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Spotted in DC today: An ad sponsoring Bradley Manning’s fight for freedom. It was paid for via EpicStep, which appears to be a Kickstarter for nonprofit advertising campaigns. Here’s the successful entry for this ad.
samstrident asks: re: your recent post on PVC Manning, I don't know if you've reported on this before, but she identifies as a woman, and according to the Manning-Lamo Chat Logs, she goes by Breanna.
» SFB says: While there is evidence — specifically in the chat logs with Lamo — of this, and it has come up in court, we’re largely going off of evidence from correspondence initially intended to be private and court proceedings where it was suggested that Bradley Manning suffered from gender identity disorder in the past, but not whether he continues to do so. What if, for example, Manning never intended on going public until after they were out of the military? What if this was forced out into the public eye against Manning’s will? (While the Lamo chatlogs suggest against this, people can and do change their minds.) We have no problem with calling Manning Breanna. The trouble here is that there’s been no public overture that it’s Manning’s intention (from, say, Manning’s defense attorney, who posted the photo and called him “PFC Bradley Manning”), but Manning is in a situation where’s it’s difficult to say that out loud. I think that’s why you haven’t seen more mainstream outlets run with this story angle — the lines are blurry, and I think it’s hard for any outlet to make a change like this without public confirmation. What do you guys think? — Ernie @ SFB
Bradley Manning gets a new headshot
David Coombs, Bradley Manning’s defense attorney, obtains from the Department of the Army an official photograph of the political prisoner. Coombs writes on his blog, “This image is considered to be in the pubic domain, and may be used for print and publication.”
A better look for the Wikileaks figure.
Wikileaks: Bradley Manning’s request to dismiss denied by judge: Army Col. Denise Lind, the judge in the case, denied the dismissal during a pretrial hearing, meaning the case will go forward. The trial is tentatively set to start in September. source
Julian Assange is running for the Australian Senate according to the Twitter account of his whistle-blowing company Wikileaks. “We have discovered that it is possible for Julian Assange to run for the Australian Senate while detained. Julian has decided to run,” appeared on the company’s Twitter feed around 8pm EST on Friday evening. When contacted by the Guardian, John Wanna, a policical scientist at Australian National University, confirmed Assange’s eligibility saying, “if he gets on the roll, then he can stand as long as he’s solvent and not in jail and not insane. “(Photo by AcidPolly) source
The group’s reputation among foreign policy writers, analysts, and practitioners is poor; they are considered a punchline more often than a source of valuable information or insight. As a former recipient of their “INTEL REPORTS” (I assume someone at Stratfor signed me up for a trial subscription, which appeared in my inbox unsolicited), what I found was typically some combination of publicly available information and bland “analysis” that had already appeared in the previous day’s New York Times. A friend who works in intelligence once joked that Stratfor is just The Economist a week later and several hundred times more expensive. As of 2001, a Stratfor subscription could cost up to $40,000 per year.
However, it’s worth noting that Fisher’s thesis, which seems to be based on hearsay and conjecture alone rather than hard evidence, is getting debated heavily in the comments, with some suggesting he’s naïve. “The entire vibe of your piece is so snarky and so obviously full of anti-Wikileaks sentiment that it’s hard to know whether to take you seriously or not,” one commenter writes.
Wikileaks is dumping 5 million emails from Stratfor. This series is about Coke trying to get some info on PETA. Fascinating.
Interesting, thanks Fred.
Fred Burton wrote:
The FBI has a classified investigation on PETA operatives. I’ll see what
I can uncover.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
———————————————————————————————————
From: “scott stewart”
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 11:01:30 -0400
To: ‘bart mongoven’
Subject: RE: Public Policy Question for Coca-Cola
Yeah, I’m not sure how that works now either. Bart, is this something
you guys can still help with?———————————————————————————————————
From: Anya Alfano [mailto:anya.alfano@stratfor.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 10:56 AM
To: Fred Burton; scott stewart
Subject: Public Policy Question for Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola just sent me a long list of questions regarding PETA/Animal
Activism and the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver—I’ve pasted the
questions below. I’m not entirely clear on how much we can task the
public policy group at this point—is there any guidance you can give me
on that front? Coke has asked for a short teleconference with one of
our analysts to discuss this issue—is that something I could ask Kathy,
Bart or Joe to do, or would that be off the table at this point? Stick,
are these questions something that you have a handle on, if we aren’t
able to get info from the policy folks?
Any thoughts or guidance would be helpful. Thanks, Anya
Questions—-
— How many PETA supporters are there in Canada?
— How many of these are inclined toward activism?
— To what extent will US-based PETA supporters travel to Canada to
support activism?
— What is PETA’s methodology for planning and executing activism?
(Understanding this better would certainly help us to recognize
indicators should they appear.)
— To what extent is PETA in Canada linked to PETA in the US or
elsewhere?
— To what extent are the actions of PETA in one country controlled by
an oversight board/governing body?
— To what extent could non-PETA hangers-on (such as anarchists or ALF
supporters) get involved in any protest activity?
A fascinating story that exposes a major private intelligence firm. It’s extremely interesting that Anonymous gave these files to Wikileaks — Anonymous hacked Stratfor late last year. Wikileaks has numerous media partners around the world for this story, with McClatchy and Rolling Stone representing the U.S., and activist group The Yes Men helping as well. We’ll check more of this stuff out later tonight.
For a guy basically fighting for his freedom, Julian Assange seems awful chill in this courtroom. Not bad brah. (watch live feed here)
![reuters:
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the Supreme Court in London February 1, 2012.
Assange was detained in Britain in December 2010 on a European arrest warrant issued by a Swedish prosecutor after two female former WikiLeaks volunteers accused him of sexual assault. [REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth]
Read more: Julian Assange appeals extradition to UK’s top court
In case you’d like to follow along at home, ABC (Australia) has live video from the event.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lypxwcgr781qmaoalo1_500.jpg)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrives at the Supreme Court in London February 1, 2012.
Assange was detained in Britain in December 2010 on a European arrest warrant issued by a Swedish prosecutor after two female former WikiLeaks volunteers accused him of sexual assault. [REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth]
Read more: Julian Assange appeals extradition to UK’s top court
In case you’d like to follow along at home, ABC (Australia) has live video from the event.
I can’t add much to what’s already been (and will be) ...
One of the perks of being an early employee...
Over the last 90 days, the Digg...
#FMMDI (at 30 Rockefeller Plaza)
Thanks. I guess my thoughts are as follows:
1. I think...
Two Months Ago I set out to interview the principal cast...
Tweet of the night: Wikileaks’ defiance still intact despite news their boss will be on The Simpsons’ 500th episode. Love it.
“Aiding the enemy”: That’s one of the crimes that Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza, who was tasked with an investigation of Manning’s case, says there is evidence he committed. Almanza has advised the Army to submit Manning to a court martial, relating to the massive, classified document dump to Wikileaks, with which he’s been accused. Manning’s defense attorney, David Coombs, has voiced complaint that Almanza works in the Justice department as a civilian. Justice is currently building a case against Wikileaks head Julian Assange, which opens up risk of conflict of interest. If Manning is convicted through a court martial, he could face life imprisonment. source
» What could happen to Manning? The man who allegedly gave Wikileaks its biggest coup could face the death penalty if convicted in his case — though the Army’s prosecutors have made it clear that they will not ask for that. Among the people who have testified against Manning: Jihrleah Showman, a former team leader of Manning’s who claims he once punched her in the face, and Adrian Lamo, the “grey hat” hacker who gained infamy in some circles for turning Manning in to federal authorities.
Julian Assange gets one last change to fight extradition: The Wikileaks leader has 14 days to make his case in front of the British Supreme Court (regarding a single technicality). This is his final lifeline — if this falls through, he heads to Sweden to face sexual assault charges. source
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