earlier); and Edward Snowden (former NSA con­tractor and sys­tems admin­is­trator, cur­rently resid­ing in Rus­sia under tem­por­ary asylum).

The Sam Adams Asso­ci­ates for Integ­rity in Intel­li­gence are very proud to add Pvt. Man­ning to this list of dis­tin­guished awardees.

How Truth Can Save Lives (re Bradley Manning’s Uncommon Courage)

By Ray McGovern, originally published on Aug. 15, 2010, reposted Aug. 22, 2013 with the following note from consortiumnews.com editor Robert Parry:

“From the Archive: A vengeful U.S. military has sentenced Pvt. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for disclosing unpleasant truths about the Afghan and Iraq wars and other government deceits. Manning’s bravery inspired ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern in 2010 to reflect on an earlier dilemma between secrecy and truth.”

Link: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/08/22/how-truth-can-save-lives/