A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning
armycourtmartialdefense.info
armycourtmartialdefense.info
I would say that while the treatment of him is terrible, it meets the off-topic criteria (crime, politics, TV news). I'm posting this separately to my engagement in the discussion.
I welcome the news because how else would I have the time to find all these articles on my own? I wouldn't, so I actually appreciate that someone posted it here.
If you really don't have interest in the article then just don't click it, move along. It seems like you're putting in more effort complaining than it would take to just skip to the next HN news article.
You can go anywhere for Wikileaks news, and as iuguy has pointed out, reddit is probably one of the best/easiest places to find such news.
You could move along to the next post, but what happens when all the posts are off topic? Where will you go for the news you once found on HN?
HN is like a subreddit, if someone were posting /r/funny to /r/science, and 50% of /r/science was jokes, /r/science would lose a lot of its value.
Whether or not this belongs on HN I will leave to others to decide, but iuguy was saying that off-topic material devalues HN.
I've observed this as Reddit has expanded. /r/programming used to be a good source for learning about neat new technologies and programming techniques. Now, in part because it's one of the default front-page subreddits for an expanding user base on Reddit that mostly aren't programmers, the programming content gets buried beneath jokes, general technology or computer related articles that aren't about programming specifically, and the like.
If Hacker News loses its focus on programming and startups, it risks this happening as well. The detention conditions of PFC Bradley Manning may be interesting, but they are not on topic for a site like Hacker News. There are many other places you can read about and discuss that topic. There aren't many places where I can read about and discuss a broad range of programming and startup related information like I find on Hacker News.
I don't know. Are you expecting to be put in solitary confinement and suicide watch in a military prison any time soon? Because I sure as hell am not.
If WikiLeaks were around in 2001 do you think it would have been as easy for Bush to feed us lies to justify going to war in Iraq? I don't. I applaud the actions of WikiLeaks.
And instead of endless anger and frustration it seems to generate healthy debate of whether some of the details seem appropriate, or at least makes reader think how would they cope with situation.
To clarify, my points are that the on-topic nature is questionable (which you've responded to, thanks and I think you raise some points that challenge my view very well) but that I also think that reddit is a better outlet for this.
To expand, Reddit has a whole load of people who are in a better position to spread the word, evangelise and have a greater reach than HN. As PostOnce says, HN is like a single subreddit and while one post of this nature is fine, lots of them would devalue the site. Thankfully this doesn't appear to have happened.
I'm not sure I agree with your point about anger and frustration, someone vented at me earlier on another comment. It's clear this is an emotional issue for some, with facts that are less than clear.
The HN will eventually devalue and be replaced by something else, like it happened to Reddit, Slashdot and Usenet if you will. That's just normal circle of life. Pointless to fight it IMHO.
There are people in prison having a far worse time than Manning. Come to think of it, if I were in prison I'd much rather be in solitary confinement like Manning than in with the general prison population (where my options would presumably be either to join the Aryan Brotherhood or get beaten up every day).
He's in a military prison , not Riker's Island.
How do prisons become HN-worthy content just because someone involved with internet drama just happens to be in the prison?
A lot of people have tried solitary confinement for the reasons you bring up, but more than a couple of days of it and most of them decide it's worth taking the risk in the general population. Solitary confinement is a weird experience.
FREE Manning, innocent until proved guilty
Effectively, this argument achieves the exact opposite of what you want: it strengthens the other side in their belief that Manning may be treated in this way. This is because of two things:
- he's in the military
- he's pretty much confessed
People feel that 'innocent until proved guilty' is not really an issue because of those two things and arguing against that feeling is a colossal waste of time, when what you actually want is to convince people that Manning shouldn't be treated like he currently is, period.
Her or his last sentence is the important one: “People feel that ‘innocent until proved guilty’ is not really an issue because of those two things (i.e. because Manning confessed and is in the military) and arguing against that feeling (i.e. the feeling of people that Manning is guilty) is a colossal waste of time, when what you actually want is to convince people that Manning shouldn't be treated like he currently is, period.” (Emphasis and annotations in brackets mine.)
People say all types of things for seriously strange reasons.
If true, this is terrible.
Some people can work with the radio on, others only when it doesn't contain commercials, others can't work with any music. I can sleep virtually anywhere, while others, in the same room, can't stand a certain buzz, regularly recurring electromechanical noises or other sounds. However, with prolonged exposure, I think anyone would start to be able to work and sleep in environments with intruding noises.
You see, a former co-worker of mine spent about a month (spread out over many weekends!) in the infamous "Tent City" jail in Phoenix, AZ after a DUI conviction. He said that the guards would come through the room several times a night to perform ID checks on every bunk, basically assuring that you couldn't get a reasonable night's sleep. The 100F+ temperatures didn't help either.
He also said that the leaders of each ethnic group/gang (whites, blacks, Latinos) had access to contraband mobile phones, and had made deals with the prison wardens to keep them. Apparently they also had their own food supply.
If PFC Manning is being treated in exactly the manner described in the article, then he's in better shape than many prisoners in America, where it seems torture is practiced every day.
(I'm not condoning the practices of either).
Anyway, if your definition of torture involves reading a book or a magazine while someone asks you every five minutes whether you're okay, you have (a) a pretty low bar for torture and (b) obviously no children.
Here's an idea: please post your phone number. I will set up a Twilio account that will dial it every 5 minutes, from 6AM to 9PM, and ask you if you're OK. If it doesn't get a satisfactory response, it may alert the emergency services that something has happened to you. We'll do this for 6 months, and see if you still think it's torture or not.
(I understand that in "regular" prisons, there are privileges, like socialization, that can be taken away to coerce you into following the rules. But in this case, it seems like there's nothing left to take away, so what's the incentive to follow the rules?)
When you have so few forms of entertainment, I am sure the loss of TV or your books and magazines are a BIG incentive to follow the rules.
Minor beatings from angry guys with guns.
I'd much rather be guarded by soldiers than by civilian prison guards. If a soldier hits you, he has a commanding officer who is going to jump down his throat. If a civilian prison guard hits you, he has a union who's going to cover up for him.
Maybe consider whether you want to be this glib about military prison guards. MCB Quantico is presumably staffed by the USMC. As I understand it:
(1) People don't join the USMC and then get to choose to work as a brig guard stateside; these are people who volunteered to serve at an extremely difficult time.
(2) The people who land in stateside posts tend to have first done a tour overseas; the "angry guys with guns" administering "minor beatings" are likely to be people who have already served their country in ways I can't possibly imagine doing myself.
I might consider giving these people the benefit of the doubt. (I'm anti-war, a liberal dem, but I have a healthy dose of respect for people who volunteer for the armed services.)
If you disagree, that's fine, I won't have a temper tantrum, but I thought it was worth saying.
Incidentally, there's a Reddit AmA with an MCB Quantico brig guard running right now.
Actually, that's less likely than one might think. Deployments to Iraq/Afghanistan are distributed in a very non-uniform manner throughout the military. See [1].
the "angry guys with guns" administering "minor beatings" are likely to be people who have already served their country in ways I can't possibly imagine doing myself.
I don't think the implication was that the guards would abuse him because they were in the military -- but rather because they were in a position of power that tended to turn people into violent crazy people. Power corrupts and all, to say nothing of the Stanford prison experiment.
[1] http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/18/puzzlements_...
One gets the sense that "Corrections Specialists" do in fact deploy.
The Stanford Prison Experiment is probably not a license to assume that anyone working as a prison guard is breaking the law and their own honor code. But, who knows.
I was reasonably confident that said minor beatings were codified into what the guards are supposed to do. If Manning doesn't do one of the things he is not allowed to do, he will be forced to comply, and said force is likely to resemble a beating.
Their goal isn't to just cause psychological damage, it's to cause physical brain damage through controlled sensory deprivation.
Being in regular contact with people (every 5 minutes), being able to watch TV for hours each day, corresponding via mail and being able to read books means he is not even remotely in the same league as people being tourtoured with real sensory deprivation [2]
While the military can do and has done [1] sensory deprivation , this is not it.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." [0]
It sounds to me like they are trying to prevent him from committing suicide. But the prevention is probably doing him a lot of damage.
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[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jose_Padilla_at_the_Navy_C...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_deprivation
Edit: formatting.
Even relatively mild sensory deprivation can cause fairly severe depression, as I make the case for here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=948637
And what they are doing to him is way more extreme than what most people with depression are accidentally doing to themselves.
The only indication we have one way or the other is that he's on Prevention of Injury watch, which is a pretty good sign that somebody thinks he is.
"When he was first arrested, Manning was put on suicide watch, but his status was quickly changed to "Prevention of Injury" watch (POI), and under this lesser pretense he has been forced into his life of mind-numbing tedium. His treatment is harsh, punitive and taking its toll, says Coombs.
'There is no evidence he's a threat to himself, and shouldn't be held in such severe conditions under the artifice of his own protection.'
"The command is basing this treatment of him solely on the nature of the pending charges, and on an unrelated incident where a service member in the facility took his own life," Coombs said, referencing the February suicide of a marine captain in the Quantico brig. Coombs says he believes Quantico officials are keeping Manning under close watch with strict limitations on his activity out of an overabundance of caution. Both Coombs and Manning's psychologist, Coombs says, are sure Manning is mentally healthy, that there is no evidence he's a threat to himself, and shouldn't be held in such severe conditions under the artifice of his own protection."
http://bltwy.msnbc.msn.com/politics/bradley-mannings-prison-...
C.f. also Glenn Greenwald's column from the other day, where he says:
"From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs."
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14...
Greenwald is currently addressing the perceived discrepancies between what he wrote and what Coombs said on his twitter account:
"@jon_persky Quantico is emphatic that he's not on suicide watch. And what would that have to do with 23hr/day solitary?" http://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/16417820896141312
"@sivavaid "His treatment is harsh, punitive and taking its toll, says Coombs. http://is.gd/iYYbv " http://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/16297100627156992
"@jsb (1) He's not on suicide watch & Coombs didn't say he was; (2) Combs: "he is not allowed to have a pillow"; (3) 23/hr/day solitary" http://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/16249290229809153
So possibly he was on suicide watch for a couple days, but they quickly determined he was not suicidal and have since been taking punitive action against him.
So the feedback of the rule would actually be that it causes the thing it was meant to prevent. Are those restrictions common and is there any research that ratifies them?
I think this would be the worst for me, along with the checks every 5 minutes.
Think about Iraq/Afghanistan if there were WikiLeaks in 2001 would Bush have been able to get away with all the lies he told to push us into two wars? I really doubt it.
The world is safer with WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks ripped off the clock of secrecy and now they have to operate in public as it should be.
That is very much of public interest and a prime example of what whistle blowing is for.
* PFC Bradley Manning signed up to all of this. He will have been aware of the treatment he should expect in this situation if he was exposed.
* He confessed. Innocent until guilty in a military scenario is different to a civilian scenario. Given that he's confessed guilt, there's little to defend.
* This is a military case, not a civilian one. Things are different. You might not agree with the way he's treated but there are specific rules and those rules are in place for a reason.
Would you support a military rule that required officers to eat ten newborn babes apiece to be eligible for promotion? Let's say it's a specific rule and it's in place for a reason.
That's not what I'm saying. It's not psychological torture against someone who's completely unprepared for it and never signed up for it. It's imprisonment under the terms of a contract he willingly signed up for. He is being charged with breaking that contract in a manner where the rules and consequences are clear. That's the call he had to make, that's the trade-off he had to make and that's something he must've known before he did what he did, otherwise he's taken a massive uncalculated risk without thinking about the potential consequences.
Secondly: HE DID NOT CONFESS. Stop making shit up just because you feel like it.
To answer your first part about enlisting. US Military Justice is covered by Congress, primarily through the Uniform Code of Military Justice (http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm). As I've mentioned before, there will be a process for everything. It will be documented. They will follow it.
He's up for two misconduct charges and will face an Article 32 Hearing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_32_hearing) possibly as a precursor to a courts-martial according to his lawyer. He has been taken off suicide watch according to (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/16/bradley-manning-...).
The standard enlistment/re-enlistment form DD Form 4/1 is used by all branches of the US Military (http://usmilitary.about.com/library/pdf/enlistment.pdf). In Section C, Clause 9 there's a whole load of stuff about being subject to military law, laws changing and still being applicable and being potentially up for court-martial. That's where it says they're allowed.
On your claim that he did not confess - he has not confessed in court, I do not know whether or not he has confessed to any military staff, but he has confessed to Adrian Lamo through various chat logs, which have since been turned over to wired magazine and partially published (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/06/wikileaks-chat/). I don't have any confirmation that the logs themselves were provided to the military, although there is confirmation in that article that Adrian Lamo tipped off the FBI and Army.
You say "he did not confess in court". Followed by "I do not know whether he confessed to any military staff". And yet you continue to claim that "he confessed". Chat logs are not a confession! It just boggles the mind that any sane person would consider "chat logs" a confession! Especially on a site like Hacker News. How would you like it if you were locked up in solitary based on what you said on IRC?
So tell me, what is more inflammatory: The repeated lies by biased people who want to punish an INNOCENT man (remember "innocent until proven guilty"?) based on some stupid chat logs with a known felon; or calling out such lies?
Last I heard he had not confessed and he is not cooperating with the prosecution. Do you know something different?
So they are effectively preventing him from clinging to his sanity. Make no mistake - solitary confinement is meant to drive you mad, thats all there is to it.
Whatever the reason in Manning's case, it'll be more to do with bureaucratic rules than any particular desire to torture. If they wanted to torture him they'd submit him to the treatment signed off by the Bush administration.
If you sign up for the US military and then as a soldier commit what may very well be seen as an act of treason, you can't really expect great treatment.
Mind you, this is very, very different from what goes on in Guantanamo, for which there is no justification.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...
The answer: Yes, it is.