Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg

Petition for Bradley Manning nears 10,000 signatures. In just a few short days, Daniel Ellsberg’s petition to free Bradley Manning – also endorsed by the Bradley Manning Support Network and the Center for Constitutional Rights – has well over 7,500 signatures, a number that continues to rise precipitously.

Bradley passes 800 days in prison without court martial. Though case law suggests a much shorter pretrial confinement and civilian law affords only 120 days without trial, the military has held Bradley Manning for more than 800 days without starting his court martial, and doesn’t plan to do so until at least February 2013. That would make his pretrial confinement well over 1,000 days. The Blend marks the 800^th day.

Pretrial confinement abuse to be argued in October; Bradley likely to testify. David Coombs explained the motion, which at Bradley’s last hearing he said would “shock the conscience of the court,” at his blog:

The Defense is requesting the Court to dismiss all charges with prejudice owing to the illegal pretrial punishment PFC Manning was subjected to in violation of Article 13, UCMJ and the Fifth and Eighth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

The motion was originally scheduled to be argued on 27 through 31 August 2012.  However, the motion was delayed due to the Defense just receiving additional information that impacts the Article 13 issue.  The new information will require additional witnesses to be called and for the Defense to file a supplement to its motion.  The rescheduled dates for the unlawful pretrial punishment motion will be 1 through 5 October 2012.

Then Coombs published two filings:

1)  Defense Requested Witnesses:  Article 13 Motion; and
2)  Defense Motion to Compel Production of Witnesses and Evidence for Article 13 Motion

Coombs will post the Article 13 motion in full as soon as he’s given permission. In the meantime, Kevin Gosztola has written up these filings, focusing on the fact that Bradley himself will likely be called to testify regarding his illegal conditions at Quantico. (Read more…)

Kevin Gosztola filing FOIA requests to challenge military secrecy. The government has made the rather absurd claim that because FOIA requests are available to reporters and the public, the military is not required to make a transcript and basic documents from Bradley Manning’s pretrial proceedings publicly available. One of the problems with this logic is that the government sometimes takes months or even years to respond; another is that Josh Gerstein’s FOIA request was denied, maintaining the secrecy with which the military prosecutes Bradley Manning for no reason at all.

To counter this secrecy, Kevin Gosztola is getting thousands of supporters to sign on to his FOIA requests, to highlight the clear public interest in Bradley Manning’s case. He filed one request yesterday, August 2, for Judge Lind’s decisions and will file more in the near future. (Read more…)