The Passion of Chelsea Manning
about the bookabout
In May 2010, an intelligence analyst in the US Army's 10th Mountain Division was arrested on suspicion of leaking nearly half a million classified government documents, including the infamous "Collateral Murder" gunsight video and 260,000 State Department cables.
Who is Private Chelsea Manning? Why did she allegedly commit the largest security breach in American history—and why was it so easy? Is Manning a traitor or a whistleblower? Is long-term isolation an outrage to American values—or the new norm? Are the leaks revolutionary or a sensational nonevent? Which is the greater security threat, routinized elite secrecy or flashes of transparency? And what impact does new information really have?
The astonishing leaks attributed to Chelsea Manning are viewed from many angles, from Tunisia to Guantánamo Bay, from Foggy Bottom to Baghdad to small-town Oklahoma. Around the world, the eloquent alleged act of one young woman obliges citizens to ask themselves if they have the right to know what their government is doing.
"As this fine and important study reports, [Chelsea] Manning holds to the principle that 'it's important that the public should know what its government is doing.' Release of the WikiLeaks documents has been a courageous and important service to this cause. Those who regard democracy as a value to be cherished should agree with the author that Manning deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and that [her] atrocious treatment by the authorities should be harshly condemned, and ended." - Noam Chomsky on The Passion of Chelsea Manning
"The Passion of Chelsea Manning reminds us that it was James Madison himself who wrote that a popular government without popular information is but a prelude to tragedy or farce. Author and lawyer Chase Madar tells a great story that raises critical questions about the appropriate balance of government secrecy and national security in a modern democracy." - Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union
"The mistreatment, trial, and fate of Private [Chelsea] Manning will undoubtedly read like an obituary on the Obama years. [Her] case is a crucial one. Essayist and lawyer Chase Madar turned his sharp eye on it early. His will be the single must-read book on the case." -Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com
"Chase Madar has written a powerful, compelling and moving defense of [Chelsea] Manning. He shines a spotlight on government secrecy, duplicity and human rights abuses, and how one young [woman] (allegedly) sought to let the US people know the truth about what the government was doing in their name. Bravo!" - Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner
About The Author / Editor
Preview
From Chapter 5
No feature of the Manning affair has been more controversial than the young soldier's nine months under strict solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Corps Base. Even the State Department's top spokesperson, a mouthpiece of perfect blandness, lost his job after a spontaneous eruption damning Manning's treatment, and foreign governments have brought pressure to bear, sending pointed letters of concern to Washington.
Adrian Lamo, shortly after informing on Manning, assured an audience of hackers and digital activists in New York that his dupe would be treated decently; after all, "We don't torture our own citizens." Lamo was apparently trying to distinguish Manning's likely treatment from that endured by hundreds of captured foreigners in the course of our Global War on Terror, or GWOT, as it was known in-house during the Bush-Cheney Administration.
Lamo's reassurance, rooted perhaps in guilt-ridden wishfulness, has proven grotesquely wrong. Twenty-three hours of solitary a day; a ban even on push-ups and sit-ups in the cell; the confiscation even of reading glasses; enforced nudity at night; the unrelenting repetitive mental stress of having to respond every five waking minutes to the guard's query, "Are you OK?" If this were done to a US soldier held captive in North Korea or Iran, no American pundit would hesitate to call this torture. How could this treatment not drive anyone mad?
in the media
Related Interest
Related Interest
The Passion of Chelsea Manning
about the bookabout
In May 2010, an intelligence analyst in the US Army's 10th Mountain Division was arrested on suspicion of leaking nearly half a million classified government documents, including the infamous "Collateral Murder" gunsight video and 260,000 State Department cables.
Who is Private Chelsea Manning? Why did she allegedly commit the largest security breach in American history—and why was it so easy? Is Manning a traitor or a whistleblower? Is long-term isolation an outrage to American values—or the new norm? Are the leaks revolutionary or a sensational nonevent? Which is the greater security threat, routinized elite secrecy or flashes of transparency? And what impact does new information really have?
The astonishing leaks attributed to Chelsea Manning are viewed from many angles, from Tunisia to Guantánamo Bay, from Foggy Bottom to Baghdad to small-town Oklahoma. Around the world, the eloquent alleged act of one young woman obliges citizens to ask themselves if they have the right to know what their government is doing.
"As this fine and important study reports, [Chelsea] Manning holds to the principle that 'it's important that the public should know what its government is doing.' Release of the WikiLeaks documents has been a courageous and important service to this cause. Those who regard democracy as a value to be cherished should agree with the author that Manning deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and that [her] atrocious treatment by the authorities should be harshly condemned, and ended." - Noam Chomsky on The Passion of Chelsea Manning
"The Passion of Chelsea Manning reminds us that it was James Madison himself who wrote that a popular government without popular information is but a prelude to tragedy or farce. Author and lawyer Chase Madar tells a great story that raises critical questions about the appropriate balance of government secrecy and national security in a modern democracy." - Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union
"The mistreatment, trial, and fate of Private [Chelsea] Manning will undoubtedly read like an obituary on the Obama years. [Her] case is a crucial one. Essayist and lawyer Chase Madar turned his sharp eye on it early. His will be the single must-read book on the case." -Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com
"Chase Madar has written a powerful, compelling and moving defense of [Chelsea] Manning. He shines a spotlight on government secrecy, duplicity and human rights abuses, and how one young [woman] (allegedly) sought to let the US people know the truth about what the government was doing in their name. Bravo!" - Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner
About The Author / Editor
Preview
From Chapter 5
No feature of the Manning affair has been more controversial than the young soldier's nine months under strict solitary confinement at the Quantico Marine Corps Base. Even the State Department's top spokesperson, a mouthpiece of perfect blandness, lost his job after a spontaneous eruption damning Manning's treatment, and foreign governments have brought pressure to bear, sending pointed letters of concern to Washington.
Adrian Lamo, shortly after informing on Manning, assured an audience of hackers and digital activists in New York that his dupe would be treated decently; after all, "We don't torture our own citizens." Lamo was apparently trying to distinguish Manning's likely treatment from that endured by hundreds of captured foreigners in the course of our Global War on Terror, or GWOT, as it was known in-house during the Bush-Cheney Administration.
Lamo's reassurance, rooted perhaps in guilt-ridden wishfulness, has proven grotesquely wrong. Twenty-three hours of solitary a day; a ban even on push-ups and sit-ups in the cell; the confiscation even of reading glasses; enforced nudity at night; the unrelenting repetitive mental stress of having to respond every five waking minutes to the guard's query, "Are you OK?" If this were done to a US soldier held captive in North Korea or Iran, no American pundit would hesitate to call this torture. How could this treatment not drive anyone mad?