Clwyd
Clwyd shown within Wales in its original borders
Geography
Status	Non-metropolitan county (1974–1996) Preserved county (1996–)
2003 area	2,910 km² Ranked 4th
HQ	Mold
History
Origin	Administrative county of Flintshire Administrative county of Denbighshire (most) Rural district of Edeyrnion
Created	1974
Abolished	1996
Succeeded by	Conwy Denbighshire Flintshire Wrexham Preserved county of Clwyd
Demography
1981 population	390,200
1991 population	402,927
2007 population	491,100 (est; 2003 borders)[1] Ranked 2nd
Politics
Governance	Clwyd County Council
150px Coat of arms of Clwyd County Council
Subdivisions
Type	Non-metropolitan districts
File:Clwyd districts.png
Units	1. Colwyn 2. Rhuddlan 3. Glyndŵr 4. Delyn 5. Alyn & Deeside 6. Wrexham Maelor

Clwyd (Welsh pronunciation: [ˈklʊɨd]) is a preserved county of Wales, situated in the north-east, bordering England with Cheshire to its east, Shropshire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Gwynedd to its immediate west and Powys to the south. It additionally shares a maritime border with the metropolitan county of Merseyside along the River Dee. Between 1974 and 1996, it was a county with a county council, and it was divided into six districts. It is named after the River Clwyd, which runs through the region. It was also a Royal Mail postal county before the postal county scheme was abolished in 1996. Clwyd County Council was based in the county town of Mold.

History[link]

From the late 1950s, the radical reform of local government in Wales was considered more pressing than that in England, due to the small size of many of the existing authorities, especially the upper tier county councils. The Local Government Commission for Wales set up in 1958 was the first to recommend wholesale amalgamation of the administrative counties outside Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, with extensive boundary changes; however the then Minister of Housing and Local Government Sir Keith Joseph decided not to accept the report, noting that county amalgamations in England had been highly unpopular when proposed.^[2]

In 1967, after a change of government, the Secretary of State for Wales Cledwyn Hughes published a white paper which revived the idea of amalgamation, but instead of the boundary changes proposed in the previous report, treated each county as a whole. The report recommended a single new county of Gwynedd incorporating Denbighshire, Flintshire, Caernarfonshire, Merionethshire and Anglesey. The white paper stated that "the need for early action is particularly urgent in Wales", and so the issue was not referred to a Royal Commission as in England.^[3] Opponents criticised the proposed new county for being too large, and in November 1968 a new Secretary of State announced that Gwynedd would be divided into two.^[4]

This revised proposal was continued in a further white paper in March 1970, although this proposed that the counties be unitary authorities which would have no district councils below them. The incoming Conservative government resurrected two-tier local government in a consultative document published in February 1971, again with the same upper-tier boundaries.^[5] Some minor changes having been made to the existing county boundaries due to special local factors, the Local Government Act 1972 duly created Clwyd as a merger of Flintshire with most of Denbighshire, along with the Edeyrnion Rural District from Merionethshire. The 1970 white paper had introduced the name of Clwyd by reference to the River Clwyd and the Clwydian range of hills; Clwyd was the only new Welsh county which did not take its name from an ancient kingdom.

Districts[link]

For second-tier local government purposes, Clwyd was divided into six districts, each being operated by a district or borough council.

• Alyn and Deeside
• Colwyn
• Delyn
• Glyndŵr
• Rhuddlan
• Wrexham Maelor

These were abolished, along with the county itself, on 1 April 1996.

Coat of Arms[link]

Clwyd County Council's coat of arms was granted in December 1974. It features the cross and choughs from Flintshire's shield, which itself came from the traditional arms of Edwin of Tegeingl. The black lion of the Princes of Powys Fadog is taken from Denbighshire's shield.

Abolition[link]

Clwyd County Council and its districts were abolished by the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, and local government would be replaced by the four unitary authorities of Flintshire, Wrexham County Borough, Denbighshire, and parts of Conwy (along with some smaller communities moving to Powys). The Act also abolished the County, and states the term "county" would be synonymous with the "principal areas" created by the 1994 Act. However the Act then created a further set of "preserved counties", which were based on the 8 created by the 1972 Act. These Preserved Counties, similar in respect to English Ceremonial counties, would be retained for a variety of purposes, including Lieutenancy and Shrievalty.

Clwyd County Council and its six districts ceased operations at midnight on 1 April 1996, and local government was immediately transferred to the new principal areas of Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham. The Preserved County of Clwyd also came into effect as of that date.

2003 boundary review[link]

In 2003, the borders of Clwyd were changed to cover the remainder of Conwy (which had previously been part of Gwynedd), which was part of a Wales-wide re-organisation of the preserved counties, so that boundaries of the preserved counties would contain whole current principal areas only.^[6]

These moves were met with some criticism, as the preserved counties were created to sustain a stable and continuing county layout, which would counter act to interim local government reviews affecting principal areas. This led to some areas, such as the Aberconwy district, moving to a preserved county it had never been administered by in the past, and therefore these moves went generally unreported due to the preserved county's limited status. The Boundary Commission proceeded to retain the 8 preserved counties, and modified their borders in 2003 to match with the incumbent principal area boundaries.

The 2003 arrangement brings towns such as Llandudno, Conwy and Betws y Coed into the preserved county of Clwyd.

			Merseyside
	Gwynedd		Cheshire
		Clwyd    East
		Powys	Shropshire

Legacy[link]

Many local organisations still make use of the "Clwyd" name. Some of organisations and facilities include:

• Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold
• Clwyd Family History Society
• Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust
• Clwyd League
• Clwyd Area Scouts
• Clwyd County Darts Association
• Clwyd Pension Fund (Local Government pension scheme inherited from Clwyd County Council, now providing pension schemes for Wrexham, Flintshire and Denbighshire unitary authorities and former districts).

The position of Lord Lieutenant of Clwyd also continues as the Monarch's personal representative as with the other seven preserved counties of Wales. The current Lord Lieutenant is Trefor Jones, who has held the position since 2001.

Geography[link]

Clwyd is bordered by the preserved/ceremonial counties of Gwynedd to the west, Powys to the south, Shropshire to the south-east, Cheshire to the east and Merseyside over the River Dee. Since the 2003 boundary changes, its coastline has extended from the Dee Estuary in Flintshire through to Llanfairfechan in Conwy. The east of the county is fairly urbanised, particularly areas such as Wrexham, Deeside and the commuter settlements close to Chester. The west, however is more rural, with Snowdonia National Park in eastern areas of Conwy. Large coastal settlements include Rhyl and Prestatyn in Denbighshire, moving westwards to Abergele, Colwyn Bay and Llandudno. Central areas of Clwyd feature the mountainous Clwydian Range and Berwyn range, and the Vale of Clwyd in the central north is a rich agricultural area. The population as of 2007 is estimated at 491,100, based on figures for the four component unitary authority areas.

Clwyd consists of the whole of the historic county of Flintshire, and most of Denbighshire. Since 2003 it has also included the former district of Aberconwy, which lies in the historic county of Caernarfonshire. Edeyrnion Rural District was also part of Merionethshire.

Clwyd as a preserved county since 2003.

See also[link]

• List of Lord Lieutenants of Clwyd
• List of High Sheriffs of Clwyd
• List of places in Denbighshire
• List of places in Flintshire
• List of places in Conwy
• List of places in Wrexham county borough

Further reading[link]

• Gordon Emery - Curious Clwyd (1994) ISBN 1-872265-99-5

References[link]

Coordinates: 53°05′N 3°16′W / 53.09°N 3.27°W / 53.09; -3.27

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (October 2010)

The Right Honourable Ann Clwyd MP
Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party
In office 24 May 2005 – 5 December 2006
Leader	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Jean Corston
Succeeded by	Tony Lloyd
Member of Parliament for Cynon Valley
Incumbent
Assumed office 3 May 1984
Preceded by	Ioan Evans
Majority	9,617 (32.2%)
Member of the European Parliament for Mid and West Wales
In office 7 June 1979 – 14 June 1984
Personal details
Born	(1937-03-21) 21 March 1937 (age 75) Denbighshire, Wales, UK
Nationality	British
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Owen Roberts
Alma mater	University of Wales, Bangor

Ann Clwyd Roberts (born 21 March 1937) is a Welsh Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Cynon Valley since 1984.

Early life[link]

Ann Clwyd is the daughter of Gwilym Henri Lewis and Elizabeth Ann Lewis. She lived in Pentre Halkyn in Flintshire and attended Holywell Grammar School (now Holywell High School), the independent Queen's School in Chester and the University College of Wales in Bangor. She was a student teacher at Hope School in Flintshire. She worked as a journalist, working for the BBC as a studio manager and then became Welsh correspondent for the Guardian and Observer newspapers during 1964-79. She was Vice-Chair of the Arts Council of Wales from 1975-79. She is a member of the NUJ and TGWU.

Parliamentary career[link]

She was persuaded to stand for Parliament by Huw T. Edwards, who felt that there should be more women in parliament. She was the unsuccessful Labour candidate in Denbigh in 1970 and Gloucester in October 1974. From 1979 to 1984, Ann Clwyd was MEP for Mid and West Wales. She was elected to Parliament in a by-election in May 1984 following the death of Ioan Evans and became the first woman to sit for a Welsh valleys constituency. She served as Shadow Minister of Education and Women's Rights from 1987 but was sacked in 1988 for rebelling against the party whip on further spending on nuclear weapons. She returned as Shadow Secretary of State for Overseas Development from 1989 to 1992 and then served as Shadow Secretary of State for Wales in 1992 and for National Heritage from 1992 to 1993.

She was the Opposition Spokesperson for Employment from 1993 to 1994 and for Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 1995 when she was again sacked, along with Jim Cousins, for observing the Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kirkuk without permission. In 1994 she staged a sit-in down Tower Colliery mine in her constituency to protest at its closure.

She was a member of the International Development Select Committee from 1997 to 2005. Having been prominent in her concern for the situation in Iraq before the war there in 2003, Tony Blair made her a Special Envoy on Human Rights in Iraq in the run-up to the War. She was the first journalist to put forward claims that some Iraqis were killed in plastic shredders. On 9 August 2004, she became a member of the Privy Council.

Clwyd was a Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 2001 until 2005, and was elected as Chair by 167 to 156 (beating Tony Lloyd) on 24 May 2005. However on 5 December 2006 she was defeated by Lloyd by 11 votes when she sought re-election, with her closeness to Tony Blair being cited as a reason for her defeat.[1]

Clwyd, chosen for a Private Member's Bill via Ballot was pressurised by hundreds of pressure groups^{[citation needed]} in order to publisise their group. Clwyd chose the Female Genital Mutilation Bill By Ann Clwyd (to prohibit parents from sending, or taking, their daughters abroad for operations such as female circumcision) speaking about this bill, Female Circumcision was banned in 1985. She has been a vocal supporter of the Iraq War.^{[citation needed]}

She is currently Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group and the All Party Parliamentary Iraq Group. She is Vice-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coalfield Communities, and Secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cambodia. She is a former Chair of the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), an Executive Member on the (IPU) Committee on Middle East Questions and an Executive Member on the (IPU) Coordinating Committee of Women Parliamentarians. She has been appointed by the Prime Minister as a Member of the British Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.^{[citation needed]}

She was admitted to the White Robe of the Gorsedd of Bards at the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1991; is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wales, Bangor, and the North East Wales Institute of Higher Education which awarded her a University of Wales honorary degree. She holds an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Trinity College, Carmarthen for her contribution to politics and as a human rights campaigner.

She was a Member of the Arts Council 1975-79, the Vice Chair of the Welsh Arts Council 1975-97. She was on the Royal Commission on the NHS 1976-79.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

She married Owen Dryhurst Roberts, a television director and producer, in 1963. They have no children.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ann Clwyd MP Welsh Labour Party profile
• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard 1803–2005
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at PublicWhip.org
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou.com
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live
• Indict Campaign Group Ann Clwyd is Chairman

News articles

• Number 10 press release on Ann Clwyd's appointment to the Privy Council
• Support for Iraq War
• See men shredded, then say you don't back war By Ann Clwyd
• The "human shredding machine"
• Unearthing history in Iraq

Bradley Manning

Private First Class Bradley Manning
Born	(1987-12-17) December 17, 1987 (age 24) Crescent, Oklahoma, United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	Since 2007
Rank	Private First Class
Unit	2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division
Awards	National Defense Service Medal
Parents	Brian Manning Susan Fox

Bradley Edward Manning (born December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier who was arrested in May 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of having passed classified material to the whistleblower website, WikiLeaks. He was charged over the following months with a number of offenses, including communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source, and aiding the enemy, a capital offense, though prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty.^[1]

Assigned as an intelligence analyst in October 2009 to an army unit based near Baghdad, Manning was given access to several databases used by the United States government to transmit classified information. He was arrested after Adrian Lamo, a computer hacker, told the FBI that Manning had confided during online chats that he had downloaded material from these databases and passed it to WikiLeaks. The material, much of it published between April and November 2010, included videos of a 2007 helicopter gun attack in Baghdad and the 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan, 250,000 United States diplomatic cables, and 500,000 army reports that came to be known as the Iraq and Afghan War logs. It was the largest set of restricted documents ever leaked to the public.^[2]

Manning was held from July 2010 in the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico, Virginia, under Prevention of Injury status, which entailed de facto solitary confinement and other restrictions that caused international concern. In April 2011, 295 academics – many of them prominent American legal scholars – signed a letter arguing that the detention conditions violated the United States Constitution. Later that month the Pentagon transferred him to a medium-security jail at Fort Leavenworth, allowing him to interact with other detainees. He was arraigned in February 2012 at Fort Meade, Maryland, where he declined to enter a plea. The trial is expected to begin in September.^[3]

Reaction to his arrest, and to the news that he may face life imprisonment, was mixed. Denver Nicks writes that the material published by WikiLeaks, particularly the diplomatic cables, was widely seen as a catalyst for the Arab Spring that began in December 2010, and that Manning himself was viewed as both a 21st-century Tiananmen Square Tank Man and as an embittered traitor. Several commentators, including The Washington Post, focused on why an apparently very unhappy Army private had access to classified material, and why no security measures were in place to prevent it being copied through unauthorized downloads.^[4]

Background[link]

Early life[link]

Manning was born to Susan Fox, originally from Wales, and her American husband, Brian Manning, in Crescent, Oklahoma, a small town already associated with a famous whistleblower, Karen Silkwood. His father had joined the United States Navy in 1974 when he was 19 and served for five years as an intelligence analyst, meeting Susan when he was stationed in Wales at Cawdor Barracks. Manning's sister, eleven years his senior, was born in 1976. The couple returned to the United States in 1979, moving at first to California, then to a two-story house several miles north of Crescent, with an above-ground swimming pool and five acres of land where they kept pigs and chickens. Manning's father later worked as an IT manager for a rental car agency, which saw him regularly travel overseas.^[5]

Manning was small for his age – as an adult, he reached just 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m) and weighed 105 lb (47.6 kg) – good at the saxophone and science, and even in elementary school said he wanted to join the army. He was a straight-A student who was particularly good with computers. Ellen Nakashima of The Washington Post writes that, when he was seven or eight, his father taught him how to use the C++ programming language, and his father told PBS that Manning created his first website when he was ten years old. He taught himself how to use Powerpoint, won the grand prize three years in a row at the local science fair, and in sixth grade took top prize at a state-wide quiz bowl. By the age of 13 he was rewriting lines of video-game code to change the appearance of the characters.^[6]

His mother had difficulty adjusting to life in the United States and suffered from poor health; she was living several miles out of town, never learned to drive, had not learned to read or write well, and developed a drinking problem. She was by all accounts too soft with her son, while his father veered in the opposite direction, to the point where Manning seemed to fear him. With his father away much of the time, Manning was largely left to fend for himself; Nakashima writes that he was dressing himself and preparing his own breakfast by the time he was six. His father would stock up on food for the house before his business trips, and leave pre-signed checks for the children to pay the bills. A neighbor told The New York Times that, when the school went on field trips, she would give her own son extra food or money so he could make sure Manning had something to eat.^[7]

Rick McCombs, now his school's principal and then a teacher, told Denver Nicks that Manning always had an opinion about things, even in middle school, and it was clear he had a mind of his own. This sometimes translated itself into behavioral problems, and by the age of nine or ten, he had started to lose his temper and throw things when crossed, according to an aunt and a former classmate. He was openly opposed to religion; he would refuse to do homework related to the Bible, and remained silent during the parts of the Pledge of Allegiance that refer to God. His father's strictness may have contributed to his becoming introverted and withdrawn, something that deepened when at age 13 he began to question his sexual orientation.^[8]

Parents' divorce, move to Wales[link]

His father moved out of the family home in 1999. Manning told Lamo there had been a big fight, where his father had pulled out a gun, and social workers became involved. The couple divorced in 2000 when Manning was 13, and his father remarried; Manning and his mother moved out of the house to a rented apartment in Crescent. His father's second wife was also called Susan, and Manning apparently took it hard when the second's wife son by a previous relationship changed his surname to Manning. His mother had to call a family friend round to the apartment one day in 2001, when Manning was 13, to help calm him down when he found out about it; he started taking running jumps at the walls, and told his mother: "I'm nobody now."^[9]

High Street in Haverfordwest, Wales, where Manning went to secondary school.

In November 2001 Manning and his mother left the United States and moved overseas to Haverfordwest, Wales, where his mother had family. Manning attended the town's Tasker Milward secondary school, where they nicknamed him "Bradders." A schoolfriend there, James Kirkpatrick, told Ed Caesar for The Sunday Times that Manning's personality was "unique, extremely unique. Very quirky, very opinionated, very political, very clever, very articulate." His interest in computers continued, and in 2003 he and a friend set up a website, angeldyne.com, a message board that offered games and music downloads.^[10]

He became the target of bullying at the school because he was the only American. The students would imitate his accent, and they apparently abandoned him once during a camping trip. His aunt told The Washington Post: "[H]e woke up, and all the tents around him were gone. They left while he was sleeping." He was also targeted for being effeminate. Nicks writes that he had told two of his friends in Oklahoma that he was gay, but he was not open about it at school in Wales.^[11]

Return to the United States[link]

He feared that his mother was becoming too ill to cope with him, so he decided in 2005 when he was 17 to return to the United States after sitting his General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSEs). On his way through London to renew his passport for his return home, he arrived at the King's Cross underground station on the day of the July 7, 2005 London bombings, and said he heard the sirens and the screaming. He moved in with his father in Oklahoma City, where his father was living with his second wife and her child, and got a job as a developer with a software company, Zoto. He was apparently happy for a time, but was let go after four months. His boss, Kord Campbell, told The Washington Post that on a few occasions Manning had "just locked up," and would simply sit and stare, including once when Campbell was teaching him to drive, and in the end communication became too difficult. Campbell told the newspaper he felt that "nobody’s been taking care of this kid for a really long time."^[12]

Manning was by then living as a gay man, which his father accepted, but there were problems in the relationship with his stepmother. According to Fishman, she wanted Manning to pay his way, and believed he was faking being gay to get attention, to which he responded by wearing eye make-up and bringing a boyfriend back for the night. In March 2006, Manning reportedly threatened her with a knife during an argument about his failure to get another job; she called the police, and he was asked to leave the house.^[13]

He decided to strike out on his own, and drove to Tulsa in a pick-up truck his father had given him, sleeping in it for a while, then moving in with a friend from school. Manning had to sleep in an upstairs closet because the friend's father was not aware that he had moved in. The two of them got jobs at Incredible Pizza in April, then Manning spent some time in Chicago, before he called his mother in desperation, having run out of money and with nowhere to stay. His mother in turn called his father's sister, Debra, a lawyer in Potomac, Maryland, and it was agreed that Manning could stay there for awhile. Nicks writes that the 15 months he spent with his aunt were among the most stable of his life. He had a boyfriend, took several low-paid jobs – including in July 2007 with Starbucks, then Abercrombie & Fitch – and spent a semester studying history and English at Montgomery College, though he left after failing an exam.^[14]

Enlistment in the U.S. Army[link]

In October 2007, he decided to enlist in the army. His father had spent weeks persuading him to consider it because he was concerned about his son's future, and Manning, for his part, hoped to gain a college education and saw no other way to get it – according to Ellen Nakashima he wanted to study for a PhD in physics. When he told his aunt his plans, she tried to stop him, but he had already signed up.^[15]

He went through basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, but six weeks after enlisting was sent to the discharge unit after doubts arose about his stability. He was allegedly being bullied, and in the opinion of a soldier who spent time with him there, he was having a breakdown. The soldier told The Guardian: "The kid was barely five foot ... He was a runt, so pick on him. He's crazy, pick on him. He's a faggot, pick on him. The guy took it from every side. He couldn't please anyone." Nicks writes that Manning, who was used to being bullied, fought back – if the drill sergeants screamed at him, he would scream at them – to the point where they started calling him "General Manning."^[16]

The decision to discharge him was revoked, and he was "recycled," because the army needed his IT skills. He started basic training again in January 2008 and after graduating in April moved to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where he trained as an intelligence analyst, receiving a TS/SCI security clearance (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information"). According to Nicks, this security clearance, combined with the digitization of classified information and the American government's policy of sharing it widely, gave Manning access to an unprecedented amount of classified material. Nicks writes that he was reprimanded while at Fort Huachuca for posting three video messages to friends on YouTube, in which he described the inside of the "Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility," or SCIF, that he was working in.^[17]

Move to Fort Drum[link]

Manning in September 2009

In August 2008, he was sent to Fort Drum in Jefferson County, New York, where he joined the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, and trained for deployment to Iraq. It was while stationed there in the fall of 2008 that he met Tyler Watkins, who was studying neuroscience and psychology at Brandeis University, near Boston. Watkins was his first serious relationship, and he posted happily on Facebook about it, regularly traveling 300 miles to Boston on visits.^[18]

Watkins introduced him to a network of friends and the university's hacker community. He also visited Boston University's "hackerspace" workshop, known as "Builds," and met its founder, David House, the computer scientist and MIT researcher who was later allowed to visit him in jail. In November 2008, he gave an anonymous interview to a high-school reporter during a rally in Syracuse in support of gay marriage, telling her: "I was kicked out of my home and I once lost my job. The world is not moving fast enough for us at home, work, or the battlefield. I've been living a double life. ... I can't make a statement. I can't be caught in an act. I hope the public support changes. I do hope to do that before ETS [Expiration of Term of Service]."^[19]

Nicks writes that Manning would travel back to Washington, D.C. for visits, where an ex-boyfriend helped him find his way around the city's vibrant gay community, introducing him to lobbyists, activists, and White House aides. Back at Fort Drum, he continued to display emotional problems and by August 2009 had been referred to an Army mental-health counselor, a chaplain. A friend told Nicks that Manning could be emotionally fraught, describing an evening they had watched two movies together – The Last King of Scotland and Dancer in the Dark – which reduced Manning to tears for hours. By September 2009, his relationship with Watkins was in trouble, and although they reconciled for a short time, it was effectively over.^[20]

Deployment to Iraq, discussion with counsellor[link]

After several few weeks engaging in simulations at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk, Louisiana, he was deployed to Forward Operating Base Hammer, near Baghdad, arriving in October 2009. From his workstation there, he had access to SIPRNet (the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network) and JWICS (the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System). Two of his superiors had discussed not taking him to Iraq – one of them said it was felt he was "a risk to himself and possibly others," according to a statement later issued by the army – but again the shortage of intelligence analysts held sway.^[21]

A month later, in November 2009, he was promoted from Private First Class to Specialist. That same month, according to his chats with Lamo, he made his first contact with WikiLeaks, shortly after it posted 570,000 pager messages from the 9/11 attacks, which it released on November 25.^[22] Also in November, Manning wrote to a gender counselor in the United States, said he felt female, and discussed having sex reassignment surgery. The counselor told Steve Fishman of New York Magazine that it was clear Manning was in crisis, partly because of his gender confusion, but also because he was opposed to the kind of war he found himself involved in.^[23]

The 10th Mountain Division's shoulder sleeve insignia

He was by all accounts unhappy and isolated. Because of the army's "don't ask, don't tell" policy (known as DADT and repealed in September 2011), he was not allowed to be openly gay, though he apparently made no secret of it – his friends told reporters that he kept a fairy wand on his desk. When he told his roommate he was gay, the roommate responded by suggesting they not speak to each other. The working conditions did not help his mental health. He was doing 14–15 hour night shifts in a secure room, which he described to a friend as "a dimly lit room crowded to the point you cant move an inch without having to quietly say 'excuse me sir,' 'pardon me sergeant major'  ... cables trip you up everywhere, papers stacked everywhere ..."^[24]

On December 20, 2009, after being told he would lose his one day off a week for being persistently late, he overturned a table in a conference room in what witnesses described as a fit of rage, damaging a computer that was sitting on it – and in the view of one soldier looked as though he was about to grab a rifle from a gun rack, before his arms were pinned behind his back. Several of those who witnessed the incident believed his access to sensitive material ought to have been withdrawn at that point. The following month, he began posting on Facebook that he felt alone and hopeless.^[25]

Army investigators told a pre-trial hearing (see below) that they believed Manning downloaded the Iraq and Afghan war logs around this time, in January 2010. WikiLeaks tweeted on January 8 that they had obtained "encrypted videos of US bomb strikes on civilians," and linked to a story about the May 2009 Granai airstrike in Afghanistan. During the same month, he traveled to the United States via Germany for a two-week holiday, arriving on January 24, and attended a party at Boston University's hacker space. It was during this visit that Manning first lived for a few days as a woman, dressing in women's clothes, wearing a wig and going out. After his arrest, his former partner, Tyler Watkins, told Kevin Poulsen of Wired that Manning had said during the January visit that he had found some sensitive information and was considering leaking it.^[26]

Demotion and discharge[link]

Manning later told Lamo he had passed the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral murder") video to WikiLeaks shortly after this, in February 2010. In April, just as WikiLeaks published the video, Manning sent an e-mail to his master sergeant, Paul Adkins, saying he was suffering from gender identity disorder and attaching a photograph of himself dressed as a woman. Captain Steven Lim, Manning's commander, said he first saw the e-mail after Manning's arrest – when information about hormone replacement therapy was found in his room in Baghdad – and learned that Manning had been calling himself Breanna.^[27]

Manning told Adrian Lamo that his commander had found out about the gender confusion before his arrest, after looking at his medical files at the beginning of May. He told Lamo he had set up Twitter and YouTube accounts in Breanna's name to give her a digital presence, writing in the chat: "i wouldn't mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn't for the possibility of having pictures of me ... plastered all over the world press ... as [a] boy ... the CPU is not made for this motherboard ..."^[28]

On April 30, he posted on Facebook that he was utterly lost, and over the next few days that "Bradley Manning is not a piece of equipment," that he was "beyond frustrated," and "livid" after being "lectured by ex-boyfriend despite months of relationship ambiguity ..." On May 7, he seemed to spiral out of control. According to army witnesses, he was found curled into a fetal position in a storage cupboard, with a knife at his feet, and had cut the words "I want" into a vinyl chair. A few hours later, he had an altercation with a female intelligence analyst, Specialist Jihrleah Showman, during which he punched her in the face. The brigade psychiatrist referred to an "occupational problem and adjustment disorder," and recommended a discharge. His master sergeant removed the bolt from his weapon, and he was sent to work in the supply office, though at this point his security clearance remained in place. He was demoted from Specialist to Private First Class just two days before his arrest on May 26.^[29]

Ellen Nakashima writes that, on May 9, Manning contacted Jonathan Odell, a gay American novelist in Minneapolis, via Facebook, leaving a message that he wanted to speak to him in confidence, saying he had been involved in some "very high-profile events, albeit as a nameless individual thus far." On May 19, according to army investigators, he e-mailed Eric Schmiedl, a mathematician he had met in Boston, and told him he had been the source of the "Collateral Murder" video. Two days later, he began the series of chats with Adrian Lamo that led to his arrest.^[30]

Alleged disclosure of classified material[link]

WikiLeaks[link]

Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg at the Chaos Communication Congress, Berlin, December 2009.^[31]

WikiLeaks was set up in late 2006 as a disclosure portal, initially using the Wikipedia model, where volunteers would write up and analyze classified or restricted material submitted by whistleblowers, or material that was in some other way legally threatened. It was Julian Assange – an Australian Internet activist and journalist, and the de facto editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks – who had the idea of creating what Ben Laurie called an "open-source, democratic intelligence agency." The open-editing aspect was soon abandoned, but the site remained open for anonymous submissions.^[31]

According to Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former WikiLeaks spokesman, part of the WikiLeaks security concept was that they did not know who their sources were. The New York Times wrote in December 2010 that the U.S. government was trying to discover whether Assange had been a passive recipient of material from Manning, or had encouraged or helped him to extract the files; if the latter, Assange could be charged with conspiracy. Manning told Lamo in May 2010 that he had developed a relationship with Assange, communicating directly with him using an encrypted Internet conferencing service, but knew little about him. WikiLeaks did not identify Manning as their source. Army investigators told a pre-trial hearing that they had found 14–15 pages of chats between Manning and someone they believed to be Assange, but Nicks writes that no decisive evidence was found of Assange offering Manning any direction.^[32]

Material released by WikiLeaks[link]

On February 18, 2010, WikiLeaks posted the first of the material allegedly from Manning, a diplomatic cable dated January 13, 2010, from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland, a document now known as Reykjavik13. In the chat log, Manning called it a "test" document. On March 15, WikiLeaks posted a 32-page report written in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Defense about WikiLeaks itself. On March 29, it posted U.S. State Department profiles of politicians in Iceland.^[33]

Manning said he gave WikiLeaks the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike (so-called "Collateral Murder") video in early 2010. Unedited version and edited version^[34]

Manning told Lamo that he had found and passed on the video of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, which WikiLeaks named the "Collateral Murder" video. He told Lamo: "At first glance it was just a bunch of guys getting shot up by a helicopter. No big deal ... about two dozen more where that came from, right? But something struck me as odd with the van thing, and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG officer’s directory. So I looked into it."^[35]

On April 5, Julian Assange called a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and released the video. It showed an American helicopter firing on a group of around 12 men in Baghdad; one of the men was carrying an anti-tank grenade launcher (an RPG-7), and two were Reuters employees carrying cameras that the pilots mistook for guns. The helicopter also fired on a van that stopped to help the injured members of the first group; two children in the van were wounded and their father killed. The Washington Post wrote that it was this video, viewed by millions, that put WikiLeaks on the map. According to Nicks, Manning e-mailed one of his superiors after the video aired and tried to persuade her that it was the same version as the video of the attack that was stored on SIPRnet; Nicks writes that it seemed as though Manning wanted to be caught.^[36]

On July 25, WikiLeaks and its three partners – The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel – began publishing the 91,731 documents that became known as the Afghan War logs, and on October 22 the Iraq War logs, 391,832 classified military reports covering the period January 2004 to December 2009. Nicks writes that the publication of the former was a watershed moment, the "beginning of the information age exploding upon itself." Manning told Lamo he was also responsible for the leak, known as "Cablegate", of 251,287 State Department cables, written by 271 American embassies and consulates in 180 countries, dated December 1966 to February 2010. The cables were passed by Assange to his three media partners, plus El País and others, and published in stages from November 28, 2010, with the names of sources removed. WikiLeaks said it was the largest set of confidential documents ever released into the public domain.^[37]

The rest of the cables were published unredacted by WikiLeaks on September 1, 2011, after David Leigh and Luke Harding of The Guardian inadvertently published the passphrase for a file that was still online; Nicks writes that one Ethiopian journalist had to leave his country and the U.S. government said it had to relocate several sources. Manning is also thought to have been the source of the Guantanamo Bay files leak, originally obtained by WikiLeaks in 2010 and published by The New York Times over a year later on April 24, 2011.^[38]

Chats with Adrian Lamo[link]

Adrian Lamo (left) and Wired's Kevin Poulsen (right) in 2001 when Poulsen worked for SecurityFocus. Poulsen had been using Lamo as a source since 2000. The man in the middle, Kevin Mitnick, has no involvement in the Manning case.^[39]

On May 20, 2010, Manning contacted Adrian Lamo, a former "grey hat" hacker convicted in 2004 of having accessed The New York Times computer network two years earlier without permission. Lamo had been profiled that day by Kevin Poulsen in Wired magazine; the story said he had been involuntarily hospitalized and diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.^[40]

Poulsen, by then a reporter, was himself a former hacker who had used Lamo as a source several times since 2000.^[39] Indeed, it was Poulsen who in 2002 had told The New York Times, on Lamo's behalf, that Lamo had gained unauthorized access to its network. Poulsen then wrote the story up for SecurityFocus. Lamo would often hack into a system, tell the organization he had done it – using Poulsen as an intermediary – then offer to fix their security.^[41]

According to Fishman, Lamo had worked on an LGBT youth task force, and this, combined with his fame as a hacker, would have encouraged Manning to confide in him.^[42] Lamo said Manning sent him several encrypted e-mails on May 20 after seeing a tweet from Lamo about WikiLeaks. Lamo said he was unable to decrypt the e-mails but replied anyway, not knowing the recipient or being able to read the content, and invited the e-mailer to chat on AOL IM. Manning sent him more e-mails, also encrypted. Lamo said he later turned the e-mails over to the FBI without having read them.^[43]

In a series of chats from May 21 until May 25/26, Manning – using the handle "bradass87" – told Lamo that he had leaked classified material. He began by introducing himself as an army intelligence analyst, and within 17 minutes, without waiting for a reply, began a tentative discussion about the leaks.^[44]

Lamo replied several hours later. At first they chatted about Manning's gender confusion. Before Manning started discussing the leaks, Lamo told him: "I'm a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection." They talked about restricted material in general, then Manning made his first explicit reference to the leaks: "This is what I do for friends." He linked to a section of the May 21, 2010, version of Wikipedia's article on WikiLeaks, which described the WikiLeaks release in March that year of a Department of Defense report on WikiLeaks itself. He added "the one below that is mine too"; the section below in the same article referred to the leak of the Baghdad airstrike ("Collateral Murder") video.^[45]

Manning told him he felt isolated and fragile, and was reaching out to someone he hoped might understand: "im very isolated atm ... lost all of my emotional support channels ... family, boyfriend, trusting colleagues ... im a mess."^[44]

Manning said he had started to help WikiLeaks around Thanksgiving in November 2009 – which fell on November 26 that year – after WikiLeaks had released the 9/11 pager messages; the messages were released on November 25. He told Lamo he had recognized the messages had come from an NSA database, and that it had made him feel comfortable about stepping forward. Lamo asked what kind of material he was dealing with, and Manning replied: "uhm ... crazy, almost criminal political backdealings ... the non-PR-versions of world events and crises ..." Although he said he dealt with Assange directly, he also said Assange had adopted a deliberate policy of knowing very little about him, telling Manning: "lie to me."^[44]

He told Lamo that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and finds [sic] an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public ... everywhere there's a US post ... there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed ... Iceland, the Vatican, Spain, Brazil, Madascar, if its a country, and its recognized by the US as a country, its got dirt on it."^[44]

At that point, Lamo again assured him that he was speaking in confidence. Manning wrote: "but im not a source for you ... im talking to you as someone who needs moral and emotional fucking support," and Lamo replied: "i told you, none of this is for print."^[44]

He said the incident that had affected him the most was when 15 detainees had been arrested by the Iraqi Federal Police for printing anti-Iraqi literature. He was asked by the army to find out who the "bad guys" were, and discovered that the detainees had printed what he called a scholarly critique of the Iraqi prime minister that followed what Manning said was a corruption trail within the Iraqi cabinet. He reported this to his commanding officer, but said "he didn't want to hear any of it"; he said the officer told him to help the Iraqi police find more detainees. Manning said it made him realize, "i was actively involved in something that i was completely against ..." He explained that "i cant separate myself from others ... i feel connected to everybody ... like they were distant family," and cited Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and Elie Wiesel. He said he hoped the material would lead to "hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. if not ... than [sic] we're doomed as a species."^[44]

He said he had downloaded some of the material onto music CD-RWs that he had brought to work; he would erase the music and replace it with a compressed split file. Part of the reason no-one noticed, he said, was that staff were working 14 hours a day, seven days a week, and "people stopped caring after 3 weeks."^[44]

Nicks writes that, with this last point – "information should be free" – Manning was echoing the hackers' ideal, first expressed at a conference in 1984 by Steward Brand as "information wants to be free." The phrase summed up the view that information ought to be widely available to encourage collaboration and competition, whether it be science, software, or state secrets. Nicks argues that Manning's use of the phrase supports the view that his motivation was altruistic.^[46]

Lamo's approach to FBI, publication of chat logs[link]

Lamo told Wired he had given money to WikiLeaks in the past, and that the decision to go to the authorities had not been an easy one. He said he believed lives were in danger. He told Ed Caesar of The Sunday Times: "I get approached by people [hackers] on pretty much a daily basis confessing to crimes. I don't turn them in, because most of them are crimes of curiosity and have no real impact on people's lives or livelihoods. It's when someone comes to me and says, 'Hi, my name's Brad, and I'd like to tell you about my state treason' that the issue becomes fuzzy. I believed he was leaking stuff that was endangering lives."^[47] Lamo was largely ostracized by the hacker community for reporting Manning, as well as for becoming a confidential informant for the government afterwards. Nicks argues, on the other hand, that it was thanks to Lamo that the government had months to prepare for the release of the diplomatic cables, and to ameliorate any harm they might have caused.^[48]

Lamo contacted the FBI shortly after the first chat with Manning on May 21. Lamo had discussed the chat with Chet Uber of the volunteer group, Project Vigilant, which researches cyber crime, and a friend who had worked in military intelligence. The friend asked Lamo about a code word Manning had used. Ed Caesar writes that the friend replied: "[N]ever repeat those words again," at which point Lamo knew Manning was the real thing. Both men advised Lamo to go to the FBI, and they reported what he had told them to the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command.^[47]

Glenn Greenwald of Salon strongly criticized Wired's failure to release the full chat logs.^[49]

On May 25, Lamo met with FBI and Army officers at a Starbucks near his home in California, where he showed them the chat logs. On or around that date, he also passed the story to Kevin Poulsen of Wired, and on May 27 gave him the chat logs and Manning's name under embargo. He saw the FBI again that day, at which point they told him Manning had been arrested in Iraq the day before. Poulsen and Kim Zetter broke the news of the arrest in Wired on June 6, described by Daniel Domscheit-Berg as the worst moment in the history of WikiLeaks.^[50] Wired published around 25 percent of the chat logs on June 6 and June 10, saying the remainder either infringed Manning's privacy or compromised sensitive military information. Ellen Nakashima of The Washington Post published excerpts on June 10 that she obtained from Lamo, and on June 19 BoingBoing published what it said was a more complete version.^[49]

Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon in December 2010, called the failure by Wired to publish the logs in full "easily one of the worst journalistic disgraces of the year," writing that Poulsen and Wired were, in effect, shielding Lamo and the government from having the sequence of events scrutinized.^[49] Greenwald wrote this before material had leaked out about Manning's gender identity confusion; Wired's editor, Evan Hansen, replied that there was sensitive personal information in the logs, without elaborating. Wired eventually published the full logs in July 2011, after some of the personal material had appeared elsewhere.^[51]

Legal proceedings[link]

Manning–Wikileaks timeline Oct 2009: Manning sent to Iraq. Nov: Manning finds Apache Baghdad footage. Nov 25: Wikileaks publishes 9/11 pager messages. Nov: Manning allegedly contacts Wikileaks. Feb 18, 2010: Wikileaks releases Reykjavik 13 cable, purportedly from Manning. Mar 15: Wikileaks releases Defense Dept report about Wikileaks, purportedly from Manning. Mar 29: Wikileaks releases State Dept profiles of Icelandic politicians, purportedly from Manning. Apr 05: Wikileaks releases Apache Baghdad footage, purportedly from Manning. May 21–25/6: Manning chats with Adrian Lamo. May 26: Manning arrested in Iraq. Jun 06: Wired publishes partial Manning-Lamo chat logs. Jul 05: Manning charged. Jul 25: Wikileaks releases Afghan War Diary, purportedly from Manning. Jul 29: Manning transferred to the U.S. Oct 22: Wikileaks releases Iraq War logs, purportedly from Manning. Nov 28: Newspapers publish U.S.diplomatic cables from Wikileaks, purportedly from Manning. Jan 2011: United Nations Special Rapporteur submits inquiry to U.S. about Manning. Mar 01: Manning charged with 22 more offenses. Dec 16: Article 32 hearing begins. Feb 03, 2012: Manning ordered to stand trial. This box: view talk edit

Arrest and charges[link]

Manning was arrested on May 26, 2010, and held at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.^[52] He was charged on July 5, 2010, with a number of offences, which were replaced on March 1, 2011, by 22 charges, including violations of Articles 92 and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), and of the Espionage Act. The most serious of the charges is "aiding the enemy," a capital offense. Prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty, but if convicted he would face life imprisonment.^[53]

Detention at Marine Corps Base Quantico[link]

On July 29, 2010, Manning was moved from Kuwait to the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, and classified as a maximum custody detainee. He was assigned Prevention of Injury (POI) status, though according to a letter from Manning to the army, the brig psychiatrist repeatedly recommended that the POI status be removed. Manning complained that he regarded the decision to prolong his POI status as pre-trial punishment.^[54]

POI status is one stop short of suicide watch, entailing checks by guards every five minutes. His lawyer, David Coombs, a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Reserve and former military attorney, said he was not allowed to sleep between 5 am (7 am at weekends) and 8 pm, and was made to stand or sit up if he tried to. He was required to remain visible at all times, including at night, which entailed no access to sheets, no pillow except one built into his mattress, and a blanket designed not to be shredded. He was required to sleep in boxer shorts, and said he had experienced chafing of the skin from the heavy blanket.^[55]

His cell was 6 x 12 ft with no window, containing a bed, toilet, and sink. The jail had 30 cells built in a U shape, and although detainees could talk to one another, they were unable to see each other. His lawyer said the guards behaved professionally, and had not tried to harass or embarrass Manning. He was allowed to walk for up to one hour a day, meals were taken in the cell, and he was shackled during visits. There was access to television when it was placed in the corridor, and he was allowed to keep one magazine and one book – Nicks writes that he had a subscription to Scientific American, and that one book on his request list was Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Because he was in pre-trial detention, he received full pay and benefits.^[55]

On January 18, 2011, the jail classified him as a suicide risk after an altercation with four of the guards. There had been a protest outside the jail the previous day, and Manning wrote in a letter to the army that he believed the guards were responding to that. He said the guards began issuing conflicting commands, such as "turn left, don't turn left," and upbraiding him for responding to commands with "yes" instead of "aye." Shortly afterwards, he was placed on suicide risk, had his clothing and eyeglasses removed, and was required to remain in his cell 24 hours a day. The suicide watch was lifted on January 21 after a complaint from his lawyer, and the brig commander who had ordered it was replaced.^[56]

On March 2, 2011, he was informed that his request to be removed from maximum custody and Prevention of Injury status had been denied. His lawyer said Manning joked to the guards that, if he wanted to harm himself, he could do so "with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops." The comment resulted in him having his clothes removed again at night, though he was not formally classified as a suicide risk – the brig psychiatrist subsequently deemed him at low risk of suicide – and had to present himself outside his cell naked one morning for inspection, reports of which triggered more protests.^[57]

Complaints about detention, move to another jail[link]

Yochai Benkler, Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, described Manning's detention as unconstitutional.^[58]

Manning was transferred to the Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility in April 2011.^[3]

The detention conditions prompted national and international concern. The army said he was being held under a Prevention of Injury order for his own safety; President Obama confirmed he had received assurances from the Pentagon to this effect. A Quantico spokesman said Manning was able to talk to guards and other prisoners, though he could not see the prisoners from his cell, and left his cell for a daily hour of exercise, as well as for showers, phone calls, meetings with his lawyer, and weekend visits by friends and relatives. Nevertheless, there were allegations of impropriety. Daniel Ellsberg, the Marine veteran who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers – a Department of Defense study of the United States involvement in Vietnam – and himself a WikiLeaks supporter, said the treatment amounted to "no-touch torture" intended to demoralize Manning so he would implicate Julian Assange.^[59]

Juan E. Mendez, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, requested a meeting with the State Department, later publishing a report that the detention conditions had been "cruel, inhuman and degrading." In January 2011, Amnesty became involved, asking the British government to intervene because of Manning's status as a British citizen by descent, and the case was raised in the British parliament, though Manning's lawyer said he did not regard himself as a British citizen.^[60] The controversy claimed a casualty in March 2011, when State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley, speaking to a small audience, called Manning's treatment "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid," and resigned two days later.^[61]

In early April 2011, 295 academics (most of them American legal scholars) led by Yochai Benkler of Harvard Law School and Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School, signed a letter arguing that the treatment was a violation of the United States Constitution, specifically the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against punishment without trial. On April 20, the Pentagon transferred Manning to the Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, a new medium-security facility in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was placed in an 80-square-foot cell with a window and a normal mattress, able to mix with other pre-trial detainees, write whenever he wanted, and keep personal objects in his cell.^[62]

Article 32 hearing[link]

In April 2011, a panel of experts ruled that Manning was fit to stand trial. An Article 32 hearing, presided over by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Almanza, was convened on December 16, 2011, at Fort Meade, Maryland, to determine whether to proceed to a court martial. The hearing resulted in Almanza recommending that Manning be referred to a general court-martial. He was arraigned on February 23, and declined to enter a plea.^[63]

The prosecution, led by Captain Ashden Fine, presented 300,000 pages of documents in evidence, including chat logs and classified material.^[64] The court heard from two army investigators, Special Agent David Shaver, head of the digital forensics and research branch of the army's Computer Crime Investigative Unit (CCIU), and Mark Johnson, a digital forensics contractor from ManTech International, who works for the CCIU. They testified that they had found 100,000 State Department cables on a workplace computer Manning had used between November 2009 and May 2010; 400,000 military reports from Iraq and 91,000 from Afghanistan on an SD card found in his basement room in his aunt's home in Potomac, Maryland; and 10,000 cables on his personal MacBook Pro and storage devices that they said had not been passed to WikiLeaks because a file was corrupted. They also recovered 14–15 pages of encrypted chats, in unallocated space on Manning's MacBook's hard drive, between Manning and someone believed to be Julian Assange. Two of the chat handles, which used the Berlin Chaos Computer Club's domain (ccc.de), were associated with the names Julian Assange and Nathaniel Frank.^[65]

Johnson said he found SSH logs on the MacBook that showed an SFTP connection, from an IP address that resolved to Manning's aunt's home, to a Swedish IP address with links to WikiLeaks.^[65] There was also a text file named "Readme" attached to the logs, a note apparently written by Manning to Assange, which called the Iraq and Afghan War logs "possibly one of the most significant documents of our time, removing the fog of war and revealing the true nature of 21st century assymmetric warfare."^[66] The investigators testified they had also recovered an exchange from May 2010 between Manning and Eric Schmiedl, a Boston mathematician, in which Manning said he was the source of the Baghdad helicopter attack ("Collateral Murder") video. Johnson said there had been two attempts to delete material from the MacBook. The operating system was re-installed in January 2010, and on or around January 31 an attempt was made to erase the hard drive by doing a "zero-fill," which involves overwriting material with zeroes. The material was overwritten only once, which meant it could be retrieved.^[65]

Manning's lawyers argued that the government had overstated the harm the release of the documents had caused, and had overcharged Manning to force him to give evidence against Assange. The defense also raised the issue of his gender identity disorder, whether it had affected his judgment, and whether the "don't ask, don't tell" policy had made it difficult for Manning to serve in the army.^[67]

Impact and reception[link]

Billboard erected in Washington, D.C., by the Bradley Manning Support Network

Frankfurt, Germany, January 2012.

The publication of the leaked material, particularly the diplomatic cables, attracted in-depth coverage across the globe, with several governments blocking websites that contained embarrassing details. Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, one of several news outlets that entered into an agreement with Assange to publish the material, said of the diplomatic cable leaks: "I can't think of a time when there was ever a story generated by a news organisation where the White House, the Kremlin, Chávez, India, China, everyone in the world was talking about these things. ... I've never known a story that created such mayhem that wasn't an event like a war or a terrorist attack."^[69]

Nicks writes that Manning's name "appended like a slogan to wholesale denunciations and exultations alike" – he was either a "Tiananmen Square Tank Man," or "the worst kind of traitor," someone had betrayed his country out of personal anger with the military. United States Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the leaks had placed the lives of American soldiers and Afghan informants in danger. The Washington Post wrote that grass-roots activists saw Manning as a hero, while Glenn Greenwald argued that he was the most important whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971. A Washington Post editorial asked why an apparently unstable Army private had been able to access and transfer sensitive material in the first place. According to Nicks, Manning's sexuality came into play too. "Don't ask, don't tell" was repealed not long after his arrest, with Manning illustrating for a right-wing fringe that gays were not fit for military service, while the mainstream media presented him as a gay soldier driven mad by bullying.^[70]

Manning and WikiLeaks were credited as catalysts for the Arab Spring that began in December 2010, when waves of protesters threatened or toppled rulers across the Middle East and North Africa after the leaked cables exposed government corruption. Heather Brooke writes that, in Tunisia, where the uprisings began on December 17 with the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in protest at being unable to make a living, one of the cables – published around 10 days earlier – showed that the President's daughter and her husband had their ice-cream flown in from Saint-Tropez. As Time magazine designated "the protester" as its 2011 person of the year, Brooke writes that WikiLeaks came under tremendous pressure, experiencing distributed denial-of-service attacks that shut down their servers, and finding themselves unable to receive donations when PayPal, banks, and credit card companies refused to process them.^[71]

Mike Gogulski, an American expatriate in Slovakia, formed the Bradley Manning Support Network in June 2010, and was soon joined by a friend of Manning's, Danny Clark, freedom of information activist Nadim Kobeissi, and several notable figures, including Daniel Ellsberg and filmmaker Michael Moore. Rallies were held, as well as protests outside the jail – Ellsberg, by then in his 80s, was one of 30 protesters arrested during one of them – and by May 2012 over 11,000 people had donated $600,000, including $15,100 from WikiLeaks. Manning also had support from the hacker group, Anonymous, which threatened in March 2011 to disrupt activities at Quantico by cyber-attacking communications if he was not given access to clothing, bed clothes, reading material, and a ball. They called it "Operation Bradical."^[72]

Manning was one of 241 candidates listed for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, and was nominated again in 2012 by the Oklahoma Center for Conscience and Peace Research and three members of the Icelandic parliament. Graham Nash and James Raymond wrote a song in his support in 2011, naming it after a phrase Manning's lawyer had used to describe his mental health – "Almost Gone."^[73]

See also[link]

	United States Army portal
	Biography portal
	Information technology portal

Material associated with Manning

Notes[link]

• Note: Articles used as references repeatedly, or which are central to the story, are presented in shortened form in this section, as are books; for full citations for those sources, see the References section below. Other references are cited in full in this section.