BREAKING UPDATE: Manning case judge: 'evidence that US is guilty of excessive secrecy not allowed'

[Fire Walk With Me]

RT ?@RT_com

BREAKING UPDATE: #Manning case judge: 'evidence that US is guilty of excessive secrecy not allowed' http://bit.ly/143HQMT


Overall story:

http://rt.com/usa/manning-sentence-wikileaks-assange-626/

While on break from the Army, Manning says he called up the Washington Post and claimed to have materials with “enormous value to the American public.” Manning told the judge that he “spoke for 5 minutes about the general nature” of the documents but said, “I do not believe she took me seriously.”

Rejected, Pfc. Manning approached The New York Times, an outlet he described as “the largest and most popular newspaper” in the world. “I left a message saying I had access to information about Iraq and Afghanistan that I thought was very important,” he said.

“I never received a reply from the New York Times,” claimed Manning, even though he left the paper with multiple ways to be reached, including his Skype name.

Believing there were few appropriate conduits for the materials he collected as an intelligence officer, he said WikiLeaks “seemed to be the best medium for publishing this information.”

(Much more at the link.)

[99th_Monkey]

1. Military tribunals are not noted for allowing much evidence

unless it supports a conviction of "guilty, guilty, guilty!!"

[limpyhobbler]

2. Another article on this, from The Guardian...

...
In her ruling, Lind denied Manning the right to present evidence at his trial that the US government is guilty of excessive secrecy. She said that the soldier had no authorisation within the army to determine whether a document was correctly or incorrectly classified – that was the job of trained government officials working in the "original classification authorities" or OCA.

"There is no nexus between general over-classification and the information allegedly communicated in this case," Lind said.

She rejected most of Manning's desired witnesses and evidence during the prosecution phase of the trial. He would be allowed only to call one witness – William Leonard of the National Archives and Records Administration – and to refer to the Reducing Over-Classification Act.

At sentencing, he might be allowed to present evidence of over-classification in mitigation in an attempt to reduce the punishment. But Lind said she would rule on that matter when the time comes.
...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/27/bradley-manning-obama-administration

[Demeter]

3. Lewis Carroll had a quip for this

«Mine is a long and a sad tale!» said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

«It IS a long tail, certainly,» said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; «but why do you call it sad?» And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this: —

«Fury said to a
mouse, That he
met in the
house,
“Let us
both go to
law: I will
prosecute
you. — Come,
I'll take no
denial; We
must have a
trial: For
really this
morning I've
nothing
to do.”
Said the
mouse to the
cur, “Such
a trial,
dear Sir,
With
no jury
or judge,
would be
wasting
our
breath.”
“I'll be
judge, I'll
be jury,”
Said
cunning
old Fury:
“I'll
try the
whole
cause,
and
condemn
you
to
death.”»

The poem is supposed to writhe across the page like a mouse's tale, but formatting on DU being what it is....

http://wordyenglish.com/alice/alice-ch03.html