Belén Fernández: In his book “The Passion of Chelsea Manning: The Story Behind the Wikileaks Whistleblower,” U.S. civil rights attorney Chase Madar offers a description of Manning’s treatment over nine months of pre-trial solitary confinement in Virginia, where she was prohibited from exercising in her cell, required to respond every five minutes to guards, and forced to sleep naked after suggesting that underwear might be an effective suicide instrument.
Madar wonders: “Why was Manning treated like the inmate of a Soviet psychiatric prison?”
The short answer, perhaps, is “double standard.”
But let’s reflect on the nature of Manning’s alleged “crime” — by which she was deemed to be imperiling “national security” and all of that good stuff. Regarding the leaking of classified material, Madar points out that in 2010 the U.S. managed to frenetically classify no fewer than 77 million documents.
As for the contents of subsequently leaked items, he notes that these included such information as that “the Congo is rich in mineral wealth … [and] that the Strait of Gibraltar is — get the smelling salts — a vital shipping lane.”Apparently, there can never be too many state secrets. More here.