Update 10/12/11: Classification system enforcement hypocrisy, gov’t sought secret surveillance of WL volunteer

From iam.bradleymanning.org

The Bradley Manning Support Network has released a statement of solidarity with the #OccupyWallStreet movement. The statement explains the connection between corporate corruption and the WikiLeaked documents:

Similarly to the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement can draw from information revealed by WikiLeaks that exposes corporate manipulation of our foreign policy. An October 2009 diplomatic cable shows how U.S. diplomatic officials shared sensitive intelligence with Shell to give the oil corporation unfair economic leverage in Nigeria. Shell executives privately boasted to U.S. diplomats that its agents had managed to infiltrate all of the major Nigerian government ministries. Another series of cables illustrate how diplomatic officials successfully squashed a proposed increase in the Haitian minimum wage. Pressure from U.S. diplomats on Haitian officials enabled major American clothing companies like Levi’s and Hanes to continue exploiting sweatshop labor in Haiti. Other cables show that Chevron executives worked in tandem with U.S. officials to avoid paying $18.2 billion in court-ordered damages after the energy giant acquired Texaco, which had dumped billions of gallons of waste in indigenous areas.

Read the full statement here.

Glenn Greenwald discusses the way classified information has been strategically released to the media, and how some of it, particularly the Awlaki memo leaked to New York Times writer, Charlie Savage,
was more classified and sensitive than anything accused of Bradley Manning. Will similar charges
ever be filed, or will an investigation even be launched? The author has doubts, and he argues that
the selective use of secrecy powers is being used to create propaganda, and to suppress opposing and
negative views.

P.J. Crowley, who lost his job after saying Bradley Manning’s treatment in custody was “ridiculous and
counterproductive”, also adds that it undercut the prosecution’s case, and undermined “’the strategic
narrative’
of the United States-the idea that the U.S. practices the ideals that it preaches.”

Mentioned also in Greenwald’s column linked above, Wikileaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum has
become the target of government surveillance. Victim to a “controversial type of secret court order”,
Google and Sonic.net Inc. were forced to give the government access to a list of Appelbaum’s
email correspondences over the past two years. Had the companies not pursued the case to gain the
right to inform Appelbaum, no one would ever have known, “A person whose email is inspected this way often never knows a search was conducted.” Members of the Bradley Manning Support Network who had corresponded with Appelbaum were potentially affected by this surveillance as well.

The petition to free Bradley Manning has almost reached the signature threshhold, only 381 to go!
Please sign and help us take Bradley’s case to the White House, where we ask them to stop blocking a
U.N. investigator from visiting with Bradley Manning, and of course to set him free.
Http://wh.gov/40y

6 thoughts on “Update 10/12/11: Classification system enforcement hypocrisy, gov’t sought secret surveillance of WL volunteer

  1. The WH will avoid this issue just like the medical marijuana initiative signed several weeks ago. In fact, since the petition reached its 5,000 signature the WH reversed it’s earlier policy on allowing states jurisdiction over such laws. We should go get Mr. Manning & release him ourselves while placing anyone against the will of the people under citizens arrest & hang them for treason. WE NEED TO PHYSICALLY FREE MANNING NOW!!!!

  2. This whole disgusting situation tarnishes the most fundamental freedoms outlined in and protected by the American Constitution, as well as Obama’s own promise to give more support to whistleblowers during his administration, not less. Obama is an Uncle Tom who has sold Bradley Manning down the river. Shame! I am Bradley Manning. Free Bradley Manning!

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