Jeff Paterson, Bradley Manning Support Network and Courage to Resist. June 19, 2013

We recently asked you, the supporters of the Bradley Manning Support Network, for feedback in helping us prioritize projects that are not currently funded. We wanted to know what you thought our campaign staff, steering committee, and core organizers, should be doing now given our limited resources (we had $45,300 available in the defense fund as of June 1, 2013). Nearly 1,000 of you took the time to complete the online survey.

By a significant margin, you told us that funding Bradley’s remaining trial expenses should be our top priority (4.5 interest rating, out of 5), followed by funding Bradley’s post-trial legal appeals (4.01) if needed. In response, today we are transferring an additional $20,000 to Bradley’s legal trust account—bringing the total legal fees paid via the Defense Fund to $285,000. An additional $56,800 has been donated by individuals directly to Bradley’s legal trust. We believe this will cover all of Bradley’s court martial legal fees, as well as immediate post-trial appeals.

Expenses will rise again if there are trial delays or additional unexpected legal twists and turns, but we’re very proud of having covered all of Bradley’s legal fees over these last three years! Various scenarios for possible legal appeals could easily amount to another $75,000 down the road.

You gave us a three-way tie for the third most important project, between producing promotional videos, ensuring courtroom stenographers, and a full-page New York Times ad.

Regarding the promotion videos (3.5 interest rating, out of 5), we just released the five minute short video “I am Bradley Manning” this morning! Filmmaker Oliver Stone; actors Russell Brand, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Wallace Shawn, Peter Sarsgaard; musicians Moby, Tom Morello, and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters; writers Matt Taibbi, Alice Walker, Chris Hedges; and activists Lt. Dan Choi and Angela Davis, and others speak out for Bradley, explaining that he sought to expose war crimes and inspire debate and reforms. We are currently working on shorts featuring Daniel Ellsberg and the June 1^st rally for Bradley at Fort Meade.

Funding courtroom stenographers (3.5) was also important to you. Since the survey, our friends at the Freedom of the Press Foundation successfully crowd-funded a two-person stenographer team. Every “public” moment of Bradley’s court martial has been transcribed and published daily, undercutting the military’s attempts at secrecy. FPF has independently raised $89,000 of their $100,000 goal; however, if the trial goes longer than anticipated, costs will rise significantly. Based on your feedback, we’ll support the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s efforts, as needed, to ensure complete coverage of the proceedings by the stenographers.

The full-page New York Times ad (3.5) is a bit more challenging, as we’d need to jump “all in”—financially and organizationally–to cover the estimated $55,000 cost via crowd funding. We’re still hoping for a small number of “major donors” to help us kick-start this effort.

June 1 rally at Fort Meade. Photo by Jenna Pope.

The next three-way tie was in support of helping folks get to the June 1^st rally for Bradley at Fort Meade (3.0), hosting weekly trial update events in Washington DC (3.0), and an advertising campaign in the Baltimore and DC area mass transit systems (2.95). We did spend about $5,000 subsidizing chartered buses for the June 1 rally, and we’re moving ahead with scaled-down trial report backs for DC-area supporters to save expenses. We’ll sum up our financial situation on July 1 with an eye toward launching a “crowd funded” DC-area advertising effort of $15,000 to $50,000. Unlike the possible New York Times ad, we could start small and scale up.

Coming in last, was support for hosting a free NYC concert (2.5) and a magazine advertising campaign (2.5). Given the low interest, we’re shelving those plans for now.

Every month since the beginning of our campaign, the Bradley Manning Defense Fund—hosted by Courage to Resist in collaboration with the Bradley Manning Support Network—has published a monthly fiscal report. Over these last three years, nearly 19,000 individuals have funded our efforts to the tune of $1.2 million. In a future article, I’ll break down and explain the various expense categories of our fiscal reports.

Jeff Paterson is the Project Director of Courage to Resist, a Steering Committee Member of the Bradley Manning Support Network, and is responsible for campaign staff management.