USA: Bradley Manning moves step closer to full court martial

13 Jan 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost

Bradley Manning, the US solider  accused of the largest intelligence breach in American history, is moving closer to the possibility of spending the rest of his life in military confinement.The presiding officer over Manning’s pre-trial hearing recommended he be sent to a full court martial, following his alleged involvement in the WikiLeaks dump of state secrets. Colonel Paul Almanza, the investigating officer at last month’s hearing is believed to have written to his superiors recommending that all 22 charges against Manning be referred to a general court martial.

Letter from America: As one whistleblower is spared, investigation intensifies around another

17 Jun 11 | Uncategorized

National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake was supposed to stand trial this week in the United States in an Espionage Act case that seemed to say even more about the Obama Administration than its handling of WikiLeaks has. Drake had watched the agency sideline an intelligence-gathering computer program called ThinThread that insiders believe could have prevented 11 September. And he had early concerns about the legality of what became the NSA’s infamous domestic warrantless wiretapping programme (exposed by the New York Times in 2005), which looked an awful lot like ThinThread with all of its privacy protections deleted. (more…)