Is the case against Bradley Manning going south?

[Scooter]

One would have though that someone would have actually gone to the effort of actually tracing the Wikileaks cables back to Manning before now. Apparently not.

FT. MEADE, Maryland — A day after a government forensic expert testified that he’d found thousands of diplomatic cables on the Army computer of suspected WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, he was forced to admit under cross-examination that none of the cables he compared to the ones WikiLeaks released matched.

Special Agent David Shaver, a forensic investigator with the Army’s Computer Crimes Investigations Unit, testified Sunday that he’d found 10,000 U.S. diplomatic cables in HTML format on the soldier’s classified work computer, as well as a corrupted text file containing more than 100,000 complete cables that had been converted to base-64 encoding.

Six months after Manning was arrested for allegedly leaking documents to WikiLeaks, the site began publishing 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables that ranged in date from December 1966 to the end of February 2010. But Shaver said none of the documents that he found on Manning’s computer, and that he then compared to those that WikiLeaks published, matched the WikiLeaks documents.

Shaver wasn’t asked how many cables he compared to the WikiLeaks cables, or which dates those cables had, he just said he matched “some of them.” In re-direct examination, however, he noted that the CSV file in which the cables were contained was corrupted and suggested this might indicate that it had not been possible to pass those cables to WikiLeaks for this reason. The defense objected to this assumption, however, noting that Shaver could not speculate on why the cables were not among those released by WikiLeaks.

The cross-examination of Shaver focused on establishing that there might have been legitimate reasons for the State Department cables to be on Manning’s computers, since intelligence analysts were given access to them to do their job. One of Manning’s superiors testified earlier in the hearing that he had sent a link to Manning and other analysts directing them to the location where they could find the cables.

Was this another railroad job, à la USS Iowa, fabricated in order to cover up military incompetence?

[loCAtek]

You mean other than Manning admitting how, why and to who, he downloaded the classified info?

[Scooter]

Downloading it is one thing, as a security analyst that was part of his job. Proving that he passed them on to someone else is another thing, and if they can't even demonstrate that he was in possession of any of the cables that were leaked, then I can't see how they can make that case, can you?

[Crackpot]

I is my understanding that this part of the case is just showing there is enough evidence for a trial and the prosecution might be holding their best intel for the trial where things are less likly to leak that being said they do have to provide enough to show the necessity for a trial.

[loCAtek]

If this is true, he's screwed;

"PFC Manning allegedly responded with, 'I sold information to WikiLeaks,' " according to the defense document.

Source

[dgs49]

This is one of those cases that will irritatingly demonstrate the silliness of the American criminal justice system.

Everyone knows what he did. There is no question that it was a criminal activity. He actually admitted doing it.

But it will take the Criminal Justice System months, if not years, to come to the obvious conclusion.

But rest assured, he will spend many long and difficult years at Leavenworth, were they will not sympathize with him for the agony of being a closeted queer in the American military.

Which appears to be his "defense."

[loCAtek]

Which appears to be his "defense."

Which is a pretty crappy one, if you ask me. There are many homosexual people serving in the military, I'd wager that it's the same percentage as in the general population. Some aren't particularly closeted these days either; your unit or detachment is like a small town- everybody knows everybody else's business
...but, I digress.

I can believe he threw hissy fits (the spoiled brat) and posed a la' Corporal Klinger, in a dress;


...because as his chain of command, had already figured out: Manning had watched too much M.A.S.H., and thought he could get out of deployment via Section 8.

Nice try, but the Army has seen that played a bazzillion times, and it's just not going to work in court. If he really was gay, he should have just gone to a bar, and gotten laid; problem solved. I don't buy that that justifies betraying his country.

Like Klinger, I'm willing to bet he's faking it, and say he should take the 'man-kiss' test, on the stand!

[liberty]

This is one of those cases that will irritatingly demonstrate the silliness of the American criminal justice system.

Everyone knows what he did. There is no question that it was a criminal activity. He actually admitted doing it.

But it will take the Criminal Justice System months, if not years, to come to the obvious conclusion.

But rest assured, he will spend many long and difficult years at Leavenworth, were they will not sympathize with him for the agony of being a closeted queer in the American military.

Which appears to be his "defense."

Treason deserves the death penalty; preferably by firing squad. Let the firing squad be composed of active duty combat veterans and if the army can’t get enough volunteers then give him life in a Leavenworth dog pen . This is a clear cut case of treason. What my confederate ancestors did was not treason but this is.

[Lord Jim]

I think The Traitor Manning's attempt to use his sexual orientation as an excuse for betraying his country, and putting hundreds of lives in jeopardy is both disgusting and an insult to the thousands of brave gay men and women who served honorably both under "don't ask don't tell" and before that.

Though it's hardly surprising that an utterly unprincipled sleazebag of this magnitude would try to pull a stunt like this.

[loCAtek]

The US Army said in a statement that the head of the tribunal, Lt Col Paul Almanza, had concluded that "reasonable grounds exist to believe that [Intelligence analyst Bradley Manning] committed the offences[sic] alleged.

"He [Lt Col Almanza] recommended that the charges be referred to a general court martial," the army statement said.




BBC

That sound you hear is Manning's chances of ever seeing daylight for the next 52 years, or so, fading away into dim murmurs.

[loCAtek]

(CNN) -- Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is suspected of leaking hundreds of thousands of secret documents to the WikiLeaks website, will be court-martialed on charges that could lead to a sentence of life in prison, the Army said Friday in a statement.

[Sean]

The US Army said in a statement that the head of the tribunal, Lt Col Paul Almanza, had concluded that "reasonable grounds exist to believe that [Intelligence analyst Bradley Manning] committed the offences[sic] alleged.

.




BBC

I'm going to have a BSG moment now ( ) as this is one of my personal bugbears...

The [sic] in your post should not be there. The quote was from a British site and the word 'offences' was spelled correctly in the British manner. There is no reason to believe that it was misspelled or otherwise incorrect.

[loCAtek]

I believe, sic stands for 'shown in context', but it doesn't mean to suggest that the spelling is wrong or incorrect; just that it's being printed as originally written by the author.

[Scooter]

It is not an acronym of any kind, it is a direct borrow from Latin, and it most certainly connotes that someone reading the quoted material would believe it to be an error.

sic
   [seek; Eng. sik]
adverb Latin .
so; thus: usually written parenthetically to denote that a word, phrase, passage, etc., that may appear strange or incorrect has been written intentionally or has been quoted

Dictionary.com

[rubato]

One would have though that someone would have actually gone to the effort of actually tracing the Wikileaks cables back to Manning before now. Apparently not.
...
Was this another railroad job, à la USS Iowa, fabricated in order to cover up military incompetence?

The "IOWA" coverup was an ugly little story.

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

Sean!

Don't be ashamed to stand up for proper language usage.

lo, get thee a Strunk & White - still a classic upon which one can rely to avoid such moments of embarrassment.

[loCAtek]

Is that right? No one ever told this community collage drop-out that; including an English major I tried to ask, I just had to figure it out on my own. Good to know, I wasn't far off the mark.

[Scooter]

About as close as missing the side of a barn when shooting at it...

[BoSoxGal]

[Beer Sponge]

Should`ve stayed in collage.